Flickering screen after Windows Update

[Lorraine_2]

I have an Asus laptop running Windows 10. Windows updated and took unusally long to do so. After the update, my screen just keeps flickering. I uninstalled the updates, and that did not solve the flickering. Now I receive this message on my screen, "explorer.exe. application error". I also did a system restore and that didn't stock the flickering. I cannot access anything on my laptop unless it is in safe mode. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.....thank you.

[rproffitt]

I can not assure you this will fix it. But luck finally landed such a laptop in my hands to figure out.

What was it? It wasn't the updates. Turns out the HDD needed the following command. I won't write at length what it does, in fact nothing but why I ran it.

CHKDSK C: /F /R /X

The reason was that during boot it had the usual disks needed to be checked, press a key to bypass but it would try and fail. So I took the time to run the command, reboot and the video and updates finished and all is well.

GOOD LUCK. REMEMBER I DID NOT CLAIM THIS WILL FIX YOURS BUT IT'S PAID OFF MORE THAN ONCE SINCE I FOUND A FIX FOR THE ONE SOMEONE BROUGHT TO ME.

[Lorraine_2]

Tried to run chkdsk with command you recommended and it was stuck on 10% for three hours. Did not continue.

[rproffitt]

That's not good but does seem to agree with our findings so far. If there are disk or file system issues, the updates can do odd things like hang, change the video to some odd mode and so on.

Time to clone that HDD to a good HDD.

The CHKDSK should run at boot time. Did it?

[Reverend Jim]

You might want to check out spinrite. It might recover otherwise inaccessible areas of the drive.

[Lorraine_2]

Chkdsk did run again at boot time, however it became stuck once more. I decided to use the Asus reset to reinstall Windows. I moved everything out onto an external hard drive. The reset has been running for three hours which seems odd and something tells me that the reset is now stuck. The reset is only at 45% and hasn't moved for quite some time. Can I stop the reset and try to start it all over?

[rproffitt]

That's sad to read. It means something is going on with the machine. If you stop the reset it usually just is a wipe out. At least with W10 you can use the free download tool to make a reinstall USB or DVD. Here's what I use:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/15088/windows-create-installation-media

Here's an article on how to use this: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-10-media-creation-tool-create-installation-media-upgrade

I wish while it was working we could have checked the drive health. I use the Web Speccy report so folk can share details like this. If it comes back and you want me to read the Speccy, here's how: https://www.piriform.com/docs/speccy/using-speccy/publishing-a-speccy-profile-to-the-web

[uyhjgh]

good

[Lorraine_2]

I ended up having to reinstall Windows. The laptop was useless in regular mode. Couldn't access "start" or type anything into "search". However, I could do both of these things when in safe mode. After the reinstall, although I can now access start and type into search, it takes a few moments before the laptop will respond when doing this. Thanks rproffitt for the reinstall info.