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Post by bobh on Jun 1, 2020 10:19:06 GMT
Mods - feel free to delete this post if it's not bikey enough.
I have a relatively new (2-years or so) HP desktop, which is my workhorse, since I prefer a proper keyboard and a large screen.
A couple of days ago it refused to start up - blank screen, though you could hear the hard disc chuntering occasionally. Eventually, by pressing F2 as I restarted it, I was presented with a diagnostics screen. Initial runs using the quick diagnostics didn't indicater any issues, so eventually I took the bull by the horns and ran the full versions - which took several hours. Again, it passed all those OK - and then when I exited the diagnostics screen it booted up as if nothing had happened.
So I gave it a Basil Fawlty-style ticking-off, and told it to behave in future, and so far it has done so. And obviously I've done a full back-up onto a separate disc drive.
Any thoughts on what might have gone wrong? And on the likelihood of it recurring - I have better things to do with what remains of my life than sitting in font of a screen watching the equivalent of paint drying.
I should add that, prior to that it had given no indication of malfunctioning, although since I installed Malwarebytes a month or so back, at the behest of the bank, it has been a bit slower to boot up and run certain tasks, but it seems that's normal.
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Post by El Fuego on Jun 1, 2020 14:05:56 GMT
Has the PC been knocked at any time? These faults are often caused by a component becoming slightly dislodged from the motherboard. Alternatively it could either be a connection to the HDD, or the HDD itself is on the edge.
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Post by bobh on Jun 1, 2020 20:55:23 GMT
Has the PC been knocked at any time? These faults are often caused by a component becoming slightly dislodged from the motherboard. Alternatively it could either be a connection to the HDD, or the HDD itself is on the edge. Thanks for the advice, but no, it just sits quietly on the desk. But if it hadn't decided to come back to life, the next step would have been to get inside and check the connections. I hope it's not the HDD, though now I'e got an up-to-date backup that's less of a worry.
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Post by soggybiker on Jun 2, 2020 11:40:01 GMT
It sounds like a bad sense at start up and it was likely cleared by the shutting it down and restarting it. I would suggest making a boot disk on a pen drive and enabling boot from USB in bios in case it gets worse and refuses to boot. BTW HP have not made anything in the retail chain since 2011 like Dell and Apple and so many more it all comes out of a 250 acre factory run by Foxconn in China.
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Post by bobh on Jun 3, 2020 22:43:54 GMT
Thanks for that. I'll make myself a boot stick.
Though to be honest, having just converted my laptop and an older netbook to Linux Mint, which I'm very happy with, I might just go that route if it happens again. I've still got the stick for that. I'm already using Firefox and Libre Office on this Windows desktop, so it's much the same environment. The only downside is that I'm not a big fan of Thunderbird as an email client, but I'm sure there are other ones out there if I cared to look.
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Post by El Fuego on Jun 4, 2020 13:06:43 GMT
DahDit will be overjoyed at your response.
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