I have a Helios 300 PH317-51 bought in 2017. Still on Windows 10. A routine Avast scan said it found some malware, which I've never had happen before so I've never done this process before. After clicking "resolve all" it moved the files to quarantine and said I need to do a boot scan on the next restart so I closed everything else and chose to do this right away.
After the scan completed the screen remained dark and nothing else happened. The keyboard lights and fans were still on but after 30-40 mins there was still no change, not knowing what else to do I held the power key to power it down and turned it on again.
The predator logo came up, lights and fans going as before and I also heard the sound I always hear when booting up. But still nothing, it sounds like it's trying to do something since the fans keep going on and off, and the backlight is on.
I've tried the following suggestions from googling the problem:
1. Connected external monitor to see if there was a picture (there wasn't but it looked like something was happening - it was also black but a white horizontal bar appeared intermittently at various heights on the screen).
2. Entered bios with F2 and checked boot order, the only option available was Windows boot manager.
3. Changed to default settings on bios. I was a bit concerned when it restarted - it immediately powered down again with a loud click and a sound like when you turn off a really old tv. Then it restarted again and it seemed the same as before but every 10 or so minutes a blue Windows message would appear, saying there was a problem with starting up, with error code MSRPC_STATE_VIOLATION. It did this maybe 6 times and nothing changed.
4. Booted from the recovery usb stick I created when I got the laptop. I tried all the options except command prompt (I wouldn't know what to do with that). It says there are no restore points (there are). I have no system image to try and the start up repair didn't work (see image if that might be helpful).
5. Entered Windows recovery area by turning on and immediately off again a couple of times. It wanted a password but I use a PIN to log in. So I reset my password with my phone and it's still not accepted so I can't try the options there.
6. Can't enter safe mode with the restart method, tried options 4, 5 and 6 but they did nothing.
7. Reset battery with a pin pushed in the hole in the case for 30 sec. This gave the collecting info messages and automatic restart loop again.
Is there anything else I can try? I know I have the option with the recovery usb to do a clean install but I'd like to avoid that if possible.
Also any ideas why this happened? Was I too hasty powering it down after the scan or do you think it was already messed up when I did that?
