Hi everyone, i have a machine running Win7 Ultimate. It was running fine, then it just froze - all the stuff i was doing was still on the screen, but mouse and keyboard input was ignored, any animation that was happening on the screen stopped, the machine literally just froze.

So i rebooted (power off button), from then on the machine will reboot, but it ultimately freezes again. The instance when this happens will vary - i have made it as far as the Windows login screen, but mostly it will do the POST, then give me the option to press F1 to continue or Del to enter BIOS settings (but of course pressing a key has no effect - it's frozen!).

I have disconnected everything not necessary for the boot process, the only peripheral that remains attached is the keyboard. (even the network cable is disconnected). Prior to this the machine was operating fine. The install of Win7 is only 2 days old, and it was a fresh reinstall (i.e. not an upgrade or repair).

Can anyone give me an indication of what may be wrong here?

I'm not sure if this question should be here or on SuperUser, please migrate it if i have chosen the wrong board.