Electronics

[LilacTree]

I've been having weird problems with my computer lately, one of which is when I try to run some videos that are included with an article or news story, the "circle" just keeps circling, and I never get the video.  Sometimes I care, sometimes I don't, or I just read the text, or go on to something else.

This morning I turned my computer on and went to the kitchen to get my cereal and came back to a black screen.  I turned the computer off, checked all the connections (all good).  I then unplugged and re-plugged.  Nothing.  I saw the arrow, so eliminated that anything was wrong with the screen.  I then redid everything I had done.  Nothing.

By hitting various keys and getting parts of programs and all sorts of results, I must have finally hit the right sequence because after re-booting into safe mode, I was then able to reboot again into Windows and my desktop with all of my programs.  Everything after that went well.

Coincidentally (and because my old Click-Free backup drive was not working), I ordered a Toshiba Canvio Basic Backup 1 TB Drive from Amazon yesterday which will be delivered tomorrow.

My question is should I take the chance of turning off my computer tonight and having the same problem I had today (and have no short term memory of how I got it working)?  Or should I just leave it on and when the new drive comes, do an immediate backup. 

My next question is, will I be backing up the problem?  I think I may be able to do a Restore from my old Click-Free backup drive from a couple of months ago when all was working well . . . just in case?

And then do the new backup?  I hope I have explained the issue coherently.

[glb613]

I'd leave it on until you know what's going on. It will go to sleep or hibernation and use very little power. 

I've always wondered if doing a "backup" when having a problem will back up the problem.  If it's a virus or other malware, yes it can/will be in the backup.  Same can be said for a glitch in the operating system.  To be on the safe side, do a manual backup.  What I mean is, get into Windows Explorer or File Explorer and manually drag files from your hard drive to the external drive.  If you have enough room, you can do both which is what I would do. 

I suspect the hard drive or other hardware beginning to fail.  Because of the failure to start properly.  The video problem may be a too slow internet connection, computer too slow or not enough memory or too much internet traffic.  Webites have become so demanding, s slower computer or internet connection can't handle the demand. 

Do a backup and see what gardenman or hkynut have to say. 

[LilacTree]

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@glb613 wrote:

I'd leave it on until you know what's going on. It will go to sleep or hibernation and use very little power. 

I've always wondered if doing a "backup" when having a problem will back up the problem.  If it's a virus or other malware, yes it can/will be in the backup.  Same can be said for a glitch in the operating system.  To be on the safe side, do a manual backup.  What I mean is, get into Windows Explorer or File Explorer and manually drag files from your hard drive to the external drive.  If you have enough room, you can do both which is what I would do. 

I suspect the hard drive or other hardware beginning to fail.  Because of the failure to start properly.  The video problem may be a too slow internet connection, computer too slow or not enough memory or too much internet traffic.  Webites have become so demanding, s slower computer or internet connection can't handle the demand. 

Do a backup and see what gardenman or hkynut have to say. 

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@glb613

I have a 1TB hard drive, nowhere near full, maybe 5% used, 8 mg RAM, IE7 . . . I hope it's not the hard drive.  Although I'm running Windows 7, that is what I ordered directly from Dell when we were on the cusp of Win 10 and I hated Win 8.  If I could have gone all the way back to XP, I would have.  The computer is not that old . . . about four years.

I am leaning toward it being the Internet connection, so I just may call Comcast.  In the meantime, I will take your suggestion and leave it on tonight.  Don't like to do that, I've always said it's like leaving your front door open and going to bed, but I think it's the lesser of two evils in this situation.  I'll have to hang a towel over it because it's in my bedroom!

Thanks again glb613, for being very generous with your knowledge!

[glb613]

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@LilacTree wrote:

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@glb613 wrote:

I'd leave it on until you know what's going on. It will go to sleep or hibernation and use very little power. 

I've always wondered if doing a "backup" when having a problem will back up the problem.  If it's a virus or other malware, yes it can/will be in the backup.  Same can be said for a glitch in the operating system.  To be on the safe side, do a manual backup.  What I mean is, get into Windows Explorer or File Explorer and manually drag files from your hard drive to the external drive.  If you have enough room, you can do both which is what I would do. 

I suspect the hard drive or other hardware beginning to fail.  Because of the failure to start properly.  The video problem may be a too slow internet connection, computer too slow or not enough memory or too much internet traffic.  Webites have become so demanding, s slower computer or internet connection can't handle the demand. 

Do a backup and see what gardenman or hkynut have to say. 

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@glb613

I have a 1TB hard drive, nowhere near full, maybe 5% used, 8 mg RAM, IE7 . . . I hope it's not the hard drive.  Although I'm running Windows 7, that is what I ordered directly from Dell when we were on the cusp of Win 10 and I hated Win 8.  If I could have gone all the way back to XP, I would have.  The computer is not that old . . . about four years.

I am leaning toward it being the Internet connection, so I just may call Comcast.  In the meantime, I will take your suggestion and leave it on tonight.  Don't like to do that, I've always said it's like leaving your front door open and going to bed, but I think it's the lesser of two evils in this situation.  I'll have to hang a towel over it because it's in my bedroom!

Thanks again glb613, for being very generous with your knowledge!

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If you have proper security, it won't matter if it's on.  A bad hard drive is not the death of a computer.  You install a new one, reinstall the operating system, programs, data and you're good to go.  I'd suspect it's only the internet connection IF you didn't have problems with it not starting.  if you have problems restarting the computer, it could mean there is a hardware problem. 

Once you perform a backup, shut it down then reboot.  If it starts normally and appears to be working OK , it may be nothing mechanically wrong.  If the videos won't play, check your security settings.  If there isn't anything blocking, do a speed check.  You computer has enough memory so this shouldn't be a problem.

speed test

[Big Sister]

I hope you will get your problem solved. 

I now leave my computer ON all the time.  I seem to have less problems with first starting it up.

[gardenman]

You can backup problems. When I built a new computer eight or nine years ago I tried installing Kaspersky anti-virus which was included on the disk that contained the hardware drivers for the motherboard. I figured, "Hey, it's free, so why not?" I found out why not. It messed up Windows Installer which created all kinds of headaches. Since it was a new build I figured I'd just backup the new stuff on the computer and then reinstall the OS and all would be good. Sure enough, everything worked fine until I installed the backup and then all heck broke loose again. 

I couldn't figure out the issue so I reached out to Microsoft and talked to multiple software engineers on multiple occasions who would take control of the computer and try everythig they could think of, but nothing worked. Hours, many more hours than I like to think about, were spent trying to sort out the issue. When the Microsoft software engineers threw up their hands and surrendered, I knew I was in trouble. Out of desperation I did the one thing I'd sworn I'd never do. I downloaded and ran a registry cleaner. I figured "What could it hurt?" The Microsoft guys had dismissed it as being a waste of time, but since nothing else worked, I gave it a shot. It found a corrupted registry entry for Windows Installer, fixed it, and the problem disappeared. Once I was sure the problem was fixed, I did a fresh backup, threw away the old one, and lived happily ever after. So, if you're having a computer issue, a backup may carry that issue over to a fresh install.

Back to your problem, I leave my computer on all the time and it's fine. As long as you've got good protective software it's as safe as it could be. The spinning circle typically is an internet issue. One of the more common issues these days are very, very slow loading ads. Most websites load quickly, but they sell ads on nearly every site these days and the ads often load slowly. The ads come from a different server than the sites. Some of the ads will take up the full screen and prevent you from doing anything until they load. They basically kidnap the computer until they're sure you've seen the ad and found the little X to make it go away. If there's a problem with the ad loading, and there often are problems with the ad loading, you can end up looking at a blank screen for an extended period of time. I suspect that's what happened to you.

I have a six core computer with a SSD that's lightning fast and internet speed of over 120 mbps, but some ads still take over a minute to load and leave me staring at a blank screen. One of the computer sites broke down the number of sites that the computer reached out to when visiting "one" site.  On average, their computer would reach out to ten or more sites for each page pulled up. It would reach out to the web page itself, which would then typically redirect it to multiple other sites for ads and other stuff. You think you're going to say NFL.com, and you are, but once there they may send you to whoever buys advertising on their site to download their ads also. 

If you're using ad blocking software, that could be part of the problem. If you're not using ad blocking software, maybe that would help. I don't use ad blocking software as from time to time I find something useful in the ads. The biggest slowdown on the Internet these days is the advertising. And advertisers are going more and more for the full video ads which can take forever to load even with a fast computer and fast internet. I'm betting you ran into such an ad.

[LilacTree]

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@gardenman wrote:

You can backup problems. When I built a new computer eight or nine years ago I tried installing Kaspersky anti-virus which was included on the disk that contained the hardware drivers for the motherboard. I figured, "Hey, it's free, so why not?" I found out why not. It messed up Windows Installer which created all kinds of headaches. Since it was a new build I figured I'd just backup the new stuff on the computer and then reinstall the OS and all would be good. Sure enough, everything worked fine until I installed the backup and then all heck broke loose again. 

I couldn't figure out the issue so I reached out to Microsoft and talked to multiple software engineers on multiple occasions who would take control of the computer and try everythig they could think of, but nothing worked. Hours, many more hours than I like to think about, were spent trying to sort out the issue. When the Microsoft software engineers threw up their hands and surrendered, I knew I was in trouble. Out of desperation I did the one thing I'd sworn I'd never do. I downloaded and ran a registry cleaner. I figured "What could it hurt?" The Microsoft guys had dismissed it as being a waste of time, but since nothing else worked, I gave it a shot. It found a corrupted registry entry for Windows Installer, fixed it, and the problem disappeared. Once I was sure the problem was fixed, I did a fresh backup, threw away the old one, and lived happily ever after. So, if you're having a computer issue, a backup may carry that issue over to a fresh install.

Back to your problem, I leave my computer on all the time and it's fine. As long as you've got good protective software it's as safe as it could be. The spinning circle typically is an internet issue. One of the more common issues these days are very, very slow loading ads. Most websites load quickly, but they sell ads on nearly every site these days and the ads often load slowly. The ads come from a different server than the sites. Some of the ads will take up the full screen and prevent you from doing anything until they load. They basically kidnap the computer until they're sure you've seen the ad and found the little X to make it go away. If there's a problem with the ad loading, and there often are problems with the ad loading, you can end up looking at a blank screen for an extended period of time. I suspect that's what happened to you.

I have a six core computer with a SSD that's lightning fast and internet speed of over 120 mbps, but some ads still take over a minute to load and leave me staring at a blank screen. One of the computer sites broke down the number of sites that the computer reached out to when visiting "one" site.  On average, their computer would reach out to ten or more sites for each page pulled up. It would reach out to the web page itself, which would then typically redirect it to multiple other sites for ads and other stuff. You think you're going to say NFL.com, and you are, but once there they may send you to whoever buys advertising on their site to download their ads also. 

If you're using ad blocking software, that could be part of the problem. If you're not using ad blocking software, maybe that would help. I don't use ad blocking software as from time to time I find something useful in the ads. The biggest slowdown on the Internet these days is the advertising. And advertisers are going more and more for the full video ads which can take forever to load even with a fast computer and fast internet. I'm betting you ran into such an ad.

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@gardenman

I do have an ad blocker.  And I'm always getting notices from FB and other sites to remove it.  Should I remove it before or after I do the new backup?

I ran a speed test (courtesy of glb613) and it went quickly to 240.66M for download and 12.3M for upload.  I don't know what these numbers mean (I have Comcast Xfinity). 

I tried a second test which slowed down considerably to well under 160M and I never got upload numbers on that one because I ended it (taking too long). 

I don't have a registry cleaner and was always told by outside techs never to touch the registry.  But I used to in the past when I was running the computer system at work (two servers, 36 workstations) but that was over 13 years ago and I knew more about XP . . . and since have forgotten it all.  I don't think I'd recognize a bad entry if I was sitting right on it.  So I won't mess with that. 

Also, I am running Kaspersky . . . are you saying it's a bad program?

Thanks for your input.  I'm on pins and needles waiting for this new backup drive.  It's supposed to arrive today and I will keep you guys updated.

[gardenman]

Those speeds are great. If Kaspersky works well for you, stick with. It never installed for me, so my only experience with it ended quickly. I suspect a site was trying to load an ad and your software was stopping it and trapped you in a loop you couldn't get out of. I suspect things will be fine now.

[LilacTree]

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@gardenman wrote:

Those speeds are great. If Kaspersky works well for you, stick with. It never installed for me, so my only experience with it ended quickly. I suspect a site was trying to load an ad and your software was stopping it and trapped you in a loop you couldn't get out of. I suspect things will be fine now.

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@gardenman

Those are very encouraging words, gardenman.  Thanks!!  I get very happy when my computer is working well . . . and very bummed when it's not!!