Laptop problem

[barry.hynd]

:cry:

Am hoping someone will take pity on me as i'm at my wits end. My Dell laptop just wont work. It seems to be running loads of different processes and it wont let me access the internet, the control panel or any of the drives. I've strt staring at it for the past five hours and I feel like crying.

I just dont seem to be able to do anything to change it and now i'm getting behind with the workload.

Please help!

[AHAEvents]

Sounds like the same problem a friend of mine had the other week, I managed to run all the usual stuff like S&D and Adaware but none of it worked, the only advice I could give them was to call somebody a bit more technical out or take it into PC World! Not much help I know!

[kyber]

My $0.02.

Personally, I expect any client version of Windows that is not locked down in a corporate environment but is used for a wide range of tasks and which is regularly connected to the interent and has stuff installed/uninstalled to have a shelf life of around 6 months at which point it is better to reinstall everything including Windows from scratch (keeping your data of course) rather than trying to battle with performance problems. Some people may experience a longer shelf life but the principle remains the same that the hassle of trying to sort Windows out and live with ad hoc problems and performance issues becomes greater than the time taken to start again.

I recommend therefore that you ensure that all of your data is backed up, that you have all of your installation disks, and that you start the installtion process. Should only take two to three hours (mostly looking after itself with the odd prompt to you for some information or a cd change) to get back to a very stable, fast, and clean Windows environment.

(Note some PCs, especially laptops, come with the installation files on a hidden part of the hard disk and may have special procedures for recovery/reinstallation.)

Stuart

[CG Effect]

My comp started taking ages to load and was always doing something in the background, control panel took ages to open. Adware, virus scan, defrag did not do anything for it your problem could be the kazaa program it also does this to a comp.
To cure mine I reformated my hard drive and reinstalled windows now it runs twice as fast.

[barry.hynd]

Hi Folks,

Many thanks for your posts. A few people have suggested reformatting hard drives and reinstalling operating system. For someone who isnt really that technical how do I go about doing this. When I tried to reinstall xp from the dell cd it said the system I had was more up to date and it therefore wouldnt install!

[RockLinks]

I suggest you take it in to a shop to have it checked out. It could be a number of different problems, ive known people with this problem before and they had to pay out about £200 to get it fixed because they kept reinstalling and reinstalling time and time again.

[Webstuff]

To re-install windows, you have to format first. Use a floppy boot disk to reboot the computer, and type "format c". Chances are though, you can speed up your comp without doing this. I'm not a user of WinXP, but you might be able to cure most of the problems by clicking on the windows start button, clicking "run", typing in "msconfig", goto the "Startup" tab of the box that appears, and un-check everything except "System tray", and "LoadPowerProfile" if they're there (You can 'safely' remove anything from this list, but not having seen your computer, I'm afraid I can't give you a more accurate list of safe processes).

[nemesis]

is this machine running windows xp?

if you like you can send the machine into us and we can take a look for you?


give me a shout on dave@nemesis-computers.com. we specialise in refurbishing and repairing dell laptops although this doesnt sound like a HW issue

[RockLinks]

Dell Lap Tops! Mine keeps screwing up now and again i may need to speak to you at some point :D

[nemesis]

rocklinks

feel free to give me a shout.

I would need to know the model number of it and a brief rundown of the problems

[epiphany]

Barry just use the system restore funtion :)

start > programmes >accessories > system toools > system restore.

Pick a date before you started having problems and away you go :)

[barry.hynd]

Hi Folks,

I may have solved the problem. I think I have something suspect in my profile so i've deleted it and configured a new one. I've got Kapersky giving it a final check over so fingers crossed!