I have a Dell Inspiron 660 PC about 15 months old, that is mostly used for light duty (I'm not a gamer). The PC has Windows 8 preinstalled on it. Every now and then I've been getting messages to upgrade to Windows 8.1 for free. I finally decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and update to Windows 8.1. I went to the "Store Block (or whatever Microsoft calls those icons)" found the Microsoft upgrade site and clicked on download. I have to agree that it took quite a while to download the update. After it finally finished downloading a tab came up saying something like "to complete the install please click on restart". When I clicked on the restart tab, my PC shutdown and hasn't started again????? When I press the power on button, I can hear the fans winding up and then the PC shuts off, the monitor never shows any display. I think if the hard drive failed, I should at least get a message that "C" drive could not be found and if the power supply failed I don't think the fans would start? I called Windows Support (what a loose word) and was told it wasn't their fault and they gave me the phone number for Dell Support. After working with Dell on the phone for a while, I was told I needed to take the PC to a shop.
Question: Could something in the Windows 8.1 upgrade have killed my PC or could it just be a coincidence that the PC failed during the install? I'll know more when I get it back from the shop. The PC has been running for about an hour before I started the download and it was working fine with no errors at all.
Thank you lTech83 for your reply. When I opened the case, the vents at both fans were clear of dust and the inlet vent was also clear of dust. I did see some dust deep inside the heatsink, but it didn't look like much. The Dell Support Tech had me unplug the drives and both memory strips. When I then tried to start the PC, it gave out two beeps. The Dell Support Tech said it was probably a memory problem and asked if I happened to have a spare 6GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600 MHz memory strip, that I could swap out for one of the other memory strips. I looked on the couch (lol) but didn't see any spare strips. The repair shop had none of them on hand either and had to order one. I sure hope that was the only problem.
Thank you for your suggestions DaveH, but the PC is still in the shop. I've been told they are still waiting on the memory stick from up north. Maybe the snow and ice has backed everything up. Are you talking about the CMOS battery? While troubleshooting with the Dell Tech, he did suggest unpluging the power cord and holding in the power button for several seconds. He mentioned this even before he said to unplug the memory sticks and the drives. He didn't mention the CMOS battery. When I find out what the repair shop found, i'll update my post.
I wonder if you ran into that corrupted upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1 due to interference by an AV program (in the Technet situation it was McAfee ! but it could apply to any security program)?
Update is available that prepares Windows 8 and Windows RT-based computers for the update to Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 RT
The reason Microsoft referred you to Dell is that on a PC delivered with Windows installed it is the responisibiliy of the PC manufacturer to support Windows problems and not Microsoft (although Microsoft does seem to help out in the early days).
If you are able to eliminate the mechanical problems as suggested here then I'd look at those update problems.
huwyngr thank you for your suggestions also. I went through that tutorial in that kb2871389, and from what i can remember, the process went pretty much as the tutorial suggested. EXCEPT for the part that said a restart was needed to complete the installation. I clicked on "Restart Now" and so far my PC hasn't restarted. From what i've read, if my PC wasn't ready for the 8.1 upgrade, I would not have been able to find the upgrade in the "Store" tile. That is where I started the update process from. I don't remember reading anything about shutting down NIS. The program even said I could keep using my PC during the install process.
<< I don't remember reading anything about shutting down NIS. >>
That's something that came up through user experience as reported in the Technet forum I linked you to. Once upon a time, when Windows normally worked first time <g>m Microsoft used to advise people to disable their AV software when applying Windows Updates and I do remember one occasion when I did get a failure to complete an upgrade which ran fine when I disabled Norton (This was back in Windows 98 or XP days <s>).
Yes it does tell you that you can continue to use the PC and I did for a while when I upgraded from 8.0 to 8.1 but I didn't go out on the internet. Basically I think it was during the download.
If all else fails you may have to restore your system to factory condition using the built in utility in most computers or if it won't boot using the recovery disks you can make once ..... you did make them didn't you?
Sorry, for the late weigh in on this matter; this is the first chance I've had to sign in for awhile. I've read some of the comments and thought I'd share that I did have a client whose computer was running Windows 8.0 and they upgraded to Windows 8.1 with Norton 360 running nothing was disabled an the update went through without any problem. I pretty sure that N360 shares the same engine base as NAV & NIS; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Given the premise that all of the Norton products share the same engine base I don't see how Norton would interfere with any updates sent from Microsoft especially on the newer systems an newer software. I'm not a software engineer by no means but I would expect that by now the quality security products wouldn't interfere with legitimate OS updates; especially since malware is so prevalent on the internet now.
I have a Dell Inspiron 660 PC about 15 months old, that is mostly used for light duty (I'm not a gamer). The PC has Windows 8 preinstalled on it. Every now and then I've been getting messages to upgrade to Windows 8.1 for free. I finally decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and update to Windows 8.1. I went to the "Store Block (or whatever Microsoft calls those icons)" found the Microsoft upgrade site and clicked on download. I have to agree that it took quite a while to download the update. After it finally finished downloading a tab came up saying something like "to complete the install please click on restart". When I clicked on the restart tab, my PC shutdown and hasn't started again????? When I press the power on button, I can hear the fans winding up and then the PC shuts off, the monitor never shows any display. I think if the hard drive failed, I should at least get a message that "C" drive could not be found and if the power supply failed I don't think the fans would start? I called Windows Support (what a loose word) and was told it wasn't their fault and they gave me the phone number for Dell Support. After working with Dell on the phone for a while, I was told I needed to take the PC to a shop.
Question: Could something in the Windows 8.1 upgrade have killed my PC or could it just be a coincidence that the PC failed during the install? I'll know more when I get it back from the shop. The PC has been running for about an hour before I started the download and it was working fine with no errors at all.