General computer talk/advice

for me 3 are normal too but it could be that where i live we have copper phone lines for internet so i guess thats the problem with that also another thing with the file sizes: i also have some problems with them now espacially when forza is 100GBs and you have to download it 6 times

 

Remember this? Something happened today when I went to turn it on.

The first time it got past the HP loading screen, but halted on the black screen in between the loading screen and the login one. Since it didn't do anything for several minutes, I forcefully restarted it. Ever since then, with every attempt to turn it on, it wouldn't get past the HP loading screen. I tried around what I think was 20 minutes, but couldn't get it to the login screen.

Sometimes some recovery screen like this one popped up when it was turned on.

I posted this from a different computer. I don't know what to do. With what had been happening lately, I was fearing that something like this was going to happen.

 

If I remember correctly this is what happened to my computer except it did it once after a power outage, you may be able to recover windows or just get a new drive and install windows and all your files should still be on the older drive
Currently I am running the old + new drive so you can tell which route I went
old = ruined 8.1 os
new = 10

 

Okay, I'll keep that in mind. Now I want to ask you, do you have any other assumptions as to what it's doing?

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Here's something else I can add, my mom also tried to get it to start up. She tried to run it in safe mode, but it wouldn't do it. Said it kept going back to that blue recovery screen, and it always said the same thing.

 

Based on that I'd assume the power got cut from it whilst it was running
In my situation it couldn't finish loading into 8.1, so perhaps it is the os at fault. After that I wouldn't know much else

 

The behavior with your old 8.1 system does sound similar to what it's doing, it gets to a certain screen, and then it won't finish loading, as if it's going to sit there and take the rest of the time left in the universe to boot up.

I don't know if you also saw my previous message about the computer I'm talking about, but it's been acting up for some time now. I think these issues started back in the early part of February. It's been acting similar to what it's doing now, but all of those previous times one or two forced restarts (pressing the button to turn it off and then again to turn it on) would get it up and running. Today wasn't the same scenario.

Do you think forcefully restarting it could've damaged it? There has been times where I had no choice but to forcefully turn it off and turn it on, mostly with the startup situation, and then when it'd freeze up for no apparent reason, which it's done the latter long before all of this even started.

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Okay, she took three pictures of that recovery screen I talked about.


Also, do any of you know what UEFI Firmware settings are?

 

UEFI replaces bios

 

Probably your drive that Windows is installed has gone kaputt, symptoms are so much like what I have seen with HDD failures, but if you have Windows in SSD it is bit odd as what I have heard is that SSD just fails, like totally.

Trying to fix installation on broken drive tends to make things just worse. New drive and cloning old one to new one, then attempting to fix is something that can be attempted to.

 

Could be a corrupted windows file, try running sfc scannow from command prompt with elevated permissions (Run as admin) if you can do it in safe mode then open up the commad prompt in system recovery

 

Okay, some of these terms are going over my head. Windows going to crap I can understand, that to me sounds like the operating system has failed, but everything else like HDD and SSD, I don't understand.

What would you suggest to do? Is there any possibility of saving some of the files still on it? Can it be made operational again?

I know both my mom and another person I know suggested it could be a virus, but I have my doubts. I don't really know of any that shuts a computer down like that, and while Norton would annoy me like crazy, I'll admit that I think it did a good job at keeping viruses at bay.

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How do you do that?

Also, my mom tried to run it in safe mode, but the computer wouldn't do it.

 

When your PC tries to repair windows and fails, click advanced options > troubleshoot > advanced options > command prompt. When the prompt opens type 'sfc /scannow' also might be worth downloading memtest and installing it on a flashdrive and running a memory test.

 

Great news. I let a neighbor take a look at the computer, and he got it up and running. He said he fixed a couple of things and ran some scans. He didn't really go into detail on what all he did. At least it's up and working now.

I'm posting this message using the computer. I'm going to keep an eye on it and see how it behaves.

 

Nice, shame that even on Microsoft's flagship device they can't get windows update to work correctly.
Thinking of getting a Surface 3 (non pro) as it is still more powerful than like 90% of laptops that are below £400 anyway. Also the screen is nice, 1920x1280 beats out 1366x768 anyday

 

I have heard rumors that Surface would of been assembled so that repairing is nearly impossible, not sure if those are true or not.

It is really nice tool though, very cool to be able to do everything with such great portability.

 

I think you are thinking of the surface laptop (basically a macbook clone) which is glued together with cloth overtop, the surface is probably a bitch to work on too and mostly soldered together.

I'd still take a normal laptop over any of that propitiatory glued together stuff honestly.

 

To be honest every premium manufacturer these days are making their products hard to fix
Microsoft, Apple etc. etc.

That's what Clevo laptops are for, upgradeable and cheaper than the rest.

 

Oh, yeaaaa



It has a couple of little niggles. The CRT needs adjusted and something somewhere is arcing, and I think it might need a hard drive (it fully boots in OS 9, but it behaves oddly). I paid a whopping $8 for it, and even in its current condition current eBay pricing trends place a broken one at $80.

 

Screen is glued as is common for many devices of similar style. Unfortunately the only access is also via the screen.
You can get it open but it's a challenge and it doesn't want to go back together after.

It's less that manufacturers design so it's not repairable and more that consumers want these devices nice and slim with tiny bezels. Then of course people want the highest specs possible too. You have to cut corners somewhere, and to get the complete smooth front glass and no visible screws you're kinda left with glue. Kinda sucks but just the way it is.

Even once it's open, nothing is user repairable/replaceable

 

So is even battery impossible/hard to replace?

I don't really understand this thin fashion that has been going on, or thin bevels either, for me thick laptop would be nicer to use, with good big area at front of keyboard for wrist support. Good and easy paths for air to flow with minimum amount of noise and low temps for components to long life.

Then again, I would prefer that screw heads are visible as those for me are pretty, so maybe my opinion is among non existing market segment