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‘PCs & Hardware’ Category

  1. Easiest way to clone a hard drive

    October 6, 2011 by Andrew Block

    I get asked a lot how to “clone” a hard drive, so here’s how. This scenario assumes you want to replace a current HDD in your system with a new one.

    1. Get yourself a SATA/IDE to USB adapter, like this one. It makes this so much easier.
    2. Get yourself a copy of Acronis True Image Home 2012.
    3. Install Acronis True Image Home 2012; reboot.
    4. Plug the new hard drive (the one you want to clone to) into the USB adapter, and connect the adapter to one of your PC’s USB ports.
    5. Make sure your PC recognizes the hard drive attached via USB.
    6. Fire up True Image, then click the “Tools & Utilities” tab. Click “Clone Disk.” The program walks you through the next steps. You may have to reboot to complete the cloning process.
    7. When the cloning process is complete, power down your PC, then remove the old hard drive and put the new hard drive in its place.
    8. Turn your computer back on.
    9. Optional: If you replaced a drive that contains Windows (assuming Vista or 7), your computer may not boot properly. Never fear! Just pop in your Windows disc, and choose startup repair. It should automatically fix the problem.

    And that’s all there is to it. I know this isn’t the free route, but it’s the most painless. I’ll look into posting a free solution if people are interested.

    Category Hard drives, Hardware tips, PCs & Hardware, Tech Tip, Windows, Windows 7 Tips, Windows Vista Tips | Tags: ,, | 2 Comments

  2. Use Apple Airport Extreme to add a second 5 GHz N-only wireless network

    May 30, 2011 by Andrew Block

    I inherited an Apple Airport Extreme from a friend of a friend, but already had a Linksys WRT320N that was working fine (well, after much hair pulling). I was initially going to use the Airport for shared network storage, but that proved too buggy to be of any real use. Since the WRT320N isn’t simultaneous dual-band, I decided to use the Apple to add a second, 5GHz + N only wireless network to my setup. Here’s how my setup looks:

    • WRT320N (running DD-WRT): Handling DHCP; running 5GHz wireless N-only network
    • Airport Extreme: Access Point; running 2.4 GHz N/G mixed network

    Here’s how I did it. First I changed the WRT320N to broadcast 5GHz + N-only, and I appended “-5ghz” to the SSID (so it reads like network-name-5ghz). Only a few of my devices can take advantage of that, but I mostly wanted it for faster wireless gaming on my XBOX 360.

    Then I got the airport up and running as an access point. Here are the key settings to do that. You first need to download and install Apple’s Airport Utility (the latest version is 5.5.2, as of this writing). Once you’ve added the device to your network and the Airport Utility recognizes it, go to Manual Setup, which is a button at the bottom. Note: If you need help with the initial setup, here is Apple’s user guide.

    AirPort section

    • Wireless tab: Create a wireless network here. In my case, I set the Radio Mode to “802.11n (b/g compatible)”. This allows all of my non-N and/or non-5 GHz devices to access a wireless network. I gave it the same name as my 5 GHz network, except I dropped -5ghz off the end.

    Internet section

    • Internet connection tab: Connect Using should be set to “Ethernet” and Connection Sharing should be set to “Off (Bridge Mode)”.
    • TCP/IP tab: I did configure IPv4 “Using DHCP” but you can manually assign an IP address, too (My WRT320N hands out IPs, some of which I make static for port forwarding purposes).

    That’s it! This should allow you to have your Airport Extreme act as an Access Point, and broadcast a second, uniquely-named wireless network. I’ve noticed a significant reduce in lag and latency using 5GHz for XBOX Live, and since the networks are on different frequencies (5GHz vs. 2.4GHz), the signals don’t interfere with each other.

    Note: My iPad and Gateway laptop are the only other devices that can “see” my N 5GHz-only network. A lot of wireless N adapters can only do 2.4 GHz, sadly, so they get relegated to the AirPort’s mixed network.

    Category Apple, Mac OS Tip, Networking tips, Routers, Tech Tip, Windows, Windows 7 Tips, Windows Vista Tips, Windows XP Tips | Tags: ,,,,, | 2 Comments

  3. How I fixed my Linksys WRT320N’s speed issues

    April 7, 2011 by Andrew Block

    I’ve got a Linksys WRT320N. I’ve never really liked it…seems like after a while, the performance of my network always started to degrade, and I always had to reboot the router to get it back to normal.

    So then I thought about getting a new router, but I had (at the time) invested a decent amount of cash for the WRT320N, so I decided to try a custom firmware instead. I ended up going with DD-WRT. Installed fine and was up and running in no time.

    To fix the performance degradation issue, I set the router to reboot automatically every night at 4 a.m. Not the most glamorous solution, but it gets the job done for now. To do that in DD-WRT, I logged in to my router’s IP address, then it’s under Administration > Keep Alive > Schedule Reboot.

    Hey, whatever works right?

    Category Firmware, Networking tips, PCs & Hardware, Routers, Tech Tip | Tags: ,, | No Comments

  4. BIOS update failed on Gateway id49c07u – how to recover from a “bricked” laptop

    January 22, 2011 by Andrew Block

    Update: here is a ZIP of the files I placed on the flash drive, since it seems to be hard to find.

    For some stupid reason (shame on me, really), I decided to Flash the BIOS of my wife’s Gateway id49c07u using Gateway’s Windows-based utility. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the tool crapped out about halfway through the update, and to my horror, the laptop wouldn’t POST after a reboot. I just sat there, with the power button glowing, hard drive button blinking randomly … but doing absolutely nothing.

    I thought I was screwed. A useless chat session with Gateway’s support didn’t change that feeling. There isn’t any documentation from Gateway (that I could find) about this process, and their “support” claims there is no way to recover the BIOS. Heck, maybe they don’t even know about it. Or care about it. One of the two.

    After a while, I calmed down and did what all geeks do – Googled it. After seeing what other people were trying, I attempted a few things. It took me a couple hours to figure out a solution that worked for this particular laptop. Here’s what did the trick for me…obviously this varies from computer to computer (for the curious, it turns out this Gateway has an InsydeH2O UEFI BIOS)

    Anyway, the steps to take to fix the Gateway:

    1. Grab a USB flash drive and make sure it’s formatted with FAT32 (I think FAT16 works too).
    2. Download the latest BIOS from the manufacturer’s website. Typical BIOS files have a .ROM, .FD, or .BIN extension. In my case the key files were “kE3a104a.ROM” and “NELA0x64.FD.”
    3. Copy all needed files to the USB flash drive.
    4. If it’s not already, turn off the laptop.
    5. Unplug it.
    6. Remove the battery.
    7. Insert the flash drive into one of the USB ports.
    8. Hold down Fn and Esc (an often-cited key combination is also Window Key + B, but in my case Fn + Esc was “the one”).
    9. Plug it back in
    10. Power on the laptop (continue holding Fn + Esc).
    11. After 2-3 seconds, release the Fn & Esc keys
    12. The computer should start accessing the flash drive after a bit. Then it will sit there and appear to be doing nothing – just leave it alone. It took about five+ minutes for me.
    13. When it’s done, it should reboot itself and be back to working order. At this point shut it down, put the battery back in, power it back on and…done.

    I was in business at that point, and I just saved a couple hundred dollars because a technician didn’t have to install a new BIOS chip in my laptop – or worse, it could have been a $600 paperweight. Another bonus is: I was saved from certain death at the hands of my wife. It was her laptop I was messing with, after all, which makes my crime all the more heinous.

    So if you’ve got a bricked laptop due to a botched BIOS upgrade, this is definitely worth a shot! With a fragged BIOS update, there isn’t much to lose except a little time … and perhaps a piece of your sanity.

    Some other resources on this topic:

    http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/7033-Insyde-bios-mod-requests.

    http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/13095-Undocumented-INSYDE-BIOS-recovery-method.-Use-andy-s-tool-to-obtain-possible-names.

    Category Laptops, PCs & Hardware, Tech Tip | Tags: ,, | 25 Comments

  5. How much RAM is enough?

    December 26, 2010 by Andrew Block

    Having an excessive amount of system RAM is the computer geek’s equivalent of bragging rights. It’s like buying a 6.1 liter V8 engine when the four-banger would really do just fine. Do you really need all that horsepower? No, but man that car flies when you want it too. It’s pretty satisfying watching a tricked-out Honda get smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror, right?

    The same philosophy doesn’t hold true for system RAM unfortunately. Whereas buying a bigger car engine will typically give you more noticeable power & performance, system RAM’s usefulness drops off pretty quick (BTW, I’m talking about “normal” computer users and gamers here, not universities building cheap supercomputers or anything like that).

    For example, take Mike, who left a comment on another post of mine. He informed me that he’s running 24GB of RAM in his gaming rig (but, he informed me that Crysis is still crashing).

    And here I thought I had a lot with 8GB!

    The latest Steam Hardware Survey shows that most users are running 3GB of RAM. Truthfully, when I switched from 4GB to 8GB, I didn’t notice a thing in any of my games or applications. Even firing up Crysis 64-bit typically results in a gig or two of usage. So 24GB in a gaming rig seems like a lot of electricity being wasted for no good reason.

    So the question is: how much RAM is too much excess just for the sake of excess? How much RAM do you currently run? Any other thoughts or comments on the matter are welcome.

    Oh and if you feel like it, please post your system specs.

    Category Crysis, Gaming, Ramblings & Misc, System Memory (RAM), Windows | Tags: ,,,,, | 3 Comments

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