Friday 29 May 2015

Lumia 625 bricked with red Nokia screen or won't turn on

A Nokia Lumia 625 failed to reload the system with the Windows Phone Recovery Tool 1.0.4 (released earlier in 2015 I think). The 625 had a Nokia screen initially but wouldn't respond to anything, or turn on, or recover using any of the Microsoft or Nokia tools. Completely bricked.

If connected to a computer it appeared as an unknown device QHUSB_DLOAD. I took it to Nokia Care and they couldn't do anything other send it back to be looked at - but I needed proof of purchase (even though it showed in their system as still under warranty - however it came from ebay)

The good news is that can now be recovered. The latest version of the Windows Phone Recovery Software is 2.1.1. Spotted the phone right away, warned to charge the battery above 25%, then reloaded the system. Only took 10-15 mins, and the phone is back! De-bricked. Un-bricked. Whatever the word is.

https://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/how-to/wp8/phones-and-hardware/recover-my-phone

Tuesday 12 May 2015

Samsung SA450 (S24A450BW / LS24A450) monitor turning off or no picture

The Samsung SyncMaster SA450 24" LED monitor (aka S24A450BW or LS24A450) is a great bit of kit supporting a resolution of 1920x1200 with DVI or VGA. However it started playing up, sometimes working ok and then abruptly powering off, showing the flashing Analog/Digital symbol as it scans for a signal. Other times it won't show a picture as soon as turned on - ruling out some sort of overheating problem.

I was about to pull the back off the monitor and start looking for faulty capacitors, when I spotted a firmware upgrade on the Samsung website.
http://www.samsung.com/hk_en/consumer/computer-peripherals/monitors/commercial/LS24A450BWT/XK?subsubtype=sa450-led

You can run this Windows updater program to flash the firmware up to v1.1.7 - I did it successfully using Win7 64 bit and a VGA cable. Completely cleared up the no picture fault.


Monday 4 May 2015

AVG CloudCare keeps prompting to Restart after Update

Seems like AVG Cloudcare with the AVG 2015 component (CloudCare version currently showing as v3.3.1) sometimes gets stuck on an update. It may just be for non-admin domain users, I haven't been able to confirm that for certain.

The user gets prompted every day for a Restart, which then nags hourly if they click postpone. Restarting and logging in as admin doesn't clear the problem -  it repeats again the following day.

Couple of options - the simple one is to go into CloudCare > Options > Advanced Settings > Update > Manage, then click the Delete Temporary Update Files. Reboot and you shouldn't be prompted again.

The more tedious option, if that doesn't fix the warning, is to uninstall and reinstall. After using the Uninstall from Control Panel > Programs and Features, do a reboot if required. Then run the AVG 2015 Remover program, that can be downloaded from AVG's utilities website here: http://www.avg.com/gb-en/utilities
Reboot, check there are no AVG folders left in C:\USERS\username\APPDATA or in Program Files or Program Files (x86) - and then reinstall. That definitely clears the problem !

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