Beagle ?
 

Its beginning to look like a hardware fault. Is there any possibility of a motherboard replacement if woth the cost. How old is the kit ? If it came with Win 8.1 it cannot be that old.

CAT III

I bought it in July 2014 - it's never been particularly good though.

The chaps in the shop agreed that it isn't working properly, in fact one of them said it was "possessed"! So it's gone back for another repair attempt...

Due back in a week's time; if it's still slow I'll be asking to replace it with something else as it's under extended warranty until July 2019. I had a play with a couple of similarly-spec'd laptops in the store today and they were lightning fast in comparison!

Rushing for hospital, but BE, if I can be of help later, I'd be pleased to do so. I can't recall, has it gon an SSD? If standard type, it might be possible to put a loaner in and see if it runs. Drivers won't matter for the most part.

I put my stray W10 into a laptop and it ran well apart from no fuction numbers set up. It would do a test.

That's kind of you, but there's no data on the laptop which isn't backed-up elsewhere - so if Knowhow can't fix it, I'll be after a replacement...including the Office and McAfee programs which were included in the original deal, plus my remaining Knowhow cloud and care plan subscription time.

The saga continues! Went to collect it today, only to find that they'd reloaded Win8.1 yet again after an 'operating system corrupt' fault. Of course the greasy finger marks were added again and it looked like someone had wiped the screen with a wet cloth :mad:

So now they're going to have yet another attempt at reinstalling Win10 plus all associated updates. I'm due to collect it on Saturday afternoon...

Ever since installing Windows 10 my Laptop has been running really hot. The fan was going constantly and things were slowing down. It seemed as if there was something always running in the background. Sometimes it wouldn't even go into sleep mode when I closed the lid, just keep running and getting hotter. When I lookend at task manager my hard drive would be running 100% and be in red.

I eventually found out the fix and it has transformed my laptop. It now runs much faster and cooler plus it goes into sleep mode properly and starts quicker. My hard drive went straight from 100% to 5%.

It was all down to the window notification setting. If you go to settings/system/notifications and turn them off then it makes a big difference.

That's a useful tip, prophead!

Well, I went to CurrysPCWorldDigitalDixonsComet yesterday to collect the ailing laptop...

It took ages to boot up, then the very helpful and knowledgeable Knowhow assistant ran some form of performance test using a program on a USB stick which he had with him. But when he opened a browser, the whole thing froze and the cursor disappeared - "That's what you've been getting, I guess?", he asked. When I told him it was, he wrote out another ticket, recommending that it should now be written-off and that I should receive a credit voucher towards a new system - I'll know the result in a few days time.

I was also told that only 2Gb of RAM and a 2 core processor won't really cope with Win10 'Anniversary' upgrade - plus all the kiddies' toys that it includes. Thank you so VERY much, Micro$oft...:(

Hopefully it will have more to do with the low memory than the dual core . . . he said, questioningly.

Who recommended you buy a system with 2GB of RAM in the first place? That was never going to be much chop as a general use system. Fine for very basic and limited use but not if you're wanting to do more than light browsing and e-mail.

I doubt it was either of those Rivets - sounds more like a hardware issue.

I remember when I got a computer with 2gb RAM. I opened every application on it at once just because I could.
An SSD-equipped multi-core PC with 2gb RAM is fine for lots of things, as long as you aren't using a memory-hungry browser.

Well, it seems that CurrysPCWorldDigitalDixonsComet weren't prepared to write it off, so back I went yesterday to collect it - with its new hard drive.

"It still has Win8.1, please re-install Win10!"

"Certainly sir - should only take 30-40 min"

So I went for a wander around the store. Lots of very nice toys!

40 min later it was still updating...

1:40 later it was still updating...

2:40 later it had done its initial Win10 update, but was downloading yet more Win10 updates...and had been at 33% for about 30 min.

"Do you want to take it and let it keep updating, sir?"

"No - I'd like you to check the update and make sure everything is OK, then ring me to let me know when it's ready"

"Certainly, sir"

So we'll see how it goes this week...:\

Sounds like all they did was pass it around the departments, eventually overwriting the drive with the original factory disk image, hoping for the problem to go away... Not what I'd call expert work, but that's semantics. Well, wait - that's how you actually fight with possesed objects :)

Needless to say, as long as everything is backed up and you stand a fair chance of getting a decent new unit as a replacement, you went to the best place. Based on your description of their approach to the upgrade towards W10, that ending is surely coming soon.

The saga continues....

Even CurrysPCWorldDigitalDixonsComet's resident computer guru couldn't get the laptop to work acceptably with Win10 'anniversary' and all its updates, so he contacted the head office and they've agreed to exchange it.

So I'll be getting a 11.6" laptop with RAM extension from 2GB to 8GB and a 64GB SD card to eliminate the need to store anything much on the C-drive. Plus Antivirus, Windows 365 and an extended warranty. With all the current promotions, plus a pro rata refund for the unused part of the extended care plan for the old laptop, in the end I'll probably be up about £5 on the whole deal...:ok:

(Apart from the cost of the petrol used for 7 visits to the store, that is!)

I was due to collect it today once they'd done the RAM extension, but they rang to apologise and told me that the wrong type had been sent - the laptop has a single layer RAM slot and the extension module was 2 x 4GB. So I could either have it today with 1 x 4GB, or wait until the middle of next week for a single layer 8GB module. I've chosen the latter option.

Hope it'll be worth the wait though!

Are you happy with Office 365 BEagle? I believe it is a 'cloud' based system and requires a hefty renewal fee each year. I've stuck with Office 7 and 10.

parabellum, I think it works out at about £8 per month for Office365.

You can store documents in a 'cloud' if you wish, or just keep them on the computer. Neither do you need to be on-line to use it, although it makes sense to do so every so often, in order to receive the free upgrades.

I'm quite happy with Office 2007 on this laptop, but the equivalent 2016 version costs nearly £200.

All's good that ends well, but....
 

I finally collected the Acer Aspire ES1-131 with 8GB RAM extension on Saturday evening - and it's a nice little device, being so light and compact.

Then came yesterday and a bit of a faff installing McAfee. I'd actually been sold an extra year's extension to my existing protection, whereas I thought it was a new and different product - so it wouldn't install. But after contacting McAfee's excellent Indian-based customer support, they sorted it all out and all seems fine now.

Another Win10 update then followed - together with an alert that the machine was running low on memory...:(

Today I tried to install Office365, but couldn't do so as I didn't have enough free disk space. Huh? There's nothing saved on it yet... But I was able to get through to Currys PC World and they explained why. It seems that Dear Uncle Bill's Win10 updates save previous Windows versions to the C-drive, so as it was only 32 GB in the first place, it was almost full. They explained how to sort this - you click on the Start button, type 'clear' and that takes you to the disk clear up application, which calculates how much space you can gain. When it has opened, click again on 'clean up system files' and it'll do another scan. When the music stops, scroll down to 'old windows versions' or something like that - tick the box and delete. That gained me nearly 10 GB of disk space, so I was then able to download and install Office365...and yet more Win10 updates.

Currys PC World have been very polite and helpful throughout - and it's great to have a lightweight back-up computer again!

Hi,
I read BEagle's rant and have a solution. I had exactly the same problem with my HP 10-e011sa with exactly the same symptons. The solution turned out to be some nitwit at MicroSoft who has designated the display driver for this machine with W10 as being from AMD/Radeon version 21.19.137.1 of September 16 this year. If you delete the driver it briefly (15 minutes or so) works exactly as it should with a Generic uSoft display driver. However after ~15 minutes correct operation, W10 decides it needs the 'Correct' driver and re-installs the dodgy version from AMD. The actual solution is to then 'Roll-Back' the driver to the previous version from uSoft and it should continue to work correctly. (I have had 2 weeks good operation since my remedial action.) The run-around from Currys/PCW/etc just goes to show their general incompetence. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930 goes some way towards explaining why the Roll-Back works over the driver deletion.

That's interesting! I did actually mention that the AMD update seemed to be causing issues, but they told me that the AMD website would identify whether I had the correct driver. So I tried that and it told me that I had the correct driver - obviously that was the problem as clearly I hadn't as you state.

Still, I far prefer the Acer Aspire ES1-131 to the HP 10-e011sa - especially since it has cost me nothing apart from several trips to Oxford!

Surely the real issue is Microsoft not checking to ensure that their updates are fully compatible with consumers' devices?

I am trying to alert Microsoft just now as I quite like having all my updates 'up-to-date'. Your description, including 'Thread stuck in device driver', matched my PC symptoms exactly and I have tried an awful lot of variations to solve it. This included completely dismembering the thing and disconnecting mousepad and keyboard, replaced by USB equivalent and even a close examination of the motherboard using a jewelers loupe. I even purchased some mini fans (5V) in the hope that it might just be a lack of cooling. It is now running with an SSD instead of HDD and although the operation is definitely not up to current speeds is more than enough for what I want as a portable travelling PC.
Currently the OEM no longer controls which drivers are used for their products on W10, the responsibility having been devolved to (taken by) Microsoft. When the OEM had control then at least they had a commercial interest for a while in maintaining their product.

Sorry if this has already been asked but I can't read through due to very weak 3G.

Just doing first backup on new laptop (4 weeks old). Went to control panel in Win 10 and it shows: 'Back up and Restore (Windows 7). Why please? It seems to be running OK.