No Znx!

There is a very useful command on Linux systems called dmidecode. This is a command that speaks to a computer’s DMI; sometimes called SMBIOS (System Management BIOS). Basically this is an area of your computer that stores various pieces of information about your hardware.

You can just type dmidecode and put the output through a pager but if you look at the man page you can see the DMI type and specifically pick it.

So let’s see an example usage by finding out what sort of RAM my system has by looking at type DMI types:

16. Physical Memory Array
17. Memory Device

[root@marine ~]# dmidecode -t 16
# dmidecode 2.10
SMBIOS 2.3 present.

Handle 0x0021, DMI type 16, 15 bytes
Physical Memory Array
        Location: System Board Or Motherboard
        Use: System Memory
        Error Correction Type: None
        Maximum Capacity: 1 GB
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Number Of Devices: 2

Handle 0x0022, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x0021
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 512 MB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: A0
        Bank Locator: Bank0/1
        Type: Unknown
        Type Detail: None
        Speed: Unknown
        Manufacturer: None
        Serial Number: None
        Asset Tag: None
        Part Number: None

Handle 0x0023, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x0021
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 512 MB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: A1
        Bank Locator: Bank2/3
        Type: Unknown
        Type Detail: None
        Speed: Unknown
        Manufacturer: None
        Serial Number: None
        Asset Tag: None
        Part Number: None

So you can see that I have a system with 2 banks and it is capable of a maximum of 1Gb (YES it is old). Each bank is carrying 512Mb of RAM. Unfortunately the output doesn’t indicate the type of RAM but maybe we can work it out by looking at another DMI type.

# dmidecode -t 2
# dmidecode 2.10
SMBIOS 2.3 present.

Handle 0x0002, DMI type 2, 8 bytes
Base Board Information
        Manufacturer:
        Product Name: RS/RX482SB400
        Version:
        Serial Number:

A quick google reveals that the motherboard supports “Dual DDR SDRAM”. You can see that the information obtain wasn’t that useful against my personal PC. You will obviously find that the results vary depending on the vendor providing the information (and in some cases valid information).

Nevertheless it is useful, for people who are running Windows this information is accessible to you as well with a great tool called CPU-Z.

I have a old “BT Voyager 2100″ router and wanted to enable ping. It turned out that the setting was in a bit of an unusual place (at least I thought so).

Open the router web interface, normally http://192.168.1.1/
Advanced > System > Remote Access

Then tick the “Ping” checkbox and apply.

After this the box will respond to ping.

A couple of days ago I opened up my AAO and discovered that it was out of charge. I plugged it in and started using it, then I spotted that the power indicator said the battery was full. I knew that couldn’t be right as it was only 5 minutes since I plugged it in.

I stopped what I was doing and shutdown, then I removed the power and attempted to turn on again. Once more the machine wouldn’t turn on but I noted that the charging light wasn’t showing either.

A quick google and I discovered that I was not alone with this issue. It seems two types of AAO (the AOA100 and AOA150) can suffer from this problem. There is a fix and a workaround, the fix is obviously the better option. The workaround is to unplugged the battery from the device then power it up. After a moment, plug the battery back in and it should start charging, not ideal.

The fix is to download a BIOS update and patch it! Obviously you must insure that your AAO is the correct model before you attempt to flash the BIOS otherwise you might leave yourself with a very pretty brick. To ensure this you should find a label on the bottom of you device saying AOA150 or AOA100. Although my model indicated ZG5, a quick check on another label and I spotted AOA150.

The instructions on how to do this are available from Acer’s Support website. I will reproduce here what I did:

1. Turn on the netbook and enter the BIOS by pressing the button F2
2. Take note of the version number, this should change if the upgrade is successful.
3. Open a browser and go to the Acer website.
4. Browse through: Service & Support > Driver Download > Netbook > Aspire One > AOA150 (or 100) > BIOS
5. Donwload the file, it will be a zip.
6. Extract the zip and rename the file 3310.fd to be zg5ia32.fd.
7. Plug in a USB stick, and copy two files over, the zg5ia32.fd and FLASHIT.EXE
8. Make sure you have your netbook plugged in and powered on.
9. Power down the netbook
10. Press and hold down the Fn and Esc keys and then press the power button
11. When the power light comes on, wait a couple of seconds and then let go of the buttons
12. It will look like very little is happening, the screen stays blank, but you should see your USB light blinking.
13. After a while (it took around 2 minutes for me) the netbook will reboot itself and power on.

After this I powered up the device and spotted that the same thing was occurring. I rebooted and did the same process again. This time I entered the BIOS and spotted that the version number had changed.

So once it was back up, I waited a few minutes and spotted that the power indicator said it was charging the battery, success! Whilst I would normally not advise this sort of process for the average user, Acer had made it relatively simple and I feel some what foolproof.

Obviously if it doesn’t work for you then the next step would be to try the workaround or maybe go ahead and contact Acer if your warranty is still valid.

Oh and Happy Christmas to all !

A problem that seems to crop us with these now and then is that one of the recorded files in your Library becomes corrupt and seemingly impossible to delete. When you select it the box freezes and requires to be hard restarted by removing the power. There is however a solution.

• Select “Menu”
• Option 4 – “Setup”
• Option 6 – “Help”
• Type in 1397 (this is to enter the “Engineer” panel)
• Option 7 – “Disable Library Video Window”
• Go back to your library now and select then delete the offending file.

That’s it, the reason that it is freezing is that the small preview window is attempting to load the corrupted file thus freezing the box. Disabling that preview window allows you to delete the file without it loading.

Once complete, the preview window will automatically enable itself again.