Michael McAllister

Source: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/11/after-12523-replacements-feds-investigate-tesla-media-control-unit-failures/

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating Tesla after thousands of replacements of its Media Control Unit have plagued the company.  The MCU controls the primary functions of the vehicle, including the touchscreen.  Investigators believe the issue may stem from the use of an 8GB eMMC NAND flash chip, which is written to often. Because of this, the chip reaches its write cycle limit within a few years.  According to Ars Technica:

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After the regulator's Office of Defects Investigation received 537 complaints, it asked Tesla if it knew of any more problems with the Nvidia Tegra 3-based system, which is fitted to approximately 158,000 Models S (2012-2018) and X (2016-2018). Tesla did, handing over 2,399 complaints and field reports, 7,777 warranty claims, and 4,746 non-warranty claims.

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This isn't the first time that Tesla's choice of consumer-grade electronics, as opposed to automotive-grade, has gotten it in trouble. A separate problem affects the 17-inch touchscreen, which can fail due to high temperature—the kind of temperature experienced inside a parked car during summer, as opposed to an air-conditioned office.

 

But how the infotainment system's code was written is a factor here, too. In 2018, a poster at the Something Awful forums who claimed to be a former Tesla software developer whose NDA had now expired, detailed a litany of similar problems with the company's approach to software, including other problems caused by excessive logging.

Tesla has attempted to address the issue of excessive logging for over a year:

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These have reduced the amount of logs being written, improved error correction and storage strategies, changed the control logic for the turn signals, and even added a default to set the climate control to 71.6˚F (22˚C) in the event of an MCU failure (to prevent windshield fogging). In May of this year, Tesla began producing spares that now use a 64GB Micron eMMC SD card instead of 8GB SD cards from Hynix.

Given that this is a critical consumer safety concern, a recall is probable.  It's disconcerting that an issue like this took so long to address.  Tesla's quality control, or lack thereof, leaves a lot to be desired.

@CiBi Yep.  HBO should have budgeted for the 10-episode format.  There's just not enough time to develop the plot otherwise.

No, it doesn't.

14 minutes ago, KenjiUmino said:

 

 

don't you have any of these around? i have a dozen of 'em flying around all over the house because one was included with every other pair of headphones i bought. 

I'm using an adapter right now on my O2 amp for my Beyerdymanics.  Wanted to avoid chaining together adapters as that would get clunky.  Of course, all of this is necessary because Bluetooth.

Love my sister. Appreciate the thought, but there should be some unwritten rule saying non-techies do not tech shop for techies...

19 minutes ago, KenjiUmino said:

they come in all sizes, really

I'm not finding any that support a 1/4 inch jack.  Know of any?

8 minutes ago, KenjiUmino said:

you may have volume controls on your keyboard.

also, there are bluetooth audio transmitters that allow you to use bluetooth headphones or speakers on devices with a regular headphone jack. 

 

you could plug this into your amp, pair it with your new headphones and use the bluetooth headphones like any normal wired headphones

Unfortunately, I'm kind of limited on desk space.

11 minutes ago, BryceJonathan said:

I personally would use what is more comfortable as I feel that is the most important aspect of a pair of headphones or maybe use the ones she got you until you replace the ear pads on your current headphones.

Thing is if I don't use them, she will probably not be too happy.

15 minutes ago, Synawke said:

how much was what she got you?

 

I think $70 bucks or so.

https://www.amazon.com/Sony-XB950N1-Wireless-Canceling-Headphones/dp/B01MUGEYT7

For the past few weeks, my sister had been asking me random questions about Bluetooth and whether my computer supported it.  She had also asked me why I don't use wireless headphones.  I explained to her that it does make much sense considering I'm at my desk.

The earpads on my Beyerdyamics need replacing.  They're a bit grungy now that I've used them most days for a couple years now.  I told her this.  Christmas rolls around and she got me some Bluetooth headphones and USB receiver, which would be fine if I had a mobile phone.

Using them, of course, means not being able to use my amplifier, which I got in part for accessing the volume easier.  All of the controls for volume control and whatnot are built into the headphones.  I have fine-motor limitations so yeah...

What do I do here?  ?

45 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Your going to waste your time to get a republican congress to review the work of a republican FCC. Yeah..... Wait till the Mid term elections next year, then you can call your congressman in 2019 when all the new ones take office. 

If we do nothing at all, if we do not at least make an attempt, if we do not at least take every avenue possible—we will not be able to complain later.  If we have the ability to reverse this decision, it would be absurd not to take that course of action.

The fight for Net Neutrality is not over.  Please call your Congressmen and Senators, and ask them to propose a Resolution of Disapproval under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn yesterday's FCC decision.  The number for the US Capitol Switchboard in Washington, D.C. is (202) 224-3121.  Thanks!

1 hour ago, donalgodon said:

More than a year later, and this still happens in XOC 6.2.2.

 

Pathetic.

That's crazy.  When I started this topic, I went through the trouble of mentioning it on EVGA's forum, too.  Wow… ?

With my VPN on, I get about 50% down of what's shown above.

6 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Yes, but you are in a country that has a large portion of population who don't trust their government, who don't want government beside the out most basic services to get a country running and be able to defend. Also, remember that back when telephone lines where installed for the first time everywhere, rural areas had a lot more importance than today in political sense. cities where smaller in population, 3 lane per direction highway was seen as overkill roads for the number of cars.

 

It can still happen however, but it would require the overall population to have the "greater good" mentality in place (that would also mean NASA will get its proper funding back), and ideally, a crown corporation control Internet as an option (not the best sales pitch after the NSA story, though.. not that it matters).

It's not a matter of whether or not people trust the government.  The government granted subsidies to these private companies to expand, and these companies chose not to.  If it weren't for the government in some sense, today's Internet would not exist.

1 minute ago, hey_yo_ said:

This reminds me more than a decade ago, some politicians and investors are questioning the sanity of wireless carriers for investing on mobile broadband and they keep insisting calling and texting alone is enough.

The government aspect of it would be good for the economy in general.  Huge infrastructure projects create sustainable jobs for the foreseeable future.  The ISPs share most of the blame.  Back in the 90s, ISPs were given money to expand, but they just pocketed most of it.  That's the TL;DR version anyway.

On 7/11/2017 at 11:34 PM, mr moose said:

I agree, but like everything else, it comes down to feasibility,  who's going to pay for it if it presents real danger of making a loss. The institution with money that can afford a loss for a community service is government and even they have to win votes.

ISPs have had the ability to expand their infrastructure for decades now.  The United States should have been investing tax money into this as well.  Decades ago, government funds were used to expand telephone lines throughout rural areas.  The same needs to be done now.  Priorities need to be re-calibrated.  So much has changed since then that it may be a while yet.

14 minutes ago, YamiYukiSenpai said:

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is currently on sale in the Windows Store.  I'm thinking of buying it, but the reviews were giving me second thoughts.  However, those were from 2016.

 

To anyone who owns the game, did the performance improve?

From the reviews, it looks like there is some performance optimization issues.  Not sure if the Windows Store has a refund policy like Steam.

Third-party antivirus products typically make the OS more vulnerable.  They typically add a self signed certificate in order to use real-time scanning.  Malicious actors typically try to find flaws in these components to execute remote code.  Tavis Ormandy has done a couple of write-ups on the subject.

On 6/8/2017 at 3:04 PM, Rolando said:

Try to run ccleaner and reg cure pro, when you run ccleaner all tmp files will be clean, actually i did it 10 minutes ago and i dont see that message again also how somebody says dissable msoffice <crtl+shift+esc>

You really shouldn't use CCleaner.  It will cause more problems than it solves.  In a recent update for Microsoft Office, this particular issue was patched.  If you force a manual update, the issue should be fixed for you.

18 hours ago, Valentyn said:

I wholeheartedly agree. Some older devices that can manage to run the new OS will just be too told to run it well. It'll be slow and annoying to use. 

 

I still have an iPad2, it can't update to iOS 10, and I really don't want it to. It's not fast enough and doesn't have enough RAM to handle it. 

 

It already chugs at times, and you can only imagine how bad it would be trying to shove the latest iOS11 on here or those older phones. 

 

The devices have been supported for a very long time, far more than most competing ones. Time to move on.

I hope that you don't put that iPad on the Internet.

If this is referencing the Cloak and Dagger vulnerability, this issue is much more severe than just avoiding certain apps.

On 5/28/2017 at 8:27 AM, DerZade said:

The user 'Costas2' suggestet this method in a thread in the Microsoft Community (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_officeinsider-mso_win10/officebackgroundtaskhandlerregistration-flashes-a/2600497e-78e4-41a1-9040-461cd2c3ea13).

 

You don't have to disable the task, it is enough to change its user to 'SYSTEM'. Using this method ensures that you won't run into any problems, if any other part of Office dependents on that task.

 

 

I recommend against running anything under System unless it's absolutely necessary.  If not currently doing so, you should be running your machine under a Standard User account.

Running your system under an Administrator account is not recommended as Windows has been vulnerable to privilege elevation attacks in the past.  User Account Control (UAC) offers little protection by itself as it can be bypassed when the user is Admin.

Unsurprisingly, the hacking group behind the release of NSA secrets which led to the WannaCry ransomware attack, Shadow Brokers, now plans to provide zero day exploits as a subscription service.  It can be had for $21,000 per month.  While ransomware can be lucrative for criminals, WannaCry did not net huge profits for the attackers.  It did, however, wreak havoc on unpatched computer systems which were susceptible to a vulnerability in SMBv1, namely Britain's National Health Service.

To subscribe to the service, the group is using the cryptocurrency Zcash which claims to be more anonymous than Bitcoin.  The group promises to release new Zero Days every month as part of the service.  This was bound to happen.  Once criminals realize how lucrative these exploits can be, this is the logical next step.

@HKZeroFive PC Perspective officially confirmed the news.

@MicroBugTracker Only issue is we don't know what it does.  Other Office components could be dependent on it in a manner that breaks things.