Archive for the ‘7’ Category

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 – Access Denied (no further details)

I was trying to install Windows 7 Sp1 on a laptop and I was getting an “ACCESS DENIED” error with no further errors. After a bit of tshooting I ended up running processmon and it turned out there was a DENY set on the C drive for USERS, that means when the service pack was attempting to install it would not be able to create the C:\32893928109093829312\ folder.. that’s one of the first steps.

I removed the DENY permission and everything worked well.

process mon is a great tool, Good luck

Disable startup repair (7/2008)

So one of my servers was rebooted and never came back up. It was stuck on the startup repair screen. I would rather it boot loop then never retry. So to disable the startup repair run this command.

bcdedit /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures

And to re-enable it

bcdedit /set {default} bootstatuspolicy displayallfailures

BattleField 3 Beta 5850 Crossfire Problems (stutter / slow fps)

I was getting mega stutter and low fps in battlefield 3 beta, It was stopping me from playing at all. Best after loads of playing around, I ended up following this guide and it worked.

 

Clean it with Atiman Uninstaller v.6.0.0.msi. Download LINK

Run it with administrator privilege. Some antivirus software will give false alarm but it is just a false positive.

Then install Catalyst 11.9 + ( Catalyst 11.8 CAP5 http://www.overclock.net/ati-drivers…11-8-cap5.html only if you are crossfire).

Disable ULPS http://www.overclock.net/amd-ati/667…ling-ulps.html

During Catalyst install, if you get any error messages, ignore it and let it complete. Restart PC, then go to folder where the files extracted/unzipped to, find in CCC2 **.exe then perform repair.

 

After rebooting and finallay loading the drivers, Battlefield 3 worked perfectly!

Thanks!

Sony Vaio VPCz12 – Upgrade to SSD

I recently bought the New Sony Z. I ended up getting the model without DVD/BD mainly because I really never use DVDs anymore and I dont even use blueray on a laptop.

So dropping blueray saves me around £500.00 on the total price, but I also lose SSD as an option.I did wonder why but as you will see there is a reason for this (DVD+SSD or NODVD+SATA)

My specs are:

  • Description : Laptop VPC-Z12V
    Configurable Price : £1.500~
    Optical Drive : No DVD disc drive
    Hard drive : 320 GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm) (upgraded to SSD now)
    Wireless LAN : Wireless LAN + Bluetooth®
    Processor : Intel® CoreTM i7-620M, 2.66GHz
    Ports : 3 USB Ports
    Display : 33.3 cm LCD, 1920×1080, webcam
    Graphics : NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M 1GB
    Finishes : Black
    Memory : 8 GB 1066MHz DDR3
    Connectivity : Wireless WAN
    Security features : Security features

So a question is, why do all this? What do you really gain?

Ok, so you lose about 200GB of space, also you have to buy a SSD and then risk breaking your warranty, the benifits are huge but I will put it all here.

  • Pros
    • Much faster HDD speed (think 200MB/s)
    • Quieter operation – no spinning up/down etc
    • Better battery – (?)
    • Shock Proof
  • Cons
    • Expensive
    • Warranty issues
    • loss of storage space
    • lifetime

For me, I prefer a fast laptop why get i7 and 8gb ram and then use a 5400RPM hdd? I dont understand the logic here. Why not install a 7200RPM by default (sony?) so here is my rough guide to upgrading the HDD.

What you will need.

  1. Small screwdriver
  2. (128GB) SSD drive 2.5″ standard sata style
  3. 1 hour of time
  4. Balls to kill your warranty (not that I can tell how they can tell)

Firstly, Sorry for the image quality, I used a phone with no light.

  • Disassembly& Reassembly
  • Please note, there is nothing hard about this. Just go slow and double check what you are doing. Nothing really to say as its easy.
    • remove the battery and all removable parts (pcmcia blank etc)
    • unscrew the screws, I usually would bunch them based on where they came from, front middle back etc. What is good on this one is that the screws are only 2 lengths and they cannot cross, so no mixing up.
    • Remove the old HDD and install the SSD, reassemble and you are done.
    • Windows 7 U installed in 20 minutes. Really its so fast. Much better.

Here you can see the bottom of the laptop

gently pull apart the laptop, remember to unhock the keyboard cable inside gently (dont just pull it apart all the way)

Lift the keyboard off and you can see the internals. notice the SATA drive is in the DVD bay? there is still space for a small SSD front and center (next time, raid!)

Unscrew the bracket holding the HDD in. then just remove and unplug, remember do all this carefully as SONY connectors are weak sometimes. replace with the SSD and then put all back together

As you can see, installed nicely!

All good, now install windows

How is it? Installed windows in < 20 minutes.. nice ! (also around 200MB/s xfer!)

Description : Laptop VPC-Z12V

Configurable Price : 1.500~

Optical Drive : No DVD disc drive

Hard drive : 320 GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm)

Wireless LAN : Wireless LAN + Bluetooth®

Processor : Intel® CoreTM i7-620M, 2.66GHz

Ports : 3 USB Ports

Display : 33.3 cm LCD, 1920×1080, webcam

Graphics : NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M 1GB

Finishes : Black

Memory : 8 GB 1066MHz DDR3

Connectivity : Wireless WAN

Security features : Security features

Install Vista / Windows 7 / Server 2008 from USB

I know there are many guides around, The only difference here is that I want to do the quicker (alot infact) format, instead of the normal slow one.

To do this, you need an existing Vista/7 Machine and a USB Stick.

  1. Insert USB stick
  2. Open Command (cmd.exe) as administrator
  3. type (followed by enter)
    1. diskpart
    2. list disk
      1. You should note the disk that is your USB drive (disk 1 or 2 etc, not usually disk 0)
    3. Select disk 1
      1. If disk 1 is the correct one for your USB drive
    4. Clean
      1. This will WIPE the disk drive completly
    5. Create partition primary
      1. this will create a new partition that will use 100% of the space on the USB drive
    6. Select partition 1
      1. selecting the newly created partition
    7. Active
      1. activates the partition
    8. Format fs=fat32 quick
      1. this will format the partition in fat32 quickly
    9. assign
      1. assign drive letter
    10. exit
  4. Now you can just copy all the files on the CD/DVD/ISO to the newly created partition on the USB Drive.

Some notes: FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB, meaning you cannot copy any single file that is larger than this. Many DVD ISO are larger than 4GB and you might forget the filesystem type in the months to come :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#FAT32

notes taken from http://www.techmixer.com/install-windows-vista-from-bootable-usb-flash-memory-drive/

BattleField – Bad Company 2: No Pings and General Network Problems

Ok,

I just purchased a copy of BFBC2 and installed it. I am getting a little tired of Crysis and need a new game until Crysis2 or better.

I couldnt get any pings nor join any games let alone even login!

I havent looked into the real cause but here is a solution of sorts.

  1. Run as Administrator
  2. Disable Windows Firewall

This seems to fix the problem.

 

I Will find out the real cause/fix when I have time. For now I am just going to switch the FW on or off depending on what game it is.

J

I had to install a cm1312nfi on windows 7

I had to install a cm1312nfi on windows 7 x64 as a test for network upgrades..

The normal CD drivers will not load all the software using the normal typical install proceedure, the setup will complain that it wont install as a RUN AS or Windows 7 is not Vista/XP

  1. Open Computer
  2. Look for HPzsetup
  3. Right Click and Select Properties
  4. Click Compatibitly
  5. Choose windows vista SP2 & runas administrator
  6. Click OK
  7. done

Easy

Windows 7 RTM & Sony Z 64GB SSD – Blue Days

I have run Windows 7 on my Sony Z laptop since early beta versions and I have never had a single problem, especially BSOD. Microsoft recently released the final RTM on TechNet, so I decided now is a good time to test it out!

This is where it gets problematic; I am getting so many different errors, like

stop 0x0000000a
stop 0×00000019
BSOD BAD_POOL_HEADER

that’s the ones I remember, So what the hell is going on here? How could windows reject my computer so badly and so randomly? I have been able to get into safe mode only a couple of times and I have reinstalled Win7 about 10 times, Trying different combinations of RAM and Wi-Fi switch states etc.

This is a work in progress but I feel it has to be either the SSD or the WIFI. but being a laptop (Sony) its hard for me to disable/enable hardware before windows has even begun.

I will update..

Update:

I am doing a long extra extended wipe of the SSD, I am probably killing it but why not!

I used a Linux boot cd (Ubuntu server)
got to a shell and ran

dd if=/dev/zero of=dev/sda

so

dd (copy) if(source)/dev/zero (zeros) if(destination)=/dev/sda(SSD DRIVE)

also I am going to install from USB Key THIS ONE and not DVD..

Well that worked?
What was different form last time?

- I formatted the SSD (long)
- I Installed from USB Key
- I installed with the LAN Cable in
- I had the wireless switch off.

So far so good..

Return top