Help needed for Dell XPS M1530 windows vista 32 bit.

Hi, i have a few months old Dell XPS M1530 with 32-bit windows vista, 3 gb ram, 256 mb nvidia 8600m gt graphics card. Recently i have been experiencing a certain problem. I had kept my laptop switched off for 3-4 days and when i switched on my laptop thereafter, the windows started to hang. On restarting the laptop several times, sometimes the windows used to load and the desktop screen would appear, but taking a hell of a time to load completely, and even hanging after that when trying to open any application.

I have tried doing system restore on 2 previous dates, in both the cases the windows loading perfectly but hangs when trying to use any application.

I have also tried repairing the windows and doing memory check, but the problem still persists.

What can be the possible cause of the problem and what can i do about it?

P.S.-- I tried to update my graphics card with the latest driver upgrade from the website laptop2go.com, and on installing the update, i was warned of the WHQL(or something like that) certificate will be terminated or so, but i continued anyways. On the very next day i went on a 4 days break after coming back from which the laptop has been giving these problems. Although now i have restored my system to a date prior to the day i had downloaded and installed the graphics card upgrade, the problem still persists.

Kindly help me in this regards and what can be the possible solutions?

Regards.

 

Uninstall the current driver, then install the previous driver, or a new driver that is digitally signed by MS.

 

So are you saying that the problem is due to the installation of new unauthorized driver update??

 

When you say hang you mean for how long? Does it come back after a while or do you have to reboot?

btw I doubt that slowness is related to your video driver... although if you want you can uninstall the driver completely and run Windows with its built-in video driver. You probably don't want to play games that way... but it's a good test because if the problem still occurs, then you know it's not the video driver.

If it's just hanging for a few seconds... look in Task Manager and check CPU and memory usage.

 

Sometimes the hang is for 3-4 minutes and it comes back to normal, and most of the times i have to reboot my laptop.

Lately i have been getting a system error message of "Security logon failure" when the windows loads and the desktop appears.

 

Here are a few things to try:

Power-on self-test. Press F12 at the Dell splash screen when you turn on the computer... it will test hardware.

Run antivirus and antispyware scans.

Test your disk for errors. (Right-click the system drive > Tools > Error checking: Check now)

If none of that turns up anything... and you don't see anything weird in task manager... then I guess try reinstalling Windows.

 

Do you sometimes use this computer on a Windows domain... i.e. corporate or organizational network?