Random Freezing before Logon Screen

Not sure whether this should go in "Software" or here, but this may require a bit of advanced knowledge of PC's in general.

What could possibly cause my XPS M1210 to freeze randomly before the logon screen is displayed? (The freezing occurs on avg. every 1 in 6 boots, just before I have to enter my password).

Could it be a hardware problem - possibly bad RAM or hard drive? Or is it a problem within Windows?

Any help would be deeply appreciated.

 

run the dell diags on boot if its hardware it will find it

 

Did that, nothing found.

 

is it a freeze with a blank srceen, i have had the same problem. i used windows restore to solve it.

 

That's right, holliswhy. Problem is I'll have to restore my PC back to about 3 weeks ago, and I'm not sure if it would solve the problem. I might as well just reinstall Windows.

 

i have also experienced this since i got my notebook almost a month ago, it has happened to me twice starting last week, and as i expected it was one of the software that i installed (a netgear driver for a usb adapter) after un-installing it i've yet to see this freeze again. So i am assuming that its a software that is causing it.

 

It is because the web camera driver crashed when xp startup.
uninstall the driver will fix the problem, of course you can't use the camera then.

p.s. some people said the web camera dirver crash with alcohol 120%. but I didn't try to unistall alcohol 120%, I think alcohol is more important than web camera.

 

ermm Just wondering have you guys tried using PowerISO, i am using that on my M1210 with no problems or conflict with other drivers.

Edit:-
Unsure if it has all the feature of Alcohol 120, but it does do the basic job of mounting/unmounting and making a backup.