existence, refactored

Just updated my laptop to Natty Narwhal and I may write something about it in the future (spoiler: Unity sucks). Anyway this post is just about the solution I found for the broken wireless network manager applet in Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04 in Lenovo B450 and probably most other Lenovo laptops.

Ever since I upgraded my laptop to Maverick Meerkat, my wireless isn’t automatically enabled on startup. It was no big deal back then since I could just simply tick the Enable Wireless in the network manager applet. But when I upgraded to Natty Narwhal, my wireless was permanently disabled.

After hours of trial and error, I found out the culprit. Running sudo rfkill list showed that I have an “acer-wireless” even though I wasn’t using an Acer machine:

bry@Abraxas:~$ sudo rfkill list
0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: yes
        Hard blocked: no
...

The solution to this was simple: disable it by adding blacklist acer-wmi at the end of /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf.

I wasn’t able to post a Thursday post because:

• National Holiday (Eid ul-Fitr) meant that I had to be onsite on Thursday instead of Friday, and
• when I turned on my rig that morning, it beeped continuously won’t go to POST once, but booted properly the next time I turned it on.

A quick Google search told me the computer problem was probably a memory error and so I set my PC to run Memtest86 on a loop before going to the office. When I came back, my RAM passed 13 tests with no errors.

And then when I restart the PC the continuous beeping returned. =/

With the memory out of the question, thus began my 3-hour trial and error session to isolate the problem. PSU problem? Nope, multimeter reads normal voltages for all lines. Overheating? Cleaned off the dust from the CPU and video card heatsinks to no avail. Extra devices screwing with the motherboard? Removed all but the HDD and video card but still the continuous beeping happens once every few reboots. Heck, I even tried replacing my HD4850 with my spare GTS8800 to remove the possibility of a busted video card.

Another run through similar problems via Google gave me an idea: what if Memtest86 was wrong and it really was the memory?

And so I tried the Windows Memory Diagnostic that came with Windows 7.

In less than a few minutes, I found out that my RAM really was busted.

Memtest86 was trumped by a Windows utility program. Weird.

Problem

After isolating the usual suspects (line problems, modem problems), my attenuation downstream for PLDT DSL is still 60+.

Cause

The polarity of my wall jack is wrong (I replaced it before because it got borked, my bad). Pin 2 should be positive.

Solution

Corrected the polarity of the wires. Now my attenuation downstream is 55: still low, but at least now my DL speed goes beyond 200KBps. May have to contact PLDT later.

Problem

My 1TB Seagate hard disk drive died on me last July 21.

Cause

Hard drives randomly die for various reasons, from fired circuit boards to damaged magnetic platters. Anyone who has worked with computers should expect it to happen once in a while.

Solution

Thankfully, the RMA procedure for Seagate hard drives is well documented in a TipidPC post.

continue reading…

Problem

PC is randomly restarting once every day or two. I could replicate it easily by playing Call of Duty 4 for a couple of minutes.

Cause

I haven’t found the cause yet.

The most likely cause of the shutdowns would be overheating. I took a spare 120mm fan and put it inside the rig’s aluminum case.

Still shuts down when playing COD4.

Tried to double check the heating problem. I downloaded Orthos Stress Prime and Furmark to stress test the rig.

It doesn’t shut down even if the load is a lot higher than what COD4 does to the system.

Power supply problem? I highly doubt it because I’m using a Corsair HX 520 PSU. Just to make sure, I switched the rails used by the video card.

Still shuts down when playing COD4.

Maybe it’s the drivers. So I uninstalled the drivers then used DriverSweeper to scrub the drivers clean. Reinstalled the latest ++ATI Catalyst drivers.

Still shuts down.

Maybe it’s the video card itself. Besides, it is a factory overclocked video card. So I switched it with my old video card, an nVidia 8800GTS 320MB card. Of course, I re-scrubbed the drivers again.

Still shuts down.

Maybe it’s a memory problem. Ran memtest86+ using a Ubuntu installer cd I have lying around.

No memory errors.

–

At this point, the only possible cause for the shutdown I could think of right now is the motherboard itself. It is a quality motherboard, but even high-end devices can have defects later in their lifetime.

Before I could decide to replace the board, I have to try one last risky thing: flashing the mobo BIOS. Downloaded the latest version and flashed the BIOS with it.

Still shut down after 1.5 hours of COD4.

Looks like I’m going to have to buy a new one these next few weeks. Now the board itself is pretty stable and wouldn’t require replacement; I’m just worried that a random shutdown would affect the other hardware (e.g. the Seagate drive I had RMA’ed last week).

[August 14 Update:]

Solution

Bought a new motherboard to replace current one. This time, I was able to run through the first act of CoD4 without experiencing any crashes.

Problem:

APC UPS battery needs replacement

Cause:

Umm.. because it’s already past its lifespan? The biggest sign that it needed replacement that day was when the UPS won’t turn on after dying.

No, wait, the biggest sign was the fact that I had to pry open the battery cover because the battery already expanded like those bulging MacBook Pro batteries two years ago.

Solution:

ClixLogic, Inc. handles the servicing of APC products in the Philippines.

Their Manila office is Brgy. Holy Spirit in Quezon City so for people living in southern part of Metro Manila, bringing and retrieving a heavy device all the way there can be difficult. Fortunately, they have a closer drop-off point, Signal Telecom, at V-Mall Greenhills.

Here’s how I got my UPS’s battery replaced:

1. I brought my UPS to Signal Telecom at the 3rd floor of V-Mall and told them I was there to have the battery replaced. They took the device, gave me an order slip/receipt, and told me to call ClixLogic informing them of my service request. I didn’t pay anything at this point.
2. Called ClixLogic. They said they’ll pick it up from Signal Telecom the next time they go there (usually Fridays).
3. Once they saw the UPS in Signal Telecom, a ClixLogic employee texted me their quotation for the battery replacement (1.8k for a BK650-AS RB17 battery) and asked for confirmation of the job. Obviously, I gave them the go signal.
4. After about 3 weeks of no response, I followed up my service request by calling their office last Friday. I don’t know if there was a mix-up involved, but regardless, they said they’ll deliver the UPS to Signal Telecom on Monday.
5. A guy from Signal Telecom texted me today that my UPS is now with them.
6. I went to Signal Telecom, showed them my order slip, paid the 1.8k, and got my UPS back.

I’m not good with RMAs or the like so depending on your diskarte, you might be able to get your battery replaced with less hassle.

Next up, RMA-ing a Seagate hard drive.