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#21
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Windows 10 fails to boot, then it reboots, bizarre self-fix
On Saturday, October 13, 2018 at 11:19:15 PM UTC+8, RayLopez99 wrote:
2) I took the laptop to a PC shop. Several actually. The first couple were, much to my surprise, afraid I was a mystery shopper from Microsoft or the government (even though I am Caucasian in the Philippines) and refused to serve me, unless I agreed to buy a full-blown copy of Windows, which costs something like $200. It was comical. But finally a shop took a chance on me, a I wish to point out that ironically I actually have a real product key and this is a genuine copy of Windows 10, but they, for their own reasons, refused to hear me. Apparently, one guy said, some shop was closed down a while ago for dealing with pirated software and they irrationally did not want to deal with any foreigners with Windows activation issues, as a precaution.. Usually Filipinos will do almost anything for money but not these guys. RL |
#22
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Windows 10 fails to boot, then it reboots, bizarre self-fix
RayLopez99 wrote:
Thanks Paul. I think I will take it to the PC shop, run by a bunch of Filipinos who do good work but I always have to check their work since they use pirated software and i've found viruses/malware on my machine after going there before (I don't think they did it on purpose, but you never know in this country, lol). But I just found a confounding factor: the PC mechanical HDD is very very slow now, showing 99% usage and only 0.7 MB/s throughput. Quick scan shows no viruses. Implications from a internet forum is that it's a failing hard drive. Scandisk (from within Tools| Filemanager ) shows no clear errors (but this program is not that reliable, perhaps use Gizmo's "Crystal Disk Info"? https://www.techsupportalert.com/con...diskinfo.htm-0 ) I think I need a new hard drive, preferably a solid-state SSD, agree? While I am there, I will ask the boys to install Windows 10, home edition, 64x bit? That will do it. And I don't think I will lose my license key with Microsoft, since the MAC address doesn't change, being on the motherboard, when you replace a hard drive, as you have said or implied. If you have a freeware program to check hard disk health for Windows 10, feel free to recommend. I just downloaded HDDScan – Free HDD Diagnostic Utility. Thanks, RL 99% usage and 1MB/sec can happen when Windows Defender is doing a scan of C: . Make sure you aren't mis-interpreting the Task Manager performance screen. Windows 10 has a bad habit of doing stuff, at the same instant you want to do something. On a HDD, scanning many small files drops the I/O rate to 1MB/sec and makes the disk 100% busy doing head seeks. Resource Monitor (a link at the bottom of Task Manager : Performance) can show which program is doing I/O right now. Or if you see a Service Host scanning a whole bunch of "Packages", that's Windows Update activity. An SSD will certainly speed things up, but what kind of price will you pay there for an SSD ? I have a Samsung SSD in the Test Machine, but it still takes 49 seconds to boot. There are some things that are still a limitation of Windows 10. You can use HDTune and look at the Health tab. It has a table of SMART values. The program knows nothing of SSDs and only knows the SMART table of hard drives. http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe You want "reallocated" and "Current Pending" to be zero. The two yellow marks are bogus and should not be there. The benchmark curve for that drive is still "mint quality". https://s33.postimg.cc/mmiax893z/my_...t3500418as.gif That version is ten years old. Also note that, since about the last version or two of Windows 10, the HDTune benchmark is off a bit. If it used to report 100MB/sec, the measurement now might show 90-95MB/sec and could be a little on the low side. Since your Windows 10 is 10240, there's no danger there :-) One version of Windows 10 tried to "hijack" the SMART table, causing gibberish to appear in HDTune. Again, your 10240 version won't cause that problem. (The "winver" program reports the OS version.) Seagate and WDC have their own disk test software, and there will be a version that runs from Windows. You can do the "short SMART" test, which is an internal test reading a series of locations. You need to know which brand of hard drive is involved, to download the right program to test. I'm pretty sure some version of Crystal has a SMART table in it. And you can also get SMARTMonTools in Linux to give a health report. Except, you have the booting situation from hell (would Linux even boot?), so I have to be careful to not give you too adventurous sets of options :-) If you had reliable boot options on the machine, we could have a lot more fun. I'm sure by the time your PC Shop is done with that laptop, they won't be sad to see it go out the door. I don't think the hardware is bad. It has an IPS LCD panel, and sounds like it has some positive aspects from that perspective. But the InsydeH2O BIOS is "a piece of work". I have that on my Acer laptop, and thank goodness I've never needed to adjust anything. I haven't had a problem getting it to boot. The popup boot works, and I suspect it uses legacy (CSM module) as its operating mode. The popup boot window is very short, and the time window to press the key for it, is slightly less than one second wide. Paul |
#23
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Windows 10 fails to boot, then it reboots, bizarre self-fix
RayLopez99 wrote:
On Saturday, October 13, 2018 at 11:19:15 PM UTC+8, RayLopez99 wrote: 2) I took the laptop to a PC shop. Several actually. The first couple were, much to my surprise, afraid I was a mystery shopper from Microsoft or the government (even though I am Caucasian in the Philippines) and refused to serve me, unless I agreed to buy a full-blown copy of Windows, which costs something like $200. It was comical. But finally a shop took a chance on me, a I wish to point out that ironically I actually have a real product key and this is a genuine copy of Windows 10, but they, for their own reasons, refused to hear me. Apparently, one guy said, some shop was closed down a while ago for dealing with pirated software and they irrationally did not want to deal with any foreigners with Windows activation issues, as a precaution. Usually Filipinos will do almost anything for money but not these guys. RL But you don't have an activation issue at the moment. That will only come when changing the key from Home to Pro and trying to upgrade it that way. Then the machine will contact Microsoft to complete the activation step. Maybe the shop guys will know of the "key method" for changing from Home to Pro. Microsoft only sends lawyers to close down PC shops, after $500K of "theft". You would have to pirate a couple thousand copies of Windows OS before they do something. They don't generally go around closing down shops for just one "activation issue". Microsoft gets reports from customers, while the customer uses Microsoft Tech Support to solve activation problems. If a large number of customers report "I got that bad copy of Windows 10 from Bobs PC Shop", that's how they formulate a case to shut down a shop. That's how they determine a couple thousand bad copies were installed at Bobs. And then it's off to court Bob goes. Usually it would be a "seriously bad" shop getting closed. Paul |
#24
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Windows 10 fails to boot, then it reboots, bizarre self-fix
On Sat, 13 Oct 2018 08:19:12 -0700 (PDT), RayLopez99
wrote: Estimated cost to fix it: about $30, which is very reasonable considering the work they've done so far (hoping they find the hardware problem, as I say, this country has high humidity that taxes all electronic components, and very noisy lines, constant voltage surges and voltage spikes, even my battery backup UPS used to bulge and fail every six months or so, I actually stopped buying them, instead I just deal with power surges with a surge suppressor and constantly save my work). - I can't afford laptops. That same $30 repair may be $150 in repair facilities in the US. When I did buy them, running into one with a repair issue I couldn't address, the experience (costs) sent me scrambling for a more reputable laptop brand. Prices are down considerably since, but without the fieldwork justification, I stick to desktops at a fraction of an outlay for higher-end quality laptops. Same here. Can't remember when I've been slammed by an outage to lose data, but it bothers me running disk fragmentation over a large disc if the weather doesn't feel right. Maintenance and repair one way or another is going to happen. Best to figure for the contingencies ahead. I've HDD backups and a extra 'get-by' MB. My last computer was blown up by lightning, a couple weeks ago, but that was closer than anything before. The strike also took out the large pole stepdown transformer directly behind the house, line carrier 15KV to domestic 230V service. |
#25
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Windows 10 fails to boot, then it reboots, bizarre self-fix
On Sat, 13 Oct 2018 13:31:55 -0400, Flasherly
wrote: My last computer was blown up by lightning, a couple weeks ago, but that was closer than anything before. The strike also took out the large pole stepdown transformer directly behind the house, line carrier 15KV to domestic 230V service. 230V service? Where do you live? |
#26
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Windows 10 fails to boot, then it reboots, bizarre self-fix
On Sat, 13 Oct 2018 19:53:18 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote: 230V service? Where do you live? Next to the pole with a new 240V transformer. .... So the answer is that both ‘some of the world’ and the U.S. distribute 240 volts to homes, apartments, shops, offices, and many other types of buildings. http://thednetworks.com/2012/06/10/w...s-use-220240v/ |
#27
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Windows 10 fails to boot, then it reboots, bizarre self-fix
On Saturday, October 13, 2018 at 11:33:09 PM UTC+8, Paul wrote:
RayLopez99 wrote: Thanks Paul. I think I will take it to the PC shop, run by a bunch of Filipinos who do good work but I always have to check their work since they use pirated software and i've found viruses/malware on my machine after going there before (I don't think they did it on purpose, but you never know in this country, lol). But I just found a confounding factor: the PC mechanical HDD is very very slow now, showing 99% usage and only 0.7 MB/s throughput. Quick scan shows no viruses. Implications from a internet forum is that it's a failing hard drive. Scandisk (from within Tools| Filemanager ) shows no clear errors (but this program is not that reliable, perhaps use Gizmo's "Crystal Disk Info"? https://www.techsupportalert.com/con...diskinfo.htm-0 ) I think I need a new hard drive, preferably a solid-state SSD, agree? While I am there, I will ask the boys to install Windows 10, home edition, 64x bit? That will do it. And I don't think I will lose my license key with Microsoft, since the MAC address doesn't change, being on the motherboard, when you replace a hard drive, as you have said or implied. If you have a freeware program to check hard disk health for Windows 10, feel free to recommend. I just downloaded HDDScan – Free HDD Diagnostic Utility. Thanks, RL 99% usage and 1MB/sec can happen when Windows Defender is doing a scan of C: . Make sure you aren't mis-interpreting the Task Manager performance screen. Windows 10 has a bad habit of doing stuff, at the same instant you want to do something. On a HDD, scanning many small files drops the I/O rate to 1MB/sec and makes the disk 100% busy doing head seeks. Resource Monitor (a link at the bottom of Task Manager : Performance) can show which program is doing I/O right now. Or if you see a Service Host scanning a whole bunch of "Packages", that's Windows Update activity. An SSD will certainly speed things up, but what kind of price will you pay there for an SSD ? I have a Samsung SSD in the Test Machine, but it still takes 49 seconds to boot. There are some things that are still a limitation of Windows 10. You can use HDTune and look at the Health tab. It has a table of SMART values. The program knows nothing of SSDs and only knows the SMART table of hard drives. http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe You want "reallocated" and "Current Pending" to be zero. The two yellow marks are bogus and should not be there. The benchmark curve for that drive is still "mint quality". https://s33.postimg.cc/mmiax893z/my_...t3500418as.gif That version is ten years old. Also note that, since about the last version or two of Windows 10, the HDTune benchmark is off a bit. If it used to report 100MB/sec, the measurement now might show 90-95MB/sec and could be a little on the low side. Since your Windows 10 is 10240, there's no danger there :-) One version of Windows 10 tried to "hijack" the SMART table, causing gibberish to appear in HDTune. Again, your 10240 version won't cause that problem. (The "winver" program reports the OS version.) Seagate and WDC have their own disk test software, and there will be a version that runs from Windows. You can do the "short SMART" test, which is an internal test reading a series of locations. You need to know which brand of hard drive is involved, to download the right program to test. I'm pretty sure some version of Crystal has a SMART table in it. And you can also get SMARTMonTools in Linux to give a health report. Except, you have the booting situation from hell (would Linux even boot?), so I have to be careful to not give you too adventurous sets of options :-) If you had reliable boot options on the machine, we could have a lot more fun. I'm sure by the time your PC Shop is done with that laptop, they won't be sad to see it go out the door. I don't think the hardware is bad. It has an IPS LCD panel, and sounds like it has some positive aspects from that perspective. But the InsydeH2O BIOS is "a piece of work". I have that on my Acer laptop, and thank goodness I've never needed to adjust anything. I haven't had a problem getting it to boot. The popup boot works, and I suspect it uses legacy (CSM module) as its operating mode. The popup boot window is very short, and the time window to press the key for it, is slightly less than one second wide. Paul Thanks to you and Flasherly. Thread closed: cause was motherboard failure (gradual) so eventually the Mobo failed to recognize the drive. Will shop for another laptop mobo, maybe a Egghead? Ship in here from the USA and 1-2 months later the laptop will be operational. RL |
#28
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Windows 10 fails to boot, then it reboots, bizarre self-fix
On Saturday, October 13, 2018 at 11:41:52 PM UTC+8, Paul wrote:
RayLopez99 wrote: On Saturday, October 13, 2018 at 11:19:15 PM UTC+8, RayLopez99 wrote: 2) I took the laptop to a PC shop. Several actually. The first couple were, much to my surprise, afraid I was a mystery shopper from Microsoft or the government (even though I am Caucasian in the Philippines) and refused to serve me, unless I agreed to buy a full-blown copy of Windows, which costs something like $200. It was comical. But finally a shop took a chance on me, a I wish to point out that ironically I actually have a real product key and this is a genuine copy of Windows 10, but they, for their own reasons, refused to hear me. Apparently, one guy said, some shop was closed down a while ago for dealing with pirated software and they irrationally did not want to deal with any foreigners with Windows activation issues, as a precaution. Usually Filipinos will do almost anything for money but not these guys. RL But you don't have an activation issue at the moment. That will only come when changing the key from Home to Pro and trying to upgrade it that way. Then the machine will contact Microsoft to complete the activation step. Maybe the shop guys will know of the "key method" for changing from Home to Pro. Microsoft only sends lawyers to close down PC shops, after $500K of "theft". You would have to pirate a couple thousand copies of Windows OS before they do something. They don't generally go around closing down shops for just one "activation issue". Microsoft gets reports from customers, while the customer uses Microsoft Tech Support to solve activation problems. If a large number of customers report "I got that bad copy of Windows 10 from Bobs PC Shop", that's how they formulate a case to shut down a shop. That's how they determine a couple thousand bad copies were installed at Bobs. And then it's off to court Bob goes. Usually it would be a "seriously bad" shop getting closed. Paul Interesting, thanks. The PC guys told me that the shops that turned me away are not that experienced, they more or less have a few months experience, repeated for years at a time. Their target audience is first time buyers or people who don't know much about PCs, since the owners themselves are not that PC literate. It could be gossip, but it's not unlikely either that the shops didn't want to soil their hands with my problems. As I said, it was found to be a hardware problem eventually. RL |
#29
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Windows 10 fails to boot, then it reboots, bizarre self-fix
On Sunday, October 14, 2018 at 8:52:05 AM UTC+8, Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 13 Oct 2018 13:31:55 -0400, Flasherly wrote: My last computer was blown up by lightning, a couple weeks ago, but that was closer than anything before. The strike also took out the large pole stepdown transformer directly behind the house, line carrier 15KV to domestic 230V service. 230V service? Where do you live? Sorry 220V. PH. RL |
#30
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Windows 10 fails to boot, then it reboots, bizarre self-fix
On Sun, 14 Oct 2018 21:49:17 -0700 (PDT), RayLopez99
wrote: Thanks to you and Flasherly. Thread closed: cause was motherboard failure (gradual) so eventually the Mobo failed to recognize the drive. Will shop for another laptop mobo, maybe a Egghead? Ship in here from the USA and 1-2 months later the laptop will be operational. - Egghead, that was before it was renamed NewEgg. You're going back twenty years to Egghead, the name from a student in a college dormitory running it, who started and then sold it, when it became Newegg, not long before the biggest parts supplier in America. Amazon has now taken that away by keeping guaranteed free shipping returns on hardware, whereas Newegg will charge shipping for returns. That policy can vary, but Amazon still averages a better chance for a free shipping return in case of dissatisfaction. As computers became more popular people, some, began to abuse return policies -- buy a laptop, use it for 30 days, then return it and say because it's not good enough. I wouldn't pay over $200US for a laptop now. And I'd expect it to be reasonably good, overall in performance, storage, screen size, for that money. To a degree a subjective sense of efficiency also subject to ability;- Intel successors to the ATOM kick butt at 2+ GHz, while rated operationally for a 10-watt draw. All that's is somewhat niche, too. Not the proverbial kitchen-sink assembled desktop with a built-in garbage disposal to boot. |
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