• Windows 8 Pro x86 and Media Center Pack on Acer Idea 510 – successful

    As the upgrade of my Acer iDea 510 with Windows 8 x64 and the MCE feature pack failed (See here) as well as using XBMCbuntun (See here), mainly due to issue with drivers, I have decided to give a try to Windows 8 x86.

    And now, the result is really great – the HD video is playing very well and standby mode is back! The only tricky part was to force the installation of Nvidia Video Drivers for Vista on Windows 8.

    Click to Read More

    First, I did install Windows 8 pro x86.

    Notice that during the installation, I did check the option to automatically activate Windows.

    Next, for the Software part: I did install the Media Center feature Pack:

    • On this page, request a free licence for this pack (Offer limited until 31 jan 2013).
    • On the Start Screen, type “add features” to select “Add Features to Windows 8”.
    • In the “Add Features to Windows 8” window, select “I already have a product key” and enter the free key got previously for the MCE pack.
    • Notice that once MCE installed, the “Add Features” is not available anymore in Windows…
    • Configure MCE

    After that, I didn’t experience the same issue (licence not valid for activation) as I did when testing Windows 8 x64. I means that I most probably skipped a step during the first time ? Possibly I did install the MCE pack before the activation of Windows ?!

    • Start a Windows Update and install Microsoft .Net 3.5 (required for the next step)
    • Install and configure the latest version of Media Browser (.Net 3.5 is a prerequisite)
    At that time, I noticed that MCE was reacting very slowly and not displaying smoothly movies… Just like during my tests with Windows 8 x64… To solve this, I really had to install video drivers specific for Acer iDea 510’s graphic card: a NVidia GeForce Go 7600.
    • Drivers for the GeForce Go 7600 compatible with Vista or Windows 7 should theoretically run fine on Windows 8. But unfortunately, the setup usually refuses to install those drivers because they don’t officially target this OS. It’s only due to information configured in the .inf file used by windows to install the drivers. It means that we can reconfigure those settings to become “compatible” with Windows 8.
      • Download the drivers (self-extracting exe named “18070_vista.exe”) and the adapted .inf file (named “nv_disp.inf”) separately from the bottom of this  page http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers/vista/180.70/disclaimer/
      • Those are unofficial drivers and not WHQL certified.
      • Audio via HDMI is not supported by these version of the drivers. You need an older version (See replies bellow this post).
      • Once the drivers and the .inf file downloaded, extract the self-extracting package (exe file) and move nv_disp.inf into the extracted folder (“180.70_vista”).
      • Run the setup.exe and don’t be afraid if you see that it’s for Vista.
      • Once installed, reboot the system. You will clearly see the difference (the resolution will be much higher – 1920×1080 instead of 1024×768 – and MCE   runs now much faster).
    • The issue mentioned above does not exist anymore with Windows 8.1. For that version of Windows, a version 307.68 of the NVIDIA Drivers is downloaded automatically when updating the drivers. It works fine except that there is no sound via HDMI (although there is an option “Set up Digital Audio” in the NVIDIA control panel to enable it !). If you don’t have an optical connection and need the sound to go through HDMI, you will need to downgrade the drivers to 173.90. But that one comes with other issues, much more annoying… (See in the replies)
    • Install K-Lite codecs to be able to play HD movies (mkv)
    • Configure the codes to play French audio by default
      • Go to C:\Program Files\K-Lite Codec Pack\Tools and run CodecTweakTool.exe
      • Under configuration, select DirectShow Filter
        • Click Haali Media Splitter > Options tab > Languages > Audio Language Priority > enter “fre” (the three letters of French). Click Ok.
        • Click LAV Splitter > enter “fre” in both “Audio” and “Subtitle” and select “Only forced Subtitle”. Click Ok.
        • Click LAV Video Decoder. In Hardware Acceleration, select XDVA2 and check the two options H.264 and MPEG-2.
    • Disable UAC (reboot required to become effective)
    • Disable Firewall for private network
    • Enable Remote Desktop:
      • On the Start Screen type “system”, click on “Settings” and select “System” in the results.
      • Click on “Remote Settings”
      • Enable “Allow remote connections to this computer”
    • Configure the Speakers 5.1
      • Right click the speaker in the sys-tray and select “Playback Device”
      • At the bottom of the tab “Payback”, click on “Configure”
      • Select the second 5.1 in the list of “Audio Channels” (with 2 speakers on the back).
    • Create a new user with MCE instead of the windows shell
      • Create a new standard user “Media Center” without password
        • On the start screen, type “Create User” and select Settings
        • In the list of results, click on “Create Standard User Account”
        • Select “Add a new user in PC settings”
        • Under “Other Users”, click on “Add a User”
        • At the bottom of the page, click on “Sign in without a Microsoft Account”
        • At the bottom of the page, click on “Local Account”
        • Enter the name “Media Center”, nothing else (no password) and click Next.
      • Change the picture of the user “MediaCenter”
        • Go back to the Start Screen (Ctrl + Esc)
        • Click on your account in the top-right corner and select “MediaCenter”
        • Wait while Windows prepare the PC for this user.
        • Once on MediaCenter’s Start Screen, open IE and find a nice picture, right click on it and save it in the picture library.
        • Go back to the Start Screen and click on MediaCenter’s account in the top-right corner to select “Change Account Picture”
        • In “PC Settings/Personalize/Account Picture”, select Browse and pick the picture from the libraby
      • Possibly: enable Room Correction in the Speakers Properties\Enhancement… (microphone required )
      • Configure MCE Media Library and the Screen Saver
        • Run MCE
        • Go to the Tasks > Settings
        • Select Media Libraries and configure them
          • E.g.: Add the “Pictures” folder of the NAS. This one must be either public or the user “MediaCenter” must be granted access via the NAS user management UI.
        • Go back to Tasks > Settings
        • Select Pictures
        • Select Slide Show Screen Saver
          • Check that the option “Play my favorite pictures …” is enabled
          • Set the delay before starting the Screen Saver
          • Save
        • Select Favorite Pictures
          • Select Use All Pictures (Or anything more relevant)
      • Sign-out (Via the Start Screen, right click the account in the top-right corner, …)
      • Replace the Shell Explorer (explorer.exe) of MediaCenter with MCE (ehshell.exe)
        • Log in as an administrator
        • On the Start Screen of the administrator, type mmc and select mmc.exe in the list of results
        • Type Ctrl+M to Add a Snap-in
        • Select “Group Policy Object”
        • Click Add.
        • In the new window, click Browse
        • in the new window, open the “User” tab and select “MediaCenter”.
        • Then click Ok, Finish and Ok.
        • Back into mmc, select in the left pane: Console Root > Local Computer\MediaCenter Policy > User configuration > Administrative Templates > System
        • In the right pane, double-click on “Custom User Interface”
        • In the new window, check “enable”
        • Under the Options, type in the field “Interface file name”: %windir%\ehome\ehshell.exe /mediamode
        •  Switch to the user MediaCenter for testing purpose!

    Here is the list of MCE switches (most of them provided by Andrew Cherry and Missing Remote) that can be used as on the command line ehshell.exe

    • /nostartupanimation – disables the startup animation
    • /noshutdownui – removes the shutdown item from Tasks
    • /mediamode – start in “media only mode” with no minimize/close buttons (use F4 to quit MCE)
    • /widescreen – force widescreen mode
    • /directmedia:general – force full screen
    • /directmedia:video – force full screen and navigate to the video library 
    • /nochrome – launch windowed mode without the containing window
    • /playallmusic – Play all music at startup
    • /playfavmusic – Play favorite music at startup
    • /playfavslideshow – Play favorite slideshow at startup
    • /playfavslideshowwithmusic – Same as above with music
    • /playslideshow – Play all slideshows
    • /playslideshowwithmusic – Same as above with music
    • /screensaver – Start media center in screensaver mode
    • /configuress – Start media center at configuring screen saver menu

    Multiple switches can be enabled by entering multiple switches separated with a space in the target input.

    Finally, from the hardware point of view, notice that:

    • The remote control is working fine
    • WiFi and Ethernet connection are working fine
    • Ethernet NIC is configure to allow WOL
    • The front Digital Display is  recognized by Windows 8 but not displaying anything else that “Welcome To Aspire IDEA.
      • I did try to install the drivers from Acer web site (named “VFD Transcoder Driver 1.01.01.zip”) successfully, but it didn’t fix anything. I am not surprised as this display was already not working with Windows 7
    • Drivers are missing for the 2 Multimedia Video Controllers devices (See previous try with Windows 8 x64)
      • I did install the drivers from Acer web site (named “MPC718_install_V6_13_32_1026_Oscar.msi”) and those devices were recognized without any issue.
    • Standby mode works out of the box (nothing to fine tune in Windows) with the remote control.
      • I didn’t change the BIOS settings since my first try with Windows 8 x64.
    • Wake-up on Lan works out of the box (nothing to fine tune in Windows) if the shutdown was initiated from MCE (or XBMC – see here after). If the shutdown is done from the Start Screen, WOL does not work!!!
      • I didn’t change the BIOS settings since my first try with Windows 8 x64.
      • The difference in support for WOL or not depending on where the shutdown is initiated is explained here: In Windows 8, the default shutdown behavior puts the system into hybrid shutdown (S4) and all devices are put into D3. Remote Wake-On-LAN from hybrid shutdown (S4) or classic shutdown (S5) is unsupported.
      • Indeed, a boot after a default shutdown is fast. On the opposite, a boot after MCE/XBMC’s shutdown is clearly much slower.
      • As I don’t car about slow boot on this PC (which is usually in sleep mode anyway), I did disable the hybrid shutdown (S4) a.k.a “Fast Startup” :
        1. On the Start Scren type “Power” and select “Settings”.
        2. Click on “Change what the power buttons do” in the list of results.
        3. Click on “Change settings that are currently unavailable” if UAC is not disabled
        4. Uncheck “Turn on fast startup (recommended)”
        5. Select “Save Settings” and test a shutdown/WOL. It works !
    Notes:
    1. After booting the PC, windows automatically re-log in with the last account (if this one has a blank password)  (I didn’t configure that?!)
    2. The “Restart” feature doesn’t work. The PC shutdowns but does neither power off nor reboot… This seems to be due to the video drivers as the PC restarts fine with other drivers (but with those, the PC didn’t stay in standby mode. It was waking up immediately).
    3. XBMC 12 runs quite fine on Windows 8 pro too.
      • Sound 5.1 is supported as soon as Speakers are configured in 5.1 in Windows (The sound is really well improved compare to the sound provided by MCE…)
      • Watching movies and listening music from Synology using UPnp works very well (first time, indexing is required…)
      • Remote Control MCE is quite well supported too. A Hard Reset is required (pressing the power button on the Acer for a few seconds)
      • WOL works fine after either an Hibernate or a Power Off (Even without disabling “Fast Startup” in the “Power Options”).

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  • Easy Remote Access from Anywhere: TeamViewer

    TeamViewer is my favorite free application (for non-commercial use) to remotely access my PC and home servers from anywhere (I.e.: Internet).

    Click to Read More

    To access my PC and servers using Remote Desktop, I should define one port forwarding per machine on my router and configure Remote Desktop on each machine to listen on “its” port. Next, I should be able to remind the ports used for each machine – or create bookmarks – or … I could possibly use the “Anywhere Access” feature of Server 2012 Essentials, but it requires to setup a domain, buy and install a SSL certificates, etc…

    With TeamViewer, instead, I log onto there website with my account and see a list of my machines. I simply click on a machine in the list, “et voilà”… from a single location, easy to remember, I can get remote access to the desktop of any PC at home or transfer any files from those. Even better, it supports remote desktop on PC with mutliple screens. And finally, I can also print any documents from my home machines on the printer next to me (e.g.: at the office).

    For sure, the machine to be accessed must be up and running and TeamViewer must have been previously installed and configured to authorize unattended remote access (with a password).

    To be noticed: TeamViewer may not be installed without a licence on a Windows Server. A Server is assumed to be for “commercial” use. That’s a pity as Windows Home Server is clearly a Server for personal use only… If you try to install it, it will not let you choose the “free-flavor” setup… Interesting to note however: “Ninite“, which is a free software used to silently download, install and update softwares, is actually able to setup TeamViewer on Servers too, in the free-flavor (the only inconvenient is that TeamViewer does not appear on the Start Screen and is not searchable from the Charm Bar.

    To setup TeamViewer as a System Service:

    1. Run “TeamViewer.exe”, 
    2. Go to Extras > Options > General Tab,
    3. Enter a  Display Name
    4. Check the option – Start TeamViewer with Windows
    5. Enter a Password & confirm it
    6. Select the option – Accept incoming LAN connections

    Download: http://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/windows.aspx

    To remotely access files on one of my machines, without taking remote control of it, I could use the SkyDrive App. Maybe to be tested later…

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  • Change Windows Product Key before activation

    Here is two command lines to change a Windows product key (Vista,  7 or  8) and activate Windows. They must be executed in a Command Prompt “Run As Administrator”.

    1. To set a product key, run “slmgr.vbs -ipk <your product key>”
      • Ex.: slmgr.vbs -ipk 00000-00000-00000-00000-00000
    2. To activate windows after changing the key, run “slmgr.vbs -ato”

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  • Boot XMBCbuntu (XBMC Live) from a USB Key for testing purpose on Acer iDea 510

    The purpose: try if XBMC is compatible with the hardware of a PC before doing a full installation.

    Tested on my Acer iDea 510 with success. Works quite well and could replace Windows 8 Pro with the Media Center Pack !

    Click to Read More

    • Download Linux Live USB Creator, a.k.a. Lili, to create a bootable USB Key with a linux (Could also try Unetbootin USB Creator ?…).
    • Download an ISO of XBMCbuntu from here.
      • Version 12 RC 3 of XMBCbuntu is not yet supported by Lili. In addition this version does not include DXVA support yet…
      • To boot another linux, for any purpose, download an ISO for i386 compatible with Lili (When using UNetbootin downloads itself the selected Linux image).
    • Create the bootable USB Key following the how-to.
      1. Choose a USB flash drive in the dropdown list.
      2. Select the ISO of XBMCbuntu downloaded previously.
      3. Choose the size of persistent data (usually between 250 MB and 2 GB).
      4. Check all the options.
      5. Click the lightning button to start the creation.

    Tested on an HTPC Acer iDea 510:

    • First try failed. It stops with “load fallback graphics devices [Fail]”
    • Fix:
      1. Open the file syslinux\txt.cfg
      2. Search and Replace “quiet splash” with “quiet splash vmalloc=256M”
    • Second try: great !!! There is much less “lag” than in Windows 8 Pro + Media Center Pack
    • The remote control works fine so far. Including Shutdown (power-off).
    • Configuring the System to use Suspend instead of Shutdown works fine only once.
      • Suspend is really immediate (less than 1 sec).
      • However, I didn’t find yet how to configure the remote to wake-up the HTPC.
      • Pressing the power button on the HTPC wakes up XBMC is less than 2 sec
      • Trying again to Suspend the HTPC will result in a black screen with the cursor blinking… A hard reboot is required 🙁
    • During the use of XBMC, I was able to play HD movies from a SMB Shared Folder of my Synology.
    • Sound plays in 2.0 (stereo), also for movies in 5.1 (with downmix), but default volume is really low compared to the default volume in Windows 8. Within XBMC, I have to boost the Volume Amplification. So it’s not the best possible sound.
    • Sound doesn’t play correctly at all in 5.1 (although I have a 5.1 system and the movie is in DTS 5.1) ?!
    • I didn’t succeed yet to view any movie using UPnP. I can configure such a source, but don’t see any list of movies in that source ? (To be investigated)
    • During the shutdown, I noticed an error “Killing all remaining process [Fail]”. When shutdown is initiated from the remote control, XMBCbuntu asks to press enter to power-off after the error message here above.
    I am not 100% convinced at all that it will be a good choice to run on the Acer iDea 510 instead of Windows 7 and MCE…

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  • Windows 8 Pro x64 and Media Center Pack on Acer Idea 510 – failed

    I have decided to upgrade my Acer iDea 510 with Windows 8 x64 and the MCE feature pack… As often I like trying to improve things which works quite well especially if there is a risk that it does not work as well after 😀

    And indeed, the result is great – the HD video does not play well anymore, Standby is not working. I have to find an alternative or go back to Windows 7 with MCE 🙁

    Click to Read More

    First, I did install Windows 8 pro x64. Most probably a double mistake as I guess I won’t find all required drivers for this Acer iDea under Windows 8 and even less for a x64 platform…

    Notice that during the installation, I did check the option to automatically activate Windows.

    Next, for the Software part: I did install the Media Center feature Pack:

    • On this page, request a free licence for this pack (Offer limited until 31 jan 2013).
    • On the Start Screen, type “add features” to select “Add Features to Windows 8”.
    • In the “Add Features to Windows 8” window, select “I already have a product key” and enter the free key got previously for the MCE pack.
    • Notice that once MCE installed, the “Add Features” is not available anymore in Windows…
    • Configure MCE

    After that, the first issue arrived: Windows 8 started to pretend its licence was not valid for an activation. I did try to retype my key without success (That was yesterday). However, today, after a reboot, it appeared that Windows 8 was again activated ?!

    • Start a Windows Update and install Microsoft .Net 3.5 (required for the next step)
    • Install and configure the latest version of Media Browser (which is the best free add-in I found to manage a video library (.Net 3.5 is a prerequisite)
    At that time, I noticed that MCE was reacting very slowly and not displaying smoothly movies… Maybe because the Media Browser service was indexing my content?
    • Install Win8Codecs for x64. (Usually, I don’t use a pack but will give a try to this one today).
    • Disable UAC (and reboot)
    • Disable Firewall for private network
    • Enable Remote Desktop:
      • On the Start Screen type “system”, click on “Settings” and select “System” in the results.
      • Click on “Remote Settings”
      • Enable “Allow remote connections to this computer”

    One day later,  MCE is still  very slowly and not fluent at all… 🙁 I may only presume that the problem is with the display drivers… When I try to navigate to play a movie, I can clearly ear the fan speed going crazy ?! The PC appears not capable of playing HD movies… it’s tooooo slow within MCE. The sound is ok but the display not at all… Also Media Player Home Cinema is not succeeding the play correctly HD movies… I think I will have to look for codecs with support for hardware acceleration and adhoc display drivers…

    Finally, from the hardware point of view:

    • The remote control is working fine
    • WiFi and Ethernet connection are working fine
    • Ethernet NIC is configure to allow WOL
    • The front Digital Display is  recognized by Windows 8 but not displaying anything else that “Welcome To Aspire IDEA).
    • Drivers are missing for 3 devices (PCI devices database available here – how to here – and Microsoft catalog to search drivers is available here).
      • 2 Multimedia Video Controllers with Device Instance Path “PCI VEN_14F1 DEV_5B7A SUBSYS_5B7914F1 REV_00\4 197A8245 0 08F0” and “PCI VEN_14F1 DEV_5B7A SUBSYS_071812AB REV_00\4 197A8245 0 00F0”. Those are the “TV Tuner Yuan MPC718 Hybrid HW encoder with FM”
        • I don’t care about those for now as they are most probably for TV input and I may not used them anyway. The signal is encoded by my TV provider which does not provide any decoding software)
      • Another one not identified but related to ACPI with a device path “ACPI\AWY0001\2 DABA3FF 1” and a hardware ID “ACPI\AWY0001”, I found it was used for the “Away Mode System” and required “Intel QRT Driver” (Quick Resume Technology).
        • the Intel QRT Driver 1.6 for Vista to be found on Acer Support site works fine. Once unzip in a folder of the PC, go to the Start Screen, type “Device Manager” and start this manager. Select the “Unknow Device” and update the driver selecting the folder above.
        • Wierd, on some sites, it’s said that this is an “NVidia Away mode” ? The setup for nForce should then deploy the required drivers… (To be validated)
        • Note for later purpose: Intel Driver Update Wizard available here.
    • The graphic card chipset Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 is recognize but the drivers installed are from Microsoft (Basic Display Adapter) and not specific ones… ?! The auto-detection wizard from NVIdia is here. It doesn’t find anything specific more appropriate than the MS Basic Display Driver… I did select myself GeForce, GeForce Go Serie 7 (notebook), GeForce 7600, Windows 8 64 bits; no result.
      • I did download manually the latest Vista drivers (03/09/2012) for GeForce Go 7600 from the Microsoft catalog, did unpack the cab, and did try to update the drivers with the option “Browse my computer” > “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer” > “Have Disk” > pick the .inf from the cab. I found the drivers in the list but the setup failed because it was not for my OS :(. I tried with other drivers for Win7x64 (179.48). Bad luck too. I did try next to add the Hardware Device id of my card in the nvac.inf file (found in C:\NVIdiaWinVista64\179.48\IS\Display) and to pick this one… Or to use it via the Device Manager > Action > Add Legacy hardward > Add the hardware that I manually select > Display Adapter > Have Disk… Hopeless 🙁
      • I found a guy who forced drivers for Win7x64 on Win8x64 with signing disabled. I will possibly also try later his method for disabling driver signing at boot (to be tested… but the issue does not seem to be the signature):
        1. Windows Key + R
        2. Enter shutdown.exe /r /o /f /t 00
        3. Click the “OK” button
        4. System will restart to a “Choose an option” screen
        5. Select “Troubleshoot” from “Choose an option” screen
        6. Select “Advanced options” from “Troubleshoot” screen
        7. Select “Windows Startup Settings” from “Advanced options” screen
        8. Click “Restart” button
        9. System will restart to “Advanced Boot Options” screen
        10. Select “Disable Driver Signature Enforcement”
    • Sleep state was not enabled.
      • The command “Powercfg /a” reported that the Graphic card (drivers) where disabling the stand by state. I was expecting this as the drivers are not specific to the card and do not know how to manage its power state…
      • The command “Powercfg /a” also reported that “Hybrid Sleep” was not enabled because S3 was not available (to be checked in the BIOS).
      • To enable sleep state:
        • Restart and enter the Bios setup
          • Press Del at boot to enter the Bios setup
          • Go to the “Power Management Setup” tab
          • “ACPI Function” must be enabled
          • ACPI Suspend Type must be S1&S3
          • “Resume by PCI PME” must be enabled (wake up with remote control)
          • “Wake Up On Lan” must be enabled (for my purpose)
        • Back to Windows,
          • On the Start Screen, type “Power Plan”, click on “Settings” and select “Edit Power Plan” in the results.
          • Click “Change Advanced Power Settings”
          • Click “Change settings that are currently unavailable”
          • I don’t use WiFi, so I set “Power Saving Mode” = “Low Power Saving” under “Wireless Adapter Settings”
          • Under Sleep, I only see “Hibernate After”. I set 60 minutes
            • I should find how to configure the PC to see “Sleep after” and even possible “Allow Hybrid Sleep”. I will here after try to investigate this issue in details.
      • The command “Powercfg /energy” does an audit of the PC and reports all issues (like details on what prevent the sleep mode but also about what is consuming CPU, etc…):
        • Notice: the report is stored in C:\Windows\System32\enery-report.html. This file may not be opened within any browser as long as it’s in System32 (although I did disable UAC already). It must be first moved to, e.g., %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\
        • S1, S2, S3 are not supported although S1&S3 are now enabled in the Bios.
        • S4 is supported.
        • The USB devices do not enter the Selective Suspend state (this would not be blocking the PC for entering the sleep mode)
        • The drivers \FileSysem\srvnet is preventing the system to enter sleep.
          • It’s reported that this can be due to the network drivers not being up-to-date
          • But this does the trick if you don’t want to share the content (media) of the PC
            1. On the Start Screen, type “Advanced Sharing”, Click “Settings” and Select the “Manage Advanced Sharing Settings”
            2. Collapse the “Private” section and Expand the “All networks” section
            3. Click on “Choose media streaming options” under “All Networks\Media Sharing”
            4. Click on “Block All”
            5. Run again the energy audit (possibly reboot if the problem persist, especially if you tried the next tip!)
          • This is NOT doing the trick: edit the current Power Plan to “Allow the computer to sleep” under the node “Multimedia settings” > “When sharing media”.
        • Its finally clearly stated that the PC may not enter the sleep mode due to the Microsoft Basic Display Driver which has disabled S1 and S2 sleep states.
      • Powercfg -energy -output %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\Energy_Report.html could be used to automatically store the file in the right location
      • To see if there is still anything preventing the PC to enter the sleep mode, type the command “Powercfg /requests”. You should see “None” for every category.
      • If after a reboot, your still have the same issue with \FileSystem\srvnet, try to override it with the command “Powercfg -requestsoverride driver \filesystem\srvnet system”
        • To undo this command, type “Powercfg -requestsoverride driver \filesystem\srvnet”
      • Now, the remaining issue to enter the S3 sleep state is the Microsoft Basic Display Driver, which is for sure also responsible for the performance issue in MCE. Based on tries done previously to force Win7x64 drivers for the NVidia GeForce Go 7600, I think I won’t succeed is using Windows 8 on this Acer iDea 510 🙁
    References:
    • http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/windows8/sleep-disabled-graphics-card-144468
    • http://mingersoft.com/blog/2011/12/why-wont-windows-automatically-sleep/
    • http://iboyd.net/index.php/2010/05/16/windows-7-power-management-fixing-pc-insomnia/
    • http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/9695-driver-install-device-manager-windows-8-a.html
    Selective Suspend State: this one can be enable or disable on the USB node while editing the Power Plan (in the Power Options).
    A USB device driver can send a message to windows telling it to idle the device.  This puts the device in a low-power state (the suspend state).  When a USB device is suspended, windows does not wait for it to respond before entering a sleep or hibernate mode.  If you disable this feature, the system will simply return a failure to the driver when the driver attempts to enter suspend state.  If the driver complies with Microsoft guidelines, it will simply retry the idle request at every expiration of its idle timer.
    • S1: All processor caches are flushed, and the CPU(s) stops executing instructions. Power to the CPU(s) and RAM is maintained; devices that do not indicate they must remain on may be powered down.
    • S2: CPU powered off. Dirty cache is flushed to RAM.
    • S3: Commonly referred to as Standby, Sleep, or Suspend to RAM. RAM remains powered
    • S4: Hibernation or Suspend to Disk. All content of main memory is saved to non-volatile memory such as a hard drive, and is powered down.
    • To be continued…

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  • Android – No connection to any network – Go Locker

    I had an issue recently with my Samsung Galaxy S2: I was unable to call or send SMS. I was also not reachable anymore and appeared as not connected. I did not even succeed to force manually the connection to any network. After some unsuccessful investigation, I did reboot the device and noticed that I was not prompted anymore to provide my PIN code. The prompt was actually hidden by my Lock Screen for Go Locker 🙁

    Click to Read More

    For some reason, the configuration set for that lock screen was preventing the prompt for PIN code to appear. For sure, my mobile was configure to prevent any use without a valid PIN code. So voilà !

    A colleague of mine had the very same issue. We found the prompt only after disabling  Go Locker and rebooting

    This issue is also reported by other user on Google Play, but I never saw any explanation and solution. Maybe it was related to some specific settings I set, like: prevent pressing twice the home button to enter the “desktop”, … Or maybe because I did select Go Locker as default application to handle the Home button instead of Go Launcher ?

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  • Remote connection to Server 2012 Essentials

    I didn’t succeed to connect to my Server 2012 Essentials through Remote Desktop until I remembered me that this one was set up by default as a domain controller, one of the major differences between this server and WHS 2011.

    Click to Read More

    First, check that Remote Desktop is enabled on the server, just to be sure:

    1. On the Start Screen, type SystemPropertiesRemote and run that tool
    2. Allow remote connection to this computer.

    Next, I have disabled the Firewall, I don’t need to allow Remote Desktop Connection as an exception in this firewall.

    Finally, Windows Server 2012 Essentials being a domain controller, accounts created on that machine belongs to the domain defined at the end of the installation. So, the user name to be provided in Remote Desktop must be like <domain name>\<user name> instead of simply <user name> (equivalent to <remote machine name>\<account> as by default, Remote Desktop uses the target machine name as domain name).

    This subtle difference between Server 2012 Essentials and WHS 2011 (which was not a domain controller) could be a source of confusions while trying to connect for “end-users” used to work with workgroups instead of domains.

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  • Zeus is dead. Long life Zeus!

    As mentioned in a previous post, I was planning to build a new home server (for File Storage and Virtual Machines) to replace my previous one named Zeus. Reason: this one was experiencing more and more sudden reboots/crashes and I was afraid that the motherboard could be end-of-life.

    Zeus
    Zeus

    Click to Read More

    Why Zeus was experiencing crashes was not as important as the possible consequences of a definitive hardware failure. I used to stores on it thousands of personal photos and videos, as well as all ripped CD/DVD, softwares, PC backups, many VMware VM, etc.. And I was using a RAID 5 based on onboard controller.

    1. In case of hardware failure, I would have been unable to access my data and had to find a new motherboard with exact same controller to be able to rebuild the RAID 5.
    2. In addition, although an (not true) onboard “hardware” RAID 5 was offering good access performances in normal conditions, it was deadly slow after a crash as it has to check all the data.
    3. Finally, I was not able to put more than 12 disks in Zeus’ case.

    So, I decided to build a new home server,

    1. with a software RAID to not depend on any hardware. The idea is that I could replace dead pieces, if any, with any other one (possibly not identical chipset, …) and still be able to access the data
    2. with a very large case where I could add new disks whenever required without relying on special internal multi-bays (like the Icy dock’s ones..) or external drives.

    From the hardware point of view (For my needs; home server = not true server = desktop hardware):

    • For the case, I bought a case like the Norco Case RPC 4224 with 24 hot-swappable Sata/Sas III drive bays sold by X-Case. They sell that case in two versions, one for home server (RM424s) and one for servers (RM424). I took the server version as the home one was not available immediately (My brother bought one too… Both cases did a very long delivery trip 🙂 ).
      • 4U rackmount design
      • Support EEB (12″x13″), CEB(12″x10.5″), ATX (12″x9.6″), Micro ATX (9.6″ x 9.6″), Mini-ITX (6.7″ x 6.7″) motherboards
      • 24x hot-swappable Sata 6Gb/s (compatible Sata 3Gb/s, 1.5Gb/s) / SAS drive bays
      • Six internal SFF-8087 Mini SAS connectors support up to twenty-four 3.5″ or 2.5″ Sata 6Gb/s or SAS hard drives, mounted on horizontal backplanes for better ventilation.
      • Hot-swappable HDD tray with special designed power-off and lock mechanism + LED indicators for power and activity on each HDD tray.
      • 3 Ball-bearing cooling fans for better ventilation in the case and 2 cooling fans
      • Two front USB ports
      • Redundant 4pin molex PSU connectors support redundant power supply
      • Screwless top cover
      • Smooth border prevent lacerating your skin

    I decided next to reuse the motherboard, RAM and CPU of my current PC (Chaos) — a good opportunity to buy a new motherboard supporting new processors/RAM/devices to update Chaos

    • an old Asus Striker II Formula with
      • CPU: Intel Socket 775 (for Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Extreme/…)
      • Chipset: NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI
      • Bios: version 2042
      • Front Side Bus: 1333/1066/800MHz
      • RAM: 4 x DIMM DDR2 (Max 8 GB) – Dual Channel Architecture.
      • Storage: 1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66/33, 6 x Sata 3Gb/s ports NVIDIA MediaShield RAID with Raid 0/1/5/10/JBOD.
      • Slots: 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (mode dual x16), 1 x PCIe x16 (mode x8), 2 x PCIe x1, 2 x PCI 2.2
      • LAN: 2 x Gigabit LAN
      • Audio: 8 channels HD (SupremeFX II Audio Card ADI 1988B 8 plugged in one of the PCIe x1 slot).
      • IEEE 1394: 2 x 1394a ports (one at back panel, 1 onboard)
      • USB: 10 x USB 2.0 ports (6 at back panel, 1 onboard), 12 x USB 2.0 (6 at back panel, 6 on MB).
    • 1 old CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 8MB Cache (LGA 775) – 2.66Ghz.
    • 1 old Zalman CNPS9500 LED CPU Cooler
    • 4 old x 1GB Ram DDR2-800 CL5 (5-5-5-15 at 333MHz) Kingston HyperX Blue in Dual Channel mode.
    • 4 new x 2GB Ram DDR2 1066 CL5 (5-5-5-15-2N) G.Skill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPI-B in Dual Channel mode.
    • 2 old x 150 GB HDD Western Digital VelociRaptor (WD1500AHFD) Sata 1.5Gb/s 10.000RPM 16MB Cache (Read 128MB/s, Write 142MB/s) in Raid 0 for the OS (Windows Server 2012 Essentials)
      • They are controlled by 2 onboard Sata controllers
      • They are mounted inside the case, next to the motherboard, but not in one of the 24 bays.
    • 1 old ATI Radeon 9600 256MB 128-bit DDR AGP
    • Disk (named Unit-of-Risk: UoR) will be formatted with NTFS and FlexRAID is going to be used  to create a smart RAID system protecting data with a snapshot model.
      • Disks with data (named Data-Risk-Unit – DRU), once removed, will be readable from any other PC using any other kind of Sata controller.
      • Parity (stored on disks named Parity-Protection-Unit – PPU) will be computed only once a day (Snapshot model), not slowing down the data access (Notice: Real Time model is also supported). Notice: PPU must be as large as the biggest DRU.
      • New DRU can be added at any time: data won’t be erased.
      • Support for multiple parity levels (E.g.: with parity level 3, no data will be lost if maximum 3 disks fails at the same time).
      • So:
        • Failure of one UoR does not affect any other UoR in the array.
        • If you lose more UoR than supported by the parity level, you only lose those “extra” devices. All your remaining devices will be healthy, and the data on them will be fully readable.
    • Disk (named Unit-of-Risk: UoR) will be formatted with NTFS and tRAID is going to be used  to create a smart RAID system protecting data in real time.
      • Disks with data (named Data-Risk-Unit – DRU), once removed, will be readable from any other PC using any other kind of Sata controller.
      • Parity (stored on disks named Parity-Protection-Unit – PPU) will be computed in real time with some impact on the performances but with a high protection level. Notice: PPU must be as large as the biggest DRU.
      • New DRU can be added at any time: data won’t be erased.
      • Support for up to 2 PPU, so data are not lost if maximum 2 disks fails at the same time.
      • Data can still be accessed in real time although up to 2 disks have failed thanks to a live reconstruction feature.
      • So:
        • Failure of one UoR does not affect any other UoR in the array.
        • If you lose more UoR than supported by the parity level, you only lose those “extra” devices. All your remaining devices will be healthy, and the data on them will be fully readable.

    Here above “old” only means “re-used from the previous lifes” of Zeus or Chaos…

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  • nVidia nForce 780i SLI – Asus Striker 2 Formula – one Ethernet port disappeared

    I have detected a new issue this evening – with the new machine I am building on top of my Asus Striker II Formula – while trying to configure NIC Teaming in Windows Server 2012: one NIC appeared to be completely “off”.

    Click to Read More

    One NIC (Network Interface Card – there are two on this motherboard) disappeared from the Windows’ devices list and was therefore not available anymore to be used for NIC Teaming… Looking at the back of the network card, it appeared to be “off” (None of the LED lights did light up).

    NIC Status: There are two indicator LEDs on a typical NIC. A single lit green LED indicates the computer is connected to the network. This is called the “link” light. The second LED is amber in color. A flashing amber LED indicates message packet collisions are occurring. Occasional collisions are normal on a busy network, but a frequently lit amber LED is an indication of problems. A quickly flashing link LED (green) is a network activity indicator, meaning that communication is occurring. If the green link light is off, and the amber LED is blinking, then the NIC is in “power save” mode.

    While I am not really sure about the change I made that is responsible for this issue, I suspect that it is a side effect of playing around to enable WOL and Hibernation on the machine. At least, similar issues have been reported on the web for this motherboard/NVidia Chipset when using the Sleep mode…

    There was nothing to do in Windows to retrieve that NIC (I did uninstall and re-install the drivers, more recent drivers, … did reboot several times… and the NIC was not simply disabled in Windows).

    While restarting once more the machine, I noticed that lights of the disabled NIC kept off during the reboot. Si, I did reboot the machine after a complete power off (> 1 minute). Then, the LED started to blink… But once Windows loaded, they went back off.

    I finally succeeded to recover the NIC pressing the “Clear MOS” button on the back of the motherboard.  This is resetting the BIOS to its default settings (In my case, I have to re-enable the RAID support on the onboard Sata Controller as well as “Power On By PCI/PCIE Devices” to support WOL).

    Re-enabling WOL in the bios didn’t raise back the issue. Regarding Hibernation, I won’t test/re-enable it as I don’t plan to use it anymore. It’s indeed not recommended when using FlexRaid (I plan to use FlexRaid instead of Windows’ Storage Spaces. And anyway, to support that mode, I should replace my Graphic card by a more recent one.

    NIC Teaming: There are 2 x 1GbE network interfaces available on my Asus Striker 2 Formula, but only one was actively used. The other one was not connected. A single 1GbE (which provides roughly 100Mbytes per second of throughput) is a common bottleneck for a file server, especially when reading data from cache or from many disk spindles (physical disk throughput is the other most common bottleneck). A simple solution for improving performances consist in enabling the multiple NICs and creating a NIC Teaming, also known as “Link Aggregation” or “Load Balancing and Failover (LBFO)”. It’s even really stupid simple to enable it with Server 2012. Well, not that stupid… as the switch could have to be configured adequately.

    Actually, there are two benefits in using a Team of NICs: Performance and Resiliency.

    Resiliency means that if one of the network cards fails, the remaining NICs in the team will continue making sure that traffic is getting through (Personnaly, I don’t car about this advantage).

    Regarding the performance, the team is able to take advantage of the aggregate of all bandwidth available.  So in theory, 2 x 1Gb NICs should be able to give 2Gb of bandwidth.

    So far, I am using the default NIC Teaming configuration: Switch-Independent and Active/Active. To measure the performance I need two clients with one GbE port each. I have unfortunately only one available for now… the other one is put in pieces and waiting for some maintenance :/

    Later, I will see if I can use a Switch-Dependent configuration. As soon as I find time to learn what can be configured on my switch: a Netgear JGS524E – Gigabit ProSafe Plus 24 ports.

     

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  • Remote connection to Windows 8 with a Windows Live account

    I was trying to remotely connect from a Windows 7 to a Windows 8 where I was still logged with my Windows Live account. As I am still quite new to the use of Windows Live accounts, I was unsure about what to provide as credentials.

    For sure, to remotely connect on Windows 8 with a Windows Live account, it’s the related emails that must be typed in the Remote Desktop’s login prompt.

    Click to Read More

    I was hesitating because, although the account name is the Windows Live email, the “user” folder name is only the name part of this email.

    While checking which credentials to provide, I found by accident a way to get access to the logon screen of the remote machine, where the user currently logged appears => no need to remember the account name at all in this case :).

    1. I did run the command “mstsc -v:<machine name>
    2. I did use another account: “<machine name>\administrator” without password (I don’t know it anyway).
      • The Domain initially displayed was: MicrosoftAccount
    3. I did accept the certificate of the remote PC
    4. I was next presented with an error message: “The username or password is incorrect” on logon screen of the remote machine. I did click OK.
    5. I did click on “Switch user“, the left arrow on the top-left side.
    6. And finally, I did select my Windows Live Account displayed as currently logged…

    To connect directly with a Windows Live account:

    1. Run the command “mstsc -v:<machine name>
    2. Select Use another accountand type your Windows Live email as a user name.
      • The domain displayed will be the one of your email.
    3. Et voilà

    Notice: I was able to remotely connect to Windows 8 because the Firewall was off. Otherwise I would have had to enable Remote Desktop as an “allowed apps”.

    1. On the Start Screen, type “Firewall” and select Settings to find it.
    2. Run Windows Firewall.
    3. click Allow an app or feature through Windows Firewall.
    4. Click Change settings if enabled (You might be asked for an admin password or to confirm your choice).
    5. Under Allowed apps and features, select the check box next to Remote Desktop, and then use the check boxes in the columns to select the network types you want to allow communication on (should be private for your intranet).
    6. Et voilà.

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