Powerline vs Wi-Fi

Just about everyone knows what Wi-Fi is and most people even have it at home.  Because wireless N is not yet standardized, most people are still using wireless G.  What most people don’t know is that there is an alternative that in many cases will work better than wireless G and it uses lines you already have in your walls.

Powerline

Powerline connections use your existing electrical wiring.  One huge advantage is the simplicity.  Plug one powerline box into your router with an ethernet cable and the power cord into an electrical socket.  Then put your other powerline box wherever you need ethernet and hook it up to your device with an ethernet cable.  That’s it.  You’ve got internet.  Because of the simplicity, companies like Sling Media sell powerline devices like the Slinglink Turbo Powerline Kit to make hooking up a Slingbox that much easier.

Speed

A big problem with wireless is that you never actually get the claimed speeds.  Wireless G claims a theoretical max of 54Mbps.  Cut that number in half if you have two wireless devices talking to each other. With expected interference, such as neighbor’s Wi-Fi, you can likely cut that number in half again.  In my experience, if you get 20Mbps from ethernet device to Wi-Fi device, that’s about typical.  If you’re trying to move some big data like an HD show from one tivo to another, then you’re going from Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi and only getting about 10Mbps.  This is painfully slow.

This is where powerline becomes very handy.  If you just move one of your TiVos to powerline instead of Wi-Fi, you don’t have to cut that speed in half.  Powerline can take some trial and error to setup but if you find the best plugs to use, you can expect to get near 20Mbps and some newer powerline technology claims even more.  The end result is you can double your TiVo transfer speeds because only 1 TiVo on Wi-Fi can use the full 20Mbps while 1 on powerline is also getting 20Mbps.

Placement

Finding the best places to put the powerline devices may be the hardest part.  If speed is not important, you can probably use just about any 2 plugs.  I have yet to see 2 plugs that didn’t work at least a little.  The closer they are physically on the wire, the better the performance should be so it helps to know how your electrical is ran in your house.  If you don’t know, trial and error is a must as well as bandwidth testing software such as Qcheck.

Excellent Alternative

Everyone has Wi-Fi but that creates even more interference that slows it down. Powerline is a great alternative or complement to help maximize your home networking. Once wireless N is standardized, it will be much faster than wireless G but it will never be as simple to setup as powerline.

Dell Reinstallation Disk Doesn’t Always Work

I recently performed a system reinstall for an Arlington, VA customer. His Dell Inspiron 1720 came with a Reinstallation DVD for Windows Vista Business 32Bit. This is not the same as an installation disk from Microsoft because it can only be installed on a particular computer.

But after Vista was reinstalled using the Reinstallation DVD, the computer would not fully boot. It just showed a mouse and a blank screen. Booting into Safe Mode showed that it was stuck on the crcdisk.sys file.

After researching, I determined that the problem was a common one. Apparently Dell does not include all the necessary SATA drivers in the Reinstallation DVD to allow a working reinstall. I had to go into the BIOS and change the SATA hard drive to use ATA instead of AHCI. This isn’t the default setting.

So if your reinstall doesn’t work, you could need to add additional drivers or change BIOS settings.

Testing RAM

You should test new RAM to make sure that it works. You should also test existing RAM when your computer is acting weird. Computer RAM does go bad. When it does, you can see erratic behaviors such as computer freezes, incorrect screen drawings, and corrupted files. Most people assume that this is due to a virus.

A few years ago I saw a manager in a Reston, Virginia office reprimand an employee because the manager assumed that the employee somehow infected a computer with a virus. The important computer documents had been corrupted and could no longer be opened. We figured out later that the real culprit was just bad RAM that had incorrectly written the files to disk.

Testing RAM on a PC

Using a bootable CD such as Ubuntu or the Ultimate Boot CD as described in my Live CDs post will allow you to run utilities to test PC RAM.

Testing RAM on a Mac

Thanks to command-tab.com for creating a utility for thoroughly testing RAM on a Mac computer. Run their install package, shut down the computer, boot up while pressing the Command and S keys (to go into Single User mode), then type memtest all 2 in order to run the memory test twice.

I recently ran this test after adding more RAM to a computer for a Washington D.C. customer.  The test showed that the new RAM had no problems.

USB Drive PC Tools

PC Repair System from Daily Cup of Tech

USB drives can hold a lot of tools needed for PC repair, recovery, and diagnostics. The folks at Daily Cup of Tech put together a PC Repair System that fits on a tiny 32MB flash drive.

What to do

All you have to do is download the files and extract them onto a flash drive. If you put all the files in the root directory of the drive, you will have the option to auto launch the application menu when you insert the USB drive. The menu will appear in the system tray (bottom right). Right click on the system tray application and you will see the menu shown here.

As you can see, there are lots of useful applications for computer help tasks. See the PC Repair System page for more info on the applications, or just run them to see what they do.

It works

I recently used the included Restoration software to recover deleted files from someone’s computer in Alexandria, Virginia.

With a PC Repair System USB drive, you have an easy to use and powerful set of tools.

When to buy Apple Products

You don’t want to buy a product just before it is replaced by a faster version at the same price. That’s why MacRumor’s Buyer’s Guide is useful for Apple products. It currently shows that there are many iPods and computers that are due for revisions soon based on the time since the last revision. This coincides with recent rumors of a September 9th event to announce new products.

This does not predict exactly when a new version will arrive.  Apple could come out with a small bump in the middle of a cycle. But if a revision is long overdue, you should consider waiting unless you need something immediately.