I recently updated my laptop to Windows 8.1 and it is running horribly. When it bothers to start up (it likes ot linger on a black screen), it takes 5-10 minutes and will freeze on the log-in screen. I have to keep hard restarting it because nothing will happen.

Laptop Specs

Operating System: Windows 8.1 64-bit (6.3, Build 9600) (9600.winblue_gdr.131006-1505)
          
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
       System Model: Inspiron 7520
               BIOS: A07
          Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3230M CPU @ 2.60GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.6GHz
             Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8062MB RAM
          Page File: 2999MB used, 13253MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
    DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
   User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
 System DPI Setting: 120 DPI (125 percent)
    DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
     DxDiag Version: 6.03.9600.16384 64bit Unicode

Hi,

This issue can be caused by driver issue.

Once we can log in to windows, please updates drivers like display card, network adapter from manufacturers.

If the issue still persists, I suggest we test whether this issue still happened in Safe mode.

In CMD, run BCDedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes as administrator and restart computer.

Then choose safe mode.

If the issue not persists in Safe mode, please download process monitor to trace the boot into normal mode:

Process Monitor v3.05

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

Then check on Enable Boot Logging option under Options, then restart the computer.

After that, please save the log file and upload to skydrive after Zip, share the link with us for further research.

Keep post.