Practical Advice Laptop Help!

[AvidFan]

I think you are right that the thing is seriously messed up. It seems more severe than a software issue to me so I would be more inclined to think it is a hardware failure.
Our lives are so entwined with technology these days it feels like a part of us is missing when it fails. I had a power cut not that long ago and during that period I felt really constrained bordering on oppressed, what a strange world we live in!

Well it's taken 5 hours or so but I've got to the point of getting the Windows welcome messages. You are right - the laptop is my livelihood as well, without it I die (or so my stone age brain tells me!) and it's my connection to the world. Soon all will be revealed once I go in and see how it performs. And will probably have to uninstall bloatware etc, but it was never a problem running multiple applications and video editing etc. I'll go and see how it's doing.

I just had to do a video call on this old laptop and I had the usb plugin/plugout noise going constantly. Went to device manager to see if I could find anything there and it mysteriously stopped when I opened device manager. Hope it stays stopped it's quite annoying!

 

[AvidFan]

Well it's been an absolute nightmare but I'm currently typing this on a laptop that appears to be running at normal speed. It only took me 12 hours to find this problem and solve it. Absolutely no idea what happened in the first place. Still going to be careful and I've a shit ton of apps etc I have to reinstall, my Edge profiles that I use to separate work appear broken, and no doubt will find more issues as I go along, but it looks like I won't have to take the damn thing back. Absolute mystery, things like this. I'm sad to have wasted a day and the stress lately is making me feel ill. But onwards and upwards, eh!

 

[AvidFan]

Nearly couldn't get in to my Google account as it sent the two factor to a phone that was 2 phones ago -no idea why it's not picked up on the fact I've been logged into a new phone for months. This is why I keep old phones around, it would be a nightmare to lose Google account.

 

[AvidFan]

I spoke too soon - got malwarebytes running and now I can't type. Malwarebytes usually scans in 2 minutes, it's still going after 8. FFS.

 

[AvidFan]

I feel cheated and taunted. For a few minutes it was good as new, then it turned to shit again. Pull me up just to bash me down again. I thought maybe it was malwarebytes but I uninstalled it and there's no difference. This whole thing is legitimately insane - I expect if I take it to the shop and show them how slow it is (if they ask) it will probably work like lightning for 5 minutes and I'll look like a liar!

 

[AvidFan]

It's now kind of working semi normally. To the point it would be hard to persuade someone in the shop that it's slow, but if they have a slow machine they wouldn't think it was too much amiss.I mean, previously it booted into a useable state in 30 seconds, now it's more like 5 minutes. But it's KIND OF working when we get past that point. What the absolute fuck is going on with this machine?

I'm persevering and waiting until the windows updates download in case they are slowing it down.

 

[AvidFan]

Pretty much losing the will to live now. However, when I tried to open the diagnostics, everything started locking up again, so I know what to show them in the shop if the want to look - here, it takes 15 minutes to load the laptop diagnostics application, enjoy watching the machine struggle to do the most simple things. My hands are shaking, this is all making me poorly.

I've got the diagnostic running but it's 2 hours or something. I really think taking it back is the best option - I'm not a bloody technician this is beyond end user fixing when I've reset it. It's doing a memory check right now, wonder if it will find anything? The hard drive has passed it's doing an extensive SSD and memory check just now... Its behaving like it has far less than 8GB of Ram maybe that's the issue. Still testing.

 

[AvidFan]

Extensive memory check passed 🤷

 

[AvidFan]

I'm going to set it going to remove my files etc this time. Maybe something is corrupt. I don't think I should be expected to start creating installation media and trying to install windows from USB drives. I've had enough of it now. Set it resetting again and try to get some sleep. I haven't replied to any emails and have lost income from this. 😟 Not to mention my sanity. I wish I was allowed to just end it really.

 

[AvidFan]

In one of life's great ironies, the one thing that didn't work before is fixed. As in, the wifi no longer disconnects when the machine is left for 5 minutes. I can't figure out if I'm going mad now, but I could put the new laptop and the old one together and race them from boot up to useable, and the old one would win by miles. In fact I'd be able to do 10 minutes work on the old one while waiting for the new one to finish loading. It all changed in a matter of 20 seconds this morning. Bizarre. Maybe there is some corrupt setting and doing a complete refresh may work. Otherwise it's off to the shop. I am so behind with work. And sleep.

 

[AvidFan]

Honestly don't know now whether to cancel the reset and just put up with the laptop being a bit slow. It feels better than all the fuss of having to go to the shop. I just don't know it will perform with video calls. It can play youtube videos, eventually (the thumbs take quite a while to load but it does play them, albeit the occasionally jerk, I don't really use it to watch youtube though. The question is, if I can type into Word and a bit into Excel, and run the internet, should I just put up with it? Arghhhh I am tired of the whole thing.

 

[AvidFan]

I tried my video call app. I looked like I was in slow motion, sure it's not supposed to be like that. Was weird seeing my hand move and then move half a second later on the screen. that is not normal. Just tried it on the old laptop and there's no lag, my hand on screen moves with the real hand, in sync. Not some weird slow motion - video calls are horrid enough as it is without adding that. I'll let the full reset run overnight and see if it makes any difference, and then think about what I'm going to do. I think the key is not to rush. I can use this old laptop, it works well enough. I have to keep myself well or I'll have a complete breakdown, won't be able to work, and will end up in dire financial difficulties again. Sigh, fuck it I'm going to bed.

 

[KM76710]

As long as the power cord is not the issue I wonder if you can just disable the battery and use the laptop as a always plugged in workstation? I picked up a fairly high end laptop from one of the well heeled folks that live in this area fairly cheap. His battery was giving him fits but having tons of money he just replaced it. I showed him that the battery was bad but the PC was good without it but he could not use it without it plugged in by disabling the battery. I transfered all his stuff to the new machine he got, uninstalling from one and installing it on the new one and he called it my time doing that and $500 for a laptop that was probably 3 times that much. He was having all sorts of issues that some may be similar to yours.

 

[AvidFan]

@KM76710 I don't think it's a power cord or battery issue, all bios checks indicate healthy battery, healthy SSD, healthy ram etc.

In any case, I left it running on a complete reset overnight, which is the best way to do it. I slept like a baby (never understood that phrase, people say it to mean they slept well, while babies are notorious for not sleeping and waking everyone up!) with some chemical aids and feel more positive today.

I'm just going through the setup steps, I've added my microsoft account just to get through the setup, but have been careful not to restore any account backups or import any other things yet - getting it as near factory state as possible. It's still preparing laptop for use, but if I can test it and find the fault is still happening I will have a very good case for proving it's something beyond a virus or software issue or a setting (which is what they always say, I hate support when they say "Have you restarted it, have you run a virus check...." Yes I've done all that, I've methodically troubleshooted for a whole day and counting and now I've gone for the nuclear option and reset the laptop to its complete factory state!).

Thanks again to anyone commenting. Thanks @1Lefty for liking all my ramblings!! Just that little alert every now and then really helped me.

Feel saner so far today.

 

[AvidFan]

Wow. After the fresh install with none of my stuff in - it is even worse. It takes 12 minutes to boot up and be "useable" but then apps take about 5 minutes to load, and can't run more than one app if I want it to even be barely useable (might be able to run Wordpad but that's it, Excel and Word together and it locks up. I've taken videos. Now I'm going to check my emails and attend to anything important, then I will write out (as I can't exactly print from the laptop it would take 5 hours to set up the driver) then take it to the shop. It's making me anxious what their response will be but I'm not going through all the crap of packing it up and sending it to HP. They replaced my watch when it broke so hopefully they will act like reasonable human beings!

 

[AvidFan]

I've managed to get eraser running to clear my data off the unused disk space. God knows how long this will take, if it seems like forever I will just get a big load of random files of some kind and just paste them onto the drive until it's full. Some stuff could still be recoverable but that should mostly do the job. I'm registered with GDPR people so have to be extremely careful what I'm doing with work data!

 

[AvidFan]

Gah, this is going to take forever. First I found Onedrive had helpfully downloaded all the files I already deleted. I didn't even know they'd gone to the cloud as I thought I'd disabled it. I hate those automatic sync/backup things - convenient maybe, but not when you're trying to keep track of sensitive data. Eraser is just doing nothing, not giving a percentage or time estimate at all. I'm downloading a 10GB file which I will copy and paste until the hard drive is full. I think it's the best I can do - it will overwrite most of the data, and a casual person would need to be pretty determined to get at anything then, most of the files were individually encrypted anyway. I need to get it back to the shop while I've got today off and in theory the shop will also be obliged to protect my data. I'd imagine they'd just flash it and re-image it anyway, unless they decide to throw it away. That's if they're helpful and don't bounce me back to the manufacturer, trying to sort it that way would be hell on earth. I could probably earn the money for a new laptop in the time it takes to deal with HP.

 

[AvidFan]

My 10gb file download failed at 8GB 😥 Trying again, the shop will be shut at this rate. Trying to stay calm.

 

[AvidFan]

My hard drive is exponentially getting overwritten. Copy a 10GB file and a 5GB file, paste, rename, paste them again. Then copy all 4 and paste in another folder, rename them all then paste again, paste all 8 then copy and paste them. Doing the trick quicker than eraser anyway, I think if I've filled all the hard drive space with random BIN files then deleted the bin files, all you're going to find on the hard drive later is bits of information which only a forensic recovery expert MIGHT be able to find. Given there have also been several new installs since I deleted the files, I think it's safe to say I've done what I can.

 

[AvidFan]

Hard drive nearly full. Couldn't paste the last 8 due to lack of disk space, so am just pasting enough to completely overwrite all the available space.