Techsupport

TP-Link Archer C2 - First Impressions

· Reading time: ~2 minute(s) (285 words) techsupport connectivity networking

As mentioned in my last post, I was in the hunt for a new router to replace the aging Buffalo WHR-HP-G54. I’d found that it wasn’t capable of handling fibre broadband speeds (hardly surprising… given that it’s running a 200MHz single core CPU with barely a few megs free of the 16Mb RAM).

I ended up dropping by PC World and picking up the TP-Link Archer C2 for £49.99 (a few quid more expensive than it was at Scan, but PC World was closer, so I was saving petrol money and around 30 minutes of my time for the round-trip).

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Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 Fun (or not...)

· Reading time: ~3 minute(s) (540 words) techsupport connectivity networking

Out of contract with my previous supplier, I was free to find a new supplier. Luckily, one of the benefits of my job is that I get free fibre broadband, so it was a simple decision :)

Anyway, back to the point of my post.

I last used the Buffalo a few years back when on Virgin Media’s “National” service (no longer available - a good thing as it was trash) when their supplied Netgear had weak wi-fi. Since then, there’s been well documented problems with OpenSSL and the Heartbleed vulnerability and I was sure that the Tomato firmware running on the Buffalo would be affected. It turned out that as I was using an official release, I was OK but I still fancied trying DD-WRT as it was the original reason for me buying the Buffalo in the first place.

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No dial tone, but broadband still works?

· Reading time: ~2 minute(s) (320 words) techsupport connectivity broadband

It seems whenever I need to make a phone call on the landline, it’s broken. Yesterday I picked up the landline handset and it was dead. No dial tone. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

I tried the usual steps at first (unplug it, plug it back in) but no joy. Onto the broadband I went. Works fine. Weird. I’ve had this before and leaving stuff unplugged overnight seemed to fix it, but on this occasion it didn’t help. So today, Di picked up a cheap landline handset from the Asda and she tried it while I was at work, but still no joy. Which only means one thing… calling the provider :(

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heavy cpu usage svchost windows10

· Reading time: ~2 minute(s) (287 words) techsupport windows10 windowsupdate svchost

Google brings up a complete bag of results when you search for “svchost high cpu” as it’s been a well documented issue with the Windows Update service across the last couple of Windows versions (way back to XP as it happens!) so it was little surprise to find that the instance of svchost.exe that was eating CPU cycles was the one that was hosting the Windows Update service.

Dipping into the Settings screens of Windows 10, I got to the Windows Update section, only for it to show that it was on “Downloading Updates 0%” and remained at this point for a couple of hours without moving. I couldn’t remember the process for fixing this issue in Windows 8 (as I have had it on another PC in the past), hence the need for Google.

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"Something went wrong" - Creating users on Windows 10

· Reading time: ~2 minute(s) (234 words) techsupport windows10

On a fresh install of Windows 10, I found I was unable to add a second user to the system (via All Settings) and constantly got the “Something went wrong” screen. I tried a few reboots but to no avail. A quick google found that a lot of people with laptops were having this problem, and removing the battery and running on AC power only appeared to resolve their problem, but I’m on a desktop… i.e. no battery.

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Sending email via SMTP on Outlook 2013

· Reading time: ~1 minute(s) (90 words) techsupport email

Recently I’ve noticed that I’ve not been able to send emails in Outlook 2013 on the desktop computer. It’s been working fine on my laptop, but the desktop no such luck.

The error I was getting was “Error 0x800CCC13 Cannot connect to the network”. I tried a few different things, but to no avail.

After researching online, I found that doing the following fixes it:

  • Close Outlook before continuing.
  • Run a command prompt as administrator
  • Run sfc /scannow and allow to complete.

Reload Outlook now, and try sending an email.

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McAfee Mobile Security

· Reading time: ~4 minute(s) (796 words) mobilephones techsupport

About a fortnight ago, I changed to an android handset after having iPhones for the last 4 years. I had decided on an LG G3 which turns out to come preinstalled with McAfee Mobile Security… Which is fine… Or would be if it worked properly.

I use an app for my online banking. When I load it up, it complains that there is no security product installed. If I open up McAfee manually, and go back into my banking app, it doesn’t complain. So maybe it does work?!

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Access services on VirtualBox VM

· Reading time: ~2 minute(s) (230 words) techsupport virtualisation

In my current job I use a lot of virtual machines due to the variety of applications we support and the demand for them to work on many versions of Windows. As a result, we do have web services that I’d run on a VM, but it’s not possible to bridge the adapters (to allow external access to the VM) due to security guidelines at work, so I have to try something else.

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Dell XPS 15 9530 sluggish performance

· Reading time: ~1 minute(s) (155 words) techsupport notes dell xps xps9530

This morning, I noticed that my Dell XPS 15 9530 felt a little sluggish, so did some investigation and found the CPU clock had capped at a lower speed. I did a full reboot of Windows 10, and luckily this was sufficient to shake things back into life. But a quick read online suggested that some people aren’t quite as lucky in this situation.

So if a reboot doesn’t resolve the issue, what next?

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Boot Booster (EFI) Partition on an Asus EeePC 1005P

· Reading time: ~2 minute(s) (322 words) techsupport hardware

We have an Asus EeePC 1005P netbook which comes with the Intel Atom N450 CPU. The BIOS provides a “Boot Booster” option which caches POST information in a special partition on the hard drive to speed up the boot process. Unfortunately, as part of removing all the partitions from the hard drive, this “special” partition has been lost and I needed to recreate it.

You will need:

  • Windows installation media
  • Linux live media (I’m using a Lubuntu CD)
  • Plenty of time (it is an Atom CPU afterall!)

I’ve cleared the disk of all partitions using GParted (using the Lubuntu CD), and I’ve installed Windows 7. As part of installing Windows, I’ve selected a “Custom Installation” and specified a 60Gb (61440Mb) partition for it to be installed to. The Windows installation process adds an additional partition of 100Mb (containing boot information for Windows).

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