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  1. smirk

    Windows 10 perpetually fails to install KB4052623 every 10 mins (Solved)

    Hi, my Windows 10 machine has been unable to install KB4052623 (Update for Windows Defender antimalware platform) for a couple weeks now. Every 10 minutes it retries and fails. I'm at my wit's end and have no idea how to fix this, as there doesn't seem to be a way to uninstall and reinstall...
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    Way around an 8GB memory limit on laptop with i5-8250U?

    Hi, I'm thinking of buying the new HP Spectre x360 Convertible laptop, but I just noticed that the Core i5-8250U and i7-8550U models limit you to 8 GB of RAM for some reason. For $135 more there's a different i7-8550U model that supports 16 GB RAM (but then doesn't support 8 GB)...
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    Please help me pick out a CPU!

    Hey guys, due to a faulty motherboard I need to rebuild my home server. The existing CPU is a Core i3-540, but I see they don't make socket 1156 motherboards anymore so this is probably a good time to modernize a little and replace the CPU, too. What's a good CPU to use these days? My...
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    Is this a sign of bad memory?

    Hi guys, I just upgraded my home server from 2 GB to 8 GB of RAM. The mobo only has two slots so the old sticks were replaced by the new ones. Anyway, I installed the RAM, booted up into Memtest86+, and within 1 second, several characters on the screen went black and Memtest froze. By...
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    Chkdsk says over 400 GB is in bad sectors - could it be wrong?

    Hi, I have two 2TB WD20EARS hard drives installed in a home server. Last night I ran Chkdsk on them, and this was reported: Disk 1: "170650768 KB in bad sectors." Disk 2: "414378904 KB in bad sectors." I pulled one of the drives, put it into another PC, installed Western Digital's Data...
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    Retrieving admin password

    Hi, I don't know if this can be done, but I thought I'd ask. My wife works for a company that seems (to me) overly cautious security-wise, to the point that it interferes with her productivity. She lacks authority to install software and change basic settings like the duration before the...
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    General question about dumping current BIOS

    Hi, I have a general question about dumping a BIOS to a file. A couple years ago I updated my BIOS with the latest version available. I'm about to flash it to a newer (hacked) version, but before I do that I want to back up my current BIOS. So I did that with the AWDFLASH /pn /sy command, and...
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    Are there some kinds of disk corruption that Chkdsk cannot fix?

    Hi, the other day I scheduled chkdsk on my boot drive ("chkdsk c: /r") and it reported that it fixed a couple minor problems. I scheduled it to run again and it reported that it fixed the same problems. Basically, every time I run chkdsk it finds and fixes the same exact problem. Here is a...
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    General question about fan control on cheapie mobos

    Hi, I just replaced a broken CPU fan on an old, old motherboard to help a friend out. However, it's constantly running at full speed. I can't find anything in the BIOS to set fan speed, and Speedfan isn't working. The fan header is 3 pin and both the BIOS and Speedfan can report the speed...
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    Quick voltage/heat question

    Hey guys, I have an E4500 @ 2.2GHz that I've overclocked to ~3.1GHz (280x11). CPU voltage is 1.392 in CPU-Z, 1.4-something in BIOS. It peaks around 67 degrees under load. This is with stock cooling. My question is this: If I installed a better HSF, would the CPU require less voltage, or...
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    Really dumb question about a case's external 3.5" drive bays

    Hey, I've built a few PCs but for some reason I don't know this. When you buy a PC case and it has a description like "2 External 5.25" Drive Bays, 2 External 3.5" Drive Bays, 4 Internal 3.5" Drive Bays", does that mean you can only install 4 hard drives? Or can you install six hard drives (4...
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    Looking for Linux recommendation for older laptop

    Hi there, we have an older Compaq N610C laptop that we use for light web browsing, occasional Flash movie, looking up recipes, checking webmail, etc. It's a Pentium 4-M with 512 MB RAM and a slowish hard drive. It seems that over the past couple years it has just been running more and more...
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    Likelihood of getting a virus on WHS?

    Hi, I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I was thinking of building either a WHS or a FreeNAS box. There will be occasional bittorrent and Usenet use, and I'm wondering how paranoid I should be about getting a virus on the WHS box if I go that route. I have a Mac and a...
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    Time for a new laptop?

    Hey guys, I have an old Compaq Evo N610c that's just used in the kitchen to look up recipes, and also for light browsing any time we're not in the computer room. Sometimes we connect it to the HDTV to watch Hulu or Netflix on TV. I recently discovered (via Memtest) that it has bad RAM. I'm...