Random Tech Questions you want answered.

Alright, enough of the handiman discussion, time for an actual tech question.

I keep coming back to my PC in the morning, or after I come home from work (basically when it's been idle for a long time) and finding out that it's rebooted itself.

Windows Event Viewer shows event ID 41: "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

I checked things out with BlueScreenView, which chalks it up to the driver "nvlddmkm.sys" - obviously something related to my Nvidia graphics card.

It is important to note that this has NEVER happened while the GPU is under load (playing a game, etc). It has ONLY happened while the PC has been left idle for a substantial period of time.

Things I have down already tried:

-Updating my Nvidia drivers

-Uninstalling my Nvidia drivers with Display Driver Uninstaller and reinstalling in safe mode

-Manually expanding the "nvlddmkm.sy_" file into "nvlddmkm.sys" and placing it in the Windows drivers directory as explained here

-Running memtest, which gave a clean bill of health

Thus far the problem has not in any way impeded my actual use of the PC since again, it only happens when the PC is left idling, but it's annoying and it makes me nervous. Would appreciate any suggestions anyone can provide.

Middcore wrote:

Alright, enough of the handiman discussion, time for an actual tech question.

I keep coming back to my PC in the morning, or after I come home from work (basically when it's been idle for a long time) and finding out that it's rebooted itself.

Windows Event Viewer shows it as event ID 41: "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

I checked things out with BlueScreenView, which chalks it up to the driver "nvlddmkm.sys" - obviously something related to my Nvidia graphics card.

It is important to note that this has NEVER happened while the GPU is under load (playing a game, etc). It has ONLY happened while the PC has been left idle for a substantial period of time.

Things I have down already tried:

-Updating my Nvidia drivers

-Uninstalling my Nvidia drivers with Display Driver Uninstaller and reinstalling in safe mode

-Manually expanding the "nvlddmkm.sy_" file into "nvlddmkm.sys" and placing it in the Windows drivers directory as explained here

-Running memtest, which gave a clean bill of health

Thus far the problem has not in any way impeded my actual use of the PC since again, it only happens when the PC is left idling, but it's annoying and it makes me nervous. Would appreciate any suggestions anyone can provide.

Do you have integrated graphics? I'd try running without the Nvidia card installed to see if that driver problem is masking something else.

Chairman_Mao wrote:
Middcore wrote:

Alright, enough of the handiman discussion, time for an actual tech question.

I keep coming back to my PC in the morning, or after I come home from work (basically when it's been idle for a long time) and finding out that it's rebooted itself.

Windows Event Viewer shows it as event ID 41: "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

I checked things out with BlueScreenView, which chalks it up to the driver "nvlddmkm.sys" - obviously something related to my Nvidia graphics card.

It is important to note that this has NEVER happened while the GPU is under load (playing a game, etc). It has ONLY happened while the PC has been left idle for a substantial period of time.

Things I have down already tried:

-Updating my Nvidia drivers

-Uninstalling my Nvidia drivers with Display Driver Uninstaller and reinstalling in safe mode

-Manually expanding the "nvlddmkm.sy_" file into "nvlddmkm.sys" and placing it in the Windows drivers directory as explained here

-Running memtest, which gave a clean bill of health

Thus far the problem has not in any way impeded my actual use of the PC since again, it only happens when the PC is left idling, but it's annoying and it makes me nervous. Would appreciate any suggestions anyone can provide.

Do you have integrated graphics? I'd try running without the Nvidia card installed to see if that driver problem is masking something else.

I do but running without my GPU for any meaningful period of time would be a major inconvenience and many Google hits indicate this is definitely an Nvidia driver-related problem.

Nvidia support just had me roll back one driver version and change power management mode in the Nvidia control panel to "prefer maximum performance." Then they were like "Is it fixed now?" I had to explain to them again I won't have any idea until probably tomorrow morning at the earliest.

I would bet something in power management causing it. Probably worth updating motherboard drivers too if you can.

LeapingGnome wrote:

I would bet something in power management causing it. Probably worth updating motherboard drivers too if you can.

By motherboard drivers do you mean the mobo BIOS? I mean, I'm looking at the Asus downloads page for my board and there's a bunch of different drivers for various features (USB, on-board audio, LAN, etc)...

Middcore wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

I would bet something in power management causing it. Probably worth updating motherboard drivers too if you can.

By motherboard drivers do you mean the mobo BIOS? I mean, I'm looking at the Asus downloads page for my board and there's a bunch of different drivers for various features (USB, on-board audio, LAN, etc)...

Chipset drivers is what they're often called.

Updating BIOS and drivers across the board is probably a good idea. It's entirely possible another device is doing something that then doesn't get tripped until the NVIDIA driver touches it.

Feegle wrote:
krev82 wrote:
Kurrelgyre wrote:

Falling from what? There are simple guardrails that you can use for a bed.

usually during transfers. EW'eve eliminated most of them now but every now and then down I go.

My wife's an OT; I'll ask her tonight, but I'm posting now so I don't lose this thread before I get a chance to see if there's an answer. To be clear, are you asking about a gadget to help you get back up, something to help eliminate falls, or something for each of those?

Assuming it's the former, my wife says that mechanical lifts are the only thing that's on the market to help people get back up, and that some of the newer ones help from the floor, not just from a bed or seat. However, mechanical lifts are large, mostly stationary, and can't be operated from the floor (so you'd need your wife or another caregiver to actually use the lift.)

Middcore wrote:

Alright, enough of the handiman discussion, time for an actual tech question.

I keep coming back to my PC in the morning, or after I come home from work (basically when it's been idle for a long time) and finding out that it's rebooted itself.

Windows Event Viewer shows event ID 41: "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

I had a similar problem for years with my last PC, but it was with random lockups that would happen even when the system was idling. That error was the only thing I could ever get out of Windows, and one thing I found was that Windows 7 would just lock up and stay that way, but Windows 10 would normally catch the crash and reboot, and I'd just be left with that event ID.

When I built my new system I was stripping parts out of the old and found I had a handful of blown capacitors on the motherboard. At some point I'm going to replace them and turn that into a rig for my kid's (they play stuff like Minecraft and Portal Knights). Anyway, putting your eyes on the motherboard typically isn't too rough, I'd suggest a quick look-over for bulging or leaking caps.

PurEvil wrote:

When I built my new system I was stripping parts out of the old and found I had a handful of blown capacitors on the motherboard. At some point I'm going to replace them and turn that into a rig for my kid's (they play stuff like Minecraft and Portal Knights). Anyway, putting your eyes on the motherboard typically isn't too rough, I'd suggest a quick look-over for bulging or leaking caps.

It's a shame that Portal Knights doesn't seem to have couch co-op on the PS4. Looks like something my wife and I would enjoy together.

Hmm, I'm pretty sure it has couch co op split screen on the PS4 now. Try downloading the demo.

Mixolyde wrote:

It's a shame that Portal Knights doesn't seem to have couch co-op on the PS4. Looks like something my wife and I would enjoy together.

It's an amazing game for what it is, and really kid/non-gamer friendly. I actually had a good time farming the normal bosses and learning the timing, and even posted a Youtube video on how to take down the middle one with a level 1 unarmed character, but holy sh*t the epic bosses are insane (spoilers, obviously).

And yeah, everything I see online is that it does have couch coop on the PS4. I wish there was more interest here because I'd love to get a few people together and take a stab at the epic bosses, I just can't get the timing well enough to solo them, no matter how many videos I watch... that damn worm gets me eventually every time.

Cross post from general questions thread. Probably better here.

I'm looking to get a mesh wifi network for my home. Everything I'm reading talks about replacing my router with just a mesh node, but I still want to have a wired LAN for my PCs. Right now, I've got a Comcast modem/router with wifi turned off that wires into my nicer ASUS router. That handles my wired, wireless, and powerline connections. It's all pretty haphazard and one of my APs loses connection daily and has to be restarted. Mesh sounds much smoother. I'd like to keep my router in the loop for my wired LAN, and I'd like to everything on the same network so things like Splashtop work from wifi to the LAN.

At first I was thinking to just connect both the router and the mesh node to the modem, but worried that might set them up as separate networks as far as remote access is concerned (would that be a subnet?). Is that easily fixable? Alternatively, I could ditch the ASUS and just have the Comcast one handle the routing, but if I can avoid it, I'd prefer to. I like to have the comcast device as dumb as I can. I'm not sure how a mesh setup would like it if I tacked it onto the end of a modem, router, mesh chain.

Anyone have any experience with mesh networks?

Had some trouble turning on my computer. Pressing the power button did nothing for a time. After a bit of time I noticed the fan would start to spin and then stop. So I pulled out all the usb stuff that wasn't needed. After press the power button a few times it started up like normal. Only this time one of the fans is making a lot more noise.

So now I'm moving stuff off the computer which will probably take a few days. I don't want to turn it off until I have everything I want off of it. I just wish I could quiet it down.

Probably just your CPU fan on the way out. They're generally pretty cheap, depending on what cooler you're using. If the CPU fan isn't detected most motherboards will fail POST and abort booting up. I had a GPU fan go recently and when it spun up it sounded like my case was about to do a vertical takeoff. What cooler are you using?

I'm using the stock fan, stock paste, for cpu. The case has two front fans, one large side fan, one large top fan, and power supply fan.

Not too worried about the other fans. Whatever fan is plugged into the main CPU fan power socket on the motherboard is the one you want to check out. If that one's going, and your BIOS is set to check for that fan in POST, then that's likely your problem. Find the CPU fan power socket, make sure that's your CPU fan plugged into it, and if your CPU fan is the one running super loud then I'd replace it. A lot of them just clip onto the radiator of the heat sink, so you should be able to simply replace it without bothering to take the heat sink out if that's the problem.

If you can isolate which one is running loud that helps. Or are they all just ramping to 100%?

Another issue could be dust, especially in your power supply. If you haven't done a good cleaning, now might be a good time. Just blow the dust out of it, and make sure to get the power supply really well. Dust and hair can build up inside and short it out, which could cause a lot of the same issues.

Antichulius wrote:

Cross post from general questions thread. Probably better here.

I'm looking to get a mesh wifi network for my home. Everything I'm reading talks about replacing my router with just a mesh node, but I still want to have a wired LAN for my PCs. Right now, I've got a Comcast modem/router with wifi turned off that wires into my nicer ASUS router. That handles my wired, wireless, and powerline connections. It's all pretty haphazard and one of my APs loses connection daily and has to be restarted. Mesh sounds much smoother. I'd like to keep my router in the loop for my wired LAN, and I'd like to everything on the same network so things like Splashtop work from wifi to the LAN.

At first I was thinking to just connect both the router and the mesh node to the modem, but worried that might set them up as separate networks as far as remote access is concerned (would that be a subnet?). Is that easily fixable? Alternatively, I could ditch the ASUS and just have the Comcast one handle the routing, but if I can avoid it, I'd prefer to. I like to have the comcast device as dumb as I can. I'm not sure how a mesh setup would like it if I tacked it onto the end of a modem, router, mesh chain.

Anyone have any experience with mesh networks?

Someone with actual hands-on experience may chime in with better insight. But from what research I had done when considering a mesh network to replace my last router (which I ultimately determined wasn't necessary for my uses, as cool as it is), the mesh nodes are your router now. Depending on what brand/model mesh you get, I believe there are still a couple ethernet ports on at least one of the nodes. IIRC, Netgear's Orbi is set up this way.

So I'm pretty certain you'd set it up like so: cable into the modem for internet, ethernet from modem to the primary mesh router for your wifi, then all the mesh nodes "speak" to each other and act as more sophisticated bridges or wifi extenders throughout your space. Anything else that needs to be hard-wired into the router would be, just like if you were using a regular router.

A quick glance at the Orbi site, and yeah:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/sTIOA8k.png)

Thanks. Yeah, I decided to get a second Portal router, which has a mesh set up built in now and since I already had one, it was a good start. So far, it's been great and we haven't had any drop off yet.

So I need some direction. My main pc is acting funny. Hiccups and studders in processing. I noticed it when trying to listen to music or watch YouTube. Something is causing the system to go resource heavy for a moment and everything pauses. I can't figure it out. I am guessing it is an old driver and need to get the system in safe mode and play around. We just finished moving and I took good care of it while doing so but it was working fine when at my Inlaws and before we left. Now it will barely run almost anything. The only thing I have done lately is install borderlands 1 which could have come with something causing the problem but it was after that which was installed by steam.

Hobear wrote:

So I need some direction. My main pc is acting funny. Hiccups and studders in processing. I noticed it when trying to listen to music or watch YouTube. Something is causing the system to go resource heavy for a moment and everything pauses. I can't figure it out. I am guessing it is an old driver and need to get the system in safe mode and play around. We just finished moving and I took good care of it while doing so but it was working fine when at my Inlaws and before we left. Now it will barely run almost anything. The only thing I have done lately is install borderlands 1 which could have come with something causing the problem but it was after that which was installed by steam.

Do you see any spikes in CPU utilization in the task manager? Kind of a long shot but I saw similar behavior when my SSD was dying, but the hitches were quite significant and would freeze everything.

Hobear wrote:

So I need some direction. My main pc is acting funny. Hiccups and studders in processing. I noticed it when trying to listen to music or watch YouTube. Something is causing the system to go resource heavy for a moment and everything pauses. I can't figure it out. I am guessing it is an old driver and need to get the system in safe mode and play around. We just finished moving and I took good care of it while doing so but it was working fine when at my Inlaws and before we left. Now it will barely run almost anything. The only thing I have done lately is install borderlands 1 which could have come with something causing the problem but it was after that which was installed by steam.

What are your CPU temperatures like?

So my laptop (ASUS R500A) has blue screened a couple of times. I tried running CHKDSK, and it couldn't repair the files. So, I assume this means it is time to replace the hard drive and/or get a new laptop.

How likely is it that simply swapping the HD will fix this?

If it is just bad sectors that checkdisk couldn't fix or block off, then sure a new hard drive will probably solve the problem. When it bluescreens have you checked the error codes? They might point to the problem further to confirm it is really that.

I wasn't really paying attention, but I think it said "KERNEL SECURITY CHECK ERROR"

A quick Google goes well past my limited technical knowledge...

So, assuming a HD swap will do it, if I just go to a reputable laptop repair place, they will know what HD to use and how to do it? I also assume that upgrading to a SSD would be possible?

mudbunny wrote:

I wasn't really paying attention, but I think it said "KERNEL SECURITY CHECK ERROR"

A quick Google goes well past my limited technical knowledge...

So, assuming a HD swap will do it, if I just go to a reputable laptop repair place, they will know what HD to use and how to do it? I also assume that upgrading to a SSD would be possible?

The thing that would be good to figure out is if the drive is actually damaged or if it just has borked files (yes that is the technical term those of us in the IT industry use). A reformat/reinstall could be all it needs or the drive could actually have issues.

Depending on the laptop yes to most of your questions. SATA based SSD's are an easy swap with spinning disk drives. What model laptop do you have?

ASUS R500A

So, I have a legit license for Windows 7, is it trivial to reinstall Windows on a partitioned hard-drive? I think it is...

Looks like an easy swap.

Looks like it uses a 12.5mm thick drive so you shouldn't have any issues with drive thickness being an issue. With the right screw driver (looks like it is a J0 but a small philips head might work).

Yea just get a USB drive setup with Windows 7 and you can swap the drive and then boot from the USB drive and format the new drive and be back to working in an hour or so depending on the speed of the laptop. iFixIt has a guide for a very similar looking model of laptop (Q500A).

So, I just realized something important.

My laptop harddrive is partitioned into C and D. Windows is on C. D is Data, and most of that has been copied to an external HD.

I just finished creating a bootable USB drive, and this weekend, when I get a chance, I am going to try to install windows on the D drive.

PurEvil wrote:

Not too worried about the other fans. Whatever fan is plugged into the main CPU fan power socket on the motherboard is the one you want to check out. If that one's going, and your BIOS is set to check for that fan in POST, then that's likely your problem. Find the CPU fan power socket, make sure that's your CPU fan plugged into it, and if your CPU fan is the one running super loud then I'd replace it. A lot of them just clip onto the radiator of the heat sink, so you should be able to simply replace it without bothering to take the heat sink out if that's the problem.

If you can isolate which one is running loud that helps. Or are they all just ramping to 100%?

Another issue could be dust, especially in your power supply. If you haven't done a good cleaning, now might be a good time. Just blow the dust out of it, and make sure to get the power supply really well. Dust and hair can build up inside and short it out, which could cause a lot of the same issues.

I'm betting it is the power supply. I have the stuff I care about moved off. The fan making the noise is one I forgot about, it is a fan for a small fan for a removable hard drive rack. You know one of those hot swappable things.

I cleaned out most of the dust and boy was it dusty. After the dusting I tried turning it on and off again. Same problem I couldn't turn it off. Then I tried hold down the power button for different amounts of time and hitting it again. So if I hold the power button for 10 seconds and hit the power button again the computer will start for a few seconds and shut down. It does nothing if I hold the button for less than 10 seconds.

I just tried it again and it started up this time. Thing to note is half the fans stopped working but started up after about ten minutes. The cup fan, top fan, and loud rack fan stayed on. This is one of the reasons I think it might be the power supply. Also googled some people with the same problem and changing the power supply fixed it in most cases. Also changing the MB battery worked for a few people. Others had to changed their motherboards.

I'm going try removing my ram and using one stick, changing the battery, and then try changing the battery in that order. I hope I kept my old power supply but I probably didn't. I'm hoping I wont have to changed out the motherboard since I wasn't planing on upgrading my desktop for a couple of years. This is just my backup computer. Or I guess I could go without a backup.

SSD is only a year or two old. Not sure if that would be it but will keep an eye on it.

Temps are 15 C to a max listed of 31 but mostly staying in 15 to 25.

I have played around with a few things and still getting these hitches...Still not noticing a consistent issue I can apply.

Gah looks like I might be reformatting.....