m860tu boot up problems

makes a change me asking for advise but its my turn this time so here goes

m860tu will be 4 years old in september. been a brilliant lappy and its already on the cards to get a new clevo soon (maybe sooner than expected if you cant help with this).

new wd scorpio black hard drive installed 7 weeks ago and everything fine since then.
last night was running fine and shut down as normal except for a windows update finishing to install.

this morning its a different story.
so far had to do 6 hard turn offs.
booting first brought up finger scanner log in but page was frozen. mouse still moved. hard turn off.
reboot into safe mode and loads everything but no shortcuts worked and just freezes screen. hard turn off.
booted again windows loading blue circle spinning and then stops with black screen. reboot.
this time manages to load and let me log in with finger. no sound and no internet. no shortcuts worked. ctrl alt delete took ages to load but then just froze on that screen. hard turn off.
booted again. loads all desktops. sound working but no internet connection. popup box sidebar failed to load. clicking restart gadgets does nothing except blue loading circle spinning for at least 5 minutes and then it froze.
so we are upto date.
the lappy hasnt been moved at all and the only thing different i remember is as i shut down last night there was a windows update finishing loading as it logged out.

so, any ideas.
is this a dodgy windows update that has buggered up my system. dont think it would be the hard drive as it new.

your thoughts would be appreciated
thanks
jim

 

I have no idea what's wrong with your laptop.
Mine also has a similar strange issue: it sometimes freezes a few minutes after logging in to Windows. When it freezes, the CPU fans start to throttle up until they reach maximum speed. I've noticed this always happens if I had the laptop on battery before, but it also happens if the laptop hasn't been moved from its spot for days.

However I had this issue since last summer, it also happened after a Windows update but I have never been able to get rid of it, even after full system format.

I have tried all sort of possible solutions, but I have been unable to pin-point the problem or fix it.
I hope Windows 8 will fix it.

Anyway, my point is... there are issues like these and I have no idea how to help you .

 

Hi Blacky
thanks for the (not so much) help
ive just finally managed to get into safe mode and the start button actually works but whatever i click on just gets the blue loading circle and nothing else.
after 5 minutes the circle stops. ive managed to get to system restore but it says there are no saved store points even though this hard drive has been in use for 7 weeks.
trying to close down normally this time and its stuck on the shutting down page with the blue circle spinning away.

time to try again
thanks

edit.
last attempt took almost 10 minutes to load and everything looks good. but looks are deceiving. internet connected and everything looks as normal but going to control panel took almost 1 minute to open. then im still waiting for backup and restore page to load page.that took 2 minutes to open.
clicked on system restore and still waiting.4 minutes and counting.

edit edit.
oh great, finally loads and says no restore points have been created on this computer.

 

Maybe you have a virus... your symptoms seem similar to those of a virus.
You should also check your HDD health.

 

just running a scan now but never had a virus on this machine so dont think its that.
hard drive scan will be next even though its a new drive.
all i want to do is play mw3 new maps but no chance of that now.

 

No time for gaming now...your laptop is in agony, you have to be near it in these difficult moments and do everything in your power to help it pull through. I know it's hard, but I'm sure you will manage.

 

after 2 hours scan was still going but the scanned bar was still at 0 even though it had scanned 200gb
another strange thing was the HD temperature was still at 47c which is unusual as it always goes up during scan.
then tried to open hard disc sentinal to do a drive scan and that just froze.
i give up. goin for a kip now.

tried something different.
tried safemode with networking this time and everything loads at normal speed and software and programs open as normal.
now why would this work but normal safemode was freezing up.
just running a virus scan but quick scan doesnt move but time clock does. full system scan is running now so will take about 2 hours.
im determined to get to the bottom of this

it didnt last long.
gave up the scan when it seemed to stop after 30gb even though clock timer was still running.
tried malwarebytes and blue loading circle started again without it loading.
enough tonight.

 

bump.

no advice from anyone else then

 

Hmmm, wait... so you used a bootable CD to scan your HDD and didn't work?

 

nope im using hard disc sentinel pro
as the drive was in use it said it couldnt do the scan.

just done a full surface scan and that passed with no bad sectors.
now doing a random seek read test. that passed as well. will post screenshots when i can get them onto this other computer.

its a weird one.
its taking upto 5 minutes to boot up but i can actually do tests on it now but it can take 3 or 4 minutes to load software when 2 days ago it would load in 3 seconds.
its now looking like its not the hard drive.

also any idea why my system restore would not have any store points in the last 7 weeks. ive done virus scans and also had various windows updated that loaded successful which in the past with old hard drive would save these.
also if its turned off how do i turn it on?

edit:
surfing websites is working as normal now with no slow ups.
malwarebytes took 3 minutes to open and stopped after 10 seconds.
3dmark06 took same time to load but just wont run with error Idirect3Ddevic9 resent failed.device lost

now trying another avast pro scan

avast was running even though it showed it had scanned 75000 files there was no % in the completion bar. the laptop then rebooted off and on again and now its black screen instead of going to screen saver.
going to try memtest next as long as i can get it to load

 

Your symptom looks more like a back door trojan or a boot sector virus. Usual antivirus is unlikely to help. I reckon you need help from a malware expert. If such help is not available on this forum, you need to raise a ticket from a malware expert forum that would offer help from start to finish. I imagine it is worth trying that. Try running MBAM first.

 

you need to use avast rescue disk... that one will surely work.

 

Have you reseated everything to make sure its not thermal creep making something loose?

 

thanks for the reply guys.
knakered my back at the moment so cant sit in front of comp for too long but will check out all your advice when i get a chance
thanks

edit
im going to reinstall windows vista again. think this would be the easiest option.

 

problem sorted sine re install of windows vista. looks like it was a dodgy windows update that caused it and not a virus.
thanks for all the advice.

edit.
i spoke too soon.
just loaded tune up utilitys 2012 and done a disk scan and it froze. black screened.
hard off and reboot and it now wont go past login without blue screen. ohh joy, back to square one.

at least this is different from what was happening for last few days.
trying a windows repair and if no joy a reinstall again without loading tune up. it used to work fine for last 4 years with tune up and still works fine on my old lappy.
another strange one.

 

Sorry to hear your problems.

I am not sure if a reinstall (without reformatting) would have helped in the case of a boot sector virus/malware.

If you think it is not a virus, another choice is reformatting the disk before re-installing windows or better still, delete the primary partition, recreate a new partition and reinstall the OS. Hope you have all backups.

If this fixes the issue, the risks are backed up files having infections.

BTW, did you run a memtest (at least 7 pass) and check for hard disk errors?

 

didnt get round to memtest but harddrive scans all passed including sector and surface scan.
strange thing was it was working fine for last day with no problems. copied game files across and slowly started loading software. full avast and malwarebytes found nothing.

windows recovery found nothing but after a reboot at least it stopped bsod every time. now it boots past windows scroll bar but then just black screens with mouse pointer still moving.

another reinstall on the cards. oh joy

 

Please see if these links are of any use

VISTA - Black Screen white mouse pointer

https://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/77369/

 

thanks for links. had a good read through both but sadly no help.
shift key 5 times i get a sound from space invaders but nothing else.
safemode is the same so cant boot into that.
admin comand prompt screen says filename directory name or volume label syntax is incorrect.

im going to try another install but not load much software and see how long it lasts.
thanks SSri09 +rep for advise.

 

I would probably run a memtest before attempting a reinstall.

 

i run the memtest from the windows os disk and that all passed. it then says reboot and then it goes back to black screen.

reinstalling again now

 

Hope it works out fine MrDJ. Please remember to reformat the disk completely before reinstall; it will take care the boot sector virus, if any.

It is a good idea to start with just the OS before adding the applications/games one by one. Please test after every new installation.

Memtest:

I recommend running this application. This should work in 32 and 64.

Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

You should ideally run this test for at least 7 passes, which I think would run for a few hours (overnight!).

 

BTW, please check this out if you wish...

What causes a blank screen on a laptop that is turned on? - Yahoo! Answers
Computer stops responding with a black screen when you start Windows XP

Some of the following may look silly, but...

Top ten Reasons you get a blank screen on your computer monitor

 

thanks for the links. yup already tried some of them when it first happened.

windows reloaded and all working fine again. not uploaded the windows updates or added tune up utilitys as on ceperate occasions these seemed to bugger it up.

 

Pleased it is running fine. You may want to take a mirror image and create a restore point.

Good luck with your updates and applications.....

 

thanks mate. strangely its not storing restore points still and cant turn the option on. me confused.

 

If you still have problems, you could try reflash your latest BIOS. See this:
Researchers demo BIOS attack that survives hard-disk wipe | ZDNet

 

Bizzare...

See if these helps

windows 7 is not saving restore points, can you save them manually to - Microsoft Answers

Restore Points

3 Things To Check When Your System Restore Is Not Working [Windows]

System Restore Not Saving Restore Point - Vista Forums

If all these still not helping restore point, I think you need to check for hardware error or run an extended memtest 7 or 9 passes (will last a few hours)....

Very strange....but good luck mate...

 

can you take a mirror image?

 

thanks once again for the links. got some good reading to do tonight

 

just an update to thank for all the advice.
after the third vista reinstall everything has been working like normal for the last week with no problems at all.
all the software which i had problems loading before has loaded as normal and working perfectly. still getting the same scores with 3dmark06 antivirus running properly restore points storing ok etc etc
so whatever this weird problem(s) was its a thing of the past now.
thank feck fot that

 

When in doubt...

 

NOOOO! not my nexus m860tu












or not until i get my clevo with either 680 or dual 680sli