The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘Hardware’ Category

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ASUS Wireless Router RT-N66U – General Log: full of “protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth0”

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/06/05

Not sure what happened, but my log appeared to be full of these messages:

Jun  5 12:46:56 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth0
Jun  5 12:47:02 kernel: printk: 61 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:47:02 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth0
Jun  5 12:47:06 kernel: printk: 132 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:47:06 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth0
Jun  5 12:47:11 kernel: printk: 544 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:47:11 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth1
Jun  5 12:47:17 kernel: printk: 163 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:47:17 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth0
Jun  5 12:47:21 kernel: printk: 115 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:47:21 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth1
Jun  5 12:47:26 kernel: printk: 275 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:47:26 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth0
Jun  5 12:47:31 kernel: printk: 644 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:47:31 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth1
Jun  5 12:47:36 kernel: printk: 866 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:47:36 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth1
Jun  5 12:47:41 kernel: printk: 750 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:47:41 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth0
Jun  5 12:47:46 kernel: printk: 665 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:47:46 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth1
Jun  5 12:47:51 kernel: printk: 766 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:47:51 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth1
Jun  5 12:47:56 kernel: printk: 625 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:47:56 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth1
Jun  5 12:48:01 kernel: printk: 782 messages suppressed.
Jun  5 12:48:01 kernel: protocol 0000 is buggy, dev eth0

Note sure what caused it, but others have had it in the past as well.
Other symptoms:

  • br0 network becoming slower and slower on download speed (but not on upload speed; in the end I had 0.5 megabit downstream and 5 megabit upstream)
  • br0 ping times twice as high as normal (around 30 milliseconds on SpeedTest.net in stead of 15 milliseconds)
  • WiFi (especially 2.4: eth1) becoming impossible to connect to from new connections
  • packet drops

I thought they were caused because of me experimenting with a Fonera 2100A -> TomadoUSB experiment, especially since my FON access point was limited to 1 megabit.

But as soon as other users started to use the LAN, I got speed complaints about the slowness.

I’ve been running the ASUS RT-N66U in Firmware Version 3.0.0.4.260 with Operation Mode:Wireless router for quite a while now, but I also noticed that it had rebooted itself recently, as the was Uptime 0 days 20 hours when I started digging in the log.

The worst I got:

Ping (milliseconds) Down (megabit) Up (megabit) WiFi connection to
31 0.4 0.9 ASUS RT-N66U: 2.4 Ghz

Time for a Reboot to see if it gets any better.

Later:

After a reboot the situation turned to normal:

Ping (milliseconds) Down (megabit) Up (megabit) WiFi connection to
16 90 10 ASUS RT-N66U: 2.4 Ghz
17 9 8 Fonera: MyPlace
17 3 1 Fonera: FON_AP
15 2 0.6 Wireless-N 3G Router
15 1.5 0.7 RT N66U TomatoUSB 2.4 Ghz

–jeroen

via: ASUS Wireless Router RT-N66U – General Log.

Posted in ASUS RT-N66U, Hardware, Internet, Network-and-equipment, Power User, SpeedTest | 2 Comments »

A few notes on Google Reader replacements that I’m testing

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/06/03

Almost 3 months after the Powering Down Google Reader announcement, most Google Reader users will have been looking for alternatives.

If you were whining, Stop whining about Google Reader, then take some action.

Before switching away from Google Reader, be sure to export the data through Google Takeout then download the export.
Read How to painlessly export your Google Reader feeds | News | Geek.com for more information.

Note that the subscriptions.xml in the download is in fact an OPML file.

Until early may, I was waiting for Announcing Digg Reader to become a real reader, but gave up.

Right now I’m experimenting with a couple of replacements, so here are some notes: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Google, GoogleReader, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User | Leave a Comment »

I love my keyboard; why did they hide “Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys” in Windows 8 and 7 so far away?

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/22

Despite the radically different first look, lot’s of Windows 8 is the same as in Windows 7

So this Windows 7 trick works just as well in Windows 8:

This is how you get the underline character to show for Alt and other keyboard shortcuts in Windows 7 (the link shows you how to do this with the mouse, but we are keyboard lovers, are’t we?):

  1. Press the WINDOWS-U combination to open the “Ease of Access Center”
  2. Under Explore all settings, select “Make the keyboard easier to use” by pressing TAB a couple of times, then press ENTER to select it.
  3. Press ALT-N to select and check “Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys” under ”Make it easier to use keyboard shortcuts”
  4. Press ALT-O to fire the OK button action.
  5. Press ALT-F4 to close the “Ease of Access Center”

Done!

–jeroen

via: I love my keyboard; why did they hide “Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys” in Windows 7 so far away? « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff.

Posted in Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8 | Leave a Comment »

Screenshots: Creating vSphere 5 ESXi embedded USB Stick with MBR partition table

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/03

A long time ago, I promised steps how to install VMware 5 ESXi using the MBR boot format.

The steps with screenshots are below, but first some background information.

As of VMware ESXi 5, GPT (short for GUID partition table) is the default partition table used by VMware ESXi.

Disks smaller than 2 TB can boot with MBR, but GPT It is a requirement for disks bigger than 2 TB. GPT also needs a UEFI compatible  BIOS.

Some older BIOSes (like those of my HP XW6600 machines: still running strong after many years of fine service) do not support GPT.

Luckily, weasel (the open source Operating System Installer that VMware ESXi uses) can be forced to use MBR using runweasel formatwithmbr.

Forcing MBR is a 2-step process.

  1. Get to the boot prompt: press Shift+O when the progress bar appears
  2. Running weasel with the MBR option: after the “runweasel”, type a space, then formatwithmbr

Below are the screenshots of a VMware ESXi 5.0.0 installation I did this way.

But it works equally well in ESXi 5.1.x

After writing this post, I found out about ESXi 5 Won’t Boot From USB which solves this exact problem for an HP XW8600 configuration (those are slightly larger machines than the XW6600 I have, but the architecture is the same).

Screenshots

Click on the image or link for larger screenshots, or view the series here at Flickr. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in BIOS, Boot, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, Hardware, HP XW6600, Power User, UEFI, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | 1 Comment »

Windows 8 and Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts (via: Brian Long, a blong, blong, blong road…)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/04/26

Found a while ago that Brian Long wrote a few nice pages and posts on Windows keyboard shortcuts:

Thanks Brian

–jeroen

Posted in Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

OWC OWCSSDEX3G960 960GB Mercury Electra MAX 3G SSD… in stock at OWC

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/03/20

Awesome write speed while mirroring from my old Intel 320 600GB SSD (SATA) to the new OWC Mercury Electra MAX 3G 960GB SSD (USB3) on my ThinkPad W701.

On average more than 2GB per minute.

                Total    Copied   Skipped  Mismatch    FAILED    Extras
     Dirs :     27029     27028         1         0         0         0
    Files :    160965    160965         0         0         0         0
    Bytes : 546.499 g 546.499 g         0         0         0         0
    Times :   4:17:38   4:15:16                       0:00:00   0:02:22

    Speed :            38311787 Bytes/sec.
    Speed :            2192.218 MegaBytes/min.

    Ended : Mon Mar 18 22:16:36 2013

–jeroen

via: OWC OWCSSDEX3G960 960GB Mercury Electra MAX 3G SSD.

Posted in Hardware, Power User, SSD | Tagged: , , , , , | 3 Comments »

The Missing Windows 8 Instructional Video (awesome 25 minutes, via: Scott Hanselman – G+)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/02/21

A couple of weeks ago, Scott Hanselman posted a great Windows 8 instructional video.

It contains all the stuff that geeks like me will find out themselves over time, but in a well paced and complete manner:

… to give new users to Windows 8 a near-complete understanding of the major features including the Start Screen, Hot Corners, Full Screen Apps, Desktop Apps, The Store, Browsing, Doing Social Stuff, using the Mouse effectively and exploiting keyboard Shortcuts.

It also shows what a power user like Scott uses besides the standard Microsoft Windows/Office combo.

Oh: and it includes the “Windows-X” shortcut (:
(no: not the mobility center any more)

Recommended watch!

–jeroen

via: (12) Scott Hanselman – Google+ – The Missing Windows 8 Instructional Video. It’s 25 minutes….

Posted in Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User, Windows, Windows 8 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

USB drive/stick as DataStore is possible, but not recommended (via: VMware Communities)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/02/08

A long while ago I blogged about Creating vSphere 5 ESXi embedded USB Stick so I could boot ESXi from USB.

Since then, I changed USB sticks to be larger (and faster) ones and thought it might be possible to put a small datastore on it for a small maintenance VM.

The VMware Communities: External USB hard drive detected as… thread on the VMware Communities site shows you can do it for a USB disk, but only from the console or SSH (not from the regular maintenance tools).

The results vary, and don’t sound very stable to me, so it is definitely not recommended.

So I have refrained from going that way.

–jeroen

via: VMware Communities: External USB hard drive detected as….

Posted in ESXi5, Hardware, HP XW6600, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

Why can’t I find Foremay 1 TB 2.5″ SATA SSD prices online?

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/31

The 2 TB SSD units have just been announced, but anyone any idea what the older 1TB SSD units cost?

–jeroen

via: Foremay claims to have the first 2TB, 2.5-inch SSDs.

Posted in Hardware, Power User, SSD | 2 Comments »

AkelPad Editor: tiny, and functional. Too bad it steals the Alt-letter keyboard shortcuts

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/25

Just found out about the AkelPad Editor.

It is tiny, has a lot of functionality.

Too bad that Alt+V does not go to the View menu, but is bound to a kind-of-past functionality.

Similar for other Alt+letter combinations in their keyboard shortcuts.

They should have used Ctrl+Alt+letter combinations for it.

So I continue my search for a good, tiny, syntax highlighting and multi-encoding capable NotePad alternative.

–jeroen

Posted in Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

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