Category Archive: How To Guides

Jun
15

Hacking a Brother: Force your Printer into Printing in Black and White

Categories:

by

Old Dusty

I wanted to print a document the other day, so I switched on my dusty and trusty inkjet printer, only to find a nice red blinking error on the display greeting me. The message was something along the lines of “Printing is impossible, replace yellow ink cartridge”.

I tried printing in black & white (greyscale actually), by specifiying this in the print options (click to see how), but a friendly popup message just stated something along these lines: “Cannot retain printing quality, please replace ink cartridge yellow”.

So I couldn’t print in black and white because my yellow ink was empty?! I couldn’t believe it. Or rather, I could, seeing how printer manufacturers are almost giving away printers for free, they have to make money somehow - why not in sleazy ways like this?

Checking the black cartridge, which is double the size of the colored ones, it was still half full (or half empty, whichever you prefer). Only the yellow one was completely empty. So, what is a man to do? Continue reading “Hacking a Brother: Force your Printer into Printing in Black and White” »

Tags: , ,

4 comments

May
22

SSD Not Available During Windows 7 Setup

Categories:

by

Intel X25-V SSD - Still Not Getting The Daily TRIM

Intel X25 SSD: Sometimes not showing up to the party

There’s a lot of people who have had issues with their SSD not showing up in the list of available hard drives when installing Windows 7, and today I got to be one of them. I wanted to do a fresh install of Windows 7 on an Intel X25-V SSD (40GB), but the disk just wouldn’t show up.

This particular disk was used as a swap disk in a different system, so I figured it might have some problems related to formatting. Changing from IDE mode to ACHI mode did not do anything. (For Intel SSDs, IDE mode is required for the Intel software to work).

After looking around for a solution on the interwebs, I found two possible solutions, listed by “ease of use”. The second one worked for me, as I happened to have a bootable USB with GParted on hand, but the first one should work too.

Continue reading “SSD Not Available During Windows 7 Setup” »

Tags: , , , , ,

3 comments

Apr
17

DisplayPort to DVI Adapters Explained

Categories:

by

With many new graphics cards, unless at least one of your monitors has DisplayPort support or is connected using VGA*, an active DisplayPort to DVI adapter is needed in order to get a picture on more than two digitally connected monitors at the same time. As DisplayPort is only found in the most expensive monitors, this is a fact that many buyers miss.

This problem applies especially to AMD Radeon EyeFinity enabled cards such as the Radeon 5xxx and 6xxx series, which enable use of three monitors simulatenously for a combined resolution of up to 7680×1600 pixels, or even six on certain models, for a combined maximum resolution of up to 7680×3200 pixels.

The first active DP to DVI adapters made available were and can still be very expensive, at around $100 each. Also, they have to be plugged into a USB port for external power.

For HD monitors supporting resolutions of up to 1920×1200 (max resolution of DVI Single Link), manufacturers solved this problem by creating an active DP to DVI Single Link adapter, that requires no extra power, and can be had at more reasonable prices.

The problem with these new “passively powered” active adapters, is that they don’t support resolutions above 1920×1200 pixels, while most 30″ and some 25-27″ monitors have a native resolution of 2560×1600 (16:10) or 2560×1440 (16:9) pixels. To support such monitors without DisplayPort connections, you still need a more expensive adapter with an extra USB connector for power. Note that this only applies if the monitor doesn’t come with DP support!

* As VGA is an analog connection, there’s only two digital connections being used.

Continue reading “DisplayPort to DVI Adapters Explained” »

Tags: , ,

Leave comment

Apr
16

DVI Connector Chart

Categories:

by

DVI is not DVI! This DVI Connectors chart will help you figure out which type of DVI cable or DVI adaptor you need.

Tags: , , , , ,

Leave comment

Apr
03

Make Your Own TRIM for SSDs in RAID Mode

Categories:

by

A driver that finally enables TRIM support for Intel SDDs in RAID mode?

Sadly, the news were too good to be true. The latest Intel driver was incorrectly reported (techPowerUp!) to enable TRIM for SSDs in all RAID modes except for RAID5. However, this was bogus information from Intel. The correction came shortly thereafter, that support is ONLY for single disks and not while in RAID arrays.

Intel X25-V SSD - Still not getting its daily TRIM

Intel X25-V SSD - Still not getting its daily TRIM

The truth is that the new driver allows single disks that are connected while running the storage controller in RAID mode to receive the TRIM command.

It seems passing the TRIM command to SSDs in a RAID array is not a simple case with current chipsets and drivers.

The recommended workaround:
Yes, there’s actually a workaround! Just leave some 15-20% free, unformatted, unallocated space when formatting your RAID array of SSDs, seen as a single disk during OS install. The SSD controller will use this as “scratch space”. Also, do note that the much talked about performance loss over time that occurs with SSDs – is much less of an issue when in a RAID.

But what if I already formatted and used my drives?
No worries! You can still perform a Secure Erase (ata.wiki.kernel.org) to bring them back to basics. The same procedure can also be performed every 1-2 years if you experience noticeable loss of performance. But by then, maybe they will have conjured up some magical new drivers? Only time will tell …

Oh, almost forgot; for those “I run my single disk SSDs while in RAID mode” kind of guys:

Click here to get the latest Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Driver for Intel Desktop Boards.
Select your OS, then “Driver”.

Tags: , , ,

1 comment

Older posts «