Cool Software Stuff

[One Eyed Wonderweasle]

 I thought this looked pretty impressive.

[Sandman[SA]]

That does look pretty cool.

[Sandman[SA]]

This is a pretty cool trick to get into the system bios when you want to.

[Sandman[SA]]

Going back to creating your own custom windows installer.  I really don't want a number of features that windows comes embedded with.  Normally, I would just disable or uninstall what I don't want after install.  But this can make life so much easier.

[One Eyed Wonderweasle]

 It could work for a while, now that win 10 has got it's last feature update. But they are still breaking stuff with just the standard windows updates too. After just this months current cumulative updates, I found new corrupted system files using SFC and every time I do a shutdown and restart or just a restart with my external USB SSD (my steam game drive) plugged in it causes crashes in my browsers and almost anything I do in windows. I have to make sure it is ejected before I shut down and plug it in only when windows is already booted. I never had this problem with it before.
 And yes once I had realized the drive was the problem I checked it for errors and it's health etc.
 Edit! Turns out I don't think Microsoft or the USB drive were the culprit. I was still getting the problems just worse with the drive plugged in. I updated my ICUE software (ARGB control program) and it was the cause.
 I uninstalled that version and it seems fine so far. I only need it if I want a different color or light pattern on my ram sticks so nothing critical.             

[Sandman[SA]]

I've had issues using pretty much any USB storage solutions myself.  Mind you, it doesn't happen very often.  It's totally at random.  But whether it be my external dock or a thumb drive or even my cell phone.  I would transfer files I needed.  Then wait a little while to make sure the transfer is complete.  Eject, then disconnect the drive.  And instantly get hit with a handful of error message popups about how my computer can no longer access those files from the external media.



Anyway, I had something else I wanted to share.  Thought it was kind of cool.

[One Eyed Wonderweasle]

 Do you use the safely remove hardware icon before removing your USB drives or not? if you don't there should be an option to optimize for quick removal (device manager/Disk Drives -device specific) rather than best performance. Also USB ports in most PC cases can be flaky, maybe try the ports in the IO shield.

[Sandman[SA]]

Yes.  When I can.  I generally use the eject drive command from windows explorer with thumb drives, memory cards and my phone.  But physical drives plugged into the drive dock won't work the same way.  They seem to get treated more like a hot-swap drive.  There is no eject feature on a drive plugged into the dock.  And I have tried using front panel IO.  Rear panel IO and even a USB 3.0 expansion card as well.  My case has 2 pair of USB 3.0 front IO.  But my ASUS ROG Strix Z390-E only has one USB 3.0 front panel header.

Here is the expansion card.  https://www.newegg.com/en-labs-model-pce4usb-rs1-pci-express-to-usb-card/p/17Z-00A9-00003

I've always had random USB issues long before I got the expansion card.  But most of them have been resolved with BIOS updates.  In fact, since updating my BIOS to v2004, I have not noticed any drives failing to disconnect properly.  Only my Xbox controller still has a random issue where it's powered on and steam recognizes it's there, but it won't work.  I'd have to unplug, and plug it back in again for it to start working.