Dell M90 with dotty graphics

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We’ve had a Dell Precision M90 laptop kicking around here for a fair while now with faulty Quadro FX 2500M graphics output. When the machine is powered on, the laptop’s LCD remains blank although the backlight is obviously powering up. If an external screen is connected, a picture is displayed at the POST screen but it is overlaid / disrupted by strings of what look like dots, commas or exclamation marks.

Since the machine is out of warranty and what we clearly have is a faulty graphics card, the question is now – why?

On extensive searching of the web, it seems that this problem is common to many of Dell’s high-end laptops with discrete GPUs and to date there does not seem to be a solid fix from Dell other than to change the graphics card (which may again fail) and update the machine’s BIOS to alter the fan’s duty cycle in the hope of reducing the thermal load.

This post and selection of comments on popey.com gives a little insight with people who have had warranty exchanges on their Dell laptop graphics cards reporting repeat failures later on. One interesting comment mentions the possibility of the components expanding significantly due to the heat and coming into contact with one-another where they shouldn’t causing an electrical short. Having looking at images and diagrams of the graphics card installation which attaches to a socket in the face of the motherboard, I’d be inclined to agree that it is a possibility.

I will hopefully know more once I have dismantled the M90 and gone fishing inside.

Gitso: Cross-Platform Reverse VNC

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I just came across Gitso on Google Code.

I haven’t tried it yet but it is rather interesting in that it allows reverse VNC connections ie: A client requiring assistances fires up Gitso on their machine and ‘requests’ help from their support service via VNC.

As stated by the project page, this would greatly simplify the process of getting someone connected to offer them support via VNC.

Compaq Presario 2100 RAM Upgrade Procedure

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If you’ve got a slightly older notebook suck as the Compaq/HP Presario 2100 series, you might be feeling that the performance is somewhat lack-luster compared to more modern laptops. There are fewer upgrade options for laptops when compared with desktops but the most obvious upgrade is to increase or even ‘max-out’ the installed RAM.

Thankfully, the procedure for upgrading RAM on the Presario 2100 series is very straight-forward. The RAM bay is located on the underside of the machine and requires only the removal of two screws for access. The model featured here is actually a 2103EA which is a little known/unheard of model which resembles the specification of the 2103EU/2103US. Most of the other 210x models are generally similar.

The Upgrade

First, disconnect the power supply from the system. Then remove the battery by pulling up on the battery release catch while pulling on the battery itself as shown below.

Locate the RAM bay which is on the base of the machine underneath the touchpad. Using a fine Philips (cross-head) screw-driver, undo the two screws on this panel. Note that the screws are ‘captive’ and will not come all the way out (Top marks to Compaq/HP on this feature!). Only unscrew them enough to release the panel.

The panel then lifts up from the edge containing the screws and slides out of the locating lugs at the other end.

You will now see the two SO-DIMM RAM slots (one populated here). Insert your new SO-DIMM into the available slot(s) making sure to match the locator ‘key’ to the raised locator in the slot itself. This prevents reverse installation of the RAM. The RAM just pushes down until the two retaining clips at the outside edge clip it into place, holding it flat. In order to remove a SO-DIMM module, simply push the two clips outward and the module will spring up.

To finalise the job, replace the RAM bay cover and refasten the retaining screws. Reinsert the battery and reconnect the power supply.

On powering your machine up again, you can hit F2 during the POST and enter the BIOS config. On the first page, you should see the installed RAM figure. This will be less than the installed amount depending on how much is given over to (shared)video memory. The video memory amount is also displayed here and can be adjusted.

Hopefully, when you boot into your OS of choice, you should see an improvement in performance. RAM is relatively cheap in Europe and the USA right now so it’s probably the best time to purchase this kind of upgrade.

Maximum amount of installable RAM for Presario 2100 Series

To the best of my knowledge, the 2100 series laptops ‘max-out’ at 1GB of RAM due to each of the two banks being limited to 512MB by the 320M chipset on the motherboard.

The original SO-DIMM modules were apparently PC2100 units but I’ve now installed PC2700 units with no ill-effect. The PC2700 RAM simply runs at the lower PC2100 speed.

I strongly recommend searching for RAM specifically designed for your system. I used Offtek UK who supplied me with a Buffalo PC2700 512MB module for around £12 delivered.

Always check with the supplier that the RAM you are ordering matches your laptop (some laptops can be extremely picky about which modules they will work with.

Disclaimer: The above may be incomplete or inaccurate; attempt entirely at your own risk! 😉

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Morex T3310 + Epia EX1000 + Mythbuntu

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I first set up a MythTV system for my relatives a few years ago (at MythTV 0.19 IIRC) as a research system and soak-testing platform (you can’t beat free R&D testers). MythTV at the moment is great if you’ve got a technician available on call to support it but I couldn’t see myself deploying it to a customer yet. After all, MythTV at 0.21 is still billed as Alpha software and it would be rather silly to operationally deploy Alpha software 😉 The MythTV system consisted of a P4 based backend server with DVB encoder cards and a frontend machine in the lounge. Originally it ran on a SuSE based platform but this later changed to Ubuntu and then Mythbuntu based by the time 0.21 came around.

The original frontend was built on a Biostar barebones system which was styled as a ‘shuttle’ PC. Unfortunately, while not all that loud, the combination of cooling fan and disk drive sound was perhaps a bit much for quiet living-room TV watching situation. Further, being a ‘full-size’ AMD Sempron based system with a 3.5″ IDE hard drive for the operating system and Geforce 5600 video, it was a bit power-hungry by modern standards. I’d have estimated that it would be drawing around 140 Watts in operation.

To remedy the situation, I first tried to convince my relatives that watching television would only rot their brains and that they should find an alternative pastime but to no avail. Instead I had to come up with a solution to replace the Biostar box.

I decided to go with a Mini-ITX solution and sourced a B-stock Epia EX1000 from ebay. The EX1000 is a fanless Mini-ITX board from VIA with a 1Ghz C7 processor and a CX700 chipset.

Obviously, a fanless motherboard would want a fanless case to go with it and after a bit of deliberation, I sourced a Morex T3310 from Lin-ITX in the UK. The Morex T3310 is based upon the earlier Morex T3300 which did have a fan. To facilitate fanless cooling on the T3310, large vents are cut in the sides and top of the case. The integrated 60W (12v supply) PSU sits uppermost in the case so heat rising from it leaves through the top vent without causing undue heating to the motherboard below.

Getting the case apart to fit the motherboard is a *little* tricky so I’ve documented it here. I must apologise for the quality of the pictures, I hadn’t intended to photograph the process and used the wrong camera settings.

Firstly, the plastic front panel which shrouds the USB ports and power/HDD LEDs must be removed. While the plastic isn’t unusually flimsy, you’ll want to take a bit of care during removal. Use only your fingers, do not attempt to force the panel off with tools.

Lever gently at either end to release the clips.

There is a third clip in between the two outer clips and adjacent to USB ports. This should come away when the nearest out clip is released.

The correct side of the case must now be unscrewed. This is helpfully referred to as the ‘left’ side of the case in the Morex instructions which fail to give a reference of looking from the front or back. As it happens you can identify the correct side to remove by looking through the meshes and finding the side which has the 2.5″ HDD carrier plate nearest it.

You only need to unscrew the two screws on this side. With the two screws out, you carefully pull the two sides apart from the bottom (screw end) of the case, the upper edges will then unclip from each other too.

This should leave you with the case open and ready to accept your mini-itx board.

Continue reading →

Waking up USB ports on Ubuntu Hardy

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Here is another one of my ‘reminder-to-self’ fixes for my Ubuntu 8.04 machines.

I’ve installed Hardy on a good few machines now including Intel C2D/Nvidia chipset desktops and various laptops and discovered that, to my delight, the machines will go in and out of S3 suspend (suspend to ram) in just a few seconds.

There was just one problem which seemed universal though; the USB ports were not reinitializing correctly. It seemed that although the +5v power was coming back, they weren’t being polled for devices or data.

I stumbled across a partial solution by typing lsusb (in an attempt to poll connected devices). Sure enough, the USB data communication came back to life and I was able to use my devices as normal. Obviously, all I needed now was a way to make this happen automatically when the machine comes back out of S3.

User aidave on this post at ubuntuforums came up with a quick bit of hackery to make this happen which I have adapted here:

Fire up a terminal and issue:

cd /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d
sudo touch 98usb
sudo chmod +x 98usb
sudo nano 98usb

You should now have a blank file open in nano (in the console)

Cut and paste the following into nano:

#!/bin/sh

case “$1” in
resume|thaw)
lsusb
;;
*)
;;
esac

It doesn’t fix the issue directly but it qulifies as a work around in that it wakes up the usb ports by polling the with the lsusb command as the machine resumes from ACPI S3 suspend.

Hopefully there will be a proper fix for the issue in a future Ubuntu Hardy patch.

Brother HL 5030 (and others) drum counter reset

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As much for the benefit of my own memory as for yours, I briefly detail here the drum counter reset procedure for the Brother HL 5030 laser printer (and probably most of the HL 5xxx range).

The HL 5030 has an internal counter which basically registers pages printed (apparently with weighting for cold and hot starts). This counter can be reset when replacing a drum or if you just want to run your existing drum into the ground (the HL 5030 is an older model now).

Counter Reset Procedure.

  1. Power on (Drum light should be flashing).
  2. Open the toner cartridge access door (big door on the front).
  3. Remove the toner cartridge by pulling on it.
  4. Reinsert the toner cartridge (give it a good shove).
  5. Press and hold the ‘GO’ button for about four seconds. The led indicators should come on one-by-one in amber. Once they are all on, release the ‘GO’ button.
  6. Close the toner cartridge access door.

The reset procedure is now complete.

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