Windows freezes at desktop

I have previous threads in both the Malware, and Hardware sections...no Malware was found, and the hardware issue was fixed, but the freezing persists.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=238300
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=237971


My video card appeared to be fried about a week ago, at first it would freeze randomly with lines/dots scattered about the screen, eventually it wouldn't even make it to the Windows loading screen:

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/9898/windowsh.jpg

(apologies for the cell phone pic).

So, I replaced the video card, which fixed the display issue..but the freezing continued. My computer will freeze right as the desktop loads, I reformatted the OS Drive (the other drive contains just music/movies), thinking it was a Windows issue, but the problem persists.

The odd thing is that I can get the computer to load 100% of the time if I:

1) Boot in Safe Mode
2) Restart (I cannot Shut Down then power on again, has to be a Restart). Any method that ends in a restart works (system restore, etc).

This gets me into Windows without freezing 100% of the time, and as far as I can tell is the ONLY method that works (if I just keep powering off, then on, it never makes it). After I make it into Windows, I have no issues as far as I can tell. Used the computer for about 12 hours, on and off (gaming, browsing, etc.) without any issues.

So, I've eliminated the possibility of it being a Malware issue, and I'm pretty confident that it isn't a hardware issue (though it is a bit odd that it happened right when the video card fried?).

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate.

Thanks.

 

Yeah, I've given that a shot...doesn't seem to help. The only things I had at Startup were:

Steam
Razer Mousedrivers
McAfee
uTorrent (turned off now, per your advice in my other thread)

Looking back, I remember updating my video card drivers when the first one started crapping out...that could be the issue. It's the only thing I can think of that boots at startup (but not in safe mode) and wasn't already installed before this started happening.

Googled that, looks like my motherboard drivers could be out of date. Now I feel stupid, since I'm completely blanking on the model of my mobo (it's a couple years old now).

AIDA32 doesn't recognize it either...

 

Sorry, poor communication on my part.

When my original video card started to die I tried updating the drivers (out of false hope, mostly). Once I determined that it wasn't the drivers, I bought a new card, uninstalled the drivers, reinstalled the drivers. Being that they're both nVidia cards, I was reinstalling the same drivers (270.61). At one point it was suggested that some files from the old drivers may have been left behind, and could be causing issues. That's when I reformatted Windows.

It's hard for me to isolate the issue, since the video card dying and the freezing seemingly happened at the same time.