Hi there - I'm using my brother's old Lenovo T60, which is running windows XP, and has McAfree OAS antivirus software. This computer is ancient. To my knowledge, my brother has not updated anything on it since he bought it back in the day. This includes ancient antivirus software. Ancient MS Office, etc. To my knowledge, he does not install updates and has never de-fragmented the computer. Except for running slowly, the computer mostly working fine until yesterday.
This is the problem: if the computer is turned on, but not in active use, the monitor will go black. It used to be that I could wake the computer up from its sleep/standby mode by moving the mouse, which would prompt me to re-log in. Now, the computer is completely unresponsive. The only way for me to turn it back on is to forcibly shut it down (I hold down the power key for a long time until it turns off). I then have to start it again. This means that all the work that was on the computer is lost. Files that were in use are not saved, and all open browsers are closed - with no record of the previous work session.
This happens after just only 15 minutes of inactivity. This problem has happened about 5 times in the last 24 hours. Oddly, when I put the computer into stand-by, and try to restart it, the restart proceeds just fine. This all happens while the computer is plugged into a working power-source. Electricity and battery life are not the problem.
Here are my questions:
(1) What might be wrong?
(2) Is there a way for me to fix this problem?
(3) Is the hard-drive dying? or is the data on this hard drive at risk?
Also, over the last few days, a window has popped up numerous times saying that there is a medium-level need to defrag the computer. I've been afraid to do it. I once defragged an old machine, and it took more than a day for the defrag to complete. This computer is the only means I have to access the internet, so I'd rather not go without internet access for that time.
I know next to nothing about computers, so any advice would be really helpful.
Thanks!
This is the problem: if the computer is turned on, but not in active use, the monitor will go black. It used to be that I could wake the computer up from its sleep/standby mode by moving the mouse, which would prompt me to re-log in. Now, the computer is completely unresponsive. The only way for me to turn it back on is to forcibly shut it down (I hold down the power key for a long time until it turns off). I then have to start it again. This means that all the work that was on the computer is lost. Files that were in use are not saved, and all open browsers are closed - with no record of the previous work session.
This happens after just only 15 minutes of inactivity. This problem has happened about 5 times in the last 24 hours. Oddly, when I put the computer into stand-by, and try to restart it, the restart proceeds just fine. This all happens while the computer is plugged into a working power-source. Electricity and battery life are not the problem.
Here are my questions:
(1) What might be wrong?
(2) Is there a way for me to fix this problem?
(3) Is the hard-drive dying? or is the data on this hard drive at risk?
Also, over the last few days, a window has popped up numerous times saying that there is a medium-level need to defrag the computer. I've been afraid to do it. I once defragged an old machine, and it took more than a day for the defrag to complete. This computer is the only means I have to access the internet, so I'd rather not go without internet access for that time.
I know next to nothing about computers, so any advice would be really helpful.
Thanks!
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