Hi All,


The short version of my problem is this:


My laptop just suddenly slows way down, then restarts to finish an 
update while I'm using it. Every other Windows computer I've had prompts 
me for updates when I power down or runs updates in the middle of the 
night. How can I get my laptop to behave like other computers?


The long version of the problem is this:


My current dinky laptop that I use for lecturing is an HP. I've had a 
few incidents where it slows way down when I'm working on something, 
then appears to die. By "slows down," I mean that the TTS garbles and 
drags, like someone drowning in lung fluids. By "appears to die," I mean 
that there's stuff on the screen, but it's frozen, and I'm often not 
able to run a restart. Sometimes things resolve when I force a restart, 
and other times, they resolve on their own.


This happened over the weekend while my sister was here. I couldn't get 
the laptop to respond, so I had her look at the screen. She didn't see 
any error messages or anything like that, but she was able to restart 
the laptop, and when it rebooted, it said it was working on updates.


Last Christmas, I gave her a dinky laptop, the same model. While we were 
waiting for the update to finish, she told me that hers reboots for 
updates in the middle of a work session. For example, one time, she was 
at a meeting, and while she was pulling up a file, the computer froze, 
then updated a few minutes later, taking over half an hour to become 
usable again.


This morning in class, I had the same experience she did. My students 
were scheduled to give PowerPoint presentations. They emailed the files 
to me over the weekend, so I could put them on my laptop and avoid 
additional technical SNAFUs from connecting different devices to the 
classroom's projection system. Before leaving the house, I turned on the 
laptop and kept it on for about an hour, letting it run a virus scan, 
check for updates, etc. Nevertheless, the laptop froze and spontaneously 
rebooted three times while my students were giving their presentations. 
I have two classes back to back. The first restart was during the last 
presentation of the first class (i.e., the computer had been on for 
about an hour). The second restart was between classes (i.e., I signed 
in after the first update, and ten minutes later, it updated again). The 
third restart was during the first presentation of the second class 
(i.e., maybe twenty minutes later). There weren't any more restarts 
after that. The first and last restart took a relatively long time to 
run their course; the computer was down for about twenty minutes. The 
second restart was short, maybe five minutes. Needless to say, I don't 
want a repeat performance of this.


I'd like the laptop to prompt me for updates when I power down, not in 
the middle of a session. The previous dinky laptop was a different HP, 
and it behaved in the usual way. How do I make this one behave as well?


Thanks for any wisdom.


Ciao


    VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
Archived on the World Wide Web at
    http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html
    Signoff: [log in to unmask]
    Subscribe: [log in to unmask]