Member Avatar for asuprem

I have a Windows 7 Home Premium OS on a brand new ASUS (the G74Sx - Gaming series). For the first two months, the login was pretty much instantaneous.

Recently, It has become very erratic. When I turn it on, the login screen loads fairly quickly (10s). After I type in my password, it waits about 25s, then goes to welcome screen. After that, it waits 5 or so minutes. The a black screen for about 15 minutes. Finally, it will show the desktop with icons and everything. Once it is at the desktop, it may take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes to fully load. If I click during this time, the system shows a window: Microsoft Windows - The application isn't responding.

If I wait, it will finally, completely load, and everything is smooth sailing from there.

Before you ask, yes, I have:

1. checked on Google
2. restored
3. repaired
4. defragmented
5. rollbacked updates
6. reinstalled updates

I don't want to to a complete wipe and reinstall because I have about 350 GB of software and reinstalling that it a pain. Anyone have any idea what is wrong?

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Symptom described by — fast logon becoming erratic, a long “black screen” after the Welcome phase, then a slow desktop — is most often a software-initiation stall (shell, driver or startup/service) rather than a straight reinstall-only problem. The following is a compact, non-destructive troubleshooting plan that isolates user vs system causes and gathers evidence before any major action.

Create a fresh local administrator account and sign in. If the new account is fast, the problem is likely the original user profile or per-user startup items. Boot to Safe Mode and then perform a Clean Boot (use msconfig to hide Microsoft services and disable others, and disable startup items) to see whether a third-party service or program is blocking shell load. During the black-screen phase press Ctrl+Alt+Del and open Task Manager; if explorer.exe is not present start it (File → New Task → explorer.exe) to confirm whether the shell itself is stalling.

Collect diagnostic data: open Event Viewer (eventvwr.msc) and look in System and Application logs for errors or timeouts at the login time (service start failures, application crashes). Run sfc /scannow from an elevated prompt to repair system files. Inspect Device Manager for flagged drivers (video, storage controller, chipset) and temporarily disable or roll back recently updated drivers or third-party antivirus/backup software. Monitor Resource Monitor/Task Manager during the delay to spot high disk I/O or a process that blocks the boot.

If Safe Mode is clean but normal boot is not, enable boot logging (msconfig → Boot → Boot log) and check ntbtlog.txt plus Event Viewer for the specific driver or service that stalls. If logs point to deep system corruption and other fixes fail, an in-place repair install (upgrade/repair) preserves installed programs and often fixes core OS issues — back up data first. Note and were right to consider hardware; use these software-isolation steps first to avoid an unnecessary full reinstall.

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Member Avatar for lolafuertes

I've seen this behaviour if almost one of the registry files has gone over a "defective" track in the disk, or, if you have a RAID disk (2, 5, or whatelse) one of the disk is failing an gets a lot of time to sync with the other(s).

I would suggest to do a full backup into an external disc, and then, run a CHKDSK with the /B switch (that will reevaluate the disk for bad clusters, bad sectors (and recover any readable info), and fix any common error in files or directories)

If any bad sector or cluster is found, you should replace the disk a.s.a.p.

Hope this helps

Member Avatar for asuprem

I've seen this behaviour if almost one of the registry files has gone over a "defective" track in the disk, or, if you have a RAID disk (2, 5, or whatelse) one of the disk is failing an gets a lot of time to sync with the other(s).

I would suggest to do a full backup into an external disc, and then, run a CHKDSK with the /B switch (that will reevaluate the disk for bad clusters, bad sectors (and recover any readable info), and fix any common error in files or directories)

If any bad sector or cluster is found, you should replace the disk a.s.a.p.

Hope this helps

I have already done chkdsk twice (previously) and no errors or bad sectors. I think it might be a registry error, beause that is the only option I have not yet explored. Do you know any place where I can download the default system registry for win7 so I can replace my registry?


Thanks for your help!

P.S. I have a SATA drive.

Member Avatar for caperjack

I have already done chkdsk twice (previously) and no errors or bad sectors. I think it might be a registry error, beause that is the only option I have not yet explored. Do you know any place where I can download the default system registry for win7 so I can replace my registry?


Thanks for your help!

P.S. I have a SATA drive.

there is no default windows registry file ,all are unique to each computer .doing a system restore back to before the registry corruption occurred is a option

Member Avatar for asuprem

I wish I could :(

My last restore was from a while ago, and my laptop automatically deletes restores more than 30 days old.

Member Avatar for caperjack

it may not even be a corrupt registry , start with memtest86 to
check you ram .download the ISO file for windows and using isoburn or win7 iso burning tool , burn to disk to make a bootable dist to run the ram check .go to the free download link and get the latest version
http://www.memtest86.com/

then go to your harddrive makers website and get there utility for checking the harddrive for errors/damage

Edited by caperjack because: n/a
Member Avatar for asuprem

it may not even be a corrupt registry , start with memtest86 to
check you ram .download the ISO file for windows and using isoburn or win7 iso burning tool , burn to disk to make a bootable dist to run the ram check .go to the free download link and get the latest version
http://www.memtest86.com/

then go to your harddrive makers website and get there utility for checking the harddrive for errors/damage

Thanks, I'll try it.

Member Avatar for asuprem

The problem's fixed now. Not really sure how, but suddenly, the loading was really fast.

Member Avatar for caperjack

The problem's fixed now. Not really sure how, but suddenly, the loading was really fast.

its a new year,new life! ,maybe it was just running out of energy coming on the end of the year .lol
good luck

Member Avatar for asuprem

Y'know, after 50 years of computers, we still are not sure of its inner workings, even though we designed them. Which makes me think, your idea has as much credence as any scientific idea. Happy New Years to you and anyone who sees this today!

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