Professional cleaning: what's involved?

essenbe said:

Good luck.

I've done the extra steps you suggested and rebooted a few times. The computer seems to be behaving just fine with one possible exception. This last time, I did a shutdown instead of a restart and that took a good long time; I thought it was about to do a Windows Update but now I'm not so sure. I didn't see any sign of Update activity when I powered it up again. Also, the computer beeped a whole bunch of times - just one long string of equal length beeps - but then the beeping stopped and everything seems fine. I'm not sure if I should be worried by the beeping?

Aside from that, everything seems fine. I'm inclined to mark this thread solved unless you tell me to worry about the beeping. I'm going to reboot again and see if it's going to beep *every* time or if that was a fluke....

essenbe said:

A long series of beeping is most times ram. Have you run memtest86+ before? If not you may want to run it tonight. It takes quite a while to run 8 passes at least. It's usually best to run it overnight.

Please Run Memtest86+

   Information

Please download from this site only http://www.memtest.org/ in the middle of the page are the Download links, you can download the ISO.zip or the Auto USB Flash Drive installer.zip

Extract the Zip file. If you chose the ISO image, burn it to a CD using Windows Disk Image Burner or any Image burner you may have. If you downloaded the Auto USB installer, extract it, insert your USB 2.0 Flash Drive and take note of the drive letter. Run the installer, select the Flash Drive Letter, check the format box and press next. It will install memtest86+ to a flash drive. You can use either V4.20 or V5.01. Boot from your selected media. If you use V5.01 it will tell you to press certain buttons at the start, please press no buttons. The test will begin on it's own and continue to run until you stop it. It needs to run for 8 complete passes or until you receive an error. If you receive an error, stop the test. Even 1 error is a fail. Each pass tests a different part of the ram and each of the 10 tests in each pass tests something different. It takes a minimum of 8 passes to completely test the ram, more passes are better. It is quite a long test and will take several hours depending on how much ram you have. Due to the time length it is best to run overnight. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask

Okay, I'll give that a go. I may just run it during the day while my brother is at work. (He left a few minutes ago.)

In the meantime, I've got other problems. (Whenever things finally seem to be working correctly on this computer, something else breaks!) In a nutshell, a bunch of my updates, for both Windows and drivers, don't seem to be working. Here are the notes I made as events proceeded, starting from the reboot after the time I got the beeps:

---

Rebooted without beeps

Checked Windows Update:
- wanted restart for KB4056887 and KB4058043
- said install of KB4056892 had failed: 0x80010108
- said install of Malicious Software Removal Tool had failed: 0x8024000b

Clicked on Install Now. Nothing happened.

Restarted manually.

About:
Version 1709
Build 16299.15

Checked Windows Update:
- 2018-01 Cumulative Update KB4056892 awaiting restart
- AMD - System - 6/1/2015 - 1.1.0.27 awaiting install
- Advanced Micro Devices Inc driver update for AMD SMBus awaiting install

Clicked on Restart Now. Restarted on its own.

About info unchanged.

Checked Windows Update history:
- KB4056892 - Last failed installed attempt 2018-01-22: 0x80070bc2
- KB4056887 - requires a restart
- KB4058043 - requires a restart
- AMD - System - 1.1.0.27 failed to install - 0x80070002
- Advanced Micro Devices drive update for AMD SMBus failed to install - 0x80070002
- Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - successfully installed on 2018-01-22
- Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - failed to install on 2018-01-22: 0x8024000b

---

Now what? I have no idea what to do about updates that won't install.

essenbe said:

I would try to find out about the memory first. If your memory is throwing errors, it can be a cause of the updates not installing correctly.

I'm not sure I'm understanding the install process correctly for memtest86+.

I downloaded the auto-installer for USB key version for 5.0.1 to my brother's Downloads directory. I "extracted all". The result was an executable file (.exe). I executed it, choosing e: as the location for the flash drive. The flash drive had the Windows installation media on it but I was warned that it was going to be erased and replaced with memtest; I okayed that. It seemed to complete without any issues. I rebooted and clicked F12. The only option I got was Boot Manager. There was no UEFI Flash Drive option. I chose the only option available and it just booted into Windows normally without starting memtest.

I have not touched my BIOS settings yet. It still has Boot Manager enabled and it still has Removable Drive as the first thing in the boot sequence.

I don't understand why memtest didn't start.

What do I need to do here?

essenbe said:

Try disabling Secure Boot in your bios and see if you can boot into the flash drive. If it does you don't have to do anything, it will start running on it's own and will run until you press escape to stop it. be sure it runs for a minimum of at least 8 passes. After you are finished with Memtest86+ you can enable secure boot again. I don't understand why they won't put a boot manager in the program.

I found Secure Boot in the BIOS; it was enabled so I disabled it. Then I rebooted and pressed F12 when the Acer logo came up; the only option was Boot Manager and I selected it. It just booted into Windows normally.

Is there some compelling reason I can't simply run memtest from within Windows? If so, is there an alternate memory test that will run from within Windows and do as good a job?

Just for the heck of it, I searched on "windows 10 memory test" and found out that there is a Windows Memory test built into Windows. I ran it and got no errors. I assume that it is less thorough than memtest since it only had two passes that ran in under an hour (or at least didn't run all day or night) but is it a good enough test for us to conclude the memory is okay?

If we've satisfied ourselves that the memory is okay, what else could be wrong? Do I need to start looking up the various return codes from the failed installs and try to troubleshoot those?