Does the Dell 1540 Wireless Card Support WiDi Miracast?

• Does the dell 1540 wireless card support miracast? No
• Does the dell 1540 wireless laptop card support intel WiDi (wireless display)? No 
• Does a Dell latitude e6400, e6410, e6420 or e6430 with a Dell 1540 Wireless card support miracast or wireless display? No 

 In short, No the Dell 1540 Wireless Card doesn't support miracast or widi, no matter what drivers and software you try to add to it. But, there are some really cheap options to get miracast working on your old laptop:

Instead, buy the very inexpensive Intel Wireless AC 7260 that supports dual band, 2.4ghz, 5ghz, bluetooth and wireless AC all for under $30.   Or, get the Centrino 6205 or 6235, often found under $16.

It takes less than five minutes to replace it in your laptop, all you need is a small screwdriver.

Get the Intel AC 7260 wifi card with widi on Amazon.  With it, you'll be able to simulcast your laptop audio and video with a couple of quick clicks in Both Windows 8 and Windows 10.

Upgrade Ram in ReadyNas 516 NAS RN516

I recently bought a ReadyNas 516 NAS device (RN516) to support a VMcluster as well as to act as a Plex Server.   After spending a ton of time researching, and trying to do a make vs. buy analysis, I was convinced (only slightly) that the ReadyNas 516 was the way to go.  However, while the specs vs. price of the Netgear device are compelling, the 4MB RAM seemed a bit small for my needs.  Fortunately, I read on several forums that people have had great success upgrading the RAM to 16GB from the paltry 4MB it came with.
So after a little research, I learned that people where having success with 8GB Crucial 16GB PC3-12800 DDR3L memory; which is Unbuffered, ECC, non-registered RAM.   I also learned that this device, despite the specs on Netgear's site, actually has 2 memory slots, allowing you to upgrade to 16GB, with little effort.
Well, after I got my parts in, I realized it was a little more than a small effort, because the RAM slots are not easy to get to.  I read some helpful descriptions on one forum, but no one posted pictures of the process.  I figured I would here.
Below is the instructions for adding memory to a ReadyNAS 516 NAS as well as pictures of the inside of a dissasembled RN516 NAS.  Please note, adding Ram WILL void you warranty.

1.) Here is the RN516 box with the outer case removed.  If you can't figure out how to remove the case, you probably should not proceed any further with this attempt.  7 screws on the back of the of the unit and slide the case backwards to remove.














 Random pictures of the inside of a Readynas 516

 

2.) Now, while still in an upright position, spin it around so the metal backplane is towards you.  Remove the 4 nut/screws in the corners of the backplane.  Mine were black.  The picture below shows them removed.

 3.) Now, lay the device down so that the open side (side of drive carriage) is on the table, and spin the device so that its face face you.  Using a small prying device, carefully lift the front of the unit open.  Note, this is NOT on hinges, so be careful not to bend anything!

 

4.) Now, VERY carefully, you have to reach your tiny hands in there and disconnect the old 4MB chip and (the hard part) insert two new 8GB trips, starting with the center location slot first.  This is a bit hard to do, as gravity and small spaces are working against you.

 

5.) And,  you're done.  Carefully put it all back together.

In this article:
Pictures of inside of ReadyNas 516
Netgear ReadyNas 516
Crucial 2 x 8GB Ram (16 GB Kit)

How Long Does a Chkdsk r Take?

So, as I sat in the office till all hours of the night, watching my Small Business Server 2003 stuck on the same stage 4 of 5 while running a check disk (chkdsk r), I began to wonder what I was in for.
I googled "How long does a checkdisk take?" and "How long does a chkdsk r take?" and found lots of people asking the question, though the answers were not detailed enough to give me an estimate.

First, a word of advice, even if it appears your server/pc is doing nothing, it is, so never never never power off or reboot the machine.

So, for me, the answer is, just under 4 hours for the chkdsk r.

Now, here is the part people never mention, their system specifications!


As mentioned, my server is a Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, running exchange. I have 2 (raid) 300GB SCSI drives in the machine (total capacity is only 300gb, just cloned hot-swap drives). I have two 3.06 ghz Xeon processors on the box with 3GB of ram.

Hopefully that answer helped someone out there late at night that has a similar machine and wants to know if they should order pizza and beer.

Free Up Disk Space on Dell Mini 9 and Netbooks

This is a quick tutorial mainly for netbooks on how to Free up space in Windows XP.

I recently acquired a Dell Mini 9 Netbook from the Dell outlet for $251, shipped after taxes. I could not pass up the deal. I got the white (alpine) model with 1 gb ram, 1.3mp webcam, 8 gig ssd running windows xp service pack 3. The problem is, when I got the computer, it already had 7.5 gigs of the 8 gig drive used up! There was not even enough room to install MS Office on it. So, I took the following steps to get my Dell mini 9 more hard drive storage.

1.) Backup your computer - Use something like "Norton Ghost" or your own preferred software. --This is not required, but should be done if you are scared to lose any of your data.

2.) Go to Control Panel --Add Remove Programs: Remove everything you don't need, below is what I removed:

• Browser Address Error Redirector (if it is installed)
• Dell Support Center
• GoToAssist
• MS Works
• Google Toolbar (if installed)
• Google Desktop (if installed)
• McAfee trial (if it is installed and you have your own AV)

3.) Clear your recycle bin, reboot

4.) Go into explorer and copy the Dell, Drivers, and I386 folders to somewhere else. (They all reside in C:) In my case, I just moved them into the SDHC card that I had purchased. However, moving them to a thumbdrive, cd, dvd, or network drive works just as well. They are really just for backup copies. Once you have "backed up" those folder, Delete Them. They are not necessary.

5.) Turn off Hybernation support (The mini boots super fast, so you should never need to hybernate or suspend the pc) Disabling this will free up as much disk space as you have ram. IE, I have 2 gig of ram, so removing this gave me 2gb of disk space.

• Open the Windows Control Panel
  
• Double-click Power Options (you may need to click "Classic mode" on the upper left first)
• Click the Hibernate tab, de-select the 'Enable hibernate support' check box, and then click Apply.
• Restart your computer and hiberfil.sys will be automatically deleted. (my computer did not require a restart)

6.) Install whatever software you would like. I installed Office 2003 Professional, VLC Media, Firefox, CutePDF, and Flash support and currently have 3.5GB of Free Disk Space.

I will add more to this tutorial at another time. For example, there are a few free programs you can run that allow you to clean up old windows update files.

Aspire One Netbook 1024 x 768 External Resolution

I needed to use an Aspire One netbook with a projector (external monitor) at a resolution higher than the default 1024 x 600 resolution with Windows XP.

At first, it looked like the graphic card on the Aspire One would not support anything higher in a conventional resolutions, but there is an easy fix.

To increase the resolution to a standard (such as 1024 x 768):

1. Right click on a blank area of the desktop
2. Click 'Properties'
3. Click the "Settings Tab"
4. Click "Advanced" button
5. Click the "Monitor" tab
6. Uncheck the "Hide modes that this monitor cannot display" checkbox
7. Click "Okay" button
8. Now you can adjust the slider for a higher screen resolution.

The display will look odd on the netbook (aspire one) monitor, but actually it implements scrolling, so if you move your mouse the desktop will scroll.

You can now use your Aspire One Netbook external monitor or projector at a higher resolution, such as 1024 x 768 with Windows XP

Tags for search engines: "setting aspire one external monitor resolution" "using aspire one with projector" "using external monitor with aspire one" "netbook 1024 x 768 external resolution" "Dell mini 9 1024 x 768 resolution" "adjust netbook external monitor resolution"

Recover Data from My Book World Edition

A friend of mine has (had) a western digital my world book network attached 500gb storage device. Unfortunately his house was the recipient of a electrical storm that blew out most of the equipment on his home network. He was left with a worldbook that was no longer responding to network request. If you plugged in the network cord, it immediately went red (or orange) as if the NIC inside was bad. Since this device does not have a usb port for connecting to computers, we were kinda screwed.

After contacting support at WD, they basically said the same thing, and for a cost (probably $100) I could ship the unit back and they would fix/replace it. However, they will not recover the data for you. That obviously was no good.

So, I had a suspicion that the drive itself in the unit was okay, just the motherboard or nic was bad on the WD hd. In order to test this, I broke apart the unit, (lots of snapping and screws) and removed the internal SATA drive. I then plugged the SATA drive into a windows box and looked at the partition manager to see if it could read it. Windows XP showed that there were 4 partitions on the drive, but I could not access the data since it was the wrong file system. This gave me hope that the drive itself was okay. So, here are the steps to recover your data from a world book that has a bad network card or bad motherboard.

Author Edit: These instructions are for the Western Digital My WorldBook 500 GB edition (without raid). Several commenters have left updated instructions for 1GB and 2GB units, including units with raid. Please see the comments if you do not have the 500GB model, as it will provide a different mount command in Linux/Unix.

What you need:

• A computer that has a free SATA slot on it. - or get a SATA to USB adapter for just a few dollars, like either of these:
• this USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE Cable Adapter For 2.5 3.5 HDD 
• or a more expensive and permanent one like this: Cables Unlimited USB-2110 USB 2.0 to IDE and SATA Adapter Cable with Power
  
• A Ubuntu Disk (Free) - download the image and burn it to disk.
• The drive from inside your World Book

First off, find out if your pc has a SATA slot available. (Basically, if your pc has sata drives you should be okay, you can always temporarily disconnect one that you dont need in your computer). Visit your manaufacturer's website to find out if your pc has SATA (which is a simplified connection to a hard drive versus the old IDE style.) Once you determine your computer (or a friend's) supports sata, go ahead and take apart the pc. Keep in mind, nothing we are doing should damage your computer or your windows install, so there are no worries for borrowing a friends machine temporarily.

Second, after locating a pc that can connect to your WD drive (keep in mind this is the drive you actually physically removed from the worldbook housing) go to the link I provided above and download Ubuntu Linux. Do not worry, you do not need to be a unix/linux geek to solve your problem, it is a graphical program.
Download the Linux iso image and burn it to cd. Keep in mind, you need to take special steps to burn an iso image, you can't just drag the iso image into the cd like you would copy files normally. If you need help, open your cd burning software and use the help file to find info on "creating iso" "burning iso", "burning images" or "creating images".

Once you have the cd burned, you will now open up the computer that will accomidate the WD drive. Open up the computer, install the drive. and then insert the cd and boot up the pc. Keep in mind, with some computers, you might need to access the bios (cmos) and activate the new drive for the motherboard to see.) While in the bios (setup) make sure that your CDROM is the first bootable device.

When the machine loads to the boot menu (boot from cd) choose the Ubuntu option that says something like "Try ubuntu without installing" Basically use the menu that allows you to use ubuntu without installing it.

After a minute or so, your pc will boot into Ubuntu, which is a lot like windows. Access the menus up top until you see one that says "Terminal" I believe it is under the system main menu, though it might be under applications->accessories->terminal.

When you click terminal, you will be taken to a prompt window (text based)

Type in:
sudo mkdir /media/mount (hit enter)
then type:
sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb4 /media/mount (hit enter)

You can now close the terminal window.
Now go back up to the system menu or the places menu and find the "computer" option. Launch this. It is just like "my computer" in windows xp. You should now see your local hard drive (which is actually your windows install on the machine) and you should see the new worldbook drive. If you have any external hard drives plugged in to your computer you will see them as well. Copy the data from the "public" drive of your WD drive into an external drive or your local windows drive.

That's it, data recovered. Take out the CD, Power down your pc, disconnect the WD drive, and fire your computer back up to boot into windows and see your recovered data.