Computer freezing at login screen

[garbageCan]

Hi, I've been running windows 8 on a computer I had build just before it had been released on MSDNAA for a couple months now with no problems. However, yesterday it froze in the morning for the first time and I didn't think much of it.

But when I came home that day, 100% of the time I turn it on, it will proceed to the big desktop picture and either freeze there (the mouse shows up once I press a key) or get past there and then freeze when I type my password in.

I've tried to start it in safe mode by spamming shift+F8 but this hasn't brought me to the advanced options screen, just to the login screen where I inevitably freeze.

My OS is on my small SSD, and all my important information is on my secondary HDD and anyways I figured I'd just reinstall windows on my ssd as a fresh install. However when running my bootable usb with the windows 8 install, after i hit install now it gets stuck. Now I've tried unhooking my SSD and seeing if I could get past that point and I've been able to.

So at this point, is it that my windows 8 has some corrupted files and the software is to blame? Or do you think it's the hardwares fault (OCZ Octane S2 64GB 2.5IN SATA2 Indilinx Everest SSD Solid State Disk Flash Drive)? I've been trying to figure out how to reformat that drive and try a fresh install but I'm not sure how I'll be able to, but maybe I should just RMA it.

 

[Brett928S2]

Hi

If you RMA a perfectly good drive.... you WILL get it back...

All the best Brett

 

[garbageCan]

I realize that, but my question was which is likely to blame for this freezing. The SSD or the Windows software?

 

[unksol]

Considering it's OCZ I'd blame the drive. Have you checked for firmware updates

 

[samspartan]

I have had this problem too. I was able to narrow it down to my internet (LAN) connection. If you watch the network symbol in the bottom left corner, it will tell you when it is connected even in the first screen of windows 8. I found that mine would freeze as soon as it connected. See if yours does this too. Test without being plugged into the network, and if it does not freeze, go to msconfig and choose selective startup. That fixed it for me.

 

[garbageCan]

@unksol It looks like there are some firmware updates, if I can find a friend to hook it up to i'll make sure to update that in addition to reformatting. Thanks for the idea

@samspartan I've never paid attention to it when it worked so I can't really remember what it had looked like, but I had tried it without my LAN cable before without success. But I just tried taking out my wireless PCI card as well as the LAN cable and that also didn't help. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[garbageCan]

Just as an update, I connected the SSD to a different computer with that computers HDD as the 1st priority boot device. It freezes while doing a check disk 100% of the time. I'm pretty sure the SSD is the problem.