PC fettling and repairs thread

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HMS_Dave

Grand Old Lady
It
I am continually getting these emails from Microsoft. (The headers in them confirm that they really are from MS)

View attachment 703605

Should it be a worry?

It's dodgy...

Verification codes from Microsoft will come from: account-security-noreply@accountprotection.microsoft.com
 

PeteXXX

Cake or ice cream? The choice is endless ...
Photo Winner
Location
Hamtun

HMS_Dave

Grand Old Lady
What would the remedy be?
Change MS password, initially, but anything else obvious to do?
I doubt contacting MS would offer much assistance.

I would simply block the email and move on. For peace of mind, a PW change wont do any harm if you make sure you do by official means. You could report the email to MS but as you say, it will likely lead to nothing.

Phishing emails are getting smarter and smarter to avoid detection. Somewhere in that fake email is likely a contact email and/or they're hoping you reply to the email and then they will likely sink their teeth in and link you to another fake website in order to enter financial details.

Security codes from MS will never come from an email in which you are able to reply to as they are all generated through automation.
 
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Seevio

Guru
Location
South Glos
What would the remedy be?
Change MS password, initially, but anything else obvious to do?
I doubt contacting MS would offer much assistance.

I assume you actually use a ms account, windows seems to insist on it these days. You are getting these emails because someone is trying to log in to your account. It could possibly be you, maybe on a ms service like onedrive. Whoever it is has your email address and password but as the ms email says, you can safely ignore the 2 factor authentication emails if it wasn't you explicitly. I would suggest changing your ms password - go to microsoft.com and do it from there - and also change the password on any other sites where you use this password. This should stop you getting the emails if they are genuine ms emails as you only get them when someone has entered a correct email/password combination.
 

PeteXXX

Cake or ice cream? The choice is endless ...
Photo Winner
Location
Hamtun
I would simply block the email and move on. For peace of mind, a PW change wont do any harm if you make sure you do by official means. You could report the email to MS but as you say, it will likely lead to nothing.

Phishing emails are getting smarter and smarter to avoid detection. Somewhere in that fake email is likely a contact email and/or they're hoping you reply to the email and then they will likely sink their teeth in and link you to another fake website in order to enter financial details.

Security codes from MS will never come from an email in which you are able to reply to as they are all generated through automation.

There are no links to click on, thanks though.

I assume you actually use a ms account, windows seems to insist on it these days. You are getting these emails because someone is trying to log in to your account. It could possibly be you, maybe on a ms service like onedrive. Whoever it is has your email address and password but as the ms email says, you can safely ignore the 2 factor authentication emails if it wasn't you explicitly. I would suggest changing your ms password - go to microsoft.com and do it from there - and also change the password on any other sites where you use this password. This should stop you getting the emails if they are genuine ms emails as you only get them when someone has entered a correct email/password combination.

My password has been changed. Also, MrsPete's has been, too, as my email is the backup for her account.

I'll soon see if this works, thanks.
 
Oh dear, I appear to have acquired another iMac...
For someone who professed no interest in the products of Cupertino, I seem to have had something of a Damascene conversion!
But no, not really. I have purchased all three of these machines for the princely sum of 90 squids. This last iMac, a 2008 20", cost a tenner. Charity shop money. It's by no means a pristine example, but not nearly so bad that you'd only charge a tenner. I've seen worse for nearer a ton. OK, as a blank machine, Macs can be a little harder to get software onto than the average windows machine, if that is, you want MacOS. You want Linux on it? Same as any Windows box, plug the drive in, boot from it, install it.
This one tops out at MacOS El Capitan, but will easily handle High Sierra, so that's under way now.
Here it is running ElCap
20230824_184306.jpg
 
Location
Cheshire
Oh dear, I appear to have acquired another iMac...
For someone who professed no interest in the products of Cupertino, I seem to have had something of a Damascene conversion!
But no, not really. I have purchased all three of these machines for the princely sum of 90 squids. This last iMac, a 2008 20", cost a tenner. Charity shop money. It's by no means a pristine example, but not nearly so bad that you'd only charge a tenner. I've seen worse for nearer a ton. OK, as a blank machine, Macs can be a little harder to get software onto than the average windows machine, if that is, you want MacOS. You want Linux on it? Same as any Windows box, plug the drive in, boot from it, install it.
This one tops out at MacOS El Capitan, but will easily handle High Sierra, so that's under way now.
Here it is running ElCap
View attachment 703781

You can blow over £2.5k on a new iMac 24" (if you are a bit mad). Looks like a result to me.
 
You can blow over £2.5k on a new iMac 24" (if you are a bit mad). Looks like a result to me.
Quite apart from restricting which MacOS you can run on which model, Apple also made MacOS itself into a weapon of obsolescence by requiring it to *need* the Metal API and hardware acceleration in order to function correctly. This is abuse pure and simple. MacOS is not so special that it needs this. Windows and Linux will run, essentially, on anything. The piddling restrictions from Microsoft re Windows 11 are an irritating irrelevance, easily bypassed and with no downside. Linux just works, pick your distro.
The one thing that the Macs have taught me, if you like, is that a nice looking piece of kit can be better than an all-powerful one, if it meets your needs.
My plan now is to offload the 2008 iMac and the Mac Pro, and replace them with an i7-powered 2011 21.5 " iMac. This will be my daily driver, running Linux. The 27" iMac will be used essentially as a 2nd display, and as primary display for whatever Windows machine I choose to keep, if any. To do that, it must remain on MacOS High Sierra. So I'll have all three systems available. And a lot less machinery around my feet...
 

MrGrumpy

Huge Member
Location
Fly Fifer
Quite apart from restricting which MacOS you can run on which model, Apple also made MacOS itself into a weapon of obsolescence by requiring it to *need* the Metal API and hardware acceleration in order to function correctly. This is abuse pure and simple. MacOS is not so special that it needs this. Windows and Linux will run, essentially, on anything. The piddling restrictions from Microsoft re Windows 11 are an irritating irrelevance, easily bypassed and with no downside. Linux just works, pick your distro.
The one thing that the Macs have taught me, if you like, is that a nice looking piece of kit can be better than an all-powerful one, if it meets your needs.
My plan now is to offload the 2008 iMac and the Mac Pro, and replace them with an i7-powered 2011 21.5 " iMac. This will be my daily driver, running Linux. The 27" iMac will be used essentially as a 2nd display, and as primary display for whatever Windows machine I choose to keep, if any. To do that, it must remain on MacOS High Sierra. So I'll have all three systems available. And a lot less machinery around my feet...

We have an iMac bought in 2019 and do wonder when it will start to toil or tell me time to upgrade . Mean while my youngest started college and I’m trying to convince him that decent spec laptop/tablet would be better than that Mac Book Air for his studies .
 
We have an iMac bought in 2019 and do wonder when it will start to toil or tell me time to upgrade . Mean while my youngest started college and I’m trying to convince him that decent spec laptop/tablet would be better than that Mac Book Air for his studies .
For the Intel Macs post-2013 or so, OpenCore Legacy Patcher will keep them running anything up to Ventura, so far. The tjing is not to let Apple dictate. If your iMac is Apple Silicon, then for the moment, you're stuck, but if it's the last of the Intel machines, it will run Linux very well indeed. As will that MBA if Intel.
 

Electric_Andy

Heavy Metal Fan
Location
Plymouth
Please could someone recommend me a gaming PC? It's for my stepsons who previously had a home built £2000 machine but I can't afford that really.

Minimum spec would be to play Balders Gate 3, it says corei5, 8gb ram, gtx970 graphics card. Would any off the shelf (Amazon) gaming pc be ok in the 700/region? I want one that will handle gaming needs but don't want to pay for more than I need. I also not confident building my own.
Thanks in advance
 

alicat

Squire
Location
Staffs
@Electric_Andy

Argos are advertising the Acer Vero at £899 with a £100 e-gift card thrown in. I don't have enough knowledge to say it is the best value but it will give you a benchmark for comparison. Can they chip in the other £100 from savings/future Christmas or birthday pressies etc.
 
Location
Cheshire
a nice looking piece of kit can be better than an all-powerful one, if it meets your needs.
i would agree with that and Apple gear looks fantastic, just for gaming its a real problem. You can get external graphics 'pods' which connect to your Mac via thunderbolt, but i wonder if anyone bothers?
1693311758263.png


The latest Apple M2 chips do ok in games as an integrated solution, and way better than Intel or AMD.
 
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