Root Access

Bob

12:07 AM

Hm. I just got serially downvoted. Nice.

Journeyman Geek

did it get reversed?

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Not yet.

Only three. Might not be enough for a reversal, who knows.

Journeyman Geek

Yeah

Bob

I can't remember - does reversal affect the actual score?

Journeyman Geek

it invalidates the downvotes

(Also, I got 100 rep in workplace 0_0)

Bob

12:09 AM

Hmm... pretty sure I know who did it, too.

Conveniently close to this downvoted answer I was commenting on.

Journeyman Geek

oh, him

Bob

@JourneymanGeek ?

Journeyman Geek

Donno. I seem to recall he was complaining about something the other day

but the coffee hasn't kicked in yet ;p

Bob

You mean this one?

1

Q: Is there any moderation for users who cast counter-productive votes?

I just posted a carefully written and on-topic question. It took over 10 minutes of my time to phrase everything just right and make the question clear. Within 2 minutes, some other user hastily downvoted it, which means that it will likely never receive the responses it deserves. Now I need t...

The irony.

Journeyman Geek

ahh yes

Bob

12:16 AM

To be honest, this is the kind of person/attitude I'd rather not see on the site at all. Won't be sad to see him gone (see his other meta answer).

He seems to have taken the comments/answer to his meta question as "feel free to use downvotes as you like".

Which really isn't the point.

Bob

12:29 AM

@allquixotic I still use --version with java - force of habit.

Of course, it has to be different from everything that uses getopt...

terdon

12:42 AM

@Braiam Puedes negar lo que te de la gana pero la culpa sigue siendo tuya :P

DragonLord

2:24 AM

With SSDs the standard for high-performance storage these days, Is there still a valid reason to get a WD VelociRaptor drive?

Perhaps they'll refresh the VelociRaptor with 2 TB storage? That'll boost both sequential and random I/O performance.

Also, these drives seem rock-solid reliable at the same level as enterprise-grade drives

Bob

2:39 AM

@DragonLord Isn't it still cheaper per GB?

and enterprise SSDs are still rather expensive

DragonLord

@Bob US$410 for a 1 TB Samsung SSD 840 EVO, $240 for the VelociRaptor

Granted, the SSD 840 EVO isn't the most reliable drive with very write-heavy workloads because of the TLC NAND

Psycogeek

3:09 AM

ooooooh it is Halloween, how scary. Want to see scary I will let the neighbors dogs (going nuts behind 6 foot hurricane fences) go, and bring a little action back into the scene. Now that's scary.

Kids today are so lazy, I just got a SMS in that says "Trick or Treat" with an address of where to send the candy (and what kind).

Oh well now they are getting creative, that one was a MMS , with a selfie :-)

DragonLord

0

Q: Is there still a reason to choose a 10,000 RPM hard drive over an SSD?

For any user who's serious about storage performance, SSDs are always the fastest solution. However, WD still makes their 10,000 RPM VelociRaptor hard drive, and a few enthusiasts even use enterprise-grade 15,000 RPM SAS hard drives. Aside from price, is there still a reason to choose a 10K RPM ...

hard-drive performance ssd storage hardware-rec

Psycogeek

3:32 AM

You cant make that kind of decision , one costs more, is bloody fast (especially for tiny random parts and pieces like the OS) and fails regularly but fixes itself, and is impervious to jostling around. One costs less, uses more power , put out a lot of heat, and would not like to be jostled around when spun up and head out.

One takes time to wake back up from sleep, one of them has not even been tested over years of time.

Journeyman Geek

@DragonLord: there's also heat generation. The raptor is a 2.5 inch drive with a huge heatsink, no?

Psycogeek

The $MFT the $bitmap $jrnl and $logfile items will be written to and read from literally billions of times in its lifetime, and are critical to the FS integrity. one of them is less likely to ever have to move those to a safer place. The other one, is a whole lot faster to Backup :-)

If you always back stuff up, and have the money always get the speed. if you don't have a backup, then it doesn't mater which one you get :-)

@JourneymanGeek I have wondered about the platter size thing myself, seems that larger platters spun at a slower rate would be just about as fast for most stuff, and heat and wear would be reduced.

I dismissed it when most of the stats show that it is a sports car, not a station wagon :-)

if it is desktop, nice SSD for OS and programs games and high access stuff (much random, fast writing) , and normal cheap high-density drive for storage (much sit around and be available when needed).

money better spent today might be smaller but good quality SSD, and 2 even simple huge drives. speed for the things that need it, and storage and backup space and redundancy for the whole.

If it is mobile laptop, then SSD is a given, and they should all be coming with them in it. The smaller platforms like nucs and tvcomputers and portable devices have limited power and cooling, and are likely to be moved around a lot more.

Journeyman Geek

4:05 AM

@Psycogeek nucs do OK with laptop drives

Psycogeek

pitting the price of a 1T 5400 laptop drive against a 1T SSD , I bet that decision is easy ?

dragonlords Pricing decision would also be easier if the choice is between low-cost, not that much slower than a velociraptop full sized drives of even 2,3,4T capacity , and the SSDs of the high capacity type.

4T of simple desktop drive ~$150-225USD 4T of SSD ~$1000-1700

Bob

25

A: The black dog in the black road

The dog was hit by lightning and is now on fire.

Journeyman Geek

4:25 AM

o0

Psycogeek

Your a dog , driving the car , so you could see easier in the dark. plus you could smell the sucker from a mile away :-)

Humans rely so much on added light, and fail to understand the quantity of time it takes for low-light adaption (10min as a start) so they only believe they cannot see in the dark, and apply some artificial means.

Once you apply the bright light back in like the flashlight, it blows the adapting to the low light, and you can then see (actually) less, because now you can only see what is lit up, everything beyond the artificial lights is to contrasty.

DragonLord

The animal avatars around here are always fun :)

@JourneymanGeek is a dog

@Psycogeek is a raccoon

Journeyman Geek

;p

My ava here has always been the same dog

DragonLord

@Bob is a fox (or so it seems)

Bob

@allquixotic is a ~~cat~~ sadface

and of course you're a dragon!

DragonLord

4:40 AM

@Bob :-)

Psycogeek

I actually look like this most the time

HackToHell

4:57 AM

Kaspersky live USB segfaults while scanning .-.

DragonLord

5:23 AM

@JourneymanGeek I have a cheap 64GB Plextor M5M SSD in my laptop and it is being used as a cache and high-speed scratch space. Somebody managed to wear one out after writing about 250 TB to it

The underlying Toshiba 19nm Toggle-Mode NAND is specified for 3000 P/E cycles per block

...which comes out to 192 TB total endurance

Journeyman Geek

@DragonLord: So, it performed beyond specifications?

DragonLord

@JourneymanGeek forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=34801195

Journeyman Geek

@DragonLord: We're not counting sudden death tho

(Which a lot of those seem to be)

DragonLord

Even if we're being conservative, I think there's no concern about exhausting the NAND until after at least 120 to 150 TB of writes

Journeyman Geek

Well, As I see it there's four criteria I'd use to decide storage. Longevity (I hope for 5-7 years of conservative use of my drives, though they typically outlast that, and I have backups anyway). Storage density (Where the raptors suck compared to traditional drives) and performance/price and space/price ratios

I don't see where a 10K RPM drive is significantly better in any of those

DragonLord

5:32 AM

Mine has less than 500 GB of writes on it and it's been in service for 9 months

HackToHell

ooh my hard disk has been running for 473 days and 7 days

And it has a 16 Mb buffer

Bob

5:49 AM

@DragonLord What software do you use for caching?

DragonLord

Not anything special, just ReadyBoost

Not a huge advantage, but it helps in a few corner cases, like MFT reads

Couldn't get Intel SRT to work

Bob

Ah.

DragonLord

It looks like the drive is reporting wrong NAND writes

The value is no longer displayed as of CrystalDiskInfo 6.2

HackToHell

6:57 AM

Post Kaspersky cleaning, windows isn't booting :/

Wohoo lost only my android sdk !

Free of Win 32 Sality at last

Bob

@HackToHell Good chance you're not.

Unless you go nuke-and-repave, removal is never 100% guaranteed.

HackToHell

FML Bitdefender will not start

I think i am still infected .-.

@Bob Looks like I have to do that :'(

I'm not infected, so many settings have been changed ._.

UAC is disabled, Bitdefender has died, Windows Defender doesn't turn on

Windows Firewall is dead

HackToHell

7:30 AM

Screw it, I'll do a refresh install

Now might be a good time to try out PXE boot

Bob

@HackToHell s/refresh install/full install without keeping anything/

HackToHell

@Bob bbbut .... :(

Bob

what part of nuke do you not understand? :P

HackToHell

Aw screw it, it has nothing

Bob

seriously though, you'll probably save a fair bit of grief down the line

HackToHell

7:32 AM

Good thing all my network shares are RO and now RW

Bob

who knows what's been modified

HackToHell

@Bob Yeah ..

Bob

amazon.com/dp/B00ISV5V16

Hm.

They're shipping to Aus again, yay!

HackToHell

@Bob That's super cheap :O

slhck

7:50 AM

Anyone want to help me decide what to buy for my network?

Main point is, I have a NAS that I need to connect to via Gigabit LAN or N WiFi – otherwise it's just too slow.

I can't move the router.

The B/G/N router doesn't do DSL though, and generally it works unreliably.

So I thought, I'll put the N router next to my desk, use it as a switch, but then how do I get Internet connectivity?

So then I thought well I could buy homeplugs with two ports, connect my laptop, connect the NAS, and connect the homeplug to the DSL router on the other side

But most shitty homeplugs don't do Gigabit LAN either, and those that do are really expensive

So, should I buy a shitty homeplug and use that to bridge over the Internet connection to my N router acting as a switch?

Bob

8:04 AM

@slhck NAS goes on wired if at all possible.

Really, put as much on wired as possible.

Far more reliable.

@slhck :|

Any chance you can run cat5e across? :P

slhck

@Bob I mean, it's 16/1 DSL. Come on.

Bob

@JourneymanGeek seems to have had some luck with homeplug

slhck

No, can't run any cables there.

Bob

@slhck Oh, so it's WAN-only?

slhck

@Bob No, it has 100M LAN ports too

Bob

8:05 AM

@slhck I mean, do you need LAN across the two?

slhck

@Bob Ah. You mean bridge it wirelessly with the N router? Or…

I just need Inturwebz

And fast NAS. Anything else I don't care so much about.

Bob

@slhck So your requirements are WAN-only between the modem and your computer.

There's no other devices connected to the modem/router you need to access.

slhck

@Bob Oh, no.. there are plenty of other devices.

Should have mentioned that, sorry

Bob

Urk.

Well, I'm just about to go have dinner soo..... back in a bit

slhck

Ok, I'll just reset the router and see what I can come up with

Enjoy dinner, @Bob

HackToHell

8:33 AM

►

^ is awesome

Awal Garg

morning root accessers!

@HackToHell niceee

So anyone got invite for Inbox?

Bob

9:00 AM

@slhck So you need as much speed as possible between the modem/router and your computer.

Well, homeplug. Assuming you don't have electrical devices spewing noise.

slhck

@Bob No, I need as much speed as possible between the NAS and the computer. The bottleneck is the DSL connection anyway I suppose.

Homeplug it is, then… :/

Bob

@slhck ..? You have other devices on the modem/router. Do you care about them?

slhck

@Bob They can connect wirelessly to the DSL router

That's always worked fine.

Bob

shrug

Unless you have 802.11ac on both ends, you'd probably be disappointed by the reliability of a wireless link anyway.

Hm. I appear to have misplaced my phone.

Oh there it is.

slhck

I just don't get why the ISPs sell so crappy routers. Cutting costs blah blah… I'd have paid extra for a Gigabit LAN / WiFi ac router.

Bob

9:13 AM

@slhck Eh. my ISP only sells an average-ish modem/router, but there's a rebate available if I buy some other model (at certain shops)

slhck

Hm. Yeah, not here :P

Generally the Internet situation in Germany is rather… meh.

I live in the middle of the city and I'll be stuck with ADSL2+ forever, I guess.

Bob

@slhck Weren't you talking about your cheap mobile internet? :P

Or was that someone else?

slhck

@Bob That was when I still lived in Austria :P

But there they increased prices after some of the major telcos merged.

Bob

@slhck -_-

Journeyman Geek

@slhck: homeplug dosen't add cables

Bob

9:20 AM

@slhck ADSL brothers? :D

Journeyman Geek

Its REALLY finicky tho

slhck

@JourneymanGeek How do you mean?

@Bob Huh?

Bob

20 mins ago, by Bob

Well, homeplug. Assuming you don't have electrical devices spewing noise.

Journeyman Geek

@slhck: I had to move one of mine to stop the washing machine from taking out my network

slhck

@JourneymanGeek Ew

Journeyman Geek

9:21 AM

And you can get pretty close to line rate on 100mbps with 500mbps Units.

Bob

@slhck It was a joke. I'm stuck on ADSL2+ for the foreseeable future too :P

Journeyman Geek

gigabit homeplug units are supposed to be VERY noise resistant, but they're too new.

Bob

Well, I suppose cable is an option. Not a particularly good one.

slhck

@Bob Ah :P

Bob

Too... new?

slhck

9:22 AM

Meaning, too expensive?

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: Expensive ;p

Don't forget, I do still have a VERY limited budget

slhck

Actually I could just buy a GBit switch, homeplug between the DSL router and the other side of the wall, connect the switch there, and then connect the NAS and my laptop to the switch

Bob

Ah.

200Mbit TP-LINK adapters are... $50 for a pair?

slhck

Then get rid of the N router. It really doesn't work reliably anymore, for whatever reason

Bob

Urk.

cat6 ftw :P

@slhck No chance of running a cable through the wall?

Maybe though the existing power conduits?

Journeyman Geek

9:24 AM

@Bob: Sounds about right

I'd go for 500 if I can tho

I've had much better luck with them

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Ouch. Up to $125. I can see Gigabit would be costly...

slhck

@Bob Eh, not particularly keen on fiddling around with the sockets but… it could work.

I'd just have to remove the actual wall socket.

Journeyman Geek

@slhck: Oh and ABSOLUTELY get passthrough units

Bob

@slhck cat6 would be much more reliable than even homeplug

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: Prices will go down eventually

Bob

9:25 AM

@slhck Are you renting?

slhck

@Bob Yep

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: and faster

slhck

ali786, Hyderabad, India

430 8

windows-7 usb boot cpu windows vmware linux

Bob

@slhck Yea, that could be a prob if a drill is necessary. If you're lucky, you might be able to run something through the sockets.

slhck

@Bob If I'm lucky I don't get killed by electric shocks :P

Bob

9:28 AM

...that too

Do you have a breaker for your apartment?

slhck

Yeah

Bob

Yea. If it's not too hard, and you aren't moving any time soon, try to run proper network cables.

slhck

Bob

Wireless should be a last resort.

@slhck What's what on the right? Phone/cable?

slhck

It's funny because I have two DSL sockets.

Bob

9:30 AM

If so, you should be able to just temporarily push one of them back and run the cable through there :P

slhck

@Bob Some kind of cable, yeah. But we don't actually get cable in this building.

Bob

Should be easy enough. Pry off the faceplate, unscrew the thingy, unclip the part holding the cable sockets.

slhck

The technician connected the DSL socket on the other side of the wall to the DSLAM, but didn't want to do it with the other socket in my room, because it's technically not allowed.

Bob

Heck, if you want you should be able to find a nice-looking wall termination for networking cables.

slhck

Actually I could try just swapping the wiring of the DSL sockets from one room to the other.

If they come from the same cable duct.

Bob

9:31 AM

@slhck The three vertical stripes look weird.

@slhck At least over here, I wouldn't fiddle with that.

slhck

@Bob Typical for Germany. "Telekommunikations-Anschluss-Einheit"

Bob

Something about it being illegal to do anything to phone lines :P

@slhck We have these:

600 series connector

A 600 series connector is an obsolete three-pin connector with up to six conductors. It was for many years the standard telephone service (POTS) connector in Australia, but has now been replaced by the six position modular connector in this application. As of 2008 a large installed base remained and a large variety of connectors, adapters and equipment such as ADSL filters were still in production and readily available. It has no other common or standard use, either within Australia or beyond. However it is manufactured in other countries, usually in China, for export to Australia. The 600 series...

The beige colour of yours was what made me think of phone :P

slhck

@Bob Yay for different standards in every country :P

Bob

> It has no other common or standard use, either within Australia or beyond.

-______-

slhck

> Today, TAE connectors are common in Germany and other central European countries like Liechtenstein and Luxembourg.

Fortunately, the charging one has been solved now that we've all standardized on mini-USB. Or is it micro-USB? Shit.

Bob

9:34 AM

lol

Cerberus

@slhck Hmm what are they used for?

slhck

At least there's DOCSIS.

Cerberus

Oh, for phones.

slhck

@Bob They're very common on Germany

Bob

@slhck We've switched to something a bit more standard in newer construction.

Cerberus

9:35 AM

@slhck Hmm where would such a point be located?

Bob

@Cerberus He means telephone exchange :P

Cerberus

Haha.

Bob

Though DSLAMs on street boxes do exist...

DSLAM => DSL thingy

Standard phone shares the line.

Cerberus

Thanks for the translation, but...what is a telephone exchange? Or is it something we don't see, as common users?

slhck

@Bob They're very common on Germany

Cerberus

9:36 AM

This is what I have in my house.

Bob

Telephone exchange

A telephone exchange is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network or in large enterprises. An exchange consists of electronic components and in older systems also human operators that interconnect (switch) telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital systems to establish telephone calls between subscribers. In the public telecommunication networks a telephone exchange is located in a central office (CO), typically a building used to house the inside plant equipment of potentially several telephone exchanges, each serving a certain geographical exchange...

Cerberus

Ah okay, so that is not something most people ever see, right?

slhck

Nope, never

Bob

@slhck Yea, but the phone line itself would go to the exchange... or does it? shrug

Cerberus

I love the switches in that picture!

Bob

9:37 AM

They would have in the past anyway.

Cerberus

@slhck OK thanks!

slhck

@Bob There's no classical "phone" here anymore, it's all routed through DSL and over IP

Bob

@slhck ooookay

:P

Some of ours do that; others don't.

slhck

Though I have to admit, understanding the whole architecture is a little complicated.

And heck, I actually work for Deutsche Telekom :P

Ok, got some errands to run. Be back later.

Cerberus

9:59 AM

Bai!

Michael Frank

10:20 AM

My SSDs, since I see people were talking about read/writes earlier.

Bob

About two months.

cache + page + VM

Cerberus

10:41 AM

@MichaelFrank They look hot!

@Bob Ooh I want an 840 EVO...

Tom Wijsman

11:27 AM

Psycogeek

I am trying to locate the running of IE11 in the 64bit mode in win7. can someone check the properties for the icon for IE64bit?

Tom Wijsman

It's still alive... :D

Psycogeek

I open the one in "program Files" and no indication in the About that it is 64bit (one clue) , i open the one in programfiles x86 and it is the same

but not the same because the file is different sized, just the same results, each one fires up a single process that does not say *32 next to it and one or 2 processes that say iexplore.exe *32

What am i doing? IE has this stupid problem of leaving processes of itself laying around after closing the window. Even taskkill wont close them without a Force option. This leaving itself running keeps the "reopen last session" thing from working.

Claim is it has something to do with add-ons, well NO!! it isnt that, because i (and others) have run them with no add-ons and it still does it.

So now i want to run exclusivly the 64bit version only, and see if it too does that.

Tom Wijsman

11:47 AM

@Psycogeek: Sounds more like a thread that hangs and/or doesn't close.

I've for example seen this behavior on Linux where the NVIDIA driver doesn't malloc/free memory properly which leaves dead threads behind keeping the processes running.

Besides the display driver the network driver could also cause this; those two are the most obvious one, doesn't withhold there could be other drivers that are the cause to this (but less likely).

Psycogeek

@TomWijsman yes it is likely it is hung up, which for some people with the computer full of viruses , or with IE crashing it would be, but this is (sort of) a fresh install

Tom Wijsman

Add-ons can cause this too; but yeah, disabling them all should indeed be sufficient to troubleshoot that it isn't that.

Psycogeek

I did not disable all of them, i ran IE in the No ad-ons mode, and saw in there they were disabled.

Tom Wijsman

Experience wise, I've fixed up some problems on some systems this summer by updating a 2009 driver to a 2012 driver or so; old drivers (or sometimes new ones) can be a pain.

Psycogeek

it could also be hung on getting stuff from the web, that it is blocked from doing, but those things should eventually time out

It is also set to run each in its own process, any setting i have made and addition (other than java) is the ones they provided, there is nothing non-MS about it.

HackToHell

12:03 PM

What AV are you guys using ?

Bob

@Psycogeek IE11 always runs the window process in 64-bit mode IIRC (there's an option in the advanced menu)

the content processes are 32-bit... I think

been a while since I looked that up, and I don't usually use IE, so...

Psycogeek

@Bob yes , so why did they put one or link one in the x86 folder :-) compatability, breaking thier own rules again.

Bob

@Psycogeek MS does a lot of funky stuff for backwards compatibility

mostly because they don't want to break other programs that incorrectly assume paths

...because they'd get blamed for it

"but it worked with IE9!!!!!!!"

see the old new thing blog for more :P

Psycogeek

Ok now i disabled everything, pop blocker tracking block even being on, all accelerators and search , no private, no java , only one thing left the higher security settings adjustment .

@Bob yea ie8 and ie9 where the 64bit couldnt run any add-ons, it was rather nice.

I was just going to setup a way to Kill it after it closed, but when it required a force (does not respond to nice request) i figured the web may know why it is occuring, of course the web is a whole lot of questions about it with no answers other than what one would expect "turn off add-ons" get rid of your viruses :-)

Seriously somone has actually made a Program/batch thing on the web to close the mess IE leaves :-) nice workaround, but WHY or what is doing the hang.

FOund it,

Bob

12:18 PM

@HackToHell About the Synergy thing from yesterday: blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2014/10/31/10568872.aspx

> This is why, as a general rule, Windows considers DLL injection and API hooking to be unsupported. If you hook an API, you not only have to emulate all the documented behavior, you also have to emulate all the undocumented behavior that applications unwittingly rely on.

Psycogeek

The initial problem (remember) is that Open Last Session does not work , unless you hard task end the previous session. The button that tuns ON "start tabs in last session" is the one that causes this anomily

In other words the thing that it fails at , is the thing that caused it to fail.

I cant believe that the MSpros at ms answers never even used the thing, or turned on the button to bring all your tabs back the way they were?

What do they all start at a Bing homepage :-)

If someone would check using that , and see 2 things A) does the last session of (more than one) open tabs return as it was B) does the iexplore processes go away.

Psycogeek

12:45 PM

well it does not do it everytime, but eventually it sticks up again. That also explains why i did not see it happen before i started actually using IE11, and setting it up to use as a real browser

allquixotic

2:39 PM

@Bob I want to say --version was supported at some point either by IcedTea or GCJ or something. I know I have typed java --version at least once in my life and not received a fatal error message, but it was either a GNU or Red Hat thing, not Snoracle.

Psycogeek

4:39 PM

IS a bug, it is already on SU, is mulled through by MVP like he never even read the intital question (again)answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie11-iewindows8_1/… , is 2 answers that are 100% wrong, and also never read the question or tested it. superuser.com/questions/740813/…

Psycogeek

4:52 PM

What bugs me is this one and others have been there for years. I would far rather Pay good money for them to fix any one of the systems, than to upgrade to more features again, and more bugs.

They toss out things that people were using fluently, they leave in old junk that was obsolte 20 years ago, and they add yet another bug to the system, open up another Hole , or add 2 more programs that connect to the web and can control the entirety of your whole computer. What idiot passes a URL from a RUN box?

Ms Team 1 , your job is to sandbox and isolate the web from the file system, Team 2, your job is to integrate the web into the kernal, ready set GO!

DragonLord

Stack Exchange is down or read-only and will likely remain so for a while

twitter.com/StackStatus/status/527532816226353152

DragonLord

5:17 PM

By design, all users are logged out when Stack Exchange is read-only

soph-e

5:30 PM

just when I wanted to ask a question :(

Hennes

Gah, I have such low self-control when shopping for lamps.

Since January I have 6 broken bulbs, and only 3 spares (all 25 Watt CFL's, 6400K)

So I ordered 10 new ones. And a 150 Watt CFL.

The last better look like the sun going up at point blank.

soph-e

We've had huge rebates for LED lightbulbs lately, something like 10$ for a lightbulb that'll last a really long time

hydroquebec.com/residential/save-energy/lighting/bulbs

alongside pretty cool comparison charts :P

Psycogeek

@soph-e what was the question? i will answer it here and now . (course the answer might be I donno :-)

soph-e

was having issues with my synaptics touchpad, not even sure this kind of question falls under this SE though

Psycogeek

there are a few already out there

soph-e

5:38 PM

I haven't found any for a real fix :/ I tried updating the driver a few times

right now, just trying for a temporary fix (restarting the exe) gives me puu.sh/cz2wG/9e38d276cc.png, not sure what I'm doing wrong

Psycogeek

Will you eventually tell us what the original problem is ? :-)

soph-e

oh sorry, the synaptics process keeps crashing at random intervals :P

once every few days or so

Psycogeek

What is the operating system?

soph-e

windows 8.1

I tried following threads like forums.lenovo.com/t5/Idea-Windows-based-Tablets-and/… and the one linked in it, but the issue persists through reinstalling the driver

Psycogeek

5:55 PM

Drivers dont always come out clean, is one thing i am thinking, and re-installing them can sometimes make things worse. there are more than a few questions about synaptics, usually failing miseably working terribly. superuser.com/questions/749156/…

superuser.com/questions/6018/… where are you getting the drivers from?

soph-e

either lenovo or the synaptics website

support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds037591

so according to superuser.com/questions/749156/… there is no permanent/working fix?

Psycogeek

So back when it was "working" but failing some times, the driver itself is still funtional ? you can still move the cursor? But features added with the softare/program fail? like special touch , gestures and scroll and all? superuser.com/questions/504178/…

soph-e

it works fine, but crashes periodically (I haven't noticed a pattern to the crashes, it seems pretty random). When SynTPEnh.exe crashes, I can't seem to restart it via the run command, and need to reboot to be able to use the gestures (scrolling) again. Otherwise it works :P

I'd be happy with either stopping the application from crashing, or being able to restart it without rebooting :/

Psycogeek

Did you assume that it was competly gone after it crashed? or did you check in the processes list for it and any other parts and pieces of it , and make sure the whole package is closed down prior to running it again? BeCause that usually gets it all out of memory and everything, so once restarted it is more clean.

soph-e

No, I'm not quite sure what all the processes related to the touchpad are :/

I guess I could find a list somewhere online

Psycogeek

6:10 PM

Then if the hooks, the integration into a driver or the system is failing with (say) data in tow dangling around that was being passed , that goes back to the possibility that with so many installs and updates that the Driver version does not Match the software because there is a mess. Like say when a driver does not get replaced.

soph-e

how would I go about cleaning it all up before trying yet another re-install?

just look up all the crap related to the touchpad, remove it from my system, reboot and then reinstall?

Psycogeek

@soph-e well i use a tracing installer/uninstaller :-) but even then stuff can happen. If somehow you have a package that is supposed to work, and you find a version that would. You can uninstall, then see if there is any regsitry items leftover, and see if there is any driver item left , and folder cleanup and user space and in about a week you can have it all removed :-)

soph-e

how do you check for registry items leftover?

you run some cleanup app or...?

Psycogeek

Booting into a "safe Mode" will come in handy to remove things, and stopping the windows update temporarily will stop one from comming in before your done.

@soph-e you search and destroy. it helps to have a backup first that you can trust, then you just go wild. If it was a GPU driver or .NET there is a "cleanup" tools that do the work. for a few other things too, could be one for synaptics.

soph-e

> backup
yeaaahhhh....I guess I really should get around to that sometime.

Psycogeek

6:22 PM

Then seeing everything would also come in handy. like doing the hidden devices tweak, and viewing the drivers IN the system before removing.

uhh you do realise your taking advice from a crasy person, where rebooting is going to start sounding easy :-)

soph-e

I'm not really familiar with anything driver related, guess I'll do that when I feel like spending an afternoon messing with my computer (ie not anytime soon)

thanks for the advice though xP

I really loathe spending hours digging through processes and googling fixes for fixes

I'm thinking maybe a system reinstall might just be better ;)

(as disappointing as that is, as far as solutions go)

Psycogeek

Most of the people in the last link, just indicate that the software is the usual leaky poorly programmed junk that they make today, and you just make a batch to start and stop it, and keep going.

If you reinstall, and achieve a operational system, then at that point Back-it up as a image clone (all the stuff not the files) and you will never have to re-install again.

soph-e

yeah I was thinking about making a batch to kill all touchpad-related process and then restart them. I just have to find all those said touchpad-related processes first :P

I need to look up "how to make an image clone" then :P

takes note

adds to ever-expanding to-do list

probably not going to mess with backups in the near-future

see, this simple touchpad fix I was looking for is starting to look worse and worse :P (but it's stuff I should do anyway)

(I think my laziness is starting to show)

Psycogeek

When installing a GPU which can also have some issues occuring, people will rush to turn off the windows autoinstall, until they get the known operational driver in. Even see in some of the manufactures suggestion. it is a crasy world of Rubber stamped drivers :-)

soph-e

6:39 PM

it's really annoying that the official driver is so poorly coded :(

you'd figure lenovo/synaptics would have figured out a fix by now

stupid leaky code...

anyway, thanks a lot for taking the time to help me troubleshoot a little. Now I have an idea what I need to do next time I feel like working on my computer more ;)

Psycogeek

I think the 3 SU links, which have links to links, cover the information well, and is about the same stuff i read on a few other sites.

SO even though the site is up, my crystal ball says your question might be marked as a dupe.

soph-e

6:57 PM

yeah, figures I skimmed past the similar issues a little

there just doesn't seem to be a cookie-cutter, definitive solution

Psycogeek

that guy says Synaptics_v16_2_21 is the one to use in win8.1

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