HP Solution Center failed to open

Recently, the HP Solution Center suddently stop working. When I launch HP SolutionCenter, nothing happens. In the error log, I see the errors:

Product: SolutionCenter -- Error 1904.
Module C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash\Flash9b.ocx failed to register.
HRESULT - 2147220473. Contact your support personnel.

What seems to have happened is the following:

1. Adobe Flash is updated to version 10. This cause Flash9b.ocx to be deleted from C:\Windows\Flash
2. HP Solution Center is apparently dependent on Flash9b.ocx, so it stopped working.

Here’s how I got rid of the error.

1. Uninstall HP solution center because HP do not allow you to reinstall the HP Solution Center. Instead, we have to uninstall so we can install the HP Solution Center again.
2. Reinstall HP Solution.

If you examine C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\flash, Flash9b.ocx is back even though we have Flash10.ocx. If you examine the event log, there is the same registration error again (you can’t register Flash9b.ocx because there is a later version), but HP solutions apparently works.

HP Photosmart C7280 Driver Install Tips

I have fond memory of HP printer products. I remember back in my undergrad years, I hooked up an HP Inkjet 500 that I shared with my 7 other housemates. That thing was a tank. Everyone was printing their paper on it and we probably was using way above its rated cycle, but it worked for years after we abused it. At work, we often encountered HP Laserjet, which were just as tough.

I don’t know about how good the HP hardware is these days, but the software could use some dieting. Isn’t 190 Mb a bit big for a driver? Did the programmers get paid by lines of code? What’s in that thing? A lot of bloatware apparently.  Here’s my tips on what to install:

1. Download the Full Feature driver and not the Basic driver. If you install the basic driver, you’ll only have the ability to print. The scan and fax will not work. The driver is available at this location.
2. Launch Driver.
3. Click on Install.
4. Press Next.
5. Uncheck the Yahoo Toolbar and check the Advance Install. We don’t need the toolbar. Click Next.
6. When prompted whether to automatically check for updates, click No and click next.
7. On install options, select Custom Install. Click Next.
8. On the Custom Installation screen, check only the following:HP Solution Center
   HP Imaging Functions
   OCR Software by I.R.I.S.
   Even if you don’t use the OCR software, you will want to install the OCR software. Without the OCR software, you will not be able to scan to PDF. If you already have Photoshop or something, why bother. HP update would be nice, but takes up memory and resource as a background task. HP do not seem to update their drivers often. Why not just manually check every once in a while. The Web Printing is interesting, but we could do without it. The other stuff is just bloatware.
9. Prompt for EULA, click I agree (what else are you going to do, disagree and have no driver?)
10. Click Next to use default location.
11. Follow the instruction on screen and complete the installation.
12. After installation, launch HP Solution Center.
13. In HP Solution Center, click on settings.
14. Click on Scan settings->Scan to… Setup.
15. Wait for a long time for the front panel list to appear. Select each item you want to be able to select from the LCD panel. Each item you add will appear on the printer’s LCD panel when you select scan to computer on the printer. If you do not select any options, you will not be able to scan to your computer and you will get a message “No scan options”. In my case, I added all of the items.
16. Once all of the items are added, press Update the Device.

At this point the driver should be installed and you have roughly the minimal software for the majority of features.

After installing the driver, make sure you install the Critical Update to Correct a PC to Printer Communication Issue if you are using the wireless connection. Without installing this driver, scan to computers often fail.

HP Photosmart C7280 driver install fails with an error registering hpbmiapi.dll failed to register

Recently, my mom’s troublesome Brothers MFC-3360C All-In-One printer finally died. The printer was just pure evil. Dust would collect around the tray and make it impossible to remove the paper tray. The ink cartridge would run dry every couple of months even though no one printed anything because it continuously self-clean. I was not unhappy to see it go.

I replaced it with a HP Photosmart C7280 All-In-One. The printer looked solid and I hope that it will last longer than the Brothers, but our relationship soured quickly when I attempted to install the drivers. The driver failed with the following error:

Fatal error during Installation
Module C:\Windows\system32\hpbmiapi.dll failed to register. HRESULT -2147221164. Contact your support personnel.
Please go to http://www.hp.com/support for troubleshooting information about "Fatal Error" and "MSI.dot4wrp".

Since the CD install didn’t work, I downloaded the latest drivers from HP and they didn’t work. I tried to unzip the drivers and locate the hpbmiapi.dll and manually register the dll, but I ran out of disk space. I tried google and notice that many HP owners of a different printer had similar issues, but was resolved by a patch from HP.

I called HP customer support in hopes that they will have a patch for the C7280, but they were less than helpful.  I mentioned that various other people on the HP forum had the same issue, but they told me that no one has reported this issue. After trying a few things, they declared that the problem was Microsoft’s fault and that I should call up Microsoft since they will know what the problem is. They wouldn’t escalate the issue because it was a Microsoft problem. Right…

This post gave me a clue:

http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?admit=109447627+1235967722575+28353475&threadId=1198595

The hpbmiapi.dll registration failed because of a dependency. Apparently hpbmiapi.dll is dependent on atl.dll (Active Template Library) to be registered. When it wasn’t, the install blew up when it failed to register hpbmiapi.dll. What the error message should have mentioned was the dependency.

To fix the problem, do the following:

1. Check if atl.dll exists in your system directory. It’s usually in C:\Windows\system32. If it exists, go to the next step. If it does not, you may be able to install it by downloading and installing the Visual C++ 6.0 runtime at:
   http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;259403
2. Once it’s there, you can register it by running the following command in a command window (you must be an admin of the system):

   regsvr32 C:\WINDOWS\system32\atl.dll
   

   
   

3. Now install the driver again. This time the install should work.

I am hoping that this article will help someone save a few hours of frustration. Sadly, I have had good luck with HP in the past. It’s clear that they are no longer the company they used to be.

Testing eboostr on an older machine

I decided to try out the eboostr 3.0 beta to see if it can speed up my mom’s computer (an ancient eMachine T1221 with a Celeron 1.3 Ghz). Normally, adding more memory is best, but the machine is maxed out at 512Mb. I figured that adding a disk cache to an usb stick may be able to add additional performance. Apparently, I was wrong.

The machine is setup to use a 2Gb stick of Cruzer Micro (readyboost ready). HDtach returned about 27 Mb/s read speed with an access time of 0.6ms. The machine has an USB 2.0 card, so it should be fast enough.

I ran several test like startup, shutdown, opening different applications, opening web pages. All of the test were no faster than before eboostr. I examined the cache and noted that the files being opened are in the cache, it’s just that they didn’t return quickly enough. If it worked, it should be noticeable.

I decided to do some investigating and ran the eboostr speed test. It came back with a ratio of only speed ratio of 1.13 and 100% cache hit. A 13% speed bump is probably too slow to make a difference and this is with a reasonably fast stick. I installed eboostr and used memory as a cache, but the ratio only went up to 1.59. This is a lot better, but surprisingly low for a memory cache. Keep in mind that while it’s faster to find a file on the USB drive, the cpu cost for getting it is higher. HDtach indicated that it only use 5% CPU to read from the IDE drive and 19% CPU to read from the USB drive.

I also tried eboostr on an AMD 2600+ desktop with 2Gb of memory and allocated 1Gb of memory to cache. There was no noticable speed difference before and after eboostr. The speed test indicated that the speed ratio is only 1.89, which is better than the eMachine, but not good enough in my opinion.

eboostr did not work for the two older machines that we tried it on.

How I selected my Antivirus software for Windows

For a long time, I used AVG free on my machines. Recently, I notice that the memory footprint for AVG was getting large and I wanted to know if there was a better free Anti-virus software out there. There are essentially 3 main free Anti-virus software: Avast!, Avira, and AVG. If you do a google search, you’ll notice tons of post comparing the merits of one over the others. The following links is an actual benchmark that compare the Anti-virus products and were used as reference.
http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/ergebnisse_2008_11.php
http://www.passmark.com/ftp/antivirus_09-performance-testing-ed1.pdf
http://www.maximumpc.com/print/4230

Memory Footprint Ranking
If you have plenty of memory, you can probably careless about this category. However, a lot of older machine or netbook may have limited memory, so every bit of memory saved counts. Keep in mind I am more interested in idle memory footprint than when it’s scanning.

Memory footprint of the anti-virus product at idle can be ranked in the following order according to the passmark article. I also try installing each product on my Vista machine and verified the ranking.

Product	Memory Usage in Mb
Avast! Antivirus Home	18.05
Avira Antivir free	22.3
AVG Free	56.06

While Avast! And Avira were similar to each other in memory footprint, AVG appears to be using twice the memory of the other two product.

Virus Detection
How well does the three product detect virus. It appears that Antivir is somewhat better than the other. I am not convinced that Antivir is actually that much better, but various post online indicates that its detection rates were better than average.

Product	Detection Rate (from av comparative)
Avira Antivir free	71%
AVG Free	43%
Avast! Antivirus Home	40%

Background Performance
How much performance loss do you suffer running the anti-virus software. Judging from the test results from passmark, the three products are very similar in performance. Differences show up in File Open where AVG and Avira is nearly twice as fast as Avast and file copy where AVG is noticeably slower than the other two products.

The Maximum PC article seems to complain that the AVG had the biggest negative performance.

Scanning Speed Ranking
Of the three products, the scan speed varies by quite a lot according to passmark.

Product	Time (sec)
Avira Antivir free	68.8
Avast! Antivirus Home	116.87
AVG Free	364.2

The Maximum PC article indicated that the Avast is very slow but didn’t provide numbers on how it compare with the other two product.

User Interface
User interface is very subjective, but in my opinion, AVG has the best and clearest interface. Avast is the worse. The interface looks like a media player, which doesn’t quite fit the paradigm of a virus scanner at all. Avira is somewhere in between the two. It’s not great, but at least it works.

Registration
How annoying is the registration process for the Virus. AVG is probably the least intrusive. You are prompted to register, but you do not have to. Avira is similar but throws up a pop-up every times the program updates the virus definition. The most annoying is Avast, which requires you to registered for a license key or the program will expire in 60 days. The key last only a year, so you must registered again next year.

Features
All of the product offers email and spyware protection. Avast also has IM scanning, but does not have scheduled scanning. Unlike the other two product, AVG does not have rootkit protection.

Recommendation
In my opinion, the best free anti-virus is currently Avira Antivir. It has the fastest scan, best detection rate, and second best memory footprint. It’s annoying to get a pop-up on every update, but that is a small price to pay for a free product. I also want the anti-rootkit feature and scheduled scanning since I want to do the scanning while I am not using the machine.

Fixing Windows Delayed Write Failed error

Recently, while copying data from one USB external drive to another, I got the following error:

Windows – Delayed Write Failed : Windows was unable to save all the data for the file F:\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere

What appears to be happening is that the USB can’t keep up with the disk writes and is timing out. The error is puzzling since I do not have write cache enabled.  Both usb hard disk were set up for quick removal. In any case, the result is bad. The hard disk becomes corrupted.

There are a variety of possible causes to this problem. Microsoft listed various hotfix for this issue, but they were for SP2, so those fixes should have been rolled into SP3 by now. I tried to isolate the problem by using the same hard disk setup on a different machine. The copy worked flawlessly on a different machine. I figured it was most likely to be driver related. However, I have the latest driver from the manufacturer, right?

Wrong, the motherboard is a few years old and the drivers are from a few years ago. Since then Microsoft has updated XP by SP2 and SP3. Because the manufacturer no longer sell that board, they didn’t bothered to update the drivers. I poked around the Device Manager and discovered that the chipset is VIA. I then use google to locate a driver for the VIA chipset release recently in Oct 2008 that works for all VIA chipset. I installed it and the problem went away.

While I can’t guarantee that this will correct your problem, it’s worth a try to see if it will work. Try to see if there is a newer driver from the motherboard and chipset manufacturer.

As for the corrupted drive, you may be able to recover the data by copying as much data as possible, delete the partition, add a new one, format and put the data back. In my case, I had a back up so I erase the drive and repopulated it from the data.

Morale of the story

• Be careful when you upgrade your OS, it’s possible that when you install a new Service Pack, your drivers may need updating.
• You may not be able to depend on your vendor to provide a compatible driver. You may have to do some digging and find out the new driver from the chipset manufacturer and install it yourself.

An experence with Linksys CIT200 Skype phone on a low bandwidth DSL line

Recently, I decided to set up a Skype phone for my mother. My relatives are now in different places on the globe and it’s costly to call them on the phone. A good number of them have Skype. She would be able to call them for free.

Ironically, I picked the Linksys CIT200 mainly because it was a single purpose phone. Personally, I would like one of those dual phone that allow me to switch between Skype and the landline. However, my mom can’t even figure out how to use call waiting, so she won’t know if she’s in Skype or landline mode. Since CIT200 is a separate phone, we won’t have that issue. It also doesn’t hurt that I got the phone on sell for $30 from Circuit City.

Opinions about the phone

The phone comes in 3 different components:

1. The Phone itself – pretty well constructed and uses standard AA batteries. You should be able to find replacement NIMH batteries at most stores.
2. The charging station – charges the phone. The construction is not very robust. It would be pretty easy to break.
3. The USB base station – this is the part that hooks up to your computer. On a lot of devices, the base station is the charger. In this case, they are separate.

Installation and set up

Installation is pretty easy. I plugged in the charger unit and place the phone on it. The manual states that it should sit on the charger cradle for at least 14 hours. Next, I install the Skype software and then the CIT200 software.

I created an account on Skype and login. I then plugin the base station, which then triggered an automatic device driver install. I switch on the phone and got a pop up asking if I want to use the phone in Skype. I answer yes and the phone’s status indicate I was online.

The phone uses the Skype software computer to talk. It simply act as a mic and speaker device. In order to use it, your computer must be on and you have to be log into Skype.

What I did was to setup Skype to run and login automatically on startup. I also put in $10 of credit for calls.

I have verify that the CIT200 driver will work under Vista. However, I notice that there’s no uninstaller, so it was a pain to remove the software.

Hardware we’re running on

The hardware we are running on is a pretty slow machine.

• eMachine T1221. 1.3 Ghz Celeron, 512 Mb memory.
• USB 2.0 PCI card (since machine is old enough to come with USB 1.1).
• Buffalo Technology WHR-G125 Wireless-G High-Speed Router with QOS for voice over IP.
• Veizon DSL 768K/128K

The Experience on a slow DSL

The phone allows you to test your setup by calling echo123, an account that records your voice and then play it back for testing purposes. Frankly, I was alarmed by the poor quality of echo123’s annoucement message. Fortunately, my recorded voice sounded OK.

Even with the slow DSL of 768K download and 128K upload, the phone sounded fine. The sound quality is somewhere between a cell phone and a landline. I did however hear some odd echos when calling a landline. The echo disappeared when I call the person Skype to Skype overseas.

The Buffalo router’s quality of service (QOS) worked great by giving voice over IP packets higher priority. As a result, the voice quality never dropped even when I attempted to download a file. However, the browsing experience is painful when the CIT200 is in use, since the voice is taking over part of the bandwidth.

A button on the bottom of the phone allow the user to select and call Skype users. Alternatively, you can just dial the number, but you have to enter the international code, even if the call is within the US. If you do call someone, the rate varies from country to country. In a lot of places, the charge is about $0.02 per minute with a minimal minutes of about $0.06. If you make a lot of small calls, you can easily use up your credit.

Overall, I think the CIT200 worked really well.

Tips on Windows File and Print Sharing

In this article, I will explain how Windows file and print sharing works and how to work around problems. The article will cover file and print sharing under a work group and not under an active directory domain. If you don’t know what active directory is, you probably don’t have an active directory domain since they are not trival to setup and maintain. You will only see active directory domains in companies. The article will cover Windows 2000 to Vista.

How the different Window editions Handle File Sharing

Different Windows edition handle networking differently. Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000, and Vista all can handle Advance File Sharing. Windows XP Home is limited to Simple File Sharing.

Windows XP Home

XP Home has a limited version of file sharing call “Simple File Sharing”. There’s a couple of points to remember about Simple File Sharing:

1. Everyone connects to the server as the account “guest” when you attempt to connect to the shared folder or printer. This is actually the most important behavior to remember about Simple File Sharing. No matter who you are login as on the client machine, when you connect to the XP Home server, it will connect you as guest.
2. For a shared folder, you can either set the field as read-only or read-write for everyone.
3. You can hide your share name by ending it with $. Users will be able to connect to that share, but they will not be able to see it. Note that this is not foolproof, there are utilities that allow you to see the hidden shares. Note that $ also works in Advance File Sharing, which we will go into later.

Because everyone connects to the server as guest, you need to make sure that the guest account has no password. If there is a password, users will be prompted for a user name and password when they connect and they will have to enter the guest and the guest’s password. If you disabled the guest account, no one can connect to your machine.

XP Home has no provision for any other form of file and print sharing.

Windows XP Pro and 2000

Both windows XP professional and Windows 2000 have advance file and print sharing. The major differences from simple file sharing is the following:

1. When you connect to the server, your username and password is passed to the server. If the username and password match an account on the server, you will be connected to the server as that user.
2. You have finer control over permission. For each folder and printer you share, you can specify who can access the folder or printer, and what rights they have over it.

One thing you must do for advance file sharing is that your user account and password must match across the different machines. The reason for this is security, since you don’t want people being able to get access to resources on your server without knowing the password.

Even if you give permission to the “everyone” group, you will still be unable to get access to that server resource unless you have a user name and password that match one on the server.

If your user name and password do not match, you can still get access by playing around with explorer to allow you to connect to the resource as a different user. Note that this is possible but is cumbersome and is not automatic.

Note that by default, XP Pro has simple file sharing turned on so that it behaves like XP Home. To turn it off, you can go into explorer, select Tool->Folder Option and check or uncheck the option for Simple File Sharing. This mean you can use simple file sharing or advance file sharing in XP. Windows 2000 is limited to advance file sharing only.

Vista

Vista does not have simple file sharing. Vista file and printer sharing works pretty much like advance file sharing. However, there are options to turn off password protection so that you can simulate simple file sharing.

Guidelines for setting up File and Print Sharing

Guidelines for Simple File Sharing

• Make sure that guest account is not disable and do not have a password. If the guest account is disable or have a password, Simple File sharing will not work properly.
• If you do not want users logging in as guest on XP, go into control panel->user accounts and check the option to disable the guest account. Note that when you disable the user account in control panel user account, it actually just prevents you from logging in, it does not actually disable the account.
• Your policy should be set such that guest can only login locally. Because guest do not have a password, you want to prevent people from logging into the machine as guest.
• Keep in mind that everyone can see any directory that you share. Do not put anything in share that you do not want the public to read.
• Limit write permission only to directory where if users won’t be able to do any damage. Keep in mind that if you set a folder to writable, it will be writable to everyone. Do not ever share the root of your drive to be writable for obvious reasons.

Guideline for Advance File Sharing

• Set up your network so that all of the machine on the network has the same work group, user name, and password.
• You may disable the guest account, since it is not used in Advance File Sharing.

Solutions to some of the problems you may encountered

I don’t even have an option to share a folder or printer

You may need to install the file and sharing component. This will be on our Windows OS disc.

How do I re-enable my guest account?

If your guest account is truly disable (as oppose to be just hidden from login), simple file sharing is not going to work. To renable the account, login into the machine with a user that has admin rights. Right-click  on “My Computer”, select the user folder, get properties of the guest user account, and uncheck the disable account checkbox.

How do I remove my guest account’s password?

If the guest account is enabled but has a password, the user will be prompted to enter the user name and password when they connect to a server resource. However, when you attempt to remove the password using the graphica interface, it tells you that the policy doesn’t allow accounts without password.

The easiest way to remove the guest account password is to do it from the command line.

1. Login to the machine with an admin account.
2. Open a command window.
3. Type in the command:

   net user <user name> “”

   The command above change the <user name>’s password to “”.

If I use advance file sharing, is there a way I can set up the server so that anyone can access the printer?

No, if you want everything to be seamless. You have to go with Simple File Sharing, which allow everyone to connect as guest and live with the security limitations. If you use advance file sharing, you will need to connect to the server before you can have access to a resource, even if it is opened to everyone.

Note that I said “seamless”. You can still manually mount the resources, but it won’t work automatically.

If I have Simple File Sharing on, does this mean I cannot remote desktop to the server because every login is now seen as “guest”?

No, remote desktop is not the same as file and printer  sharing. The connect as guest only occur when you attempt to link the server for file and printing (technically call SMB protocol). Remote desktop is not affected.

Mandriva 2008 vs Suse 10.3 vs Ubuntu 7.10 on an Averatec 2370

When I purchased Averatec 2370 last year, I thought I was getting a good deal on an ultra-portable laptop. Two warranty repairs later, I no longer think the same. To pour salt in the wound, Averatec 2370 does not work properly with Vista. Due to a BIOS incompatibility, Vista only runs at the processor’s lowest speed. When I close the laptop lid, the laptop’s screen goes blank and never comes back from sleep. How can anyone claim to be Vista compatible with these problems? Both Averatec and Microsoft should be ashamed! Annoyed, I had a thought; can Linux succeed where Microsoft and Averatec have failed?

I had previously failed to install Linux on the Averatec 2370. The two areas that all distros failed in were the wireless and suspend to RAM. Now that Suse 10.3, Mandriva 2008, and Ubuntu 7.10 have recently been release. It was time to try again.

Unlike the other reviews, I will mostly concentrate on hardware detection and support. Based on past experience, Averatec 2370 is not a particularly Linux friendly machine. What I am interested is to install the Linux on the laptop and have all of the hardware working with a minimum amount of configuration. In all cases, I put in the install CD and default install overwriting everything on the hard disk. I then get access to the internet and do an update.

Mandriva 2008.0 (KDE)

Mandriva installed quickly with a graphical wizard. The distro detected the screen properly and automatically install the Nividia proprietary display driver and offered the choice of none, Metisse, and Compiz. I chose Compiz. The wireless card was detected properly and I was able to select the WPA-PSK options. Unfortunately, the wireless driver did not actually work.

There are two annoying problems with the installer. Some of the screens wizard screens do not have a back button, so if you make a mistake, you cannot go back. When the installer ends, it doesn’t reboot the machine but leaves you at the command line. You have to press CTRL-D to logout (most people will probably just turn off the machine).

When I did reboot the computer, it boots into a blank screen. After playing around, I realized that it’s freezing on the splash screen. Turn off the computer and boot again. When you see the startup menu (grub), press F2 for options and remove from the end of the boot line “vga=788″ to get past the splash screen. Next we need to remove the bad vga entry from the boot parameter. Login and click on the Control Center icon at the bottom task bar and click on the Boot tab. Click on the choice “Set up boot system” and wait. Click on the next button. Click on modify button to modify the default grub menu. Expand the Advance options and set the options to 640×480 16 bpp and press OK. Press the finish button and reboot the laptop.

The touchpad was correctly detected, but I could find no GUI option to configure it. I ended up editing the xorg.conf file manually to remove the tap click.

Suspend to RAM and Suspend to Disk both failed. In both cases, suspend were both successful, but when we wake from RAM, we get a blank screen. When the laptop wakes from disk, flicking garbage appears on the screen. The wireless driver was able to connect to a public network, but I was unable to connect to a WPA-PSK router.

All in all, I am impressed by Mandriva but found that the disto isn’t completely compatible with my laptop.

SUSE 10.3 (Gnome)

SUSE is the only distro without a live CD. Unlike Mandriva or Ubuntu, you cannot test the disto on your machine before you install. The installer was easy to follow but took over an hour to install everything. I suspect that it was because it was downloading packages from the net. Installation would probably be faster if I had use the DVD instead of the CD. The installer correctly detected the 1280×800 LCD. The installer initially detected the RT73 wireless card, but the drivers failed so I had no wireless.

After the installation, I attempted to fix the wireless problem but it appears that I would have to download and compile a new drivers. To make things worse, neither suspend to RAM nor suspend to disk works. In either case, the laptop would appear to suspend, only to drop back to the enter password screen. Attempts to run s2ram with different parameters all failed. In each case, suspend is always halted.

The touchpad was correctly detected, but I could not find the configuration screen to turn off the touchpad tap clicking. I ended up editing the xorg.conf file manually to remove the tap click.

Unlike the other two distros, it isn’t quite that easy to install 3D desktop effects. Video files do not play because codec is missing.

All in all, I am not impressed at all with the SUSE 10.3 release. Suse used to be the best distro for laptop because of their laptop management support. It appears that they have fallen way behind the other two distros.

Ubuntu 7.10 (Gnome)

Ubuntu comes on a live CD that you can test before you install. The installer was easy to follow and install the disto quickly. Like the other two distros, the screen was detected correctly at 1280×800. Surprisingly, the wireless worked right out of the box with WPA. On the downside, there is a bit of instability to the wireless drivers. I have had a few cases where the wireless driver lost the connection.

Unlike Mandriva, the proprietary driver is not installed by default. You have to install it using the restricted driver. If you want 3D, you have to go to a different screen to enable it. In this case, you should install the proprietary driver because suspend to ram will not work properly without it.

The touchpad is correctly detected and there is a GUI option to turn off the touchpad tap. The product does not come with any codec, but the OS automatically prompt you to install it if attempt to use a codec that it does not have.

Conclusion

The clear winner is Ubuntu. It is the only distro that seems to work mostly out of the box. It is the only distro where wireless and suspend worked even though I had to install the proprietary driver to get it to work.

I have to admit that Ubuntu has never been my favorite distro. From my point of view, it’s one of the ugliest distros and is heavily hyped. Yet there is substance behind the hype, the distro over the years have always managed to be just a little bit better than its competitor especially in its laptop support. It’s managed to won me over despite my dislike of it.

Note that all distros were much easier to install than Vista. Unlike Linux, I had to search and download drivers from the manufacturer to get Vista to work. Even when all of the drivers were installed, the computer ran at half the clock speed and had broken power management.

Linux is not perfect. There are still some problems, particularly with the wireless. None of the distro have drivers for the modem. The difference between Vista and Linux is that one day; the problems I encountered with my laptop will most likely be fixed. The problems I have with Vista will most likely not be fixed, so I am saying goodbye to Vista on the Averatec 2370.

	Mandriva 2008 KDE	Suse 10.3	Ubuntu 7.10
Dual Core support	Yes	Yes	Yes
Display
Detect 1280×800 LCD	Yes	Yes	Yes
Detect Video card	Yes	Yes	Yes
3D Desktop effects	Yes	No	Yes
Audio	Yes	Yes	Yes
Touchpad	Yes, but can’t figure out how to turn off tap without editing xorg.conf	Yes, but can’t figure out how to turn off tap without editing xorg.conf	Yes
Power Management
Suspend to RAM	No	No	Yes, but only when using Proprietary Nvidia drivers.
Suspend to Disk	No	No	Yes
Modem	No	No	No
Ethernet	Yes	Yes	Yes
Wireless
Public	Yes	Yes	Yes
WPA-PSK	No	No	Yes
Play Flash	Yes	Yes	Yes, but autodownload of codec was needed.
Play mp3	Yes	Yes	Yes
Play Xvid	Yes	No	Yes, but autodownload of codec was needed.
Play DVD	No	No	No

Averatec 2370 is downclocked to 800 Mhz after upgrading to Vista (Averatec abandons customers)

I installed Vista on my Averatec 2370 and it became painfully slow. Vista sucks! On the other hand, may be we shouldn’t blame Vista without more proof. I ran Super PI and notice that performance has been cut exactly in half. That sounds more like there is an issue with the power management, since a laptop run at half the speed during idle to save power. I installed RMclock and discovered that my hunch was correct. The processor is running at 800 Mhz no matter which power profile I used. Vista has made my laptop lazy!

Death by Inaction

No only was my laptop running at half the speed, there were other problems. Normally, when the laptop screen is closed, it goes to sleep. I normally set the laptop to do nothing when when the lid is closed so I can carry it around without it going to sleep. Instead of doing nothing, the laptop screen goes blank and never comes back. There was no way to recover without reboot (though I did found a solution for that later).

Calling Averatec for some help

I contacted Averatec to see if they know a solution to the issue. They told me that no one has reported this issue and that I was the first person to report this. Averatec thought that there was something faulty with my machine and that I should send in it. I did not want to do this. During the warranty period, I had to send my laptop in twice for repair. The second time, Averatec kept the laptop for over 2 months waiting for parts. If I sent in it, I may never see my laptop for another couple of months. I decided to do some investigation on my own.

The Online investigation

If no one has reported this issue to Averatec, there are certainly a lot of people online who have the same problem who called Averatec. Many of the posters had gotten the free Vista upgrade that came with the Averatec purchase and encountered a drop in performance after the upgrade. To make things worse, Averatec also told them that since they upgraded their laptop, they were no longer eligible for technical support unless they revert to XP. Unfortunately for people who upgrade, they cannot go back since their XP license key had been invalidated by the upgrade.

The Linux kernel thread indicated that ACPI on Averatec 2370 and many of the AMD Turion machines were broken. At least for Linux, there were patches to allow the laptop to run at the full speed, but no such patch exists for Vista.

In addition, Everex makes a laptop name Everex StepNote ST5340T that’s identical to Averatec 2370, since both are rebadged Twinhead H12F laptops. Users of that Everex laptop owners did not report any problem with Vista. The difference between the two models is that Averatec 2370 has R1.05 BIOS and Everex has R1.09 BIOS.

The Cause of the problem

The root of the issue is a bug in the BIOS for version R1.05 and earlier. The ACPI implementation is broken in the BIOS. As a result, Vista is trapped into running at the lowest possible speed and the no action to fail. I don’t know why this doesn’t happen in XP.

Unfortunately, Microsoft did not created any patch for Vista to correct the BIOS issue, so it must be fixed in the BIOS for Vista to work properly. Since the Everex laptop did not have the same problem, one would assume that the problem has been resolved in the later release of the BIOS. I contacted Averatec to know if they have answers to my investigation and if they will release a later version of the BIOS that will solve the problem. Averatec promised that they will contact HQ for some answers.

Averatec invokes the Doctrine of Infallability

Averatec HQ’s response was highly unprofessional. I already told them that I know of others online who have called in with the same issue and Everex has resolved the issue with the R1.09 BIOS. If Averatec can just release a more recent version of the BIOS, we could be all happy. Instead their response was

• I am the only person with his problem. Never mind that I already told them that I know of others who called Averatec with the same issue.

• There is no later BIOS because the manufacturer did not release one. If they did, Averatec would have release it. However, since Everex gets the BIOS from the same manufacturer, this is not true. The most likely explanation is that Averatec has stop paying the licensing fee and so can’t get the later version of the BIOS.

• There is no problem with Vista, if I can’t see the reality of this, then there’s nothing more they can do for me. These were their almost exact words. Apparently, HQ’s words trumps customer experience.

• Vista is not a supported OS even though there is a “Window Vista Capable” sticker on the front of the machine.

 

What an interesting customer service strategy, tell the customer that their problem doesn’t really exist and point out that the problem only exists because the customer has no grip on reality.

Solving the problems on our own

I looked through the web and figured out a few solutions. I will post them in the order of difficulty in hopes of helping my fellow Averatec 2370 owner

 

1. Stick with XP. This is the easiest solution since the computer does not have problems under XP. Of course, if you upgrade to Vista using the free Vista upgrade in 2007, you can’t go back.

2. Install RMclock to get around the broken power management by replacing it with RMclocks’s custom power manager. RMclock is fairly easy to setup and it is a program so it is perfectly save. As soon as you quit the program, the laptop returns to its default behavior. The downside to RMclock is that it is a just a program. You cannot run it until you login. This mean when you first boot up the computer, it will run at half-speed until you login and run RMclock. Every time you log out, RMclock will quit and the computer will be slow again. In addition, you need to have admin permission to run RMclock.

   RMclock will not fix the problem No Action, so make sure that your Power button, Sleep button, and Lid isn’t set to “No action” or you may end up with a blank screen. If you managed to do this, you can get out of it by hitting the hotkeys for sleep (Fn+F4), which puts the laptop to sleep and then click on any key to bring it back out.
   

3. Install an alternative OS like Linux. Under Ubuntu, my Averatec 2370 runs at the correct speed and CPU scaling worked properly. Amusingly, you can then install a virtual machine like Vmware or Virtualbox and run Vista in the virtual machine at speeds that are faster than the real machine under the broken BIOS. Unfortunately, after trying it for a few months, I decided that it was not feasible. I had initially tried several distro and found that only Ubuntu 7.10 seemed to work mostly out of the box, but not everything worked. The wireless had drop out mysteriously until I compile a more recent driver from sourceforge. The sleep and hibernate worked, but sometimes the laptop would not wake up. The audio jack didn’t automatically switch off when you plug in a headphone like in Vista.

   When Ubuntu 8.04 came out, I was hoping that more of the issue had been fixed. The wireless was now worked close to perfect, but now sleep and hibernate does not work at all even with the corrected BIOS.

4. Install the Everex BIOS. Basically, we flashed the Averatec 2370 with a later version of the R1.09 BIOS from an Everex StepNote ST5340T machine. After the flash, the machine will work perfectly with Vista. The following instruction shows you how to do this. Keep in mind that I am talking about an Averatec 2370. There is a model out call Averatec 2371. I don’t know if 2371 is the same motherboard as 2370, so it may not work. I must warned you again that this method have a potential of bricking your laptop, though the chance is small.

Flashing the BIOS

Flashing the BIOS is dangerous. It’s dangerous not because we are flashing a BIOS from a different company (the machines are identical), but because the flashing process itself can turn your computer into a brick if interrupted. Some manufacturer will not warranty a flash failure. This is why you should only flash your machine if there is no other recourse. In addition, think about not doing this until your warranty has expired. I am pretty sure Averatec will void your warranty if the machines boots up with an Everex logo during repairs. You can reflash the BIOS with the Averatec BIOS before sending it back to Averatec, but if you’re probably not going to be able to this if your machine is broken.

The first problem we encountered is that there is no Everex BIOS to download. The Everex come pre-installed with the R1.09 BIOS so there was no reason for Everex to post it online. However, a clever person name Jackyl managed to grab a copy of the BIOS off a machine and posted it on the notebookreview site as a bunch of zip files. At this point, you may wonder if this is even legal. It is definitely questionable from a copyright standpoint. The only reason we are doing this is because Averatec won’t release the later BIOS and because we can’t even buy the BIOS from the manufacturer. If Jack Bauer crash through the door to arrest you, tell him that Averatec set you on this life of crime.

Go to this thread and download all of the Zip files. Unzip each of the files and unrar the file. I used the 7zip utility to both unzip and unrar the file. When you finish, you’ll have an R109.bin file that’s 512K. This is the BIOS file.

Now you’ll need some way of installing the BIOS, there are several ways of doing this. I will give detail description of how I did this in the past. I will also mention how other people online said they have perform the installation. You’ll have to google and ask them yourself on the exact details.

In all cases, make sure that the laptop is plugged in and that you have a fully charged battery. This is insurance to prevent a fail BIOS flash because there was a power outage.

Winflash method

In the old days, BIOS was flash by booting into a DOS floppy and then running a program to flash the BIOS. Most computers these days don’t even have a floppy drive, so most manufacturer these days uses WinFlash. Winflash allow you to install flash from within Windows.

If you go to the Averatec website and look up Averatec 2370, you’ll see two BIOS related files, one for R1.04 and one for R1.05. You actually want the R1.04 file because it comes with the Winflash utility.

Download XP_Bios_with_WinFlash_Utility_R1_04.exe and unzip it. Inside the folder is the BIOS file H12FA000.ROM. Rename your R1.09.bin file to this file and replace H12FA000.ROM with the renamed R1.09 file. What you have done is replace the 1.04 BIOS with 1.09.

Next, reboot your machine in case there’s something running in the background. Turn off your virus checker, your windows automatic update, scheduler and quit from all possible program. You do not want your virus checker or check disk to interrupt your BIOS flash. Follow the instruction and run the AFUWIN.exe utility.

Noted that I have only upgraded my computer under XP. I do not know if Winflash works properly under Vista.

The Floppy Method

If you download the R1.05 BIOS from the Averatec website, the readme file tells you to boot from floppy. This will leave most people scratching their heads since there is no floppy drive on Averatec 2370.

What you can do is buy or borrow a USB floppy drive and then create a boot floppy. Do the following:

1. Create a boot floppy. You can do this by going to a machine with XP and a floppy drive and formatting a floppy with Boot disk option. This is the way I did it. If you don’t have access to such a machine, check out the boot disk site. There is probably a disk image you can use to create a start up floppy disk. All the disk do is to boot your command to a DOS command line so you can run the flash command.
   
2. Go the Averatec site and download the R1.05 BIOS. Unzip the file, you will notice a BIOS folders with the following file H12FA105.ROM. Rename your R1.09 to H12FA105.ROM and replace this file with the rename R1.09. Copy everything in the BIOS folder to the floppy.

   Insert the floppy into the USB drive. Connect the USB drive to the laptop. Boot the laptop and press F11. This give you a list of devices to boot from. Note that if you can’t see the USB drive, turn off the machine and try again. If it still does not work, go into the BIOS and make sure the USB legacy option is set to true or auto.

   Select the option to boot from floppy. It should boot into a command line prompt.

   Enter the command FBIOS.BAT and follow the instruction on screen. Do not interrupt the process at this point or your laptop is toast.

Alternate Method

You can create a Boot CD with the BIOS files and boot from the CD. Creating such a disk is tricky, though admlam in the thread has done it.

You can also create a boot usb key. I have not tried this at all, but it should work.

Post BIOS flashing

After the BIOS has flashed properly and rebooted, you’ll get notice that screen now say “Everex”. Ignore this in the same way Averatec told you to ignore your own problems and press DEL. This takes you to the BIOS setup screen. Before the flash, the key to enter the BIOS was F12. It has now change to DEL from now on.

In the BIOS screen, select “Restore Optmized Default”. This clears out any outdated settings from the old BIOS, so you don’t get checksum errors.

Now the machine should work exactly as it did before, but now Vista actually works. Unfortunately, I still can’t get Linux to work perfectly enough (at least not with sleep and suspend working), so I have to stay with Vista or XP for now.