Laptop dying?

[Rokabur]

Think my laptop may be dying but if it is I won't have the money to buy any kind of decent gaming rig for atleast 1-2 years T_T. Within the past week Windows Explorer has decided to stop working completely. Every time I try to open a folder I get the window that Windows Explorer has stopped working. Also Windows will no longer shutdown or restart through the start button. I have to hold down the power button to turn my laptop off. I've searched the web on either problem but certain recommended solutions can't be done. One way to try and fix shutdown problem is to go through the control panel and into power options. Problem is using the control panel requires Windows Explorer to be working correctly. Another way would require the OS disc and my DVD-ROM but that is filled with dust or whatever and always insists the drive empty even after I put a disc in it. Searching multiple sites I've tried every solution my laptop would allow but still can't use Windows Explorer or turn my laptop off normally.

[Emberheart]

Probably not a dying laptop, they tend to make noise, randomly shut down with a pop or flash, not start up at all, make a great heat source for in the winter (not per se in that order). Even if it was cluttered with dust it'd just shut down instantly 9 in 10 times, to prevent heat damage, but it would be unlikely to produce windows errors. Sounds to me like software, probably viral. They can even cause windows to fail at detecting drives, because that keeps you from running rescue programs from DVD/CD. If lucky, it's just a windows update that went awry. In my opinion though, if windows is beyond a few errors that you can ignore, or acts broken to that extent, the best option is:

 

1) Format C:

2) Make a biiiig pot of coffee.

3) Clear up your weekend to reinstall everything that's on the PC.

4) Go through the 5 stages of grief for losing all your files, but have a clean working PC.

5) In the future back-up all your saves, documents and so in case the PC becomes compromised.

6) If the same errors occur, pray that the Master Boot Record isn't compromised also.

 

Ofcourse you could go to all the forums that specialize in corrupt systems and virus removal, which may take weeks if people don't reply fast to each question. You could still back-up your saves and other files, but if the PC is compromised it always leaves me with the uneasy feeling that something malicious may tag along and start the disaster all over. It's like finding a mouldy food in the fridge, you won't risk keeping the same food that still looks okay as it may be just as mouldy on the inside and turn the fresh bad too, so you throw it all out and thoroughly clean the fridge.

 

You could be lucky, it might be a foul update or patch, but today's virusses actually sabotage your virus scanners so they remain undetected. Try to find an online PC or anti-virus helpdesk forum otherwise. But is it worth the effort and time to fix your data, while it may inherently remain broken, causing silent errors. Maybe you're lucky and it's just a small issue only, or quite possibly not. To me, it's too much of a textbook example of a trojan that breaks your windows, keeps you from easily fixing and restoring your install by shutting down the CD drive and causes a lot of errors, I see these exact symptoms just way too often on people's PC.

 

Good luck!

[Rayblue]

Also use CClean. Must be that you haven't done any proper maintenance -- PCs, especially laptops or netbooks, aren't like mobile devices.

[Rokabur]

Probably not a dying laptop, they tend to make noise, randomly shut down with a pop or flash, not start up at all, make a great heat source for in the winter (not per se in that order). Even if it was cluttered with dust it'd just shut down instantly 9 in 10 times, to prevent heat damage, but it would be unlikely to produce windows errors. Sounds to me like software, probably viral. They can even cause windows to fail at detecting drives, because that keeps you from running rescue programs from DVD/CD. If lucky, it's just a windows update that went awry. In my opinion though, if windows is beyond a few errors that you can ignore, or acts broken to that extent, the best option is:

 

1) Format C:

2) Make a biiiig pot of coffee.

3) Clear up your weekend to reinstall everything that's on the PC.

4) Go through the 5 stages of grief for losing all your files, but have a clean working PC.

5) In the future back-up all your saves, documents and so in case the PC becomes compromised.

6) If the same errors occur, pray that the Master Boot Record isn't compromised also.

 

Ofcourse you could go to all the forums that specialize in corrupt systems and virus removal, which may take weeks if people don't reply fast to each question. You could still back-up your saves and other files, but if the PC is compromised it always leaves me with the uneasy feeling that something malicious may tag along and start the disaster all over. It's like finding a mouldy food in the fridge, you won't risk keeping the same food that still looks okay as it may be just as mouldy on the inside and turn the fresh bad too, so you throw it all out and thoroughly clean the fridge.

 

You could be lucky, it might be a foul update or patch, but today's virusses actually sabotage your virus scanners so they remain undetected. Try to find an online PC or anti-virus helpdesk forum otherwise. But is it worth the effort and time to fix your data, while it may inherently remain broken, causing silent errors. Maybe you're lucky and it's just a small issue only, or quite possibly not. To me, it's too much of a textbook example of a trojan that breaks your windows, keeps you from easily fixing and restoring your install by shutting down the CD drive and causes a lot of errors, I see these exact symptoms just way too often on people's PC.

 

Good luck!

 

My DVD-ROM has refused to detect any discs in the drive for atleast 2 years now but I usually forget about it since i don't use it much. No way to do a clean install til i can somehow manage to clean my disc drive and somehow find the OS disc that always manages to vanish. Takes about 6.5 hours to do a full scan with Malwarebytes. Most of my stuff is all kept on an external drive, just no backups of anything.

[Emberheart]

 

Probably not a dying laptop, they tend to make noise, randomly shut down with a pop or flash, not start up at all, make a great heat source for in the winter (not per se in that order). Even if it was cluttered with dust it'd just shut down instantly 9 in 10 times, to prevent heat damage, but it would be unlikely to produce windows errors. Sounds to me like software, probably viral. They can even cause windows to fail at detecting drives, because that keeps you from running rescue programs from DVD/CD. If lucky, it's just a windows update that went awry. In my opinion though, if windows is beyond a few errors that you can ignore, or acts broken to that extent, the best option is:

 

1) Format C:

2) Make a biiiig pot of coffee.

3) Clear up your weekend to reinstall everything that's on the PC.

4) Go through the 5 stages of grief for losing all your files, but have a clean working PC.

5) In the future back-up all your saves, documents and so in case the PC becomes compromised.

6) If the same errors occur, pray that the Master Boot Record isn't compromised also.

 

Ofcourse you could go to all the forums that specialize in corrupt systems and virus removal, which may take weeks if people don't reply fast to each question. You could still back-up your saves and other files, but if the PC is compromised it always leaves me with the uneasy feeling that something malicious may tag along and start the disaster all over. It's like finding a mouldy food in the fridge, you won't risk keeping the same food that still looks okay as it may be just as mouldy on the inside and turn the fresh bad too, so you throw it all out and thoroughly clean the fridge.

 

You could be lucky, it might be a foul update or patch, but today's virusses actually sabotage your virus scanners so they remain undetected. Try to find an online PC or anti-virus helpdesk forum otherwise. But is it worth the effort and time to fix your data, while it may inherently remain broken, causing silent errors. Maybe you're lucky and it's just a small issue only, or quite possibly not. To me, it's too much of a textbook example of a trojan that breaks your windows, keeps you from easily fixing and restoring your install by shutting down the CD drive and causes a lot of errors, I see these exact symptoms just way too often on people's PC.

 

Good luck!

 

My DVD-ROM has refused to detect any discs in the drive for atleast 2 years now but I usually forget about it since i don't use it much. No way to do a clean install til i can somehow manage to clean my disc drive and somehow find the OS disc that always manages to vanish. Takes about 6.5 hours to do a full scan with Malwarebytes. Most of my stuff is all kept on an external drive, just no backups of anything.

 

 

The problem is, many virusses nowadays make Malwarebytes and other programs say "this PC is clean" while it isn't. You may want to try in safe mode and see if there's other recommended programs also to check for any infection. I'd be careful either way.

[Rokabur]

 

 

Probably not a dying laptop, they tend to make noise, randomly shut down with a pop or flash, not start up at all, make a great heat source for in the winter (not per se in that order). Even if it was cluttered with dust it'd just shut down instantly 9 in 10 times, to prevent heat damage, but it would be unlikely to produce windows errors. Sounds to me like software, probably viral. They can even cause windows to fail at detecting drives, because that keeps you from running rescue programs from DVD/CD. If lucky, it's just a windows update that went awry. In my opinion though, if windows is beyond a few errors that you can ignore, or acts broken to that extent, the best option is:

 

1) Format C:

2) Make a biiiig pot of coffee.

3) Clear up your weekend to reinstall everything that's on the PC.

4) Go through the 5 stages of grief for losing all your files, but have a clean working PC.

5) In the future back-up all your saves, documents and so in case the PC becomes compromised.

6) If the same errors occur, pray that the Master Boot Record isn't compromised also.

 

Ofcourse you could go to all the forums that specialize in corrupt systems and virus removal, which may take weeks if people don't reply fast to each question. You could still back-up your saves and other files, but if the PC is compromised it always leaves me with the uneasy feeling that something malicious may tag along and start the disaster all over. It's like finding a mouldy food in the fridge, you won't risk keeping the same food that still looks okay as it may be just as mouldy on the inside and turn the fresh bad too, so you throw it all out and thoroughly clean the fridge.

 

You could be lucky, it might be a foul update or patch, but today's virusses actually sabotage your virus scanners so they remain undetected. Try to find an online PC or anti-virus helpdesk forum otherwise. But is it worth the effort and time to fix your data, while it may inherently remain broken, causing silent errors. Maybe you're lucky and it's just a small issue only, or quite possibly not. To me, it's too much of a textbook example of a trojan that breaks your windows, keeps you from easily fixing and restoring your install by shutting down the CD drive and causes a lot of errors, I see these exact symptoms just way too often on people's PC.

 

Good luck!

 

My DVD-ROM has refused to detect any discs in the drive for atleast 2 years now but I usually forget about it since i don't use it much. No way to do a clean install til i can somehow manage to clean my disc drive and somehow find the OS disc that always manages to vanish. Takes about 6.5 hours to do a full scan with Malwarebytes. Most of my stuff is all kept on an external drive, just no backups of anything.

 

 

The problem is, many virusses nowadays make Malwarebytes and other programs say "this PC is clean" while it isn't. You may want to try in safe mode and see if there's other recommended programs also to check for any infection. I'd be careful either way.

 

 

This is exactly what I need to happen to me. Just 2 months ago my laptop got infected by the Money Pak FBI ransomware virus. I'd try a System Restor but that never worked the entire time I've had my laptop. As for keeping a backup of everything, I'd have to delete most of the stuff I have stored on my external HDD and storing the backup online would just eat up all my bandwidth since it would take about a month to do a complete backup with my suck speed.

[gvman3670]

Kill it with fire!

 

Wipe it. Start over.

[Guest endgameaddiction]

Need to maintain your laptop/pc in tip top shape all the time. I run advanced system care at least 3 times a week. need to defrag and disk cleaup every often too. If you don't you will suffer major problems in the long run. Fix registry errors. I run about 10 programs to make sure it's clean. Also keep your drivers up to date. IObit has some really good programs for this. And Malewarebytes is a good one too. I also run Microsoft Security Essentials.

[Kaldor Draigo]

Kill it with fire!

 

Wipe it. Start over.

 

yes killing things with fire always helps XD

[Rokabur]

Need to maintain your laptop/pc in tip top shape all the time. I run advanced system care at least 3 times a week. need to defrag and disk cleaup every often too. If you don't you will suffer major problems in the long run. Fix registry errors. I run about 10 programs to make sure it's clean. Also keep your drivers up to date. IObit has some really good programs for this. And Malewarebytes is a good one too. I also run Microsoft Security Essentials.

 

I've had this laptop about 6-7 years now. Only major problems i've ever had was needing to replace the motherboard once. replace one of the RAM sticks a few times, no major viruses except for that ransomware 2 months back. I only ever had any real problems with Windows Explorer once when i tried to use Secunia PSI to keep my programs updated cause Windows Explorer didn't like the program. Not sure if I ever had any problems with Windows refusing to shutdown and restart.

[Emberheart]

 

Need to maintain your laptop/pc in tip top shape all the time. I run advanced system care at least 3 times a week. need to defrag and disk cleaup every often too. If you don't you will suffer major problems in the long run. Fix registry errors. I run about 10 programs to make sure it's clean. Also keep your drivers up to date. IObit has some really good programs for this. And Malewarebytes is a good one too. I also run Microsoft Security Essentials.

 

I've had this laptop about 6-7 years now. Only major problems i've ever had was needing to replace the motherboard once. replace one of the RAM sticks a few times, no major viruses except for that ransomware 2 months back. I only ever had any real problems with Windows Explorer once when i tried to use Secunia PSI to keep my programs updated cause Windows Explorer didn't like the program. Not sure if I ever had any problems with Windows refusing to shutdown and restart.

 

 

Only because that ransomware look gone, doesn't mean it is gone, or that the deeper damage and alterations it made are still running their course. But I think those who know a fair share about it have said their thing and you can do with it what you want. But denying our diagnosis based on typical symptoms we see daily won't make the problems go away. And a compromised PC becomes really screwed once the *Master Boot Record gets infected. I'd wipe it and carefully back up some save games if you must. When a cancer patient looks for the opinion of ten different doctors until one finally says he's healthy, he isn't suddenly cancer free.

 

* the Master Boot Record (MBR) is the very basic data that always remains, even when you wipe a PC really clean, to make it possible to do simple things like reinstalling your PC. An infected MBR is like Herpes, even if you wipe all the symptoms away, it infects itself constantly and the problems re-occur. A vulnerable PC can eventually have its MBR infected, and it's very hard to clean the MBR up, so hard that some techies would rather replace components and start fresh.

[Rokabur]

 

 

Need to maintain your laptop/pc in tip top shape all the time. I run advanced system care at least 3 times a week. need to defrag and disk cleaup every often too. If you don't you will suffer major problems in the long run. Fix registry errors. I run about 10 programs to make sure it's clean. Also keep your drivers up to date. IObit has some really good programs for this. And Malewarebytes is a good one too. I also run Microsoft Security Essentials.

 

I've had this laptop about 6-7 years now. Only major problems i've ever had was needing to replace the motherboard once. replace one of the RAM sticks a few times, no major viruses except for that ransomware 2 months back. I only ever had any real problems with Windows Explorer once when i tried to use Secunia PSI to keep my programs updated cause Windows Explorer didn't like the program. Not sure if I ever had any problems with Windows refusing to shutdown and restart.

 

 

Only because that ransomware look gone, doesn't mean it is gone, or that the deeper damage and alterations it made are still running their course. But I think those who know a fair share about it have said their thing and you can do with it what you want. But denying our diagnosis based on typical symptoms we see daily won't make the problems go away. And a compromised PC becomes really screwed once the *Master Boot Record gets infected. I'd wipe it and carefully back up some save games if you must. When a cancer patient looks for the opinion of ten different doctors until one finally says he's healthy, he isn't suddenly cancer free.

 

* the Master Boot Record (MBR) is the very basic data that always remains, even when you wipe a PC really clean, to make it possible to do simple things like reinstalling your PC. An infected MBR is like Herpes, even if you wipe all the symptoms away, it infects itself constantly and the problems re-occur. A vulnerable PC can eventually have its MBR infected, and it's very hard to clean the MBR up, so hard that some techies would rather replace components and start fresh.

 

 

I'm only exploring my other options before I consider a clean install (if cleaning out my DVD-ROM will let me actually use it again). Also like I said if I wanted/needed to get another pc, it'd be 18-24 months before I had the money to buy the one I want. I somehow managed to fix the problem with Windows not turning off or restarting. Now I'm just trying to find what's causing Windows Explorer to crash every time I try to use it. I know it can't be any new software since I haven't downloaded any new programs except a few free ones to scan for any viruses. And that wasn't til after it started crashing.

[gvman3670]

You do have a system restore partition, don't you? You could wipe that sucker without a disc. I could wipe this laptop and reinstall W7 right now even if I removed the DVDRW drive. You should be able to as well. Of course, I'd waste a day on updates, but it shouldn't require a disc.

[Rokabur]

You do have a system restore partition, don't you? You could wipe that sucker without a disc. I could wipe this laptop and reinstall W7 right now even if I removed the DVDRW drive. You should be able to as well. Of course, I'd waste a day on updates, but it shouldn't require a disc.

 

Been a while but have tried everything. I'm completely, royally fucked and screwed over. I can't access or use the Recovery parition. Apparently if the original parition DELL puts in is removed in any way (like an OS reinstall), thats it. Even if you re-add the recovery parition yourself it can't be accessed in anyway. Can't use my DVD-RW and can't use the recovery parition. Now I have to hope my PC doesn't get any worse for next 18 to 24 months. In addition to Windows Explorer crashing if I try to open a folder (I use CubicExplorer right now) and Windows not shutting down or restarting half the time, now when I'm browsing the web my browser decides to fuck itself (not all the time though. The pages won't respond and neither will the browser. I have to restart my laptop to continue browsing.