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Need help with poorly HP laptop please

9 replies

PinkyCheesy · 13/01/2013 00:19

Am trying to help a friend with her laptop as it suddenly stopped working over Xmas, shortly after her DS's mine craft game crashed (might be a coincidence....my DS is always accidentally clicking on links for dodgy stuff when he plays mine craft!) Anyway, she's a techno phobe and I am not, but I now need your collective help please!

Its an HP Pavilion dv9000, running Vista.
It will start up in safe mode so I assume the basic files/drivers are OK?

I can't see any immediately dodgy files in list of installed stuff. I ran disk cleanup successfully in safe mode.

After login screen, it takes around 7 mins before saying 'loading your desktop'

Then another 7-10 mins and the screen goes black, with the (unresponsive ) cursor in the middle

Eventually (15 mins), an error message on the normal 'home' screen saying:

AppleSyncNotifier.exe - unable to locate component
This application has failed to start because CoreFoundation.DLL was not found
Reinstalling may fix

Unable to move cursor, or do anything at all regarding commands on screen. totally frozen

Only way to get it to do anything is ctrl-alt-del which restarts it back to the login screen.

Maybe unrelated but it does seem to be rather hot.

Any ideas anyone?? Am off to bed now (kids birthday today and I can't keep my eyes open!) but will check in tomorrow morning in hope of some suggestions. Many thanks in advance Smile

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PretzelTime · 13/01/2013 00:26

AppleSyncNotifier.exe
Yes, what is this? My comp does that too!

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Solo · 13/01/2013 00:49

I have a HP presario which sufferes/ed from overheating problems too. It seems that a lot of HP laptops do overheat.
Does your friend/her Ds sit with it on their lap or duvet etc? because that wont help at all; it suffocates it.
I got a tray that has fans in it to keep it cool after my friend rebuilt my laptop for me (it stopped working completely ), but I must admit, I haven't used it; my uncle uses his all the time and it makes a huge difference. I use an Ikea laptop tray that cost about £3, to let it breathe when in use.

I think your friend probably needs it to be looked at properly at this point and not keep starting it up until it's sorted. I could recommend my friend depending on where you are.

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luisgarcia · 13/01/2013 00:51

can you start in safe mode with networking?

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Solo · 13/01/2013 00:51

meant to say google 'HP laptop overheating' and you'll see there are loads of results.

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Chanatan · 13/01/2013 06:31

This will show you how to correct the AppleSyncNotifier.exe which you can do from safe mode.
You could try restoring the laptop to a point before the crash happened, or running Malwarebytes in safe mode if you think there is a infection.
The other thing is to do a factory install here,this will reinstall windows and take the laptop back to how it was when purchased,however all windows updates will need to be redone so it is time consuming and all personal documents and photos,music etc will be lost if not backed up first.

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PedroPonyLikesCrisps · 13/01/2013 07:21

Do you have a windows repair disc? (not full recovery disc) this can be used to repair your OS rather than having to reinstall everything from scratch.

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PinkyCheesy · 13/01/2013 12:23

Wow!
You guys are great Smile

Blew canned air into vents, popped laptop in fridge for an hour, propped it up on some blocks, and its running much cooler.

Sterted it in safe mode with networking, did the problem-diagnostic thing, found it was an Apple thing that stopped it working. Sorted that.

Restarted in normal, got another Apple alert, sorted that.

All files seem to be intact, but its sooooooooooo slow! Trying now to clear some of the crap out. She's the sort of person who is so scared of viruses that she has 3 antivirus programmes installed which not surprisingly don't run very smoothly together Grin

Anyway, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH. Saved her a few £ and definitely gets me brownie points! Have a fab day

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Naoko · 13/01/2013 20:07

Please remove two of those antivirus things while you've got your hands on it, it's actually less secure that way! If you're really unlucky they might start picking eachother up as viruses which is hilarious but not all that helpful, I've seen that a few times. :o

If it's really slow, I'd pull any irreplaceable files off and reinstall the operating system. She sounds a bit clueless (in the kindest possible way - some people just don't know or care about how computers work and that is ok) and I'd wager that the whole thing's a complete mess. You'll spend less time doing a backup and reinstall than trying to patch it up.

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PinkyCheesy · 13/01/2013 20:52

Well I've been at it all day, on and off. It's propped up so it hasn't overheated. The battery's knackered, won't last more than 5mins without being plugged in!

Who the hell keeps 12000 photos on a laptop...with no backup on CD/DVD/External HD???! Anyway I have copied them to my HD and advised her to buy one.

I did wipe off Norton (only half-installed anyway), activated AVG (installed but not being used), and turned off Windows A-V. No dodgy files anywhere, so that's good Smile

Deleted most of the programme files (FOUR dvd converter programmes, none of which worked properly, apparently!) and it's running beautifully now.

Need to show her how to put the kids on a separate user account so they don't have admin and can't fiddle with stuff any more!

Made me resolute never to buy an HP laptop anyway. Wink

Thanks again vipers!

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