Posts Categorised: Misc Hardware

0PSU LogoPSU Efficiency: worth the upgrade? part 3

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This is the third install­ment in a series of art­icles address­ing PSU effi­ciency.  Art­icle one focused on a [int­link id=“76” type=“post”]theoretical new server[/intlink], art­icle 2 on a [int­link id=“77” type=“post”]typical desktop PC[/intlink].  This art­icle will focus on a cur­rent real serv­er, and intro­duces a new PSU — an 80+ plat­in­um model.
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0PSU LogoLow power PC — new or old PSU

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I have a serv­er that oper­ates 24.7. It occurred to me that I may be able to save some money on elec­tri­city bills if I could reduce its power con­sump­tion. It already has a low power AMD Sem­pron LE-1100 CPU so the power draw of the sys­tem should be quite low, but the PSU is quite old and not espe­cially effi­cient. This got me think­ing about Power sup­plies designed for low power sys­tems. There are plenty of 80+ cer­ti­fied PSU’s out there with 500+ watt rat­ings, but are these actu­ally worth the invest­ment for a low power system?
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0Wireless WiFi 802.11 ABGN LogoResolved: Wireless video streaming problem

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I have a very strange issue which is caus­ing prob­lems play­ing videos over a wireless‑n net­work.  Play­ing the videos causes the net­work to drop out after a short peri­od.  Some­times this only lasts for 2–3 seconds, which just causes a video stut­ter.  Oth­er times the drop out is more per­man­ent and takes nearly a minute to recov­er, unless the wire­less radio is switched off and back on, whereupon recon­nec­tion occurs.
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0Nexus RealSilent 120 Orange Fan LogoStability issues

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I’ve been hav­ing some sta­bil­ity issues with my HTPC recently. A rein­stall did­n’t help so I con­cluded it was hard­ware. Remov­ing all non essen­tials did­n’t help either so I figured it must be CPU, memory or mobo related. Noth­ing is over­clocked or tweaked and its all fairly recent brand name kit. I stress tested the CPU and memory without caus­ing either to fail, but I con­tin­ued to get occa­sion­al lockups and inter­mit­tent slug­gish performance.
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0Ultrabook logo laptop vaio sonyGetting inside an Asus A2xxx

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I recently had to get inside an old-ish Asus A2500 laptop to invest­ig­ate an issue with the CD-ROM drive (and to upgrade the memory and add a wire­less card). Most laptops have a cov­er above the key­board that pops off, but on this par­tic­u­lar laptop it did­n’t seem attached in the usu­al way.
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0Ultrabook logo laptop vaio sonyRepair HP Laptops and other hardware cheaply

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I was recently asked to look at the touch­pad on a HP Pavil­ion DV2000 laptop which had a faulty left but­ton. Spares and repairs for laptops are often hard to come by so I was pleased to find the HP Ser­vice manu­al as a PDF, which included all the part num­bers, and then very pleased to find that HP offer an extens­ive dir­ect sales ser­vice for most parts via the HP PartSurfer. Suf­fice to say this laptop is now fixed, for a very low price. Good move by HP — I won­der if oth­er major man­u­fac­tur­ers provide a sim­il­ar service?