Laptop performance

[Tshark2]

I bought a new laptop last week and suffered major performance issues which were resolved thanks to WAWood pointing out to switch of the WIndows Update command. While my laptop is running much faster every so often it just seems to get itself in knots and I have to shutdown or restart which can take up to  15 minutes. I am only running web browser, word and excel and nothing to demanding - help!

[WAWood]

@Tshark2 

Please provide us details about what you mean by "gets itself in knots" as there may be something we can do.

[Tshark2]

Thanks and to clarify. I have been running web browser, excel and word then the keyboard suddenly stops responding and it seems to be trying to do something and I cant even open the task manager to stop tasks. After about 20 minutes I eventually manage to close it down and restart and everything is clear.

Thank you

[Tshark2]

In addition to my earlier problems I was on a zoom call today and the laptop locked out then came up with a blue screen saying there was an error with System Service Exception with error code dxgmms2.sys

[WAWood]

@Tshark2 

All of these can be caused by a failing hard drive.

If your PC is new enough to support UEFI, you can use these steps to test the hard drive: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00439024

If not, to check the drive you have to follow these steps:
1) Press Esc key repeatedly, several times a second, while rebooting the laptop. Do NOT hold the key down, just press it over and over.
2) Eventually, you will see an HP Startup Menu
3) Press the Function key for testing the hard drive (usually F2) and let it run.