DarrenHill Tracker

Re: restore cd for aspire v5-471

DarrenHill — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 08:42:14 GMT

When you say you deleted everything, do you mean you just formatted the c: drive, or do you mean you actively went in and removed the hidden partitions which contain the recovery media (or exchanged the HDD for a new one or an SSD)?

If it's just the former, then the hidden recovery partitions may still be there. The proposed route above (reboot then hold alt-F10) will tell you if you're not sure, or alternatively you can see via the disc management section of the computer management program (right-click on the "my computer" icon either in your start menu or on your desktop, or wherever Win8 may hide it, and select Manage). If you see multiple partitions on disc 0 aside from the one assigned to c: then you may be in luck.

Just remember to back-up your data etc that you want to preserve onto a separate media first, as everything on the installation drive (c: usually) will get wiped.

Re: Acer Aspire V3-731 and an Intel 3160HMW

DarrenHill — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 06:59:49 GMT

You're welcome. As you say it sounds like a hardware fault, so time for repair or replacement I'm afraid.

Good luck in getting it sorted.

Re: can someone please tell me how to fix this pain in the ... touchpad or mouse

DarrenHill — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 14:47:29 GMT

Look under "Mouse" in control panel. That usually has entries/options for both touchpad and rodent, either in different tabs or by selectable device. Or there may be an icon in the system tray area, often labelled "Synaptics Pointing Device" or something like that, although that's usually just a shortcut to the same control panel mouse entry.

Re: Acer Aspire V3-731 and an Intel 3160HMW

DarrenHill — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 13:42:28 GMT

No, Acer's don't have whitelists (at least so I was lead to believe recently when I was trying to get an Intel 7260 to work with my AO722, which failed miserably due to crappy Intel Windows drivers - it worked beautifully straight out of the box with Ubuntu but couldn't see any networks at all under Windows 7).

One useful tip for checking the hardware is to try it under Linux. If you go to the Ubuntu website, you can download an ISO that you can burn onto a DVD or set up on a USB and then try as a live-DVD or live-USB. That way it boots of it but doesn't install anything on your HDD and as Linux seems to be much better at picking up hardware than Windows is it's a good way to tell if you have knackered hardware or just an OS issue.

For details on making a live-DVD of Ubuntu - see here.

For details on making a live-USB of several different Linux flavours - see here.

You can of course make live-DVD's of almost any flavour of Linux - if you prefer Debian or Mint just do a Google search to bring up their respective pages describing how to do it (basically just download their .iso files and burn their content to a DVD - details of how to do that are in the Ubuntu link above).

This isn't a proposal to switch over to Linux, but just use it as a single-shot non-invasive test to confirm issues with hardware vs issues with Windows.

Re: Could I just replace my Acer Aspire One 722 HDD with an MX100 512Gb SSD?

DarrenHill — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 07:46:30 GMT

You should be able to, but be aware that your HDD (the original one) contains hidden partitions on which the recovery media is stored and which the Acer software will access if you need it for system repair or similar. If you do the swap from HDD to SSD then if those partitions are not also cloned across then you will lose access to the reinstall/repair facilities and may need to create/purchase separate restoration media instead.

If I remember correctly you can buy them from the Acer store, or create them yourself from the software installed on the hidden partitions on your current HDD (use the eRecovery program installed by default in your system to do that).

Re: Acer Aspire v3 772G no HDMI sound through TV

DarrenHill — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 07:38:32 GMT

Is the issue that you have no sound at all, or that you have picture via HDMI but the audio still coming from the 772?

On my netbook (AO722 under Win7) I occasionally get the latter when I'm travelling and have it connected by HDMI to hotel TVs. In those cases if you go under control panel and open the sound icon, you should be able to choose the playback target. The TV should appear in that list when it's HDMI connected, and selecting it (optionally also setting it to default) reroutes the audio from the speakers to the HDMI. I've never had to install any kind of driver for this, and I use all manner of random TVs from different manufacturers in my travels.

I'm not familiar with Win8.1 but I presume something similar may be available somewhere in its control panel settings if it is misdirected rather than missing audio.

Re: 802.11ac wifi mini-card compatible with an Aspire One AO722-C52kk

DarrenHill — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 08:55:02 GMT

Yup. I've now put the Broadcom 802.11n card back in, and instantly it's working fine and it even has its miniport adapter back too. So I think the Intel card is going to go back if I can arrange it, and I'll stick with 802.11n for now. Going to Linux would be a possibility, but not one I really want to do at the moment.

So it's time to clear out the install dead-wood from the factory set-up, put back everything that I had on it before and get it up and running again in a more sleek fashion (looking through the folders and seeing all the cruft from old programs etc wasn't pleasant). I might look at an 802.11ac card again in the near future, but it'll be a Broadcom or a Qualcomm/Atheros, won't be an Intel...

Re: 802.11ac wifi mini-card compatible with an Aspire One AO722-C52kk

DarrenHill — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 23:06:44 GMT

OK an update. I've used the eRecovery software to factory-default reset the Windows 7 installation. Interestingly initially I tried to do the option keeping the user settings, but when it got to starting services in the rebuild it came up with an error that Windows couldn't be installed on the machine and rebooted after a click on "OK" (I repeated this loop three times, it would not progress past that error).

Then I did a full restore (the first option - I already have a full back-up of the machine on my NAS box) and Windows proceeded to install itself. But this has made me wonder somewhat if there is something more underlying everything here ( a virus or something, even though I had a fully updated Zonealarm AV/Firewall and Malwarebyte anti-malware set-up on the PC). That said I do a full scan including archives roughly once a week, and nothing was found last time-out (although there was a hit a couple of weeks ago around the time that I was downloading the Broadcom replacement drivers).

So now the good news and the bad. The first (and only) thing I did was install the Intel software, and the machine can now see the PCIe card (the good news). However the card itself cannot see any networks (the bad news), even though the machine is literally sitting on the same desk as the wireless router (as I had them cable-connected to take a few extra bits off the hard drive before I reset things - the cable is currently disconnected - the router is literally about 4 inches from the back of the screen).

Again I'm now not sure what to do for the best. The manual diagnostics program passes the first three or so tests (hardware, radio and something else) but fails on the scan test with nothing found. The network is definitely there as all my other machines in the house are on it, and the antennae are connected correctly based on the Linux test earlier.

Any recommendations on how to proceed with this next roadblock? Or is it time to give up, reinstall the Broadcom card and hopefully get working wifi back again so I can proceed with the rebuild-proper as I'm away on business next week and would like to either take the machine with me in a functional state, or at least leave it here in one...

Re: 802.11ac wifi mini-card compatible with an Aspire One AO722-C52kk

DarrenHill — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 18:19:34 GMT

Useful to know, although it's only an 802.11n card like my old Broadcom one. I'm looking for an 802.11ac one as my router can support that (the 7260 under the liveCD reported a nice high speed, just to tease me).

So if a Win restore brings its drivers back as they should have been and were originally, I could just go back to that if all else fails. It was just about working before, but had somehow lost its miniport virtual adapter and was giving some corruption of things like webpage images and occasional downloads sometimes (enough to make it worth replacing for reliability).

Re: 802.11ac wifi mini-card compatible with an Aspire One AO722-C52kk

DarrenHill — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 18:00:23 GMT

Thanks for that - unfortunately I don't have a spare drive around so it's going to have to be on this one. I did take notice of your comments before (and others elsewhere on the net) about whitelists and vendor-locked cards, although it still didn't save me hassle as it turned out (or just changed it a bit)

To be honest there's not that much on this machine (it's been at least partly superceded by my Nexus 7 tablet) - I mainly just use it for game mod coding and a few other odds and ends. It's more the hassle of finding all the downloads and licenses etc for the various bits of software that are on it.

The background of the card change is that I was having some issues with the previous Broadcom card (details are in this thread), so it could be that something a bit deeper in the installation is screwed up so a refresh may not be a bad course of action anyway. The machine is 3-4 years old and still on its original factory set-up, with all it's accumulated cruft. If all else fails I can put the Broadcom card back into the new installation and carry on as I was before, and chalk the Intel card up to a £20 experience. Like you said it's just annoying that it works fine and straight out of the box on Linux (or I could just bite the bullet and go Penguin I suppose, although that's more of a seed-change than I was planning).

Re: 802.11ac wifi mini-card compatible with an Aspire One AO722-C52kk

DarrenHill — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 17:04:21 GMT

Sadly I'm coming to the same conclusion - time to see quite what is hidden away in the partitions of this machine for such a system rebuild...

I guess the job for tonight is going to be making sure all the backups etc are in place too so that nothing useful gets lost. Not quite how I wanted to spend my weekend, but I guess it's for the best.

One question - if I format the c: drive how can I access the hidden partitions to do the rebuild (I didn't see anything in the BIOS for it)? Or do you mean to just go via the eRecovery software and select a factory default restore?

Re: 802.11ac wifi mini-card compatible with an Aspire One AO722-C52kk

DarrenHill — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 16:47:39 GMT

Well the hardware of the card is fine - I'm posting this from an Ubuntu 14.04 live CD via my 5GHz wifi.

So the question now I guess is where the problem with the Windows driver and the card talking to one another is coming from. Is it something fundamental to them, or is it something that can be fixed. I don't particularly want to reinstall Windows (or switch to Linux), but I guess if that may resolve the issue then it could be worth it.

Any more inputs would be appreciated on what could be done here...

Re: 802.11ac wifi mini-card compatible with an Aspire One AO722-C52kk

DarrenHill — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 06:31:32 GMT

Hardware IDs are:

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08B1&SUBSYS_40708086&REV_73

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08B1&SUBSYS_40708086

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08B1&CC_028000

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08B1&CC_0280

I did actually (by mistake) try just the drivers first as I downloaded the wrong package (the just-drivers one) before downloading the full package of software. But you are correct, I got the same end result (no connections available) either way, although the full software gave the manual diagnosis option I mentioned above.

The wifi is on judging by the little LED at the front of the machine, and it doesn't have any hardware switch (just the Fn-F3 to turn on/off).

I'll try a Linux boot this evening and see where I am with that.

Re: 802.11ac wifi mini-card compatible with an Aspire One AO722-C52kk

DarrenHill — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 21:57:31 GMT

Well I can update this now, with some good news but mainly some bad.

I got myself a 7260.HMWWB and now have it installed (uninstalled the Broadcom drivers, left the Atheros, then removed the Broadcom mini-card), the software downloaded from the Intel site and tried.

The good news is the install went fine (I love how easy the Aspire One is to upgrade!) and the Bluetooth is all set up and works fine.

Unfortunately the bad news is that the wifi doesn't work. After the drivers were installed (latest ones from Intel site 17.0.5) the wifi LED turns on, but no connections are available even though the network centre reports the card fine and the drivers show as working. If I do a manual diagnostic (one of the Intel software items) it reports that the "Wireless Hardware is not bound to transport driver" under the initial hardware diagnostics.

So far I've tried:

Uninstalling and reinstalling the software.
Installing the software under safe mode (didn't work as it needs the Windows installer software).
IPConfig/all doesn't show the card.
Reset Winsock and TCP/IP (netsh int ip reset and netsh winsock reset).
Using the driver update thing on the Intel website - under Chrome it crashes my machine and under IE it blue-screens...!

Any thoughts, aside from send the thing back, put the Broadcom back in and give up? Is simple working wifi too much to ask

Re: Does the Qualcomm Atheros AR5BWB222 support dual band? (5Ghz)

DarrenHill — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 20:58:57 GMT

I think your router has 2 networks both with the SSID "IoBeej1l". One is 2.4GHz and the other is a 5GHz network.

If that is the case, what you need to do is log into your router and change the name of one of the networks (e.g. change the 5GHz one and call it "IoBeej1l-5G"). Your device should then see both networks separately, and you can then connect to the 5GHz one.

If both networks have the same name only one will be visible to your device, so it looks like in this case the 5GHz cannot be connected to as it is not visible due to being masked by the 2.4GHz network of the same name.

Re: Does the Qualcomm Atheros AR5BWB222 support dual band? (5Ghz)

DarrenHill — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 20:29:08 GMT

SSID "IoBeej1l" has BSSID channels 1 and 36 - one is 2.4GHz and the other is 5GHz.

Is that the SSID you are trying to connect to at 5GHz, and if so I repeat my earlier question about whether your 2.4GHz and 5GHz have distinct and different SSIDs or not.

Re: Does the Qualcomm Atheros AR5BWB222 support dual band? (5Ghz)

DarrenHill — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 19:45:55 GMT

The joy of Chrome and built-in translation

Profile Information
--------------------------
Version: 1
Type: Wireless LAN
Name: ooxoo5Ei
Selection keys:
Connection mode: Connect automatically
broadcast network: connect only if the network is broadcasting
.
Autoswitching not switch to other networks.

Connection settings
---------------------
Number of SSID: 1
Name SSID: "ooxoo5Ei"
Network Type: Infrastructure
Type radio [any type of radio]
Extension provider: none

Security Settings
----------------------
Authentication: WPA2-Personal
Cipher: CCMP
Security key: Present

Cost parameters
-------------
Cost: unlimited
Overloaded: no
Approach to restrict data&colon; no
data Exceeding the limit: No
Roaming: No
Source value: default

Profile DrWindows interface Wireless:
============================================ ====== =====================

Applied: All user profiles

Profile Information
--------------------------
Version: 1
Type: Wireless LAN
Name: DrWindows
Selection keys:
Connection mode: Connect automatically
broadcast network: connect only if the network is broadcasting
.
Autoswitching not switch to other networks.

Connection settings
---------------------
Number of SSID: 1
Name SSID: "DrWindows"
Network Type: Infrastructure
Type radio [any type of radio]
Extension provider: none

Security Settings
----------------------
Authentication: WPA2-Personal
Cipher: CCMP
Security key: Present

Cost parameters
-------------
Cost: unlimited
Overloaded: no
Approach to restrict data&colon; no
data Exceeding the limit: No
Roaming: No
Source value: default

Profile Madrid-K304 Wireless network interface:
========================================== ======== =====================

Applied: All user profiles

Profile Information
--------------------------
Version: 1
Type: Wireless LAN
Name: Madrid-K304
Select keys:
Connection mode: Connect automatically
broadcast network: connect only if the network is broadcasting
.
Autoswitching not switch to other networks.

Connection settings
---------------------
Number of SSID: 1
Name SSID: "Madrid-K304"
Network Type: Infrastructure
Type radio [any type of radio]
Extension of Supplier: no

Security Settings
----------------------
Authentication: WPA2-Personal
Cipher: CCMP
Security key: Present

Cost parameters
-------------
Cost: unlimited
Overloaded: no
Approach to restrict data&colon; no
data Exceeding the limit: No
Roaming: No
Source value: default

Profile DIR-615 Wireless Network Interface:
========================================== ======== =====================

Applied: All user profiles

Profile Information
--------------------------
Version: 1
Type: Wireless LAN
Name: DIR-615
Selection keys:
Connection mode: Connect manually
broadcast network: connect only if the network is broadcasting
.
Autoswitching not switch to other networks.

Connection settings
---------------------
Number of SSID: 1
Name SSID: "DIR-615"
Network Type: Infrastructure
Type radio [any type of radio]
Extension of Supplier: no

Security Settings
----------------------
Authentication: Open
Cipher: None
Security Key: None
Key Index: 1

Cost parameters
-------------
Cost: unlimited
Overloaded: no
Approach to restrict data&colon; no
data Exceeding the limit: No
Roaming: No
Source value: default

================================================== =====================
==================== networks with MODE BSSID ==== ================
================================== ================ =====================

Interface Name: Wireless network
is now clear following number of networks: 11.

SSID 1: IoBeej1l
Network type: Infrastructure
Authentication: WPA2-Personal
Encryption: CCMP
BSSID 1: 60: a4: 4c: 8e: 19:48
Signal: 100%
Radio type: 802.11n
Channel: 1
Basic rate (Mbit / s) : 1 2 5.5 11
Other rate (Mbit / s): 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54
BSSID 2: 60: a4: 4c: 8e: 19:4 c
Signal: 100%
Radio type: 802.11n
Channel: 36
Basic rate ( Mbit / s): 6 12 24
Other speed (Mb / s) 9 18 36 48 54

SSID 2: INTERTELECOM_WI-FI_FREE
Network type: Infrastructure
Authentication: Open
Encryption: None
BSSID 1: dc: 9f: db: 64:1 d: b9
Signal: 36%
Radio type: 802.11n
Channel: 1
Basic rate (Mbit / s) : 1 2 5.5 11
Other rate (Mbit / s): 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54
BSSID 2: dc: 9f: db: 64:1 c: f7
Signal: 32%
Radio type: 802.11n
Channel: 1
Basic rate ( Mbit / s): 1 2 5.5 11
Other rate (Mbit / s): 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54

SSID 3: Mikro
Network type: Infrastructure
Authentication: WPA2-Personal
Encryption: CCMP
BSSID 1: d4: ca: 6d: 53:55: e7
Signal: 38%
Radio type: 802.11n
Channel: 1
Basic rate (Mbit / s) : 1 2 5.5 11
Other rate (Mbit / s): 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54

SSID 4: AB Wlan 2v
Network type: Infrastructure
Authentication: WPA2-Personal
Encryption: CCMP
BSSID 1: 00:23:69:2 f: 21:1 f
Signal: 66%
Radio type: 802.11g
Channel: 6
Basic rate (Mbit / c): 1 2 5.5 6 11 12 24
Other rate (Mbit / s): 9 18 36 48 54

SSID 5: Vertaline
Network type: Infrastructure
Authentication: WPA2-Personal
Encryption: CCMP
BSSID 1: 60: a4: 4c: 79:20:78
Signal: 60%
Radio type: 802.11n
Channel: 6
Basic rate (Mbit / s) : 1 2 5.5 11
Other rate (Mbit / s): 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54

SSID 6: AB Wlan 1
Network Type: Infrastructure
Authentication: WPA2-Personal
Encryption: CCMP
BSSID 1: 2a: a4: 3c: 4d: 6a: 41
Signal: 66%
Radio type: 802.11n
Channel: 11
Basic rate (Mbit / c): 1 2 5.5 11
Other rate (Mbit / s): 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54

SSID 7: AB Wlan 1v
Network type: Infrastructure
Authentication: WPA2-Personal
Encryption: CCMP
BSSID 1: 2e: a4: 3c: 4d: 6a: 41
Signal: 64%
Radio type: 802.11n
Channel: 11
Basic rate (Mbit / c): 1 2 5.5 11
Other rate (Mbit / s): 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54

SSID 8: HP-Print-4D-Deskjet 2540 series
network type: Infrastructure
Authentication: WPA2-Personal
Encryption: CCMP
BSSID 1: 2c: 44: fd: c4: 70:4 d
Signal: 58%
Radio type: 802.11n
Channel: 4
Basic rate (Mbit / s)
Other speed (Mb / s): 1 2 5.5 6 9 11 12 18 24 36 48 54

SSID 9: Copywriter_Cabinet_3
Network type: Infrastructure
Authentication: WPA2-Personal
Encryption: CCMP
BSSID 1: ec: 43: f6: d5: d9: a8
Signal: 58%
Radio type: 802.11n
Channel: 4
Basic rate (Mbit / s) : 1 2 5.5 11
Other rate (Mbit / s): 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54

SSID 10: Copywriter_Cabinet_1
Network type: Infrastructure
Authentication: WPA-Personal
Encryption: TKIP
BSSID 1: fe: f5: 28:48: bf: c0
Signal: 64%
Radio type: 802.11g
Channel: 4
Basic rate (Mbit / s) : 1 2 5.5 11
Other rate (Mbit / s): 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54

SSID 11: Copywriter_Cabinet_2
Network type: Infrastructure
Authentication: WPA2-Personal
Encryption: CCMP
BSSID 1: ee: 43: f6: d5: d9: a0
Signal: 38%
Radio type: 802.11n
Channel: 10
Basic rate (Mbit / s) : 1 2 5.5 11
Other rate (Mbit / s): 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54

C: \ Users \ sloop_000>

Re: Does the Qualcomm Atheros AR5BWB222 support dual band? (5Ghz)

DarrenHill — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 19:03:11 GMT

And make sure the SSID for the 5GHz network from your router is different to the SSID for the 2.4GHz one, or else your computer will only see one of them (or at least will only list one).

Can you also post what make and model of router you have and are trying to connect to by 5GHz?

Re: Aspire V5-573G - Very unstable wireless

DarrenHill — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 13:37:57 GMT

Are your anti-virus, anti-malware and firewall products installed, up to date and working correctly? And have you used them to ensure that your hard disk is clean of problems?

That would be my first place to look at, as it could be you have an infection which is either messing with the wifi or just using bandwidth without your knowledge.

Re: 802.11ac wifi mini-card compatible with an Aspire One AO722-C52kk

DarrenHill — Sat, 19 Jul 2014 13:49:12 GMT

Thanks for that - if my mate comes through it should be a new card direct from Intel, but if not and I end up somewhere like Amazon I will certainly bear that in mind. I already saw that there are versions of the 7260 that are 802.11abgn rather than 802.11ac, but the two I mentioned earlier that I am looking at are ac models and at least from the information available they both support dual band 5GHz too and are the half-size mini PCIe like my existing one.

I also see on the net about some tricks for the whitelist cards (isolating one or two of the pins with tape to prevent them talking to the bios), but hopefully I can avoid such requirements with a suitable purchase from the correct source!