Bartman's Blob

Got a faulty DLink DWA-132 USB WiFi adapter that is no longer working. I thought it would be interesting to take it apart to see what’s inside this device. To open this adapter, I used a flat metal spudger and jam it in-between the housing: After prying it open and removing the top cover, we can see the main WiFi processor of this adapter. Here’s the back view of the adapter with the front cover removed. Removing the PCB board from the housing, we can have a better view of the board. It uses the RALINK RT5372LSoC Here’s the back view of the PCB   A better view of the IC marking. Since I don’t have much use for this after snapping a few picture of the board, off it went to the e-waste recycling bin. That’s it. Hope you find this useful.

This is useful when RJ45 ethernet connection is not available or when the network switch does not have any more spare ports to connect to. But getting WiFi ability enabled on Windows Server requires a little bit more work. First, I purchased an inexpensive USB WiFi adapter/dongle. This is an USB 2.0 802.11AC WiFi adapter/dongle. This thing is really small. Here’s a size comparison against a AA battery As this WiFi adapter uses the Realtek RTL8811AU chipset, the next step for me is to look for the driver on Realtek’s website. It did come with a driver CD, but I thought it would be better to install the latest driver from the website. There’s no driver specifically for Windows Server OS, however, there is a workaround. (Note: this WiFi adapter will work in a Windows 10 without additional driver installation). Here’s the link to the windows driver: https://www.realtek.com/en/component/zoo/category/rtl8811au-software The direct file (0002-Realtek_WindowsDr...

Thought I would give this a test. I have this simple and inexpensive USB sound card that I bought quite some time ago and I was wondering if this would work on Windows Server 2019 OS. I plugged in the USB sound card into the server and very quickly, the device is detect and the driver was installed automatically. The USB sound card is ready for use in less than a minute after plugging in. No additional driver installation needed. Basically, plug and it will play. From the Device Manager This USB sound card has onboard buttons for, Volume Up and Down. Audio Output Mute and Mic Mute. Although, on the device it says “7.1 channel audio”, I doubt that it is possible with this sound card. The audio output from the 3.5mm audio out sounds clean and noise free. The audio output quality is nowhere near that of Creative Sound Blaster surround that I have, but it is decent enough for general audio.   This cheap USB sound card uses the C-Media sound chi...

For some strange reason, after installing Windows Server 2019 on HP/HPE Proliant Servers, the CPU graph realtime update will stop working. The graph does not update any CPU usage in the graph chart. After some researching and doing some testing on my own, this issue seems to affect the older Proliant Servers. After testing it on ML310E Gen8, DL380 G7, DL380 Gen8 and DL380 Gen9, it seems like only DL380 Gen10 does not have this problem. The work around to solve this issue as provided on some forum is to change the BIOS “Power Regulator Settings” to “OS Control Mode”. The setting can be accessed from the ILO settings. Here’s the various ILO examples: ILO 2: ILO 3: ILO 4: Here’s an example of Before and After the changing of the settings: Before: After: That’s it. Hope this helps.  

Found this problem after migration to Windows Server 2019 from Windows Server 2016. Everything worked fine until I performed an OS upgrade to Windows Server 2019. Tried to use Skype For Business for phone calls and I found that the other party is not able to hear me. After debugging and some troubleshooting, I managed to locate the cause of the issue. In Windows Server 2019, apps(A.K.A Programs) microphone access have been disabled by default. To enable access to the microphone, just go to Settings->Privacy->Microphone   I toggled the “Allow apps to access your microphone” to “On” and the issue is solved. Going into Skype’s audio setting (Tools->Audio Device Settings), The mic’s VU meter is responding when I speak into the mic. That’s it. Hopefully this might be of some help to anyone out there.  

Thought I will have some fun taking apart this faulty DBS bank 2FA token to see what’s inside.   There is no screws used on the token.       The front and rear of the token seems to be covered by adhesive labels. Removing the Front reveals the following:   Remove the rear label, reveals a CR2016 coin cell lithium battery: Removing the PCB out from its “chassis”. Here’s the front view of the PCB.   And here’s the rear view of the PCB.   That’s it.  

When running Open Broadcast Software (OBS) version 24.0.3, I found that I could not get any audio from my USB microphone or the audio source playback from my USB sound card. The VU meter on OBS did not move even when I am playing back video clips on VLC or a mp3 player. After some debugging, I found that the issue has to do with the OS microphone permission setting. To change the microphone setting, goto Start->Settings->Privacy : Toggle the following setting to ON. After changing the microphone privacy setting, I started up OBS, selected the desired audio source and the VU meter came back to life. That’s it. Hopefully this is helpful.

After upgrading my server OS from Windows Server 2016 to Windows Server 2019, the Peak Programme Meter Version 1.90 suddenly stopped working. Every time I ran the program, this error message will pop up: Soundcard not available, or input channel may be in use by another program error message. After I pressed OK, another message pops up: The configured input Device is not available and will be reset to the default. After hours of research on the internet without success, i finally found the answer after another few more hours of debugging and testing. The cause of the program’s failure is due to a microphone’s privacy setting in Windows Server 2019. The default setting for the microphone permission setting is set to off in Windows Server 2019. After toggling the permission to On, the program started working again. To get to the setting, go to Start->Setting->Privacy->Microphone : Toggle the setting to On: And That’s it. Hope i...

If you already have a Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro THX or thinking of getting one and you are wondering whether it will run on Windows Server 2019 OS.  Good news, it will run on Windows Server 2019. It did on my server. After running a trial test to upgrade my OS from Windows Server 2016 to Windows Server 2019, the SB X-Fi Sur continue to run without any issue. As I have not testing installing the driver from scratch, I suspect that the driver installation would be the same as the steps that I have written about in this post . If you are doing research to find out if it will work on Windows Server 2019 before upgrading, well, it worked for me. Most likely it will also work for you. That’s it. Hope you find it useful.

How to get the Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro THX working correctly on Windows Server 2016 Not able to get the Creative Entertainment Console working after installing the drivers from the original driver CD on Windows Server 2016 for your Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro THX ? Although the Sound Blaster device is able to playback sounds without any issue, Creative Entertainment Console will just refuse to launch and complaint that the driver is not present. Looking at the Device Manager, there is no error or missing drivers. How do you go about fixing this issue? After some trial and error, I have managed to get it working. You will need to download the Windows 10  version of the driver from Creative support page, but not all revision of the Windows 10 driver will work.  The version used in this blog post is the [5 Nov 19] release. To get the original CD's Creative Entertainment Console(version 3.00.64) working correctly in Windows 2016, do the...