HELP STATION
Expert solutions for everday problems.
Plex transcoding
I recently opened up my Plex server running on a QNAP TS-251+ to a few friends to discover that transcoding does one of two things: If I enable hardware transcoding, the video frequently looks blocky and pixilated, but I can stream to multiple clients with no problems. But if I disable it, only one person can watch a transcoded stream without overwhelming the server. What can I do to improve the quality over hardware transcoding?
Phil West
TechLife responds: The problem here is your QNAP’s Celeron J1900 processor. Although it supports hardware transcoding through QuickSync, the processor’s onboard GPU is based on the old Ivy Bridge generation of Intel HD graphics. These are known for the poor quality of their transcodes, so the only way around this is to either minimise or eliminate transcoding from your machine or upgrade your NAS.
You could opt for QNAP’s TS-251D series, which is powered by a dual-core J4025/J4005 Celeron processor sporting Intel HD Graphics 600 – it’s this 6thgeneration chip where QuickSync finally delivers good-quality hardware-transcoded video. Or build your own NAS-like system around an embedded micro-ITX board sporting an Intel Gemini Lake processor, such as Asrock’s J5040-ITX. The Pentium Silver J5040 is quicker than the J4025 Celeron processor, and sports slightly more powerful graphics (Intel UHD Graphics 605) but is similarly low-powered (just 10 watts) and fanless, making it suitable for 24/7 use with little noise.
The board’s specs state that the J5040-ITX only supports up to 8GB RAM, yet Asrock’s own memory compatibility chart ( https://bit.ly/
MPCASrock) reveals it can work with up to 32GB RAM. A pair of 4GB DDR4 SODIMMs costs around $60, but you may want to opt for 16GB to free up plenty of RAM for the GPU.
You’ll also need a suitable mini-ITX case to house it all, and given the J5040-ITX has four onboard SATA connectors, why not source a compact model with removable drive bays, such as IN WIN IW-MS04 with 250W PSU? There’s no software cost involved – while the board will run Windows, we recommend you go with Ubuntu Server, as the Windows version of Plex limits hardware transcodes to just two at any one time.
The QNAP has the slight advantage on price, coupled with the fact you’ll be running a familiar operating system, but the custom build gives you the advantage of a beefier processor, plus support for more RAM and more drives.
BIOS lockout
I have an Asus Q324UA laptop that was given to me by my son after he could no longer access the BIOS. Since he travels for his work, he thought it wise to set a BIOS password. No problem for a while. During some work to upgrade his desktop, he was using the laptop to go online for instructions. After completion of the project, he shut down the laptop, never to access it again. Somehow, the password is corrupt? Maybe he forgot? We have tried every combination we can think of. I also read that a Microsoft Windows update corrupted the Administrator password. Asus declined to comment on that.
Asus Support tells me there is no “back door.” Asus factory repair will replace the motherboard for $800 plus labour. It appears the BIOS on this machine is on an EPROM and there’s no way to change it. This seems to be the consensus online.
Do you have a remedy? Can the BIOS be reset, or do I now have an expensive paperweight?
Jim Roebuck
TechLife responds: Your son has learned a valuable lesson about the shortcomings of setting a BIOS password, Jim! They can stop working for no logical reason, and ultimately do little to protect your machine – a determined thief could simply remove the hard drive and access any sensitive data directly. A better way to secure a laptop going forward is by using BitLocker to encrypt the entire drive, which protects the drive contents as well as access to Windows. Store the password somewhere safe – try a secure note in Bitwarden for example – so it’s never forgotten.
There’s one thing Asus laptop owners can try to bypass the BIOS password, depending on your laptop model. First, when the password prompt appears, try pressing Alt-R, which should bring up an “Enter Rescue password” box with the date on it in YYYY/MM/DD format. Visit www.biosbug.com/ asus on a working PC and enter that date into the box, then click “Send Request.” After a short pause, a series of letters and numbers will appear, which you should enter as the rescue password to hopefully unlock the laptop. Then, press F2 to go into the BIOS to navigate to the “Security” tab and remove or change the password.
Jim had already tried this workaround – this particular Asus model didn’t support the recovery password option. Ultimately there appears to be no way to reset the BIOS to remove the password, but we found a cheaper alternative to Asus’s $800 solution: purchase a refurbished motherboard for $311 on www.ebay.com (search “Asus Q324UA Laptop Motherboard”) and
then swap out the old motherboard for new, following iFixit’s guide ( https://bit.ly/ MPCifixit). It’s an expensive fix, but it’s cheaper than replacing an otherwise-serviceable laptop.
CPU fan error
Any idea why this happens? I have a water-cooled system (HydroLux Level 3) that keeps my system (Asus ROG Rampage V) pretty much at a consistent 25 degrees Celsius, yet it’s started throwing up a CPU fan error when I switch on, halting the boot sequence. If I press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart, then it launches Windows fine.
D Dominguez
TechLife responds: This is quite common with water-cooled systems on mobos that don’t have a specific water pump cooler header on them. When you plug your water pump into the CPU fan header, it’s unable to provide enough sustained power to run the pump at full speed, which triggers the error. This is a false positive, and you can either continue to ignore it or enter your BIOS to instruct your PC to ignore the CPU fan speed in its monitoring section, and the error will vanish.
In the case of your Asus ROG Rampage V, browse to “Monitor > CPU Q-Fan Control (Auto)” and look for a “CPU Fan Speed Low Limit” setting – change this to “Ignore,” which should stop the alert appearing on startup. Some Asus ROG Rampage boards provide a W_PUMP header, so if you own one of these boards, you should power down your PC and check that all the fan connectors are plugged securely into the correct sockets. If you’ve got a regular fan plugged into the CPU_Fan header, check this is running OK as it’ll be responsible for the error – it may need cleaning out, or may be a symptom that the fan’s starting to fail as it can’t spin fast enough to satisfy the BIOS.
USB mouse disconnects
I’m having some problems with the USB ports on the back of my system into which are plugged my mouse and keyboard. While casually playing some video games, both the mouse and the keyboard disconnect, even though they are still connected to the back of the motherboard, and the only way to get it working is to do a full reset of my computer. I’m running a Ryzen 7 3700X on an Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming mobo, 16GB RAM and 500GB M.2 drive. Can you explain the cause of the disconnect?
CakeGamer21
TechLife responds: There are several questions here that need answering: First, are you hearing the classic USB disconnect sound indicating the keyboard and mouse are being disconnected, or do they simply stop working? If it’s the latter, the problem may be Windows locking up, or it may be linked to the game. Does it happen elsewhere on your system?
If the problem is an intermittent one with no obvious reasons behind it, then it may be a hardware issue. You could try a different keyboard and mouse in your PC, but the chances of both failing in the same way seem remote. Instead, try plugging them into different ports to see if that fixes the problem; if it does, the ports in question may be failing. Given the ROG Strix
B450-F has plenty to spare (eight at the back of the motherboard alone), this workaround on its own could be acceptable.
If the problem affects all USB ports, make sure your UEFI/BIOS is fully up to date (choose the non-beta version), as well as your motherboard chipset drivers.
Next, try disabling the “USB Selective Suspend” option – press Win-R, type “powercfg.cpl” and hit Enter. Click “Change plan settings’”next to the selected plan, followed by “Change advanced power settings.” Expand “USB settings > USB selective suspend setting,” and set it to “Disabled” before clicking “OK.”
If you’re still plagued by the disconnects, open Device Manager and expand the “Universal Serial Bus” controllers section – doubleclick each USB Root Hub in turn, switch to the “Power Management” tab and untick “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power,” before clicking “OK.” Double-check the options haven’t been ticked for your mouse and keyboard too (although they’re more likely to have been grayed out and the device allowed to wake your PC).
Still no luck? There’s the possibility of Registry corruption, which results in duplicate entries for your mouse and/or keyboard being created in Device Manager. You can verify this is the case using Nirsoft’s free USBDeview tool ( www.nirsoft.net/utils/ usb_devices_view.html)
– download, extract, and run the x64 version. If your mouse appears multiple times in this list, removing all the entries then rebooting may temporarily solve the problem.
Finally, if the problem only occurs while gaming, it may indicate that your PSU is struggling to meet the demands being made of it when your system is under load. Now may be a good time to consider upgrading or replacing it. But before doing so, if the problem only occurs in one game, it’s likely that the problem is caused by that, so visit user forums and support pages to see if others have reported similar problems.