Did I Get Hacked?
By Jo Ann
@akalinus (44366)
United States
April 27, 2023 11:53am CST
This morning, I woke up to the blue screen of death on my laptop. It was very hot. I disconnected everything and let it cool down.
I finally got it to respond and got a notice that Windows did not load correctly. It had the option of restarting or looking at sponsored options. I restarted and declined the things that Microsoft wanted me to do.
I am wondering if I got hacked. Also, I wonder why my laptop was almost smoking hot. What do you think? What should I do next, if anything?
12 people like this
14 responses
@arunima25 (93194)
• Bangalore, India
27 Apr 23
Laptop getting so hot...I have not experienced that. It sounds strange..You better see a professional repair service. Maybe call the customer care of the brand of laptop that you own.
1 person likes this
@akalinus (44366)
• United States
27 Apr 23
@arunima25 I hope not either. Nobody needs one more problem to deal with. I hope it starts acting normal again soon.
1 person likes this
@arunima25 (93194)
• Bangalore, India
27 Apr 23
@akalinus We are suggested to do that. Keeping it plugged for too long might be the cause. I hope that it's nothing serious.
1 person likes this
@DaddyEvil (174405)
• United States
27 Apr 23
No, I don't think you got hacked. I think something went wrong with the program that regulates when to stop charging the battery on your laptop. That can happen to any laptop. It just takes a little glitch in that program and your laptop overheats. It should be fine now. All it needed was a restart and the glitch probably did a self-correct.
Use your laptop like normal. If it ever overheats again, let it cool down and restart it.
1 person likes this
@DaddyEvil (174405)
• United States
28 Apr 23
@akalinus You're welcome. Yuki gave a really valid response to you, too.
I've not had good care when I've had to take my desktop to a repair shop, either. I started taking care of everything at home after watching a YT video explaining what needed to be done.
I hope everything stays working correctly for you now.
1 person likes this
@akalinus (44366)
• United States
1 May 23
@DaddyEvil Oh, me too. I don't really want to get a new machine right now. I don't know if I even could. There is a chip shortage and price gouging and whatever. Windows 11 is still rife with problems and bugs as far as I can figure out by reading discussions.
1 person likes this
@akalinus (44366)
• United States
28 Apr 23
Thanks, DE. I was hoping you would give your opinion about this.
I will check this out. It did seem to resolve when I restarted. I was hoping I would not have to take it to a repair shop. I took a long-gone laptop to a place once. They kept it for six weeks, wiped out a lot of memory, took my programs off, and did not reinstall my Works program as I asked them to.
I lost the box that Works came in and did not have the installation code. I had to call the shop and ask them to give me a valid code.
They charged half of what the computer cost new. I will never take my machine anywhere again.
1 person likes this
@kaylachan (84780)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
27 Apr 23
I've noticed that windows gets more and more unstable. I can't use my windows computer more than a couple hours before it heats up and freaks out. It's gotten to the point that I don't use it if I have a lot to do. But, that's serious. You could have a virus that's forcing your system to run system processes in the background. Or, it be that you have too many background tasks and start up tasks running in the background. Do you ever put your computer in sleep mode, or attempt to "power it off' when you're done with it?
1 person likes this
@kaylachan (84780)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
28 Apr 23
@akalinus Yeah, I know. Technology is not always the best, and manufactures build machines to fail. Why? So you're forced to buy the next best thing.
1 person likes this
@akalinus (44366)
• United States
28 Apr 23
@kaylachan Okay, I did not think of that. I want the computer to live but not go out on a blaze of glory. Life was so simple before the internet.
1 person likes this
@Shivram59 (50205)
• India
27 Apr 23
@akalinus I have no idea.I even don't know how one gets hacked.I use my smartphone to access internet.I'm not on social media.But now I'm thinking about creating a blog and learning how to do it.
1 person likes this
@Shivram59 (50205)
• India
28 Apr 23
@akalinus Water preservation.I'm gathering informations about it.
@snowy22315 (208897)
• United States
27 Apr 23
Mine is warm right now. I think the fan is broken.
1 person likes this
@akalinus (44366)
• United States
28 Apr 23
I used to turn on the AC for a couple of hours or use a big window fan on a table next to my desk when the laptop got too warm. Maybe you could try that. Now, I live where the AC is always on and I don't have the heat problem. Yesterday, it was like it was stuck on hot or something.
@akalinus (44366)
• United States
27 Apr 23
I had an old laptop once that started beeping non-stop. Being new to the computer, I had no idea what was going on. Someone told me to make sure it had a lot of space around it. It was inside a kind of enclosed box. I took it out of there and it was fine after that.
@yukimori (10192)
• United States
27 Apr 23
It sounds like there might be an issue with a Windows update installation. If it's working correctly now, I'd run Malwarebytes and see if that turns anything up and keep an eye on it to make sure the fan is working properly. If it were mine I'd also pull the bottom panel off and take a look at the battery to make sure it's not expanding from overheating.
The other thing I'd do is go to the Windows update settings and change when it's installing updates. I'm betting yours is doing it outside of active hours and it got hung up on something while installing, and it got that hot because of the load on the processor. If you switch it to a time when you're awake, you'll be able to catch it if it happens again and keep it from overheating like that.
I don't think I'd worry much about it unless it keeps happening. Issues with Windows updates are pretty common.
1 person likes this
@LeaPea2417 (40029)
• Toccoa, Georgia
27 Apr 23
Maybe you should take it to a computer repair shop and see if anything is wrong with it.
1 person likes this
@LindaOHio (222302)
• United States
1 May 23
Your laptop should not be that hot. You might want to get someone to check it out.
1 person likes this
