Saturday, December 9, 2023

Finding Replacement DS412+ Power Adapter

My DS412+ is now a decade old. Moved it from a 110v environment to 220v in another location. Noticed that after a year the original power supply gave out (mid-2021). Replaced with a random power supply that answered to DS412 but it had 7a. A year later in late 2022, that one gave out too. Replaced it with a 9a model, surely this would be good. UPS with a voltage regulator in front of it meant that surge should not have been a factor. That unit lasted about 6 months which was around mid 2023. So ordered one of the better rated models from Amazon US hoping to get a better built unit. Wish me luck.



Saturday, November 18, 2023

PiKVM v3 Fan Replacement Notes

The fan on my PiKVM v3 started getting noisy so decided to buy a 4 pack of 5v 30x30x5 mm fans to replace it. You need to remove the screws from the top, then unplug the fans. The black wire is toward the "front" of the case where the display would be. Also the fan label faces outward as an exhaust configuration. Make sure to hold down the nuts to unscrew the fan. Tighten it well after replacement too. Found that the screws were loose on the original fan, not sure if it just vibrated out that way.

Monday, November 13, 2023

Windows 11 Update Explorer.com crash due to Explorer Patcher

While patching Windows 11 from 21H2 to 22H2 the first boot would result in Explorer.exe crashing continually and restarting. This makes it difficult to control the computer. If you are lucky you can trigger Task Manager via CTRL-ALT-DEL to kill explorer. Run menu in Task Manager will allow you to run individual programs but do not minimize otherwise you might not be able to reopen. If unable to get to Task Manager, power down three times to trigger the boot up failure menu. Revert the quality update in this menu.

Now you have two options:
1) Patch Explorer Patcher to the latest version available in GitHub: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases
2) Temporarily Uninstall Explorer Patcher then reinstall after Quality Update is complete.

There is no Auto Update for Explorer Patcher so you have to remember to do this periodically or before each quality update.

Saturday, October 28, 2023

YuanLey 4 x 2.5g 2 x 10g SFP Switch Power Consumption Notes

With just the 2.5Gbps ports populated each switch uses this much power:

2.5 Watts Idle
3.2 Watts 2 Ports active

Have not had the chance to try the SFP ports yet.
Extra Notes: 2.5Gpbs is amber light, 1Gpbs is green light, in the past amber was 100Mbps