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  1. smirk

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

    Solved! Actually, double solved. I had seen that ten forums page, but didn't understand how he fixed it. Since you pointed it out again, I did some research and learned about Windows 10's in-place upgrade. After doing that, it is working again and Defender updates itself just fine. It is...
  2. smirk

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

    Possibly. I retried sfc/dism, but no dice. I'll try a 3rd party antivirus for awhile, if only to get these 10 minute recurring update attempts to quiet down. Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it!
  3. smirk

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

    Maybe... I don't think this update is just a simple virus definitions update, though; the description sounds more like it's a bugfix update to the engine. Do you think your suggestion would help with that?
  4. smirk

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

    I already tried `sfc /scannow` already, and a `dism` command, but I don't think the exact one you posted, but I'll try yours to see if it makes a difference. I haven't noticed anything unusual about the system, other than this.
  5. 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?

    Thanks for all the good input, everyone. This is for a work computer for a new job that I just started -- it's a small company and they asked me to select a computer, but since I'm new I didn't know what the demands will be. After speaking to a few other developers, I ended up ordering an Asus...
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    Way around an 8GB memory limit on laptop with i5-8250U?

    It's possible I'm overthinking it. :-) It will be for JavaScript/Node.js development, and also (separately) running an Eclipse-based IDE. I'm not experienced enough in that type of development to know the demands, but a coworker recommended 16 GB RAM. Holy cow, I had no idea there was no...
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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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    Is this a sign of bad memory?

    Hey, it's been a while but I wanted to comment on the crazy RAM issue I was having. It turns out that the RAM was fine (probably all were fine except the sticks that prevented the computer from posting). The problem was with my OS! Something must have gotten corrupt in it, I'm not really sure...
  10. smirk

    Please help me pick out a CPU!

    I do live by a Microcenter. But why the i5 vs. the i3?
  11. smirk

    Please help me pick out a CPU!

    Ok, cool. I think I'd be looking at an i3, then. Newegg has nine models, both Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge; both use socket 1155. For power savings, I guess we could eliminate the Sandy Bridge chips. I'll hit the Intel documentation to compare processor features among the various i3 Ivy...
  12. smirk

    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?

    You know, the memory is rated at 2T, but I see now that it's setting itself to 1T. I manually adjusted it, but it still doesn't work. I'm thinking there's something wrong with the motherboard -- I've tried four different manufacturers' RAM in there now (including one on the "this will work for...
  14. smirk

    Is this a sign of bad memory?

    Thank you. Hey, the Crucial Support guy is telling me that a setting needs to change on my motherboard when changing chip-counts with my RAM. I'm going from single rank sticks to double rank (chips on both sides) sticks. However, he won't tell me what the setting is for liability reasons, and...
  15. smirk

    Is this a sign of bad memory?

    I just wanted to thank everyone for their info and advice. My RAM issues are still ongoing. I talked to a Patriot Support rep, and after a lot of emails back and forth he decided that the RAM was bad, so I returned it and got some Crucial Ballistix. Running at the stock 1333 speed at auto...
  16. smirk

    Is this a sign of bad memory?

    That's a great idea -- I'll try that tonight. Incidentally, let's say that it does work at 1333 -- does that mean the RAM isn't performing as sold (and I should replace it) or could it just be an incompatibility between motherboard and memory, with no one at fault? I tested both memory modules...
  17. smirk

    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...
  18. smirk

    Chkdsk says over 400 GB is in bad sectors - could it be wrong?

    Are you sure about this working for IDE mode? If I'm understanding Intel's documentation correctly, it is only for SATA when used in AHCI mode. Intel even has a sort of decision tree, where if you're not RAID or AHCI then there's nothing to install (again, if I'm reading it right).
  19. smirk

    Chkdsk says over 400 GB is in bad sectors - could it be wrong?

    Well, I have the jumper installed in the drive that makes it function as a standard (non-advanced format) drive. According to the exhaustive thread on wegotserved, the drive is supported when used in that manner.
  20. smirk

    Chkdsk says over 400 GB is in bad sectors - could it be wrong?

    Thanks guys. It sounds like RST couldn't hurt, so I may as well install the driver to see if my system benefits. Since Windows Home Server isn't as widely used as, say, XP is I will probably never know what those "file access took too long" messages mean, but we will see if they continue with...
  21. smirk

    Chkdsk says over 400 GB is in bad sectors - could it be wrong?

    Thanks Binky. I'm not using RAID and the drives aren't using AHCI so that's probably not it, but it's good to know about your experience.
  22. smirk

    Chkdsk says over 400 GB is in bad sectors - could it be wrong?

    Hmm, that's interesting. The OS in this rig is Windows Home Server, which generates log entries that I don't really understand. I do see a lot of messages like this: ***ERROR: DEfileFromShadow(c:\fs\D\DE\shares\Music\Depeche Mode - Sounds of the Universe\01-In...
  23. smirk

    Chkdsk says over 400 GB is in bad sectors - could it be wrong?

    Ironically, these two drives make up the storage pool in my Windows Home Server machine -- this *is* my backup! But you're right, I need to make backups of the backups more frequently.
  24. smirk

    Chkdsk says over 400 GB is in bad sectors - could it be wrong?

    You are the KING! Thank you, that did it!! Zero bad sectors on both drives now. Which kind of begs the question of how did this happen in the first place? I pored over the event logs and found two errors by "PlugPlayManager" that said a drive was disconnected without properly ejecting, and...
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    got non-repeatable memtest errors

    What's the longest you've run memtest without getting any errors? Did you get the original error while running at stock speeds and timings? I would RMA it, you shouldn't ever get memory errors.
  26. smirk

    tips on how to batten down the hatches? have strange ip logins

    This. And also check out Denyhosts. I get hack attempts all the time; they get 2, maybe 3 hack attempts and then Denyhosts bans their IP.
  27. smirk

    Steam on Linux

    I haven't used Linux on a desktop in a while. How's the video card driver performance these days? Comparable to Windows?
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    Chkdsk says over 400 GB is in bad sectors - could it be wrong?

    Thank you, I will try that. I did do a full surface scan with the WD Diag and it merely said the drive "passed" (this is not a wordy app). However, I may have made the mistake of connecting the drive to an XP system and running "chkdsk F: /R". I'm afraid to abort it now, but hopefully it...
  29. smirk

    Chkdsk says over 400 GB is in bad sectors - could it be wrong?

    Thanks for your quick reply. Are these bad sectors marked at the OS or drive firmware level? Because SMART shows no bad sectors that I can see. And more importantly, is there any way to tell if any data has been lost? (And no overclock, it's a plain vanilla setup. I suppose it could be bad...
  30. smirk

    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...
  31. smirk

    Retrieving admin password

    Yeah, ok guys, I got it. Thanks.
  32. smirk

    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...
  33. smirk

    Motherboard Benchmarks

    I think what he's saying is that since the memory controller is part of the CPU, the motherboard is irrelevant. It'd be like doing benchmarks on a highway, when it's the car that controls the speed. Not sure what you mean by "stick with current mobo?". If you plan to use the same CPU and...
  34. smirk

    Drivers question

    In general, you'd want the most recent drivers, as those would contain the latest bugfixes and newest features, and would have been tested against the latest version of the OS. Sometimes, however, a new version will introduce a bug or a performance issue; perhaps that's the scenario you're...
  35. smirk

    General question about dumping current BIOS

    Can anybody answer this? If you flash your BIOS, change some BIOS settings, and then dump the BIOS out to a file, will the new file be identical to the original one? Changing BIOS settings won't affect it, and the BIOS flash utility doesn't embed any metadata, does it? Thanks!
  36. smirk

    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...
  37. smirk

    Are there some kinds of disk corruption that Chkdsk cannot fix?

    Well, that's not really an option. Like I said, this is a Windows Home Server installation... it's not an XP machine being used as a server; there is actually a product named "Windows Home Server" that is based on Windows Server 2003. If anything more major crops up in the coming months I'll...
  38. smirk

    Are there some kinds of disk corruption that Chkdsk cannot fix?

    I'll test RAM tonight. I haven't explicitly updated any drivers in a year, which is when I originally built the PC and set everything up, but I'll check that out, too. About viruses, well I pulled the drive out (this is the boot drive of a Windows Home Server box, which is basically Windows...
  39. smirk

    Are there some kinds of disk corruption that Chkdsk cannot fix?

    That's good to know. I've run chkdsk lots of times before on different systems and never seen a recurring error like that, but this is the first time I've run it on Windows Home Server, so maybe it opens some files when it boots up to run chkdsk. Thanks for the help, guys!
  40. smirk

    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...