[SOLVED] Problems with HP Probook after running Avast Cleanup ?

[That Woman]

Hello folks.

I'm the usually proud owner of a very decent HP Probook. Model? No idea. Got it hardly used, second hand and squeaky clean last year.

It was getting a bit on the slow side so I decided to run Avast tidy up Cleanup on it yesterday. Initially it seemed very happy with what I had done to it, however, upon turning the machine off later in the day by closing it and carting it somewhere else to turn it back on again, it was not happy to comply. Not only is it doing the fun combination of lighting up all LEDs and whirring like a maniac but giving me a totally black screen, it also refuses to shut down when I hold down the power button, so I just had to let it sit there screaming until it ran down overnight.

Now, I don't know which game to play first. Should I first take the battery out and try it on mains power? If no success here do I try moving the ram about? If it smells (not literally although I think I read somewhere that it can) like a motherboard issue, should a total rooky attempt to rectify this with a replacement motherboard? Are there any other suggestions?

As I said, total rooky but I've learnt the art of being self sufficient and picking up new skills, and if that means asking someone else and potentially not succeeding the first time around I am happy to persevere if it results in not haemorrhaging a bunch of money and learning new stuff as a bonus. Any good advices are well received, any further questions relating to the subject which may cast light upon this issue I shall attempt to answer, and just lastly, has anyone ever had a machine totally freak out on them after running an automated clean up on it?? Thanks for your attentions. Happy tekkin'.

Cheers, Jo.

p.s. feel free to use jargon at me. Though I would love as much info as you may be able to give I am happy to look stuff up if it means nothing to me at a glance. Knowledge is power and all that

 

[Deleted member 1272431]

Hi there.
If you are not used with repairing PCs I would not recommend disassembling one as parts are tightly placed upon one another and you may risk breaking cables or connectors/pins, etc.
As you have described it, it would appear during the same session in which you ran the cleaner something went wrong, so it seems pointless to me to begin with a hardware problem. I am thinking you deleted something which should have been left there.
What software did you use?
Have you got data backup?

 

[That Woman]

Hi there.
If you are not used with repairing PCs I would not recommend disassembling one as parts are tightly placed upon one another and you may risk breaking cables or connectors/pins, etc.
As you have described it, it would appear during the same session in which you ran the cleaner something went wrong, so it seems pointless to me to begin with a hardware problem. I am thinking you deleted something which should have been left there.
What software did you use?
Have you got data backup?

Hi there,

Thank you so much for your prompt reply, most appreciated.

In answer to your question, I must quake somewhat in fear and confess that no I do not have data backup (although nearly everything important I need is in cyber storage, and I am assuming that after this I will have no excuse to not collate an important stuff file onto an external drive - I have one) but I was a little dubious about some of the things I was merrily obliterating whilst 'cleaning up'.

I used Avast Cleanup. It recommended that I do all the stuff so I did it, but it appears I was a bit too gung-ho. I kind of just wanted to sort out the registry which it told me was all over the place and it looked it knew what it was doing. IT probably did.

What do you suggest, assuming that pretty much everything on my machine was expendable fluff?

Cheers,

Jo.

 

[Deleted member 1272431]

Hey Jo,

If you authorized registry modifications, that probably caused malfunctions in the OS. I reccomend CCleaner (update it periodically) to have your PC cleared from temp data (it asks what you want to remove and you may select it each time).

Try with a bootable Windows USB to repair the OS (boot from BIOS).
If this does not work, I am afraid I must suggest to make a clean install, I see no other options - maybe someone else is able to suggest alternative paths.

Best of luck
T