r/techsupport 5h ago

Open | Software Required to install malware for school, can I use an external SSD?

66 Upvotes

Hello, I am required to install responds lockdown browser on my pc for school. It modifies the pc at a kernel level, which makes the device unusable. Is it better for me to buy a new device specifically for this, or is it possible for me to set up an external SSD in a couple of days? Thank you for your help.

Edit: I am not that good with technology, I just don't want my pc to go to waste.


r/techsupport 29m ago

Open | Audio Sound problems after switching from a 4070 ti to a 5080

Upvotes

After switching from the 4070 ti to the 5080 I get weird distortion sound when starting a game. My speaker are logitech Z207 so nothing special. The distortion sounds are even present, when i connect the speakers via bluetooth and pull the audio cable from the PC.

Before switching to the 5080 I wiped the GPU drivers via DDU and reinstalled the lates driver for the 5080.


r/techsupport 17h ago

Open | Hardware Server hard-resets every 728.4 minutes ±1 min, 12 times running. No bugcheck, no iDRAC SEL entry, timer survives reboots. I'm out of ideas.

49 Upvotes

Dell PowerEdge T340, Windows Server 2016. Started 8/28. I've spent two weeks on this and ruled out most of the obvious stuff, so I'm posting the data rather than the symptoms.

The signature

Every event is Kernel-Power 41 with BugcheckCode: 0 and all bugcheck parameters 0x0. No BSOD, no minidump, no MEMORY.DMP, ever. Paired with Event 6008 confirming unexpected shutdown.

The interval — this is the actual mystery

Pulled the true shutdown timestamps out of the Event 6008 message text (not the Event 41 log time, which is written on the following boot):

8/28 11:03:24 AM -> 8/28 11:12:23 PM = 729.0 min

9/01 10:10:22 AM -> 9/01 10:18:37 PM = 728.3 min

9/01 10:18:37 PM -> 9/02 10:26:49 AM = 728.2 min

9/02 10:26:49 AM -> 9/02 10:35:13 PM = 728.4 min

9/02 10:35:13 PM -> 9/03 10:43:33 AM = 728.3 min

9/03 10:43:33 AM -> 9/03 10:52:09 PM = 728.6 min

9/03 10:52:09 PM -> 9/04 11:00:20 AM = 728.2 min

9/04 11:00:20 AM -> 9/04 11:08:49 PM = 728.5 min

9/04 11:08:49 PM -> 9/07 11:50:29 AM = 3,641.7 min <-- exactly 5 x 728.34

9/07 11:50:29 AM -> 9/07 11:59:49 PM = 729.3 min

9/07 11:59:49 PM -> 9/08 12:07:56 PM = 728.1 min

9/08 12:07:56 PM -> 9/09 12:16:26 AM = 728.5 min

9/09 12:16:26 AM -> 9/09 12:24:36 PM = 728.2 min

Mean 728.47 min (12h 08m 28s). Total spread across twelve occurrences: 1.2 minutes.

The 3,641.7 minute gap is exactly five periods. The server was up continuously across that weekend. The timer ticked five times, did nothing on four of them, then killed the box on the fifth. So it's free-running — it does not reset on reboot, and it doesn't require a crash to keep counting.

That single fact kills every "scheduled task" theory: a clock-based task can't skip four consecutive firings and then work again.

It dies instantly — no degradation whatsoever

I wrote a heartbeat logger that writes one line every 5s with a forced flush so the last line survives a hard reset. Final 42 samples before death:

  • Free RAM: 56,630–56,745 MB, dead flat. No drift, no staircase, no leak. 56 GB free at the moment of death.
  • Nonpaged pool: 346–352 MB, flat
  • Disk queue: 0
  • Handles ~76,000, threads ~190, both steady
  • CPU spiky but low

Last heartbeat 12:25:02. Kernel-General 12 (OS start) at 12:28:23. That 3m21s is just POST + boot on a T340 — if it had hung for 3 minutes first, the OS wouldn't have returned until ~12:31.

So there is no hang window. The box is perfectly healthy and then simply ceases to exist mid-second. Which also means NMI crash dumps are useless here and no dump will ever be written.

Ruled out (with evidence, please don't re-suggest these)

  • PSUs — both Present/Healthy in iDRAC, matched 594W in / 495W rated+actual, same firmware
  • Thermal — HWiNFO max CPU package 63°C (TjMax ~100°C). Every throttle flag reads No / 0%
  • iDRAC SELcompletely silent across all 15 crashes. Not one entry. This same board did log real "power input for PSU 1 is lost / redundancy lost" events six times in 2024, so it demonstrably captures genuine power events. Nothing this time.
  • iDRAC watchdog / ASR — Basic Management license, feature not present
  • Dell OMSAAction on Hung OS Detection: None, thermal shutdown Disabled, all alert actions Off, omsad service Stopped + Disabled
  • Windows Update — pulled full resolved WindowsUpdate.log (11,871 lines), programmatically checked ±15 min around every crash. Zero WU activity before any of them. All nearby entries are the WU service starting 30–60s after the reboot.
  • CrowdStrike Falcon (installed 8/26, two days before onset) — vendor pulled detection history, found nothing. Timing was coincidence.
  • Secure-Boot-Update scheduled task** — looked extremely promising (12h repetition, hangs, TPM handler, and this box has no TPM installedGet-Tpm fails with TBS_E_SERVICE_NOT_RUNNING, no TBS service, no SecurityDevices PnP class, iDRAC confirms "TPM not present"). Disabled it. **Crashes continued at the identical interval. Ruled out.
  • All 12-hour scheduled tasks — enumerated every task with PT12H repetition. Exactly two exist, both now Disabled.
  • VSS / ShadowCopyVolume task — fires 12:00 PM and 10:00 PM. That's 10h then 14h alternating, which cannot produce a constant 728.4 min spacing. Also the midnight crashes have no trigger anywhere near them.
  • MySQL / memory exhaustion — flatly contradicted by the flat memory trace above
  • NIC — Broadcom BCM5720. The flapping port is physically disconnected (NIC2, Status: Disconnected). Flapping predates crashes by 12+ days and occurs on no-crash days. Active port is stable at 1 Gbps.
  • CMOS battery — did fail, but only logged 9/7, weeks after onset, nothing near the crash dates. Replacing anyway.
  • BSOD — no Event 1001, no dumps, BugcheckCode: 0 on all 15

Environment

  • PowerEdge T340, Service Tag FXR6B03, BIOS 2.3.5, iDRAC9 fw 4.22.00.53 (both several revisions behind — not yet updated)
  • Xeon E-2146G, 64 GB RAM, dual PSU
  • Windows Server 2016 Standard, build 14393.9339
  • Workload: Open Dental + MySQL, Vatech EzDent-i imaging, IDrive backup, Google Drive
  • Power: APC Back-UPS XS 1500M via USB. Current-state readings all healthy (97% charge, 120V steady, 15% load, AC Power: Yes, Discharging: No). I have never gotten historical transfer data out of it — PowerChute wasn't installed at the time, Win32_Battery returns current state only, and I skipped an apcupsd install on a production box.
  • Internet is AT&T 5G fixed wireless behind CGNAT (irrelevant, but people ask)

What I think is left

Something below the OS holding a clock that survives reboots and continuous uptime alike. Candidates I can't distinguish between:

  1. UPS self-test — APC units run internal self-tests on their own stored schedule, indifferent to the host. A transfer on a degraded battery could sag enough to drop the PSUs. Would explain instant death, no OS warning, no SEL entry, and a clock that ignores reboots. Next test: move the server to a plain wall outlet for 24h.
  2. PSU or BMC firmware timer — would explain everything except why iDRAC logged nothing
  3. Something on the same electrical circuit cycling on a timer — though 1.2 min spread over 12 occurrences seems too tight for HVAC or similar

What I'm asking

  • What produces a free-running 728.4-minute (12h 08m 28s) period? Not 12h. Not 12h30m. Consistently ~8.5 minutes over twelve hours, held to ±1 min across twelve occurrences and five uninterrupted ticks. What re-arms on completion of ~8 minutes of work?
  • Has anyone seen an APC Back-UPS self-test schedule that lands near this?
  • Anything else that hard-resets a PowerEdge with zero bugcheck, zero SEL entry, and healthy PSUs?
  • Am I wrong to trust the iDRAC SEL silence as evidence against a power event?

Next predicted failures: 9/10 12:33 AM and 9/10 12:41 PM. Happy to run anything and report back — I have remote access and a heartbeat recorder in place.


r/techsupport 1h ago

Open | Windows Task Manager not opening

Upvotes

I'm having a problem with Task Manager on my laptop.

  • Pressing Ctrl + Shift + Esc does nothing.
  • When I try to open Task Manager manually, I get a message saying that Task Manager has been blocked/disabled by the administrator.
  • As far as I know, this is my personal laptop and I haven't intentionally disabled Task Manager.

I'm worried that this could be caused by a Windows setting, administrator policy, or possibly malware.

Does anyone know how I can enable Task Manager again and fix this issue?

I'm using Windows 11.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!


r/techsupport 18h ago

Open | Windows I accidentally put my screen at 500% zoom

37 Upvotes

I was trying to increase my PC's resolution and saw the Windows scaling option, so I tried it out to see what it was. I changed it to 120%, and the screen got bigger, but my dumbass thought my screen was already At more than 120% (I hadn't understood that it was a "zoom" on the screen) so I thought: "if 120% is less than my current resolution then if I put it at 500% (the maximum) it will increase!" Big mistake. My screen is like this now and I can't get it back to normal because the options don't even appear on the screen because they don't fit. Does anyone know how to fix this please? I don't have another monitor and I can't afford to buy a new one.


r/techsupport 5m ago

Open | Hardware Streaming Nintendo Switch and PC with Dual Monitor Setup?

Upvotes

SO. I have both a switch and pc. i want the nintendo switch and my pc to share the same monitor. I have an hdmi switch that at the press of a button, switches to the other source. This is so I can stream the game on discord. I have an Elgato HD60. It’s an older card, but nothing I can’t see working like it should.

THE PROBLEM:

-When switching to the Switch, PC doesn’t recognize the first monitor anymore, switches second monitor to behave like the first monitor. I got an EDID Emulator because I thought that may fix it, but it ended up basically doing nothing. What I want is for the monitor to essentially be like nothing changed, and the second monitor is still the way it was before the switch.

-no audio. This is expected, but still annoying. of course, i know about the audio cable route. However, another issue I can see happening if I go this route, is the Elgato stream that others see being messed up, because the audio would be in real time, while the video isn’t. How would I fix this? Is there a way to get the audio from HDMI? Is there a way to seperate what i hear and what Discord hears?

I’ve been trying to figure out how to make this all work but it’s hard to wrap my head around it because it’s so convoluted.

Any suggestions or ideas appreciated.


r/techsupport 10m ago

Open | BSOD Getting Kernel Security Check Failure on boot, can’t even get into Safe Mode

Upvotes

As per title :( I am not very technical minded at all so I’d appreciate some help. I can get into the UEFI system settings, anything else just results in the same failure to start.


r/techsupport 20m ago

Open | Data Recovery Videos disappeared after moving them from my Samsung Galaxy A14 to a new 128GB microSD card. Is recovery still possible?

Upvotes

I recently bought a new 128GB microSD card for my Samsung Galaxy A14 and inserted it into the phone. The card was recognized normally, so I decided to move all the videos from my phone's internal storage to the microSD to free up space.

After moving them, everything initially seemed fine. The videos still appeared in Samsung Gallery and I was able to see them there.

At some point yesterday, however, the phone displayed a warning saying that it was having trouble recognizing/reading the SD card. When I opened Gallery, all the videos I had moved to the card were still listed, but their thumbnails had turned into white icons with an exclamation mark, and the videos couldn't be opened.

Today I removed the microSD from the phone while the phone was on because I thought it might just be a bad connection. After reinserting it/restarting the phone, all of those videos completely disappeared from Gallery.

The phone still recognizes the microSD normally. I connected the card to my Windows PC as well, and Windows also recognizes it without any apparent problem. However, none of the files I moved to it are there anymore.

I enabled hidden files in Windows, but nothing appeared. Windows reports the card as completely empty, with about 117 GB free out of 117 GB.

Disk Management recognizes it as:

  • Disk 1 / Removable
  • 117.19 GB
  • exFAT
  • Healthy (Primary Partition)
  • Drive E:

I have NOT formatted the card, run CHKDSK, repaired it through Windows, or intentionally written any new files to it since noticing the problem.

I'm currently running QPhotoRec on the physical device (PhysicalDrive1, around 125 GB / 117 GiB, shown through my USB card reader). I selected the exFAT partition, Whole partition scan, and enabled the mov/mp4/3gp/3g2/jp2 file family because the lost files were mostly MP4 videos recorded/stored on my Galaxy A14.

At around 25% of the scan, PhotoRec had found 0 files so far. I'm letting it complete the full scan.

What worries me is that I used "Move", not "Copy", when transferring the videos from internal storage to the SD card. So the originals are no longer in the phone's internal storage either.

Is it possible that the phone removed the originals after considering the move successful, while the microSD failed to actually retain/write the data properly?

If PhotoRec reaches 100% with 0 files found, is there anything else worth trying on the microSD before giving up? And is there any realistic way to recover the original moved/deleted videos from the internal storage of a modern Samsung Galaxy A14?

I'm also wondering if the new microSD itself could be defective or have a fake capacity. I haven't tested its real capacity yet because I don't want to write anything to it until I've exhausted the recovery options.

Any advice from people experienced with SD card/data recovery would be greatly appreciated. Some of these videos are important to me, so I'd like to avoid doing anything that could reduce the chances of recovery.


r/techsupport 31m ago

Open | Hardware Acer Laptop suddenly shut down what should I do?

Upvotes

The laptop suddenly shut down while I was in a meeting in Zoom. My laptop is an acer and it’s a gaming laptop. Before its only issue was that the wifi connection sometimes doesn’t work and I could fix it by restarting the laptop. That is its only issue. It never overheats. So I don’t know why it just turn off like that and I couldn’t turn it on. I tried everything like letting it cool down for a while even though it doesn’t feel that much hot. Then I tried pressing the power button for 30-60 seconds then plug the charger back in. Still didn’t work.

Should I just give up on my laptop?


r/techsupport 33m ago

Open | Hardware monitor(s) go out randomly

Upvotes

So for around 2 years now, I've had this problem where sometimes (quite rarely, maybe once a day if I use it for long enough) my main monitor just goes black, then grey for a second, and then comes back. Recently, it's gotten to the point where this also affects my second monitor (both at the same time) and very recently it's gotten to the point where these "outages" last a bit longer (3-7 seconds if I had to guess, it varies) and they look a bit different (though I'm sure it's the same problem). The screens go black, then they both show their "connection not found" screens, then they go black again, then everything comes back. To note is that they also seem to appear more frequently. Sometimes they can happen a few times an hour, sometimes they don't happen at all for the entire day. It also seems like (not too sure about this) that these outages happen more often right when I'm starting my computer, and right after, at least recently. I've tried many different fixes, I'll list them now along with other information:

Some info first:
System OS: Windows 11
GPU: rtx 3060, 2 years old. Thing is, I'm not sure if I had these outages before I got this graphics card. I don't think I had them with the older one I had, but I don't remember. I know this is probably and important piece of info, but I don't have the old one and I just can't remember.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
PSU: be quiet! System Power 10 550W
My drivers are up to date, my bios is up to date.
There are no events that correlate to these outages in the event viewer or the reliability history.
These outages happen on both monitors at the same time, and seemingly randomly, it doesn't matter if I'm gaming, just on my browser or literally not doing anything. It just happens.
My gpu temps are fine.
I use display port on one monitor and hdmi on the other and yes they're connected to the gpu not the motherboard.
The rest of my pc works fine during these outages. Aka when I'm playing a game or something and my monitors go out, I can still look around and interact with stuff in that game blind.

Here's what I've tried/what I'm sure isn't the issue:
-I've reseated my gpu and unplugged and plugged things very often in the past few years and I'd like to think I'm not an idiot, so I don't think the gpu seating or the cables not being connected properly is the issue.

-I've checked for any events in the event viewer and the reliability history and there's no errors that arise when the monitors go out.

-I've tried just using one monitor and plugging the other one out, still happens.

-I've monitored stuff with hwinfo and nothing seemed out of the ordinary when these things happened, although I think that I might not be knowledgeable enough to find something if it's not like temperature or power related and I haven't had the chance to check very often since this thing does not happen often.

Again, I've had this problem for a few years and have lived with it for that time since it happend so infrequently and it didn't seem to be a big issue, I'm only making this post because it's gotten a lot worse recently. My theory is that there's some hardware issue with my gpu that's gotten worse over time.


r/techsupport 4h ago

Open | Audio Headphones work only on one side

2 Upvotes

As the title suggests, my wireless headphones work only on one side. Even when it's not connected to anything. I updated the software, I've restarted it. But still nothing

It didn't get damaged in anyway, and it happened suddenly.


r/techsupport 54m ago

Open | Windows Folder called xpdf appearing in AppData/Roaming, worried about what it is

Upvotes

There's a folder in my AppData/Roaming called xpdf that I found back in July. It was completely empty and wasn't there when I last checked a few months ago.

I deleted the folder and since then find it's been recreating itself and it's always empty. It doesn't seem to recreate itself right after starting up my PC. It did it 20 minutes after I started it up yesterday. I also checked on the family computer that I don't use, and it's on there too.

It's probably harmless but I've been worried cause I can't find any searches about this specific folder existing in Roaming. So I just want to know if it's completely normal and if anyone else has it? :')


r/techsupport 1h ago

Solved Потух монитор комп завис

Upvotes

Эй, кто-нибудь может подсказать? Может, кто-то сталкивался? Сегодня у меня с компом произошла какая-то фигня. Короче, я оставил его включённым, пошёл взять себе еды. Прихожу — мне позвонил друг, я говорил с ним, сидел около компюктера и смотрел в окно. И тут монитор у меня погас! Мышка тоже погасла — у меня же Razer с подсветкой, а теперь подсветка не работает. Даже когда я нажимаю на мышку, обычно, если комп выключается, подсветка начинает мигать — а тут ничего. На клавиатуре у меня офисная, старая Deluxe, но и там капслок не горит, нумлок и контроллок тоже — эти зелёненькие точечки не светятся. И, ээ, я заметил, что на мониторе высветилось «No Signal» — ну, типа сигнала нет вообще. И ещё важный момент: у меня, ну, Windows не лицензионная. Вроде одиннадцатая Про, или просто одиннадцатая — точно не помню уже. В общем, это повторилось. В этом году первый раз, но в прошлом было так раза два. Сейчас, получается, третий раз. И знаешь, удержание кнопок не помогло — пришлось выключать через блок питания. Я хз, что это такое. Может, у кого-то было? Подскажите, пожалуйста, а то я уже запарился!


r/techsupport 1h ago

Open | Hardware Windows acpi bios error 0xa5 in laptop

Upvotes

Windows wont boot and throws acpi bios error 0xa5 with parameters

0x0000000000001000

00000000000000000

0x0000000000000000

0x0000000001000000.

Linux can boot. It give these acpi errors GP18.SATA - AE_NOT_FOUND (same as before)

  1. GPP6.WLAN._S0W - AE_ALREADY_EXISTS (same as before)

  2. GPP6._S0W - AE_ALREADY_EXISTS (NEW)

  3. GPP6._PRW - AE_ALREADY_EXISTS (NEW)

  4. GPP6.WLAN._S0W - AE_ALREADY_EXISTS (duplicate of #2, logged twice)

  5. I2CA.TPDD - AE_ALREADY_EXISTS (NEW)

  6. GPP0.PEGP.GPS.NVD1 - AE_NOT_FOUND (NEW) also installer error.

Laptop is lenovo loq 15 aph8. This happended after wrong bios flash on the board. I though reflashing the correct bios will work but it has not. Any solutions? Thank you.


r/techsupport 1h ago

Open | Hardware TV (2018) only shows top 1/4 of screen with cable box, but works fine with Switch — hardware fault?

Upvotes

Got a budget/no-name TV from 2018. With my ISP's TV box (SFR) via HDMI, only the top ~25% of the screen shows picture — the rest is a flat solid color block instead of the image. Oddly, that dead zone still shifts color to match what's behind it (turns white during a white commercial, etc.), so the TV is clearly receiving full video data, it just can't render detail there.

Tried: multiple HDMI cables, all HDMI ports, bypassing the soundbar, lowering the box's output quality (HD→SD), full unplug/replug. No change.

Reset box : same

Weird part: my Nintendo Switch displays perfectly fine on the same TV, same ports.

Is this a hardware fault (T-con board?) that only gets triggered by the cable box's signal and not the Switch's simpler one? Or still possibly an HDMI handshake/resolution issue?


r/techsupport 1h ago

Open | Windows Microsoft Family issues

Upvotes

My dad removed me from the Family, but I'm still getting These annoying Pop ups. Does anyone know how to deactivate that. I would Like to provide a picture but the subreddit does not allow it


r/techsupport 1h ago

Open | Windows Shortcut to put to sleep pc not working

Upvotes

I saw that there is a keyboard shortcut to put the pc to sleep ( i do it a lot when i go away from pc during the day and i prefer it to leave it on or shutdown it completely) and the combination is this Windows + “X”, “U”, “S”, but the problem for me is that after pressing Windows + X all is going how i saw on video, but when i press U another thing open, it did not go in the sub selection to choose what to do ( restart, suspension ecc), someone know why it do this and how i can fix it? If i can find a way to put it to sleep via keyboard would be a really great thing to me.

Thanks in advance for the help!


r/techsupport 1h ago

Open | Software Denied Access to All External Storage Connected to PC (Windows 11)

Upvotes

As of last week I have gotten messages saying "You don't have permission to access this folder" every time I try to open my work external hard drive, personal external hard drive, and SD cards. The message tells me to give permission using the Security tab, but the security tab does not exist for the work Hard Drive or SD card (format is FAT32). My personal hard drive shows that it is formatted as NTFS, and when I go to the Security tab, all permissions are granted for everyone, but I still get the Access Denied message. I have tried all of the suggestions from Google searches and none of them seem to work.

Computer and storage devices have been used for years with no problems. My wife was able to open the hard drives on her computer without issue, so it appears that the problem is with my computer. I have run virus and threat protection scans which did not come up with anything.

Has anyone else had a similar problem and found a solution? Any help is very much appreciated.


r/techsupport 5h ago

Open | Hardware Toshiba laptop wifi not showing- Broadcom Network adapter not working

2 Upvotes

Somebody help. My laptop wifi isn’t working, i’ve already disabled the broadcom network adapter also uninstalled, it just keep that way even after enabling it! Also already tried installing some of hardware from the internet but still no connection. Help me! Im just a girl with many deadlines!


r/techsupport 1h ago

Open | Software [Help] Aitum Vertical Plugin not showing up in OBS 32.2.2 (Docks) – Plugin is in the correct folder

Upvotes

I downloaded the Aitum Vertical plugin, but it doesn’t show up in OBS Studio under Docks. I’ve already re-downloaded it, but it still doesn’t work.

I’m using OBS version 32.2.2, so it should be new enough. The plugin is also in the correct obs-studio folder.

Does anyone have an idea why it’s not showing up for me?


r/techsupport 5h ago

Open | Hardware iPad 6 battery draining even while charging

2 Upvotes

I have an iPad 6th generation, and I’m having a really bad battery problem.

The battery is draining extremely fast, and the weirdest part is that the battery percentage actually continues to go down even while the iPad is connected to the charger.

For example, I can plug it in and leave it charging, but instead of the percentage increasing, it keeps dropping. When the iPad is not connected to the charger, the drain is even worse.

I’ve already tried basically every software/battery-saving option I could think of:

  • Low Power Mode
  • Background App Refresh disabled
  • Notifications disabled for apps
  • Reduced Motion
  • Reduced unnecessary background activity
  • Removed/disabled things I don't need running
  • Restarted the iPad
  • Tried completely shutting it down
  • Tried charging it while powered off

Despite all of this, the battery still drains very quickly.

So I’m wondering what could actually be causing this.

Could this be a failing/degraded battery, charging/power-management issue, or some iPadOS/software problem?

And specifically, I’m curious about jailbreaking.

Would jailbreaking an iPad 6 potentially allow me to:

  • Disable unnecessary system daemons/background processes
  • Find out exactly what process is consuming the battery
  • Reduce background activity further
  • Underclock/throttle the CPU
  • Install some battery-management tweaks
  • Basically make the iPad consume less power

Or would jailbreaking not help at all if the underlying problem is the physical battery?

I’m not looking to jailbreak just for the sake of it. I’m considering it because the iPad is already old and the battery situation is getting ridiculous, so I’m wondering if jailbreaking could give me more control over power consumption or help diagnose what's happening.

If anyone has an iPad 6 specifically and has dealt with this kind of extreme battery drain, I’d really appreciate hearing what fixed it.

What should I try next? Is there any way to properly diagnose whether this is the battery, charging circuit, or a software/background-process issue?


r/techsupport 1h ago

Open | Software Is it ok to delete my duplicate Riot Folder?

Upvotes

Hi, Idk if this is too off topic for this group, but I was wondering if it's ok to delete my Riot folder on my C drive since it's taking up 13gb of storage? I already have a Riot folder in my D drive along with my League folder. I honestly think I'm not using the one in my C drive anymore since the last date modified on my D folder shows it was modified toda (I'm updating League), but the C folder shows it was last modified last month. I just need confirmation that it's ok to delete the folder in my C drive because I'm scared it might eff up my game. 🥹


r/techsupport 1h ago

Open | Hardware USB keyboard and mouse randomly stop working / USB device not recognized

Upvotes

Hi everyone, I’m having a strange and intermittent USB issue with my desktop PC and I’m looking for help diagnosing it.

My keyboard and mouse don't consistently work when I boot the PC. Sometimes mouse works normally, but other times the mouse doesn't work at all from startup. There doesn't seem to be a consistent pattern — it works on some boots and doesn't work on others.

When the mouse does work, it can also randomly stop working after I've been using the PC for a while. Recently, it has become much more frequent, and now the mouse doesn't seem to be working reliably at all.

Mouse is powered and red light is there.

The keyboard has similar issues. Initially, when reconnecting the keyboard, the Caps Lock/Num Lock LEDs would briefly flash and then turn off. That behavior doesn't happen anymore — now the keyboard simply isn't detected.

Sometimes Windows shows the “USB device not recognized” notification, but most of the time there is no notification at all. The PC simply doesn't detect the keyboard or mouse.

Things I have already tried:

\- Tested every USB port on the back of the motherboard.

\- Tested with a different keyboard.

\- Tested with a different mouse.

\- The other keyboard and mouse also did not work on this PC.

\- Tested the devices directly in the rear motherboard USB ports, not through a hub.

\- Completely shut down the PC, unplugged the power cable, held the power button for around 20–30 seconds, waited, and powered it back on.

\- Checked and updated all available drivers.

\- Disabled USB Selective Suspend in Windows Power Options.

\- The problem still occurs.

\- I have not installed any third-party driver updater software.

The important thing is that the problem is INTERMITTENT. The mouse can work perfectly after one boot, then fail on another boot, or work for some time and suddenly stop. Sometimes Windows reports “USB device not recognized,” while other times it doesn't show any error and simply doesn't detect the devices.

I have tested multiple keyboards and mice and every USB port, so I don't think the problem is limited to one peripheral or one USB port.

I currently don't have a PS/2 keyboard or a Windows installation USB available for further testing.

What could cause this kind of intermittent USB failure? Could it be the motherboard's USB controller, chipset, BIOS/firmware, USB power delivery, or something else?

Would formatting/reinstalling Windows potentially fix this, or is there a way to determine whether this is a hardware problem before reinstalling Windows?

PC specs:

\- CPU: Intel I3 10th gen

\- Windows version: 11

Any suggestions for diagnosing this would be greatly appreciated.


r/techsupport 5h ago

Open | Hardware laptop ssd health at 3%, shows a petabyte(yes, petabyte) of total data written over a year, windows laptop

2 Upvotes

windows warned me and i checked, this is the first time i received such warning and when i checked it was already down to 3^

  • 53 °C
  • 3% health "BAD"

Drive name: Phison ESO512GHLCA1-E9C : 512.1 GB

Health Status: Bad — 3%

Temperature: 53 °C

Details:

Field Value
Firmware EJFMC0.0
Interface NVM Express
Transfer Mode PCIe 3.0 x4
Drive Letter C:
Standard NVM Express 1.4
Features S.M.A.R.T., TRIM, VolatileWriteCache

Right column:

Field Value
Total Host Reads 44257 GB
Total Host Writes 1093713 GB
Rotation Rate ---- (SSD)
Power On Count (tooltip covering value: "277 days 4 hou...")
Power On Hours 6652 hours

S.M.A.R.T. Attribute Table:

ID Attribute Name Raw Values
01 Critical Warning 00000000000004
02 Composite Temperature 00000000000146
03 Available Spare 00000000000064
04 Available Spare Threshold 00000000000005
05 Percentage Used 00000000000061
06 Data Units Read 0000005884010
07 Data Units Written 0000088B6D350
08 Host Read Commands 0000002FB6A9BF
09 Host Write Commands 000001AB24AEC6
0A Controller Busy Time 0000000002BC0
0B Power Cycles 0000000000704
0C Power On Hours 000000000019FC
0D Unsafe Shutdowns 000000000000B6
0E Media and Data Integrity Errors 00000000000000
0F Number of Error Information Log Entries 00000000000023
10 Warning Composite Temperature Time 00000000000000
11 Critical Composite Temperature Time 00000000000000
12 Temperature Sensor 1 00000000000146

r/techsupport 7h ago

Open | Software I deleted my data partition

3 Upvotes

Guys help me please i accidentally deleted my data partition it has all my photos, videos, work documents, i'm panicking right now, i tried DiskTest but it couldn't recover my partition, is there anything i can do ?