Intel on Pieter Viljoen's Blog

Circumventing ThinkPad's WiFi Card Whitelisting

Fri, 23 Dec 2016 20:10:45 +0000

What started as a simple Mini PCI Express WiFi card swap on a ThinkPad T61 notebook, turned into deploying a custom BIOS in order to get the card to work.

I love ThinkPad notebooks, they are workhorses that keep on going and going. I always keep my older models around for testing, and one of my old T61’s had an Intel 4965AGN card, that worked fine with Windows 10, until the release of the Anniversary / Redstone 1 update. After the RS1 update, WiFi would either fail to connect, or randomly drop out. The 4965AGN card is not supported by Intel on Win10, and the internet is full of problem reports of Win10 and 4965AGN cards.

XBMC on NUC's and Pi's

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 22:44:44 +0000

I’m still looking for the perfect XBMC hardware; must be small, silent, low power, low heat, 1080p, HD audio, and play anything I throw at it without a hiccup. The number of options is increasing, but no clear winner.

I previously tested an XIOS DS running XBMC on Android, and XBMC on Linux. At that time the builds were pretty unstable. I retested the latest Linux builds, that also include XBMC 12 Frodo RC2.

Dyslexic Intel RSTe Driver

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:45:04 +0000

I encounter one problem after another running Windows 8 and Server 2012 on the dual Xeon E5 Intel C600 chipset based SuperMicro 7047A-T and 7047A-73 SuperWorkstation machines. I will say that this is really not representative of my Windows 8 experience in general, as all other machines I installed on worked fine with the in-box drivers.

The C602 includes the Intel Storage Controller Unit (SCU) SATA / SAS controller. Windows 8 and Server 2012 do not include in-box drivers for the SCU. The SCU drivers are part of the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Enterprise (RSTe) driver set. Note that the RSTe and RST drivers are different and not compatible with one another. When you install the full RSTe package, it includes SCU drivers for the SCU RAID controller, AHCI drivers for the SATA controller, and the Windows RST management application.

Zotac ZBOXHD-ID11 Case Positioning Impact on Fan Noise

Thu, 27 May 2010 19:55:00 +0000

As I was testing the ID11, I noticed differences in the thermal behavior based on how the case was positioned.
I tested three positions; case open, case vertical, and case horizontal.

This is the fifth post in a series of posts related to the Zotac ZBOX ZBOXHD-ID11.

Summary:

Place the case in a vertical position for best cooling.

I used the Beta BIOS for testing. I let the system sit idle, placed it under load, then back to idle, while I recorded the fan speed and temperatures. The ambient temperature was 21C / 70F.

Zotac ZBOXHD-ID11 Beta BIOS Reduces Fan Speed and Noise

Wed, 26 May 2010 21:18:00 +0000

In a previous post I measured the fan speed and noise under load, and I found it to be unacceptably high.
Zotac support notified me that a new Beta BIOS is available that addresses the issue.
In this post I measure the difference between the release BIOS and the Beta BIOS.

This is the fourth post in a series of posts related to the Zotac ZBOX ZBOXHD-ID11.

Summary:

The Beta BIOS reduces the fan speed and noise significantly.
The default BIOS values need some adjustment to get acceptable results.
Similar results may be possible with the current BIOS by setting the target temperature to 65C.

The Beta BIOS was first announced on the global Zotac site, it only later appeared on the US site. I would recommend that ID11 owners look for updates on the global site instead of the US site.
The Beta BIOS is available for download from here.

Zotac ZBOXHD-ID11 4GB RAM

Wed, 19 May 2010 02:46:00 +0000

In this post I describe my experience while upgrading the BIOS, in order to support 4GB of memory.

This is the third post in a series of posts related to the Zotac ZBOX ZBOXHD-ID11.

Summary:
- 4GB is supported after upgrading the BIOS.
- BIOS has to be updated using less than 4GB, else ID11 fails to post.

[Update: 20 May 2010]
After writing this post, the machine started bluescreen / BSOD crashing.
Mostly MEMORY_MANAGEMENT / 0x0000001A errors, with occasional 0x000000BE and 0x0000003B crashes.
When I initially installed the 4GB RAM, I ran memtest for one cycle, and the RAM tested fine. I just reran memtest, and it is reporting the memory as bad.
I replaced the memory with a new stick, I ran memtest overnight, and everything seems back to normal.
I hope it was just a bad stick, and not the ID11 that killed the memory.

Zotac ZBOXHD-ID11 First Impressions

Sat, 15 May 2010 06:30:00 +0000

I am sharing my experiences and first impressions of the Zotac ZBOXHD-ID11-U mini PC.

In the coming days I will connect the device to my home theater, and review the behavior running Windows Media Center, XBMC, and Media-Portal.

This is the first post in a series of posts related to the Zotac ZBOX ZBOXHD-ID11.

Summary:
- To enter the BIOS, cold boot and press DEL.
- To select a boot device, cold boot and press F11.
- To enable Aero, run the Windows Experience Index assessment.
- To improve performance, install updated drivers from the hardware vendor site.
- To correct HDMI audio output, install updated drivers from the hardware vendor site.
- To reduce fan noise, change the BIOS temperature thresholds.
- The fan is loud and the box runs hot.

Intel DP45SG and Lian-Li PC-C33B HTPC

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:57:00 +0000

I recently built a new home theater PC using an Intel DP45SG motherboard and a Lian-Li PC-C33B case.

I am replacing my existing HTPC that appears to be not quite compatible with Windows 7.

The existing machine uses a Lian-Li PC-C31B case, Intel DG33TL motherboard, and ATI Sapphire HD 2600XT video card.

I started documenting the new machine installation, but the new case was on backorder, and I had all components except the new case, so I tried the HD 5750 card in the old machine.

Getting Vista to go to sleep

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:03:00 +0000

I noted my troubles with the Intel GMA drivers, the Intel DG33TL motherboard, and Vista SP1 blue screen crashing in my earlier post.

Since I was running the 15.8 version of the Intel GMA drivers, and Microsoft KB948343 indicates that, based on the driver version numbers, these newer drivers should not be affected by SP1, yet the crash details were clearly the same, and no new driver was forthcoming to correct the blue screen crash, I decided to take the GMA drivers out of the picture.

Intel DG33TL motherboard

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:13:00 +0000

This article was originally posted here.

Introduction:

After my bad experience with the Abit F-I90HD motherboards, read about it
here, I purchased two Intel DG33TL motherboards.

Although these boards do not have HDMI onboard, they do have HDCP compliant DVI,
and by adding an ADD2 HDMI board you get HDMI and audio over HDMI.

The Good:

Onboard HDCP compliant DVI.
Intel ADD2 HDMI card support.
Vista installed very fast and with no problems.

Vista SP1 and Intel GMA blue screen crash

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:50:00 +0000

I previously commented on this problem here and here.

I participated in the Microsoft Vista SP1 Beta program.

After installing Vista SP1 Beta on my machine with an Intel DG33TL motherboard, and installing version 15.7.3 of the Intel GMA drivers, my machine would blue screen crash when it went to sleep.

The crash happens in the igdkmd32.sys and igdkmd64.sys drivers, and I could reproduce it on two machines, both with DG33TL motherboards, with Vista x86 and x64.