Continue to struggle with eSATA

Previously I THOUGHT Setting the system to boot using UEFI legacy boot will make my eSATA harddisks show up properly.  Well, I was WRONG. Both the eSATA harddisk DISAPPEAR frequently even with UEFI legacy as the boot setting.  That really frustrated me.

So I am now going back to the UEFI secure boot.  Interesting enough, I found the eSATA shows up!  But then after a shutdown, and start up again, boo, the disks are gone again.  But wait, that's not the end of the story: if I restart the machine (instead of shutdown and then start again), those eSATA harddisks show up again!

So I guess I just need to figure out a PATTERN that actually work.  Very annoying, but then at least there's some hope.

VMware and USB 2.0 harddisk dock

I am trying use my USB 2.0 External harddisk to host VMWare VM, and found that it didn't work well.

First I tried my Cavalry dual slot USB 2.0 harddisk dock, and found that I frequently got error, saying that it couldn't access the disk file.  So I was thinking, damn shit Cavalry .

BUt then I tried blacX USB 2.0 (with eSATA slot) dock in USB 2.0, and while it survive for longer time, eventually it had the same access problem.

So now I am using blackX in eSATA mode, and see if I have better luck.

BTW, I am using VMWare Workstation 10.

UEFI and eSATA Card

Gotta say I didn't have much knowledge about UEFI.  All I know is that on the Dell XPS 8700 I brought last year, UEFI Secure boot was set as default, and I just kept using it.

However, I was forced to know a little bit more about it.

It started when I was messing with my broken Dell Dimension workstation I brought back in 2007. I found that almost NOTHING from this workstation that I can reuse in the newer Dell XPS 8700 workstation EXCEPT a PCI Express based eSATA card.  So I installed it on my XPS 8700 and found that it was NOT being recognized.

After spending almost 2 hours to keep looking around, I finally decided to give one thing a try: change the boot setting from UEFI Secure Boot to UEFI non-secure boot.  And BOOM, after I made that setting change, I was able to see the eSATA BIOS menu showing up, and sure enough the 2 eSATA ports were working, and I was able to use my eSATA harddisk dock.

Oh, can't install Windows 7?

I didn't realize the whole My DLL XPS 8700's Secure bootup will prevent me from installing Windows 7 Ultimate until today.  Irritating, but at the end I accepted the fact.  In fact, I couldn't even boot up the machine's partition if the machine was in legacy boot mode, yet I couldn't boot up Windows 7 Ultimate installation disc if it's in secure boot mode.

Windows 8.1 Pro installation disc can boot properly in secure boot mode, so that's why I used it and install the clean OS.

Boom, crashed again

And boom, my machine crashed again while using my Microsoft Bluetooth keyboard.  Just like what happened when I used the Logitech keyboard.

Now I don't know for sure if it's a software/OS problem, driver problem, or even hardware problem.  All I know is that the system gets freaking unstable, and I am not happy about it.  I kept getting "Driver Power State Failure", and searching the Net doesn't give me the concrete answer I want.  So I have a few options:

• Switch to a radio signal wireless keyboard (instead of Bluetooth)
• Re-install my Windows 8.1 clean.
• Re-install Windows 7 Ultimate clean.

The more I think about it, the more I lean towards re-installing Windows 7.  Reasons:

• I have pretty of hard disk space to install OS clean in another partition.
• I gained no benefit using Windows 8 at all (except maybe using Netflix on Metro)
• I got my Windows Media Center back

The downsize, of course, is that Windows 7 support will be end early next year.

Hmmm .... think ...

Time to give up on Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K760 ... at least not for home use

Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K760 is supposed to be my "dream come true" keyboard for home use mainly because of the Bluetooth keyboard switch feature.  This feature should allow me to switch between using my Windows 8.1 Dell PC and my MacMini at ease.  It turns out that I super rarely use that feature.  My MacMini is rarely turned on these days as I don't need to code in XCode anymore.  But that's NOT the reason why I finally give up on using Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K760 at home.

The mainly reason I can't use it at home with my Dell PC is that:

• The keyboard lost connection frequently, and I had to use my mouse to navigate to the Windows 8 charm, select device, and force the system to re-recognize the Bluetooth keyboard again.
• And sometimes even that failed, and the machine will suddenly crashed, gave me that notorious blue screen of death.

The frequently of that blue-screen of death is getting so ridiculously frequent that I had to switch back to my Microsoft Sculpt Mobile Keyboard.  In fact, I actually like using this keyboard at home better since it:

• has small form factor
• has all the key that I need to use in Windows environment
• actually more comfortable than Logitech K760

I am not quite sure if the problem was on the Logitech K760 keyboard, on my Dell PC (particularly the bluetooth drive), or what.  But if the Microsoft Sculpt Mobile Keyboard eventually having the same problem (losing connection, crashing the machine), then I think it proves that I should just stop using Bluetooth on my Dell desktop all together, and just switch back to regular radio signal wireless keyboard, which seems to be extremely reliable.

A Bluetooth speaker that I didn't realize I have: my Windows 8.1 Dell PC

There are times when I found the speaker of my mobile devices (my iPad 3, Nexus 5, Nexus 7, iPod Touch ....) is loud or clear enough, and yet I don't want to device to be tided down to a speaker with wire.  The best way I know so far is by using Bluetooth speaker.  So I started to look around, comparing price and so on.

But then I started to wonder: is it possible to use my Dell XPS PC running Windows 8.1 as a Bluetooth speaker, since I have my PC connected to my HiFi system, and it's on whenever I am at home anyway.

Turns out it's not only possible, but easier than I expected.

Here's how I pair up a device to my computer:

• On your Windows 8 computer, find the Bluetooth icon on system tray, right click, and select "Add a Bluetooth device".  It will switch you to the Metro setting screen.  
• Now the computer is trying to look for any pair-able device.  So you go to the mobile device (can be iOS or Android) you want to pair with, and make sure Bluetooth is on by going to Bluetooth setting.  You should see your computer name as a pair-able item.  
• Now go back to your computer, and you shall see your mobile device show up in the list.  Click [Pair] button.
• Go back to your device, and click on the computer name in Bluetooth device list.
• A message will show up on both your device and your computer, with a number in 6 digit.  Check to make sure they match, and then click the corresponding OK button.
• After a while, like 15 seconds, you should have your computer paired with your mobile device.

In fact, if you only have one device paired, your device will be automatically connected, and you should be able to play audio to your PC now.  However, it's also possible that there is ANOTHER device already connected to your machine.  If that is the case, you need to DISCONNECT the currently connected device first.

How to disconnect (without forgetting the device) depends on what device is currently connected.  I realized that I can disconnect in 2 ways:

• On PC:
• On the "Bluetooth Operations" window (BTW, don't close it, as I don't know how to reopen it again, so I usually just minimize the windows) of your connection device, click the [Disconnect] button next to "To use this PC's speaker to listen to stereo audio playing on remote device".   To connect, go to your device's "Bluetooth Operations" windows and click [Connect].
• On device:
• On iOS:
• I can turn off and turn on Bluetooth, and thus disconnect all Bluetooth devices.
• On Android
• On Bluetooth setting screen, tap on the name of your computer (it should be under the Paired Devices list.  If your device is connected, it will disconnect it (with a warning dialog box before you commit the disconnection).  If it's not connected, it will try to connect.

My experience is that the most important thing to have a successful pairing is that:

• Always start by making your device visible first. On Android 4.4, make sure you tap on the device name right under the Bluetooth setting screen title.
• You should then see the device on computer's Bluetooth list.  Click [Pair] to start pairing.
• You should now see the 6 digit number shows up on both your device and your PC.

Some tidbits:

• I found pairing still a time consuming process.  So I try my best NOT to accidentally unpair a pairing.
• It takes more time to connect/disconnect with my iPad 2 (slow ...) then my Nexus 5 (very fast).  Maybe there's something to do with Bluetooth chip set on these devices.