Windows 7 freezing, explorer.exe freezing when login account after

Transducer

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This has happened twice this week now, first sunday, and then just now, so I am becoming very concerned.

The only thing that remains consistent is that I'm playing a 3D game with audio on. Completely different programs each time. The screen would freeze up and so would the audio, and my keyboard/mouse don't respond at all. I resort to doing a hard reset with the computer power button.

Each time, when I log in again, explorer.exe is frozen. the taskbar appears, but nothing on the desktop, and after a couple seconds it all freezes up, with the busy mouse symbol when I highlight taskbar. I can still move mouse around though.

I can do ctrl+alt+delete at this point at least. Restarting explorer.exe doesn't work, so I try logging out in that menu, which does work, although slowly.

I've tried scanning for virus and also a system restore to earlier point, no difference.

The only solution so far has been to simply log in safe mode - which DOES work by the way - and create a new account from scratch.

Last time I cut/paste almost everything between old account and new, this time I will only do basics like save games and documents/music/video.

Can anyone please explain or help me understand why this is happening? I'd hate to have to keep restarting a new account, its extremely frustrating to set it up how I like all over again.

Here's my system info:

I have a Compaq CQ5210f.
**Athlon II x2 2.7 GHz processor (65w)
**M2N68-LA Narra5-GL6 motherboard
**3GB DDR2 SDRAM memory
**500GB hard drive
**250w power supply
** 1gb DDR3 Radeon HD 4650 graphic card

Thank you, I look forward to responses and ideas.

P.S.: I highly doubt the graphic card itself is to blame, despite being in a 3D program each time, unless it's something about the settings itself. I had gone to this very same forum awhile ago to check and be sure that card was ok for this machine and got affirmatives, so I bought it, and it's worked just fine.
 

Transducer

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Thank you, but I even specifically said its not an issue of the power supply vs. the video card... it's been just fine all this time, and besides, others had confirmed that this particular one would be fine with my computer. Here's the thread from this forum to prove it:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/296610-33-250w-computer-needing-video-card-upgrade .
 

Transducer

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Bump.

This has happened AGAIN, just a couple hours ago. I repeated the same obnoxious process of creating a new account from scratch, copying files over, deleting old account.

Once again it occurred while playing a 3D game. I'm starting to wonder if it does have something to do with my graphic card after all, though I'd still think it'd just freeze every single time if it was a problem with enough power or such, so I suspect another issue.

I shouldn't have to do all this just to tiptoe around window's explorer.exe freezing on startup. Can someone please help figure this out for me?
 

johnnyq1233

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I have only owned 1 ATI card ever and was satisfied with it, but every time I updated the drivers and accidentally allowed the ccc to install it caused problems...
Otherwise worked fine....In your situation you might have a corrupt system file and I hate to recommend a fresh install just because I hate having to do them myself...But if all roads point to a re install then that might be your final choice....as for psus go, as they get older they tend to fall short on the power delivery side...
I do hope that your issue gets resolved in some way or another.....JQ
 

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I'm very likely to buy a PSU just to be safe.

As for a corrupt system file... well it does no good if I cannot even detect it, does it? Isn't there a way I can verify and make sure this is the case?

The biggest reason I haven't simply reinstalled windows 7, is because it was pre-installed on this computer, came with it when sold. So I dont even know how to put it back on again...
 

johnnyq1233

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The only reason I suggested the supply in the first place is because your crashes/freezes only happen when you're gaming..and that is when the system and card are pulling the most power from your power supply....
If it was happening on desktop doing nothing at all and random crashes..I would have suspected ram first...
JQ
 

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Thank you for this suggestion. I've tried this and both in and out of safe mode it says the system's integrity is just fine.




I also strongly suspect the winamp program of causing conflicts of some kind. It could actually be the sound drivers getting confused because multiple sound sources are present.. at the very least, I get the impression winamp isn't built well for windows 7, not yet... or at least mine wasn't.

A long time ago I've known other computers to outright freeze over sound issues too. Sound or Video, still doesn't explain why it feels like freezing that user account's explorer.exe startup...

In any case, I completely uninstalled and switched back to itunes for now. No problems yet, but I don't think the coast is clear on that until nothing happens for several months! I should get a PSU meanwhile.

**update**

turns out I had some form of malware that MSE didn't detect, most likely culprit. I'm glad I took the advice of getting the free version of MalwareBytes Anti Malware as a passive alternative, cause it found the problem and destroyed it. No lockout for over a month since.
 

Transducer

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Hey hi there i have read a article about this solution if you like you can view the articles. In the article they have explained how to stop your computer from freezing and troublshooting to run it faster.


Here is the link :
http://tricktipsworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/fix-computer-freeze-or-running-slowly.html

Visit and if you find it useful please let me know thanks

If you need more help please feel free to ask me

Thank you, but if you look at the bottom of the last post, I edited it to show that I did solve the problem. Ironically only a day before your post.

Thanks anyway.