Laptop started going very slow, black screen after restart

Hello.

My HP Windows 8 laptop started going very slow so I restarted via the power settings. When it restarted it did an update, though it didn't say "update and restart". When it started again and went to desktop it went slow again and I got a "windows is not responding" (or something along those lines) message, then the screen went black, I left it for a few minutes but it stayed black. The cursor was still there and if I right clicked it showed the menu.

After this I did a hard restart and attempted to go into recovery mode, it didn't go the and when I got to desktop I got the same message again, this time the desktop had the usual white highlight when something isn't responding, but still required a hard restart.

I am now on the third time and it seems to be working, I am doing a full computer scan.
What I want to know is why it would do such a thing?

If all else fails it's under warranty, but being a student I have a lot of work to do so can't really afford to be without the laptop.

Thanks in advance for any help and apologies if it's hard to understand, I'm not great at explaining things.

Posting from my phone now as the cursor has frozen. This isn't the first time this has happened.
I've shut the screen off and now the cursor has gone, right click still brings up the menu.

Hey Mhlikescars,

Welcome to the forum

You can try a few things firstly you can try:

in an elevated command prompt, to launch press : :winkey: + X then :winkey: + A

Now in the command prompt type and then press enter:

SFC /SCANNOW

if this was unsuccessful please enter this in to the command prompt:

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

^^ Should be ran while on the internet will attempt to use Windows Update.

Then assuming all has gone well

please use this command in the command prompt again:

SFC /Scannow

Then restart and test performance.

The option would be to refresh your computer more information and tutorial on how to do it:


http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2293-refresh-windows-8-a.html

hope that helps

Cheers,
Harry

Thank you for the help.
I will try the scan when I get home tomorrow as it's getting late and it looks like it'll take a while.
The virus scan I did earlier found two threats which were removed and it seems ok now.
I just remembered when I loaded Google Chrome on the second attempt it said a "McAfee Browser Scan" had been automatically added which I immediately removed, I don't use McAfee.

Mhlikescars said:

I just remembered when I loaded Google Chrome on the second attempt it said a "McAfee Browser Scan" had been automatically added which I immediately removed, I don't use McAfee.

Click to expand...

The addition of McAfee could have easily caused your problem especially if it was in conflict with an existing Virus/Malware Program. You have to watch downloads/installations very carefully for any additional unwanted items because it seems to be happening more and more these days. I generally use custom install so I can usually see what is being installed. My Anti-virus/Malware program is the only thing I let auto-update.

As for unwanted updates, as a rule I don't allow even Microsoft automatically install updates. I set it to notify me of the updates and let me decide what to install. You can go to your Updates Section and review Update History to see what updates have been recently installed.

It seems to be working fine, could well have been one of the removed threats. I've Done the command prompt scan's and it has found no problems.

I've changed the Window's update settings so they're not automatic as that seems a good idea.
I've had a good look through my downloads and there is nothing that shouldn't be there, I very rarely do downloads anyway.
I'll update the thread if it does this again.

Thanks again for the help.

Pleasure glad we could help yeah keep us posted if you have any more problems.

Cheers,
Harry