Windows 8.1 Intermittently locking up after login

Whiskey8

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Jun 24, 2010
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Hi, I have been having an annoying issue with my computer ever since the upgrade to Windows 8.1 which neither the Motherboard Manufacturer nor the technical support team from the people who I purchased my components from have been able to help me resolve.
The issue is, when I first turn on the computer and login to my user account, the mouse cursor turns to the loading/busy circle and the animation freezes. No startup software loads (anti virus etc.) and any programs I try to launch will not load. The animation plays for when I click them (from the taskbar icons) but they do not load. Right clicking the desktop brings up a semi-transparent menu (as if it has been clicked, unclicked and frozen when playing the animation for the menu to fade out - if that makes sense) and even if I manage to get to a menu that allows me to shutdown/restart the computer, it plays the clicked animation but does not shutdown. I have to manually force it to shutdown either by holding down the power button or hitting the reset button.
Usually this will occur on a cold boot (a first boot after the computer has been off for a period of time.) and will load up on the second or third attempt in most cases. Other times Windows will put me into recovery mode after too many unsuccessful attempts.
I believe the issue is related to my bluetooth drivers but am not 100% certain. The reason I suspect the bluetooth drivers is because I also have had bluetooth issues with this system, relating to wireless keyboard & mouse losing connection randomly and intermittently during use; sometimes I can just turn off the keyboard or mouse, turn it on again and it reconnects, other times I have to plug in a cabled mouse to navigate to the settings screen and make windows look for bluetooth devices before it will reconnect them.
My computer never had either of these problems when running Windows 8, it is a problem that only came about after the upgrade to Windows 8.1 and as a troubleshooting attempt I did temporarily reinstall Windows 8 to confirm the issue was not present. My motherboard is currently advertised as Windows 8.1 compatible so I do not accept rolling back as a solution. Asus, the motherboard manufacturer deemed it hardware related despite me giving them the information that the issue goes away if rolled back to Windows 8.
I have tried everything I can think of, as mentioned before, rolling back to Windows 8 fixed the problem. Reinstalling the drivers in Windows 8.1 has not helped and I am using the most up to date drivers from Asus' website. All Windows Updates have been installed, there is no "Power Management" tab in the driver details from task manager so no option for me to disable the "Allow my computer to turn off this device to save power" setting that I have read other people suggest to try.
I'd be appreciative if anyone has any ideas for me to try or insight as to how I can identify the root cause of the problem.

System Details:
Motherboard: Asus Z87i-Pro
CPU: Intel 4770k
RAM: 16GB Crucial Ballistix 16GB CL8 1600Mhz
Storage: 512GB SSD OS Drive and 2x 4TB Western Digital Black Hard Drives
PSU: Corsair RM650
GPU: Nvidia GTX 780Ti

Thanks in advance to anyone who reads this and any advice/assistance you can provide
 
Solution
I have heard of this problem before, the users resolution for this was to disable Fast boot.

Also what version is your Bios? Looking at their website, there has been alot of system stability Bios updates.

rdizz81

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Oct 22, 2012
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I have heard of this problem before, the users resolution for this was to disable Fast boot.

Also what version is your Bios? Looking at their website, there has been alot of system stability Bios updates.
 
Solution

Whiskey8

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Jun 24, 2010
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Hi, thanks for the prompt response. My BIOS version is 0907. If by disabling Fast Boot you are referring to the option in Windows Power Options, "Turn on Fast Startup" has already been disabled as I think I did read that being a possible solution. Unless there is a further setting that needs tweaking somewhere, that resolution hasn't worked for me.