Hardware issues.

A couple of PCs have landed on the workbench recently doing some strange things.  

A desktop that was reporting a corrupted installation of Windows 7, another Windows XP installation that was BSOD without warning and a Laptop that was just mucking about.

Sometimes I can get a bit bogged down by the Windows issues and cannot see the wood for the trees although the voices in my head are yelling at me.  

I heard RAM Issue RAM Issue with the Windows 7 desktop and although I ignored the voices initially they were absolutely correct.  

Windows 7 was erroring out with inconsistent and different error codes (which never make any damn sense in the first place) I installed Windows 10 successfully, but as soon as I tried to reinstall the Applications it all started playing games again.  Error messages and BSODs all over the place.
I set the onboard hardware diagnostics check to run and it confirmed the SMART status of the HDD as healthy and then found and issue with one of the RAM modules.  When I removed one of the RAM modules the PC started running well again.  The issue was hard to spot initially because it was the second stick of RAM.  Had it been the one in the first bay, the issue would have been more apparent as it would have crashed consistently and not every now and again when Windows was up and running. 

The Windows XP system was a duff graphics card.  As soon as another card was installed it ran ok. 

The Laptop was a HDD error.

It is the law of 3s!

I have had 2 clients this week with malware infected laptops and I  managed to infect my own windows tablet by not checking where the download came from.  The first Accept Window should have alerted me to the fact that the Google Chrome installation was not from Google and was a malware infested package, but by then it was too late and I had installed a pile of Malware.

Again, the law of 3s.

Security Housekeeping - Facebook revisited

When you read a Facebook story that tells you to share this piece of important information with ALL your friends, contacts etc it is often about a scam or hoax or whatever… check your facts before reposting.

Some of this so called information has been doing the rounds since the dawn of the internet!  

Pick a sentence from the post and do a quick google search.  

There are websites dedicated to explaining these myths and internet legends.  Hoax Slayer has a section dedicated to Facebook scams & hoaxes.  Also, if you have time, it makes for hilarious reading. Another one is Snopes.com

Next time someone tells you that Facebook are going to start charging or turn the clock on your iPhone back to 1970 for a retro look or that "famous Person" is moving to your town you can check your facts before reposting to all your Facebook contacts.

Link to Hoax Slayers Current top 5 dumbest

Link to Snopes recent list

Digital Resolutions - Drivers

Before Christmas I started to do a Digital Resolutions series.  I am going back to it.  


Todays topic is Windows Drivers:  

This has come up quite often following Windows 10 upgrades.   I have found that Windows 10 does not always find the optimal drivers for the bits and pieces on your PC.  So it uses and old one that it found on the back of the shelf behind the old zip drive and the floppy drive cable on top of the XP Installation disk, that's a bit dusty.  

It is difficult to persuade Windows 10 itself that actually these “Are not the Drivers you are looking for” and it might be better to tell windows 10 rather than ask it.  

Without going all Jedi Mind trick on Windows 10 you could use a 3rd party application to update your drivers rather than letting Windows do the work.

There are many applications that will tell you that you have outdated drivers but will try to charge you to actually find, download and install the drivers.

Iobit have a suite of "free for home use" applications that includes Driver Booster.

http://www.iobit.com/en/driver-booster.php

It scans your system and locates, downloads and installs updated drivers for each component in your system.  Reboot and you are good to go.



  

New Phone

Its that time again!  The contract is up and I have not only a new phone but a new provider as well!

Its great to get a new bit of tech to put in your pocket but sometimes it is a bit of a culture shock when you go to do something that you have done 100 times before and Oh! that shortcut has gone or in my case this morning, why no predictive text and what is this keyboard, why is it not typing the  word I want when I "Swype" t-h-e?

I've set a lot of stuff up but still there are things that are not quite right.

I don't have any brilliant or fancy answers, I was also missing all my text messages this morning.  You know that one that she sent 18 months ago with the new address, which I have not needed till now.....

It is still fortunately on my old phone.  Maybe I should do a blog post of "Things to do to make your phone look and act like your old one did" !  

I'd read that and probably find it extremely helpful in about 24 months time!

Last night I sent a text to my sister - I ended up sending it to her landline number, as it is now the top one on the list of numbers stored for her.

I have just tried to pair it with my computer and it didn't like it. The phone suggested that I switch bluetooth on and off on the phone or Factory Reset my PC.

I am still using android, just a Mobile provider messed about one.

Enjoy the weekend

Digital Resolutions Security Housekeeping - Antivirus

Part 2 in the Digital Resolutions series.

Have you got an Antivirus running on your system?

If you have:

• does it run on a schedule?
• does it update regularly?
• Is it out of Subscription?

There is no reason not to have a working antivirus installed on your PC.  There is a vast array of options when it comes to Anti-Virus and one of the best free versions is Avast.  It is currently the number one downloaded from Downloads.com.  Avast has a "real-time" scanner,  This means that any file you access on your PC gets scanned at time of opening.  Not all of the free ones do this, but they have other features that maybe Avast does not. Some others have parental controls included and some have a firewall.

Avast Website

Other options include : BT offer within their subscription package, an Anti Virus for free, as do Sky, as do Virgin Media.

A google search for top 10 antivirus or top 10 free antivirus, will give you a raft of options and opinions.

Do make sure it is set up to run on schedule, a quick scan once a week and a full scan once a fortnight.  Ensure that it is able to update automatically, as newer threats will be added frequently.

It does not matter whether you pay for it or whether its a free version make sure it updates regularly and can be set to run on a schedule automatically and that the schedule is set to run when the system is running and not at 3.00am on a Wednesday morning when it is switched off.

Antivirus will only run when the PC is switched on!

Digital Resolutions Security Housekeeping - Facebook Privacy Edition 1

Over the next couple of weeks I am going to be posting some New Year’s resolutions to help with the task of keeping your PC under control, keep it running well and to keep the virus and rubbish off your computers.  

Yes, I know most of the Security software companies are doing something or have done something similar.

So I am going to start off today with one that is quite important to me, but nevertheless a reminder for the time of year.

A while back I felt the need to post on Facebook the following:

When you are posting on Facebook, please give a thought to your own privacy settings.
I take my the privacy of my children seriously and I don’t want pictures of my children posted Publicly on Facebook and I know that many parents feels the same.

My own settings are locked to Friends only, because they are MY friends and I know them off Facebook, in the real world, and I trust them.

There are many tutorials on the Web and within Facebook itself that detail the steps needed to put this basic security in place.

Please respect the privacy of my children and that of ALL children – Don’t post pictures of children without the consent of the parent and make sure the post respects that consent and their privacy.

 It is likely that you will be taking photos over Christmas and New Year.  Think about it before you post them on your timeline.  Who is in the photo?  Ask permission to post pictures of other people’s kids on social media and when you do, make them available to friends only.  It is better to ask permission, than to piss people off!

HMRC refund email

The Network Manager got an email this week supposedly from the HMRC.

It was one of those that look almost authentic.

It had the HMRC logo at the top and was notification of a tax refund.

The Network Manager is gainfully employed and pays his tax.  If there was a slight chance of a refund, it would not be in November and he is PAYE and therefore, rather unlikely to see it.
It also calls it a "refund" don't all us Brits call it something else!

It asks him to follow the link to give bank details so that the refund can be processed. 

 HA HA NO!!

Out of interest and for the purposes of research, he clicked on the link, but our ISP was already on it and had blocked the site.

So there is another one to add to the list.

• Microsoft will NEVER telephone you, 
• Your bank will not email you to verify your internet banking details while blocking your account,
• HMRC will not email you to give you some money back!  As I understand it, they only write "proper" letters to people and send them via Royal Mail.

Windows cannot automatically bind the ip stack to the network adapter ...part 2

In my last post I mentioned difficulties with getting back online after a Windows 10 upgrade
I have found the source for the solution

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/windows-couldnt-automatically-bind-the-ip-protocol/a2f074cf-be62-435e-b951-42dfbb9351c2?page=3

Windows cannot automatically bind the IP protocol stack Windows 10 Update

Recently completed the Network Managers upgrade to Windows 10.

Dell Inspiron 1545.  It arrived with Windows 7 on it.  

The first time I upgraded it errored out, rebooted and restored Windows 7.  The reason for this was I had over estimated the battery power.  It is not as good as it used to be.  (insert Ronnie Corbett-esque anecdote about laptop batteries?...maybe another time)

I tried again with the laptop running on the mains power and it completed.

There was however, an issue with the Ethernet and Wi-Fi.

Due to the age of the laptop Dell do not provide updated drivers for Windows 10 so I reinstalled the Windows 7 drivers.  They apparently installed with no issue, but it was still not working and not making the connection to the internet.

I ran a diagnostic on the network connections and the result was:

"Windows cannot automatically bind the IP protocol stack to the network adapter"

The reason for this was, installed on the adapter configuration were some items that were not required.

Control Panel -->  Network and Sharing Centre --> Change adapter Settings --> Right Click on the adapter name and select Properties.  The window below will appear or something very much like it

The items that should be checked are:

• Client for Microsoft Networks
• File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks
• QoS Packet Scheduler
• Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4
• Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6)
• Link Layer Topology Discovery Mapper I/O Driver
• Link Layer Topology Discovery Responder.

Uncheck anything else.

The culprit, it seems, on the Dell Inspiron, was Microsoft LLDP Protocol Driver.  It was checked. 

It was then unchecked and the adapter was disabled and then re-enabled and then it was finally able to connect to the internet.

There are other reasons that it may not work, one is an unsupported VPN application or connection.  I made sure that anything of this nature was removed from the laptop, but in this case it was the MS LLDP Protocol Driver.

Sadly, I cannot remember or find the site that this useful information came from and I do like to give credit where credit is due.  If I do find it I will add the link to the site as the discussion it came from did give other solutions if this was unsuccessful.

Other reasons could include :

• the Ethernet cable may not be plugged in correctly
• Firewall or AV software may need to be temporarily disabled.
• Unsupported VPN software.

 

Windows 10 upgrade

So we were away on 29th July and I had to wait until 2nd August before I could even think about getting my grubby mitts into the Windows 10 upgrade.

The first in line for an upgrade was my faithful war horse PC.  This PC is the "Triggers Broom" of PCs.  It was first purchased in about 2000 and it had Millenium installed!  Pausing so you can wipe the tears of laughter from your eyes.

It has been upgraded through XP, Windows 7, and now to 10. (Skipped over Vista, 8 and 8.1) Over the years it has had, in no particular order, new HDD & SSD.  New Optical drive, I upgraded the Motherboard and processor at one point and I have also replaced the PSU added RAM... and a new case, but it has been with me all these years.

I am writing this blog on it and it is now working fine upgraded to Windows 10.  There is a bit of back story including me being a little impatient and not waiting for the official release and upgrading to the Insider Preview version.  This version upgraded ok, but did not like it when I tried to upgrade to the full version.  I was a victim of the "explorer and cortana is not responding" critical error.

I had to reinstall Windows 7 from scratch and then update to windows 10.  I will gloss over the fact that I have now got to install all my applications again, but sometimes that's a good thing. It was due a clean out anyway.  But that is my desktop, I accumulate applications for this and that and sometimes don't uninstall them.

My Laptop on the other hand, was a bit of a "surprise - I'm upgrading to 10"  Still not entirely sure how it started.  I really wanted the desktop working first, but my laptop decided that it had all the necessary and was going with Windows update and was going off to Windows 10 land whether I liked it or not.  I registered for the upgrade almost the second it came out so I have only myself to blame.

It is working fine.  There have been some ID 10T errors from the k2c interface, but these are slowly being resolved, as I find out new stuff.

There are other Systems here at Lamas HQ and some of my clients have asked me to "do" the upgrade for them.  I have one sitting here beside me at 18%.  This client is firmly in the Hate Windows 8 camp.  (Laptop with no touchscreen!)  She did not want to wait any longer to get rid of 8.1 and upgrade to 10.

All in all it is going well so far.  I have no wisdom to impart as I have not really had any issues, other than those of my own making, so far.  Or maybe just one.  Custom Installation or you will be furnishing Microsoft with all of your personal browsing habits and application info.  Double check all the toggle switches about sending this that and the other bits of info out to all and sundry.

There will be more on the Lamas Windows 10 journey in the future as there are more systems to go!

Windows update checking for updates and checking and checking

It was a little too hot in the garden on Saturday and I worked on a laptop.

This laptop had issues!

It starts up fine.  Then all of a sudden it just freezes.

On investigation I found that the Windows Update was not happening and when the update procedure runs it just goes on and on and on, without actually doing anything.  It takes all the available memory, therefore, causing the freeze.  To get it moving again the Service had to be stopped.

I tried resetting Update using this  from SevenForums I tried the 3rd option which initially made no difference

I ran disk clean up in Safe mode.  Which from the song and dance it did on reboot you would think it had cleared the problem.  There were 9.5GBs of Update files which it deleted.  When it rebooted it when through the whole windows configuring stuff.  Then it said Cleaning.  

Eventually it rebooted, but the update service was still stealing all the RAM.

I noticed that the AV was being weird as well so I uninstalled that.

I tried resetting Update again using the same 3rd option from the SevenForums site. Rebooting and changed the updates from automatic to manual, which did nothing really it just gave me a sense of control over the whole affair!

It sat there Checking for updates and the green whooshy thing going across for ages.  Then after quite a long while, a couple of hours, it showed that there were updates to be applied.  I applied the updates, which in itself was an occasion worthy of celebration!

Rebooted. 

It has settled down to just using half the available RAM.  So, Laptop Sorted!
I can reinstall the AV.