Question Desktop fails to load for about 5 minutes upon login

zaphod2beeble

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Hi,
my PC was running fine until recently, when I bumped it and it froze up and I had to do a force shutdown.

Since then every time I start my PC it posts without issues and loads into the Windows login screen just like it did before, however once I log in, I get a black Desktop, without Icons and the task bar (which is blank apart from the windows logo) starts blinking like a neon sign in the 60s - on, off, on, off... During this the only command that seems to work is ctrl+alt+del (I tried most commands I know of including windows+r), from which I can use all the functions, including launching task manager, I noticed a lot of tasks appearing and disappearing, as if they were trying to launch but without any success.
This continues for about 5 minutes, at which point everything suddenly loads as it should and I am able to use the PC without any issues.

Things I have tried:
-Checked for windows updates - am running the latest version
-Checked for damaged sectors on my windows drive
-Used windows boot media to do an install that keeps all data and files
-Updated Samsung Magician
-Created a new user account and tried logging into that upon restart instead - same issue

I'm guessing that my Windows install got corrupted by that freeze and now windows has great difficulty debugging it every time I try to log in, I'm just not sure what else I can try, apart from reinstalling Windows completely and losing all the data on my SSD. If you have any suggestions or have seen a similar thread I would love to hear them, as I have been unable to find any threads on this exact topic.

My setup:
Windows 10 Pro
Asus Prime Z390-A
Intel I5 9600K
Gigabyte GTX1060 3GB
Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB 2x8GB
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB (Windows Drive)
WD Blue 3TB
 

xenthia

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Sep 20, 2012
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18,665
Hi,
my PC was running fine until recently, when I bumped it and it froze up and I had to do a force shutdown.

Since then every time I start my PC it posts without issues and loads into the Windows login screen just like it did before, however once I log in, I get a black Desktop, without Icons and the task bar (which is blank apart from the windows logo) starts blinking like a neon sign in the 60s - on, off, on, off... During this the only command that seems to work is ctrl+alt+del (I tried most commands I know of including windows+r), from which I can use all the functions, including launching task manager, I noticed a lot of tasks appearing and disappearing, as if they were trying to launch but without any success.
This continues for about 5 minutes, at which point everything suddenly loads as it should and I am able to use the PC without any issues.

Things I have tried:
-Checked for windows updates - am running the latest version
-Checked for damaged sectors on my windows drive
-Used windows boot media to do an install that keeps all data and files
-Updated Samsung Magician
-Created a new user account and tried logging into that upon restart instead - same issue

I'm guessing that my Windows install got corrupted by that freeze and now windows has great difficulty debugging it every time I try to log in, I'm just not sure what else I can try, apart from reinstalling Windows completely and losing all the data on my SSD. If you have any suggestions or have seen a similar thread I would love to hear them, as I have been unable to find any threads on this exact topic.

My setup:
Windows 10 Pro
Asus Prime Z390-A
Intel I5 9600K
Gigabyte GTX1060 3GB
Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB 2x8GB
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB (Windows Drive)
WD Blue 3TB

First run a full disk check using the command:

Code:
chkdsk C: /F /V /R /X /B

This command has to be run in a command prompt window with admin privileges. And then it most likely will need you to restart your system to do the check. Afterwards you have to check your system's health using the following commands again in an admin level command window:

Code:
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow

Each of the above commands need to be run one by one, that is one after the other in the order presented above. In more serious cases you might need to check for component health against a trustable source image, but that is realistically only needed in more sensitive scenarios.

hope that helps. Cheers.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
try unplugging all your usb/speakers/printers etc from pc and then startup and see if it makes any difference.

It can be caused by windows waiting on a device to respond, I have had it happen before with an old pair of speakers that would cause same thing to happen.
 

zaphod2beeble

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Apr 18, 2017
28
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First run a full disk check using the command:

Code:
chkdsk C: /F /V /R /X /B

This command has to be run in a command prompt window with admin privileges. And then it most likely will need you to restart your system to do the check. Afterwards you have to check your system's health using the following commands again in an admin level command window:

Code:
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow

Each of the above commands need to be run one by one, that is one after the other in the order presented above. In more serious cases you might need to check for component health against a trustable source image, but that is realistically only needed in more sensitive scenarios.

hope that helps. Cheers.
Hi, first of all thanks for the quick answer, I finally got around to trying your solution, I ran all the commands as you said and did indead have to restart for the first scan, the rest ran normally and 'sfc /scannow' found damaged files and succesfully repaired them, I'll restart now and see if the problem still remains or not. I'll let you know
 

zaphod2beeble

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Apr 18, 2017
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try unplugging all your usb/speakers/printers etc from pc and then startup and see if it makes any difference.

It can be caused by windows waiting on a device to respond, I have had it happen before with an old pair of speakers that would cause same thing to happen.
Thanks for the suggestion, I tried this with nothing but power and my monitors plugged in and had the same issue, thanks for the idea nevertheless!
 
Last edited:

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator

zaphod2beeble

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i can't see it being the ssd but you could check it out - https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/
try running this on the hdd - https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en&p=3 (quick & extended tests)

can you run this for me, it might help even though you aren't getting bsod - https://www.sysnative.com/forums/pages/bsodcollectionapp/ - it creates a zip file, if you can upload it to a file sharing site and show link here.
I ran the sysnative bsod app, but am unsure of where it would have created the zip file.
As for Datalifeguard, the quick test didn't find any issues and the extended test is going to take another 6 hours.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
It might save it to desktop or documents, I can't see anything on that website of theirs that says it goes anywhere special.

im just checking drives as if you bump a PC, they are the most likely to be affected. SSD not so much as they don't have platters spinning really fast inside them.
 

zaphod2beeble

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Apr 18, 2017
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It might save it to desktop or documents, I can't see anything on that website of theirs that says it goes anywhere special.

im just checking drives as if you bump a PC, they are the most likely to be affected. SSD not so much as they don't have platters spinning really fast inside them.
The reason I believed it might be corrupted files, which I should have stated, is that my PC, even before I had an HDD in it had a tendency to crash when it got bumped hard, like slamming the desk for example. I've had the issues since it crashed that one time and I thought some windows files might have been corrupted in that crash.
About the BSOD files there is no zip file where it said there should be one, I'll rerun the test once the Extended scan is done.
 

xenthia

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Sep 20, 2012
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I restarted the PC once again and it had the same issue again, anything else I can try?
Alright. Have you tried to log into safe mode and see if the issue is also present there?
For that before you actually do a log on into a user account try holding the shift button while clicking on restart icon on the corner of the screen and then boot into safe mode.

If the issue is not present there, it is probably a matter of simply removing your graphics card driver and reinstalling it again. Let's see how that will turn out.
cheers
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
above doesn't exactly take you to safe mode, it takes them to winre
here is the rest from winre:
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose startup options
click the restart button
choose a safe mode (it doesn't matter which) by using number associated with it.
Pc will restart and load safe mode
 
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zaphod2beeble

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So, with fast boot off and secure boot enabled, I still had the same issue, after restarting in safe mode however I had no problem whatsoever. I'm now going to try uninstalling and reinstalling my graphics drivers as xenthia suggested. Thanks both of you for the help so far!
 

zaphod2beeble

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As for seeing anything in event manager, with fast boot disabled I can see the logs and when it goes into this spiral when it fails to load, it is always these 3 in order:
Error - Source: Application Error - corrupted application: explorer.exe - corrupted module: ucrtbase.dll
Information - Source: Windows Error Reporting - Incident Name: BEX64 (sometimes there is a second Info from Windows Error Reporting before the next Info comes up) Information - Source: Winlogon - The shell was closed unexpectedly and explorer.exe is being restarted
(the exact wording might be slightly off, because I have my windows language set to german and I've been translating them the best I know how)

Do either of you know how I could fix this? Because if explorer is always failing to load I can hardly see this being the graphics drivers, so I'm gonna hold off on reinstalling those for now until I here more.
 

xenthia

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Sep 20, 2012
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As for seeing anything in event manager, with fast boot disabled I can see the logs and when it goes into this spiral when it fails to load, it is always these 3 in order:
Error - Source: Application Error - corrupted application: explorer.exe - corrupted module: ucrtbase.dll
Information - Source: Windows Error Reporting - Incident Name: BEX64 (sometimes there is a second Info from Windows Error Reporting before the next Info comes up) Information - Source: Winlogon - The shell was closed unexpectedly and explorer.exe is being restarted
(the exact wording might be slightly off, because I have my windows language set to german and I've been translating them the best I know how)

Do either of you know how I could fix this? Because if explorer is always failing to load I can hardly see this being the graphics drivers, so I'm gonna hold off on reinstalling those for now until I here more.

have a look here:
https://www.tenforums.com/general-support/135070-intermittent-bex64-explorer-exe-crash.html
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
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zaphod2beeble

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Just as an update, after trying to narrow down what program was causing the issue I did a simple windows restore which while wiping my C drive left anything of value and anything large on my other partitions/ drives. The problem is gone and I'm slowly reinstalling drivers now.
Thanks for all the help along the way, both of you!
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
I assume you did a reset or fresh start as a system restore doesn't include wiping hdd. All system restore does or records is a copy of your resgistry and settings so it can roll back to a date before you made certain changes.

Anyway, its one way to fix it I guess.

I found out BEX errors are normally caused by the applications and not windows.