Today I’m going to start a discussion regarding the late-model (1555/1557/1558) Dell Studio laptops and their wireless and networking options. This started when I ordered a Dell Wireless 5620 card for a Studio 1558 computer I had purchased. This is the combined mobile broadband / GPS card intended for the Studio 155x systems.

I was quite surprised when I opened the access panel on the bottom of the computer to install the card and discovered that there were no antenna cables for it in there, despite the service manual saying there would be.

As I continued to investigate, I found a number of places where the service manual was flat-out wrong, and a bewildering array of Dell part numbers. Let’s get one thing out of the way – the “Service Manual” that Dell makes available on their web site is NOT the manual that their techs use. Their internal manual has a lot more information and goes into things in a lot more depth than the customer service manual. Dell doesn’t make their internal manual available to the public, but you might have some luck with search terms like “Dell Certified Systems Expert” or “Dell Foundations 2009 Portables”.

Anyway, let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first. That will be Bluetooth. The customer service manual claims that there are 3 mini-PCI Express sockets underneath the bottom cover. That is only true for some systems. On both of my 1558’s there was a soldered-in chip where the manual says the Bluetooth socket is located. I am not sure what that chip is (it is under a heat sink). It isn’t the ATI graphics chip as that is next to the CPU and handled by the main system heat sink and fan:

That’s OK, because that card needs an external bluetooth antenna, which your system probably doesn’t have. Fortunately, there is a second Bluetooth socket on the other side of the motherboard. That socket takes a Wireless 365 bluetooth card that doesn’t need an external antenna:

Unfortunately, getting to this location involves a near-complete disassembly of the laptop. For the gruesome details, look at the service manual in the link above.

The first picture in this article shows an Intel Ultimate-N 6300 MIMO (3-antenna) WiFi card and the Wireless 5620 card installed in the card bay. Careful observers may have noticed that the 6300 card doesn’t have a Dell part number on it. That’s because I purchased a generic retail card, not the Dell one, as I could get it for a better price that way. Installing the cards is the easy part. If you didn’t order your computer with the 5620 option, you won’t have the antennas you need. When I asked Dell why they sold a card that couldn’t be used, they just sort of mumbled “dunno”. I don’t understand why they did this – it created a huge assortment of part numbers for them to inventory (aside from making upgrades harder). The Studio 155x was available in at least seven different lid colors. Each of those has at least three possible antenna configurations – WiFi only, WiFi + mobile broadband, and WiFi + mobile broadband + Bluetooth. That creates 21 different part numbers to stock instead of 7 if they built the systems with all the antennas.

Dell won’t sell you a replacement lid (even if you could figure out the correct part number) because it isn’t considered a customer-replacable part. So it is off to eBay, where I discovered that sellers had no idea what options the lids they were selling included. I received flat-out incorrect answers from a number of sellers I’ve found to be reliable in the past.

The next part of this article could be called “A Field Guide to Studio 155x Lids”. It will teach you what to look for in an eBay auction, as well as how to tell if a lid is really new as the seller says. Later on I’ll tell you the part numbers for the most common lid and bezel to help your searches.

This sequence of four photographs shows the four corners of the inside of a Studio 155x lid. I’ll start at the top left and proceed clockwise. This first picture shows you the WiFi antenna. It will have 2 wires, a black and a white, that connect to the WiFi card in the base. This particular antenna also includes one of the mobile broadband antennas which is black with a gray stripe. Note that this is one particular style of lid – others can have silver-colored foil instead of the copper you see here, may have black circuit boards instead of green ones, and may have different markings. The important thing is whether or not there is an antenna at each location, not what it looks like:

Next is the antenna at the top right. If your lid has this antenna, it supports mobile broadband. This antenna has one wire, gray with a white stripe:

Now we have the bottom right antenna. If your lid has this antenna, it supports Bluetooth. This antenna has one wire, which is blue:

Last is the bottom left. This is the MIMO (3rd) antenna for WiFi. All lids have this. The antenna has one wire, gray:

Now that you know how to tell what antennas are included on a lid, I’ll show you how to tell if it is new or used. New lids will have clear plastic caps on all antenna wires (anywhere from 3 to 6, depending on what antennas are installed):

If your lid doesn’t have all the caps installed, it is almost certainly a used lid. Next, the antenna wires and the wire from the power switch will be taped near the middle of the lid with masking tape:

The outside of a new lid will also have a piece of protective clear plastic on it, with 6 cutouts for 6 pieces of masking tape:

One thing to be careful of is sellers who mark their listings “Photograph may not be the actual item”, or who list the condition as “New – Other”. I’ve found lots of New – Other listings which were actually parts stripped off of systems.

The part numbers you probably want are W855P (sometimes written 0W855P) and W440J. The W855P part is a lid with every possible antenna installed, in the “Black Chain-link” color (which seems to be the most popular color). The W440J is the black bezel that snaps on the inside of the cover. You’re almost certainly going to damage at least one of the latch tabs on your old bezel when you take the display apart, so you may as well order a new one with the lid and just use that. Part number 06DV9 is an interchangeable part number for the bezel.

If, for some reason, you want the part number for some other combination of color and antenna (like Plum Purple w/ mobile broadband but no Bluetooth), add a comment to this entry and I’ll post it.

The next 155x article will be the highly-anticipated tutorial on replacing a 720p display with the 1080p one.

Edit: Updated 24-Mar-2021 to fix dead link to Dell service manual and provide currect motherboard part number (in comments).

I’m still working on my comprehensive Dell Windows 7 upgrade article, but I have enough information about the Dell “Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse” bundle that I figured I’d post it now…

Dell had offered a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse in a number of combinations and different part numbers. The particular one I have is Dell Part Number 0YJ101 (YJ101) which includes a USB Bluetooth transceiver. Other versions of this package were targeted at notebooks that had Bluetooth built in, and therefore didn’t include the transceiver. The keyboard part number is DH953 and the mouse is DH956. [I’m including the part numbers here so people searching for those numbers find this article.]

This package was actually made by Logitech for Dell. The Dell driver was last updated nearly 2 years ago, in March of 2008 (Version 3.22, A02-00, here). Looking on the Optiplex 760 page, this package is supported through Windows Vista, but not on Windows 7.

Fortunately, a little searching on the Logitech web site finds the SetPoint software, version 4.80, here. If the link doesn’t work, search for drivers for “Cordless Desktop® LX 300” on Logitech’s web site. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of SetPoint are available.

I successfully downloaded and installed the 64-bit version on a fresh Windows 7 Ultimate x64 install. The keyboard and mouse are both recognized as Dell devices and are fully functional. After installation, SetPoint will check regularly for software updates.

The next issue I had (which wasn’t new with the Windows 7 install) was what can best be described as a “drunk mouse” – response to mouse movements would be delayed, and would then wildly overshoot the intended location. I’d had this happen under Windows XP as well, but not as often. After thinking about it for a while, I formed a theory that this was due to radio frequency (RF) interference from the Optiplex 755 chassis. The problem would get much worse when I was running software that stressed my new video card (an ATI Radeon HD5770), such as the Unigine benchmarks. The Bluetooth receiver normally plugs into the USB ports on the back of the case, right next to the video card. I unplugged it and used a 6 foot USB A/A shielded extension cable to relocate the transceiver away from the system unit and the problem seems to have disappeared. It might be possible to avoid the problem by plugging the transceiver into one of the USB ports on the front of the case, but I didn’t want it sticking out where it could get bumped and snap off.

Linksys has transferred maintenance of the NSS products (and others) to Cisco. As part of this, Cisco released a new version of the firmware for the NSS4000 / NSS6000, version 1.14-20.

One of the things Cisco claims for this release is “improved security”. Apparently, as part of this some of the tricks on my previous page don’t work any more. So here are some updates:

1) dropbear – /linuxrwfs/etc/init.d/S02hwdep is now a link to /etcrc/init.d/_hwdep, which is on a read-only filesystem and can’t be edited. Fortunately, /linuxrwfs is still read-write, so just do: cd /linuxrwfs/etc/init.d; mv S02hwdep S02hwdep_old; cp -p /etcrc/init.d/_hwdep ./S02hwdep and then edit the file as described in my previous post.

2) su – /usr/sbin/busybox will complain “su: This applet requires root priviledges!” if you try to issue the su command. To get around this, do: cp -p /bin/busybox /etc/busybox; chmod 4555 /etc/busybox. Then use /etc/busybox su to su. Don’t forget that users need to be listed in the wheel entry in /etc/group as well.

3) passwd – when I tried to add a new user, while I could edit the passwd file, when I tried to change the password for that user, the user wouldn’t show up in the shadow password file. The solution was to copy one of the other lines in the shadow file, change the username, and re-issue the passwd command.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had a power supply fan fail in one of my Dell Optiplex 755 systems. Although I received a replacement supply from Dell (the system is under warranty for another two years) I decided to look into a larger power supply, as I’d upgraded the hard drive, CPU, and video card. The standard Dell supply is only 305 watts and I expect it is running near its rated capacity.

I’ve been using PC Power & Cooling products since the company was founded – the first product I used was a fan that bolted onto the back of an IBM PC XT to improve airflow. I haven’t used their products recently, as the few systems I’ve built from scratch have come with power supplies already installed in the cases.

I took a look at their site and found the Silencer 500 Dell power supply which stated that it was a direct replacement for the Dell power supply in my Optiplex 755. It also said it was a direct replacement in 61 other Dell systems, which should have given me a clue that the unit was more generic than it was letting on.

This power supply slightly exceeds the efficiency rating of the stock Dell power supply (82% vs. 80%) while providing up to 500 watts continuous power.

I unpacked the power supply, which came in a nice printed box (my earlier PCP&C supplies had come in generic brown cardboard boxes, which indicates how far power supplies have come in being recognized as a critical component of the system). There was a huge wad of cables coming out of the supply – far more than the Optiplex 755 needed.

I did a test fit of the supply in the chassis and discovered that there were a number of problems. First, the AC power cord connector interfered with part of the case. Next, the case had tabs which were designed to slot into the Dell power supply. The PCP&C supply was lacking those slots, so it was impossible to mount the supply perfectly squarely in the case.

The first change I made was to modify the AC power cord connector on the supply so it would fit in the case. This involved cutting off the plastic “ear” on one side of the connector. Fortunately there is a metal tab on the connector which will help retain it once the power supply is installed in the chassis:

Next, I had to come up with a plan to deal with all the unused power cables:

My first idea was to tie them up neatly in the space between the power supply and the back of the DVD drives:

However, it was a very tight fit and it severely reduced the airflow through the power supply, as the vents on the inside face of the supply were nearly completely obscured by the mass of cables.

As I had already voided the warranty by trimming the power connector, I decided to open the supply and remove all of the un-needed cables. I could have cut them off outside the supply, but then I would have to individually insulate all of the cut ends and it would be really ugly.

After a brief round of cutting, the excess cables were removed:

As part of this process, I removed the floppy drive power connector (mini 4-pin) and installed it on the end of one of the SATA power cable branches. As supplied by PCP&C, the floppy connector is at the very end of a long chain of full-size 4-pin connectors (used for legacy hard drives and CD-ROMs, of which this system had none). I trimmed one of the SATA power cable branches to 2 SATA power connectors and installed the floppy connector at the end. I also removed the last connector from the other SATA power cable branch, leaving 2 connectors, and routed it down to the hard drive bay in the system. This produced a set of cables that was far more manageable:

I don’t recommend doing this yourself – aside from voiding the warranty, you could easily damage the power supply or injure yourself. PCP&C says that they don’t believe in power supplies with modular cable systems (see FAQ #3 here). However, as long as they are going to continue to represent the supply as fitting 62 different Dell models, they need to come up with some system to deal with un-needed cables. Also, it is important to remember that there are already a pair of connectors on each cable – one on the cable end and the other on the device it is plugged into. PCP&C has no control over those connector styles as they’re dictated by industry standards. But they would have unlimited choices for modular power connectors if they decided to use them.

Also, while they could justify the cables by saying that they don’t know what cards and peripherals a customer might have, there is no excuse for the interference of the power connector with the PC case – this is clearly a case (no pun intended) of someone looking at the specs of the Dell power supply and saying “sure, ours will fit” without ever checking it for themselves. It should be possible to move the power connector closer to the center of the power supply without requiring a complete re-design of the power supply and without imparing the fitment in the other Dell cases. PCP&C offers custom power supplies, but I shudder to think what the cost would be for a one-off solution to the problems I encountered.

While I’m satisfied with the solution I came up with, I can’t recommend this supply for use in the Optiplex 755 (due to the power connector mounting issue) or in any other space-limited Dell enclosure (because of the large number of un-needed cables).

Overview

It has been a little over a year since I installed three new Dell Optiplex 755 systems (see my earlier review here and here). A memory problem in one of the systems and a moaning power supply fan in another (oddly, not from cat fur) caused me to open a support case with Dell for replacement parts.

This lead to the dreaded “since I’m in here, I wonder what I could do to improve things” thoughts. Since I purchased these systems a year ago, a number of faster components have become available, or have had major price reductions. The main items that I wanted to speed up were: hard drive, video and CPU. I’ll discuss each of these in turn.

Hard drive

As I mentioned in my previous articles, I’ve been very loyal to Seagate in the past. However, they’ve fallen on their face in a number of areas recently. First, they dropped the warranty on many of their drives from 5 years to 3 years. Second, they have had some heavily-publicized firmware problems, including a “fix” that rendered some classes of drives completely non-functional. Plus, drives from other vendors out-perform the Seagate products at certain capacities. One of these is at the 250-300GB range, where Western Digital offers the VelociRaptor™. This drive is offered in 3 configurations, which differ only in the way the drive is mounted. The BLFS version is a bare 2.5″ drive, good for servers with backplanes that require this size drive. It won’t work in a notebook as it is much taller than a normal notebook drive (15mm vs. the normal 9.5mm for a notebook drive). The GLFS version is the previous drive mounted in a 3.5″ frame (which WD calls an IcePack™). However, due to the industry standards for location of the SATA power and data connectors differing for 2.5″ and 3.5″ drives, this version cannot slot in to an enclosure that has backplane connectors for 3.5″ drives. This brings us to the HLFS version, which is similar to the GLFS except that the bare drive is mounted in a slightly different location on the IcePack and there is a passive adapter board which has the connectors in the right spot for mating with SATA backplanes. Since many online merchants list the GLFS and the HLFS at the same price, I don’t know why WD bothers with the GLFS version. There are apparently some minor cooling differences between these versions, but I don’t feel they are enough to justify keeping the GLFS around.

I purchased the HLFS version as the Optiplex has a rather unusual mounting (side-to-side vs. the more common front-to-back) orientation and the cables would line up better. Plus, it would keep my options for future re-use of the drive open.

Here is the drive ready to go into the chassis. The red strip on the right side is the adapter circuit board I mentioned above:

Here is the drive mounted in the chassis. I’ll discuss the non-standard power cable in a later post:

Video card

These systems originally shipped with ATI Radeon HT 2400 XT cards. As I mentioned in my earlier review, that card didn’t support the Dual Link DVI mode that I needed to operate the 3008WFP monitor at its maximum resolution of 2560 x 1600. I replaced it with a different version of the HD 2400 that supported Dual Link. Since then, there have been a number of additional generations of ATI video cards. Unfortunately for me, most of these are dual-slot configurations due to the large fans found on the card. In the Optiplex 755, the video card occupies the uppermost slot in the chassis and there’s no place for the second bracket to go. And that is the only PCIe x16 slot on the chassis.

Looking around, I found the Radeon 3650 which was a single-slot solution. It supported the Dual Link DVI that my monitor required. It also supported the DisplayPort interface which was also found on my monitor. As finding “Built by ATI” video cards is getting harder and harder, I selected the HIS H365F512DPNP card. I have some Cyberlink software installed on this PC which requires a HDCP link to the monitor. Unfortunately, the 3008WFP monitor doesn’t support HDCP when operating in Dual Link mode, so I have to drop the resolution down to 1920 x 1200 or I get an annoying message about my display not being supported and then playback stops.

Since I now had both a monitor and a video card that allegedly supported DisplayPort at 2560 x 1600, I gave that a try. It was a total failure – the display would go into screen saver mode immediately at that resolution. At lower resolutions it would randomly cycle in and out of screen saver mode every few seconds. So much for that idea – back to Dual Link DVI. The monitor is revision A01, which according to Dell has no issues with DisplayPort. But this technology seems to not be ready for deployment.

Here’s the card installed in the system. By the way, I didn’t turn the fan so the HIS logo was right-side-up – that’s just the way the fan stopped when I shut the system down to take the picture:

CPU

I had ordered the systems with the Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU as the only faster quad core part offered by Dell at the time was the Q6700 which wasn’t a lot faster (2.66GHz vs. 2.40GHz) and which was a lot more expensive. Since then, Dell started offering parts in the Q9xxx family. However, the top-of-the-line Q9650 still isn’t available from Dell in these systems.

Looking at the specs on Intel’s web site, I couldn’t see any reason why a system that supported the Q9550 wouldn’t support the Q9650, so I decided to give it a try. Let’s compare the specs of the Q6600 vs. the Q9650 to see what sort of performance improvements I might get:

Q6600

• 2.40 GHz clock speed
• 1066MHz bus speed
• 8MB cache
• 65nm technology

Q9650

• 3.00 GHz clock speed
• 1333MHz bus speed
• 12MB cache
• 45nm technology

The change from a 65nm feature size to 45nm means that despite the faster clock and larger cache, the thermal specification remains the same at 95W. This means that the existing CPU heatsink and fan could be re-used, which is important as the Optiplex 755 uses a custom cooling solution and not the heatsink / fan provided with the boxed CPU.

After installing the new CPU, a quick power-on test shows that the system properly detected the new CPU:

Dell systems tend to not provide the assorted overclocking tweaks found on some motherboards, so this is likely as fast as this system is going to get unless Intel releases a faster CPU. I had spec’d PC6400 memory when I ordered the systems, and that is the fastest memory the Q35 chipset supports. With 4 matching 1GB modules, the memory runs in what Intel calls “Dual Channel Interleaved” mode, which is the fastest mode. Since the motherboard doesn’t provide tweaks, this CL5 memory is the fastest that can be installed in the system. (All of the memory I’ve found that runs at CL4 and faster still reports itself as CL5 in SPD and expects the tuner to override the SPD settings).

The system is noticibly faster. Backups to my network file server run at around 70MB/second now, compared with 50MB/second before the upgrade. Windows startup is much improved.

One thing I discovered when I re-installed Windows and all my software from scratch – I had previously thought that the Intel Ethernet chipset on this motherboard didn’t support jumbo frames (because the option didn’t appear in the configuration menu as delivered by Dell). But after installing the latest drivers from Intel, the jumbo frame option appeared and I enabled it.

In my experience, batteries in an APC UPS (regardless of the model – from the smallest Back-UPS to a Symmetra) seem to last about 3 years if  I’m lucky. This is in locations with temperature-controlled environments that never go over 80 degrees F.

The following discussion is about replacing the batteries in my APC Symmetra RM UPS. However, much of the information applies to other APC models – only the battery size and quantity will differ.

Depending on the model of UPS involved, the first warning you get may be when everything powers down during the bi-weekly UPS self-test. Fortunately, on the larger models like my Symmetra SYH6K6RMT, there’s advance warning when the batteries start to fail. I have 12 SYBT2 battery packs installed in that UPS, and it started complaining about bad batteries about 6 months ago. This gradually reduced the UPS runtime from 3 hours to about an hour and a half as more and more battery packs failed. As soon as the UPS reported a battery pack failure, I removed the pack from the UPS to prevent damage from trying to charge bad batteries.

The last time I replaced the batteries was in September 2005. At that time, I paid a premium for CSB HR1221-WF2 batteries because I was told they were the best available. Unfortunately, a good number of the CSB batteries swelled up, making it very hard to press the tabs to un-latch the SYBT2 from the battery frame. The “dimple” you see in the middle of the battery is where the battery pressed against the latching tab:

In fact, one of the CSB batteries actually burst and leaked electrolyte (acid) into the metal battery case. Part of this may not have been CSB’s fault – some of the batteries had June 2005 date stickers from the vendor (who shall remain nameless), but the actual batteries were manufactured in September 2003. You can see this in these photos of the same battery:

While not all of the batteries were this out-of-date, none of them could be remotely described as “fresh”. According to CSB, if a sealed lead acid battery isn’t kept charged, it will eventually self-discharge. In general, after 6 months of storage with no charging, the battery will have lost 30-35% of its charge. While this isn’t a disaster by itself, if the battery is left discharged for an extended period it may never charge up to its full capacity again. CSB’s own spec sheet states that this battery can be stored for “more than 6 months”. I bet that if the battery could be stored for 12 months (or the 21 months that the above battery sat in the vendor’s warehouse) they’d have said so. That spec sheet also lists a 50% charge at the point where the battery will be permanently damaged if left in that condition. It says “Supplementary charge may often fail to recover the capacity.”

Regardless of age, it is my opinion that a sealed lead acid battery should not swell up or burst unless operated way out of specification. Looking at the status data from one of the battery frames: “1 4 0F WH2149 2149 RT0190 I-0.0 V136.6″, I can see that  the float voltage is 13.66 volts (136.6 / 10) which is in the middle of the accepted range for these batteries – 13.6~13.8V/77°F (25°C) and that the batteries aren’t taking any charging current (the I-0.0 part of the status).  So there is no reason for these batteries to swell or burst, other than something in the batteries themselves. Note that this only applies when all of the batteries in the battery pack are the same brand / model / date code. Since the batteries are wired in series, dissimilar batteries may result in overcharge of some while under-charging others.

Looking at prices from my previous vendor for the CSB HR1221WF2 battery, they seemed to have doubled from around $18 in 2005 to around $36 now. This battery only has a 1-year warranty. I could purchase two generic $17 batteries with 1-year warranties and still come out ahead of the CSB product. Plus, I’m a firm believer in the saying “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” and so I’m not going to purchase any more CSB batteries.

I did a lot of research and decided to purchase the Tempest TR5-12A battery from Batteryspec.com. I selected this battery because it has a 2-year warranty, while most other brands in this size have a 1-year warranty. It was also available with F2 terminals – while APC uses the F2 size, most other applications use the smaller F1 terminal. I spent a lot of time looking at both other battery brands and other vendors. I was quite surprised that many vendors wouldn’t even respond to my inquiry about purchasing 136 batteries. A number of vendors wanted to sell me “equivalent” batteries with F1 terminals and have me install terminal adapters for F2 terminals. I went with Batteryspec because they answered all my questions promptly, and because they are actually the manufacturer / importer of the battery (if you look at the web sites of Batteryspec, IMC Power and Tempest, you’ll see that they all have the same toll-free telephone number).

Let’s compare pricing: 10 TR5-12A batteries from Batteryspec – $156.00 vs. replacement SYBT2 from APC (they don’t sell just the batteries – you need to purchase the whole module) – $419.00. The SYBT2 can be found for as little as $300.00, but that’s still twice the price of 10 batteries from Batteryspec. Plus, you’d be discarding a perfectly good SYBT2 housing.

Batteryspec didn’t have 136 batteries in stock, but had them on order. That was fine with me, as they’d all be fresh from the factory and be from the same production lot. Here are the 136 batteries unloaded from the truck (571 pounds!), 10 per carton:

The batteries are spread out to distribute the load across my floor beams.

Here is an opened carton of new batteries. Note that each battery is individually wrapped in a plastic bag and has protective covers over the battery terminals. We’ll get to that in a bit.

Looking at the date code on the batteries (08J18YJ) we can see that they were made on October 18th, 2008 (J = October). Given that I received them on December 18th, that’s pretty fresh considering they spent a lot of time on a container ship coming from China.

Now it is time to install the new batteries in the SYBT2 housing. I’m not going to detail the steps, because if you can’t figure it out you shouldn’t be doing it. An assembled SYBT2 delivers about 136 Volts DC and is quite lethal. As Agent Stanley Goodspeed says in the movie The Rock, “The second you don’t respect this, it kills you.”

I will give you one suggestion, though – make sure that the battery cable connectors make firm contact with the battery terminals. If they don’t, use small needle-nose pliers to adjust the connectors (unplug them from the battery first). Loose connectors lead to high resistance, which may cause the battery pack to not provide full output when the UPS goes into battery mode. 

Here is the complete housing with new batteries installed:

Here is a close-up showing the way the batteries are connected. Remember what I said before about the plastic insulators on the battery tabs? Those insulators come in handy when loading the batteries into the housing. Also, remember what I said about many vendors wanting to sell batteries with adapters for F1 terminals instead of batteries with F2 terminals? Where, exactly, is there room for those adapters in here?

While I have no proof that these batteries will last any longer than any other brand, the fact that the manufacturer offers a warranty that is twice as long as their competitors leads me to believe that they’ll be better. Batteryspec’s web page says: “6 Year Service Life Under Float Service @77°F / 2 Year Warranty. NonFloat Service / 1 Year Warranty.” I’ll be very happy if I get 6 years out of them.

Here’s a picture of two of the three battery frames for this UPS. Each frame holds four SYBT2 battery packs. The dangling cable in the middle of the picture is the front panel cable for the 03 battery frame. The labels on the middle of each battery pack are stickers I made with the date of battery replacement. If you replace all the batteries in the UPS, you can just set the “Last battery replacement” date in the UPS (and, indeed, you should do that). But if you’re just replacing some of the batteries, it is useful to keep track of when each set of  batteries was replaced without having to remove the batteries from the UPS to check their date codes.

In case you’re wondering why I ordered 136 batteries when 12 frames of 10 batteries each is only 120 total, I ordered another 16 for two other UPS’s that take 8 batteries each.

By the way, I recommend that you not do a  run-time calibration after replacing the batteries, unless you really need to know the exact amount of time the UPS will run on batteries. It needlessly cycles the batteries and reduces their service life.

In case you want to investigate other brands, the only batteries I’ve found in this size that have F2 terminals are:

• Tempest TR5-12A
• CSB HR1221WF2
• BB Battery HR5.8-12
• Long WP5-12

Here is a picture of the last 2 from that list (the others were shown above):

Reasons to purchase replacement batteries from APC:

• Guaranteed to work with your UPS
• Won’t void your APC warranty / service contract (see note)
• Come with all leads / fuses / mounting hardware needed
• Free shipping of your old batteries to a recycling center

Note: A Federal law known as the “Magnusson-Moss Warranty Improvement Act” states that manufacturers can’t disallow a warranty claim because of after-market parts unless the manufacturer can show that the after-market parts caused the problem. For example, if you install a new radio in your car, the manufacturer can’t deny a warranty claim for engine trouble. However, batteries are so integral to the function of a UPS that you may have a problem making a Magnusson-Moss claim with after-market batteries.

Reasons to not buy replacement batteries from APC:

• Cost – generally much more expensive than other suppliers
• No control over what brand of battery you get
• Possibility of getting a worn-out battery due to stale inventory at reseller
• Some models (like the SYBT2) are not available as just batteries – APC only sells the complete battery+enclosure package. Why discard a perfectly good enclosure?

Things to watch out for when buying generic batteries:

• Generally, no leads, fuses or mounting hardware supplied
• Possibility of getting a worn-out battery due to stale inventory
• What you see may not be what you get – brand may be different
• You may get adapters instead of the correct size terminals

Regardless of who you purchase your batteries from, you should consider the total price – batteries, shipping charges, and any tax – being made from lead, UPS batteries are very heavy. Some vendors offer free shipping, while others charge quite a lot. Also, some states require collection of either a refundable deposit or a non-refundable disposal fee at the time of sale. This generally applies only when you and the vendor are located in the same state, and that state charges the fee. Battery Council International has a table here which may be useful.

Watch out for claims of “refurbished” batteries. There isn’t anything that can be done to refurbish a sealed lead acid battery. The only thing that can be done is to recycle it – separate it into its component parts – lead, plastic, etc. and use those materials to build new batteries. So, when you see a vendor’s claim of “refurbished”, this means you’re getting somebody else’s old, used batteries. You don’t know what the battery’s manufacturing date is or how it has been treated by previous owners – was it run hot and/or frequently discharged? While researching this article, I found one vendor who was selling used APC RBC14 batteries (at least they didn’t claim to have refurbished them) but stated that they came with a 1 year warranty from APC. I doubt that that is the case, since even a new APC battery only has a 1 year warranty (from date of first retail sale) and these were definitely not new.

Note that it is possible to refurbish a battery pack like the SYBT2. At a minimum, that would consist of installing a matched set of replacement batteries and functional testing in a UPS. But you should make sure you understand what the vendor means by “refurbished” – I’ve seen some cases where all that was done was to give the battery pack a quick shot with an air duster.

One last thing to watch for if you search for an APC RBC part number is vendors that show up in the search results, but who actually sell you some other brand of battery. If you know about this up front and you don’t mind (perhaps because it is priced below the genuine APC part), go ahead and purchase it. On the other hand, if you think you’re getting a genuine APC battery and wind up with a generic one, you’ll probably be unhappy – and even more so when the vendor tells you “of course you can return it and we’ll refund the purchase price, but you have to pay the return shipping, and by the way we won’t refund the shipping we charged you either”.

Once you have your new batteries installed, you need to dispose of the old ones in a responsible manner (not just out in the garbage). Many communities have either curbside collection or drop-off service for hazardous waste, which includes lead-acid batteries. There’s probably a limit to how many they will take from a resident, however – I’ve never tried to give them a couple hundred batteries, so I don’t know what the limit is, but it is likely a lot smaller than that.

Fortunately, I live within a few miles of a commercial recycler that is glad to accept these batteries – in fact, for large quantities they’ll even pay for them!

If you purchased a genuine new APC RBC, there should be a label for free shipping to one of APC’s recycling partners. Otherwise, you’ll need to make your own arrangements to either ship or drop off your old batteries. Be sure to factor in any costs for shipping and/or disposal of your old batteries when you purchase replacements. You can visit the EPA’s battery site for more information.

I’ve been using the first of the Optiplex 755 systems (in my digital darkroom) for a few days now, and it has been working quite well. One of the tasks I perform there is to prepare non-copyright out-of-print books and articles for both my web site and for traditional hardcopy reprinting. I was able to completely process a 380 page book in only a few hours – from scanning to Photoshop touchup to OCR to producing the final output. This task would have taken considerably longer with my old dual-Xeon Dell Precision 530. And that doesn’t take into account the delays in scanning each page (which lead to getting bored and wandering away from the project).

I also replaced the Dimension 8400 in my bedroom / home theater system with one of the other Optiplex 755 systems yesterday, and that one is doing fine as well. The old Dimension 8400 box will get the cat fur vacuumed out of it and re-purposed somewhere else.

One of the biggest improvements with the new systems is that my actual work isn’t interrupted by the background tasks of spyware scanning, anti-virus protection, and so forth. Those tasks still run, but I still have at least 2 CPU cores available for “real” work.  

Here’s a list of some pros and cons I’ve found with the new systems:

Pros:

• Inexpensive – compared to an identical HP configuration, Dell was several hundred dollars less expensive per system.
• Has Windows XP Professional – I really don’t want to deal with Vista, and it is nice to be able to get XP Pro pre-installed, with manufacturer support for XP drivers.
• Comes with “name brand” components – Seagate hard drive, ATI-manufactured (as opposed to ATI-licensed) video card, and so on.
• FAST!
• Has “legacy” PS/2 ports and a second serial port (which, believe it or not, I use).
• Case can be easily opened. If you’ve ever tried to open a Dell XPS system, the instructions go like this: “With your first hand, grasp the front top of the case. With your second hand, grasp the front bottom of the case and press both hands together. While pressing with two hands, use your third hand to slide the side of the case to the rear while using your fourth hand to hold the case steady“.
• Mounting hardware for the second CD / DVD drive is provided, attached to the back of the filler plate. Likewise for the second hard drive and floppy / media reader bay (if you didn’t order a floppy drive or media reader).

 Cons:

• On-board Gigabit Ethernet should support Jumbo Frames.
• PS/2 ports take up one I/O card slot, and slots are limited on this system. I’d prefer to see these ports elsewhere on the case.
• Case is somewhat flimsy compared to previous generations of Dell systems (Dimension 8400, XPS, etc.). It still seems to be of good quality, though.
• Dell should pre-install the SATA I/O cables for the second hard drive and second CD/DVD drive.

I should mention that Dell just released the A07 BIOS update for the Optiplex 755. The web site lists the change only as “Intel microcode changes”. However, the previous BIOS version posted to the Dell support site was A04 (A05 was available on request from support). So I don’t know what other changes were made in A05 or the unreleased A06.

Also, SpeedFan 4.34 Beta 38 now correctly reports the CPU core temperatures (in 4.33 they were off by 15 degrees). SpeedFan still doesn’t see the case fan speed sensor or control, but perhaps in a future version. It definitely is under software control as the BIOS changes the fan speed when the system starts up.

As part of my computer upgrades (see my other blog posts), I had made a list of the software installed on my old computer. I visited the various distribution sites and downloaded and installed the latest versions of everything.

While the new computer was sitting idle, I started getting popups from Spyware Doctor informing me that “Spyware Doctor has blocked access to a bad web site”. The threat listed was “Trojan.Storm_Spam_Server”. Now, I didn’t have any Internet Explorer windows open (in fact, nothing was running except the utilities I run at startup – which doesn’t include the BitTorrent client).

Doing some poking around with WinDump led me to the btdna.exe process in \Program Files\DNA. Oddly, this process couldn’t be killed from Task Manager – I had to rename the executable and reboot the PC.

Once I did that, the Spyware Doctor popups stopped. I proceeded to deinstall both BitTorrent and DNA from my system, and they won’t be coming back.

I’ve been a casual user of BitTorrent for quite some time, mostly for downloading things like FreeBSD distribution ISOs. But this new behavior is inexcusable, for a number of reasons:

• The application starts without the user’s permission – even if the user selects to not run the BitTorrent client at startup, btdna starts.
• There doesn’t seem to be any way to shut it down permanently without deinstalling it.
• It is interacting with many known bad sites – who is going to vouch for the program’s security?
• Why is it interacting with any sites at all? I never started a download or viewed any content that it could “accelerate”.
• Why is it stored in \Program Files\DNA? Is this an attempt to conceal that it is related to BitTorrent?
• Upon viewing the official BitTorrent DNA web site, they claim that this is an accelerator that content providers can purchase access to in order to shift the burden of delivering content onto viewers. Yet the end user isn’t informed that this is happening. This is good for the content providers and BitTorrent. What’s in it for the user? Particularly if the user pays per KB of data transferred through their ISP (as in the case of a mobile user with a wireless network card, for example).

All in all, this strikes me as a really bad idea. My suggestion is to deinstall the DNA service (Start / Control Panel / Add or Remove Programs / DNA should do it, but you might want to check your \Program Files\DNA directory after deinstalling, just in case). Depending on whether you’re as disturbed about this as I am, you might want to deinstall BitTorrent as well and look at a different Torrent client.

To start out the new year, I decided to upgrade 3 of my existing PCs to new ones. My goals were:

• Save energy
• Improve performance
• Get systems that still had PS/2 ports and serial ports before they were discontinued

The reason for the 3rd item is that I use a specialty keyboard (in particular, the DEC/Compaq/HP LK450 family) which is very hard to find in USB form and which my applications don’t support in USB mode. So I needed PS/2 support. Many vendors are moving to so-called “legacy-free” systems that don’t have these ports.

I usually purchase Dell PCs as they do a good job of integrating quality components (at least in the business-class systems) at a good price. I could probably build a similar system for a comparable price, but in my opinion it isn’t worth the hassle. What is best for anyone else probably depends on how they value their time.

I had recommended the Optiplex 740 (AMD-based) for a friend, and he was quite happy with them (I think his systems came in at under $400 each, complete). But I was looking for higher performance, and Dell wasn’t offering quad-core AMD systems. [Apparently there are L3 cache issues with the new AMD quad-core units that are severely limiting availability of parts.]

So I selected the Optiplex 755. I chose the Optiplex for a number of reasons. First, it is possible to order these with a PS/2 adapter that gives you PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports as well as a second serial port. Next, it comes with US-based tech support – not that I call for software help, but I’d like to be able to convince the tech to “just send me the part” to fix the unit, without needing to do the whole song-and-dance of running tests I already did, seeing if a software update will fix it, etc. – and that seems to be a lot easier with domestic tech support.

I spec’d a high-end (but not top-of-the-line) model as follows:

That was my system for my digital darkroom. The other two systems were the same except that I didn’t order the 1394 card. This system priced out at $1397.00 after discounts, but before tax. Shipping was free.

I ordered the next-to-the-top CPU. Choosing a Q6700 would have been $320 more for only 260MHz more speed. I can always swap the CPU later on.

Some readers may question my choice of 4GB RAM in a 32-bit XP system. While it is true that Windows won’t use all of it, it does use 3.25GB. Dell doesn’t offer this system with a 3GB memory size. 4GB was only $139 more than 2GB.

I also ordered a 30″ widescreen monitor to go with that system:

The systems were ordered on January 13th and were scheduled to ship on January 18th, but actually arrived here on the 17th. That’s amazing service.

The first thing I did upon unpacking the first system was to image the hard drive to my backup server using G4U. This lets me restore things to the as-shipped state without needing to play with restore CDs, system-specific software utilities, etc. Unfortunately, the hardware in the system was too new for G4U to support it, so I resorted to my usual trick of moving the hard drive to one of my utility boxes to do the backup. Dell uses quick-removal brackets for most components (including the hard disk) so the swap was very easy. Once that was done, it was back into the Optiplex for startup.

Upon cabling things up, I discovered that I had ordered the wrong video card for the 3008WFP panel. It uses dual-link DVI, since its maximum resolution of 2560 x 1600 exceeds the limits of a single DVI link. I had assumed that a card listed as “dual DVI” would support dual-link. Silly me… So I ran the panel in 1920 x 1200 mode and ordered a retail Radeon HD 2400 Pro card. I could have asked Dell to swap out the card, but this was arguably my error and they listed the card as on back-order when not part of a system. A note for people who are going to say “why didn’t you get video card X instead?” – I’ve been very happy with ATI cards (in fact, one of the reasons I chose this model was that it included an ATI card) and the newer ATI cards (at least in their retail versions) use a second slot for their cooling fan. As I describe later on, slots are at a premium in this system.

On starting the system up, I was pleased to discover that it was remarkably free of what I call “shovel-ware” – stuff that’s shoveled onto the system to clutter up the desktop and start menu, like “Try AOL for 3 months free!”, “Yahoo! Toolbar”, “Norton AntiVirus Trial Edition” and so forth. I’d much rather install the stuff I want rather than trying to remove all traces of stuff I didn’t want from the system.

I then looked to see what sort of hardware came with the system. The DVD burner was a brand I didn’t recognize (it turns out is is some sort of OEM Philips drive). The hard drive was a Seagate model – very nice. A Vostro 400 (home / home office) system a friend ordered came with a Hitachi Deskstar drive. I prefer the Seagate and I’m glad Dell uses them on their higher-end systems.

I decided to replace the DVD burner with a pair of Pioneer DVR-212D burners. This is a top-rated burner which comes with Cyberlink PowerDVD and Nero Essentials. The version of PowerDVD bundled with the Optiplex had a funky user interface and rather than trying to get it to act like the versions I was familiar with, I just de-installed it and installed the version from the Pioneer accessory disk. Similarly, I de-installed Roxio from the system (I have always loathed that software) and installed Nero.

To be continued… 

UPDATED May 4th, 2007

Today we’ll take a look inside the Linksys NSS4000. This is the entry-level unit in the Linksys One network storage family. You can read the official Linksys literature  here, but technical info is rather lacking there (they don’t even say how much RAM is in the unit).

 First, let’s take a look at the mainboard (click the image to enlarge):

The processor is a PMC-Sierra RM7035C, part of the MIPS family, running at 600MHz. A PM8172 system controller provides the interface for most other peripheral controllers on the board, as well as being the attachment point for the system’s 128KB of Hynix SDRAM. Other notable components are an ITE IT8712 Super I/O controller and IT8907E USB flash controller, connected to a 512MB Samsung flash chip; Promise PDC40518 SATA controller; NEC UPD720101 USB 2.0 controller;  SafeXcel 1741 security co-processor; two Marvell Yukon Lite 10/100/1000 Ethernet controllers (under heat sinks), and a MX 29LV800CBTC 1MB boot flash.

Upon initial observation, there is a 4-pin connector labeled “J29 CONSOLE” near the back edge of the board:

It turns out that this connector has the exact same pinout as the Linksys NSLU2’s serial port, as described here. Linksys was even nice enough to pre-install a connector for us. I made a cable out of an old Sound Blaster cable (connectors / pins) and a piece of USB cable (wire). There is just enough room to snake the cable into the chassis via the RPS (Redundant Power System) connector opening on the rear:

This was enough to get a serial console working, to observe the bootstrap procedure. Here is a complete log of the boot process, from PMON start through the Linux login prompt:

PMON2000 MIPS Initializing. Standby...ERRORPC=80102c4c CONFIG=404664b0 STATUS=00410000 
CPU PRID 00002753 
Initializing SDRAM controller 
Clearing first 1MB of memory...done 
Sizing caches... 
Initializing L1 cache...done 
Initializing L2 cache...enabling...done 
Testing first MB of RAM... 
Wlk-1 OK! Wlk-0 OK! OwnAddr OK! Copy PMON to execute location...done 
Booting compressed image. 
Wlk-1 OK! Wlk-0 OK! OwnAddr OK! mainbus0 (root) 
pcibr0 at mainbus0 
pci0 at pcibr0 bus 0 
vendor "ITExpress", unknown product 0x0801 rev 0xb1 at pci0 dev 1 function 0 not configured 
vendor "ITExpress", unknown product 0x8172 rev 0x10 at pci0 dev 1 function 1 not configured 
ohci0 at pci0 dev 1 function 3 vendor "ITExpress", unknown product 0x1234 rev 0x07: generic poll, version 1.0, legacy support 
usb1 at ohci0: USB revision 1.0 
uhub1 at usb1 
uhub1: class 9/0 rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1 
uhub1: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered 
vendor "ITExpress", unknown product 0x8172 rev 0x11 at pci0 dev 1 function 4 not configured 
vendor "ITExpress", unknown product 0x8172 rev 0x10 at pci0 dev 1 function 6 not configured 
"SafeNet SafeXcel" rev 0x01 at pci0 dev 16 function 0 not configured 
ohci1 at pci0 dev 17 function 0 "NEC USB" rev 0x43: generic poll, version 1.0 
usb2 at ohci1: USB revision 1.0 
uhub2 at usb2 
uhub2: class 9/0 rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1 
uhub2: 3 ports with 3 removable, self powered 
ohci2 at pci0 dev 17 function 1 "NEC USB" rev 0x43: generic poll, version 1.0 
usb3 at ohci2: USB revision 1.0 
uhub3 at usb3 
uhub3: class 9/0 rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1 
uhub3: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered 
ehci0 at pci0 dev 17 function 2 "NEC USB" rev 0x04: generic poll 
ehci0: EHCI version 1.0 
ehci0: companion controllers, 3 ports each: ohci1 ohci2 
usb0 at ehci0: USB revision 2.0 
uhub0 at usb0 
uhub0: class 9/0 rev 2.00/1.00, addr 1 
uhub0: 5 ports with 5 removable, self powered 
skc0 at pci0 dev 18 function 0 "Marvell Yukon 88E8001/8003/8010" rev 0x10, Marvell Yukon Lite (0x9): generic poll 
sk0 at skc0 port A, address aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff 
eephy0 at sk0 phy 0: Marvell 88E1011 Gigabit PHY, rev. 5 
vendor "Promise", unknown product 0x3d18 rev 0x02 at pci0 dev 19 function 0 not configured 
skc1 at pci0 dev 20 function 0 "Marvell Yukon 88E8001/8003/8010" rev 0x10, Marvell Yukon Lite (0x9): generic poll 
sk1 at skc1 port A, address aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff 
eephy1 at sk1 phy 0: Marvell 88E1011 Gigabit PHY, rev. 5 
umass0 at uhub0 port 1 configuration 1 interface 0 
umass0: rev 2.00/2.00, addr 2 using umass0 over SCSI 
scsibus0 at umass0: 2 targets 
sd0 at scsibus0 targ 1 lun 0:  SCSI2 0/direct removable 
sd0: 499MB, 499 cyl, 64 head, 32 sec, 512 bytes/sec, 1022976 sec total 
System init done.Configuration [PM74101,EL,NET,SCSI] 
Version: PMON2000 3.1.17-B019 (PM74101) #0: Mon Jan  8 12:24:25 PST 2007. 
Supported loaders [srec, elf, bin] 
Supported filesystems [net, fat, disk, tty, ram] 
This software may be redistributed under the BSD copyright. 
Copyright 2005, PMC-Sierra, Inc. 
CPU RM7000 @ 601.28 MHz / Bus @ 100.21 MHz 
Memory size 128 MB. 
Primary Instruction cache size 16KB (32 line, 4 way) 
Primary Data cache size 16KB (32 line, 4 way) 
Secondary cache size 256KB 
Diagnostic Test Started 
=============================================================== 
PCI test started .................. 
Testing PCI Device NEC USB Controller 
Testing PCI Device Promise SATA Controller 
Testing PCI Device Marvell Gigabit Ethernet Controller 
Testing PCI Device Safenet SafeXel encryptor 
PCI test finished .................  SUCCESS 
USB test started .................. 
USB test finished .................  SUCCESS 
LPC test started .................. 
Testing LPC Environment Controller 
Testing LPC GPIO Controller 
LPC: GPIO Controller Passed 
LPC test finished .................  SUCCESS 
RTC test started .................. 
Setting the time as Sun Jan  1 00:00:00 GMT 2006 
RTC test finished .................  SUCCESS 
Mfg  0, Id  0 
Could not find Flash Area to write 
*************************************************************** 
*            Diagnostic Test Status of this device            * 
*************************************************************** 
* Memory Test                               -   SUCCESS       * 
* NEC USB Controller                        -   SUCCESS       * 
* Promise SATA Controller                   -   SUCCESS       * 
* Marvell Gigabit Ethernet Controller       -   SUCCESS       * 
* Safenet SafeXel encryptor                 -   SUCCESS       * 
* USB OnBoard FLASH                         -   SUCCESS       * 
* LPC Device                                -   SUCCESS       * 
* LPC: Environment Controller               -   SUCCESS       * 
* LPC: GPIO Controller                      -   SUCCESS       * 
* RTC setting                               -   SUCCESS       * 
* UDI Programming                           -   FAILED        * 
*************************************************************** 
Diagnostic test completed. Test Status - FAILURE 
=============================================================== 
Hit any key to return to PMON prompt or power down. 
> 
Autoboot command: "boot /dev/sd0@0x100 root=/dev/scsibd2 hwrev=3" 
Press  to execute now or any other key to abort. 
 1 
Loading file: /dev/sd0@0x100 [elf32] [mips4] [32bitmode] 
ffffffff80100000/53d085(5492869) + ffffffff8063d085/22f9b(z) + ehci_shutdown: stopping the HC 
ohci_shutdown: stopping the HC 
ohci_shutdown: stopping the HC 
ohci_shutdown: stopping the HC 
setting pci bus 0 device 1 function 0 reg 10 to default: 0x14017001 
setting pci bus 0 device 1 function 5 reg 20 to default: 0x01401780 
Linux version 2.6.18 (build@schnitzel) (gcc version 3.3.6) #1 Fri Jan 26 02:36:34 PST 2007 
UDI: initializing 
UDI: found UDI at offset 0xa80ff000 
UDI: V2 info format 
UDI: hardware revision is 3 
UDI: available 
memsize: 128 
Memory size: 128MB 
CPU revision is: 00002753 
FPU revision is: 00002750 
Found IT8712 Super IO 
Determined physical RAM map: 
 memory: 08000000 @ 00000000 (usable) 
Built 1 zonelists.  Total pages: 32768 
Kernel command line: root=/dev/scsibd2 hwrev=3 console=ttyS0,115200 
Primary instruction cache 16kB, physically tagged, 4-way, linesize 32 bytes. 
Primary data cache 16kB, 4-way, linesize 32 bytes. 
Secondary cache size 256K, linesize 32 bytes. 
Synthesized TLB refill handler (23 instructions). 
Synthesized TLB load handler fastpath (35 instructions). 
Synthesized TLB store handler fastpath (35 instructions). 
Synthesized TLB modify handler fastpath (34 instructions). 
PID hash table entries: 1024 (order: 10, 4096 bytes) 
calculating r4koff... 0012597e(1202558) 
CPU frequency 601.28 MHz 
Using 300.640 MHz high precision timer. 
Dentry cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes) 
Inode-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes) 
Memory: 123264k/131072k available (4092k kernel code, 7664k reserved, 1107k data , 164k init, 0k highmem) 
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 
Checking for 'wait' instruction...  available. 
NET: Registered protocol family 16 
SCSI subsystem initialized 
usbcore: registered new driver usbfs 
usbcore: registered new driver hub 
NET: Registered protocol family 2 
IP route cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes) 
TCP established hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes) 
TCP bind hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes) 
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 4096 bind 2048) 
TCP reno registered 
UDI: created "/proc/manuinfo" entry 
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1 
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes) 
squashfs: version 3.1 (2006/08/19) Phillip Lougher 
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de). 
NTFS driver 2.1.27 [Flags: R/O]. 
JFFS2 version 2.2. (NAND) (C) 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc. 
SGI XFS with ACLs, large block numbers, no debug enabled 
SGI XFS Quota Management subsystem 
Initializing Cryptographic API 
io scheduler noop registered 
io scheduler anticipatory registered 
io scheduler deadline registered 
io scheduler cfq registered (default) 
it8172 fixup: Configuring Audio adapter 0000:00:01.0 
Generic RTC Driver v1.07 
GPIO poller thread started. 
GPIO at 0x14013800 (irq = 20) 
powerdn: pwdnInit 
Watchdog Timer (ITE 8712) Initialized 
is_watchdog_running()(0x0), WDT Timeout Value (0x0)... 
watchdog_init(): Did not spawn it8712_wdt_ctrl_kthread... 
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.6 $ 4 ports, IRQ sharing disabled 
serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x14011800 (irq = 23) is a 16550A 
serial8250: ttyS1 at I/O 0x140003f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A 
serial8250: ttyS2 at I/O 0x14012000 (irq = 24) is a 16550A 
serial8250: ttyS3 at I/O 0x14012800 (irq = 25) is a 16550A 
loop: loaded (max 8 devices) 
skge 1.6 addr 0x10104000 irq 39 chip Yukon-Lite rev 9 
skge eth0: addr aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff 
skge 1.6 addr 0x10108000 irq 40 chip Yukon-Lite rev 9 
skge eth1: addr aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff 
tun: Universal TUN/TAP device driver, 1.6 
tun: (C) 1999-2004 Max Krasnyansky  
Board Hardware Revision: 3 
libata: Powering drive 1 (gpio 19) 
libata: Powering drive 2 (gpio 18) 
libata: Powering drive 3 (gpio 17) 
libata: Powering drive 4 (gpio 16) 
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xB010E200 ctl 0xB010E238 bmdma 0x0 irq 41 
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xB010E280 ctl 0xB010E2B8 bmdma 0x0 irq 41 
ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xB010E300 ctl 0xB010E338 bmdma 0x0 irq 41 
ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xB010E380 ctl 0xB010E3B8 bmdma 0x0 irq 41 
scsi0 : sata_promise 
ata1: SRST failed (status 0xFF) 
ata1: SRST failed (err_mask=0x100) 
ata1: softreset failed, retrying in 5 secs 
ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300) 
ata1.00: ATA-7, max UDMA/133, 781422768 sectors: LBA48 NCQ (depth 0/32) 
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133 
scsi1 : sata_promise 
ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300) 
ata2.00: ATA-7, max UDMA/133, 781422768 sectors: LBA48 NCQ (depth 0/32) 
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/133 
scsi2 : sata_promise 
ata3: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300) 
ata3.00: ATA-7, max UDMA/133, 781422768 sectors: LBA48 NCQ (depth 0/32) 
ata3.00: configured for UDMA/133 
scsi3 : sata_promise 
ata4: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300) 
ata4.00: ATA-7, max UDMA/133, 781422768 sectors: LBA48 NCQ (depth 0/32) 
ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133 
  Vendor: ATA       Model: ST3400832AS       Rev: 3.01 
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 05 
  Vendor: ATA       Model: ST3400832AS       Rev: 3.01 
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 05 
  Vendor: ATA       Model: ST3400832AS       Rev: 3.01 
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 05 
  Vendor: ATA       Model: ST3400832AS       Rev: 3.01 
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 05 
SCSI device sda: 781422768 512-byte hdwr sectors (400088 MB) 
sda: Write Protect is off 
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back 
SCSI device sda: 781422768 512-byte hdwr sectors (400088 MB) 
sda: Write Protect is off 
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back 
 sda: 
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda 
SCSI device sdb: 781422768 512-byte hdwr sectors (400088 MB) 
sdb: Write Protect is off 
SCSI device sdb: drive cache: write back 
SCSI device sdb: 781422768 512-byte hdwr sectors (400088 MB) 
sdb: Write Protect is off 
SCSI device sdb: drive cache: write back 
 sdb: 
sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sdb 
SCSI device sdc: 781422768 512-byte hdwr sectors (400088 MB) 
sdc: Write Protect is off 
SCSI device sdc: drive cache: write back 
SCSI device sdc: 781422768 512-byte hdwr sectors (400088 MB) 
sdc: Write Protect is off 
SCSI device sdc: drive cache: write back 
 sdc: 
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sdc 
SCSI device sdd: 781422768 512-byte hdwr sectors (400088 MB) 
sdd: Write Protect is off 
SCSI device sdd: drive cache: write back 
SCSI device sdd: 781422768 512-byte hdwr sectors (400088 MB) 
sdd: Write Protect is off 
SCSI device sdd: drive cache: write back 
 sdd: 
sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sdd 
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0 
sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0 
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0 
sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0 
physmap-flash.0: failed to claim resource 0 
ehci_hcd 0000:00:11.2: EHCI Host Controller 
ehci_hcd 0000:00:11.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1 
ehci_hcd 0000:00:11.2: irq 40, io mem 0x1010f000 
ehci_hcd 0000:00:11.2: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00, driver 10 Dec 2004 
usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice 
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found 
hub 1-0:1.0: 5 ports detected 
ohci_hcd 0000:00:01.3: Itentionally disabling ITE USB controller. 
ohci_hcd 0000:00:01.3: init 0000:00:01.3 fail, -19 
ohci_hcd 0000:00:11.0: OHCI Host Controller 
ohci_hcd 0000:00:11.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2 
ohci_hcd 0000:00:11.0: irq 38, io mem 0x1010c000 
usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice 
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found 
hub 2-0:1.0: 3 ports detected 
ohci_hcd 0000:00:11.1: OHCI Host Controller 
ohci_hcd 0000:00:11.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3 
ohci_hcd 0000:00:11.1: irq 39, io mem 0x1010d000 
usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2 
usb usb3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice 
hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found 
hub 3-0:1.0: 2 ports detected 
usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice 
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver... 
scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices 
  Vendor: ITE TECH  Model:  PEN DRIVE Flash  Rev: 2.20 
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02 
Hooray! Discovered SCSI boot device! 
host_no [4], channel [0], id [0], lun [0] 
SCSI device sde: 1022976 512-byte hdwr sectors (524 MB) 
sde: Write Protect is off 
sde: assuming drive cache: write through 
SCSI device sde: 1022976 512-byte hdwr sectors (524 MB) 
sde: Write Protect is off 
sde: assuming drive cache: write through 
 sde: sde1 sde2 sde3 sde4 
SCSI device scsibd: 1022976 512-byte hdwr sectors (524 MB) 
scsibd: Write Protect is off 
scsibd: assuming drive cache: write through 
 scsibd: scsibd1 scsibd2 scsibd3 scsibd4 
sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk scsibd 
sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0 
usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage 
USB Mass Storage support registered. 
usbcore: registered new driver hiddev 
usbcore: registered new driver usbhid 
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.6:USB HID core driver 
Non-volatile memory driver v1.0 
i2c /dev entries driver 
Initialize ITE IIC adapter module 
 found device at 0x14014030 irq 0. 
ITE iic (i2c) algorithm module 
it87: Device not activated, enabling 
it87: Found IT8712F chip at 0x290, revision 8 
hwmon-vid: Unknown VRM version of your CPU 
md: linear personality registered for level -1 
md: raid0 personality registered for level 0 
md: raid1 personality registered for level 1 
md: raid10 personality registered for level 10 
raid6: int32x1    129 MB/s 
raid6: int32x2    152 MB/s 
raid6: int32x4    217 MB/s 
raid6: int32x8    170 MB/s 
raid6: using algorithm int32x4 (217 MB/s) 
md: raid6 personality registered for level 6 
md: raid5 personality registered for level 5 
md: raid4 personality registered for level 4 
raid5: measuring checksumming speed 
   8regs     :   550.000 MB/sec 
   8regs_prefetch:   519.000 MB/sec 
   32regs    :   643.000 MB/sec 
   32regs_prefetch:   602.000 MB/sec 
raid5: using function: 32regs (643.000 MB/sec) 
md: md driver 0.90.3 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27 
md: bitmap version 4.39 
device-mapper: ioctl: 4.7.0-ioctl (2006-06-24) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com 
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team 
TCP bic registered 
NET: Registered protocol family 1 
NET: Registered protocol family 17 
802.1Q VLAN Support v1.8 Ben Greear  
All bugs added by David S. Miller  
drivers/rtc/hctosys.c: unable to open rtc device (rtc0) 
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays. 
md: autorun ... 
md: ... autorun DONE.
Root device ("/dev/scsibd2") is now online. 
VFS: Mounted root (squashfs filesystem) readonly. 
Freeing unused kernel memory: 164k freed 
Doing sysinit 
Mounting procfs 
Mounting sysfs 
Starting udev 
Mounting nfsd 
Mounting tmpfs on /var (limited to [5242880] bytes) 
Mounting tmpfs on /tmp 
Mounting tmpfs on /mnt (limited to [131072] bytes) 
Creating dev entries for mtdblock devices... 
Boot device was /dev/scsibd, making partitions and 
mounting linuxrtconfig on /linuxrwfs (jffs2)... 
trying to mount jffs2 as rw partition... 
block2mtd: version $Revision: 1.1.1.3 $ 
actual jffs2 partition erase size will be [0x20000]... 
block2mtd: default erase size is [4096] 
block2mtd: mtd0: [d: /dev/scsibd1] erase_size = 128KiB [131072] 
block2mtd module loaded successfully. 
jffs2 will use mtdblock0 
Trying to mount jffs2 on /linuxrwfs... 
block2mtd: Overrun end of disk in cache readahead 
jffs2 mounted on /linuxrwfs 
Starting udevd... 
Starting udevtrigger... 
Starting udevsettle... 
Making useful softlinks... 
Removing hotplug... 
Mounting devpts... 
Start executing startup scripts... 
/etc/init.d/S01sysinit(start): doing some sysinit stuff... 
Dirty shutdown counter looks good... 
Dirty shutdown count is [3] 
Previous shutdown was dirty, message to user set... 
Checking the sanity of the rw file system... 
Softlinking /dev/sd0 to /dev/scsibd (bootenv may need it)... 
/etc/init.d/S01sysinit(start): OK 
/etc/init.d/S02checkroot(start): OK 
/etc/init.d/S02hwdep(start): Fixing gpio.conf files... 
Board hardware revision is [3]. 
gpio.conf already exists (OK) 
/etc/init.d/S03modules(start): OK 
/etc/init.d/S04raid(start): Starting up raids... 
Making additional md devices... 
Updating exports... 
found /etc/nas/spindown -- setting new spindown timeout... 
SATA spindown timeout set to 86400 seconds... 
Default RAID metadata version is 1.2 . 
There is no /etc/nas/uuids_stopped file -- starting all available arrays... 
md: md0 stopped. 
md: bind 
md: bind 
md: bind 
md: bind 
md: md0: raid array is not clean -- starting background reconstruction 
raid5: device sda operational as raid disk 0
raid5: device sdd operational as raid disk 3 
raid5: device sdc operational as raid disk 2 
raid5: device sdb operational as raid disk 1 
raid5: allocated 4212kB for md0 
raid5: raid level 5 set md0 active with 4 out of 4 devices, algorithm 2 
RAID5 conf printout: 
 --- rd:4 wd:4 fd:0 
 disk 0, o:1, dev:sda 
 disk 1, o:1, dev:sdb 
 disk 2, o:1, dev:sdc 
 disk 3, o:1, dev:sdd 
md: syncing RAID array md0 
md: minimum _guaranteed_ reconstruction speed: 1000 KB/sec/disc. 
md: using maximum available idle IO bandwidth (but not more than 7000 KB/sec) for reconstruction. 
md: using 128k window, over a total of 390711232 blocks. 
md: resuming recovery of md0 from checkpoint. 
mdadm: /dev/md/0 has been started with 4 drives. 
1853 
/etc/init.d/S04raid(start): OK 
/etc/init.d/S05lvm(start): Starting up lvm... 
  Reading all physical volumes.  This may take a while... 
  Found volume group "RAIDA" using metadata type lvm2 
  WARNING: This metadata update is NOT backed up 
  WARNING: This metadata update is NOT backed up 
  1 logical volume(s) in volume group "RAIDA" now active 
/etc/init.d/S05lvm(start): OK 
/etc/init.d/S06mount(start): Mounting file systems... 
Running 70's disco mount... 
  Reading all physical volumes.  This may take a while... 
  Found volume group "RAIDA" using metadata type lvm2 
  WARNING: This metadata update is NOT backed up 
  WARNING: This metadata update is NOT backed up 
  1 logical volume(s) in volume group "RAIDA" now active 
Checking for RAIDA - TEST 
Updated Fstab...[/dev/RAIDA/TEST        /mnt/RAIDA/TEST] 
Check mount point for /mnt/RAIDA/TEST 
Mount point DOES NOT exist 
Filesystem "dm-0": Disabling barriers, not supported by the underlying device 
XFS mounting filesystem dm-0 
Starting XFS recovery on filesystem: dm-0 (logdev: internal) 
Ending XFS recovery on filesystem: dm-0 (logdev: internal) 
Adding include path /mnt/RAIDA/TEST/.config/smb.conf 
Updated Fstab...[/mnt/RAIDA/TEST/share1 /mnt/ftp_dir/share1] 
  Reading all physical volumes.  This may take a while... 
  Found volume group "RAIDA" using metadata type lvm2 
  WARNING: This metadata update is NOT backed up 
/etc/init.d/S06mount(start): OK 
/etc/init.d/S07mtd(start): Making read-only mtd character devices... 
/etc/init.d/S07mtd(start): OK 
/etc/init.d/S08tmpfs(start): Preparing tmpfs directories... 
Making directories in /var: 
+run... 
+log directories and files (httpd, messages, wtmp, lastlog, cups, samba)... 
+cache... 
+empty... 
+ftp... 
+spool directories (cups, cron)... 
+tmp... 
+lock directories (apache, lvm, subsys, samba)... 
+lib directories (nfs, snmp)... 
+state directories... 
+yp directories... 
+samba private dir... 
Done making /var directories. 
Making anon ftp user dir... 
/etc/init.d/S08tmpfs(start): OK 
/etc/init.d/S09sensors(start): Setting up sensors ... 
/etc/init.d/S09sensors(start): OK 
Initializing random number generator... done. 
/etc/init.d/S21fixrandom(start): Fixing random devices... 
/etc/init.d/S21fixrandom(start): OK 
/etc/init.d/S25safenet(start): Starting crypto (loading aes)... 
/etc/init.d/S25safenet(start): OK 
/etc/init.d/S30certs(start): Generating self-signing certs (if necessary)... 
/etc/init.d/S30certs(start): OK 
Flushing all current rules and user defined chains: SUCCESS: 
Clearing all current rules and user defined chains: SUCCESS: 
Applying iptables firewall rules:  SUCCESS: 
Setting hostname:  NAS0018f804fa07 
Starting network... 
+starting loopback interface 
Dynamic network was not running lo 
udhcpc was not running for lo 
Autoipd was not running for lo 
No bonding device present. 
Device lo is present and available 
This is not a slave device 
 DHCP not used on device lo 
 Bringing up lo 
arping: Interface lo is not ARPable 
Updating ARP cache of other devices on this subnet. Please wait 2 sec. 
arping: Interface lo is not ARPable 
ARP tables updated successfully. 
Adding route add 127.0.0.0/8 dev lo 
+starting ifplugd... 
Starting Network Interface Plugging Daemon:No bonding device present. 
bond0 
Doing insmode for bonding module... 
Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver: v3.0.3 (March 23, 2006) 
bonding: MII link monitoring set to 100 ms 
Device bond0 is present and available 
This is a master device. Bringing link down and then up. 
Bringing up master link for bond. 
Dynamic network was not running eth0 
udhcpc was not running for eth0 
Autoipd was not running for eth0 
No bonding device present. 
Device eth0 is present and available 
Enslaving eth0 to bond0 
bonding: bond0: enslaving eth0 as a backup interface with a down link. 
Dynamic network was not running eth1 
udhcpc was not running for eth1 
Autoipd was not running for eth1 
No bonding device present. 
Device eth1 is present and available 
Enslaving eth1 to bond0 
bonding: bond0: enslaving eth1 as a backup interface with a down link. 
Restarting vblade service 
Stopping /sbin/nas_vblade...OK 
Restoring raw socket buffer sizes...OK 
skge eth0: Link is up at 1000 Mbps, full duplex, flow control tx and rx 
bonding: bond0: link status up for interface eth0, enabling it in 200 ms. 
bonding: bond0: link status definitely up for interface eth0. 
bonding: bond0: making interface eth0 the new active one. 
bonding: bond0: first active interface up! 
Stopping /sbin/nas_vblade...OK 
udhcpc[2175]: udhcpc (v0.9.9-pre) started 
skge eth0: Link is up at 1000 Mbps, full duplex, flow control tx and rx 
udhcpc[2175]: Sending discover... 
. 
Waiting for network (60 second max): 
 + (try#1/12) Currently 1 active interfaces: 
   + bond0 : IP address not set 
udhcpc[2175]: Sending discover... 
udhcpc[2175]: Sending select for 10.20.30.40... 
udhcpc[2175]: Lease of 10.20.30.40 obtained, lease time 86400 
 + (try#2/12) Currently 1 active interfaces: 
   + bond0 : 10.20.30.40 
NET OK: All active interfaces are online. 
Starting Disk Aggregation Server... 
Stopping /sbin/nas_vblade...OK 
Starting ntpd: syncing (timeout in 20 seconds): OK 
Starting /sbin/portmap: OK 
Starting dropbear (from tcpserver): OK 
Starting /sbin/rpc.statd: OK 
Starting nfs services: 
Starting nfs quotas: 
Starting nfs daemon: 
Starting nfs mountd: 
/etc/init.d/S60vsftpd: setting maximum 2 connections 
/etc/init.d/S60vsftpd: setting maximum 2 connections per IP 
Starting vsftpd (from tcpserver): OK 
/etc/init.d/S82httpdswiw: setting maximum 99 connections 
/etc/init.d/S82httpdswiw: setting maximum 99 connections per IP 
Starting httpdswiw (from tcpserver): OK 
Starting httpdsl1 (from tcpserver): OK 
/etc/init.d/S84httpds: setting maximum 99 connections 
/etc/init.d/S84httpds: setting maximum 99 connections per IP 
Starting httpds (from tcpserver): OK 
/etc/init.d/S85httpd: setting maximum 99 connections 
/etc/init.d/S85httpd: setting maximum 99 connections per IP 
Starting httpd (from tcpserver): OK 
Starting UPnP daemon: OK 
/etc/init.d/S90samba: setting maximum 15 connections 
Starting samba: secrets.tdb : 1 records 
OK 
Starting winbind daemon: OK 
Starting CRON daemon: OK 
Starting auto nice daemon:/usr/sbin/and[2500]: Configuration file is: /etc/and.conf 
/usr/sbin/and[2500]: Priority database is: /etc/and.priorities 
/usr/sbin/and[2500]: AND ready. 
 done 
Starting Discovery Agent daemon: OK 
Starting mDNSPosix daemon: 
 +Writing /tmp/mDNSPosix.conf...OK 
/etc/init.d/S99local(start): Finalizing system startup... 
watchdog not started (userland have to keep it that way). 
  +starting gpio_poller --disable-watchdog (watchdog is disabled)... 
Indicating that boot was OK... 
Setting bootstate to A0... 
Unsetting bootcount... 
bootcount: No matching variable to unset 
Warning: couldn't unset bootcount. 
/etc/init.d/S99local(start): OK

My next task was to determine a working login username and password. Fortunately, the same username and password that is used for the NSS4000’s web interface will work (as an unprivileged user) on the serial console. Unfortunately, attempts to guess the root password failed, so I resorted to restarting the system and interrupting the boot process. The standard boot string is:

boot /dev/sd0@0x100 root=/dev/scsibd2 hwrev=3

to which I added “single” to get the box to stop in single-user mode:

boot /dev/sd0@0x100 root=/dev/scsibd2 hwrev=3 single

At that point, I did a ^D to continue with the startup process (necessary to mount the filesystems on from the USB flash drive) and then did a “passwd root” to change the root password.

After that, I was able to read all files on the system, including one named “gpio.config” which described a “diagnostic jumper” that would enable the Dropbear SSH server (needed if I wanted to remotely connect to the box instead of using the serial console). After tracing out some wiring, I found that J34 is the jumper in question, located here:

A quick scrounge through the parts box yielded an appropriate jumper:

And I had my SSH console working.

That’s it for now – in a subsequent article I will discuss building the NSS4000 software from the Linksys GPL distribution, as well as adding additional utilities.

UPDATE: The diag jumper also causes additional testing while in the PMON2000 monitor, as well as preventing unattended booting (since one of the PMON diagnostics fails, autoboot is disabled). A better way to enable the dropbear SSH server is to leave the diag jumper off and to edit line 26 of the file /linuxrwfs/etc/init.d/S02hwdep to read /usr/sbin/dropbear_start.sh instead of /usr/sbin/dropbear_stop.sh.