Month: March 2020

KB4541329 – WINSPOOL.DRV and Remote Desktop

Andy 20 Comments

Seeing the following message in the event viewer on your Remote Desktop servers on various apps when a user tries to print a document?

Faulting module name: winspool.drv 0xc0000005

It’s probably related to the above KB number. I just removed it from a server and the issues went away,

More information on the KB here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4541329/windows-10-update-kb4541329

Update, April 8th 2020: Several comments posted below on this issue all saying that this has proven to resolve it for them. Interestingly also reporting similar scenarios where only certain environments are being affected if they are support multiple different environments. Sadly my role as a technician at an MSP rather than being an internal type IT guy doesn’t allow for me to dig deeper on this one. Logic would say that maybe something with a particular printer driver causes this but due to the lack of information presented with the crash it would be hard to say that this is a definite cause.

HP Z620 BIOS Update Failure

Andy 2 Comments

So my beloved HP Z620 Workstation Monster has just suffered a BIOS update failure.

It seems that this is a common issue with running the update from within Windows 10.

Following various post including this one seem to have not worked: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/Crisis-Recovery-Jumper-Z620-Z420-Z820-Revealed/td-p/6658619?lightbox-message-images-6658619=179776i02BEED432C66A811

$110 later, new board on the way. Seems that whatever happened has super broken it to the point even the recovery ROM does not function.

Removing the RAM triggers an error status with beeps and red lights meaning it doesn’t appear to be completely dead.

Second Hand Laptop?

Andy Leave a comment

One of my side hobbies along side fixing anything that has a plug is playing DJ in night clubs and bars.

I often find myself browsing DJ groups on social media and seeing posts about other DJs looking to source a new laptop and the age old arguments over whether you should spend a little, or spend a lot and whether you should go with a Windows computer or Apple MacOS computer.

But something else caught my eye when looking at some of the suggestions. The price gap between a second hand laptop, a new laptop and the outrageous prices being charged for hardware that is clearly very dated.

NewEgg is a fine example of a retailer and it’s sellers playing on technical inability and lack of understanding of computer specs.

Example

Filters used: Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, 250-500GB Storage.

For around $440-445 Canadian, what do you get? A 6th Gen (Q3 2015), a 4th Gen (Q2 2014) and a 2nd Gen (Q1 2011) all with very similar solid state storage sizes. Where is the logic in this when you compare the brands, the age and certainly the benchmarks?

Looking at the various benchmark sites, and comparisons of spec’s the 6300U vs the 2520M – There is a big difference between these two. Across the board the 6300U is about 20% faster in all areas, and has a far lower TDP at 15W vs 35W, meaning battery life and performance be far better.

When you compare the 6300U and the 4210M on the benchmarks they are pretty much identical however the memory speed supported on the 6300U is far faster, and the TDP again is far lower with the 4210M being rated at 37W.

For just a mere $200 more (granted they’re currently on sale, and budgets don’t always stretch!) you can jump up to the latest 10th Generation processors or 8th generation. Again some outrageous pricing between generations! That said the jump from 8th to 10th generation comes with a mix of opinions.

WordPress Blocks

Andy Leave a comment

I have been a WordPress user for many years on and off for various websites and it’s been one of the best CMS based website engines I’ve had the pleasure to use.

My knowledge, and use has been very minimal but functional.

They have taken writing a blog to the next level it seems in Version 5 with this new “Blocks” feature. So far my impressions are that it is a very welcomed change for me. Being able to insert different content without having to fight the WYSIWYG to align images and other bits of content moving around or causing other weirdness is bliss!

Synology DS1812+ vs pfSense 2.4.4

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** Post will be updated later with some screenshots when I have access to the device again. Sleep mode kicked in! **

Recently I was trying to get access to my Synology DS1812+ NAS as this contains a lot of important data relating to my life. This thing currently still resides within the UK until I am certain that my life in Canada is firm.

However, what’s the best way to connect this device for access abroad? I know, we’ll connect it directly to my pfSense firewall that runs on my rather slow by today’s standard Telus connection (20 down, 1 up!?)

I thought, ah great should be fairly simple right? Synology DSM has an OpenVPN client, pfSense is able to export configurations, and the root CA certificate (um why Synology do we need this?) for Synology to import. Easy! Or not as the case maybe.

Uploading the configuration file without any modification generates an error – “Invalid Parameters”. Through much trial and error I eventually got it to accept a configuration file.

The cause? This line:

ncp-ciphers AES-128-GCM

For some reason, the built in OpenVPN client doesn’t seem to like this. Removing this line solved the error, and I was able to connect successfully from any client on my LAN to the device.

Welcome!

Andy 2 Comments

I am 30 something British guy now based in Vancouver, Canada and my name is Andy.

Welcome to my blog about technology, software and hardware. My aim is to try and provide tips, tricks, reviews – you name as long as it relates to the world of information technology.

*Somehow this blog is 2 years old, and I’m 2 years older.