Windows Explorer is super wonky.

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For the backstory, read here: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1737761/windows-installation-plagued-problems.html#11187645

I'm not sure if the full backstory is so necessary now as the main problem seems to be that Windows Explorer is wonky as all get out.

The login screen appears, I type in the password and there I am on the desktop, looking pristine and clean.

I move the mouse over the taskbar and the loading wheel is spinning. It spins and spins for minutes, finally I'm able to click the start button and everything flys up, but as soon as I select something as simple as Solitaire for example, the computer hangs, I'm still able to move the cursor but minutes go by, the screen goes black, the splash screen for windows appears and says "Please wait...." I wait. The screen goes black again, then the splash screen returns with, "Please wait...." Then black screen again and finally, I'm back at the login screen for some reason.

Other details: I was able to successfully install MalwareBytesPRO onto the computer, I ran a scan and it stalled at 40 seconds and the computer crashed, no BSOD involved. Once, when logging in to the desktop I got this message and I know it's MalwareBytes related because of it's filename. "mbamgui.exe application error. The application was unable to start correctly
(0xc0000006) click ok to close the application." I hit ok and the computer crashed. I know MalwareBytes is a good product and it's not to blame so theres no need to explain that to me.

Either way, once inside the computer, on the desktop, the computer is more than extremely sluggish, it's hardly responsive and incapable of doing tasks as simple as Solitaire. Any ideas as to what's going on?
 
Solution
hang-the-9

Does not matter where you do the test, but if it's one that you can run from the BIOS, you need to run it from the bad system. Just go into the BIOS and look for an option to check the hardware. Let it run though the drive check. If not there, look on Dell's support pages and see if they have a drive check utility. If not, take out the drive, see who made it, and check on THEIR support site...
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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Not sure why you started a new thread about this instead of continuing the other one. Is this on a new Windows setup? Did you run a hard drive check, either though the BIOS if it has that option or through a test boot disk from Dell or the hard drive vendor? Could be RAM, could be something else on the motherboard, could be the hard drive. Looks like you swapped RAM, is it the same speeds as the RAM the laptop had from Dell?
 
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I'll explain, I started a new thread because I feared that through all the tumult that we've gone through with this laptop, I believe that the problem has changed overtime, therefore, it's not the same problem as I once thought.

This is on a laptop that is over 3 yrs old, it was shipped from Dell with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. The computer came with no setup discs or repair discs. Either that, or the discs were lost, I can't really know.

Regarding the hard drive, a factory reset was performed on it to no avail. So I removed the hard drive, hooked it up to my custom rig and reformatted it using my Disk Management tool. It became a New Volume of NTFS format. It was cleaned and put back into the laptop. I didn't think to run a hard drive check as I didn't know that was an option, nor do I know how and I figured that it would be better to go the cure all route since we aren't trying to preserve any data on it, again, we have no Dell disks for testing or repairing anything. With the newly formatted HDD, we've been installing Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit from an OEM disk onto it. It works, it's just not functioning as it should.

I did swap out the RAM and it is the same speed. At this point I'll explain anything so, here's what the sticks of RAM say on them:

First the old RAM that came with the laptop:
1. hynix 2gb 2Rx8 PC2-6400S-666-12 DDR2
2. hynix 2gb 2Rx8 PC2-6400S-666-12 DDR2

Second, the transplanted RAM.
1. M 1gb 2RX16 PC2-6400S-13-A0 DDR2
2. Kingston 2gb 2Rx8 PC2-6400S-666-12-E2 DDR2

The transplanted RAM was taken out of a fully functioning, un modded HP laptop. Those two sticks are compatible with one another as they were built into the system upon it's creation by HP. Just check my info in case I'm wrong. It looks to me that all the RAM is the same speed.
 
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UPDATE:

Upon booting up the system with only one of the original sticks of 2gb RAM as was advised by baladin on the other thread, I decided to run the Pre-boot System Assessment Build 4118.

It began running tests on the memory of the system, the RAM was passing with flying colors, but when it got to testing the Hard Drive, we ran into an error 3 tests down the line:

Error Code 0146.
Msg: Error Code 2000-0146
Msg: Hard Drive 0 - self test log contains previous error(s)
The given error code can be used by Dell Technical Support to help diagnose the problem. Do you want to continue testing?
Yes No or Retry?

It constantly fails on Retry and so I chose to continue testing.

So... I don't mean to sound dumb, but would a hard drive replacement be in order?
 
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First thanks for your help. Should I plug the HDD up to my custom rig and do that? Or do it within the malfunctioning computer?

Also, forgive my density but I do love to learn! How do I run a full drive check?
 
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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Does not matter where you do the test, but if it's one that you can run from the BIOS, you need to run it from the bad system. Just go into the BIOS and look for an option to check the hardware. Let it run though the drive check. If not there, look on Dell's support pages and see if they have a drive check utility. If not, take out the drive, see who made it, and check on THEIR support site for a test utility. There may be a boot disk you can make, or there may be a Windows one. If a Windows one, you can run it on another system with the drive as a secondary, or if the laptop starts enought to run, you can run it off the laptop. The test can take a while but it does a full scan of the drive, the checkdisk really only checks the file system on the drive, not the drive itself.
 
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My nephew had a laptop that had a fried motherboard but it's hard drive was fine. After running diagnostics tests that showed that my niece's hdd was corrupt we decided to transplant the 2 HDD's and boom, all is at peace with the universe. Thank you so much for your help hang-the-9.
 
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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Glat it's working. You would be suprized how many odd issues turn out to be because of the hard drive.
 
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