Faulty laptop (warranty period nearly over) - offical refund request ignored - suggestions please?

Schnurrbart

Thought I'd post an update for those kind peeps who offered advice (if you're interested).

Tried steps on page linked to by TonyMMM, but didn’t get far (e.g. step 5 – Windows couldn’t locate Superfetch service, let alone stop it). Looked at crystaldiskinfo as suggested by Spank, but didn’t download it, as reviews stated only useful if you have a good idea what you’re doing – which excludes a non-techy like me.

Tried Dell Support – utter waste of time. Spoke to ‘Joanna’ who sent me an email offering one-to-one support for £48 on no-fix-no-fee basis. Oddly, I didn’t get a response to my reply pointing out the laptop is still under warranty.

Turned to Microsoft Support, spent hours in remote assistance sessions with four different people. Last one ended up doing a reset of Windows (which I could have done myself). Final result: laptop still not quite right, but better than before (at least useable now). Still have weird issue with WMA, but can try to sort further down line – for now I think I’ll just get an external optical drive to use with my W7 laptop (although this set-up will mean that my W10 one is effectively redundant, despite improvement to performance).

Given Dell Support’s sheer incompetence, and posts on here, I think I’ll abandon any further attempts at getting a refund/replacement, and consider it a lesson learned.

Thanks again to all who responded, have a great Bank Holiday.

Carrot007

TonyMMM said:

I would guess that the disk is running at 100% usage - a common issue on Win10 machines.
Turn off all updates (and only run them manually when needed) - turn of the Windows superfetch service.
some instructions here ....https://www.cleverfiles.com/howto/100-disk-usage-windows-10.html

I had the same type of problem on a cheap HP laptop and it now runs 10x better.....like a different machine.

That issue is 100% caused by not timely installing updates and the system going into panic mode regarding them and there being so many you actually notice. Win 10 is designed to be on all the time with automatic updates enabled.

Run all the updates it will eventually stop.

However if it's been a long time a download of the latest to a usb and a fresh install is far easier.

Schnurrbart

I spoke too soon. Just switched it on to find disk usage back at 100%.

Resetting Windows myself now. Thought Microsoft Support had done this, but am getting a list of apps that will be deleted and will need to be reinstalled from web/disc - surely they wouldn't be present if Windows has been reset before (I haven't reinstalled anything since giving them remote access). Grrr!