Computer freezing after startup, driver problems?

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I've been having some issues with my E1705 recently. I was just using it for the normal internet browsing/ iTunes playing sort of thing the other day when it up and froze on me. This would happen occasionally, like once a month or so and I generally don't think much of it. However when I rebooted my computer it froze again after about 3-5 minutes after logging onto my user. I run XP still and was able to get enough time in to do a system restore to a few weeks back, but this didn't manage to fix the problem. I can boot it up and run it in Safe Mode for hours with no problems whatsoever. I ran AVG and Windows Defender and neither of them caught anything, and I'm leaning towards it not being a virus, mainly because I hadn't ventured out onto any new or foreign websites within a couple of days of this happening - its not like I was looking at some new site, I was checking my Gmail, Facebook, stocks, etc.

I was wondering if it could possibly be drivers that are causing the problem? I'm not really technically inclined enough to know where or how to look into this. I've exhausted my limited knowledge of easy fixes. I would really rather not clear my HDD and start new, that would be a severe last case scenarior. Just wondering if any folks on here might have some suggestions for me as to diagnose or fix this.

Its been a while since I've been on the inside of the laptop and cleaned out the fans. But I opened up the I8kFanGUI right on startup and kicked the fans to high speed and the temps seemed pretty reasonable, maybe mid-lo 40s for the CPU and about 50 for the GPU. I installed Avast and am running a thorough scan right now in safe mode (I'm on another computer posting this). I'll try to open it up and clean out the fans here in a little bit.

And I've never replaced the thermal paste on either the CPU or GPU, is that much of a job to undertake?

Also earlier today I tried another system restore to a point a month and a half back and after that it ran fine for about 15 minutes and I installed Avast and restarted the computer and when it restarted it was working fine for about another 10 minutes and then froze. It's kind of odd when it freezes I notice the clock stops in time, but I can still move around the mouse, but the programs that are open stop running (a virus scan just stopped working, but I could minimize it to the task bar and bring it back up), and new programs won't open.

*Edit* - I uninstalled the Nvidia drivers and rebooted my computer normally and it still froze up on me like it had before.

Do you think running the XP disk to repair would catch it perchance? To avoid re-formatting the whole thing. And I ripped it apart and cleaned out the fans and the heat sinks but nothing looked too dusty. I must have missed some sort of a connector when putting it all back together though because it won't start up due to invalid hardware configuration.... I guess it's time to re-do the whole thing again. Maybe get it super clean.

Was able to clean it out and get it up and running and it froze on me again. The cursor is still able to move around but no programs open when I click them, and the clock doesn't change time. This time after starting it up it was 7 minutes from startup to when the clock froze.

It wasn't either of the sticks of memory. The computer froze after about 5 minutes on each stick.

Is it possible to re-install XP and keep all of my stuff on the computer or do I have to lose it all? I might be able to back it up on an external but I'm not entirely sure that I have the space on either of them.

Both the externals are 3.5" drives. I do have a case where I can use a 2.5" as an external though, maybe I could use that for the current drive if I do have to upgrade to another HDD. I have a buddy who has some spare 2.5" drives lying around, maybe tomorrow I'll stop by and see if that would fix anything.

So I've noticed that before it freezes in Task Manager that the process "System" is running at 85,740 K. I had Task Manager open and the computer froze on me just a minute ago, I was still able to navigate around in Task Manager but nothing else was responding. None of the usage amounts changed at all, and I was actually able to shut down "explorer" after everything else was unresponsive - which of course got rid of the task bar and everything. It however wouldn't let me restart the computer through the task manager. Does this show anything else perhaps?

I just ran a repair earlier today (I think... it gets kind of confusing after starting the XP disk) and.... voila! no freezes! Its been running for over an hour now and no sign of any problems. I'm still a bit hesitant to think its totally fixed but I'm optimistic. Thanks for the help folks

the HDD is only about 1.5 years old, it's done exceptionally well up to this point. I did manage to back up all my documents and stuff while in safe mode before I tried the repair (80GB transfer took 2 days almost... Safe Mode is so slow! haha). I've been really happy with it until this point and I doubt it was the hard drive, more likely an XP type problem. Gonna make sure I've got all the goods backed up because I don't want to have happen to me what I had with my old Hitachi 'Deathstar' that came with the computer... I wasn't too pleased about starting new because of a broken disk and didn't really have all that much of it backed up.