Hey everyone. So, I was mostly just trying to root my phone, which led me down a rabbit hole of downloading various little utilities. In the process, I accidentally snagged some Chinese junk that decided to install a mountain of useless garbage on my PC. I’ve done my best to scrub it all out—I even ran a scan with Malwarebytes while in Safe Mode—but there's still something lingering on my machine that feels impossible to get rid of. It looks like some kind of rogue Chinese antivirus software is still hanging around; you can see it clearly right here in Task Manager http://prntscr.com/9czwfb. I tried to just kill the process manually, but the system won't let me http://prntscr.com/9czwuu. I can even see evidence of it lurking over here http://prntscr.com/9czx7f . I desperately need a way to uninstall this thing. It doesn't show up anywhere in my "Add or Remove Programs" list, and I've already gone through and uninstalled every possible suspicious app in that menu just to be sure nothing was linked to it, but the problem persists. It simply won't budge . Does anyone have a solution for this, or should I just pop in a Windows installation DVD and wipe everything completely?
Honestly, I couldn't care less about that 2TB drive. I ended up handing it over to a buddy of mine on credit for some other project. He’s pretty tech-savvy himself, so I mentioned that I'd opened the casing, but everything functions perfectly fine—so my conscience is completely clear here. @Noah Miller6/">@@Noah Miller6, does it actually matter which Unix distribution I go with? I think I have an Ubuntu ISO sitting around somewhere that I can grab.
Well, looks like that hard drive has officially kicked the bucket... Your best bet is to just yank it out and hook it up to another PC. Once you've got it running on a different machine, install Hard Disk Sentinel. As soon as that program boots up, you'll see exactly how much of a disaster we're dealing with. :P
Oh, how absolutely miraculous. I ran a scan with Sentinel and the health status is flawless, yet the drive remains completely silent while it's actually working.
Well, damn, I just went ahead and tossed that 500GB drive—the one that finally gave up the ghost—into the bin. I also ditched the 2TB one, though it was actually running perfectly fine. It’s a real shame because that larger drive was practically brand new, but honestly, what can you do?
So, here’s my latest blunder. I have this 500 GB SATA Seagate hard drive from my secondary rig. It’s practically brand new—has barely seen 20 days of actual use. I don't have the warranty paperwork anywhere, and today, it started making this faint, rhythmic clicking sound. To make matters worse, macOS refuses to even acknowledge its existence. The PC struggles just to boot up with it connected; the BIOS sees it, but after that? Total silence. Now, full disclosure: I acted like a complete moron. Out of sheer boredom and because I’ve never actually opened one of these things up before, I decided to unscrew the top casing just to see what the internals looked like. I didn't touch anything, I swear—I just closed it back up, screwed it tight, and now it’s effectively a paperweight. I’m assuming my curiosity is exactly what killed it. Is there any hope left here? I was wondering if it might be worth trying to swap the PCB from another drive to see if that does anything, though I doubt it. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
The biggest headache was the total lack of any driver queries; there just wasn't anything popping up to help me out. I eventually sorted it by installing Windows 8.1 Pro on the machine, and lo and behold, every single port started working immediately without needing a single driver. Problem solved, finally. I honestly can't wrap my head around how everything functioned perfectly fine on Windows 7 before, yet after a clean reinstall, it refuses to cooperate. But whatever, it’s not worth my sanity anymore.
So, I’ve run into a bit of a headache with this Dell Inspiron 15. Ever since I finished reinstalling Windows, my USB 3.0 ports have basically gone on strike. Only one of the USB 2.0 ports is actually responding. I’ve gone through the whole drill and made sure every single driver is updated to the latest version available, and I'm running Windows 7 64-bit, just like I was before. I even poked around in the BIOS to see if there was some setting I missed to get them running again, but absolutely nothing. If anyone has any ideas on how to fix this, I’d certainly appreciate the help.
Personally, I frequent several other sites that completely lock me out if they detect an adblocker, so that just isn't a viable workaround for me. I can only hope someone eventually finds a way to fix the advertising situation here.
http://prntscr.com/7wj690 Can someone please fix this advertisement? Every single thread I try to start gets stretched out indefinitely; I can barely even see half of the posts.
Greetings. I’m running Windows 7, and there's this persistent little flag icon hovering down by the system clock. Every time I click on it, it tries to nag me to sign up for a free upgrade to Windows 10. I am quite simply trying to figure out how to make this flag disappear. I've already tried running CCleaner and digging through "Add or Remove Programs," but there’s absolutely nothing listed there to uninstall. To make matters worse, I can't even right-click it to exit, and I have already disabled Windows update. Any ideas?
I’m fairly certain this drive has finally kicked the bucket, and honestly, it’s time to swap it out. For the amount you're looking at, you could probably find a decent used one, though if I were in your shoes, I'd just bite the bullet and buy a brand-new drive. At the very least, my recommendation is to try to track down a working spare just to plug it in; we need to rule out the possibility that something else is causing the headache. Given that you mentioned the laptop starts freezing up the moment you connect it, I’m quite convinced the issue lies squarely within the hard drive itself. If you really want to play detective, the only other thing you could attempt is bypassing the external enclosure entirely and connecting it directly to the motherboard via a SATA cable. If the system still acts up, then yeah, it’s dead—just toss it and move on. And do yourself a favor and install Hard Disk Sentinel on your PC; you should be able to get a clear reading on the drive's actual health status without even having to crack the case open.
Lately, I've been dealing with this persistent Blue Screen of Death issue. Here is the log from Blue Screen of Death: On Thu 26.3.2015. 14:00:20 GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\032615-13774-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0xC4283) Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF960000C4283, 0xFFFFF8800595D060, 0x0) Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION file path: C:\Windows\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft Windows company: Microsoft Corporation description: Microsoft Windows driver bug Bug check description: This indicates that an exception happened while executing a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code. This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.
On Wed 25.3.2015. 16:51:51 GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\032515-15054-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0xC4283) Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF96000194283, 0xFFFFF8800585D060, 0x0) Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION file path: C:\Windows\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft Windows company: Microsoft Corporation description: Microsoft Windows driver bug Bug check description: This indicates that an exception happened while executing a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code. This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.
On Wed 18.3.2015. 9:40:48 GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\031815-12870-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x77DDA) Bugcheck code: 0x1000009F (0x4, 0x258, 0xFFFFFA8006D2FB60, 0xFFFFF80000B9C510) Error: CUSTOM_ERROR file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe product: Microsoft Windows company: Microsoft Corporation description: Microsoft Windows NT kernel The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.
On Mon 16.3.2015. 11:46:48 GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\031615-13353-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: rtl8187.sys (0xFFFFF8800582A738) Bugcheck code: 0xD1 (0x0, 0x2, 0x1, 0xFFFFF8800582A738) Error: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\rtl8187.sys product: Realtek RTL8187 Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter company: Realtek Semiconductor Corporation description: Realtek NDIS Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode driver attempted to access pageable memory at a process IRQL that was too high. This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: rtl8187.sys (Realtek NDIS, Realtek Semiconductor Corporation ). Google query: Realtek Semiconductor Corporation DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
On Sat 14.2.2015. 20:54:18 GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\021415-14414-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: rtl8187.sys (0xFFFFF88003B18738) Bugcheck code: 0xD1 (0x0, 0x2, 0x1, 0xFFFFF88003B18738) Error: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\rtl8187.sys product: Realtek RTL8187 Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter company: Realtek Semiconductor Corporation description: Realtek NDIS Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode driver attempted to access pageable memory at a process IRQL that was too high. This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: rtl8187.sys (Realtek NDIS, Realtek Semiconductor Corporation). Google query: Realtek Semiconductor Corporation DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
I finally realized that the wireless driver is the culprit here, but I honestly can't wrap my head around what exactly went wrong during today's crash. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I’ve gone over her with a magnifying glass, checking every single solder joint and every capacitor, and honestly, everything looks perfectly fine to me.
Look, I already pointed out earlier that my RAM is working perfectly fine on the current board I'm using... I haven't exactly heard of anyone managing to completely wreck a RAM bank just by messing with it, though I did try swapping the slots around, and the exact same issue kept popping up anyway.
Could we be looking at a power supply issue here? Is it possible the unit is just too weak to handle this board? It runs perfectly fine on my old MSI setup.