Need some 'puter help....

tonyb

Ok you computer whiz kids, I need some help here. My computer, an HK running windows 7 desk top is acting up. Won't let me click on the lower tool bar on the home screen and certain other icons. I can get the control panel to pop up but can't click on anything in it, everything just freezes.

Yeah, did a restore to earliest points of normal use, no good. Memory has more than ample room. Is my hard drive just toast ? My Norton security is fine and can't find any affected programs as with any of the other troubleshooters from HK or Microsoft. Driving me nuts, my mouse wheel won't work.....and yes, tried a different mouse. Any suggestions ? Toss it out the window.....go buy another one or is there something I can try aside from a complete restore to factory specs which means I have a lot of work to do afterwards.

tonyb

Anyone ?? Don't want to click off as getting Explorer to pop up takes some time and effort.

Moose68Bash

Tony,

Bummer.

I'm neither whiz kid nor Windows expert. However, in my days of using Windows (i'm now exclusively Mac) short of a hard reset, I used to simply log off everything, close all apps, and shutdown the computer -- I mean really poser off, not just restart. This would almost always get me going again, but, as I said i'm no expert.

Big question: Do you have a recent back-up of your hard drive -- in case the computer will not boot after you power it down?

tonyb

It always boots up, and yeah......completely turned off doesn't do jack either. This 'puter is just really used for internet surfing and music storage, that's about it. No fancy gizmo's added or weird internet sites to catch a disease. The wifi works fine, the Sonos works fine, but the issue is with the startup on the home page. Everything starts up, I can click on Icons on the left side but once they pop up I can't click on anything else. The bottom tool bar that has your Icons for Explorer, Windows .....won't let me click on those either. I can hit the windows button on the keyboard.....get the programs to all pop up, but can't click on anything or use the directional keys on the keyboard.

Moose68Bash

Sorry I can't help more, but good luck.

Surely somebody on the Forum can advise.

tonyb

Yeah well.....I'm leaning towards "out the window" as my only option.

Jimbo18

Wonder if Win10 upgrade has anything to do with it? I have seen several stories about "forced" upgrades by Microsoft that didn't load correctly.

Erik Tracy

Tony,
If it's any consolation, I've experienced pointing device seizures as well, and I've read of others that go thru the same thing from time to time. I don't think there is a definitive explanation or fix. Rebooting sometimes helps, sometimes it doesn't.

Maybe there is a service or process running that consumes all resources - I haven't been able to isolate it.

And it happens randomly...haven't had this happen for awhile...(knock on wood).

Paradoxex

If you have a Windows key, hold it and "R."

That will bring up the Run window. Type in "chkdsk" which will check your hard drive. If you get that to run, it will at least begin the troubleshooting for you. Also, if you restart and hold F8 before windows loads, I believe, you can access a menu that allows you to check Windows, and offers a suite of other troubleshooting tools.

Figuring out computer issues is difficult without having remote access or being there, but that may help get started.

Jimbo18

If it comes down to "out the window" why not try the Win10 upgrade? It might fix the issue and if not, you haven't lost anything.

tonyb

Tried all suggestions to no avail so far. Ram is at 38% available. When I type in "chkdsk" and hit enter, it just disappears. Holding down f8 at startup....pops up for a split second and disappears also. Any troubleshooter I try and use freezes the 'puter.

mrbiron

Sounds like a harddrive is bogged down with to many pictures of meatballs...

WTH is an HK computer?

Do you regularly perform maintenance on your PC? Defrag (if mechanical drive), clear browsing history, virus scan, clear registry errors, etc...?

gmcman

Click the start or windows tab and view your drives, right click on the C; drive and select properties...how much free space do you have? IF you have less than 1 gig..do you have any pics, videos, or music that you want to save from your hard drive? If so, get a big SD card and go into safe mode and transfer all your files you want to save.

This is just to back up any files you want to keep in case things go south.

Is this a laptop, desktop?

gmcman

There's a possibility you may have conflicting AV programs running, not sure...I never liked Norton but that's just me.

WagnerRC

mrbiron wrote: »

Sounds like a harddrive is bogged down with to many pictures of meatballs...

WTH is an HK computer?

Do you regularly perform maintenance on your PC? Defrag (if mechanical drive), clear browsing history, virus scan, clear registry errors, etc...?

http://www.hkcomputers.com/


never heard of them either

gce

Backup all your music and stuff and do a reinstall. Don't remember how to do it with 7 but I've done it with 10 when having a problem and all was fixed. With windows 10 you don't have to backup your files (don't know about 7) but you have to reinstall your programs.

Its a lot of work but your computer will thank you.

polk500

Hello Tony,

What I would suggest is to upgrade your Harddrive to a Solid State Drive (SSD) I have done two of mine an apple MacBook pro 2,011 (with the Samsung 500 gig SSD $200.00 Amazon) and an older HP notebook 6,550 laptop with a Crucial 126 gig SSD $84.00 Amazon) these laptops are lightning fast now loads in seconds its unf#@$ing believable the improvement it made its better then new. Easy to do just what a couple of YouTube how to Videos.

And you may have a choice to increase the ram some computers will allow you to double or even triple the ram, a quick internet search on your makes and model will tell you, it is cheap like borsch and super easy to replace.

Also done a friend’s HP for her installed the Samsung Pro 500 Gigs SSD she is into photo editing, and she told on the weekend the upgrade have cut down the time it takes to edit by 90%.

Cheers
Roger

Kurt300

Tony,

Before you reinstall, suggest you run the free edition of super anti spyware. Www.superantispyware.com. Their tag line of "removes ALL the spyware, NOT just the easy ones" is spot on. I have a lifetime subscription to augment my Panda security software. Norton and McAfee suck, nowadays.

mrbigbluelight

[quote="mrbiron;2248351WTH is an HK computer? [/quote]

It's a "Hillary Klinton" computer. They're known to erase files randomly.

....okay, I'm sorry. I'll shut up for now.

Kurt300

Kurt300 wrote: »

Tony,

Before you reinstall, suggest you run the free edition of super anti spyware. Www.superantispyware.com. Their tag line of "removes ALL the spyware, NOT just the easy ones" is spot on. I have a lifetime subscription to augment my Panda security software. Norton and McAfee suck, nowadays.

I'll give you odds that it will find hundreds of instances of malware that Norton missed.

nguyendot

If you want and can access the internet, i can take a look... pm me

mrbigbluelight

Just so that I can say, legally, that I was slightly helpful, get Malwarbytes Chameleon.
After installing, it'll catch a lot of 'junk' on reboot/startup that others won't.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/chameleon/

I even put in a link. I think the Court should take that into consideration during sentencing.

P.S. my guess would be a hard drive with some clusters that are getting funky.

Nightfall

...or you could switch to Linux for FREE and never worry about viruses or spyware again.

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop

westmassguy

Can you boot into "safe mode"? Reboot the machine. After POST, begin tapping the F8 key, not holding it down. You get a screen that asks you if you want safe mode, safe mode with networking etc. Choose either one, and see if you can get into windows.

txcoastal1

Safe mode is also the best when running anti spyware software

pitdogg2

How about control alt delete to see just what is running in the background start shutting them down if need be.

I agree both Norton and mcAffe both became bloated yrs back. Norton also can be a bear to remove completely unless they have changed. It used to leave a bunch of ghost fills behind.

tonyb

I love you guys, but you keep missing that your suggestions are obsolete since I can't click on anything and most keyboard functions were dead.

Now, we do have a winner though. Whoever said try upgrading to windows 10......ding ding. All known issues disappeared. Funny....all the issues happened with windows updates, but when I restored back before those updates the issues remained. Just getting windows 10 to update was a choir, took many hours and constant rebooting . In any event, the computer seems to be running fine at the moment with 10.....but we'll see. Ken's suggestion of the sledge hammer is still at the top of my list. Thanks guys for the suggestions....

Moose68Bash

@tonyb,

Glad you got it going again.

After you lay into it with the 16# sledge hammer, I suggest you get a Mac!

Jimbo18

Glad my "last resort" suggestion worked for you Tony. Could have been something in the registry corrupted and the new OS fixed it.

mrbiron

I doubt it. Knowing Microsoft, their last update had an executable built in to break paths and force a Windows 10 upgrade.

tonyb

mrbiron wrote: »

I doubt it. Knowing Microsoft, their last update had an executable built in to break paths and force a Windows 10 upgrade.

That's what I was thinking, but even this 10 is a bit buggy. I'm not an apple fan boy but next time I may just go down that road for the sake of less aggravation.