I got a notification that I'm running out of space in my computer, so naturally I looked through my files if I had anything unecessary on it. Turns out, there is a 4TB file inside my memory that I can't remove or uninstall. I don't know where to look for it but the weirdest thing is that it doesn't even stay consistant.

When I tried to remove it I got an error message saying it can't, so I went to look elsewhere. When I came back to the settings tab to see all my files, it had changed name! Everytime I close and reopen the settings tab it changes name, but it is always one random keyboard symbol long. Sometimes it's "=" or "," or even "S" once! Thing is, I am very concerned about it.

I tried to show a picture of it here but I can't for some reason. The logo for it is the basic "White tab with blue screen on it" image most default apps have with no logo. It also says it's version [2026.3.0.3310] and was installed on [2026-03-30] so like half a year ago. That's really all the info I can give since I don't know where else to look.

Am I going crazy and this is normal or should I remove this file and if so, how?

Hi, so I have a 240gbs sata ssd plugged in for windows 11 and i just noticed that it says "26.4gbs/222gbs" (I know that 240 gbs is actually 222gbs) anyways, so i opened the C drive and selected all and opened properties, it says the total used is 164gbs, that means I should have 58gbs left.. not 26gbs. (222-164) Can someone explain this to me? I'm not that techy in terms of software

I have no idea how it happened but it just started doing this today when I opened it and all it says is secure boot violation, invalid signature detected. Check secure boot policy in set up. And I'mma be honest I'm not really techy so I have no idea what it's asking for.

I'm having a huge headache with the Wi-Fi on my ASUS TUF Gaming A15. Out of nowhere, the Wi-Fi network completely drops and disconnects. Sometimes it reconnects quickly, but other times the Wi-Fi icon completely disappears from Windows, forcing me to restart my laptop over and over again to get it back.

My network card is the Realtek RTL8852BE Wireless LAN.

What I've tried so far:

* I did a clean uninstall of the old drivers.

* I installed the official ASUS version V6001.15.163.101 (manually, while offline).

* I also tried turning off the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" setting in Device Manager for both the Wi-Fi card and the Realtek Bluetooth adapter.

Has anyone experienced this specific issue with the Realtek RTL8852BE after a recent update? Is there a specific older driver version that is known to be 100% stable, or is there any other setting I should change?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

So, I just purchased a DELL 16S over the weekend that has Windows 11 and after updates my audio is no longer working. I think it is an issue with Microsoft streaming service proxy driver. Has anyone encountered this problem if so, how did you fix it? I was thinking I could install a different audio driver from DELL Support.

Just bought new headphones, when I plug them in it plays both L/R channels only on the left.

This happens with the new pair, and my old old pair that used to work properly (I replaced them because of the ear pads falling off). I have 2 seperate splitters that both cause this issue.

Now the kicker, it happens if I plug them into my phone, and the cheapo ear buds I use for my phone work fine with both splitters and directly plugged in to my PC.

I have mono audio disabled, plugging the headphones directly into my PC is a no go because the jack is too small I think, balance is set perfectly for L/R (and actually is causing more problems because at perfect balance the audio cancels itself out)

Using a usb adapter also doesn't change anything.

Please send help I am losing my mind.

Edit: Nvm it seems to have fixed itself by unplugging and plugging it randomly to test it? Still not sure why the other pair is bricked.

Hi all,

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

I'm trying to get an original M-Audio M-Track working on Windows 11.

Hardware ID:

USB\VID_0763&PID_4000

Windows detects the interface and it appears in Device Manager as "M-Track", but the native M-Audio driver won't load correctly and reports Code 39.

Things I've tried:

- Uninstalled and reinstalled the M-Audio driver multiple times

- Removed old drivers and cleaned up driver installs

- Disabled Core Isolation / Memory Integrity

- Checked Code Integrity related settings

- Looked through Event Viewer logs

- Tried ASIO4ALL

- Tried FlexASIO

Current situation:

- The interface is detected by Windows

- FlexASIO works, so audio can pass through the device

- The native M-Audio ASIO driver does not work

- FlexASIO reports around 21.3 ms input latency, which is too much for comfortable live monitoring

What's throwing me is that I also have an older PreSonus AudioBox USB that still works fine on Windows 11, but I can't get this M-Track's native driver running.

Has anyone successfully got the original PID_4000 M-Track working on Windows 11 recently?

If so:

- Which driver version are you using?

- Did you need any special workaround?

- Did you have to modify driver signing or install an older package?

Any help would be appreciated.

Mobile phone Galaxy Note 8 won't download Outlook or Brave apps, what can I do?

I got a hand me down because the new phones were lost and my old phone was even older than this. What can I do to download the Outlook & Brave apps? Every time I try to download them from the play store, it says it isn't compatible with my phone, which seems like a lie because it has other modern apps and I'm damn sure my family member had Outlook on this phone before I wiped it.

Here are some pictures, thank you

https://ibb.co/JWkLSssP

https://ibb.co/Q3gjzWSb

I have the Microsoft Xbox wireless headset, 1 month after purchasing them at Walmart, the game/chat mixer is changing on its own. I'll be in the middle of a game and all of a sudden, I can't hear the game Anymore, just other players or it'll turn the chat all the way down and all I hear is the game sound 🤦🏿‍♀️ I am no longer able to control this setting with the left earcuff, turning it doesn't do anything at all.

I've had the headset since August or September, it's WAY too soon for these kind of issues! I attached a video of the issue I'm dealing with. The craziest part is that this only happens on a FEW of my xbox accounts, if I switch to one of my alts, the chat mixer is fine and I can control it using the headset itself, I can't even begin to think what the correlation is??

So I was trying to do some schoolwork and my PC just kept shutting down. Didn’t brought me to the UEFI BIOS utility EZ mode. Is says the storage information has nothing underneath it and all the boot has nothing either. I’ve tried unplug and plug it back in restarting it even taking the SSD card out and cleaning it up a little bit and putting it back in. I really have no idea what I’m even supposed to do. I spent like the past hour looking up YouTube videos and stuff and still hasn’t helped. Do y’all know what I can do? Do I have to replace my entire SSD card?

I've done

- SFC /scannnow

- DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

- chkdsk /f /r

- Made sure all drivers are up to date

- Tried during off DOCP

- Tested different RAM sticks and between 2 and 4 and 1 and 3

- Updated BIOs

So far none of these have helped and I've even gotten the BSOD when my PC has been completely idle just happens randomly out of the blue seemingly without cause, they've been becoming more frequent,

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16-Core Processor

Mem: Corsair Vengeance DDR5

GPU: AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics and AMD Radeeon RX 6600

Motherboard: ROG STRIX B850-E Gaming WIFI

Let me know if there's anything else I should include
Was thinking of replacing CPU to solve the problem or the motherboard due to some of the errors being linked to CPU but wanted to give one last shot at troubleshooting or confirming the root of the problem, but originally it was at least once a week, then it was every 2-3 days and has been becoming everyday.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/n84gi3786gf61sj/Dump_Files.zip/file

Running on windows 11 pro v10.0.26300

My laptop randomly stopped to output to my monitor via the hdmi port, and it seems to have this issue on monitors it was always connected to.

Thought the port was dead/fried but I've connected it to a different monitor it never used, and the hdmi port works fine. Thought the cable might be the issue, but the cable works fine on every other device it's connected to. Tried swapping cables the laptop uses to make sure, and that didn't work

I've tried cleaning the drivers with ddu in safe mode and reinstalling the drivers, re-updating the bios, still nothing. My online search finds a few others with a similar issue but no solution that works.

I suspect an update may have triggered the failure cause it was very random and out of nowhere.

Has anyone come across or dealt with a similar issue? Any assistance or ideas I can look into would be greatly appreciated

A month back people were getting weird notifications from WD. Like that it wasn't turned on or not updated. I just got one today. I thought it updated on it's own? Is anyone experiencing this again?

My keyboard isn’t working unless when I’m in bios, I’ve tried reinstalling the keyboard drivers, I reset the laptop, I’ve been at it for 12 hours. I was installing something and think I replaced the driver and don’t know how to get it back. I’ve reinstalled the chipset too and still nothing. Help

I need help. For a few days now the courser/ mouse on my Asus laptop isn’t working properly. When I turn on the computer the mouse is there and functions but the second I write in the code and access the computer the mouse is gone. I’ve
Googled and tried different things but nothing works. Can anyone help?

Trying to play Kingdom Hearts 3 on PC connected to 4k television. Running it at 1440p60 and the fps is stable, but i keep getting microstutters. I have checked NVIDIA card is up to date. I have also checked windows updates are up to date. Went out and bought a high speed 2.1 48gbps HDMI cord as well. TV is set to game mode. I reset the graphics drivers. Enabled V-sync in nvidia control panel. Enabled v-sync in game. I honestly can't think of anything else to try up to this point. Does anyone have any recommendations?

I have an ASUS Zenbook 14 UM3402YAR with an AMD Ryzen 7 7730U and 16GB of RAM. I recently changed the thermal paste with Arctic Silver 5.

A few months later, the fans randomly spin really hard and buzz/vibrate loudly (see video). This doesn't occur due to high temps or when I am running something intensive. It happens randomly, as far as I can tell, and it usually lasts less than a minute. I opened up the laptop to see if it was dust or particles getting in the way, but the fans spin fine most of the time, even when I am doing something intensive, like gaming.

Video here:

https://streamable.com/i08pvo

Title. This issue started around 3 months ago, Finder is constantly frozen and unresponsive and nothing I do fixes it. I've restarted hundreds of times, used Terminal to force the program to quit, and used force quit to no avail. It just starts back up again with the "last time you forced Finder to quit" and then goes unresponsive again.

Sometimes when I open my computer it will be open and allows me to browse my files but that is maybe once or twice a week.

My storage is pretty full, I don't have extra iCloud storage and I don't know how to stop it from constantly trying to back up my files as I assume that is what is causing this. I cannot and will not turn off iCloud to fix this, as last time, that caused me to lose every file. I'm downloading the most recent software update to see if that fixes it but I doubt it.

Any advice would be appreciated, thank you!

A few days ago, my PC completely crashed when I opened my school account on chrome while on a google meet on another account (didn't bluescreen but completely blacked out both screens), and when i rebooted it my main monitor wouldnt work and my 2nd monitor had a ton of screen tearing. It said that I had run out of storage on my main disk (yes I know its not a good idea to let it get too full, but I thought I had around 6 or so free gigabytes). I checked control panel and my graphics drivers had warning signs on them but when I tried to update them, they said they were fully updated. I then tried to uninstall the drivers and reinstall them which seemed to work, and I was able to get back on the meet with no issue. I deleted some redundant data off of my local disk and now have around 16 gb free. Then the next day after I had come back from school (I can't remember if I had left my computer on or shut it down) I got back on my pc and tried to watch a youtube video, but there was no audio. Weird, so I checked my sound device was correct (it was), then checked to see if my cable, headphones, USB DAC, or port was broken by testing with different devices. They were all fine, so I turned to device manager, all the drivers said updated. Then I checked the other audio devices and they wouldnt work either. I also made sure it wasn't a youtube issue because the noise that plays when you change your volume was also silent. I tested my microphone, that worked fine, even the mic on the DAC worked. went to the specific audio settings for this device, and tried to play the test sound but there was an error preventing me from doing so. I finally decided it was time to look it up, so I found a reddit post that had my exact issue, tried the fix they suggested, but that didn't work either. I had to give up for the day and I was hoping the problem wouldn't persist when I came back, but unfortunately I'm not that lucky, and on top of that when I tried to use VLC media player, it would just return an error saying it had crashed (this happened when I tried to use the program without any media too). I tried renaming the appdata folder, and the crash message didn't pop up anymore but the app just wouldn't open at all now. I tried completely uninstalling and reinstalling it but there was no change.

I'm about at my wits end here, every solution that I try that seems to work for everyone else doesn't work at all for me, and with all of these issues at once i just have nothing that I can think of to do. I'm avoiding a complete fresh install at all costs because I have a ton of projects that would be really inconvenienced by starting from scratch and I currently do not have access to a backup drive to copy to. If anyone has a solution I would be SO thankful. I've always considered myself a pretty tech literate guy but this experience is making me question that.

My running theory is that I had less storage on my disk than I thought and when I opened my school's chrome account, their spyware tried writing some data to my local disk, and that along with the meet it was too much for the drive to handle (?). I don't really know, I'm not too versed in how that kind of process works.

Specs: Ryzen 7 7800X3D, RX 7800XT, 32 GB DDR5, Gigabyte B650 Gaming Z AX, Storage is a few different drives but the C drive is a 500GB Samsung 970 evo, a 2 TB Seagate Barracuda, and a random 1tb sshd i pulled out of an old laptop (somehow the most reliable part of my setup at this point).

It runs very slowly, and when I open any .exe file, the Wi-Fi simply disconnects. I don't know how to fix it, and it's very annoying.

sorry long post

I’m trying to determine whether my i9-14900K is defective before pursuing an Intel warranty replacement.

PC Specs

• CPU: Intel Core i9-14900K
• Motherboard: ASUS TUF GAMING Z790-PLUS WIFI
• BIOS: 1836 (updated from 1805)
• RAM: 96GB Corsair DDR5 (2×48GB), running at 4800 MT/s with XMP disabled
• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3090 Founders Edition
• Cooling: 360mm AIO liquid cooler
• Original Windows SSD: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB
• New SSD: Samsung 990 PRO 2TB
• Storage: Samsung 870 EVO 4TB
• OS: Windows 11 Pro

Initial symptoms

It started with Minecraft Bedrock crashing randomly, sometimes while loading chunks and sometimes while doing absolutely nothing. Other players on the same Realm weren’t crashing.

Eventually I discovered much broader instability:

• Dozens of Windows Reliability Monitor critical events
• Windows Search Indexer, Software Protection Platform, Windows Modules Installer, and other services repeatedly crashing
• Multiple BSODs and unexpected shutdowns
• Windows system-file/component-store corruption

Crash evidence

Event Viewer recorded:

WHEA-Logger Event ID 19

• Reported by: Processor Core
• Error source: Corrected Machine Check
• Error type: Internal parity error
• Processor APIC ID: 41

I also analyzed five minidumps:

• Four crashes with 0x3B (SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION)
• One crash with 0x50 (PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA)
• Access violation 0xC0000005
• WinDbg identified crashes involving ntkrnlmp.exe and Ntfs.sys, including Ntfs!NtfsReadFileRecord

Troubleshooting already performed

BIOS / CPU

• Updated ASUS BIOS to version 1836
• Selected Intel Default Settings — Performance
• Disabled ASUS MultiCore Enhancement (Enforce All Limits)
• Disabled XMP
• Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool: PASS
• OCCT CPU test stopped at its 90°C temperature safety threshold, with no computation errors detected before stopping

RAM

• OCCT 30-minute memory test: PASS
• Tested each 48GB stick individually in the recommended A2 slot
• Both produced the same Windows startup failure
• BIOS consistently recognizes both modules

Storage / Windows

• Both original Samsung SSDs reported Healthy / OK
• chkdsk C: /scan found no file-system errors
• DISM detected repairable component-store corruption
• DISM RestoreHealth failed with errors including 1726 and 0x800F0915
• SFC initially reported a pending repair, then later failed at 65%
• Completed Windows 11’s built-in repair installation, but component-store corruption persisted
• Windows Automatic Repair eventually failed, leaving Windows unable to boot

Current problem: Fresh Windows installation fails

I disconnected the original 1TB Windows SSD and installed a Samsung 990 PRO 2TB for a completely clean Windows 11 Pro installation.

Used Microsoft’s Windows 11 USB installation media and completely cleared the 2TB drive.

Windows Setup creates the EFI, MSR, and primary partitions, but the system restarts and goes back to BIOS with no Windows Boot Manager.

After multiple attempts, I checked the SSD using DiskPart. There is no D:\Windows directory. Only the temporary $Windows.~BT installation folder exists.

Setup logs show the installer preparing/restoring Windows image application operations, but no clear fatal installation error. The computer seems to restart before Windows finishes installing.

Temperatures

• CPU idles around 32–37°C in BIOS
• AIO liquid temperature around 31°C
• Left the PC in BIOS for 20 minutes; CPU temperature remained approximately 35°C
• No obvious overheating at idle

My questions

1. Does this sound like a degraded i9-14900K, given the processor-core internal parity error, unrelated application crashes, and repeated BSODs?
2. Could the CPU’s memory controller or motherboard explain this even though both RAM sticks behave similarly?
3. What additional testing would best isolate the CPU before requesting a warranty replacement?
4. Has anyone experienced Windows 11 installation failures like this with a failing 14900K?

I’m trying to avoid blindly replacing components, but at this point I’m strongly considering an Intel CPU warranty claim. Any guidance would be appreciated.

File: 101226-10453-01.dmp | Crash date: 2026-10-12

Stop code: 0x0000003B (SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION)

Bugcheck exception parameter: 0xC0000005 (access violation)

Detailed WinDbg faulting-module output: not available in supplied evidence

File: 101326-10109-01.dmp | Crash date: 2026-10-13

Stop code: 0x0000003B (SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION)

Bugcheck exception parameter: 0xC0000005 (access violation)

Detailed WinDbg faulting-module output: not available in supplied evidence

File: 101326-10359-01.dmp | Crash date: 2026-10-13

Stop code: 0x0000003B (SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION)

Bugcheck exception parameter: 0xC0000005 (access violation)

Detailed WinDbg faulting-module output: not available in supplied evidence

File: 101326-10718-01.dmp | Crash date: 2026-10-13

Stop code: 0x00000050 (PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA)

WinDbg process: sppsvc.exe

WinDbg reported image: ntkrnlmp.exe

Reported fault symbol: nt!RtlpUnwindPrologue+520

WinDbg failure bucket: AV_nt!RtlpUnwindPrologue

File: 101326-11859-01.dmp | Crash date: 2026-10-13

Stop code: 0x0000003B (SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION)

Bugcheck exception parameter: 0xC0000005 (access violation)

WinDbg process: svchost.exe

WinDbg reported image: Ntfs.sys

Reported fault symbol: Ntfs!NtfsReadFileRecord+72

WinDbg failure bucket: AV_Ntfs!NtfsReadFileRecord

I have Victus HP gaming laptop 16-r00xxx, with a nvidia rtx 4060. I was cleaning my fans, and unplugged them, as well as unplugging that battery and holding the power button down for 30 seconds.

Afterwards I put everything back and the computer turned on properly, everything looked like it was running fine, but when I went to use it I noticed I couldnt change the brightness of my screen. THe bar was missing, on more investigation I couldn't access any of the advanced settings, couldn't change my resolution and my task manager is tracking GPU 0, which is barely getting used. I re-installed my drivers, checked for updates on my display adapters and monitors.

I want to note that in my device manager there is Microsoft Basic Display Adapter and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, both of which I tried disabling, renabling uninstaling and re-installing. I also re-installed the NVIDIA drivers from the website and the app.

Any idea what's going on?? I have just been trying stuff on google and it hasn't been working

i run an architectural drafting gig off a windows 11 desktop, which means i spend half my day pulling zip files, cad models, and invoices off random google drive and wetransfer links from outside subs.

defender is fine for scanning local files once they hit storage. my problem is that basic defender does basically nothing against web traps. if a fake email sends me to a cloned billing portal that scrapes payment info or my client logins, native security just lets it happen as long as the site uses an ssl certificate. it also gives zero heads up if your business email or cards get traded around on dark web dumps.

i was looking at norton vs mcafee to get some actual identity monitoring and proactive web protection alongside the local antivirus. norton catches basic malicious urls, but mcafee seemed a lot more useful for sending automated requests to strip your info off data broker lists and giving real-time alerts if financial logins get flagged in breaches. i need something that intercepts the phishing redirect before i enter payment credentials, not just a tool that waits to flag a bad file after it already downloads.

just trying to figure out if windows defender is enough on its own for this kind of work, or if running an actual security suite is pretty much required once you handle outside payment gateways.

just got a new PC, I accidentally deleted my Bluetooth drivers earlier today. I reinstalled them but even though Bluetooth was showing up again, it was unable to connect to any devices. I did a hard reset of the whole system and it is still unable to connect. this is a prebuilt IBUYPOWER gaming PC