Re: windows 10
Greetings All! First off, I'm not a full blown certified PC Tech...... Juat a hobbist with some miles on. The first hard drive I came in contact with was the size of a top-load washing machine and would store a massive 10M of data!! processors were running @ 7MHz and "Downtown" was a mega-hit (Petula Clarke for you historians).
Amy, You are not responsible for fried main-boards, and they are not brand specific! It's not a curse, it's capacitors that either reach their end of life, or have experienced power surges over time and finally surrendered. Really! just about every one that I have had fail,or have changed out for folks had blown/overheated/swollen (pick one) capacitors on it. Storms, surges, heat, or just bad power supplies kill them.
As for SSD drives, the failure rate for them over "spinning rust" is too high vs cost to justify refitting just yet. In devices that depend on batteries, like tablets, convertables, & laptops they substantially extend battery runtime (mainly because spinning motors eat electrons). Also newer hard drives have read/write speeds that still beat the fastest SSDs, with very good reliability, and if you don't trust the one you are running, they are affordable to install a second drive and set up a "mirror" array so if the main fails everything is also on the second. External drives are great for backing up essential data and your documents/photos/music will be saved if something catastrophic happens.
If you would like to try Linux... you only need a blank 2Gb USB drive and visit the Ubuntu homepage for instructions on how to make it bootable and download the 14.04 version (that is last year's release & stable). You get the option of either installing the OS, or "test driving" it from the thumb drive without formatting or abandoning your existing OS...... bear in mind that it is always a good idea to backup your files before doing anything that you might click wrong and start a process that may lose you something!
Anyway, the Linux OS will run off the thumb drive and might be a little slower than if it was actually on your hard disk, but you can play around in it and get a feel for using the software without commitment or cost (Ubuntu is free!). It really is kinda like a cross between Mac OS and Windows with everything running in a GUI (unless you really like "command" in which case "terminal" will feel familiar....exit). All needed drivers are packed in the kernel (so you don't have to hunt them down) and it includes Firefox as default browser along with a few apps (but no "shovel-ware" ie: trial apps with nag screens etc).Russell, BSOD? do you have the delay before or AFTER the "Windows Splash Screen"? Where it "hangs" in the sequence helps finding what kind of issue might be slowing your startup. Please Advise.
Doug
Doug on my Dell N5050 it is Windows 7 home premium and when I turn it on the Windows screen comes on right away but there is a pause then the blue windows welcome screen comes on right after that it should boot to the desktop but it go's black with only the cursor moving I am using a HDMI cable to my 32" flat screen tv but even if I disconnect the cable it still dose the same thing I have the recommended screen resolution settings (around 1375 pixels) which are factory settings.