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2676

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I find out what is restarting my PC automatically?

« Last post by 4wd on November 27, 2013, 05:53 AM »

But can MS still do the updates while the PC is not actually running?

-dr_andus (November 27, 2013, 05:23 AM)

The auto-update creates a task that'll wake the computer to do the update check, and restart it to complete installation of any updates if required.

If you don't want it to do it, select one of the 3 other options - as you can see I just have it set to notify me of any updates.

Time to turn in my tech badge, too much over-thinking ...

However, I did manage to resurrect a DELL XPS730 by replacing some motherboard capacitors in the last day or so ... so maybe I'll keep my badge 

2677

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I find out what is restarting my PC automatically?

« Last post by 4wd on November 27, 2013, 05:00 AM »

Do you have the system set to auto-update, (default is 3am everyday)?

This isn't going to turn out to be something as simple as this all along is it? 

2678

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 11 screen stretches like taffy

« Last post by 4wd on November 27, 2013, 03:21 AM »

OK, this isn't a result of having an intermittently stuck Control key is it, (Control + Scroll = Zoom) ?

2679

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I find out what is restarting my PC automatically?

« Last post by 4wd on November 26, 2013, 09:28 PM »

How worried should I be about these? The original automatic re-boot problem seems to have stopped, and all 3 of my monitors work fine. This is not affecting my work currently in any way.

-dr_andus (November 26, 2013, 08:41 AM)

I guess that depends on how reliable you perceive your computer to be.  

They seem to be Information events, (which I didn't notice before) - you can generally ignore them.

I have tons of Information alerts coming from the AMD drivers in the ACEEventLog.

Given that the computer is no longer restarting I'll throw in with SJ and say it was video related.  Probably some recent update not interacting well with the old drivers.

One thing you could have done while dusting out the computer was remove the video card and then plug it back in again - ensures it's firmly seated and hasn't "crept" in the socket.

All-in-all, if it can survive the week without either the original or a new fault occurring, then I'd chalk it up to the drivers.

2680

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: AOMEI Backupper FREE + AOMEI Partition Assistant FREE - Mini-Review

« Last post by 4wd on November 26, 2013, 03:14 AM »

Could you maybe suggest some areas where I could poke around to check up on the output?

-IainB (November 25, 2013, 05:30 PM)

The best check is, of course, a fully functioning system.  If it appears to be working OK and your installed programs, (especially things like AV and virtual devices, if you have any), work OK then I'd say it's working fine.

2681

Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by 4wd on November 26, 2013, 03:00 AM »

There's still suggested edits sitting in the last Google Doc we were using that never made it into either the print or electronic versions, AFAIK.

Maybe K can give you access and you can mix'n'match.

2682

Living Room / Re: Help Proofreading a submission

« Last post by 4wd on November 26, 2013, 01:23 AM »

You did read the last part, didn't you?

-wraith808 (November 25, 2013, 09:20 PM)

Sorry, when you went on hiatus for a while there it kind of passed me by.  You should of given me a figurative 4x2 over the head when I didn't say anything. 

... and then hoping as soon as I get rejection to start on a rework to an entire novel.

Always good to aim high ... but honestly, I can't wait until you turn it into a full novel 

2683

Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by 4wd on November 25, 2013, 07:34 PM »

I guess I've been given my DCM then.


 



DCM: Don't Come Monday

2684

Living Room / Re: Help Proofreading a submission

« Last post by 4wd on November 25, 2013, 07:18 PM »

@wraith: Inquiring minds and all that ... what happened?

2685

Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by 4wd on November 25, 2013, 07:15 PM »

No matter how hard Perry and I tried, he always managed to sneak a few in. 

There's still a few in the final copy AFAIK.

But more to the point ... where's volume two?

2686

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I find out what is restarting my PC automatically?

« Last post by 4wd on November 25, 2013, 06:19 PM »

^Oh yeah, that  

No. That seems to have been just a coincidence. But the ATI driver does seem to be crashing a lot then. It has given me 21 events only today (and I'm only counting the events occurring at different times, as I had 13 events at 23:29:40 alone), even though I haven't noticed anything unusual happening.

So what has the .NET Framework got to do with all this (ATI driver crashes)?

-dr_andus (November 25, 2013, 05:42 PM)

The .NET Framework is used by the ATI CCC, (Catalyst Control Panel - or whatever it's called, it's changed name since then).

Aside from what Target mentioned, (trying Safe Mode), I'd be tempted to remove iTunes, the ATI drivers, and the .NET Framework.
Optional: Use Driver Sweeper to remove any trace of the ATI graphics drivers and the .NET Cleanup Tool.

Then reinstall .NET and the latest ATI drivers for the card and see how that goes for a while.

As before: Do a BACKUP before you do the above.

2687

Post New Requests Here / Re: File Send Link by email as a Single Hotkey without having to leave the webpage

« Last post by 4wd on November 25, 2013, 06:07 PM »

UPDATE: v0.0.0.2

• Added: Now does Firefox or anything based on it, (eg. Pale Moon, Waterfox, Thunderbird, etc - anything with a MozillaWindowClass).
• Added: Check for .ini file - just in case.
• Added: 64 bit version - use it if you have a 64 bit OS.

2688

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: AOMEI Backupper (Free), used to clone a hard drive - Mini-Review

« Last post by 4wd on November 25, 2013, 04:50 PM »

@IainB: You don't mention whether or not the cloning process required that it be done with OS offline, (like many of them do due to locked files), ie. it rebooted the system and then started the cloning.

2689

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I find out what is restarting my PC automatically?

« Last post by 4wd on November 25, 2013, 04:28 PM »

If you just want a quick list of shutdown events try uptime.exe with the /S switch.

-Stoic Joker (November 25, 2013, 06:47 AM)

DOH!  Forgot about that but I'm not sure that it's going to be 100% accurate, eg.



The above Critical event is due to a power outage, when I ran uptime /s it crashed and terminated when it got that event:



And the time was way off, (~9 hours).

Of course, it could have crashed due to something it didn't like on my system but then again ...

Look at the Event Logs

-4wd (November 24, 2013, 06:13 PM)

Thanks for that. I found two unusual events (see screenshots below).

-dr_andus (November 25, 2013, 07:32 AM)

SJ suggested the Event logs originally  

Firstly, in the ECEEventLog (whatever that is), for the last 5 days I have 743 events, and they all seem to relate to  ATI.ACE.CLI.Aspect.DeviceDFP.Graphics.Runtime.RT_DeviceDFP, which seems to point to my ATI Radeon graphics card. Is that bad?

The ATI graphics driver restarts itself whenever it suffers a critical problem, IIRC.

More interesting:

Secondly, under Administrative Events, I have 2374 errors (out of 2,445 errors in total) for the last 7 days, produced by Apple's Bonjour Service. I imagine this is for syncing with iCloud (which I don't really use), and checking whether I have the latest iTunes (which I don't really use). Is this something bad enough that it would be better for me to block this somehow?

These events are happening one minute before the ATI driver has a hernia.  Can you check to see if that trend is followed with prior events, (the sample on the captures is rather small) ?

The Bonjour service is used to discover any other Apple devices on the local network and setup communication with them, (IIRIR).  If you don't use iTunes I'd be sorely tempted to remove it and every trace of it, including Bonjour.

2690

General Software Discussion / Re: Running Windows XP Professional in Windows 8 (Not Pro)

« Last post by 4wd on November 25, 2013, 04:17 AM »

I can't answer your specific questions but I am running VMLite XPMode, (rewrapped version of VirtualBox), on W7HP x64 using Microsoft' XPMode image.

The install defaulted to a virtual HDD of 127GB, (of which only 1.56GB is in use - the 127GB is quite generous considering the physical HDD was only 60GB ), and 512MB of RAM.  I'm not likely to change the virtual HDD size but changing the RAM is just a matter of moving a slider in the VM settings.

Didn't need to worry about activation because the image is already licensed.

2691

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 11 screen stretches like taffy

« Last post by 4wd on November 25, 2013, 01:03 AM »

I think you should change the Topic to IE 11 screen stretches instead of scrolls  

First time I've ever heard of that happening, is it just IE or does the whole display do it?

And, is it the IE 11 window or just the contents in it?

2692

Post New Requests Here / Re: File Send Link by email as a Single Hotkey without having to leave the webpage

« Last post by 4wd on November 24, 2013, 09:06 PM »

You mean like this:



If so:

Naturally, you'll need to allow it through your firewall.

-4wd (November 24, 2013, 07:59 AM)

And don't forget:

The .ini needs to be in the same folder as the executable and have the same main name, eg. IEAE.exe = IEAE.ini

Otherwise, I'm going to need a lot more info.

Or, just create a free GMail account to use for sending since I know it works fine with them.

2693

Living Room / Re: Movies or films you've seen lately

« Last post by 4wd on November 24, 2013, 09:01 PM »

This evening, The Europa Report.

-40hz (November 24, 2013, 08:27 PM)

You may like The Last Days On Mars - lots of similarities to Europa Report, Alien, Creature, Doctor Who's The Waters of Mars, and quite a few more but I found it to be a good film in it's own right.

A group of astronaut explorers succumb one by one to a mysterious and terrifying force while collecting specimens on Mars.

2694

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 11 screen stretches like taffy

« Last post by 4wd on November 24, 2013, 07:33 PM »

OK, I'll bite ... 

2695

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I find out what is restarting my PC automatically?

« Last post by 4wd on November 24, 2013, 06:46 PM »

Does Win 7 still record the 6008 event in the system event log? That would at least tell you if the shutdown was unexpected.

-x16wda (November 24, 2013, 06:39 PM)

Event ID 6008 - Looks like it still does.

I'll tweak my filter a little and see if I can catch all shutdown/startup events.

Edit: Here we go, I don't know if it will catch software crashes but it should let you see that any event that says whether the system shutdown cleanly or not so you can search for other near-time events.

See here.

2696

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I find out what is restarting my PC automatically?

« Last post by 4wd on November 24, 2013, 06:13 PM »

Look at the Event Logs/Reliability History, the reason it shut down should be supplied along with the event.  However, if it was a spontaneous event, (eg. power removal - non-UPS backup, catastrophic software failure, etc), then you'll probably never have an idea as the system dies before anything can be written.

eg.



If you want a filter for the Event Log for startup/shutdown events, see here.

2697

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I find out what is restarting my PC automatically?

« Last post by 4wd on November 24, 2013, 06:00 PM »

...which is...? (sorry, you'd need to spell it out for me, I'm not much of a hardware guy either...)

-dr_andus (November 24, 2013, 05:53 PM)

See here

2698

General Software Discussion / Re: CryptoLocker and CryptoPrevent

« Last post by 4wd on November 24, 2013, 05:45 PM »

It helps if you never receive HTML email, (I never have nor will I ever accept it), makes links a little harder to hide

I see your signature reads 'Four wheel drive: Helping you get stuck faster, harder, further from help....
Just as a quickie post in an aside, here's a fix-a-flat idea for you that might amaze a few people (like it did for me).  

-bit (November 24, 2013, 05:34 PM)

I've seen that, unfortunately it doesn't tell you how you fix the the 3" hole in the side of the tyre from where you staked it on a branch.
Answer: If you haven't got a spare tyre/tube, pack it with grass/clothes/etc and drive out.  

2699

Living Room / Re: Your tax dollars at work: Now FDA proposes to ban a brand of cookie?

« Last post by 4wd on November 24, 2013, 05:32 PM »

The ABC's Catalyst program just recently aired a two part series called Heart of the Matter which was based on the subject of the decades long war against cholesterol.

You can download it from: Catalyst Video Downloads (not geo-locked)

2700

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I find out what is restarting my PC automatically?

« Last post by 4wd on November 24, 2013, 04:54 PM »

Hmm, more intermittent faults ... time for the Shotgun approach?