This wasn't so hard. Run the built in BIOS diagnostic. And now the Start Menu (pure software) works, and the power button (Hardware but with a lotta software messing it up) works. a
Some website explained the way to get into the BIOS diagnostics was to hold down the ESC key while you hit the power on button. And this appears to work even while the power on button isn't working. According to a website, the BIOS diagnostics have been standard in HP laptops since 2009. Which means a lot of 'em have it. On my HP laptop, a 2014 model, the BIOS diagnostics do start up, but they don't give you any messages on the screen except for one, They ask if you want to skip the disk test.
And the diagnostics reset a bunch of internal variables, which revived both the power on button and the start menu. This shows a crappy design on the power button. Any decent power button ought to assert the reset line to the processor and the entire motherboard. When reset is released, all micro processors jump to the starting address, (top of memory on some, bottom of memory on others) and start executing code. The purpose of reset on micro processors is to regain control and start running the program from the top, no matter how messed up the software is. That ain't happening on HP laptops, some kinda hardware and software kluge is breaking control of the reset line, and the machine fails to start when the button is pressed. Running the BIOS diagnostics fixes the software part of this kluge.
Good work HP engineers. I wonder what else you have screwed up.
Monday, July 25, 2016
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Win 10, no Start menu, Power on button broke
So after running a bit after my upgrade to Win 10 I find.
1. The advertised "start menu" , a replacement for the trusty "start menu" in Win XP, is nowhere to be found. Some web searching tells me that this is a common problem. A bunch of fixes were offered, I have tried a few of them with no luck. Without the new and improved start menu, the only way to reach the "settings" app is thru Cortana.
2. From the settings app I tried out Windows update. It trundled away downoloading a patch for office and then failed.
3. The power on button doesn't work, Press it to start Windows and nothing happens, I get a blank screen. Work around, power off the laptop. Unplug the charger and remove the battery. Count to ten. Replace the battery and the laptop powers up and runs windows.
4. Task Manager shows something called "OneDrive" is soaking up 300 Meg of Ram. Apparently OneDrive gives access to "the cloud" for file storage, after you spend money. Since I have 600Gig left on the hard drive, and I don't trust "the cloud" I'm thinking of removing One Drive.
1. The advertised "start menu" , a replacement for the trusty "start menu" in Win XP, is nowhere to be found. Some web searching tells me that this is a common problem. A bunch of fixes were offered, I have tried a few of them with no luck. Without the new and improved start menu, the only way to reach the "settings" app is thru Cortana.
2. From the settings app I tried out Windows update. It trundled away downoloading a patch for office and then failed.
3. The power on button doesn't work, Press it to start Windows and nothing happens, I get a blank screen. Work around, power off the laptop. Unplug the charger and remove the battery. Count to ten. Replace the battery and the laptop powers up and runs windows.
4. Task Manager shows something called "OneDrive" is soaking up 300 Meg of Ram. Apparently OneDrive gives access to "the cloud" for file storage, after you spend money. Since I have 600Gig left on the hard drive, and I don't trust "the cloud" I'm thinking of removing One Drive.
GM has a good quarter.
So sayeth the Wall St Journal. Sales of high margin SUV's and pickup trucks is way up. The article goes on to do some back patting, and noting GM's plan to buy into (buy up?) Lyft. And worries about Brexit messing up the European market more than it is. (GM's Euro operations have lost money for years and years).
No discussion of GM's bread and butter business, selling sedans in North America. Take a drive on Rte 128, half, maybe two thirds of the vehicles on the road are smallish four seat sedans. That's where the real volume is in the car business. Pickups and SUVs are a niche market, granted a large niche, but still a niche compared to small four passenger sedans, the family get-to-work and go-to-market car. GM is still a huge company, and it must compete in the big markets to survive. A behemoth needs a lot of feeding to stay alive. Pickups and SUVs don't have the volume to feed a GM. They must got for the big market, small sedans.
GM does have some product for this segment. First thing GM needs to do is find some better names for the vehicles. Low end ($14K) is called "Spark", a name that makes me think of blown fuses, electrical faults, crapped out VCR's. Not an auspicious name for a car. The next step up is called "Sonic". Everyone knows that Sonic is a computer game hedgehog. Both Spark and Sonic are very simular looking hatchbacks, with the road snuffling forward lean styling. Not very good looking.
Next step up is Cruze, a decent looking conventionally styled sedan for $16K. The name suggests only a certain sawed off movie actor.
GM needs a good car in the low end of the market. Say a MRSP of $10K, with distinctive styling so you can tell it's a Chevy when you see one on the road. Distinctive styling helps two ways. It attracts buyers, and it serves as a rolling advertisement for the car line if it looks like a Chevy rather than just another econobox. And find a decent name for it. Actually GM owns a bunch of decent car names that it doesn't use anymore. Corvair, Pontiac, GTO, Roadmaster, Oldsmobile, all come to mind. Surely GM can do better than "Spark".
No discussion of GM's bread and butter business, selling sedans in North America. Take a drive on Rte 128, half, maybe two thirds of the vehicles on the road are smallish four seat sedans. That's where the real volume is in the car business. Pickups and SUVs are a niche market, granted a large niche, but still a niche compared to small four passenger sedans, the family get-to-work and go-to-market car. GM is still a huge company, and it must compete in the big markets to survive. A behemoth needs a lot of feeding to stay alive. Pickups and SUVs don't have the volume to feed a GM. They must got for the big market, small sedans.
GM does have some product for this segment. First thing GM needs to do is find some better names for the vehicles. Low end ($14K) is called "Spark", a name that makes me think of blown fuses, electrical faults, crapped out VCR's. Not an auspicious name for a car. The next step up is called "Sonic". Everyone knows that Sonic is a computer game hedgehog. Both Spark and Sonic are very simular looking hatchbacks, with the road snuffling forward lean styling. Not very good looking.
Next step up is Cruze, a decent looking conventionally styled sedan for $16K. The name suggests only a certain sawed off movie actor.
GM needs a good car in the low end of the market. Say a MRSP of $10K, with distinctive styling so you can tell it's a Chevy when you see one on the road. Distinctive styling helps two ways. It attracts buyers, and it serves as a rolling advertisement for the car line if it looks like a Chevy rather than just another econobox. And find a decent name for it. Actually GM owns a bunch of decent car names that it doesn't use anymore. Corvair, Pontiac, GTO, Roadmaster, Oldsmobile, all come to mind. Surely GM can do better than "Spark".
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming
Bogger, this blog's host, supplies a "Stats" page showing the number of pages views, where the viewers come from, and hit counts on your most popular posts. Being a blogger of ordinary vanity, I check "Stats" every so often to see how popular my humble blog might be. For the last few years it's been jogging along at 50-100 pageviews a day. Yesterday, bingo, 350 pageviews. Today 800 page views. Wow, a ten X growth in viewership.
Where does all this traffic come from? Would you believe Russia? Today I have 528 page views from Russia, as opposed to only 39 from the United States. Either I have gone viral in Russia, or Blogger's Stats function has gone crazy. Hmm, I wonder. Actually, I think it's more likely that the Stats function has ceased to function properly, but who knows.
Where does all this traffic come from? Would you believe Russia? Today I have 528 page views from Russia, as opposed to only 39 from the United States. Either I have gone viral in Russia, or Blogger's Stats function has gone crazy. Hmm, I wonder. Actually, I think it's more likely that the Stats function has ceased to function properly, but who knows.
Saturday, July 23, 2016
HP Support Assistant.
It's one of those vaguely documented programs that comes on HP computers. Far as I can tell, it's the HP version of Windows Update. It keeps track of the versions of the HP code in your machine, device drivers mostly, and updates them when it feels like it. I don't believe the version on FlatBeast (which came from the store running Win 8.10 ever worked at all. I remember running it a few times and over the course of a year, I don't think it even did anything other than whine.
Win 10 took offense at HP Support Assistant and claimed it wouldn't work, it would give the computer rabies, and other offensive stuff. So after getting Win 10 squared away I googled on HP Support Assistant, just to see what others had to say about it. Best advice I found, was to just re install the damn thing from the HP website. The writer claimed this would fix all evils. And it did. 't
I ran it, and it wanted to replace seven or eight bits of software. So I let it have its head, and it took awhile, it wanted to reboot after three or four downloads, but it got to the end and it didn't break anything.
Suggestion to you HP owners out there. Should you find that HP Support Assistant ain't doing much, try downloading a fresh version from HP. This might get him going again.
Win 10 took offense at HP Support Assistant and claimed it wouldn't work, it would give the computer rabies, and other offensive stuff. So after getting Win 10 squared away I googled on HP Support Assistant, just to see what others had to say about it. Best advice I found, was to just re install the damn thing from the HP website. The writer claimed this would fix all evils. And it did. 't
I ran it, and it wanted to replace seven or eight bits of software. So I let it have its head, and it took awhile, it wanted to reboot after three or four downloads, but it got to the end and it didn't break anything.
Suggestion to you HP owners out there. Should you find that HP Support Assistant ain't doing much, try downloading a fresh version from HP. This might get him going again.
Rolling up the windows
My driveway lacks shade. On hot summer days the car heats up like a furnace. To combat this, I like to leave the windows down. We have maintained the social order up here and I don't have to worry about having the car stolen.
What I do worry about is the sudden rainstorm. Really messes up the upholstery when it gets rained on. Right now, should I hear a rumble of thunder, I must get up, go out to the car, with the key in hand, turn the ignition on, and hold the power window buttons down till all is rolled up.
I have a remote control for the car on my keychain. Wouldn't it be nice if said remote had a button to roll up all the windows. The remote already has a button to pop the trunk lid, and work the door locks. Surely one more button wouldn't be a cost breaker. The remote has enough range for me to pop the trunk lid sitting at my kitchen table, so I wouldn't even have to get out of my chair.
And while we are at it, how about a rain sensor that makes the windows roll up automatically at the first drop of rain?
What I do worry about is the sudden rainstorm. Really messes up the upholstery when it gets rained on. Right now, should I hear a rumble of thunder, I must get up, go out to the car, with the key in hand, turn the ignition on, and hold the power window buttons down till all is rolled up.
I have a remote control for the car on my keychain. Wouldn't it be nice if said remote had a button to roll up all the windows. The remote already has a button to pop the trunk lid, and work the door locks. Surely one more button wouldn't be a cost breaker. The remote has enough range for me to pop the trunk lid sitting at my kitchen table, so I wouldn't even have to get out of my chair.
And while we are at it, how about a rain sensor that makes the windows roll up automatically at the first drop of rain?
Friday, July 22, 2016
So I upgraded to Windows 10
And the laptop survived the experience. Like all things Micro$oft it's slow. Took 6 hours to install Win 10. Now that I am upgraded, the laptop seems a scosh more lively. My custom login screen survived. Word 2002 still works, Picassa still works. Haven't tried everything yet. Win 10 threw out CCleaner claiming incompatibility. It also raised a fuss about some nameless program, and and the HP auto update program. (It's an HP laptop).
I'd been holding off on Win 10, fearing it would be slower and fatter than Win 8.1. Experience tells me that each new Windows is fatter and slower than the old one. But, a couple of web searches failed to find anyone raving about Win 10 bugs, and Micro$oft started threatening to end the free updates next week. So I weakened and updated.
Lets hope I don't regret it.
I'd been holding off on Win 10, fearing it would be slower and fatter than Win 8.1. Experience tells me that each new Windows is fatter and slower than the old one. But, a couple of web searches failed to find anyone raving about Win 10 bugs, and Micro$oft started threatening to end the free updates next week. So I weakened and updated.
Lets hope I don't regret it.
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