Windows 7 -- Freezes and becomes non-responsive

Disclaimer: I fix washers and dryers for a living, so I'm likely to not know many of the basics.

Here's what I know:

1) I have an HP 2800 running Windows 7 home edition.

2) The unit has a developed a habit of freezing requiring a hard reboot to restart.

3) The problem has gotten worse over time, sometimes with as much as 8 hours between freeze-ups and sometimes less than two minutes.

4) The computer WILL freeze if I go onto YouTube.com and play a video. This is 100% reliable. This will happen in SafeMode as well as regular mode.

5) The computer MAY freeze if I'm on FaceBook or dragging the mouse down screen. It will EVENTUALLY freeze if I'm playing music. Webmusic is also 100% reliable at bringing on a freeze, though it may take minutes rather than seconds.

6) The computer MAY freeze in SafeMode, but this is rare.

Running Windows Event Viewer, these messages are consistently logged before the times when the computer has frozen up:

A) "The winlogon notification subscriber <GPClient> was unavailable to handle a notification event."

B) "DCOM got error "1084" attempting to start the service ShellHWDetection with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{DD522ACC-F821-461A-A407-50B198B896DC}"

C) "DCOM got error "1084" attempting to start the service EventSystem with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{1BE1F766-5536-11D1-B726-00C04FB926AF}"

D) "DCOM got error "1084" attempting to start the service WSearch with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{7D096C5F-AC08-4F1F-BEB7-5C22C517CE39}"

Other messages that are logged after the restart:

I) Some processor performance power management features have been disabled due to a known firmware problem. Check with the computer manufacturer for updated firmware.

II) The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
discache
spldr

III) The winlogon notification subscriber <GPClient> was unavailable to handle a notification event.

What else should I be looking for? What should I do next?

 

I didn't know what GPClient was, so I went searching. (It means Group Policy Client) I found this

I fired up my Win 7 64bit Home Premium netbook but I'm clueless as to where Computer Configuration is hiding!

The Group Policy does not run in Home Premium, Home Basic nor Starter editions. So the above fix will not work.

 

This is a helpful post I found for someone having the same three DCOM errors as you.

If the computer behaves in normal mode, using that selective startup (you might see a screen telling you some things have been disabled - but you know that - so don't let the box throw you), then we'll work on enabling one thing at a time until the freeze occurs. It will be a slow process but at least you will now what item is causing all the problems.


This is for much later if you want to return to the normal boot up OR if a selective startup still causes the computer to freeze.
1. Click Start on your Desktop
2. Type msconfig in the Start Search box and then press ENTER.
If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Continue.
3. Click the General tab.
4. Click Normal Startup - load all device drivers and services, and then click OK.
5. When you are prompted, click Restart to restart the computer.