Pavilion is breaking down

[kr26]

HI, I purchased this laptop in 2017 brand new, but now things have slowly stopped working. In 2018 my microphone stopped working, in 2019 my audio jack quite functioning and now as of last week I am no longer able to project to other devices like smart TVs even though I have done it many times before. Am I the only one experiencing these problems? Are there any fixes to these problems?

Thanks

[WAWood]

@kr26 

With Win10, we don't have the option to exclude specific Windows Updates, even when we know about particular ones that have caused problems.  In addition, MS routinely updates your drivers -- without your knowledge and without your permission.

The first two of these sound suspiciously like driver update issues.  The third could be video drivers, but that is less likely.

If you provide the specific model number of the PC, I can look to find the HP product page, and with that, you could download and reinstall the earlier HP drivers that were working properly.

We can proceed when you provide the information.
Thanks

[kr26]

Thanks for your help. The model number of my PC is Hp Pavilion x360 Convertible 14m-ba0xx

I hope this is the right thing, there are a lot of numbers on this setting > about screen.

[WAWood]

@kr26 

Unfortunately, your model PC comes with two  graphics drivers, and from the list of drivers on the HP page, that includes Intel, and Nvidia. You would have to determine WHICH your PC has and download the different versions of the driver, and install them, starting with the oldest version, first.

I would suggest that BEFFORE you start that process, you read through the information below about making an Image Backup of your PC to an external drive or large USB stick.  That way, if you keep records of which drivers you load, and reboot between install, if the last one crashes your PC, you can restore it from backup and load the driver version that precedes that.

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I personally prefer to use third-party Backup solutions as they tend to be both more flexible and more reliable than any built-in solutions.

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives.

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR) from here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive or USB stick
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

My experience is that MR, when using the High Compression option, typically can compress the saved image file to about 50% of the USED space in the OS partition. This means if you have an 80GB OS partition, and 40GB is used, MR only needs about 20GB to store the image file.

I use this all the time and it typically takes less than 15 minutes to do the image backup and about the same time or less to do a restore.

Plus, MR has the option to Add a Recovery Boot Menu entry. This allows you then to boot into WinRE, and you can then use that to do a restore -- when you can't boot into Windows!

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive or USB stick in only a few minutes.