Problem: On September 5th, to be exact, my computer started having issues with the startup. I would turn it on when I get ready to use it and Windows loads up just fine. I get to the welcome page and I log in. All is well. I can use my start bar for roughly a minute before everything seizes up. I can use anything on the desktop, (so long as it's not MSN for some reason). Internet works just fine, but CTRL/ALT/DEL doesn't, nor does anything else that might bring up something to tell me what's going on. The only way to reboot it is by hitting the switch (Which I really dislike doing to the poor thing). After a few hours of leaving it alone, it finally unlocks and everything I tried to do comes up at once.
Troubleshooting:
-This morning I just gave up letting it run and in the one minute interval I had, I opened the Run with WIN/R and entered my MSCONFIG. The strange thing was, it still worked even after my taskbar had frozen. I first disabled all of my startup items, saved, then tried to reboot it - when it froze, I reached over and turned it off manually.
-After the reboot, I immediately opened MSCONFIG again and checked to see what had turned off. I also noted that the taskbar also froze up again. The processes still running were Avast and MSN.. strangely enough. I manually unchecked them and tried a second time to reboot - thinking that perhaps since MSN wasn't opening, that maybe it was stuck open and causing the freezes. (Unlikely, but stranger things have happened.)
-Upon the reboot, my taskbar froze again, and MSN was still running along with Avast. I rebooted and put my computer into safe mode where they *finally* stopped trying to load. The taskbar did *NOT* freeze in Safemode.
-The next thing I did was go into the services of my MSCONFIG to see what the safemode had as far as settings went. It had 10 things that it had enabled, the rest of my services had been turned off.
-Going on a gut instinct, I rebooted regularly, opened MSCONFIG before it froze and went in, disabling all of the services that weren't on in Safe Mode. I rebooted, and my taskbar worked, hardly anything ELSE did, but I knew that at this point, whatever was causing the issue was in the Services (my startup items were still disabled in their entirety)
-I then enabled the Services that allowed my internet access and after a reboot noticed the taskbar was still working, even after five minutes of waiting. I then went through my services one by one, enabling one, rebooting and then waiting.
-After a few hours of this, I found the little bugger that was causing the freezes.
-When Windows Audio is checked, my taskbar freezes upon rebooting. In order to make sure that it wasn't a case of conflicting programs causing it, I once again disabled everything but the ten from startup and the Windows Audio...
-A reboot gave the same results - my taskbar was freezing. After unchecking Windows Audio and rechecking everything else, I used SERVICES.MSC thinking that if I stopped Windows Audio and restarted it, it might fix things - I was unable to even open SERVICES.MSC which is quite troublesome.
-At this point, I tried to do a System Restore, and it wouldn't allow me to do it - it simply freezes, then errors.
-I've since run Adaware/Malwarebytes/Avast and the online version of Trend Micro's scan. They found a few things (No viruses) and I deleted them. Another item of note is that in the MSCONFIG, all of my startup items are backwards. The Command is the TRUE file path, but the 'Location' says 'DKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run' which I have never seen before.
Questions: Does anyone have any idea what this might be, or has had this sort of a problem before? I've done everything short of reformatting it, which I would like to avoid if at all possible. Suggestions/comments would be a huge appreciation. I'm quite stumped.
Troubleshooting:
-This morning I just gave up letting it run and in the one minute interval I had, I opened the Run with WIN/R and entered my MSCONFIG. The strange thing was, it still worked even after my taskbar had frozen. I first disabled all of my startup items, saved, then tried to reboot it - when it froze, I reached over and turned it off manually.
-After the reboot, I immediately opened MSCONFIG again and checked to see what had turned off. I also noted that the taskbar also froze up again. The processes still running were Avast and MSN.. strangely enough. I manually unchecked them and tried a second time to reboot - thinking that perhaps since MSN wasn't opening, that maybe it was stuck open and causing the freezes. (Unlikely, but stranger things have happened.)
-Upon the reboot, my taskbar froze again, and MSN was still running along with Avast. I rebooted and put my computer into safe mode where they *finally* stopped trying to load. The taskbar did *NOT* freeze in Safemode.
-The next thing I did was go into the services of my MSCONFIG to see what the safemode had as far as settings went. It had 10 things that it had enabled, the rest of my services had been turned off.
-Going on a gut instinct, I rebooted regularly, opened MSCONFIG before it froze and went in, disabling all of the services that weren't on in Safe Mode. I rebooted, and my taskbar worked, hardly anything ELSE did, but I knew that at this point, whatever was causing the issue was in the Services (my startup items were still disabled in their entirety)
-I then enabled the Services that allowed my internet access and after a reboot noticed the taskbar was still working, even after five minutes of waiting. I then went through my services one by one, enabling one, rebooting and then waiting.
-After a few hours of this, I found the little bugger that was causing the freezes.
-When Windows Audio is checked, my taskbar freezes upon rebooting. In order to make sure that it wasn't a case of conflicting programs causing it, I once again disabled everything but the ten from startup and the Windows Audio...
-A reboot gave the same results - my taskbar was freezing. After unchecking Windows Audio and rechecking everything else, I used SERVICES.MSC thinking that if I stopped Windows Audio and restarted it, it might fix things - I was unable to even open SERVICES.MSC which is quite troublesome.
-At this point, I tried to do a System Restore, and it wouldn't allow me to do it - it simply freezes, then errors.
-I've since run Adaware/Malwarebytes/Avast and the online version of Trend Micro's scan. They found a few things (No viruses) and I deleted them. Another item of note is that in the MSCONFIG, all of my startup items are backwards. The Command is the TRUE file path, but the 'Location' says 'DKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run' which I have never seen before.
Questions: Does anyone have any idea what this might be, or has had this sort of a problem before? I've done everything short of reformatting it, which I would like to avoid if at all possible. Suggestions/comments would be a huge appreciation. I'm quite stumped.