Blog Archives

• Excess heat during laptop recharging?

  Posted on January 25th, 2021 at 01:30 FredLanga Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  LANGALIST

  Excess heat during laptop recharging?

  By Fred Langa

  A reader is concerned: His laptop’s CPU temperature rises during battery-charging sessions. Why would the CPU heat up?

  Relatedly, what are normal CPU temperatures, anyway? What’s a safe temperature rise?

  Plus: A tiny freeware app that prevents PC overheating!

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.3.0 (2021-01-25).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Hardware, LangaList hardware, LangaList

• Four GB of RAM vanishes … but then reappears

  Posted on January 18th, 2021 at 02:35 FredLanga Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  LANGALIST

  Four GB of RAM vanishes … but then reappears

  By Fred Langa

  A long-stable Win10 PC with 12GB of RAM suddenly crashes after losing track of a full third of its memory — only to have the missing RAM later reappear and work fine!

  The other symptoms seem to rule out simple RAM-chip failures or software-caused glitches. What the heck is going on here?

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.2.0 (2021-01-18).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Hardware, LangaList LangaList

• Controlling Win10’s sometimes hyperactive security apps

  Posted on January 11th, 2021 at 00:20 Will Fastie Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  LANGALIST

  Controlling Win10’s sometimes hyperactive security apps

  By Fred Langa

  Win10’s built-in security tools offer excellent protection but can be annoying with frequent update cycles and tons of notifications.

  In fact, the amount of activity made one reader wonder whether his security setup was actually broken! Here’s how to tell, and how to make it behave better.

  Plus: More on Win10’s 30 built-in Troubleshooters.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.1.0 (2021-01-11).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList

• ‘Moving house is great fun,’ said no one ever

  Posted on July 13th, 2020 at 01:15 Jamie Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  BACKUP & RECOVERY

  ‘Moving house is great fun,’ said no one ever

  By Fred Langa

  The Langas’ home and office relocation hits some snags, including fatal damage to 5TB of backup files.

  But after some detours involving both high and low tech, things are finally getting back to normal.

  Testing, testing … is this thing on? Aha, it is!

  Moving mishaps are inevitable, but I didn’t expect this: the destruction of my 5TB, daily-use, primary backup drive — a three-year-old, spinning-platter, external Seagate unit that was stuffed to the gills with incremental backups, my Win10 File History files, my software archive, and gigs and gigs of family photos.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.27.0 (2020-07-013).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList

• LangaList: “What will happen if I don’t replace immediately a swollen lithium ion battery?”

  Posted on May 21st, 2020 at 07:40 woody Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Fred has a video to show you what’s at stake.

  New on Langa.com.

  Hardware Fred Langa, LangaList

• LangaList: How do you detect if your computer has a boot sector virus?

  Posted on November 20th, 2019 at 07:44 woody Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Another short, simple, down-to-earth article from Fred Langa.

  If you aren’t hooked up to Fred’s free post notification system, you’re missing a lot!

  Antivirus Apps LangaList, virus detection

• Taking the plunge with a new PC

  Posted on June 3rd, 2019 at 02:20 Tracey Capen Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Buying a new PC was once a fairly simple shop-and-buy process. There wasn’t much to consider beyond memory and drive capacity — and maybe an upgraded video card.

  But recent innovations have made choosing a new machine more complicated. Intel’s Optane technology, for example, claims to make a hard drive as responsive as an SSD!

  See the full story in the June 3, 2019, AskWoody Plus Newsletter (Issue 16.20.0)

  Hardware, LangaList, Tech Help AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Buying PCs, hardware, LangaList, Windows

• Langalist: Remove vendor-installed junkware, vet “Update needed” and booting a Virtual PC

  Posted on May 13th, 2019 at 02:41 woody Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Fred continues his LangaList streak, tackling three subjects:

  • How to uninstall pre-installed junk on a Win10 PC
  • Is that “Security update needed” popup bogus?
  • Can you use a Virtual PC to boot your computer?

  Interesting questions. Insightful answers.

  Out this morning in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 16.17.0, delivered free to all Plus members.

  Tech Help AskWoody Plus Newsletter, junkware, LangaList, Virtual PCs
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