Computer Wackiness

[NBBrewFan]

I'm having an issue with my laptop (or several unrelated).  Tried to wake to activate it from a screen off and I couldn't get my bluetooth mouse to register any movement or clicking.  Got the screen working by using the keyboard, but the pointer was gone. Nothing I could do would activate the mouse/pointer. Using the keyboard I was able to get all my documents closed and attempted to restart, but the system took 15 minutes to "shut down" when I tried repeatedly to force the power off (it's a HP and if you push the power button for >10 seconds it is supposed to turn off, HAH!!!) So after about 6-7 tries it eventually shut down (I miss the old days where you had a battery you could pull out!).  So I dumped the bluetooth mouse (I hated it anyways as it would jump all the time or not move incrementally).  Wireless USB mouse in and after one round of normal shutdown/startup no issues.  Then Yesterday! I had two FireTV devices go bonkers after Amazon pushed an update.  So while troubleshooting the issue, my laptop went into sleep again for the screen (it's plugged in so I have the system set to never sleep, but the screen to sleep after 10 minutes).  Well when I tried to get the computer to respond I had a black screen with nothing, until the left 1/4th of the screen became bright white with a slight grayscale image.  Again, nothing would bring the system back and without visuals I couldn't even use the keyboard to help.  Again, tried to turn the damn thing off and it took multiple tries before it finally shut down.  Started up and the left 1/4th was like brightness 150% with the remainder normal.  I checked the Hz and other settings on the display and changed resolution, etc and the left side was still bright, but coming back to normal. At that point I checked power and set the dang thing to never sleep for both the system and screen while plugged in.  Ran multiple hardware tests and nothing was flagged.  By the time I was done, screen was back to normal.  Today, normal.  What the Heck?  Is it a hardware issue?  It appears the issue was something was turning off during that "sleep" mode of the screen.  Checked the power options and nothing leaps out to me.  Anyone with more knowledge of computers have any idea what might be happening or should I prepare for a dead laptop at some point? Any help is greatly appreciated!

There were a bunch of Win10 updates pushed down the pipe about the time of the first crash and between the 2 so I don't know if that is related. I'm hoping it's just an issue with some driver that will get corrected eventually and not a hardware issue. 

[zurch1818]

I would try booting in safe mode to see if it boots just fine.  You can do the with networking option if you want to have the computer connect to the internet.  If that works, I would do what they call a "clean boot."  Sometimes this can fix bootup issues.  If that works, then you can start turning on startup processes or just leave it and any process that you need you will be able to start up yourself.  You'd be amazed how many processes people have on their computers that run at startup that really don't need to be run.

 

[Samurai Bucky]

Zurch is on the right track for sure.  I have seen similar things happen if the BIOS gets corrupted or if your internal CMOS battery is starting to go.  However, that shouldn't be affecting the Windows drivers like you are describing.  HP might have a BIOS upgrade utility you could use via a USB flash drive.

I am not well versed with HP laptops, but perhaps there is a utility you can download from them that will analyze your system.  I use Dell laptops and they have something like that.  Hopefully that helps.

[NBBrewFan]

Thanks for the input guys.  I turned off screen lock after X minutes and adjusted the power settings so the screen would never go to sleep on power and the issues went away (touch wood). Something about the power and/or screen lock was causing the issue. I really hate the way Microsoft is going with (about everything, but ) their power settings.  I have an old laptop where the battery went bad.  Replaced the battery, but can't get the system apps to give an accurate reading on the battery.  It will either say it isn't charging or has 0% battery, but if I unplug it nothing happens (still keeps working fine), then later it will read 100% battery or charging will come back.  I literally have it sitting on all the time with the plug in and it's on a battery backup anyways so the battery should always be 100%. 

[Samurai Bucky]

Funny... nor not so funny coincidence.  I was prompted yesterday to update my Dell Precision Mobile Workstation to an "urgent" BIOS update.  I applied it (along with five other urgent updates), and then my computer started dogging.  I thought it was my port replicator (docking station) drivers, video drivers, etc.  I ended up downgrading to the previous version of my BIOS and it worked like a champ again.  I could tell that something was causing the processor to hiccup on multiprocessing just based on the behavior.  Of course, the OS told me everything was fine.

I had seen in the Dell forums and others that the BIOS could be directly responsible for power management issues.  Most said replacing the battery on older laptops did the trick.  The OS will only report / control what the hardware tells it through the drivers.  If the hardware is misconfigured, then that is a rabbit hole I don't wish on anybody.