'New' PC losing time when powered down and how to refrsh recovery partition

[Andrew]

Made an on-the-spur visit to Chichester yesterday and had a browse round the BHF shop. It's huge, I seem to recollect it was a Waitrose 45 years ago.

The electrical section had the usual collection of toasters, irons, radios, DVD players and computer monitors, mostly of the old smaller pre-widescreen type but hidden amongst them was one with an intel i3 logo, marked up as hp pc monitor, £25. No keyb or mouse or disks though.

I casually asked the shop girl how they had tested it (it had a tested-by xxx sticker). She said they make sure electrical things power up and appear to work.

I bought it after using a library PC to google its manufacturer code -

HP Pavilion 23 All-in-one Product No K4S07EA£ABU (hash for £) Model 23-g127na

Seems it is an i3-4150t @ 3.00 GHz with 8Gb ram and a 1Tb WD disk WD10EZEX60M2NAO, with Win 10 Home version 1909 but Google finds a data sheet where it was supplied with Win 8.1.

I went into Windows Update and a big list of updates including 22H2 was waiting so I just let it update. Just over 4 1/2 hours later it finished !. Now on Win 10.0.19045

Windows error logging has nothing prior to 2020 and not much in 2021 so I guess it was upgraded to Win10 from Win 8.1 in 2020.

It seems to have 5 partitions on the disk but only two have letters, C: is windows, and D: is marked Recovery Image but the first partition is 1023 MB called Recovery Partition too, followed by 360 MB 'EFI system partition', then C: 95.84GB 'Boot file, data file, Crash dump', then 863MB another Recovery Partition marked as Partition 5, then D: showing as 13.35GB 'Recovery Image' (Basic Data Partition).

Having updated to 22H2, do I have manually update the recovery partitions ?. Since this PC is digitally licensed, presumably I could just get another copy from Microsoft anyway.

A minor niggle is that the clock loses time when powered down, which with a normal m/b means a new CR2032 is needed, but this has an HP M/B code 2B0D Version A01 and I'm not sure how to get the back cover off or what I would find. I guess there are some hidden plastic clips all around the edge.

Has anyone managed to get inside one of these HP all-in-one PC's ?

[Jeff Gaines]

I've got inside a Dell All in one and the method was good preparation - lie it face down on a towel or similar to protect the screen, check the manual in case there are screws to come out, a couple of spudgers for the clips then gently Bentley. Be prepared for frightening breaking noises.

I found getting it back on more tedious, a lot of patience, examine it closely and line up the clips carefully.

Check the manual for the CMOS battery type, the one on my Dell laptop needed replacing but it's not a bog standard CR2032, it has wires soldered to it and is wrapped in plastic - no problem to replace but you need to source one (I used eBay).

[Robin]

The HP AiO I opened some years back had a standard battery and HP's video for the Pavilion 23 shows the same

[Paul]

You have to go to near the end of the video, to see the motherboard cover off the motherboard area here.

The CMOS battery should be somewhere on that motherboard. I prefer take-apart sites with fixed camera shots for this, as the materials can be clearer in the photos.

"HP Pavilion 23 Disassembly"

Paul

[Adrian Caspersz]

Sod googling, go to the horses mouth :)

There is a PDF service manual there with step by step disassembly instructions.

[Graham Nye]

Yes, thanks.

If you haven't already, log in to a Microsoft account you own, e.g. hotmail, on the PC, to let MS associate the digital license with you.

Search Google with the model number, product name & number. You should find useful information on hp.com and youtube videos showing disassembly. Information on other HP all-in-one models should be generally relevant though there are some differences.

Lay the unit screen down on e.g. a towel with access to what is normally the bottom edge. You should find a couple of what look like screws. Depending on model they may be actual screws, captive screws or 1/4 turn fasteners. Release them. In the backpanel recess containing the connectors there may be a small stud acting as a security fastener to hold the back cover on. On the unit I worked on this was parked on a spare thread so it didn't retain the cover.

Use preferably non-metallic spudgers to pop the back cover off (various clips around the edges). It just pushes back on.

This should give you access to the hard disk (in a cage) and the RAM. If you can't see the CMOS battery you'll have to do some more disassembly to reveal the motherboard.

I have one that sped up considerably after fitting an SSD. If you go down that route you may as well install Windows 10 from scratch (with an image on a usb stick) rather than migrating the existing HD image. That will automatically sort out the various extra partitions. Initially, at least, log in with the same MS account you logged into the HD system with earlier.

At 8 GB it has a reasonable amount of RAM. You could try the crucial.com scanner to see if it will take any more.

After fitting an ssd and maxing out the RAM my all-in-one has become a usuable PC for general office work. It will never be a games machine. Mine doesn't have the TPM 2.0 module required to install Windows 11 (at least without jumping through more hoops than I can be bothered with) and it's unlikely you'll find one either.

[GB]

That video is a bit light on the unclipping stages. It would be a shame to break the clips, after all.

Googling "HP Pavilion 23 All-in-one open" produces quite a few videos that may provide more details.

[Andrew]

Ah yes, that looks just like the style of case. The plastic back must just clip into those prongs that seem to be sticking out of the main part of the case.

I'll have to try and track down a non-Duracell Cr2032, because that's all the supermarkets seem to sell. Duracell batteries are rubbish these days. If it has a single 8Gb ram bank and an empty ram slot I might try and get another.

That just leaves the question of the D: recovery partition and the system restore partition. I need to refresh one or both of these before I put any data on - I think, don't really know. I am assuming that the original HP Win 8.1 install is lurking in there somewhere.

I think I will shrink down the C: partition to about 200Gb and create an E: partition in the recovered space for data only.

The product spec for the i3-4xxx chip seems to suggest that it has 2 cores but when I use the performance monitor in Windows I see four little CPU windows. Strange.

[Andrew]

Oh great. I tried entering the code 23-g127na and the product code K4S07EA£ABU into a search box on the HP site and got zero hits !.

[Andrew]

Ah, I don't have a microsoft account - something that it and my main Win 10 PC keep nagging me about. The digital licence key may or not be linked to its previous owner then.

Another poster posted a link to the HP service document.

I had no idea there were so many language variations for DVD-drive. Maybe its time the computer industry invented a common language just for IT and its associated hardware :-). Something a bit more descriptive than Ikea assembly instructions :-).

Esperanto ???

The 1TB WD Blue hard drive running at 7200 is quiet though. The whole thing is a revelation compared to my 6-core AMD desktop.

There seem to be plenty of ebay ads for this model for more than the £25 I paid for the whole thing !.

No TPM 2.0 module in mine. The product flyer is dated 2014. I didn't think that hard drives of 1TB were cheap enough in

2014 to be fitted to entry-level PC's though.

[John Rumm]

One thing to watch on AIO boxes is that there are no USB things plugged in when you attempt to dismantle. I remember one dell that had a wireless keyboard transceiver that "pinned" the back of the case on if left plugged in.

i3 CPUs have "hyperthreading" - so they can internally multiplex each physical core into two logical processors. So the CPU itself will run 4 threads at a time - but via time slicing each core to support two threads.

So task manager will typically show twice the number of core graphs as there are actual cores. If you look at the bottom right of the CPU window it will normally tell you how many physical cores there are... (along with the number of CPU sockets on the mobo, the base clock speed, and the amounts of L1, L2, and L3 cache. So on mine it says 8 cores, 16 logical processors.

I think with an i3 AIO box, the thing that will hit its performance the hardest is if it still has a HDD. I would be tempted to install a new SSD. Run the Win 10 installer from a bootable USB drive and install a completely new system. You can use the serial number on the HP web site to get links to any system specific drivers if you need them (you probably won't unless it is a bit exotic like ones having a touch screen).

[John Rumm]

To be fair that is good advice if you are going to make substantial changes to the machine such that it would be deactivated once done - say a motherboard swap. That can allow the original license to be brought back. If however all you are doing is reinstalling windows (with a small change like a HDD to SSD conversion) it will reactivate automatically anyway - since it will recognise that hardware profile as already licensed.

Oh the computer industry certainly has it own language already... :-)

WD Blue drives are not that quick IME... The "Black" ones are better - but still not a match for a SSD.

It probably will - but depending on what you do with it, you may not see much improvement.

[Graham Nye]

True. I bumped the RAM and fitted an SSD to my Aio without a Microsoft account and without having licence issues. I did boot it between fitting the RAM and the SSD. Still, it's a free precaution.

You can sign up for a Microsoft account at

don't have to use it for anything other than maintaining your licence. My desktop (Win 10) and laptop (Win 11) have one Microsoft account each. The rest are non-Microsoft local accounts. (Win 11 is a bit fussier here. The first account has to be a Microsoft one. Further ones don't.)

I fitted a SSD to my desktop PC without changing the RAM (already maxed out). It's still chalk and cheese in performance.

If you need less than 8 GB of RAM it will work fine. If you need more (look at the performance tab in Task Manager) it will swap really slowly to a mechanical hard disk.

[alan_m]

My HP Pavillion had screws in the base plate AND another under the keyboard. Two little plastic strips/clips kept the keyboard in place and on removing them the keyboard lifted out to reveal the hidden screw.

Even with all screws removed the case still clipped together and, as Geoff has written, need to be prised apart using spudgers (thin butter knife) and be prepared for disturbing cracking noises.

[John Rumm]

Indeed - not saying you should not do it, just you can do without for a clean install on a machine that is already activated. Having the key associated with an account if you have a mobo failure since you won't have the option of tying they license to to account after a failure! (although microsoft will reactivate if you send them a copy of the receipt for the new mobo IME)

Win 11 pro is easy to setup without a MS account - just take the "domain join" option in the OOBE.

With 11 Home, it takes a bit more creativity. Apparently there are some dummy MS accounts you can enter that will cause it to bail on the account setup. Enter the MS account of [e-mail] with no password will raise and error saying that account is locked for security and has been deactivated - then it will prompt for a local account instead. (there are a couple of other addresses that will work).

Other options include opening a command prompt (CTRL+F10) during install at the start of the MS account setup bit, and do an "ipconfig /release" command to drop the network access while still keeping it as showing media connected.

Oh yes - I really "feel" the difference when I go back to trying to use a machine like that these days!

[Paul]

Modern windows has two stages. It has a Memory Compressor. The reason it hardly ever uses the pagefile.sys now, is to avoid wear and tear on SSDs used as OS drives. The pagefile.sys can still be tricked into usage, during "fast transient" memory behavior (start two tasks that use up memory, at the same time, may cause a "spike" of activity to pagefile.sys).

At one time, you could see the Memory Compressor in Task Manager. Today, you might have to run Sysinternals Process Explorer to see it.

You could run the Windows OSes in a virtual machine, then crank down the RAM assigned to the machine. The Memory Compressor would rail on one core when you did that. The earliest version of Windows 10 would run with 256MB of RAM, and you could open Notepad. At that level, that's barely enough RAM space for the kernel to be stored in RAM.

Windows 11 has some "baggage" that makes the minimum requirement 4GB of RAM. However, you can experiment with that, and the "core part" needs 2.6GB of RAM. And if subsystems are switched off, because the hardware does not support virtualization well, or in the way needed, the memory requirement dips below 2.6GB. The kernel still needs only

250-350MB, and the rest of the space was being used for an "OS image" used for sandbox operation or something. But without documentation of the design, who really knows what they're doing in there.

You can install Windows 11 on a "capable" machine, then move the hard drive to an "incapable" machine and Windows 11 boots just fine. Then, you may notice the RAM usage has dropped as well (subsystems turned off).

As for the recovery partition issue (a multitude of like-named partitions), a person can use

reagentc /info

to better understand whether one of those recovery partitions is being used. The pointer should point to a WinRE.wim , if it is using it. When Windows won't boot, it's possible WinRE.wim is used while the three repair attempts are made. On my other computer, by studying reagentc output, I could figure out which two superfluous partitions could be removed. A recovery partition which is 15GB in size, is more likely to be an OEM reinstallation partition (from Win7 or Win8 era). But again, a lack of documentation means we can't always decode what these things are for.

600-700MB WinRE.wim container for emergencies When multiple of them exist, only one is in actual use. About half the time, reagentc may be "unhooked", which is annoying. 4GB partition Could be a Win10 or Win11 OEM reinstall. Some computers seem to have nothing, and regen from WinSxS. 15GB partition Could be a Win7 or Win8 OEM reinstall partition. Because compression is involved, a hex editor may not tell you what the thing is.

Paul

[Peter Johnson]

I recently changed the mb, cpu and ram in my self-build pc and booted it from the SSD that had the OS from the orevious set up on it. After Windows had sorted itself out I was aked if components had been changed when I reactivated Win 11. Answering yes and the process was completed without bother. (Which I know is what is supposed to happen but it is very satisfying when it does.)

[Andrew]

It has a 1TB WD Blue disk running at 7200 rpm and seems to be error-free.

It doesn't have a touch screen. It's initially an emergency PC in case my AMD desktop dies just when I need to do some online financial transactions. However, it is nice and quiet unlike the AMD so I might get rid of the AMD but the latter is Win 10 Pro/32 and has some applications that I might not be able to run in 64 bit mode, like Lightroom V3 (*). Also the HP is a 24 inch IPS monitor but I use a 32 inch IPS iiyama monitor with my AMD and am reluctant to revert to a smaller screen. The HP does not drive an external monitor but I already had a plan to dump the AMD box and get a mac M2 mini, so acquiring a decent Win10 pc for £25 for things that need a Windows box is a bargain.

Speed is not an issue, and without TPMS it cannot run W11 so I am reluctant to spend too much upgrading a 2014 PC.

I might investigate getting one of those Win10 PRO licences that seem to be for sale on fleabay because it is only on Win 10 Home.

(*) I have had Lightroom since V1 and have all the upgrade disks for V2 and 3 plus downloaded updates to 3.6.1 but I think these predate the 64-bit vsn.

[Andrew]

It has too many languages. My background in IT was Data General assembler, Univac assembler, Fortran77 and Cobol85 on Vax/Alpha and C on embedded systems.

I never really got to grips with C++ or anything to do with browsers. Then there is Java, Perl, Forth and now something called 'Rust' ??. All a bit of a mystery.

[Andrew]

The product flyer for this PC says it is supplied with Win 8.1. The error logging has no entries before 2020 when I suspect Win 10 Home was installed (or updated with).