The Spam Thread!

[cpd2009]

I guess you're right David... Nero is no good anymore.

I updated some Nero software that came on the new Gateway tower, Nero BackItUp, and I believe it may have temporarily killed off it's DVD/CD-RW drive. I uninstalled it, and I was able to restore DVD functionality.

Either Nero or Adobe Encore DVD 2.0. Either way, it's fixed now. The only side effect is that the drive is listed as "CD-ROM Drive" under Device Manager, but the driver version remains the same as before.

[Stella Grapes]

Alive and unstable.

[cpd2009]

Alive and unstable.

I hope everything is alright.

[RAMChYLD]

PC Fair.

Hopefully I can score <redacted> today.

[Blackberry Bun]

Alive and unstable.

I hope everything is alright.

I hope the same too.

[cpd2009]

Turns out my new Gateway desktop PC has trouble waking up from sleep mode, or from being shut down when Fast Startup or Hybrid Sleep are enabled. If I put the desktop to sleep or shut it down this way, the computer refuses to wake up until I cycle the main power.

It could be something with Windows 8's Hybrid Sleep/Fast Boot modes, but I hope it's not a more serious hardware issue. Other than the sleep problem, the tower works great. No errors or BSODs. The problems appeared to start after I uninstalled the botched Nero BackItUp software, which killed off the DVD-RW drive for awhile.

Just in case, I decided to do a full reset of Windows 8 to factory settings, and once it's done, Nero BackItUp is history.

If the problem continues... I will shut off Hybrid Sleep and Fast Boot and see if that helps. If not, I will have to return it to WalMart and get a refund or exchange.

[RAMChYLD]

failed with the errorlevel of insufficient funds

[cpd2009]

I tried running MemTest86+ on the Gateway tower, but it won't run because MemTest86+ is unable to boot on UEFI systems in it's current form. UEFI apparently can't run 16-bit Real-mode programs like Memtest86+, and I can't seem to find anything in the BIOS to boot it in legacy mode. So, I have to use Windows Memory Diagnostic.

I'm also going to try a variant of Linux on the tower to see if it runs into the same sleep/wake issue that Windows has. I have a theory that the tower shipped with a buggy AMD chipset driver, which is causing the tower to not wake up from sleep mode. Already tried Ubuntu, but the AMD APU is so new that it was unable to load a graphics driver.

Ah, the joys of performing diagnostics on a computer. People who don't have technical expertise would have probably returned the computer by now or taken it to a repair shop.

Update: Windows Memory Diagnostic came out with good results. And I'm having a terrible time trying to find a Linux distro that runs on UEFI hardware. The one that I did get to work, an experimental Puppy build, didn't have a functional sleep mode.

[RAMChYLD]

The one that I did get to work, an experimental Puppy build, didn't have a functional sleep mode.

Hmm, sounds like I got lucky then. 3/4 of the distros I tried boots flawlessly under UEFI (Arch, Fedora, and even the the love-it-or-hate-it Ubuntu). The one thing I have to do with those is to set the flag "iommu=noagp,noaperture" in grub before booting, and doing the same tweak to the grub settings in the target install before rebooting to ensure grub boots.

I guess these new motherboards like Black Mesa instead...

The big problem I have with linux is much more idiotic- almost all Linux distros does not support RAID in GPT disk mode. The only one distro that does is Ubuntu. Not even Debian supports RAID in GPT. I have no idea why, and my queries are all met with "RAID is stupid. Get a larger disk! Or SSD if you're aiming for higher speed! AND BACKUP OFTEN!". Sheesh! Nevermind that I'm stuck with using slower laptop disks because of casing limitations and what I was aiming for is an improvise between more disk space, better speed and affordability! No doubt that if I bring up my case issue the answer would be "BUY A BETTER CASE! YOUR CURRENT CASE IS DESTINED FOR THE JUNKYARD!" Gee, thanks a lot! I thought one of the principles of Linux was to run on older hardware?!?

[cpd2009]

The one that I did get to work, an experimental Puppy build, didn't have a functional sleep mode.

Hmm, sounds like I got lucky then. 3/4 of the distros I tried boots flawlessly under UEFI (Arch, Fedora, and even the the love-it-or-hate-it Ubuntu). The one thing I have to do with those is to set the flag "iommu=noagp,noaperture" in grub before booting, and doing the same tweak to the grub settings in the target install before rebooting to ensure grub boots.

I was able to boot Ubuntu with no problem. The problem was that X failed to load because it tried to use the fglrx driver, which their version apparently has no support for the new AMD A6-5200. OpenSUSE 12.3 beta did boot to the desktop. And, it ran into the same sleep issue like Windows.

Doing some gritty Google research, I learned that sometimes UEFI won't boot or POST if the HDMI is connected when you turn on your computer. I have an extra VGA cable lying around, and I will try using VGA for the display to see if that helps. HDMI probably uses HDCP, so perhaps there could be an HDCP conflict because of the monitor or HDMI to DVI converter?