artiss.blog

Category: How To

My “How To” guides on various things

  • How to fix slow Wi-Fi on an Acer Aspire One

    How to fix slow Wi-Fi on an Acer Aspire One

    A known issue with the AA1 is that the Wi-Fi can be quite slow. This, as it turns out, is due to some overly aggressive power management.

    • Right click on My Computer and select Properties
    • Click on the Hardware tab and then the Device Manager Option
    • Expand the Network Adapters section. You should see an entry for the Atheros adapter. Right click on this and select Properties
    • Click on the Advanced tab
    • In the left hand column click on Power Save Mode and change the option on the side from Maximum to Off.
    • Finally, click OK and close Device Manager.

    This is the workaround reported by many users and has certainly worked for me.

  • Laptop batteries – when and how should you charge them?

    I have to say, I’m confused. I keep reading conflicting information about what to do with laptop batteries and charging them. Most advise seems to revolve around regularly using the battery until its flat and then re-charging it. Elsewhere, though, I’ve read that with modern batteries this isn’t required and, in fact, damages them.

    The battery I recently bought for my Netbook came with the following advice which is what I’m following…

    When using for the first time discharge the battery to 3% and then full charge
    You must turn off or recharge the battery when it reaches 3% – no not discharge to 0% or you will shorten its life
    Every 2 months, discharge the battery to 3% and then full recharge – this will keep the battery in its best condition

    I’ve re-worded the above from its original bad Chinese translation, and omitted the various bits about ensuring you charge it up before storing it long term.

    However, it would appear that most instructions DON’T relate to Li-ion (lithium ion) batteries – it’s highly likely this is what you’d have in your laptop. One thing that is consistent, though, is that such batteries will only last 2-3 years.

    My advice – recharge fully before full use and never let it drain too much. Advice seems to differ between 3% and 10% as the minimum level. Having said all that, my daughter’s Samsung laptop comes with a program (Samsung Battery Manager) to help extend battery life and it does that by not letting you charge it above 80%.

  • How to upgrade the memory of an Acer Aspire One

    How to upgrade the memory of an Acer Aspire One

    I recently upgraded my Netbooks memory from 1GB to an astonishing (obviously, there is a little sarcasm here) 1.5GB (which is the maximum). This is not only a fiddly job as the memory slot is on the underside of the motherboard (and there’s no way of accessing it from underneath) but it will invalidate your warranty. So proceed with caution!

    Having said all that, it wasn’t as difficult as I though. Register Hardware have an excellent article on how to do it.

    The only deviation I found was that my AA1 has an HHD, rather than an SSD. In this case, ignore the instruction to remove the SSD connector. The HHD appears to be connected to the motherboard, so you will also need to remove the daughterboard on the right-hand side of the case first. This is just a further 3 screws (but they’re more of those that are in very tightly, so remove them carefully).

    The memory itself was a single 1GB module that I bought online for approx. £12. The other 512MB is actually built onto the motherboard itself and can’t be changed.

  • How to use NirCMD to manage your computer’s power settings

    How to use NirCMD to manage your computer’s power settings

    I think we’d all agree that whatever we can to save energy is not only good the environment but also for our pockets. Many of us will their power settings so that the monitor switches off after so long. Of course, you don’t want this to happen just because you’re having a good think about something you’ve been typing, so it likely to be after 10 minutes or more. And that’s not handy if you’re going off for a few minutes to make a cup of tea.

    At work, they demand we lock our PCs when we leave (ctrl/alt/delete and then “lock computer”). However, if you set up a screensaver (to go blank, for example) you can set it sign you off – essentially locking the computer.

    So, wouldn’t it be much easier to have a big button you can press everytime you leave your desk that would not only lock the computer but turn the monitor off too?

    A-ha, and I’m sure you could sense this coming, there is an answer…

    (more…)
  • How to fix IE from seeing your Windows PC as a Mac

    How to fix IE from seeing your Windows PC as a Mac

    When Microsoft Update thinks I’m using a Mac. Yes, last night I went to get some updates from Microsoft Update and I got the message…

    Thank you for your interest in obtaining updates from our site.

    This website is designed to work with Microsoft Windows operating systems only.
    To find updates for Microsoft products that are designed for Macintosh operating
    systems, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/mac/.

    Nice. I was using Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP MCE SP3.

    It knows which system I’m using from the “user agent” but one of many websites which displays your current user agent information, showed that I was happily using Windows. Weird.

    Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1) ; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; .NET CLR 3.5.21022; WTClient2)

    Weirder still was that if I used IE Tab in Firefox, the page would appear without a problem. As IE Tab simply uses Internet Explorer but in Firefox, it shouldn’t have been any different. Again, I checked the user agent and that was the same as running it under IE normally.

    Double weird.

    Anyway, after a reboot even IE Tab stopped working.

    Googling the issue found that most people seemed to have Spyware or Virus’. In panic, I did a check but found nothing. However, I also came across a Microsoft blog on how to reset all of IE 7’s settings – I tried that and Microsoft Update is now working again.