Tag Archives: BIOS

Sometimes, Glossing Over The Simplest Things Would Prevent One From Fixing The Problems

4
Posted by on in Anything Goes, Networking

I had built an awesome FreeNAS 8.04 box, but little I knew that this was the beginning of all the problems, and these problems had bugged me for two days straight.  Noticing how I had not updated my blog in two days?  Anyway, it all started with I bought three 3 TB 72000 RPM non-spin down Seagate hard drives, and I installed these three hard drives into an HP Pavilion desktop computer which I had not touched for at least two years.  The HP Pavilion desktop computer has had the spec for making a fine FreeNAS box.  It got 6 GB of DDR2 SDRAM 800 MHz, a quad core, and everything else wasn’t that important in building a FreeNAS box besides the three 3 TB Seagate hard drives I bought for the sole purpose of starting the building of a FreeNAS box.  Before, I had only experienced FreeNAS through virtualization technology (e.g., VirtualBox, VMware, Parallels), and so I had always been eager to start a real FreeNAS box.  It was about time, I guess.  So, it was a breeze for me to install three 3 TB Seagate hard drives into the HP Pavilion desktop computer, and the installation of FreeNAS 8.04 onto a USB flash drive was also just as easy.

With everything was in place before my FreeNAS set sail, I thought man I got this!  Sure, I had it but… Here is the but…  I had forgotten that there was a reason for me not to have played with the HP Pavilion desktop computer all along until now.  Since the day I had this computer off of Windows 7 addiction and I was too lazy to put Windows 7 back on so I could flash the updated BIOS for it, but without a newer BIOS this computer would freeze on reboot or fresh boot — the BIOS could not even get the chance to boot up and the whole computer would freeze at a black screen.  This problem was obviously given me a hard time in putting Windows back on, because 9 out of 10 times, the computer would freeze before the BIOS could even boot, therefore I would not even have the chance to let the computer read the Windows 7 installation disk or USB flash drive.  Luckily, I was persistent and finally got the computer to start the BIOS.  I quickly installed Windows 7 and crossed my fingers that it would allow me to boot into Windows 7 so I could update the BIOS.  This too was a lucky shot, and eventually I had the BIOS updated.

After the BIOS mess was over, I thought now I could use my awesome FreeNAS box with joy.  Such joy was never to last, because I kept on asking myself why on earth it took the Macbook Pro over eight or nine hours just to backup around 10 GB worth of data to FreeNAS AFP ZFS share volume.  This second incident had me pulled my hair and cursed foully.  I should have known better to do the right things first by making sure the basic elements of the problems weren’t the root of the problems.  Instead of such I went on impatiently, fixating on that it had to be FreeNAS problem from the start.  It took so much of my precious time to diagnose FreeNAS box and so on just to find out my last ditch effort was what I should have done from the very beginning.  It was the router’s configuration that had my MacBook Pro sent 1MB worth of data per second.  Considering I’m on a Gigabit network, 1 MB per second worth of data transfer had to be one of the lamest things I had ever seen.  After readjusted the router’s configuration, I was glad to see that even through WiFi, my MacBook Pro was able to send 14 or 15 times faster (i.e., ethernet connection would be much much faster).

The moral of this story is that you have to think it through before you actually embark on fixing things.  Things could be a lot simpler in regarding to fixing computing and networking related matter, but sometimes you might gloss over simple elements and miss the whole show.  I had done just that and it was exhausting.  To end this blog post of mine, I like to end it with a tip in regarding to how one would go about knowing the data transfer speed between one’s computer and a FreeNAS box.  The idea is to use an FTP program like FileZilla and monitoring the upload data rate/speed of a very large file (preferable in Gigabytes) that got transferred from a computer to the FreeNAS FTP volume (i.e., FTP ZFS dataset).

Related articles
About these ads

The Combination of WOL And Splashtop Remote Desktop Enables Travelers To Fully, Remotely Control Their Sleeping Or Hibernating Windows 7 Machines

1
Posted by on in Microsoft and Windows, Networking
All type of IT Support especially Networking, ...

All type of IT Support especially Networking, Operating Systems and Hardware. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By combining WOL (Wake On LAN) and Splashtop Remote Desktop on Windows 7, you will be able to have full control of your sleeping or hibernating Windows 7 computer from afar.  So, what is great about the combination of WOL and Splashtop Remote Desktop?  If you had read my past posts on WOL and Splashtop Remote Desktop, you probably knew that these two things are very limited by themselves.  WOL is very limited, because it can only wake your computer up from a sleep or hibernation but not really capable of anything more.  Splashtop Remote Desktop cannot do what WOL can, but it sure can allow you to remotely control your desktop somewhat.  WOL is not a separate application from an operating system, because it’s a feature that came with most operating system and BIOS by default.  On the other hand, Splashtop Remote Desktop is an application that you must download/buy from its creator and install it onto Windows 7.

The combination of WOL and Splashtop Remote Desktop had saved me more than a few times when I had the need to work with my home computers while I was away from home.  For an example, I wanted to fire up a virtual machine on a home computer, but the home computer was in a deep slumber.  By now you probably wonder why did I even need Splashtop Remote Desktop when I could have had turned on a virtual machine, let the host computer slipped into a slumber (sleep mode) so I could wake the host machine and the virtual machine up at the same time with using WOL only, right?  Well, I tried that, and it wasn’t pretty!  A virtual machine that I worked with for some strange reasons refused to go to sleep and so my host machine (Windows 7) could not come out of a mid point, between going to sleep and staying awake, and so the host machine kept on churning but nothing would work.  This was why I had to use Splashtop Remote Desktop to remotely fire up a virtual machine right after I had used WOL on the Windows 7 computer which acted as the host machine for the virtual machine.  The reverse would be using Splashtop Remote Desktop to power off the virtual machine and put the Windows 7 computer in a sleep or hibernating mode.  This is only one example among many other examples of why I’ve found using WOL and Splashtop Remote Desktop together is quite useful when I’ve to remotely work with my home Windows 7 computers.  I think you might find the combination of WOL and Splashtop Remote Desktop can be quite useful in some other ways that I may never ever will encounter, because everybody uses their computers in different manners.

Splashtop Remote Desktop is the only easiest solution I’ve came to know for remotely controlling a Windows desktop, therefore the combination of Splashtop Remote Desktop and WOL is working rather well for me.  Obviously, setting up WOL on Windows 7 machine can take a little bit of work, but nothing is that complicated that can prevent a normal computer user from enabling WOL.  You can follow my past WOL article’s Wake On LAN Setup For Windows 7 for setting up WOL on your Windows 7 computer.  Setting up Splashtop Remote Desktop is even easier, because all you have to do is to install Splashtop Remote Desktop on the computer that you want to remotely have control of (don’t forget to install Splastop Streamer on the device/computer that will be used as the controller or terminal), enabling few self-explanatory settings and before you know it you already have the ability to remotely control your Windows 7 computer.

Related articles

Wake On LAN Setup For Windows 7

2
Posted by on in Microsoft and Windows, Networking

Feeling the urge to wake up your computer in office or at home remotely so you can either begin to do a remote desktop or transferring of files or whatever?  Most modern operating systems and network cards and BIOS(s) will allow you to do this, but in this very blog post I’m going to show you how to do this specifically for Windows 7 operating system.  Let not beat around the bush any further, because it’ll be awesome if you can get this to work as soon as possible, right?  So check out the instruction right after the break.

  1. Some modern BIOS(s) (Basic Input / Output System) might allow you to enable Wake On LAN (or Remote Wake Up) manually or was enabled by default, but some BIOS(s) might be strict and disallowed users to disable Wake On LAN (or Remote Wake Up), consequently strict BIOS(s) might not even present an option where you can configure Wake On LAN feature within the BIOS.  Every motherboard is different, therefore you might have to check with the motherboard’s manufacturer or just jump right into the BIOS and search for something similar to Wake On LAN or Remote Wake Up and so on.  When you find this feature is enabled by default, you can safely exit the BIOS fast, but if it’s listing as disabled… you have to enable this feature within the BIOS before we can begin to enable subsequent features that are relating to Wake On LAN inside Windows 7 operating system.  In the case you can’t really find this feature available within the BIOS, you can either check your motherboard’s manual or contact the manufacturer of the motherboard for the insight.  Some people might be too lazy to contact their motherboards’ manufacturers, therefore they might cross their fingers and just go ahead enabling the subsequent Wake On LAN’s related features that are to be found inside Windows 7.  Skipping step #1 might work if one has a very modern motherboard, but this isn’t always the case, I think.
  2. After exit the BIOS, you need to boot up Windows 7!  Done boot up Windows 7?
    1. Let us right click on Computer and choose Manage
    2. Inside Computer Management window, choose Device manager on the left panel
    3. Expand the Network adapters and highlight your Ethernet network card — make sure it’s the one that is being used to connect the computer to LAN/WAN.  (From my reading on various sources, wireless network card will not work with Wake On LAN — you can prove this wrong if you dare to try otherwise!)
    4. Right click on the Ethernet network card you highlighted above and choose Properties
    5. Choose Advanced tab
    6. Make sure you choose anything that is resembled Wake Up (something) and WOL (something).  Try to either enable or pick the most appropriate values from the Value boxes for these elements.  Of course, the appropriate values have to make sense in a way that the values somehow allow you to wake up your computer through a magic packet later.
    7. Now, choose the Power Management tab
    8. Make sure you check all boxes within the Power Management tab, especially the one that labels as Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer.
    9. Click OK button at the bottom to exit the configuration window of the Ethernet network card.
  3. Let us now enabling Simple TCPIP Services!
    1. Go to Control Panel
    2. Go to Programs
    3. Go to Turn Windows features on or off
    4. Scroll down till you see Simple TCPIP Services (i.e., echo, daytime etc) and enabling it by check the box next to this label
    5. Click OK button to exit Windows Features window
  4. Let us now start Simple TCPIP Services and make sure it will start automatically whenever Windows 7 boots up
    1. Right click on Computer
    2. Choose Manage
    3. On the left panel of the Computer Management window, expand Services and Applications
    4. Highlight Services
    5. On the right panel of the Compter Management window, you’ll see bunch of services, highlight Simple TCP/IP Services and right click on it and choose Properties
    6. Inside Simple TCP/IP Services Properties (Local Computer) window and under General tab, click Start button to start this service and make sure you choose Startup type as Automatic.  Click OK to exit this window.
  5. The source link I’ve used to write this very blog post suggests that you should open up port 9 of UDP port type for Windows firewall so Wake On LAN can work correctly, but you can ignore this advice if you don’t use Windows firewall.  Some people can skip this step #5 just fine when they use third party firewalls such as Norton’s firewall.
  6. I’m not recommending you to wake up your computer from the Internet for security reason, but sometimes you have to wake up your computer from the Internet so you can work with your computer from afar.  So, in order for you to be able to wake up your computer from the Internet, you must do a port forwarding for port 9 of UDP type to a local computer which has had Wake On LAN enabled.  How do you know which local computer to wake up?
    1. First of all, you need to know the IP address of your network from the outside looking in, and to find this out you can just open up a web browser and go to Google and type in the search phrase/terms of [what's my ip address] — don’t use the square brackets in the Google search box.  Few top links within Google search result page might be able to help you figure out your Internet IP address for your network.  You need this Internet IP address of your network to be able to send a magic packet to your very network (i.e., from Internet to WAN interface and usually this means a router’s Internet IP address or an ISP’s modem/router Internet IP address).  Don’t confuse the Internet IP address with local IP address for each computer that resides within your local area network, OK?  Local IP addresses are usually starting out with 192.168.x.x or 172.16.x.x or 10.x.x.x.  So, your network’s Internet IP address should not start with those values/number-sets that represent the local IP addresses, OK?
    2. Whatever Wake On LAN application or tool or utility you use to either remotely wake up your computer from the Internet or local area network, these tools might want you to enter the local IP address and MAC address of the Ethernet network card of the computer you want to wake up.  How to find these information?  If you have an iPhone, you can use an app which is known as Fing to discover your local network from within (i.e., by connecting your iPhone to a local area network first and then use Fing).  Otherwise, you can also use command prompt utility which comes with Windows 7 by default (inside this command prompt utility, you need to type in the command ipconfig /all and look for the local IP address and MAC address of the Ethernet network card).
  7. Now, we need to test to see if your computer will be able to wake up by a magic packet.
    1. You need to put your Windows 7 computer to sleep now!
    2. Unfortunately, iPhone Fing app’s Wake On LAN feature doesn’t work for me and so I’m not sure you should use Fing to wake up your computer or not, but you can always use iPhone Mocha WOL app to wake up your computer.  iPhone Mocha WOL app works for me!  You might also need to restart your Windows 7 computer at least once before testing out to see if your computer can be wake up by a magic packet through the usage of iPhone Mocha WOL app or whatever Wake On LAN utility/tool.  Unfortunately, I don’t know any tool or application that isn’t iPhone app which can help you test the Wake On LAN feature for your computer.  Nonetheless, you might want to Google to see what tool there is available for the device you want to use to wake up your local computers with Wake On LAN feature.

For your information, turning off NetBIOS will not affect Wake On LAN feature.  I’d my netBIOS disabled, and Wake On LAN feature worked for me anyway!

Sources:

Related articles

Depending On How PC Makers Implement Secure Boot, Users Might Not Know How To Dual Boot Linux Operating Systems Alongside Windows 8

0
Posted by on in Hardware, Linux, Microsoft and Windows, Open Source

Long before Windows 8 ships, PC makers are already implementing new hardware and firmware on upcoming batches of computers so when Windows 8 is ready for the mass, these newer computers will be ready to use Windows 8.  There is a new feature that PC makers could implement which worries open source communities very much, and this feature known as Secure Boot.  Microsoft recommends Secure Boot so hackers won’t be able to install rootkits on systems with Secure Boot enabled easily.  This very same feature can also prevent users from installing unsigned operating systems such as Ubuntu.  Linux communities are worrying how Secure Boot might be too hard to be disabled, and users won’t be able to install various Linux operating systems alongside with Windows 8 easily (i.e., dual boot).  Some users might prefer to install Linux operating systems such as Ubuntu over Windows 8, and without an easy way to disable Secure Boot users won’t be able to do such thing.

Personally, I think Secure Boot is a very good idea.  If it’s true that Secure Boot can prevent hackers to insert rootkits between the firmware and the signed operating systems, then it’s more power to users.  Still, I have to agree with folks who are concerning of the possibility that Secure Boot might be too hard to be disabled.  Let hope they will come to term and make sure that all new computers to be shipped with Secure Boot will have an option somewhere in the BIOS to allow easy disabling of Secure Boot.  I know I will not be happy if I can’t run Linux operating systems alongside with Windows 8 through a method known as dual boot.  Of course, I can always use virtualization to run Linux operating systems within Windows 8, but virtualization is always going to be a lot slower and uglier than dual boot — virtualization can’t allow the virtual machines to use full capacity in term of power of hardware.

Hackintosh users should worry too!

You can read more about Secure Boot through these sources:  http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/10/the-right-to-dual-boot-linux-groups-plead-case-prior-to-windows-8-launch.ars?comments=1#comments-bar, http://blog.canonical.com/2011/10/28/white-paper-secure-boot-impact-on-linux/