# PC Repair



## rjordan393 (Sep 15, 2010)

Hello all,
Do not know why this happened but while attempting to download a windows update, my laptop suddenly froze up and stayed that way for about 40 minutes. Shutting it down did not work. Initially I tried a few things to unfreeze it and failed. so off to the geek squad at Best Buy to solve the problem which I believed was simple for them to do. The geek squad man told me it was a simple fix but said my service contract expired and i would have to Pay $200.00 to fix it. That was an outragious price to pay considering I payed about $300.00 for it and I declined the service. So I went back home and tried a few more things to unfreeze the laptop and failed most except for the last one. "Cheers" I saved $200.000.
Here is what I did:
I pressed 4 keys at the same time and they were:
Control, Alt, Esc and the Power button. The computer shut down as I expected and I waited about 5 seconds and then pressed the power key hoping for the best. It worked and the first screen that came on showed the manufacturers name and continued to power on 
When I was at Best Buy, I told the manager his company lost a customer. This is something to think about in case your contract runs out.


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## ZZZZZ (Oct 1, 2014)

As a last resort, you can always remove and reinstall the battery to force a restart.


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## rjordan393 (Sep 15, 2010)

I do not know if that would work for me as the laptop froze on the restart screen and the only thing moving was that continuous circle.


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## ZZZZZ (Oct 1, 2014)

rjordan393 said:


> I do not know if that would work for me as the laptop froze on the restart screen and the only thing moving was that continuous circle.


Did it freeze at the BIOS level or when Windows starts to load?
.
.


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## joed (Mar 13, 2005)

If the circle was moving it is not frozen. Leave it to finish the update.


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## rjordan393 (Sep 15, 2010)

I will start from the beginning. While surfing the net, a message came on stating a update was available. So I clicked on its link and it brought up the windows download page. When I authorized the download, the page suddenly changed to restarting and it stayed that way for 40 minutes. Now I never experienced a windows download that took that much time and in all that time, there was no indication that windows was downloading.
Another thing, it's my understanding that the restarting page does not come on before the download starts but after when you do it manually. Is that correct? 
When I finally found a solution and powered up the laptop, it only took less then a minute when a message appeared stating windows update was downloading and to not shut down the computer. This message did not appear during that 40 minute period and the download took about 7 to 10 minutes to finish.


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## huesmann (Aug 18, 2011)

Windows download page? No recent Windows version has a download page—it's all handled in the OS itself, unless you have an issue that requires manual download of an update.


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## anyacolo (Oct 3, 2016)

i was a computer tech for HP and Lenovo (IBM) for many years,

i recommend EVERYONE using windows 10 to create and keep on hand a bootable windows 10 USB drive,

you can do so by going to the following site and clicking on "download tool now", all you need is a USB drive of 8 GIG or more



Download Windows 10



if you ever get to a point where your computer wont boot, you can boot from the USB drive to repair the system

when you take your computer to best buy or staples, you are getting a college kid to fix it with little to no experience, they charge so much because it takes them a long time to figure out what to do.....Lol


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## SPS-1 (Oct 21, 2008)

anyacolo said:


> ..when you take your computer to best buy or staples, you are getting a college kid to fix it with little to no experience, they charge so much because it takes them a long time to figure out what to do....


One time I got hit by a virus that locked my computer. Took it to Staples, where they said only fix is to reformat my hard drive and re-install any software. I had pretty good back-ups, so that was not really a show-stopper, but they were busy and couldn't get to it for a day or so. So I took it to the independent guy down the street, and he said no problem. "Are you going to re-format my hard-drive ?" "No just going to unlock it --- done it dozens of times". And he tuned up some of my settings, and was cheaper than Staples. He won a new customer.


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## anyacolo (Oct 3, 2016)

SPS-1 said:


> One time I got hit by a virus that locked my computer. Took it to Staples, where they said only fix is to reformat my hard drive and re-install any software.


a lot of customers will get that same reply at staples or best buy,

the reason for it is, because they dont know what to do, or how to fix it, and wiping the hard drive is a simple and easy process that a well trained monkey could do,

wiping a hard drive is a last resort, and it is RARELY ever nessessary to be done for an experienced repair tech,


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## Drachenfire (Jun 6, 2017)

I have heard too many incidents of incompetence regarding "Geek Squad" to advise anyone to take their computer there.

Their go-to resolution for just about every software issue is "re-image the hard drive'. A task they charge heavily for and any computer owner can learn to do on their own after a less than 15 minute web search. Furthermore, re-imaging will wipe out any saved files (documents, pictures, music etc,) on drive, so if a proper backup of data is not done, those files are permanently lost.

If the data is accessible, the Geek Squad will perform a "backup". I Geek Squad backup. Then usually consist of copying the "Documents", "Pictures" and "Music" folder to a disk or thumb drive. Copying just those folders will not save any files the user may have on their desktop, nor will it save bookmarks from any of their web browsers.

Taking a computer to Geek Squad is the equivalent of playing Russian roulette with it.


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## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

ZZZZZ said:


> As a last resort, you can always remove and reinstall the battery to force a restart.


FYI,
Most (if not all) new Laptops have the Battery inside the Case, no longer removable.
He'd have to open the entire bottom-panel of the Laptop to unplug the Battery.


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## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

Usually, if I get a Laptop (or Desktop) in with a problem like that, I clone the Hard drive, or SSD, Nvme or whatever to another Drive.
Then, I start troubleshooting the machine. Some Laptops have a tiny little hole on the Bottom of the Case, called a "Battery-reset".
Pushing the Power-button (power-cable removed, of course) for 30 seconds or so will drain a capacitors and mostly the computer will start up again.
I agree with the Win10 Image on a USB Stick, but first you'll have to get that darn thing to power up.
Most Laptops now have the "Recovery-mode" that you can access by hitting F2, F9 or whatever. Every manufacturer has a different way to get into this Mode.
Hint:
If you turn the Win10 machine on and kill it before it loads Windows 3-4 Times, it will go into the Recovery mode automatically.
Last but not least I recommend Users to check for any BIOS Firmware updates for their Models. Mostly there is one available, making the machine more stable.
YMMV, however.
If the Firmware update fails, you just turned your Laptop into an expensive Door-stop.
🤓


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## ZZZZZ (Oct 1, 2014)

Deja-vue said:


> FYI,
> Most (if not all) new Laptops have the Battery inside the Case, no longer removable.
> He'd have to open the entire bottom-panel of the Laptop to unplug the Battery.


My 3 year old HP laptop still has a removable/replaceable battery.

I did say "last resort."  
.
.


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