Win 8 laptop half dead

[rans6andrew]

My Win8 laptop (I know, it wasn't broke so I didn't fix it) has started to throw in the towel. I think the issue started with an upgrade to the Thunderbird mail browser a couple of weeks ago. One day the machine woke up as normal but neither Mailwasher nor Thunderbird would interact with the pop3 mail server. At first I thought that it was an issue with the pop3 server so I called them and some not very helpful person on their techy support started to tell me that they had migrated my service to a more secure server and I would need to change my server port numbers and create a more secure password. While this was going in one ear and out the other I managed to access my account via livemail webmail using my original port nos and passwords.........

So, I have a lappy that wakes up, asks for my Win password and then clears to a blue screen and nothing else happens. I can get a task manager up and see nothing hogging any resources. Double clicking the Thunderbird process gets me access to last years emails but I cannot send, receive or delete any of them. I did manage to open a control panel but none of the icons works, I was going to check the firewall access to see if the new version of Thunderbird had the correct privileges.

I am at a bit of a loss now. Anyone, please

[cavuman1]

One applauds your persistence and parsimony, rans6andrew! I fear that your laptop's hard drive might have pointed her mammaries skyward, and the ability to access task manager is a function of ROM/non-volatile memory. Can you tell us what make and model your computer is? Hard drives are relatively inexpensive, and non-functional laptops make good wheel chocks for an S-6 Coyote II or as an anchor for your yacht.



- Ed

[fly-by-wife]

Livemail sounds like Fasthosts, who have stated that they have had a problem following an "improvement" to their email service - note the date.

Interestingly I had to change the port numbers recently on an Outlook 2019 client on the office PC in a sports club I belong to due (I suspect) to this.

https://www.fasthosts-status.co.uk/

Mail Infrastructure Update: Client Settings
Identified - Following recent improvements to our backend mail systems, you may need to update your incoming and outgoing server settings to ensure connectivity.
If updating the settings does not resolve the issue, please take a backup of your mail content (export a backup from the mail client), then remove and re-add the mailbox on your device. You can find the correct settings in our help guide here: Set up email on your device
Jan 21, 2026 - 13:32 GMT

[Asturias56]

we've had issues with fasthots and email since mid January - most of them have been fixed but a couple are annoyingly persistent

[justapax]

Ancient laptops can have a new lease of life if they are booted from a version of Linux of appropriate vintage. My Win7 laptop runs happily now under Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, although it runs out of memory quite quickly if it has to do any heavy lifting, like hosting several people on a zoom session, as it only has 4 GB of RAM. There is a stable release of Ubuntu every two years, in April, the fourth month, so Ubuntu 24.04 means the release in 2024 in April. For an older laptop with limited memory, you might want to choose an older version such as Ubuntu 20.04 which runs quite happily in 2 GB of RAM.

[Jhieminga]

Originally Posted by rans6andrew

So, I have a lappy that wakes up, asks for my Win password and then clears to a blue screen and nothing else happens. I can get a task manager up and see nothing hogging any resources. Double clicking the Thunderbird process gets me access to last years emails but I cannot send, receive or delete any of them. I did manage to open a control panel but none of the icons works, I was going to check the firewall access to see if the new version of Thunderbird had the correct privileges.

This sounds like part of Windows is trying to do something, as getting into your old e-mails means that you can run at least part of an application within Windows. There is something really wrong though. I would look into options to restore Windows. In the old days, reinstalling over the current version was one method that could reset misbehaving bits. Not sure whether it still works this way or is the right solution for your problem. What makes it tricky is that with an OS version that old, many security certificates and such will be out of date and it could be something like this that is causing you grief.

Can you get into a 'Safe' environment by going through the necessary steps at boot? Do make sure that you have backups of anything important before you start troubleshooting of course!

[rans6andrew]

Lappy is Samsung NP350V5C with Core i7 processor. I assume it to be 64 bit, no idea how much memory is installed but it doesn't struggle to do what I use it for, until now that is.

Interesting that Fasthosts have taken their eye off the ball but I can't see how that is causing the issues the machine clearly has.

I know about the Linux Mint repurposing, I have a number of machines already upgraded. This single lappy is the only Windows system I have, I use it for email, which could be migrated to Linux Mint and for updating several GPS systems for flying and driving. Last time I asked Garmin didn't have a Linux option for downloading and installing fresh databases.

Do you know different? Happy to ditch Win8 as soon as.

[justapax]

Originally Posted by rans6andrew

Lappy is Samsung NP350V5C with Core i7 processor. I assume it to be 64 bit, no idea how much memory is installed but it doesn't struggle to do what I use it for, until now that is.

Interesting that Fasthosts have taken their eye off the ball but I can't see how that is causing the issues the machine clearly has.

I know about the Linux Mint repurposing, I have a number of machines already upgraded. This single lappy is the only Windows system I have, I use it for email, which could be migrated to Linux Mint and for updating several GPS systems for flying and driving. Last time I asked Garmin didn't have a Linux option for downloading and installing fresh databases.

Do you know different? Happy to ditch Win8 as soon as.

Check how much memory you have. I don't have a Windows computer but I believe they have the equivalent of Settings > About. You may find that a trip to your nearest computer shop and installing more memory (not expensive) will fix all your ills.

I use Linux Ubuntu, not Linux Mint, but I understand the distros are very similar. If Garmin doesn't support Linux Mint, I think it is unlikely that it will support any Linux distro.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by justapax

and installing more memory (not expensive)

That statement is a lot less true than it was a year ago.

[Procrastinus]

Upgrade the memory to max, change hard drive to a SSD, use Rufus (google if reuired) to install Windows 11 - and off you go!!

[fly-by-wife]

At the moment, the only cost-effective way to buy RAM is 2nd hand.

AI has just hoovered up nearly all RAM manufacturing capacity and this is not likely to change anytime soon - don't expect prices to come down for a couple of years, and even then it will only be relative to the ludicrously high prices for consumer-grade RAM we are currently experiencing.

SSDs are also hit by this*, and GPUs have the double whammy of high RAM prices on top of demand for AI rendering and cryptomining - the highest I've seen is £6228 for a graphics card!

* I bought a 500GB SSD in 2020 for £52 - this exact same item now costs £152

[fly-by-wife]

Just had to add this here!

[justapax]

The only use of AI I have found so far is that when you detect it (not difficult) and it replies to the comment 'I want to talk to a human being' it puts you through. I see the 'dot.com boom' repeating itself. In the meantime I'm struggling along with a laptop and a desktop that are nearly as old as my kids, waiting for the boom to bust. Both 'puters could do with more memory.

[cavuman1]

I utilize Duck.ai for some of my queries. Thus far I am fairly impressed with the results, but I know that darned quacker is harvesting my data!

- Ed