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Thanks.

I have already used the media creation tool to get Win 10 21H1 on a USB. I think if it doesn’t shutdown and restart nicely following your log out suggestion, then doing the repair install straight away is probably the best option, although if I can get into any kind of hardware diagnostics on the laptop I will run those first.

cheers
T

 

Well, here’s where things are.

I uninstalled Skype. I rebooted. I verified that there was no Skype in my apps or startup. I typed Skype in the start menu and only search options appeared. I  searched for skype in the local disk drives and there was nothing.

I went to skype.com/go/download and reinstalled the latest Skype for desktop.

Logged in. My chat history and attached files appeared.

Checked Settings > Apps: there is one Skype version 8.72.

Checked Settings > Apps > Startup: there are two Skypes.

I guess I wait to find out if I have to run the next update twice.

At least nothing appears to have been harmed by this experience.

cheers
T

 

Thanks, makes perfect sense

For some reason I didn’t get notifications for these responses or I’d have thanked you sooner.

Is there any way I can remove Skype and reinstall without losing the attachments in my Skype chat history? A colleague often uses it to send me screenshots of pieces of code.

Once I sort this annoyance out I may return with another one 🙂

Cheers
T

Thanks – the check said it had not found any problems, but after running it I was able to delete the file immediately. Maybe it rebuilt the disk map or something.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have tested AllDup and the AusLogics duplicate finder. They agree 🙂

Looks like my 25% estimate was almost exactly correct 🙁

Cheers

1 user thanked author for this post.

Microfix

I’ve not had any of the pro features since I upgraded to Win 10 however long ago that became possible, so I probably can survive without them.

Features of Pro that might be useful to me: sandbox and virtualisation. Paused updates would save me some hassle but I’ve just learned that’s in Home now. I wondered if RDP might be useful – I often have to sort out my mother’s laptop remotely but I currently use QuickAssist and that’s been adequate.

This is a single-user machine so I haven’t been bitten by permissions really, although I do hate the lying “another user has this file open” dialog when I try to delete folders which Have Not Been Accessed For Years. I doubt if that’s a Home/Pro issue though.

 

I think you might be right. Well that saves me some $$ 🙂

 

Thanks. I’m sitting looking at a box labelled Windows 7 Home Premium which must have been my original license.

I want a clean install on the SSD when I rebuild the machine, so it looks like my options are either to (1) purchase a new 10 Pro and install that (clearly this is the simplest and cleanest option), or (2) purchase a Home to Pro upgrade and install that on the existing HDD now, then reinstall it clean on the SSD in due course. I presume if I have a valid license key I can do a reinstall on a new disk?

The first option will cost me $NZ320, looks like Microsoft will charge me $NZ209 to upgrade through the store.

It seems the only way to turn the fans completely off is to disconnect them from the power supply. However I have tweaked the fan profiling (using Fan Xpert) so that the fans are at their minimum speeds unless temperatures go too high.

1. The noise levels have always been low, now the case is almost completely silent. So this had an effect on fan activity.

2. For the last hour the PC has done nothing other than play a live video stream (the congressional impeachment hearing, which probably won’t surprise you). CPU load has averaged 10% across all 4 cores.

3. The motherboard temperature has remained at 73C and the CPU cores have fluctuated between 40-50C. So compared to the previous figures I posted (when the machine was under load) the CPU is slightly cooler and the motherboard is marginally hotter.

 

In the photos I attached, both fans are exhaust fans. Off picture on the right, and a bit lower down, there is a big fan which is an intake fan. So air comes in at bottom front past the disk drives, flows through the case and is exhausted top and rear.

 

[aquatarkus]

GPU numbers:

The case has a big fan on the top, one over the HDD bays, one over the GPU, and the PSU has its own fan. If I put my hand over any of the fan vents the air (a) is venting (b) feels cooler than the ambient room temperature (which is about 22C), or much the same. (The fan over the GPU is warmer than the others, and its air flow probably pulls in air from the CPU fan as well) If I take the front wall off the case and put my hand over the CPU fan the air flow is warm, but not hot. The fans are spinning freely and silently, and have been dusted this week, so I don’t think they are a problem.

There’s no special CPU cooler here, it’s just the fan that came with the CPU. I’ve attached a couple of photos (the sound card is the small card between the CPU and GPU):

The CPU fan is also clean and silent. I think I’ve renewed the thermal compound between the fan and the CPU housing twice in the six years since this machine was built.

 

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by aquatarkus.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by aquatarkus.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by aquatarkus.

OK, here’s some numbers while running a computation-heavy job:

I’ve also made up a couple of graphs, first compares CPU use and core temperature:

and the second compares CPU temperture and CPU fan speed:

These graphs look OK to me, although perhaps a little on the warm side of comfortable. Would you agree?

cheers
T

 

[aquatarkus]

I feel like this is creeping into “what’s wrong with my PC” territory rather than “what’s good hardware to get”, but there is a connection… if the numbers shown in the monitor screen captures I’ve attached indicate problems I’m going to do surgery; how critical is it (how soon?) and how widespread (how much of the existing machine is salvageable?)

So attached are HWMonitor stats from a runtime of a couple of minutes more than 24 hours. Obviously that includes 8 hours when the machine really wasn’t doing anything so bear that in mind when you look at the averages. A 24 hour test doesn’t include everything this machine does but it was an average to below average day.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by aquatarkus.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by aquatarkus.

1 user thanked author for this post.

satrow

OK I uninstalled the AI suite, rebooted and have had HWinfo64 running ever since. I’ll give it a day and then post the key numbers here.

Meanwhile I’ll start looking into what it would cost to replace the MB, CPU, GPU and RAM, and add an SSD as the new C drive.

1 user thanked author for this post.

satrow

Here’s an odd one: I just got an alert that said

Warning! CPU -62.0 centigrade

This is not long after an alert that told me it was +64.0 centigrade.

I’m fairly sure that this is from the ASUS AI suite, and I’m starting to think the MOBO is no longer trustworthy.