Do you have a backup windows disk? When seeing the blank desktop picture, does touching the Windows key bring up any kind of menu or other choices? How about a left or right click on the mouse or touchpad?

What Windows version does it have?

I'm not a computer tech but I can think of a number of possibilities. Maybe it choked on a Windows update. Or an update was in progress and the PC was shut down or ran out of battery power. Could be a corrupt Windows file that prevents full boot-up. A virus or malware. Too many uncleared files in slowing the machine down (do you regularly clear browser cache areas and delete unneeded files from the drive?. Clear the Recycle Bin?) Too many possibilities.

A "recovery" or (which can be usually be triggered internally, if you can get to that part of Settings or the Control Panel) wipes the drive and settings and reinstalls Windows. Or a "Restore", if you have that setting on and if that works, can back peddle the PC to an earlier date when it would boot up, that would give you the chance to clean it up.

If you can make no progress on your own, you could take it to a PC shop and maybe see what they could do for $50. Or, chuck it and move on.

Good luck./

Is it the one in this review? PC magazine gave it 3.5. What were the reviews before you bought it? Mary

Dell Inspiron 13 5000 (5391) Review | PCMag

Elmer: It is Windows 10. I don't have a backup windows disk, but I did make a recovery drive for it on a flash drive. I'll try using that. I'm glad you reminded me of the possibility of a rescue something-or-other.

We have not used the laptop for browsing the Internet, nor do we use it for email. In fact, since shortly after buying it, I turned it over to my husband in disgust, and the only thing he has used it for is the Oxford English Dictionary, so I doubt a virus or malware is the culprit. Husband says that as far as he knows, he didn't turn it off during an update, though he remembers a fairly recent (maybe 3 weeks, or a bit less, ago) message about it being updated. No problems until suddenly, this one.

It is also unlikely that it is clogged with too many files or a full browser cache; he does all his browsing on his regular desktop, nor does he save files on the laptop. Hardly anything in the Recycle bin, as well.

I can't do anything with "recovery," since there is no way to get to Settings or the Control Panel. I tried right clicking with a mouse plugged in; that resulted in a split second of the little blue circle that means something is going on, but it quickly disappeared and nothing else happened. No access to restore, either, of course. I guess it is probably headed for electronics recycling--or maybe GoodWill will want to try to fix and sell it. Too much trouble to try to get it fixed ourselves; it was always an extremely irritating device.

It is now hours since I wrote the above, and I thought at first that the flash drive rescue was working, though it didn't bring up anything resembling an attempt at repair. It has been cycling between 35% updating,>then 100% updating>Dell logo> Restarting>Dell logo> Getting computer ready>Working on updates>and so on. At first I thought maybe it was just downloading and installing all the updates my husband hadn't given it a chance to get, but how many could there be? It has been acting this way for 3 hours or more, with never a glimpse of the desktop with its icons, much less a chance to get to Settings or Restore. We bought the thing around 2017 or 2018.

We are now going to bed and plan to turn the laptop off. I tried that once, and when I rebooted it, it just went into the cycle again, so it should be able to stand being off for the night. In the morning, I will continue to rechange it while letting it cycle and cycle for as long as we can bear it. If only it would tell you what updates it is working on, so I could know if this is meaningless cycling or accomplishing something with an end in sight!

Anyway, many thanks to you that we have gotten this far. I'll post again if there are any final developments.

Mary: Thanks. It is not the one in the ad, although the names are the same. Mine was manufactured in 2017 and obviously inferior to the one in the ad. It has two 3.0 USB ports, none for a C connector, for one thing, and the price was much lower when we bought it. A good example of "you get what you pay for." The ones we saw in the ad when we bought it were offered in red, blue, or silver cases. The screen is surrounded by a black margin. I have no recollection of what the reviews were, except for those colors. They probably said the laptop was acceptable for ordinary work, or something like that. Surely they can't have claimed that it could be used for gaming. Whatever, it sounded adequate for our purposes--but, as I said, it has been so abysmally slow, really unbelievably slow, right from the start. But interestingly, although the ad you mention complains of a dull display, this laptop has what I would consider a brilliant one. Go figure...

It sounds like a WIndows corruption or update hiccup to me, something any decent tech should be able to easily and inexpensively fix. Or, it's an excuse to buy a new one.

C connections? Get a cord with standard USB (to fit into the PC) on one end and C on the other. Here's one for $5, if I understand what you want:

1m USB 3.1 Gen 2 A Male to C Male Cable 10G 3A, Black | usb cable (cableleader.com)

Thanks, Elmer. I only mentioned the C connector because it was one of the features mentioned in the ad Mary asked about, one of the points on which my laptop, though the same series, was different from the one in the ad. I will put that cable you gave a link for on our Amazon wish list, though, just in case we ever need one.

As for an excuse to buy a new laptop, lol, this one has sufficiently turned us off so that we are very unlikely ever to consider it. Going to stick with PCs and iPads--may go for a bigger one of those some day!

When you said "you are going to bed now and turn off the laptop", I thought "why turn it off? When I have similar problems, sometimes they go away if I leave it on overnight".

All my newer mobile devices use USB C connection for charging. I am so glad as it was getting to be a pain having C and micro to carry around. Bought my husband a rechargeable neck fan recently and even it has USB C charging port. Elmer she said it was slow from day one. I was curious what exact model and what the specs were. Sometimes knowing that you can find other people with same model and problem. You can have trouble at any point. 10yrs ago bought my son a very expensive HP for the start of college, over $1,000. My son takes good care of his stuff. About 1 1/2yrs later hard drive failed and it was no fault of his. Turns our it was some HP defect that a lot with the sane model had. Had to run and get him a new laptop and get it to him. Bought a toshiba for$400, windows 7 and bought myself one too. Both still running perfect to this day but we now have Lenovo laptops we paid a bit more for with windows 10 running great so don't use the old ones.

I like to be able to charge my phone in the car should I find myself out driving. You can't do that conveniently with a cord that has male C connections on both ends. This is just one example. Those male double ended cords (and accordingly a PC with a C socket) are of limited use to most people. In a car, on a plane, when visiting at someone's house, and so many other situations, just having a cord with standard male USB plug on one end and a C on the other will do the job. I have a handful of them, including one in each car.

My chargers don't have C on both ends though so maybe I confused you. My cords for the car are the same as the electrical charger for the house. USB one end and C the other end. I have 2 spots for a car charger, 1 USB port and 1 small round port for I forget but don't use it.. I have nothing that takes USB C on both ends of the cord for charging. Never thought about that.

You can use the USB socket in a car for phone or device charging too, if you're not otherwise using it for a smartphone active with Car Play or Android Auto.

The round one you mention is the AUX input, a 3.5 mm socket. Used to connect external sound sources to the car's audio system using a cord with double ended 3.5 mm male plugs. You can plug in a MP3 player (which I find convenient for audio books because of the small form factor, perfect for exercising or walking too), a tablet, or even a different Android device not connected by Bluetooth.

My Google Pixel phone, which I otherwise love, came with a double ended C cord and a wall wart with only a C socket. I assumed it had normal USB on the other end, I learned the hard way one car trip.

Ok my phone and tablet came with USB to C for the cord that goes to the electrical plug. We have 2 Samsung tab 6 and 2 Samsung note 10 plus. I only use the USB port in the car for a memory stick that has audio books on it. The other 2 ports take these so I could charge 4 things at once if need be. I would not like USB C to C. Mary

What you've pictured is a 12 volt male "plug" with USB sockets on the back side. There are many, many kinds of electrical do-dads, ranging from spotlights to tire pumps to vacuums to coolers , fans and what not that use 12 v male plugs (but without USB slots) for the connection to the 12V sockets often found in RVs and boats as well as cars. The socket used to be called a cigarette lighter socket in cars, now just 12 v. Cars always have one or more.

Those work, of course.

The limitation you have with using a thumb drive in the car's USB slot for audio books is this - there's no way to have personal mobility to listen to the book when you leave the car. Imagine a Kindle or book copy that can't be used outside of a car. And when you remove it from the USB socket, you lose your place.

For those for whom reading a book is a continuous process of repeated sessions, one of which may be in a car but the next one out of the car, audio books are more easily listened to if on a smartphone (and most will play in the audio system over Bluetooth) or using a small MP3 player.

I choose the latter, they're smaller than my smartphone and I can use them all over. If they fall or get damaged, I don't worry about them because they're inexpensive. Sandisk still makes and sells MP3 players. not sure for how much longer. WIth a spring loaded clip on the back that will clip onto your top when exercising, working indoors or out, etc., that you can use cheap earbuds with. Go in the car, use the 3.5mm cord instead. Leave the car, disconnect, plug ear buds back in to keep listening.

Lots of choices, each with advantages and disadvantages

My books are on multiple devices so not a problem for me. Use my phone and head phones if with my husband and when alone I prefer to come through the car speakers. Cia USB stick so I can control the USB from the steering wheel if I want to switch to music or another book or what ever I have on the USB. All works for me perfectly and suits my needs.

All thumb drives are the same, the brand doesn't matter. I don't believe any of the thumb drive companies make their own RAM chips anyway, they're all mostly purchased, Meaning, different brands have the same chips inside.

All recent model year cars can control playback from USB devices. Some will also control playback coming from a smartphone over Bluetooth. My cars do.

Do you mean La Cie?

So if you're listening to a book on a thumb drive, and leave the car and want to listen more from your phone, how do you find your place?

I find all this very enlightening; lots of things I never thought about before. But I want to report that the problem with my laptop has been solved. I finally found out which function button to push in order to get the recovery flash drive to actually do its job--and, even at that, it took several tries to get it to perform! Once on the Recovery page, I could choose what to have it do and ended up returning it to factory condition. Now it is again usable, though slow, as always.

I certainly appreciate Elmer's support, which gave me the determination to keep trying. I really didn't expect to have such success and still hate the snail-like qualities; but, if only for the satisfaction of "winning," I am feeling great.

Would have posted earlier, but a couple of time-consuming jobs came in and had to take precedence, not to mention sucking up all my energy for a few days.

WOW! Good for you. That's a major accomplishment, a product of your persistence and confidence. A big deal to be proud of.

Both WIndows PCs and Android phones come with good news/bad news experiences. The good news is that they're flexible, configurable to the user's preferences, and adaptable. The bad news is that corrupt files, hiccups, or recast settings, bloopers in system updates or even a power surge at the wrong time, can happen unexpectedly and cause a device to stop working. And leaving a frustrated user with an often insurmountable challenge to try to return it to normal. I consider myself to be an informed user of intermediate level skill and it happens to me too. Most recently, a PC that was not very old but used infrequently had a hiccup during a Windows update and that was the end of that. I tried a few times to revive it and then gave up. A good excuse to buy a new one that I like much better.

The one thing to remember - important files should always be backed up externally. And, preferably, with multiple copies that are not all kept in the same physical structure. I prefer USB drives because I have a large volume of files to protect and the drives are inexpensive but everyone should use what works for them.

I appreciate those words of encouragement so much, Elmer! As my husband's interests are more in the arts, literature, and languages, so that he dislikes wrestling with digital stuff, while I love computers,* I am the computer guy of the family. No training, but with the help of the Internet and lots of trial and error, things often unexpectedly go well--as on this occasion. So your kind words added to the pleasure of my little victory this time.

*I still hate and can't seem to conquer our cell phones, though! PCs generally do the right thing if you hit on the right actions, but cell phones--ours, at least--seem more like rebellious dogs.

Feel free to post questions in this forum about smartphone issues. I think there are enough people that pass by that you might find useful information can be provided.

Just dropping in to say that I'm having the same problem with my Dell Inspirion laptop. Haven't used it for about 3 yrs. I updated it and worked well until I tried to log in the following day.

No logon screen. Just the date and time. Tried a bunch of things and couldn't get rid of the screen to log on. Finally out of desperation, I tried Ctrl/alt/delete. Magically, the log on screen appeared.

It is a 15" but has a large drive. Not solid state. Slow as can be compared to my other HP with solid state. But that laptop wound up being a piece of junk and out of desperation, I started up the Dell. Tons of updates, which I think caused the problem.

At least I can use it doing ctrl/alt/delete.

Jane

You're right, it could be as you said, a blip stemming from an update. That happens, not infrequently, to most of us. As described above, if the Restore function on your PC been set, and you find your way to it, that might be an approach to take.

It rolls back the software to an earlier date before the failed update or before other events that may be troublesome. If you do that, a new update (essentially starting from scratch to redo what's already happened but which Restore unwinds) will ultimately be triggered. Leave the PC on and connected for a few days, it may work its way out.

It sounds like you don't find it useful or your primary choice right now so there's nothing to lose. Getting it working would give you an alternative or a PC to give to a friend or family member.

Good luck.