Long gone, but now back… sort of. :)
If the product is well-designed, it will be built to withstand normal shipping temperatures while off: Think of a cargo container full of PCs baking for days in the sun on the deck of a ship transiting the tropics; or deep-chilling for hours in an airliner’s cargo hold; etc. That doesn’t meant your laptop is…
(Answer requested by Shane Zimmerman) Actually, yes! (And I’m not talking about recovering a long, useless string of zeros!) Zeroing (or One-ing) out a drive — filling it with all Zeros or all Ones — will make it unrecoverable to consumer gear, but maybe not to specialized equipment. Here’s why: A One laid on top…
Probably not. The Windows license process generates a unique numeric ID or “score” for your PC’s specific hardware configuration and copy of Windows. Microsoft knows that PCs get upgraded, so the system is flexible enough to allow the score to change, some, without triggering a need to re-license. For example, you usually can upgrade your…
LangaList readers are sending in questions about some of the details in the recent three-part series on spec’ing, buying, and setting up a new Optane-equipped PC. Quick recap: In Part One, Taking the plunge with a new PC (AskWoody Plus newsletter 2019-06-03), you saw how I used Windows’ built-in performance tools to identify system bottlenecks,…
(Answer requested by Hong Shen) I have bad news, and not-as-bad news. The bad news is ASUS’ official BIOS update guide, which says in part: “READ THIS BEFORE YOU BRICK YOUR MACHINE!… A failed or interrupted BIOS update process almost always means death for the computer. For this reason, never ever interrupt a BIOS update that is…
Alfredo Sanchez’s full question: “I changed the voltage on my CPU and this fixed my BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) problem, but now when I reboot the computer it starts up and then powers off and constantly powers on and loses power and tries to power on again.… eventually it will power on. How do…
(Answer requested by Richard Janezic) LI-ion batteries are considered Class B (flammable liquids/gases) fire hazards (info). LI-ion fires are ferocious, and the gases are nasty. If there’s a fire, unplug the device (if plugged in), call the fire department, and then use an ABC- or BC-rated fire extinguisher (info) to suppress the fire. In a…
Nothing good. If you’re lucky, the CPU will sense that’s something’s very wrong and slow or shut itself down before permanent damage occurs. But with today’s higher-power chips, the margin for error is very small. More likely, after a few glorious and toasty moments, your CPU would give up the ghost in the form of…
If possible, open up the dead PC and remove the drive. Install in a working PC; or externally connect it to a PC with a kit like that discussed here. You can then use the normal apps on the working PC to data-wipe the old drive. If that’s not possible, your best bet is to…
“It was… the first digital flight computer, the most advanced miniature computer to date, the first computer to use silicon chips, and the first onboard computer where the lives of crew depended on it functioning as advertised.” Full text, more pix. Permalink: https://langa.com/?p=2954