75 C, but unless you plan to
push this PC or use it regularly,
you should be able to make do
with the existing cooling.
Alternatively, look to
either apply new thermal
paste (a tube of MX-4 costs
around $15) or replace your
stock cooler with a budget,
but effective, alternative like
Noctua’s NH-L9i low-profile
cooler, which is around $
on http://www.newegg.com. One
reviewer reports having used
it for five years on a gaming
rig with poor ventilation
without ever seeing temps
peak above 65 C.M.2 NVMe vs SATA
I have a Dell 5675 with a Ryzen
7 1800X and am not a gamer.
The computer came with
an M.2 boot drive—I want to
swap it out for an NVMe one,
and there is an empty slot.
However, I can’t seem to get
the computer to recognize
the NVMe drive. What am
I doing wrong? Maybe the
bigger question is: Will I see
i m p r o v e d s t a r t - u p t i m e s?
—Kurt WagnerTHE DOCTOR RESPONDS: The
Dell community forums are
littered with posts about swap-
ping out the SATA M.2 drive
supplied by Dell for a faster
NVMe drive. One interesting
observation is that the NVMe
slot found on your Dell moth-
erboard only supports Gen
x4 speeds (around 1.5GB/s)—
significantly faster than SATA
(600MB/s), but half the NVMe
maximum (3.2GB/s).
Some Dell users have
reported success investing in
an M.2 PCIe x4 adapter—plug
this into the second graphics
card slot and you’ll be able
to use the PCIe 3.0 bus
to boost your speeds to
their maximum. Other Dell
5675 users have reported
success with a Mailiya model
(currently $50 from http://www.
newegg.com), but we suspect
you’ll get the same results
with the much cheaper Rivo
($15 from http://www.amazon.com).
Once physically fitted,
boot into Windows and the
drive should be physicallyvisible in Disk Management,
ready for configuration.
It’s worth visiting the drive
manufacturer’s webpages for
any additional software—for
example, Samsung Magician
for Samsung drives can help
you configure, update, and
benchmark your new drive.
Samsung also provides a data
migration tool to clone your
current drive to the new one.
Once cloned, you’ll need
to remove the original drive
temporarily before powering
back up, and Windows
should now boot from the
newer drive. Once you’ve
successfully booted once,
you can refit the older drive,
which will be set to offline due
to a signature collision with
the newer drive. You can then
convert your old drive into a
data or backup drive by first
wiping it from the command
line—see https://bit.ly/
MPCseagate for a guide—and
then setting it up as normal.
As for performance,
you’re never going to get
Chromebook-style boot times
of under 10 seconds—even
with a quick POST, you’re
looking at boot times of
around 40 seconds to the
desktop, plus however long
your start-up apps take. But
NVMe is significantly faster
than SATA, particularly
on the PCIe 3.0 bus ,and
you’ll definitely feel the
benefit in terms of snappier
performance and boot times.InstallShield Error 628
I’m running Windows 10, 1909
(updated from Windows 7 afew years back). I was trying
to install an older chess
game from an older laptop,
and I received an error
message: "Error 1628: failed
to complete installation."
I’ve tried every remedy on
the internet: Renamed the
InstallShield folder, emptied
the Temp directory. I’ve even
tried ending the IDRIVER.EXE
process via Task Manager, but
nothing has worked. Can you
help? —Jerry SemlerTHE DOCTOR RESPONDS: Ah,
“good-old” InstallShield. The
simplest thing to do here is
write it off—InstallShield is old
tech and a pain in the butt to
troubleshoot, as the Doc has
found to his cost over the years.
Without knowing the exact
game, the Doc can’t tell you
whether it runs in Windows 10
anyway, but one ancient chess
game that utilizes InstallShield
is Chessmaster Grand Edition
from Ubisoft. A search of online
forums reveals it will work on
Windows 10 (after upgrading
from Windows 7 at least), but
there are compatibility issues.
This might be one of those
occasions where exploring an
alternative means of running
the game may be in order—for
example, using virtualization
software like Microsoft’s own
Hyper-V platform (Windows
10 Professional required) or
VirtualBox (www.virtualbox.
org) in conjunction with a
copy of Windows XP, Vista, or
even 7.
Ultimately, though, if you
rely on InstallShield for any
programs still running, thennow is the time to investigate
a clean reinstall of Windows
(particularly if you’ve not
done so since upgrading from
Windows 7). InstallShield gets
so messed up that it’s almost
impossible to remove or fix.
Then, going forward, get into
the habit of taking regular
drive image backups of your
Windows installation using
a tool like Macrium Reflect
Free (www.macrium.com/
reflectfree.aspx), so that
when you run into a problem
like this in future, resolving it
involves rolling back your PC
a few days or a week rather
than having to reach for the
nuclear option.HDMI Voltage Bleed
I’ve seen videos on the internet
showing arcing coming
from coax, USB, and HDMI
cables when they seem to
get high voltage between the
conductors and ground shells.
What advice can you give to
avoid burning up expensive
equipment due to what
seemed to be termed “voltage
bleed over” from an offending
device’s HDMI socket?
—Steve BigelowTHE DOCTOR RESPONDS: This
feels like more of a question for
an electrician, but it’s basically
caused by faulty electronic
components that “bleed” out
high amounts of voltage
through your display’s ports.
The source may be the display
itself, but it may also be
caused by another device con-
nected to your display
—for example, a TV box.
Electricians use so-called
Foreign Voltage detectors to
confirm the diagnosis: First,
wave this close to the surface
of your TV, then hold it close
to the tip of an HDMI cable
that’s only plugged into the
TV. The issue can be fixed by
installing a grounding module
into your electrical outlet,
then use coax wire to connect
the coax screw on the back
of your TV to the coax screw
on the unit. Tii Technologies
produces such modules—see
its website at https://bit.ly/
©^ MPCtitech for more details.
SA
MS
UN
G
N V Me on PCIe is significantly quicker than SATA.maximumpc.com SEP 2020 MAXIMUM PC 15