Category Archives: computer tips

Intel NUC Windows drivers [downloads] [SOLVED]

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If you have a NUC with a clean install of Windows 7 (or 8, 8.1 and Windows 10) you may have some unknown devices and devices without drivers. You can download the driver pack here: (Intel dl link) Those drivers will enable the following devices: Ethernet Controller (Intel NUC Gigabit Ethernet Controller) PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1503&SUBSYS_20448086&REV_04 ALTERNATIVE DOWNLOAD: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/18713/Intel-Network-Adapter-Driver-for-Windows-7- (Suggested by Greg in the comments) PCI Simple Communications Controller: (Intel Management Engine Interface) PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9C3A&SUBSYS_20548086&REV_04 SM BUS Controller: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9C22&SUBSYS_20548086&REV_04 USB 3.0 controller: (Intel USB

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NUC cannot enter BIOS/UEFI [SOLVED]

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Q. Help! I have a new little Intel NUC computer and I can’t get it to enter the BIOS 🙁 I have a monitor hooked up with HDMI and a keyboard via USB. I checked the keyboard on another computer and it works great, but on the NUC I can never get it to enter the BIOS in time on bootup! Please help! -Richard A. Hi Richard, is that keyboard connected to the back of the NUC? If not, you probably

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Fix Brightness Adjustment Dell Laptop Windows 10 [SOLVED]

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Recently I upgraded three different Dell laptops to Windows 10. The first was a Dell Inspiron 11 2-in-1, the 2nd was a Dell Latitude E5450, and the 3rd was a Dell XPS 13 (2015 Infinity Display). While I love Windows 10 so far, there is one major annoyance: brightness adjustment no longer works! i.e. when you press Function Key + Brightness Up/Down, the onscreen brightness meter pops up but the actual brightness adjustment does not work 🙁 Thankfully, after some

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Dell Inspiron 11 3000 SSD upgrade

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The Dell Inspiron 11 3000 series is a lovely laptop at a very nice price (~$350 USD). One of the few drawbacks is the slow HDD. Thankfully, that is easily remedied with an SSD upgrade! SSD Upgrade The photos below show how I upgraded my Inspiron 11 3147 with a 7mm Samsung 1TB SSD. Of course the same steps will work for smaller capacity SSDs [128GB, 256GB, 512GB] as well 🙂 Memory Upgrade While you have the machine open, you

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ACPI\SMO8810 Windows 8.1 Dell Latitude driver download [SOLVED!]

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If you have a Dell Latitude running Windows 8.1 with an Unknown Device ACPI/SMO8810, this is the driver download link you need: ST Microelectronics Free Fall Data Protection This applies to all of these Dell laptops: Latitude E5440 (Late 2013) Latitude E7440 (Mid 2013) Latitude E7240 (Mid 2013) Latitude E5540 (Late 2013) Latitude E7450 (Late 2014) Latitude E5250/5250 (Late 2014) Latitude E5550/5550 (Late 2014) Latitude E5450/5450 (Late 2014) And it is backwards compatible for the following OSes: MS Windows 7 32-bit

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Disable/enable laptop trackpad [SOLVED]

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If your laptop trackpad is too finicky to use reliably, you may want to disable it! While a trackpad can sometimes be disabled via the BIOS/UEFI or the Windows Device Mananger, there is often another simpler method: A simple Fn key + F7 (or other similar key) combination is often available to disable the trackpad on Acer laptops, Dell laptops and many more. The keyboard pictured above is an Acer AO725 laptop. This can also be handy if you are

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Setup GoDaddy POP/SMTP email instructions [without JAVA!]

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GoDaddy’s automated email setup control app on requires the JAVA runtime, which can be a major pain to have installed on your computer. To get around this, simply use their alternative setup info option: EMAIL ANYWHERE/ANYTIME This will show you the setup instructions for your device, I generally choose ‘Android’ as it shows you all the POP/SMTP info that you need and it works well for other devices. You can even have them email you the instructions to another email account or print

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Show passwords in FileZilla [Portable]

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Recently I needed to regain access to a client’s FTP site where the password had been lost. Resetting the password was going to be problematic so instead we recovered the password by accessing FileZilla’s saved password list: For Portable FileZilla: FileZillaPortable\Data\settings\sitemanager.xml For regular FileZilla it should be similar to: %APPDATA%\filezilla\sitemanager.xml Open the sitemanager.xml file and browse to the Pass listing for the particular site that you need access to: This instructions are for Windows. I hope they are helpful to you 🙂

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