Computer May Be Dying

I think maybe my HP computer (purchased Feb 2012) may be dying. Over the last couple of days it will not shut down, and it seems to get hung up on websites (won't go forward or back). Had it debugged and tuned up a couple nights ago; no bugs and the clean up apparently went okay, but it still is acting peculiar. Today I couldn't get Fastlane (password program) to come online until I recycled the computer. So I think I may be looking for a new computer.

Not sure I want a Windows 8.1. Have heard better things about the soon-to-be-released Windows 10 (am using
Windows 7 now). Comments? Suggestions?

And can someone tell me how to transfer data to the new computer if the old one still works when I get the new one? I do not know if they can be directly connected to each other or not. Never had the opportunity to try before; old one was absolutely dead when I got the new one.

Thanks!

Sorry for your loss. If it has lasted since 2012, that's not so bad. I hear pretty good things about 8.1. Like any new software, I would not buy 10 until the first service pack is released.

Maybe try formatting the HD and start over, sometimes that fixes alot with Windows as when you install/remove programs not all bits and pieces get removed and then it jams things up, I ditched Windows many years ago and went with a Mac, I started my computer journey with DOS 5 using a 386 SX16 with 2MB of memory and a 80MB HD (Yes along while back) I actually miss the days of command line (you old guys know) anyway started with Windows 3.0 and watched DOS disappear over the years and problems come up so I figured it was time, now I am not saying that OS X is without issues but since I have Apple TV, iPhone etc... it all works together pretty well

There's not much reason to hook one computer to another in that way anymore. You could of course hook them both up to your router, enable drive sharing over the network on one and copy over everything you need. Or you could use an external drive or even a big flash drive to copy over your documents, depending on how much you have. You should really have a backup on an external drive or in a cloud space of anything important anyway!

If you back things up, a clean wipe of your hard drive and reinstall of the OS may solve your problems, as panther said.

Windows 8.1 is not bad once you set it up to boot to the desktop and not that terrible tablet-interface. I've been running the preview copies of Windows 10.1 though and it does improve things in a lot of areas. I haven't had any problems with it so far, and will be switching my main computer to it when it is released.

I hated 8 and only hated 8.1 slightly less. Thats when I finally took the plunge and went totally into Linux. No more windoze for me. I don't see why we should support a company that keeps its source code secret, so we cant modify or fix it. I don't see why its a good idea to pay for an operating system when there is a better one, for free. I don't see why we should put up with a company that basically blackmails and extorts PC vendors to include their software and exclude all others. I hate paying for windows every time I buy a computer. I hate the draconian and very inconvenient registration/activation scheme. I hate the massive security flaws that basically make an antivirus and firewall a necessity. I hate microsofts business practices and their products. They suck. Linux rocks.

Okay, but I understand many other folks don't want to jump into the deep water. So here's my take on the versions. Seems like every version since 3.1 has alternately sucked badly, or only sucked slightly. They alternate. 3.1, not too bad, cause it was easy to just jump right into DOS. 95? horrible. 98 = okayish. ME = horrible. XP = not too bad. Vista = Suck City. 7 = not bad at all. 8 = awful. 8.1 is really just a slight upgrade necessitated by the howls of outrage from loyal windows users who felt they got the supreme shafting of the universe. So I forecast 10, just on that basis, to not be too bad. But still it will lack the power and flexibility of Ubuntu 14.04 or most other modern Linux distributions.

So, if you just can't let go of the MS training wheels, definitely try to hang on until 10 is released. I think they will back away from the java-esque phone interface, maybe fix some of the gaping security flaws inherent in the default setup, and maybe streamline it a bit. Hopefully there will be better RAID support, and it will be easier for users to troubleshoot drivers and stuff. Maybe they will make it easier to dual boot with Linux, but probably not.

As for your data, I think Windows has a practical bundled data transfer and backup utility. See "Help" and search for "backup" and "transfer". Or you can simply manually copy all your personal files to an external hard drive, which you really should have anyway for keeping a full system backup.

BTW, ditch HP. IMHO, they suck royally. Their laptops are almost impossible to work on. Compare that with Dell... it took me all of 15 minutes to upgrade my hard drive to 2TB, for instance. They make the innards easier to get at. They are more dependable and better built. They have better service. Compaq arent too shabby, either. But I like my Dell. My last HP simply toasted the processor. Thats why it was truly my last HP. My last EVER HP. And this goes for desktops, too.

You don't need to buy a new PC just because you got a hiccup.

First, did you install anything just before this started to happen? If so, this may be the reason. Uninstall it, reboot and see what's what.
You could also have caught some kind of adware/bloatware/spyware/virus. In that case, download a trial of kaspersky or bitdefender and install it. Most probably they will take care of it.
Of course, instead of going through all that, I find it easier to just format the whole thing. It's easy and possibly quicker. The downside is that you'll have to backup all your data on C: first. That is done most easily with windows easy transfer. To backup specific programs (such as Fastlane), you'll need to search that program's options (or manual)to see if it has a backup routine. Many do.
If you need more info on the format, ask.

If the aforementioned don't work, it could be a hardware problem. It could be heat (not much likely though, unless the laptop is really bad). Another possibility could be the hdd or the ram kicking the bucket.

As for Windows, imho the list goes like this win 7<win 8.1 < win 10. Admittedly though, I have used win 10 only for a little while, when they were in preview. And win 8.1, while being better than 7, it failed horribly with the UI malarkey.

It took me a little while to get the hang of 8.1. Switching between the Metro UI and the traditional desktop still feels clunky and counter-intuitive. But the good news is that anyone with an 8.1 machine gets a free upgrade to 10 for a year after release, if I recall correctly.

When I got a new machine recently I just pulled the data I wanted to transfer onto my cloud storage and then copied what I wanted locally. It was seamless. There were some things that I was paranoid about putting in the cloud (e.g., financial documents), so I used a USB stick to transfer them.

What are you doing, Dave?

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do ...

Slash McCoy said:

I don't see why its a good idea to pay for an operating system when there is a better one, for free.

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While I appreciate the anti-MS sentiment, for some of us Linux just won't ever work. It's still about the software. I need Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign (and I wish I didn't, because I dislike Adobe more than just about any other software company at the moment thanks to their stupid subscription program), as well as Word and less common programs like Author-it. I'm not going to run these using a kludge like WINE or a virtual box, and there just aren't proper substitutes. There are open source Word substitutes of course, but for heavily formatted documents they seldom interpret things correctly.

Again, I wish there were Linux versions of this stuff.

You don't have to pay for Windows every time you get a computer if you buy the parts instead of the finished computer.

And yes, HP sucks.

AvariCe said:

You don't need to buy a new PC just because you got a hiccup.

First, did you install anything just before this started to happen? If so, this may be the reason. Uninstall it, reboot and see what's what.
You could also have caught some kind of adware/bloatware/spyware/virus. In that case, download a trial of kaspersky or bitdefender and install it. Most probably they will take care of it.
Of course, instead of going through all that, I find it easier to just format the whole thing. It's easy and possibly quicker. The downside is that you'll have to backup all your data on C: first. That is done most easily with windows easy transfer. To backup specific programs (such as Fastlane), you'll need to search that program's options (or manual)to see if it has a backup routine. Many do.
If you need more info on the format, ask.

If the aforementioned don't work, it could be a hardware problem. It could be heat (not much likely though, unless the laptop is really bad). Another possibility could be the hdd or the ram kicking the bucket.

As for Windows, imho the list goes like this win 7<win 8.1 < win 10. Admittedly though, I have used win 10 only for a little while, when they were in preview. And win 8.1, while being better than 7, it failed horribly with the UI malarkey.

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On the link to the easy transfer, it says you must log in as an administrator. I have never done that and have no idea how!

If you are the only user of your computer and you bought it new, you might already be logged in as the administrator
If you don't know, then maybe you are. Did you give it a try yet?

Help is your friend. Search Help for "log in as administrator".

Your HP is a desktop, or laptop?

You should get into the habit of keeping a reasonably current backup of your hard drive. This is really important.

I agree with Avarice, that it might not be a hardware issue at all, and a clean install of your OS and apps might fix what ails it. Do you have your windohs setup disk? Windohs is famous for needing the occasional clean reinstall.

Is your antivirus up to date? What are you using? Except for maybe the rather anemic and not very user customizable firewall, the Microsoft bundle called Microsoft Security Essentials actually works pretty well on a windoze computer, and it is free. You can have it update itself, a good idea if you don't know much about antivirus antimalware, etc. I used to like ZoneAlarm firewall, because it blocked traffic both in and out, but they have become very predatory and exploitive of their users. Too bad. I liked going online and watching all the pings hitting the firewall, back iny windows days.

john parker said:

On the link to the easy transfer, it says you must log in as an administrator. I have never done that and have no idea how!

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If you are the only user of the PC, most probably you are the administrator. You can check that on control panel -> user accounts.
It will describe your privileges under the account name.

If you are not, reboot the laptop. Enter safe mode, log in as the user "administrator" (most probably it won't need a password), go to control panel -> user accounts, choose your account, -> change account type -> administrator. Reboot normally and you're set.

I would try cloning/backing up the PC and imaging a new hard drive first, which is commonly the cause of issues people throw out a perfectly good computer for.

If you're using Windows 7 it has a disk image utility, or if you're not comfortable doing that (or have a proprietary build that is hard drive dependent) you could just back up your docs, load brand new OS on a bare drive then restore your data.

Just a suggestion versus laying out the cash for a new machine. Good luck!

A "broken" computer (i.e., having a hardware problem) would generally not affect just websites or just certain programs. You would be having major issues with everything.
The possible exception to this -- being the most of your problems seem to be internet related -- would be if you have a bad network interface card or wifi adapter. If you use wi-fi primarily, try using wired ethernet and see if the problems remain. Or vice versa if you normally use wired.)

I agree with those that say back up your data and reload. There should be a "Factory Restore" option for your computer that will put it back to the way it was "out of the box" back in 2012. Yes, you'll have to reload all of the software you installed yourself and it will need to do lots of windows updates, but it will likely solve the problem.

However, if you are set on getting a new PC (and sometimes we just want an excuse, right! ) I would wait until Windows 10 comes out. I have been running preview versions of Win10 since January on a 5-6 year old laptop and it runs fine. There were definitely bugs in the first few builds, but the most recent build -- the final one before public release -- seems just fine and should be pretty representative of what will be available at the end of the month.

The interface is much, much better than Windows 8 which I thought was a confusing hodgepodge of menus, tiles and fly-in menus that forced you to use two different interfaces depending on what program you were running. Win10 is much more logical -- it takes the best elements of Win7 and Win 8 and puts them together in a way that will be familiar to Win7 users, but with the best parts of the Win 8 experience.
I recommend it and will be using it myself at home. At work (I'm the IT Manager) I have no reservations about starting to roll it out as I upgrade PCs this summer.

Also, if you go the restore route and are unsure of doing it yourself, I would find a reputable computer store in the area (not Best Buy Geek Squad morons!) and describe to them whats going on. If they agree that a factory restore is the way to go, they can do it pretty quickly with no hassle for you other than not having your PC for a day or two. Places around me would charge about $100, and would ensure that your apps were loaded, data backed up/restored, and all updates, anti-virus and security was properly back in place.

Buy an Apple if you can. I've had my 17 inch laptop for 7 years and it works like the day I bought it. My story isn't a rare one either with Mac products.

Specific problems I have had is hanging up/freezing on some websites (cured by cntl-alt-delete or escape) and lately failure to shut-down normally (have had to physically turn off power). Since tune-up it is powering down okay, and now only occasionally freezing up. The freezing up part I have attributed to particularly "big" sites with lots of images/data, but that is only a guess on my part. Can't really attribute the problem to any new programs of note. Malwarebytes was the last thing I installed. I did remove Skype, largely because it took forever to close out and I never use it.

john parker said:

Specific problems I have had is hanging up/freezing on some websites (cured by cntl-alt-delete or escape) and lately failure to shut-down normally (have had to physically turn off power). Since tune-up it is powering down okay, and now only occasionally freezing up. The freezing up part I have attributed to particularly "big" sites with lots of images/data, but that is only a guess on my part. Can't really attribute the problem to any new programs of note. Malwarebytes was the last thing I installed. I did remove Skype, largely because it took forever to close out and I never use it.

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Hey, ya know what? Maybe try Firefox or some other open source browser for a few days and see what you think. I assume you are using the default Microsoft Internet Explorer? It could be a problem with a plug-in or something. Fiddle with your browser settings, too. What do you got to lose?

So, what do you use your computer for? If you're like 99% of the rest of us, email and web-browsing, right?
If so, you should consider a Chromebook - great value, mostly under $500, literally turns on and works right out of the box, and almost nothing can go wrong with them can't be solved in 5 minutes.

Go West Young Man said:

So, what do you use your computer for? If you're like 99% of the rest of us, email and web-browsing, right?
If so, you should consider a Chromebook - great value, mostly under $500, literally turns on and works right out of the box, and almost nothing can go wrong with them can't be solved in 5 minutes.

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Yes, web-browsing and email. Also keep my budget with Excel, do correspondence with Word, and keep photos. I don't game at all.