x(perts)64 : Hardware

SBS 2008 – a 64-bit OS to Love

Charlie Russel — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:53:17 GMT

As many of you know, I wrote the book on Windows Small Business Server 2008, as well as earlier editions. It’s an operating system and a good deal more, giving most small businesses (up to 75 users or devices) pretty much all the infrastructure and enterprise...(read more)

HP ML350 G5 – 26 Months Later (Part 2)

Charlie Russel — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:22:08 GMT

Well, sorry about that. Got a bit distracted after I started writing up my experiences with the ML350 and buried in a project and forgot to get back here. And I’m still a bit buried, so I’ll keep this a bit shorter than I might otherwise. First, the good...(read more)

Acer Ferrari Repair

Charlie Russel — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:11:00 GMT

I've had my Acer Ferrari 4000 for four years now, and it has been a great laptop. Yes, I wish I had a dual core. Yes, I wish I had a laptop that had 4 GB or even more. But honestly, the Ferrari was still a quite good little laptop, iwth a great display...(read more)

HP ML350 G5 – 26 Months Later (Part 1)

Charlie Russel — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:33:55 GMT

I got my HP ML350 G5 just about 26 months ago, and as I was sitting here today, thinking about it and what a difference it has made, I thought it was time to provide a real world look at it's strengths and weaknesses after living with it for over...(read more)

Connecting Your Zune

Charlie Russel — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:45:00 GMT

A few months ago, I wrote about how to connect your iPod to your TS RemoteApps Server running under Hyper-V , which really simplified my life and made it simpler to keep everything in one place. I made that even easier by running FabulaTech's USB...(read more)

USB over Network - Update

Charlie Russel — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:28:00 GMT

A few days ago, I wrote about FabulaTech's USB over Network solution . I'd just installed it and started using it, and I was moderately impressed. It solves a very real problem for those of us looking to do more virtualization of our environmets...(read more)

Windows Home Server PP1 Releases to Web!

Charlie Russel — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:53:57 GMT

Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 is finally here ! Available for download if you're in a hurry, or wait and it will get pushed down via WU/MU, this is an essential upgrade for anyone using WHS. Or considering it. Not only does it add support for 64...(read more)

USB in Hyper-V Child?

Charlie Russel — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:24:00 GMT

It's still early days yet, but I think I've found a simple and very satisfactory solution to the problem of no USB support in Hyper-V. FabulaTech's USB Over Network product is simple to install - you install the Server side of it on whatever...(read more)

Arctic Cooling

Charlie Russel — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:14:50 GMT

Interesting review of Arctic Cooling's CPU heatsink/coolers on AnandTech today. I've been using and very much liking the Freezer Pro line of coolers from them for a while, finding them extremely quiet and very effective. Well, Anand agrees with...(read more)

Finding a Driver

Charlie Russel — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:53:00 GMT

There was a really useful post on the 64bit newsgroup today from Carlos about how to find a driver for a generic device. I'm going to paraphrase it here, but the basic process is to get the hardware ID from the device and use that to find the real...(read more)

Nvidia Chipset + 4 GB BSOD Fix

Charlie Russel — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:55:00 GMT

We've seen a few reports of BSODs in Vista with Nvidia chipsets and 4 or more GB of RAM. The stop code is 0xA and it's in Storport.sys. Well, a new KB is available. But before you start downloading and applying, please read the symptoms carefully...(read more)

Hyper-V on HP ProLiant ML 350

Charlie Russel — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:39:00 GMT

I've been running Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtualization for a while now. It has become my main virtualization environment. I've got 6 main VMs running on the HP ML350 G5 ProLiant server and another dozen or so that I bring up or down as needed...(read more)

HP ProLiant ML350 G5 Server Experiences (Part 6)

Charlie Russel — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:41:09 GMT

Well, the Power Supply Saga continues. Not only did I get a replacement for my latest failed power supply, but in looking at the servers I have here, we determined that I had three others in the bad batch. How to tell? Look at your label on the power...(read more)

The Multi-Core Fallacy

Charlie Russel — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 18:49:22 GMT

More is always better, right? Wrong! Before you start deciding that your life isn't complete without quad cores and multiple CPUs, it makes sense to understand how you use your computer. If you're like me, with currently Outlook, Word (6 different...(read more)

HP ProLiant ML350 G5 Server Experiences (Part 5)

Charlie Russel — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 01:08:52 GMT

Well, really, part 4.5. Since I posted about my (and other users) bad experiences with the power supplies in my HP ML350 and DL380 units, I've gotten a call from the Product Manager for the ML350. She's a very nice person who is passionate about...(read more)

BIOS Update Workaround

Charlie Russel — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:20:01 GMT

Several manufacturers have provided 64-bit BIOS flash utilities, but there are still some holdouts. Acer, for one, can't seem to manage to create one for their Ferrari, even though there are a lot of Acer Ferrari owners out there running 64-bit Windows...(read more)

HP ProLiant ML350 G5 Server Experiences (Part 4)

Charlie Russel — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:13:00 GMT

Well, it had to happen. I knew there was bound to be something I really wouldn't like about this ML350. And I've found it. They have a LOUSY power supply. I've had two power supplies fail, for no apparent reason, in the little over six months...(read more)

EqualLogic SAN (Part 2)

Charlie Russel — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 09:09:00 GMT

So, in Part 1 I talked about the whole process of borrowing and setting up my EqualLogic PS3800XV SAN. Now that I've got it powered up, I needed to add IP addresses for it, and connect to it. Setting IP addresses is straightforward - you can let DHCP...(read more)

EqualLogic SAN (Part 1)

Charlie Russel — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:21:37 GMT

In order to write about Storage Area Networks (SANs), you really need to have access to a SAN. Now if I had an unlimited budget, I'd happily have set up a SAN here in my office, if only for the simplicity and the ability to centralize storage across...(read more)

WSv (Viridian) Now Available!

Charlie Russel — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 21:40:07 GMT

The Preview Release ("pre-beta" quality) of Windows Server Virtualization (WSv) is now available as part of Windows Server 2008 RC0. See John Howard's Blog for details on installing the Virtualization Role in RC0 (US English ONLY at this...(read more)