xp64 stuck on welcome screen

[Methadras]

I was playing World in Conflict and it crashed, but instead of crashing to the desktop, the game froze and the sound was frozen into a buzz. So the whole system got locked with no way to get out of it, so I hit reset. Well, I walked away during the reboot and I come back about 5 minutes later thinking everything is okay and windows is stuck on the Welcome screen. I thought that was odd, so I hit reset again. Same thing, stuck on welcome. So I got into safe mode w/o networking. No problem. Go into safe mode w/networking no problem. But I can't boot into xp64 normal without it getting stuck on the welcome screen.

just for the info:

Motherboard: abit ab9 quadgt
CPU: E6700 @ 3.6ghz
Ram: 8GB of g.skill ddr2-800
Video: PNY 8800 Ultra
Sound: onboard realtek HD

Not sure what the deal is, but I was wondering if anyone has run into this issue. I'm almost suspecting that it's the realtek hd drivers got borked and I should change it to ac97 in the bios and see what happens, but I figured someone else may know? thanks for reading.

 

[Methadras]

Well, it turns out to be the realtek that is causing my problems. I don't know why, but I had to shut it off in the bios just to be able to boot into windows normally. No sound, but nothing a sound card couldn't fix.