Logitech MX Master 3 Mouse erratic behavior

 I have been struggling for some time with my Logitech MX Master 3 mouse on my iMacPro (2017).

The mouse is connected with a Unifying Device USB Dongle. Sometimes the cursor motion is smooth - but eventually it becomes erratic and impossible to use. The mouse works fine on other systems.

The fix is to attach the Unifying Dongle to a USB extension cable - to get it away from the computer - 36 inches seems enough.

Adaptec 2940 AU PCI SCSI-2 host adapter and Windows 7 (64-bit)

O.K. so it took a few years... I finally got to the point where I don't want to deal with Vista just to access SCSI devices in windows...

So, here are the instructions on how to use the Vista driver (djsvs.sys) to access an Adaptec 2940AU PCI SCSI-2 HBA in Windows 7...

First, get the djsvs.sys driver - either from the 'net or from a Vista distribution.
Second, create djsvs.inf from the following:

[Version]
signature="$Windows NT$"
Class=SCSIAdapter
ClassGUID={4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Provider=%ADP%
DriverVer=06/21/2006,5.5.5.0


[SourceDisksNames]
1 = %Floppy_Description%,,,


[SourceDisksFiles]
djsvs.sys = 1,,

[Manufacturer]
%ADP%=ADAPTEC,NTx86,NTamd64

[ADAPTEC.NTx86]
%PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_6178&SUBSYS_00000000.DeviceDesc% = aic78xx_Inst, PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_6178&SUBSYS_00000000
[ADAPTEC.NTamd64]
%PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_6178&SUBSYS_00000000.DeviceDesc% = aic78xx_Inst, PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_6178&SUBSYS_00000000

[aic78xx_Inst]
CopyFiles = @djsvs.sys

[aic78xx_Inst.Services]
AddService = aic78xx, 0x2, aic78xx_Service_Inst, Miniport_EventLog_Inst

[aic78xx_Service_Inst]
ServiceType    = 1      ; SERVICE_KERNEL_DRIVER
StartType      = 0      ; SERVICE_BOOT_START
ErrorControl   = 1      ; SERVICE_ERROR_NORMAL
ServiceBinary  = %12%\djsvs.sys
LoadOrderGroup = SCSI Miniport
AddReg         = pnpsafe_pci_addreg

[pnpsafe_pci_addreg]
HKR, "Parameters\PnpInterface", "5", 0x00010001, 0x00000001

[create_initiator_lu]
HKR, "Parameters\Device","CreateInitiatorLU",0x00010001,1

[Miniport_EventLog_Inst]
AddReg = Miniport_EventLog_AddReg

[Miniport_EventLog_AddReg]
HKR,,EventMessageFile,0x00020000,"%%SystemRoot%%\System32\IoLogMsg.dll"
HKR,,TypesSupported,0x00010001,7

[LegacyScsiportValues]
HKR,Scsiport,BusNumber
HKR,Scsiport,LegacyInterfaceType
HKR,Scsiport,SlotNumber
HKR,Scsiport

[DestinationDirs]
DefaultDestDir = 12            

[Strings]
INF_PROVIDER="Microsoft"
ADP="Adaptec"
FLOPPY_DESCRIPTION="ADAPTEC SCSI Adapters - Microsoft Disk"
PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_6178&SUBSYS_00000000.DeviceDesc = "Adaptec AIC-2940 Controller"

Third - create a folder "Adaptec 2940 Driver" for both of these files (.sys and .inf).

Finally, in Device Manager, right click on the unknown device, update driver, and point to the folder you just created...

Nook 1.5 software update fails

If your Nook is running version 1.4 of the software, you may find yourself in my situation... Every time WiFi is enabled, it will download an update, and install it, with a five minute reboot... Once it has rebooted it will download the update again, and so-on until you turn off WiFi (by enabling Airplane Mode).

"Sideloading" - that is downloading the software update from bn.com, and copying it to the Nook using the USB cable doesn't help - the Nook sees  the software update and tries to install it - but fails, and you're still stuck at software version 1.4.

It took me a Sunday afternoon and two very long calls to support to get it fixed... The procedure to fix it is as follows:

1. Power up the Nook - un-register the device.
2. Hold down the power button for 20 seconds.
3. Release the power button and hold it down for 20 seconds again.
4. Repeat the procedure 6 times total.
5. After the sixth time, let the Nook re-boot.  It will announce that it is restoring itself to the factory shipped condition. - it takes quite a while to do this.
6. Re-enable WiFi, and re-register the Nook.
7. Sideload the 1.5 software - it takes a lot longer for this successful update to complete...

That's it.

Tyan S5397 OS Install from USB CDROM

I never expected this one...

My SATA CDROM died (SATA connector broke off!), so when it was time to do a fresh install of W7 I decided to use an external DVDROM on USB...

Easy to make it boot - but when it gets to the point of selecting the disk to install on, there isn't one!
I tried various ways to configure the SATA/PATA drives in the BIOS, but nothing worked. And adding the drivers from floppy wasn't any more successful.

Thinking back to how the system was configured last time I installed an  OS, I realized that I used the Internal SATA CDROM - and sure enough, once I installed that, everything seems to work fine...

Adaptec 2940 AU PCI SCSI-2 host adapter and Windows Vista

SCSI's been around for awhile - it used to be that the Adapted 1540 was the standard host adapter, but then the ISA bus went away... Now we can find PCMCIA, expresscard and even USB SCSI host adapters... but if you have PCI on your system, and a 2940 host adapter that worked fine in XP, why change now that you're on Windows Vista?

If you boot Vista with the 2940 installed, you will find that it will not install a driver - the adapter will show up in the Device Manager under "Other devices" with the exclamation point triangle...

There is, however, a driver that will work already in Vista... To load it proceed as follows:

Open the "SCSI Controller Properties"
In the "General" tab click on "Update Driver..."
Then "Browse my computer for driver software"
Then "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer"
Scroll down and select "Storage Controllers"
Click on "Next"
Select "Adapter" as the manufacturer and "Adaptec AIC-7870 PCI SCSI Controller (Emulated)"
Click on "Next"
Click on "Yes" in the "Update Driver Warning" dialog.

After a few seconds you should get the "Windows has successfully updated your driver software" dialog.
Click on "Close"

Now you have a driver - and access to your old SCSI-2 disks (and Polaroid Film Scanner)..

It would be nice if this also worked for Windows 7... But the driver isn't there..

Once of these days I may try to move the djsvs.sys file(s) from Vista to W7...

HP16500C Logic Analyzer X-client connection

Once I had ftp up and running I decided to move the display from the analyzer to my PC. So, I needed a suitable X-windows server to run on my PC. I tried many, with little success. I finally settled on Xming (free version for sourceforge)... The first problem was that I got "Xlib: connection to ..... refused by server" errors on the 16500C... I figured it had something to do with authentication - and found that using Xlaunch I could check the box that says "No Access Control"... Now it would connect but the 16500C would crash with:

"SOFTWARE ERROR - Please record these numbers 0008 00001D5E 000C"

Requiring me to turn off the 16500C to reboot.

I did get a display on the PC, but the text was in the wrong place and missing...

Google (and the HP manual) told me I needed to install the special fonts provided on the 16500C (and ftp-able to my PC) to the X-server...

Of course the fonts provided have to be formatted properly for modern X-servers - something you can do on a Linux machine, or by installing Cygwin... (I went with Cygwin), once they are configured correctly (as lg165.pcf.gz and sm165.pcf.gz) you have to create a directory for them, and a fonts.dir file (something XmingNotes on fonts will tell you how to do...).

Save yourself this work and download the necessary files from:

http://cid-0038d26020c74e81.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/16500C?authkey=!UO0VD8g9Tw%24

Put them in a directory of your choice (I chose C:\fonts\16500C).

 
 You will also have to edit the file font-dirs in C:\Program Files\Xming to look something like:

# font-dirs

# comma-separated list of directories to add to the default font path

# defaults are built-ins, misc, TTF, Type1, 75dpi, 100dpi

# also allows entries on individual lines
C:\fonts\HP16500C

C:\Program Files\Xming\fonts\dejavu,C:\Program Files\Xming\fonts\cyrillic

C:\WINDOWS\Fonts


 Note that you have to run Notepad.exe (or your other favorite text editor) as Administrator to do this in Windows 7 (or Vista).

Now re-start Xming (remember to disable authentication), and see you 16500C screen on your PC!

HP16500C Logic Analyzer ftp connections

So these days you can get a logic analyzer pretty cheap (on eBay) - especially if you keep looking and wait for something listed at auction - I paid $232 (incl. tax and shipping) for mine with 3x16555D LA modules and one 16522A vector generator, but no pods.

There are various versions on the HP16500 series (A/B/C) but no reason to not go for the top of the line - 16500C - it has an HDD, PS2 ports for keyboard and mouse, and Twisted Pair (CAT5) ethernet interface.

The network interface allows connection to the analyzer using ftp or NFS, and a connection to your PC X-server to use as a display.  Of course setting any of these up is non-trivial, so here is how I Fixed It...

First - ftp - there are many ftp clients that will connect - but some are more difficult to get to work than others. I wanted to back up the HDD and replace it with a more reliable CompactFlash card, so I needed to transfer the entire file structure. The FileZilla client was my choice, and connecting to control@192.168.0.165 (the IP address I had assigned to the analyzer) gave me a directory listing of the HDD. I set up a folder on the PC called 16500C and dragged the four folders (slot_c, slot_e, status and system) to the 16500C folder on the PC.

Didn't work very well - timeouts and aborted transfer in the queue galore. Google hinted that the 16500C only supports one connection at a time - and with the directory listing open there were no more connections available to do the transfer, hence the timeouts...

Simple fix - disconnect (using the red X in the button bar) from the currently visible server, the queued transfers will complete nicely (except for the one user config file that had a bad block on the HDD).

Once you find a CompactFlash that works restoring the files you want is just as easy - drag, drop and disconnect!

Finding a suitable CompactFlash may not be easy so far I know that 1GB SanDisk Ultra fails, and so do 1GB, 4GB and 8GB Lexar cards and 4GB Kingston. I have a 32MB Smart Modular card working, and looking at some 256MB cards from STEC. Please comment on what you get to work if you do this!