Stuck on start "spinning" screen, slow to shutdown

In the last week or 2, my daughter's computer has been extremely slow to shutdown when you click start, then shutdown. Additionally, and more importantly, I tried to download and install the windows update 2026-03 this morning and it has gotten stuck after a restart or when you try to turn on the computer in any other way. (See my screenshot)

I've held the power button until the machine shuts off, then power it back on. Sometimes it will say something like "starting automatic repair" or whatever, but it gets stuck on that too and never does anything.

I've held the power button to hard shutdown and booted off of the windows 11 install flash drive. I've then used that and tried startup repair, uninstall latest quality update (didn't seem to help), uninstall latest feature update (failed/gave an error), I've gone into the bios and disabled fast boot. The startup repair got me into the desktop after a long wait and I was able to uninstall the latest windows update and feature update from about 2 months ago. I paused updates for 4 weeks since that's the max it allowed.

I reinstalled the graphics driver and did a clean install. I noticed that for some reason Malwarebytes was no longer installed??? I reinstalled that. I also noticed Asus Armoury Crate wasn't on the desktop and couldn't be opened or found in the start menu, but was still installed on the list of "Installed Apps". So I uninstalled and reinstalled it completely. I think I've uninstalled the latest update because I'm fairly sure it was on a 25 something build version, but I'm back on 24H2 now.

I'm at a loss and need help. I need this computer to reliably and quickly turn on and off.

Custom build, Windows 11 64bit, Ryzen 5 3600X, 16 gigs of RAM, GTX 980, 1 WD NVME drive. Let me know if anyone needs more specs.

1) On a working windows computer plan to create tools that can be used to backup files, test the drives, and troubleshoot


2) Find several flash drives that you can format (> or = 8 GB) or use ventoy on a larger size flash drive


3) On the working windows computer create:


a) A bootable Sea Tools flash drive:



b) a new bootable windows 11 Media Creation Tool (MCT) (Windows iso):







4) Boot the problematic computer to the Sea Tools flash drive:




5) Run the Sea Tools Long generic test > take pictures > post images or share links



6) If the Long generic test reports fail then backup files > replace the drive



7) If the Long generic test reports pass then continue with the next steps



8) Boot the problematic computer to the Windows 11 Media Creation Tool (MCT) (Windows iso):


Option #7




9) Search for srttrail.txt > post a share link

c:\windows\system32\logfiles\srt\srttrail.txt

%windir%\system32\logfiles\srt\srttrail.txt


Or:

Open command prompt:


type: diskpart

type: lis vol

type: exit


type: copy c:\windows\system32\logfiles\srt\srttrail.txt X:

replace X: with drive letter assigned to USB flash Drive.





See Option nine: hard reboot






If the computer boots to the desktop then run the V2 log collector > post a share link





If you want to skip troubleshooting then perform a custom install:

(drivers, and applications need to be reinstalled)