Talk slow, and don't use big words

[geggabc]

I have a Toshiba Satellite C670 with Windows 7 home edition. It has been locking up when watching videos. The only way out is to shut down. I notice that it has started locking up while on any page now. If I can get this all typed out, I'll be lucky. When it locks up, the screen becomes distorted. I notice that when I try to open a page, like Yahoo.ca, it will come up, with nothing but the tool bar, and I will have to click the home button in order to finish loading. Same goes for any other window I try to view. I am not computer literate, but I can follow instructions, and have managed to reformat my old PC before. Any help would be awesome. I thought about doing a reformat on this, as it was purchased at a box store as an operating system, but my daughter has pealed the product key off the bottom of the laptop.

 

[Boozad]

Download and run Speccy, click on the Operating System tab on the left hand side which will give you your product key.



Then follow this tutorial to perform a clean install. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

 

[billmcct]

That laptop should have a recovery partition on it which I think you can get to by booting and pressing the F12 key.

 

[gregrocker]

Unless you've already done a Clean Reinstall Windows 7 with the Product Key on the COA sticker, then the Product key which will be audited by a keyfinder like Speccy is the Factory batch key used to activate at factory. This cannot be used to reactivate a reinstall.

To get the PC to function well enough to either continue with it or prepare for recovery, try turning off all of the Toshiba crapware at boot. Type msconfig in Start Search box, on Startup tab uncheck everything, click Apply. Then on Services tab, tick the box to Hide all MS Services, uncheck everything and click Apply then OK. Uninstall your AV and install lightweight Microsoft Security Essentials to compare. Now reboot the PC. Any difference? If so proceed to further Clean Up Factory Bloatware and report back exact remaining problems.

If you still prefer to do a reinstall, how about trying Factory Recovery? Back up your files as shown in the blue link tutorial above so you don't forget anything, create Toshiba Recovery media in case Recovery fails when run from the hard drive: Creating system recovery media using the Toshiba Recovery Media Creator utility

Then hold down the 0 key and power on the PC. After a pause it should start loading the files for recovery and warn you that everything will be wiped out. If it runs correctly you will be back to exactly the condition when it came from factory. How To: Perform system recovery - Windows 7 - TOSHIBA FORUMS

Then what I would do is work through the steps to Clean Up Factory Bloatware so that you regain some performance lost to the factory bloatware, which cripples WIn7 and will never be anywhere near a Clean Reinstall. The biggest relief will be to turn off all Startups and Services (after Hiding MS Services) in msconfig as shown in the tutorial. Then uninstall the bloatware anti-virus and install one of the recommended lightweight ones. By the time you've worked through all steps you should have regained about 70% or better of WIndows native perfect performance.

If problems persist post back for more help and start working through the Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7 which will go over your PC thoroughly to resolve problems.

Otherwise if Recovery fails you can contact Toshiba to ask for Recovery disks.

 

[Faladu]

Laptop is circa 2011, that's a lot of time gone now for a laptop, was routine maintenance/checks performed on it?
[cleaning cookies and internet files, could be clogged with a million files if never was and heavily used 3-4 years, and defragment the hard drive]

Vents clear of dusts/debris? (heat issues)

Was it used with a cooling pad? (heat issues)

What I found researching was that it likely has a low-end Intel CPU (i3-2310M) in it, and if typical, probably has a 5400RPM hard drive. (slower one)

I'd be running CCleaner on it (amongst other things) and checking for viruses/malware too, way before doing a full reinstall, which might get ugly since it was an OEM and probably won't just let you reinstall it.

You go through tutorial for checking the integrity of the windows system files?