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Fair warning, quite a bit of text.
Just trying to give as much info as possible.
I am no expert, but I generally know enough to get by.
We have 8 x DELL Optiplex 5070`s at work. 7 all have the same spec hardware wise. I5 9xxx, 8gb ram, 256gb SSD, integrated GPU. 1 has an I7 9xxx with 16gb, which is my machine, as I share some Sage data with the team.
All purchased August 2020. Windows 10. All fully up to date.
Software wise, very limited.
Sage, FoxitPDF, Office 365, and the Usual office fair. Antivirus is AntiVIR PRO, Paid version. (Not everyone's ideal, but we have used it for years)
PC are all networked up through a 32 port Gigabit switch, including connections to our Voip Phones. Router is a BT Hub on business broadband.
Yesterday, a member of staff tried to log in at the welcome screen, and was greeted with the spinning dots. We left it for just over 30 minutes to see if it sorted itself, but to no avail. Could not re-boot, Ctrl-Alt-Delete would not work, so I held the power button and restarted. All good for 10 minutes in windows, then nothing would launch. I could get explorer on the screen, but could not launch anything. Start menu popped up when pressed, but nothing on the start menu worked, including power options. Again, held the power button. At this point I suspected hardware...
Restarted, but this time on the logon screen, I was able to use the Shift+Restart method to get into the recovery environment. Safe mode worked fine, ran chkdsk, SFC, and all was good.
Restarted again, could not get back into windows, only to the logon screen.
At this point, I got myself back into the recovery environment, used a restore point, and bingo. System back up and working fine. A few hours later, same machine, problem returned.
At this point, I repeated the system restore, turned off windows update, and kept my fingers crossed.
Later the same day, another member of staff said her system had hung. When I investigated, it was having exactly the same issue. Performed the same fix and it worked fine, until this morning.
Today, 4 of the other machines have failed in exactly the same way, at different times of the day, whilst performing different tasks.
Its worth noting that once they stop becoming responsive, the mouse is moveable, right clicking the desktop with bring up the menu, but you can`t left click anything & there is no disk activity whatsoever. The only way I can get back into windows is with a system restore. None of the other recovery options makes any difference. I even tried using some dummy user accounts to rule out corrupted profiles.
What I have noticed, having spent so much time trying to solve this, is that I can almost see it coming.
Launch Windows explorer, fine. Close and relaunch, it opens, but is not fully populated with drives. Close and Launch it a 3rd time, and its just a white empty window with the green bar scrolling accross the top.
At that point, I know clicking anything is pointless and the keyboard no longer works. Its like someone has disconnected the hard drive.
I am stuck. As a small simple office, we do not have IT support as such. We do have some help from other group companies, and from our Microsoft providers. Spoke to them all and they are as baffled as I am.
For now, I have removed Avira, as that's the only thing I can think of that might update in the background and cause issues.
We are just using stock defender as a test.
I very much doubt that we would get hardware failures on 6 machines within 36 hours of one another. Its possible, but unlikely.
Also worth noting that i have run full virus scans on the systems with both defender & malwarebytes, and it comes back clean. Our email setup is a constant frustration anyway, as it blocks more than it lets in. You have to jump through hoops to read anything with an attachment. Web browsing is also restricted.
Would really appreciate any help or suggestions. I am at home now, but can log into my machine from here if any info is required.
Help. !
Forgot to add, I cannot even get into task manager when this happens...
Just trying to give as much info as possible.
I am no expert, but I generally know enough to get by.
We have 8 x DELL Optiplex 5070`s at work. 7 all have the same spec hardware wise. I5 9xxx, 8gb ram, 256gb SSD, integrated GPU. 1 has an I7 9xxx with 16gb, which is my machine, as I share some Sage data with the team.
All purchased August 2020. Windows 10. All fully up to date.
Software wise, very limited.
Sage, FoxitPDF, Office 365, and the Usual office fair. Antivirus is AntiVIR PRO, Paid version. (Not everyone's ideal, but we have used it for years)
PC are all networked up through a 32 port Gigabit switch, including connections to our Voip Phones. Router is a BT Hub on business broadband.
Yesterday, a member of staff tried to log in at the welcome screen, and was greeted with the spinning dots. We left it for just over 30 minutes to see if it sorted itself, but to no avail. Could not re-boot, Ctrl-Alt-Delete would not work, so I held the power button and restarted. All good for 10 minutes in windows, then nothing would launch. I could get explorer on the screen, but could not launch anything. Start menu popped up when pressed, but nothing on the start menu worked, including power options. Again, held the power button. At this point I suspected hardware...
Restarted, but this time on the logon screen, I was able to use the Shift+Restart method to get into the recovery environment. Safe mode worked fine, ran chkdsk, SFC, and all was good.
Restarted again, could not get back into windows, only to the logon screen.
At this point, I got myself back into the recovery environment, used a restore point, and bingo. System back up and working fine. A few hours later, same machine, problem returned.
At this point, I repeated the system restore, turned off windows update, and kept my fingers crossed.
Later the same day, another member of staff said her system had hung. When I investigated, it was having exactly the same issue. Performed the same fix and it worked fine, until this morning.
Today, 4 of the other machines have failed in exactly the same way, at different times of the day, whilst performing different tasks.
Its worth noting that once they stop becoming responsive, the mouse is moveable, right clicking the desktop with bring up the menu, but you can`t left click anything & there is no disk activity whatsoever. The only way I can get back into windows is with a system restore. None of the other recovery options makes any difference. I even tried using some dummy user accounts to rule out corrupted profiles.
What I have noticed, having spent so much time trying to solve this, is that I can almost see it coming.
Launch Windows explorer, fine. Close and relaunch, it opens, but is not fully populated with drives. Close and Launch it a 3rd time, and its just a white empty window with the green bar scrolling accross the top.
At that point, I know clicking anything is pointless and the keyboard no longer works. Its like someone has disconnected the hard drive.
I am stuck. As a small simple office, we do not have IT support as such. We do have some help from other group companies, and from our Microsoft providers. Spoke to them all and they are as baffled as I am.
For now, I have removed Avira, as that's the only thing I can think of that might update in the background and cause issues.
We are just using stock defender as a test.
I very much doubt that we would get hardware failures on 6 machines within 36 hours of one another. Its possible, but unlikely.
Also worth noting that i have run full virus scans on the systems with both defender & malwarebytes, and it comes back clean. Our email setup is a constant frustration anyway, as it blocks more than it lets in. You have to jump through hoops to read anything with an attachment. Web browsing is also restricted.
Would really appreciate any help or suggestions. I am at home now, but can log into my machine from here if any info is required.
Help. !
Forgot to add, I cannot even get into task manager when this happens...
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