Windows 7 freezing on boot?

MissChief · 31 Jan 2015 at 22:07

My Windows 7 machine is now starting to freeze on boot, often as Windows is loading, either at the 'Coloured squares joining together' screen or soon after, at the 'Welcome' screen before the desktop appears. The annoying thing is it will often boot normally without issue and once booted it works fine, hours and hours of BF4 etc with no issues. Any ideas what I should be looking for in event viewer? I'm writing this in safe mode without issue as well.

Core i5 2500k @4.2GHz (has been for nearly two years, stable in every game I play)
KFA2 GTX 780 6GB not OC'd
Samsung 830 256GB SSD with windows and a couple of games. SSD life shows 100%
Samsung 1TB Mechanical drive, purely storage
2x SATA Optical drives
1x 500GB hard Disk on the ESATA port on my CM 690II case but I'm convinced it's not this as it does it with the drive disconnected also.

Any thoughts?

ED209 · 2 Feb 2015 at 16:07

is there any errors in event viewer at all? if there is post some.

a bit of a strange issue but will try and help.

try doing sfc /scannow in command prompt

check the cabling from the OS ssd and power, make sure they are connected and maybe even re seat them.

try running some prime95 tests amd memtest

can always try a check disk of the SSD as well and see if that finds anything.

if you leave it long enough when it freezes does it come up with anything?

do you have a spare HDD or SSD you could clone your current OS disk on too at all to test?

MissChief · 3 Feb 2015 at 03:52

It booted up fine tonight, first try which is what is so frustrating. I'll check event viewer next time but it has registered my switching it off.

Regarding any events or messages when it freezes there are none, it just stays on a static screen for even 10 minutes or more.

Oh forgot to say thank you ED209. How many seconds do I have to comply?

ED209 · 3 Feb 2015 at 07:25

MissChief said:
It booted up fine tonight, first try which is How many seconds do I have to comply?

lol, somebody actually knows of Robocop! you have 10 seconds to comply!

have a check of event viewer as it keeps logs that go back quite far.

other thing that would be worth checking is the firmware on the SSD, make sure its up to date and maybe worth a bios check as well.

do you have any spare PC parts at all laying about?

does the PC have any overclock on it at all?

if it hasn't check for a bios update if that's up to date try a clear cmos

MissChief · 3 Feb 2015 at 15:16

There's a CPU OC to 4.2GHz but it's been like that for a couple of years now with no issues. BF4, by far the best 'weak OC' finder runs like a charm. In fact everything does once it's booted successfully.

ED209 · 3 Feb 2015 at 15:29

have a check through event viewer and see if there is any errors at all, it holds a lot of logs so can go back to a day when there was issues.

how long has the issue been going on for?

to access event viewer

click on start and then control panel, administrative tools and then event viewer. once loaded click on windows logs on the left and then under that click on system.

post back any errors in there as they may help.

failing that a simple re seat of the sata cable or a replacement may sort the issue

MissChief · 9 Feb 2015 at 17:27

It's been fine for nearly a week now. Maddening!

ED209 · 10 Feb 2015 at 11:47

strange, glad its working through without any further issues.

if you do get any errors or anything write them down and post back here

yashiro · 11 Feb 2015 at 20:03

Possibly a ram timing/voltage issue. In some cases a bios bug. You'll have to test with no overclock if you want to fix it.

mrk · 12 Feb 2015 at 15:07

If it's not the OC then it may well be your chipset drivers. Download the latest version and install. Chipset drivers are loaded at Windows boot before everything else so could well be attributed to that if something is hanging. It might not always create an event log either.

Personally I'd get the latest official versions off your mobo maker's website rather than the ones on the chipset maker's website. The latter may be newer but the former will be well tested and confirmed completely stable.

A dodgy SATA cable can also cause boot issues so maybe try this area before all else.