Assuming that you have not filled your disk up or got a virus, it sounds like a guarantee job.

You might consider using this free Eraser program to remove any personal information before you send it back.

Thanks Opti.
I found something on it that let me get rid of all the start up progs
that i'd somehow got.
It now starts up fine but is still v v slow when using it.

Interesting Free Site giving some excellent Computer Housekeeping and Repair Tips at

http://www.fixingmycomputer.com

eg, Somebody in a post above had a machine with 'the Beeps'.

Here's their chart for Hard Drive issues

Heres's a link to their section on testing your RAM

http://www.fixingmycomputer.com/hardware-test/memory-test.html

The only thing i find with a big memory (8gb)
is the HP back-up and recovery mamnger installer.

Should i uninstall this?

And when i start it, it comes up with "press F11 for emergency recovery"...?

Dailos

Could you redefine your question please.

Opti

When it starts i get a black screen and the "press F11 for emergency recovery"
message, it then counts down 3-2-1 and slowly starts. Once the icons appear in goes blank again for a minute then starts up properly.
I was told my memory might be full so shoud i delete the 8gb item "HP back-up and recovery manager installer" as its the biggest thing on it.
The laptop is v slow.
Thanks.

Execline..thanks.

Dailos, wrong sort of memory, you are looking at the disk. You need to look at the amount of main memory used by individual programs used in Task Manager.

Errrrrrrr. On one of my PC's the " key seems to have swapped with the @ key.

Why would this be?

Control Panel/Keyboard, I think it's the American keyboard rather than the English one.

Hils,

Have a look at Key Tweak:

It says, "Keytweak is a free keyboard remapper for Windows NT/2000/XP. It makes use of Microsoft's Scancode Map registry key to remap your keyboard. VB6 Runtime files are required, but are already present on Windows 2000/XP."

http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/

Thanks K & Doc.

I'm sure that you're right about it swapping to American, but I can't seem to find how to swap it back. Control Panel>Keyboard doesn't seem to be the answer. There must be something else in the Control Panel ......

You're looking for something called input locale...

Well I've found something in the Advanced bit of Regional and Language Options that was in US. I've altered the setting to UK but I now need a reboot, so it'll have to wait until next weekend now.

Kayak
How do i do that?

Mates pc keeps going straight to blue screen error message on start up ... any suggestions ?

Cheers

Dailos, Press and hold down in this order: Ctrl Alt Delete ,then release all. This brings up Windows task manager. Then click on the "performance" tab and it shows up how muh memory you're using as well as how hard the CPU is working.

Cheers Seymour
It says 76% of memory used and CPU usage 0%...?

Dil
Get in the queue!
:-)

Dailos, look at the 'Physical memory - Total' number and also on the Processes tab, look at what processes are using the most memory (Mem usage).