Can’t Change Windows Active Hours (Or Windows Ignores This Setting): How To Fix

A banner showing Windows Update active hour settings and the text how to fix active hours when they are messing up

Ah, Windows Updates. When they work, they seamlessly keep our computers up to date. But sometimes they are the bane of our tech lives: randomly failing, or causing our PCs to restart at the worst possible time. That’s why Windows rolled out the ‘active hours’ feature a few years ago. This was Microsoft’s attempt to … Read more

How To Fix The ArmourySwAgent ‘Do You Want To Allow Changes?’ Message

Pointing at a Windows UAC error with the text How To Fix This Armoury Crate Bug

If you have an Asus motherboard, you will probably have the Armoury Crate (or Armory Crate) software on your PC. Unfortunately it’s a fairly buggy bit of software, and any non-admin users will keep getting an annoying UAC pop-up every time they login that says: Do you want to allow this app to make changes … Read more

Sound Not Playing On The Monitor Speaker In Windows (8 Fixes)

Checking the monitor settings to ensure that the speakers are not muted

Something that has always annoyed me on Windows is just how difficult it makes playing sound. It should be simple. If you plug in headphones, it should play on there. If no headphones are plugged in, it should play through the monitor’s speakers. Simple. But it’s often not the simple, unfortunately. Windows gives you random … Read more

Do CPUs Need Drivers And Updates?

Checking for the latest updates in the Windows Update centre

Drivers are vital pieces of software in your PC. Essentially, every bit of hardware that plugs into your computer needs a driver of some kind to work properly. Everything from gaming controllers to drawing tablets need drivers, but does your CPU need its down driver? Your CPU is designed to work without a driver, but … Read more

High, Balanced, Ultimate: Which Ryzen Power Plan Is ‘Best’?

How to access balanced high perf and power saver power options on Windows 10

Ultimate? Performance? Balance? Picking a power setting shouldn’t feel like deciding between the character stats of the latest RPG. What’s the difference between these Ryzen power plans anyway? Ryzen offers three basic power plans: Balanced, High Performance, and Ultimate. Balanced works on saving energy and lowering heat, High Performance opens up the clock speed for faster … Read more