HP Omen 45L freezing

[bloomheld]

I'm out of ideas so I'm asking for help. I've had an HP Omen 45L for a couple years, it's been solid, but started having some issues lately. At first it was some WIndows errors which were fixed with some disk cleanup and housekeeping. Then the thing started to freeze or crash now and then. I realized a bit slowly that there was a lot of dust buildup, so I cleaned out the machine in hopes that would help address some of the issues.

Nope.

The freezing only gets worse by the day, and two days ago the thing stops working entirely. When I try to start up it freezes at various points on the Omen loading screen. If I hit esc and load up Windows in safe mode I can get 30 seconds in Windows before it freezes again. No warnings, no errors, just frozen. I try to do all the recovery options, for Windows, for HP, for bios, etc. - all of them freeze before getting very far. I've left the computer on for hours to see if it was processing, but nope, definitely frozen.

I was able to get to the HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI and ran symptom, system and component tests, include the extensive ones. It didn't freeze on any of those, surprisingly, and every test came back fine, passed, nothing wrong. But then I try to start up again and still freezing. I even tried loading Ubuntu from a USB to see if that made a difference. The Omen/Ubuntu loading screen came up and then, boom, frozen again. I've searched the forums and tried any and all fixes which seemed relevant, but nothing seems to work.

Any ideas what to do at this point? It seems all the hardware is good - is the SSD just so corrupt that I need a new one and start fresh? Or is there maybe some hidden hardware issue and I'll have the same problem with a new one? Anyone encounter something like this before?

[Nal_NR]

Hi @bloomheld,

Welcome to the HP Support Community. 

I'd be happy to help you! 

Excellent description and a great diagnosis. It is greatly appreciated.           

Since the hardware diagnostic test passed. Let's try a factory reset. 

Prepare for recovery

• Prepare your computer for system recovery before you download and install the HP Cloud Recovery Tool.
• Back up your files. See HP PCs - Back up your files (Windows 11, 10).
• Set aside one to four hours for the recovery process. The recovery time varies depending on the network and USB flash drive.
• Make sure that you have a computer with an active internet connection. For best results, an Ethernet connection is recommended. Do not disconnect from the internet or Ethernet during the process.
• Make sure that you use an AC power connection to the computer during the process. Do not disconnect from AC power during the process to avoid recovery failure.
• Make sure that you have a blank USB flash drive with a minimum of 32 GB.
• Make sure that your computer has a minimum of 20 GB free disk space on the Windows partition.
• Do not use an external hard drive. The tool does not work when downloaded to an external hard drive.

Click here for more details. 

Hope this helps! Keep me posted for further assistance.

 Please mark this post as “Accepted Solution” if the issue is resolved and if you feel this reply was helpful click “Yes”.