Hi there, I've been having huge issues with my laptop for around 2 days now, and can't do anything without it locking up. The first time I noticed the problem was on Saturday - switched it on and it took around 20 minutes to start up. I have a very new Dell Studio XPS 15 so slow is not a word I usually associate wit it! I then tried to go to my website, and I would click a link and it would take 2-3 minutes to respond. I couldn't do anything to it so switched it off by holding the power button. Now when I try to use it it sometimes doesn't even start up. It stops at the Starting Windows and doesn't animate the Windows 7 logo. I can just push the power button once and it switches off. But this isn't a regular thing. Usually now when I turn it on it goes to the log in screen as quickly as it used to, but it freezes for around 5-10 sections before I can enter my password to log in. You can't use the mouse during this time as it doesn't respond at all. When it does respond I can enter my password and log in as normal. Once logged in it's only a matter of time before things stop responding. I can get into Outlook and do a few small things, and connect to the internet to receive email, but within around 5 minutes or so each individual application starts to fail. Outlook doesn't respond at all. Trying to get into the Task Manager takes ages and doesn't succeed. I've tried to do a system restore, but that doesn't work. There are two restore points but it can't find the older one, and the newer one fails. I've tried the startup repair and it says that it can't fix the machine automatically. I think it found that there were some corrupted system files or something... All the other checks passed. It's mad - it just dies a slow death - everything stars to fail and I get loads of error messages that honestly I think are symptoms rather than the cause. I've got Avast anti virus and it hasn't found any errors - I ran a boot virus check and it found nothing. So basically I can't use it at all, other than for 2-5 minutes when it first starts up. Even if I don't connect to the internet. I keep getting "Windows Explorer has stopped working", or this application has stopped responding, etc, etc etc. I really don't want to have to reinstall my laptop because Dell don't make it easy to install all the device drivers - it takes me round 24 hours to reinstall everything. I've seen a few people say that some bank activex control is the cause, and some saying that msn messanger is the problem. I don't have either (uninstalled MSN just in case it WAS the cause). Sometimes the machine just restarts itself and I noticed the error message today saying "Windows has encountered a critical error and will restart in one minute". It also gives me the error message about not being able to write to memory... Please, if someone can give me some help I would really appreciate it. Happy to supply any other bits of information that you may need. Thanks, Leanne

Possible infection/infestation? What AV and AntiSpyware soeftare are you using, and is it up to date? When is the last time you did full AV and AntiSpyware scans? If you are infected, your AV software may not be operating properly any longer. You may need to use an online scanning site. I'll leave it to others to recommend reliable scanning sites.

Also, access Clean Boot to check the issue. If the issue disappears in the Clean Boot environment, you can continue to narrow down which entry is causing the issue. If the issue persists, update the chipset driver, BIOS and device drivers to the latest version. Besides, remove the unnecessary hardware device and perform the steps below: 1. Click Start, type "devmgmt.msc" (without quotation marks) in the Search bar and press Enter. 2. Expand "Sound, video and game controllers". 3. Right click on your sound card and then click "Properties. 4. In the dropdown menu of Device Usage, please choose "Do not use this device (disable)" and click OK. 5. Please use the same method to disable other dubious hardware such as: internal modem, network card and CD-R drive. Please note some devices such as video adapter are not available to be disabled.