Cannot Reduce Brightness Use HDMI or Control Panel w/8.1

[mwpchoma]

Since updating my HP Pavillion 64 bit to Windows 8.1, I have been unable to use an HDMI cable or reduce the computer brightness. I figured it would be a simple fix: restore to before the update, and wait for the bugs to be worked out. However, every time I attempt to access the control panel to perform a system restore, the entire OS freezes. Can someone help me resolve this?

Update: I tried to power on my computer just now to no avail. Stayed on the HP loading screen for 30 min.

 

[XweAponX]

Sounds like a Hard Drive issue, first things first, try checking your whole hard drive. Download Hiren's Boot CD from my link below, burn it and boot to it. Go into Dos Programs and you'll see Hard Drive Tools, pick the tool for your brand hard drive and run a full scan on the surface. You can also try GWscan, which can do both Seagate and WD drives, look for "read element failure" because that error will cause that 30 minute non-boot in some cases.

Sometimes a bad or corrupted spot on the HD will cause all kinds of other apparently unrelated and insane problems, so check the disk before doing anything else.

If you have an SSD drive in there, then do not do any of this, you will have to use the tool for the drive made by whoever made it, or simply so a CHKDSK, you can do that from Hiren's using Mini XP, it's better to do it from there rather than let Windows 8 do it, especially in the state it is in now.