Phuket Information Technology Blog

LSI MegaRAID SCSI 320-1 (pcbx520-a2) is a 64-bit PCI SCSI RAID controller. We tested it in the 32-bit PCI slot and it works just fine.

admin Technical 32-bit, 64-bit, lsi, megaraid, pcbx520-a2, pci, scsi

Computer with a problem: HP Pavilion dv5227tx (I believe the solution is applicable to many dv5000 series laptops).

Sound device: Vendor ID 14F1, Device ID 5047

Windows 7 installs the driver but it is unable to start.
Downloaded sp35682 from HP Support site, this is a driver version 3.38.0.50 dated 03/26/2007.
Unpacked it and pointed the Driver Installation Wizard to the unpacked folder.
Driver installed fine but there were no sound from the speakers.
There was sound through the headphones.

I compared the registry settings from the original XP installation with the current ones.

The following key attracted my attention:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0007\Settings\OEM\DefaultJack]

I changed some keys back to the values they had on XP as follows:

“Wid13″=hex:01,02,01,00
“Wid14″=hex:02,00,01,00
“Wid15″=hex:0a,01,01,00
“Wid17″=hex:0a,01,00,00
“Wid1D”=hex:01,02,00,00

Restarted and bingo! Sound through the speakers!

admin Technical 14f1, 5047, audio, conexant, driver, dv5000, dv5227tx, sound, speakers, windows 7

If the broken product bears Synnex warranty sticker or you know what the product was purchased through Synnex you can check the exact warranty expiration date here on Synnex website.

admin Useful Resources serial, synnex, warranty

There is a very common failure on the APC Back-UPS 500 RS (BR500I). The UPS does not turn on and there are dark burn spots on the side and top of the UPS case as shown on the picture. We can fix this condition in about 30 minutes in our office; the price is 800 baht.

BR500I failure

admin Promotion, Technical apc, back-ups 500 RS, br500i, burn, repair, ups

The best way to watch the World Cup with English commentary is the Malaysian Astro TV satellite provider with their SuperSport HD channel. Reception is very good in Phuket and the subscription is cheap. Please contact us if you want to know the installation details.

admin Useful Resources Astro, HD, Phuket, satellite, SuperSport, TV, World Cup

Recently a friend of mine asked me for help preparing his iPhone for long travels. He bought the Lonely Planet PDFs for the countries he planned to visit. But in these PDFs the facing pages were joined together, and it was not convenient to read them via Air Sharing iPhone App. We searched for an application capable of splitting the facing pages into the separate ones. Finally we stumbled upon A-PDF Page Cut, which did split the document like we wanted in a few clicks. You just need to add a vertical separating line to the first sheet, click “apply” once for the rest of the pages and save the result as a new file. Moreover, the program even has the batch mode allowing you to convert many files at once.

There was one caveat: A-PDF Page Cut did not keep the proper page numbers from the original file, and there are references to the certain page numbers in the text. You will need to use some other application to set a proper starting page number in the resulting PDF.

admin Travel, Useful Resources a-pdf, cut, facing, page, split

The customer brought an Acer Aspire 7720G which was unable to power up (no lights on) after the BIOS flashing from Windows went wrong. The customer used the original BIOS updater from Acer web site. In this state the notebook appears as completely dead, pressing the power button simply does not work. There is a certain procedure to recover the notebook from this state without disassembling it. Took about 30 minutes including the preparation.

admin Technical 7720G, Acer, aspire, BIOS, flash, power

Another customer who forgot his BIOS setup password on Acer Aspire 5550. After 3 wrong password entry attempts Acer notebooks display “System Disabled” message with the model-specific code. We unlocked the system in 5 minutes

admin Promotion, Technical Acer, BIOS, password, system disabled

Ookla, the company behind speedtest.net, made it’s bandwidth statistics available. Here is the data for Thailand.

admin Useful Resources bandwidth, internet, Thailand

• Download driver from VIA website, unpack
• Navigate to Vinyl\drivers\Vista32WDM or Vinyl\drivers\Vista64WDM, open Vinyl97.inf for editing
• Add the following line between the others:
  %*WDM_VIAudio.DeviceDesc%=WDM_VIAudio, PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_3059&SUBSYS_810D1043
• Save, point the driver installation from Device Manager to this folder
• Plug the speakers into the microphone (pink) jack

admin Technical 1106, 3059, 810D1043, ac'97, ASUS, driver, k8v-mx, sound, via, windows 7