Laptop Randomly Freezing on Start-up

[SimonTW]

Hi,

So I'm wasn't sure which forum to post this thread in, but as I don't know what is causing the problem, General Hardware seems as good as any!

The problem is with my mum's Dell Inspiron 1570 laptop. Every now and then, it will freeze at start-up when the Windows logo is 'appearing'. Here is a picture I took when it froze earlier:

Holding down the power button to turn it off and then turning it back on again is enough to get around it, but I would like to fix it if I can.

As I am not the one who uses it, it's difficult to find a common link between the freezes. I'm not sure if such a crash would be captured in Event Viewer, but even if it was I wouldn't know where to find it, so I hope that's where the collective knowledge of OcUK can help me out!

It is still running the factory installation of Windows 7 (minus all the bloatware that I removed straight away upon delivery), which whilst I expect to not be corrupt, probably isn't unheard of. However I don't want to re-install Windows until other options have been explored.

Any ideas as to what could be causing the problem, or how I should go about diagnosing it would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Simon

 

[jasonchildss]

I think this sounds like some kind of threat (virus, trojan or worm) but could be something to do with damaged hardware.
Is there anything that could lead you to believe hardware could have been damaged? Are the users of the laptop careful with it? Is there enough air flow and could it have overheated and damaged the internals?

If not, you may want to wipe the hard drive and re-install the operating system.

Just my thoughts.