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Never say never

Years ago I had Gigabyte mainboard in computer at work. One day cpu fan died — it did not shut down but tried to operate with 85°C at CPU… That day I decided to not buy Gigabyte mainboards anymore (my home machine had in BIOS limit of working temperatures with 70°C set as temp to shut down).

Few days ago I upgraded my home machine. And it is Gigabyte powered :) To be exact: EP35C-DS3R is what I bought.

There are few annoyances:

• Intel AHCI SATA BIOS adds few seconds on each boot for checking 6 Serial-ATA ports
• Gigabyte AHCI SATA/ATA BIOS adds few more and ask for pressing key (with few seconds timeout)

But also nice stuff:

• profiles in BIOS — so I am able to configure everything and store settings for later use
• flashing BIOS from USB stick, hard drive or floppy (does someone still use floppies?)

I also added few other components: Core2Quad Q6600 CPU, 4GB RAM and new hard drive but that is other story.

Tags: bios computers serial ata 2 Comments »

Floppies

Few days ago my wife brought some stuff from work. One of them was floppy disk. During evening when we were sitting and talking I saw that disk. After few moments of thinking I told: Do you know that none of our computers is capable of reading it?

Computers are changing so fast… I remember my first computer less then 20 years ago — it was Atari 65XE and it used data tapes for storage, then I bought 360KB 5.25″ disk drive for it. Next machine used 880KB 3.5″ floppies (Amiga 600) and 425MB hard disk. After another Amiga I bought PC which got 1.44MB 3.5″ floppy drive which I rarely used. During few upgrades I was keeping this drive ‘just in case’ but finally decided that drive bay occupied by floppy can get better usage so it landed in drawer somewhere.

Now we use pendrives, memory cards etc. One of my phones has more storage then my first Amiga had, other has 128MB card which is unused but needed due to crappy card/SIM holder in GTA01 Bv3, other has 64MB card and last one has 32MB one.

And imagine that there are places where people still use floppies…

Tags: computers openmoko 2 Comments »

I cleaed keboard esterda

Yesterday I cleaned my Microsoft Natural Keyboard after few years of usage (keyboard itself is 12 years old). Whole process took me 3 hours, required 3 screwdrivers, bowl with water and some chemicals used to clean keyboard case.

Why 3 screwdrivers? Big Philips one to open case, second to take foils and rubber from case. Then flat one to take keys from case (only if they do not want to go out after finger press from inside of case). All keys were cleaned only with water as it was enough to get them clean. Case needed chemicals — I used “Pronto” anti-dust spray.

Completing keyboard was easy but gave me few problems. First I forgot about rubber used for space key and needed to unscrew electronics to put it back. Then needed to fix “Enter” key (main one, not numpad one) as it was working but very hard — it use hinge which as to catch key properly. After connecting to computer there was a problem with YUHJNM keys (as you see in post’s topic). Another unscrewing and fixing foil they were working.

The last problem was space bar which was working only in the middle. This key mounting is hardest in whole keyboard. To mount it properly you need to disassemble stamen from it and put it into it’s place in case. Then put key into case. Put keyboard keys to bottom and use flat screwdriver to put stamen into it’s place in key. After that keyboard should be fully functional.

Like I wrote it took me 3 hours but it was worth it. Keys does not block and keyboard is clean. Of course it is not white but what you can expect from 12 years old keyboard :)

Tags: computers Comments Off

Why Alix board is nice and why not quite

There are nice things in Alix board design and few not quite nice.

Nice ones:

• only 12V voltage needed (small external PSU is in package)
• DC-DC converter on board (so no need for ATX PSU or PicoPSU + 12V external PSU)
• slot for CompactFlash storage on board (no need for CF->ATA adapter)
• miniPCI slot
• low profile (board has height of dual USB connector)
• 22 GPIO lines
• 256MB of RAM soldered on board (so no space taken by memory slot)
• no fan, no heatsink

What I do not like:

• lack of ATX back cover for ports (so when you put it in case you will get big hole for dust)
• lack of memory slot (even SO-DIMM one if someone want more then 256MB RAM)
• ATA connector is 44 pin one for 2.5″ harddisks (looks like it is impossible to buy 2.5″->2.5″ cable in Poland)

So if someone know where to buy 2.5″ -> 2.5″ ATA cable in Poland then please write in comment.

Tags: alix computers mini itx 2 Comments »

Partition Signature !=55AA

Due to fact that some of embedded devices require using vendor tools I decided to install Microsoft Windows XP Professional on my Dell D400. As this machine lack CD-ROM drive I had to find other way. “Unattended” project provides boot discs which allow to make installation over PXE (netboot).

I followed DOS way and gave my tweaked copy of installation CD for it. The first problem was that I got “Partition Signature !=55AA” message after reboot and machine was unbootable. Hopefully I can boot grub4dos over PXE so I was able to go back to the Debian.

How to fix it? In my situation marking FAT32 partition as bootable solved problem.

The message is messy because there was 0×55aa signature at the end of MBR…

Tags: bios computers windows 2 Comments »

NSLU2 joined under-desk machines

Today I bought Linksys NSLU2 machine. It is small, ARM based NAS and it is running Linux out-of-box. Unpacked, connected to home network and after checking that it is working I reflashed it with OpenSlug 3.10. So now it runs 2.6.16 kernel (instead of old, hacked 2.4.something) and opensource system (built with OpenEmbedded).

What for I bought it (other then taking space under desk)? I plan to run few services on it:

• NFS server with DL_DIR contents (all sources used by OpenEmbedded builds)
• TFTP server (to server kernels, rootfs images for miscelanous devices on my desk)
• SMB server (music, movies)
• Bluetooth access point for my Neo1973 phones and other devices

Too bad that small embedded PCs are harder to get that such gadgets. I hope that one day I will be able to buy machine which will replace my WiFi AP/router and NSLU2 (NAS, BT AP) in one.

Tags: bluetooth computers free drivers openembedded openmoko wlan wrt54 7 Comments »