[bigfootisblurry]

We're having some problems with our new (6 months anyway) Dell laptop. It has recently developed a mind of its own. I will try to explain.

When saving word documents, some, when reopened, are missing large chunks of work. Not the more recently written, nor anything to a pattern. Just paragrapghs gone, formatting changed, references moved.

Then a couple of weeks ago it switched on as normal but opened up a new profile. all settings were changed, shortcuts gone. office wasn't even in the start menu! Things were there if you looked hard enough but it was a right PITA. Stayed like this for abotu 24 hours then reverted back to old, shortcuts and all

Now, when switched on yesterday it wouldn't accept our password. However, after switching it off and on a few times it would.

I've just spoken to dell and despite it being new they wont cover it as they believe it is software and that isn't under warranty. they want 70 quid to remote connect and trouble shoot!

All this laptop get used for is my girlfriends uni work and she is rightly terrified to use it for anything important. I'm going to take it to someone in the know local but thought I would open up the floor on here for ideas.

Incidently, it has AVG free anti virus which has never been a problem on anything else I've had, is this adequate? Its finding no issues. I'll happily pay top whack for something if its needed.

Please help

 

[Alex Robinson]

Odd.

Personally I'd nuke and pave

Dell are right, it's not liable to be hardware, much more likely a software issue.

Format the computer reinstall from the original discs, put decent virus prevention on.

job done.

 

[Pantera]

I agree with Alex, reformat and start afresh, you will end up paying someone way too much to try to track down to cause, it doesn't seem to be displaying any pattern to point towards a culprit.
Did the Dell come with a "90 Day special" Office install, that might explain alittle, but certainly not the irratic behavour you have been experiencing, it normally comes up with a message asking if you want to purchase the office package.
The irratic start up points towards a harddisc error (damaged/connection) or a virus, so back to square one, reformat and reload.
I personally use
1) Avira Antivir personal
2) Spybot
3) Comodo Firewall
4) AVG free
All free and downloadable, load them up in that order, AVG will complain about another Virus protector on the system but ignore that and continue to install, so far this conbination has kept my systems safe and virus free.

Good luck

 

[Ecosse]

Can I say something a wee bit obvious without insulting your intelligence? Your good lady is right to be worried about loosing valuable work. It happened to me ten years ago at college and put me back a month!Do you know if she saves docs as she goes along..and then transfers the completed job to a memory stick? I do this for SWMBO when she is developing school docs & projects, and even then I load the docs into our online Google space, and onto a stand- alone Hdrive. All the bases covered! Computers huh?

 

[bigfootisblurry]

Can I say something a wee bit obvious without insulting your intelligence? Your good lady is right to be worried about loosing valuable work. It happened to me ten years ago at college and put me back a month!Do you know if she saves docs as she goes along..and then transfers the completed job to a memory stick? I do this for SWMBO when she is developing school docs & projects, and even then I load the docs into our online Google space, and onto a stand- alone Hdrive. All the bases covered! Computers huh?

All saved on the laptop, the memory card, backed up online and saved on my desktop but that doesn't allow for the fact we can't trust it. She spends more time saving work than writing!

Thanks for your input so far folks, looks like a wipe and start again is in order.