computer tips | J.D. Hodges

Category Archives: computer tips

Disable Network Boot in VMWare!

Wednesday, 2013.03.20 J.D. H. 2 comments

The VMWare PXE network boot screen can be rather annoying: Here are the steps for disabling network boot on a Windows 7 VM host (or Windows 8 host) and a Windows 7 guest OS: #0 Power off your virtual machine #1 Use notepad (or your favorite text editor) to edit your virtual machine’s .vmx file For example, my VMX file for this particular VM was located here: C:\Users\JD\Documents\Virtual Machines\01 Small Template, Windows 7 x64\01 Small Template, Windows 7 x64.vmx #2

List of MD5/SHA1 hashes for various Windows OS ISOs

Wednesday, 2013.03.20 J.D. H. 7 comments

Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 R2 Volume License (VL) English Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x64fre_server_en-us_VL-GRMSXVOL_EN_DVD.iso Size: 2,996,799,488 bytes SHA1: AD855EA913AAEC3F1D0E1833C1AEF7A0DE326B0A Windows 7 Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit: Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x64fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRMCULXFRER_EN_DVD.iso Other name: en_windows_7_ultimate_x64_dvd_X15-65922.iso MD5: F43D22E4FB07BF617D573ACD8785C028 SHA-1: 326327CC2FF9F05379F5058C41BE6BC5E004BAA7 CRC: 0x1F1257CA / CRC32: 1F1257CA Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit: Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x86fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRMCULFRER_EN_DVD.iso Other name: en_windows_7_ultimate_x86_dvd_X15-65921.iso SHA-1: 5395DC4B38F7BDB1E005FF414DEEDFDB16DBF610 CRC: 0xC1C20F76 Windows 7 Professional 64-bit: Name: en_windows_7_professional_x64_dvd_x15-65805.iso SHA-1: 50127304441A793EE51B3F501289F6599A559E9F CRC: 502C42C1 Windows 7 Professional 32-bit: Name: en_windows_7_professional_x86_dvd_x15-65804.iso SHA-1: 697FA06554502FB21D30275273B25747299C020D CRC: 578725D1 Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit: Name: en_windows_7_home_premium_x64_dvd_x15-65733.iso SHA-1: 336779EA6B65F63E11A609B4D021439C47AB315B CRC: 56D954E4

ASUS X202E hard drive upgrade instructions (replace w/SSD)

Monday, 2013.03.18 J.D. H. 45 comments

The X202E-DH31T is a very cool little laptop and for the price ($400-$500) it is definitely one of the best touchscreen options out there! Unfortunately, it is saddled with a relatively slow hard drive and the RAM is soldered in. 🙁 PERFORMANCE TIP: replace the slow hard drive with a fast SSD. 🙂 See instructions below! *Bloatware removal is of course recommended as well 🙂 After upgrading to a SSD, commenter RJ suggested putting the old hard drive in a

ASUS Sabertooth P67 back panel port selection

Monday, 2013.03.18 J.D. H. Leave a comment

The Sabertooth P67 has the following ports on its back panel assembly: a PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo-port 8 USB 2.0 ports, from left to right: 2 black (below ps/2 connector), 2 red (above eSATA connector), 2 black (by themselves), 2 black (above firewire and green eSATA) 1 FireWire IEEE 1394 port 2 USB 3.0 ports (blue colored USB 3.0 style ports) 1 Intel GigE Ethernet port 2 e-SATA ports (red and green colored ports) and 6 analogue and S/PDIF optical audio output

ASUS S200E SSD Upgrade Guide

Sunday, 2013.03.17 J.D. H. 28 comments

Here is a step-by-step photo tutorial for upgrading the S200E to utilize a fast SSD! 2016 UPDATE: My top SSD recommendation is the Samsung 850 EVO series. They start at around $70 for the 120GB version and they go all the way up to 2TB. Huge performance improvement vs the default HDD. RATING NOTE: while this upgrade is a little more difficult than some others, the new SSD still resulted in a HUGE performance improvement so I give this upgrade

New UnRAID preclear results for WD Green drive

Sunday, 2013.03.17 J.D. H. Leave a comment

Recently I had a 2TB WD Black drive develop some issues. That meant it was time to replace it and thankfully my dad had a 2TB WD Green drive available (he is upgrading to some 3TB Seagate drives). Before adding the Green drive to my unRAID setup I ran preclear_disk.sh and here are the results 🙂 NOTE: the total elapsed time was 36 hours 15 minutes and 22 seconds, which is a bit on the slow side. However, this is

WN1000RP default username and password [SOLVED]

Wednesday, 2013.03.13 J.D. H. 2 comments

While setting up the WN1000RP to extend a wifi network, I was surprised to encounter a password prompt: The included manual makes no mention of a username or password. So after a bit of trial and error I determined that the username is: admin and the password is: password (both user name and password are lower case) Now I am happily testing out the WN1000RP 🙂

Any laptops powered by USB? [yes, sort of]

Wednesday, 2013.02.20 J.D. H. 2 comments

Q. Hello,I am something of a minimalist when it comes to traveling. Therefore I would like to standardize on one charger for my gadgets: USB charging works for everything except my laptop. Do you now of any any laptops that can be powered by USB? –R.S. A. Hi R.S., Yes there are a few laptops that use USB for charging… however, almost all of them are of the convertible tablet/laptop type. Here is a prime example: Lenovo IdeaPad K3 Lynx