Power Outage knocked my Windows 11 back to normal (I hope)

[MickinMD ★]

On March 15th, my laptop screen went black, the words "LOCKING DOWN" appearing on the briefly on the lower right and the laptop shut down.

Possibly, it wasn't shut down and was beginning the installation of: 2023-03 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 Version 22H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5023706)

But, with no warning, no power button light, nothing on the screen I tried to turn the computer on a few times until I was informed an update was being installed and don't turn off the computer.  A half-hour later, Windows was running again BUT:

1. the battery icon showed 0% charged (it was fully charged before the update).  No matter how I played with the power settings and rebooted the computer from "Restart" (the most complete reboot) or from turning everything off, I couldn't get the battery icon to work.  On power setting page showed 99% battery charge but it didn't show on the screen.

2. Pages loaded in very, very, slow. Typing was sometimes slow. I felt like I had a 1990's laptop.

3. When I pressed the "Numlock" key, it turned the number pad on and off but it doesn't show the status on the screen.

I tried turning off number of things to see what apps, etc. were incompatible.  Nothing worked.

I did learn that under System>Accessability>Visual Effects, I could turn the scrollbars on permanently.  They disappeared when the cursor was not over the right side or bottom of screen after Windows 11 was installed,

Then, an hour ago, the electricity went off on our block for about 30 seconds.

My laptop shutdown.  My TV shutdown and I had to let Verizon Fios load back into and run on the TV, then spent at least 10 minutes trying to get my soundbar to work again. I switched to TV Speaker then, a few minutes late, switched back to HDMI eARC - my soundbar connection, and it was back to normal.

Then I turned on my laptop.  For some reason - maybe thinking the battery was 0% charged - it had completely shut down.  I rebooted it and the battery shows "93% remaining."  I hope that problem is cured.  Then I started up my Firefox browser, WPS Writer and WPS Spreadsheets (free equivalents of the latest MS Office) and they each had a lot of tabs and each loading very fast.

The numlock still doesn't show, but I can hit a number to see if it's on and will hopefully figure that out in the near future.

 

[maddmaxx ★]

Restart may be ok but a full power down often cures many ills.

 

_{quoted for old DOS manuals}

[Razors Edge ★]

7 hours ago, MickinMD said:

Power Outage knocked my Windows 11 back to normal (I hope)

A side note but one which is both handy to remember and often overlooked is that "shutdown" or "reboot" are often mostly software processes, and what a laptop might truly need to "fix" things is to fully shutdown and restart the laptop by REMOVING the battery altogether and then replacing it and starting back up.  It has helped me in the past get out of a weird cycle of Windows not booting correctly but the power button also not helping sort things out.

[MickinMD ★]

On 3/23/2023 at 8:35 AM, Fret Buzz said:

A side note but one which is both handy to remember and often overlooked is that "shutdown" or "reboot" are often mostly software processes, and what a laptop might truly need to "fix" things is to fully shutdown and restart the laptop by REMOVING the battery altogether and then replacing it and starting back up.  It has helped me in the past get out of a weird cycle of Windows not booting correctly but the power button also not helping sort things out.

Thanks a bunch.  I think the software thought the battery was 0% and did the complete restart.

I also know the laptop does a more complete reboot if I do a "restart" than a "shutdown" but that didn't seem to help.

There is not a battery compartment on my laptop and I'd have to take the bottom off and hopefully won't have to do that if other problems surface.

The remaining problems are minor: the battery used to show 99% or 100% when constantly plugged-in but now reads 92% to 93%.  The Num Lock key works but doesn't show on the screen that may be some setting I haven't found yet that's been reset.

[jsharr ★]

I would have just slapped it around a bit and cussed at it.  

[Razors Edge ★]

1 minute ago, jsharr said:

I would have just slapped it around a bit and cussed at it.  

Are we talking about a laptop or something else?   Where's @Random Ungulate?

[jsharr ★]

3 minutes ago, Fret Buzz said:

Are we talking about a laptop or something else?   Where's @Random Ungulate?

I am not a violent man.  I could not tell you the last time I hit someone in anger.  I know when the machines take over, I will go in the first  wave due to my percussive maintenance and my filthy mouth.

[Razors Edge ★]

35 minutes ago, jsharr said:

I am not a violent man.  I could not tell you the last time I hit someone in anger. 

Some one????  Heck no. Some thing was what I am thinking you were referencing.  And RG is the king kahuna of slapping his thing.