Technically minded Weblog

Ordered myself a USB 3.0 expansion card and a 500GB 2.5″ USB 3.0 external hard disk.
From the benchmarks, USB 3.0 looks at least 3x faster when it comes to external hard disks (70-80 MB/s vs 20-30 MB/s for a 2.5″ drive).

USB 3.0 hasn’t hit the mainstream yet.
But there are already USB 3.0 flash drives, external HDDs and external HDD boxes available. USB 3.0 will definitely replace USB 2.0, probably just like 2.0 replaced 1.0.

Will update the blog when my new hardware arrives.

At last I’ve found some time to update my blog.

A week ago, I got two laptops for repair.
Laptop 1 was a custom build based on Asus board. It had a Core Duo CPU with ATI video (pre HD Radeon) This one was stone dead. Even running with only RAM and CPU did not work.
The strange thing is that the CPU was getting hot as if the system was working but there was no disk activity and the screen was blank.
Either way, I did not bother trying to repair this system. My suspicions are that either the processor or the mainboard is toast and the system is not worth fixing.

Laptop 2 was a Dell Latitude D620.
This one was semi-working but had video problems. The system did work and boot (there was disk activity) but the screen was blank.
I’ve managed to get the video to work (sort of) by using an external monitor but the video was corrupted (Windows XP boot screen was all messed up. Even the BIOS setup screen was slightly corrupted).
Then I’ve tried disconnecting the external monitor and the internal screen suddenly started working but the video was unstable (the screen was turning itself on and off like crazy)
and had artifacts. After some time the video stopped working at all (both external and internal monitors).

It seems this is a common problem with some laptops. The graphics chip (mostly nVidia chips) BGA (ball grid array) soldering cracks and stops making contact.
The system still works (sort of) but the video is dead or unstable.
This problem can be fixed by replacing the graphics chip but it is usually not worth it because this requires special tools for working with BGA chips and, of course, a new graphics chip which is expensive.

The owner has asked me to backup all data on the hard disk. Fortunately, the HDD was SATA so I have connected it to one of my desktop systems and backed up all data to DVDs.
After the backup was complete, I’ve returned the system and backup DVDs to the system owner.

This ends today’s story.

Yesterday, I was trying to fix a P4 era IBM desktop.
This one has a P4 3Ghz HT CPU, 768MB RAM (512MB + 256MB upgrade), some AGP video card, 2 hard disks (one SATA and one IDE) and 2 optical drives. The motherboard is some IBM rebranded Intel (Foxconn) board.
The case and PSU are proprietary (but PSU uses a standard ATX plug). PSU is Hipro 230W (?) with a dead fan.

Now the problem:
The title says it all. The system is stone dead. It does nothing except turning on and off. Tried clearing CMOS, running with a different PSU, swapping video cards, running on integrated VGA, running with only one RAM module, running without any RAM at all (no beeps).
This system does not show any signs of life. No beeps and nothing on display. The hardware shutdown (hold power button for a few seconds) works though. I suspect that the BIOS might be corrupt (and there’s no way to restore it because the BIOS chip is soldered in). Too bad I don’t have a POST card…

None of my s478 boards fit in this proprietary IBM case so I cannot just rebuild the PC using one of my s478 boards.
So this system is probably good for parts only (CPU, RAM, VGA, HDDs, etc.) unless the system owner would find a compatible board that would fit.

The title says it all. Fixing yet another PC.
This time, it’s a P3 era PC with a 1 Ghz Celeron Coppermine cD0
But the PC is in a really bad condition. I’ve had to do a nearly complete rebuild to return this system to a working state.
1. Motherboard (branded Manli) had some bad capacitors near CPU socket (8 identical caps, one leaking)
2. The system had a really crappy power supply (very light and specs overrated)
3. One of 2 PCI133 RAM modules was bad
4. (on the software side) Windows install was corrupted (not even safe mode worked)

Here’s what I did:
1. Replaced the motherboard with Intel D815EEA (nearly a complete system rebuild)
2. Replaced the bad Samsung 256MB RAM module with 256MB Micron (Nanya OEM)
3. Replaced the power supply with a 350W Codegen I had laying around (not the best PSU, but much better than the one it replaced)
4. Added another hard drive (a ye olde Samsung 10GB)
5. Reinstalled XP

Now, some more details.
I could not install XP on this system. The setup always stopped with “Could not copy file x” or “File x was not copied correcly”. Attempting to retry the file copy had no effect or resulted in some random BSOD. Sometimes, the setup would just crash with a BSOD during file copy.
I’ve tried using my UBCD to scan the hard disk, but WinPE always crashed with some BSOD soon after booting to desktop.
I’ve spent a few hours trying to figure out what was wrong. It turned out that one of the RAM modules was bad (the system had one Samsung 256MB module and one 128MB RAM module branded Exram, 256MB Samsung was bad).
Replacing it with a 256MB Micron solved the problem.

Now I need to:
1. Install all the needed software (Office suite, media players, video codecs, etc.)
2. Restore the owner’s old data from a HDD backup.

I hope I will have no more problems with this system.

I’m planning to get a USB NAS adapter with some additional features.
It has a built in Print Server, Samba server, FTP server, DHCP server and a BitTorrent client. That’s impressive, for a credit-card sized device ! The price is really good too.

I will probably use this device to host my files on the net via FTP server. This will enable me to save power, as I won’t have to use my secondary PC for file hosting. Now I have to keep the secondary PC on all the time for my files to be available online. That uses a lot of power and increases my electric bill.
This device would also enable me to get rid of my 3rd system (Athlon 2600 based PC with 1 GB RAM and Radeon 9550 Video) and replace it with my current secondary system (Athlon II 240, 2GB RAM, HD4670).

It’s still only a plan though.

P.S.: The NAS device is Addonics NAS2XU2.

P.S. 2: WP 3.0 came out. I will need to update my WP installation someday.

Got 2 more free systems a few days ago.
Both are S478 (P4) systems.

System1:
An early P4 system.
It looks like this PC was a victim of some really noobish PC tech.
There was an (unsecured) AMD (!) heatsink which fell off the CPU (perhaps the tech used thermal paste as glue ?).
There were two hard disks. One 30GB Maxtor and a 20 GB Seagate.
Maxtor drive was working but damaged (bad sectors, maybe the drive was dropped ?). 20GB Seagate was OK.
There were 2 optical drives, both secured only with 2 screws (same story with Seagate HDD). One CD-RW and one DVD-RW. Both drives are Lite-On
Now, for the specs:
MB: Some unknown, Intel Chipset, no LAN (but PC has a PCI NIC installed)
CPU: P4 1.4Ghz
RAM: There was no ram installed (MB uses DDR RAM)
HDD: 20GB Seagate Barracuda ATA IV, Maxtor 30GB (with bad sectors)
VGA: Some Geforce 2 card
PSU: Codegen 350W (has PPFC. Looks usable to me. Modded with 3.3V 5V plug)
Case: Minitower, incomplete (missing side cover).

System2:
Very nicely built P4-era system (except for the PSU).
The spcecs:
MB: Gigabyte GA-8ST800 (SiS 645DX chipset, no LAN, supports P4 HT. Uses Japanese capacitors.)
CPU: Celeron 2.0Ghz
RAM: 256MB DDR-333
HDD: 40GB Samsung (tested, working)
VGA: Some Geforce 4 MX
PSU: 300W Generic/NoName (very light, no PFC. I think I will toss it)
Case: Midi ATX case, Missing side cover.

There’s also a Samsung DVD-RW installed.

Did not have time to test any of these systems yet. Only tested the hard disks.

Got some free hardware today.
A complete and working P4 class PC. The specs are:
Case: some generic, branded “Magnus”
MB: ECS P4VMM2 (S478)
CPU: Celeron 1.7Ghz
RAM: DDR333 256MB
HDD: Samsung 20GB
VGA: Integrated S3 (there’s an AGP slot, but it’s unused).
PSU: Micase 350W (Not +12V based but has a P4 plug. Has PPFC.)
There’s also some optical drive.
I’ve also got a working Samsung CRT monitor, a keyboard and stereo speakers.

I’ve removed the HDD and re-formated it for later use. I’ve also replaced the CPU with P4 Northwood 2.4Ghz which I had laying around in my hardware collection. Tested, everything worked fine (will need to install XP for further testing).
For VGA, I will remove a Radeon 9200 from my ye olde Celeron 600Mhz (Coppermine) based PC.
Now, I’ll need to get some more RAM as XP is a bit too slow with only 256MB.

OK,I need to go to sleep now. Will continue with that PC tomorrow.