What: Dell Inspiron 22 - 3000 Series All-in-One - Model: 3277
Display: 21.5 inch FHD Touch Display with Webcam
Performance: Intel Core i3-713OU Processor - 20GB Total Memory - 1TB Hard Drive - Integrated Intel HD Graphics
Software: Windows 10 - Norton Security (unit came with McAfee LiveSafe installed, I uninstalled it months ago)
Includes: Wireless-AC & Bluetooth - HDMI, USB3.1, & MCR - Waves MaxxAudio Pro - Wireless Keyboard & Mouse
4GB DRAM Memory & 16GB Intel Optane Memory.
Okay. This might be long but my experience has been that techie people are like doctors in that patients need to tell everything about their symptoms as well as what happened before the symptoms, then the doctor decides what is relevant and what is not.
So, here we go.
I use this computer for personal things. I watch (and sometimes save) tons of videos. I watch streaming online, upload hundreds of photos and memes (quite a few are saved in folders on my desktop). I sell on eBay. I research everything I sell before I list it, so I look at lots of graphic-heavy pages. When photos on these pages start not opening, I clean out my browser via settings, close the browser and open a new one to continue my searching.
I am on Facebook and email frequently. I do not use Word or Excel or anything like that.
I like to play the Mahjong game that came installed on this computer while I have a YouTube (or other) video running in the background (listening to it). I frequently have a video playing in the background while I am doing something else in another browser window.
The only time this becomes a problem is when I am playing Mahjong while a video is running. If it has been a couple hours or so (with both running at the same time) sometimes everything will freeze up and everything will go black for a few minutes but it usually resolves itself. Then, I will close all browser windows, clean the cache, then I can start all over again without a problem. I just have to remember to close the game and the browser windows every now and then so I do not run into this problem.
It is a pain in the *censored* and I am extremely disappointed that this happens in a Dell. I have had many Dell computers over the years and this has never happened before. But, I digress.
Anyway, the night before last night I had a video running and was playing Mahjong. Both had been up for about an hour. My husband called me upstairs to help him with something and when I came back downstairs my computer screen was black. Not pitch black like when it is turned off, not that dark, but the shade of black that tells me my computer has (once again) frozen up.
This might be a good time to mention I use the colored bubbles screen saver that kicks in after 20 minutes (?). There were no bubbles on the screen, just the black. Also, my computer is set up when I am idle for a long time, the log on screen appears (with a variety of outdoor scenery pics that changes each day). I do not like this, I wish this would only show up at log on not when I am away from my computer.
So, when I realized my computer was frozen, I moved my mouse back and forth. The log on screen (the scenery pic where I put my pin number) did not appear, nothing happened. I left-clicked my mouse a few times, nothing happened.
Frustrated, I held the power button until it turned off (hoping to reset and unfreeze my computer).
Now before you yell at me, doing this on other computers in the past (not frequently, I know this is not a good way to turn off a computer) has never been a problem. What normally would happen is when I turned my computer back on, I would sit through a black screen that scrolled all the things it was checking to be sure the computer was okay (because of the way I turned it off) before allowing me to log back into Windows.
I fully expected that to happen this time ... BUT NOOOOOO ... this computer gives me a black screen saying PREPARING AUTOMATIC REPAIR and then another black screen saying DIAGNOSING PROBLEM then it changes to a blue screen that says:
AUTOMATIC REPAIR
YOUR PC DID NOT START CORRECTLY
Press Restart to restart your PC, wich can sometimes fix the problem. You can also press Advance Options to try other options to repair your PC.
Restarting did not fix it.
So, I chose Advanced Options, which brought me to a blue screen that has more options:
CONTINUE
Exit and continue to Windows Recovery Environment
* Same Result*
USE ANOTHER OPERATING SYSTEM
Continue with another installed version of Windows
I clicked on that and my two choices are:
WINDOWS RECOVERY ENVIRONMENT
and
WINDOWS 10
* Same Result for Both *
and underneath those two options is a link that says:
CHANGE DEFAULTS
The options here are CHANGE THE TIMER and CHOOSE A DEFAULT OPERATING SYSTEM Current default: Windows Recovery Environment.
I did nothing here and went back to the ADVANCED OPTIONS screen.
This time I chose TROUBLESHOOT
Reset your PC or see advanced options
The TROUBLESHOOT options are:
RESET THIS PC
Lets you choose to keep or remove your personal files, and then reinstalls Windows.
I chose KEEP MY FILES, entered my BitLocker recovery key ... annnnnnnd .... nothing, did not work. It goes up to about 40% then stops and says it could not reset my computer.
The other option is to REMOVE EVERYTHING which I will not do. I have hundreds of photos on this computer, maybe over a thousand, that I cannot replace.
Yeah, yeah I know. Why did I not upload a back to the Cloud? Because it is not a mysterious place up in the clouds but, rather, a bunch of computers at some company. I do not trust it. One of these days, some savvy hacker is going to hack into the various Cloud services and delete everything, corrupt it, or hold it for ransom. No thanks.
When I bought this computer a couple years ago, I assumed it had a CD-ROM/DVD read/write drive or two or three on it. Why? Because when they first came out there was one drive on the computer. Then, improved models had two. I didnt even realize this computer did not have one until I wanted to pop a DVD movie in it to watch it.
A couple months ago, my computer would not let me in. At the log in screen (with the pretty scenery pic), it kept saying my pin number was wrong. I tried everything I could think of to get in and, in the end, I reset my computer (keeping my files). It worked fine. I was upset because I had about 80 links bookmarked that I lost (I was not synced to save them), but I got over it.
I do not understand why it will not let me reset it this time.
Back at the TROUBLESHOOT screen, the other option is FACTORY IMAGE RESTORE. Again, I do not want to do this.
It is probably important to let you know ... after I tried all of the above things ... I powered the computer down (safely) and unplugged it from the wall.
I did not want to do it earlier in my efforts because we use our cell phone mobile hotspot for an internet connection and I knew once I had done that I would no longer have an internet connection and would not be able to turn it on again on the computer. When I plugged it back in and turned it on, I got the same result as all the other things I have tried: nothing, no change.
So. Here we are.
Are there any brave techie souls out there who are willing to help me?
-granny-
p.s. On a positive note, I do have a 128GB ScanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 Flash Drive on hand (in case it can be used to back up my files ... if it is even possible at this point) and I promise I will start doing regular back-ups even if I have to scrape my pennies together to buy an external device to do it.