Last night I told my computer to go to sleep and left it as it was doing its thing since it can take a good 10-20 seconds to fully go down into sleep mode. This morning I returned to my PC to find it hadn't fully entered sleep mode. The displays were off, power had been cut from USB devices, but I could hear that the fans were still running.

Wiggling/clicking the mouse gave no response. Pressing keys on my keyboard resulted in no response, other than the keyboard backlighting briefly turning on and then off again (it turns off when my PC enters sleep mode). Pressing the power button on the tower resulted in no response.

It didn't occur to me to try ctrl-alt-del at the time, and I ended up just holding the power button long enough until it fully powered down.

When I turned the machine back on I was greeted by a BSOD before it even made it to the "loading Windows" startup animation. After the machine rebooted itself it went into self diagnostic and ended up checking the disk(s) for errors. Then it told me it couldn't repair the problem.

If I manually boot from my OS SSD from the BIOS (UEFI) I get an error saying something to the effect of:

"NTLDR is missing. Press ctrl-alt-del to restart your computer"

Everything I've found in my searches on the error seems to indicate that this error message is for Windows XP/7 and I should only be seeing it if I upgraded my PC from an older version of Windows to Windows 10. But I haven't done that. I have formatted this SSD and installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 on it in the past.

Other guides I've seen either don't work (probably because they're written for Windows XP/7) or I can't be guaranteed whether or not they'll work since they suggest using some program(s) (usually partition managers) that are not free, and I'm hesitant to buy something that I'll likely only need this one time without knowing for sure that it will solve my problem.

I've booted into a Linux Live USB and the SSD itself seems to be functioning properly and the data appears to be in tact.

It seems the problem stems from the fact that the PC failed to fully enter sleep mode. Perhaps that changed some files or boot configurations and I just need to modify or replace some files somewhere, but so far I haven't found any useful information that is actually helping me to repair the boot problem.

Any helpful tips, suggestions, or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

If you have a Keybase account, or if you create a new Keybase account and link your GitHub or HackerNews account(s) that were created before the announcement, you should be eligible to receive a giveaway (airdrop) of the cryptocurrency called Stellar Lumens.

I received about $20 worth of Lumens last night, and they're giving away more each month divided equally between everyone who joins and is eligible.

As a surprise gift, the Stellar Development Foundation just starting sending 100 million Lumens, worth $5 million USD, to 300,000 Keybase users. There are lots of different tokens on Stellar, but Lumens are Stellar's native token, and SDF wants real people of the world to have them.

This surprise giveaway translated to something like $19.54 USD worth of Lumens for each active Keybase user. No strings attached, and those Lumens are going out now, to be delivered by Sept 13th or so.

But that's only the beginning.

SDF is dropping 100 million Lumens next month. And the month after that.

In total, they are giving 2 billion Lumens (roughly $117 million USD) out using Keybase over the next 20 months. On the 15th of each month (starting Oct 15, 2019), SDF will give the next batch, divided equally among everyone.

Those who join now will participate every month until the end. So people who join earlier will get more.

To qualify: you must have a Keybase account registered before this announcement OR if you're new to Keybase, you must connect your Keybase account to a GitHub or HackerNews account that was registered before this announcement. This is to prevent bot signups to Keybase.

-https://keybase.io/airdrop

More details here:

https://keybase.io/airdrop

And for reference, here's a link to the Keybase thread on this forum.

My PC updated to the Windows 10 1903 update a week or two ago and I've noticed that the audio in my headphones is really quiet now.

Whereas usually I had the volume set to the 20-30% range, sometimes turning it up to about 40-50% if it was too noisy around me, now I have to have the volume cranked to 100% with Loudness Equalization enabled to be able to hear decently in a relatively quiet environment (e.g., with maybe a quiet TV on in the background). Sometimes the audio coming through my headphones is still just too quiet for me to be able to hear what's going on on my PC, such as when the TV gets turned up or people are talking too loudly, and I have no recourse since I can't turn the volume up any higher than 100%.

I've done some searching for potential solutions but everything seems to suggest either rolling back the driver (which isn't an option for me; the button is grayed out and disabled) or reinstalling the previous/manufacturer's driver (I've never used any driver for this headset other than the Windows built-in driver). These headphones aren't anything special. Just two little speakers connected to an audio jack. There are no special buttons or volume controls on the cable, etc., that would require custom drivers.

Does anyone know of a way to get the audio working back to the way it was before the 1903 update? Or perhaps can anybody recommend some software that allows me to boost/equalize the audio coming from my PC?

Thanks in advance. I hope to hear from you soon. ;)

EDIT: Maybe I spoke too soon. Just after posting this message I rebooted my PC so that Windows could finish installing a cumulative update and when it got back into Windows, the volume was set to 20% and I can take it all the way up to 100%, with it getting louder than I'd like at around the 50% range. So it seems things are back the way they were for me. :Thmbsup: