How to Make Almost Any Wired Device Wireless

Running my Xbox 360 wirelessly without using the official Microsoft wireless adapter is something I've been doing for a number of years now, and it's not that difficult.  I wanted to write this guide for a long time as I believe it's such a better alternative to the grossly overpriced Xbox 360 wireless USB adapter (seriously, it's around 4x the price of the PC equivalent), and more to the point has the potential to be much faster.  Fortunately, I decided to upgrade my wireless bridge which means I'll be revisiting the setup.

Basically it involves taking a standard internet router and putting custom firmware on it that gives it additional features such as wireless bridge mode.  This is what will let your secondary router connect to your internet wireless router, wirelessly which effectively turns it into a wireless adapter or a client just like a laptop.  The clever part is that since your devices connect to it with ethernet cable, they act just like a wired device, so once the initial setup is completed, adding "wireless" devices to your network is as easy as plugging the cable in.  No messing with router passwords or anything ever again.

Top: Xbox 360 with original adapter connected to a wireless router limited to around 20mbps.
Bottom: Xbox 360 connected to a wireless router acting as a bridge, which is connected wirelessly to another router transferring at least 105mbps.

There are numerous advantages to this, which is what stood out to me more than the fact I was getting one over on Microsoft, or saving a good amount of money.  For instance, depending on the router model you go for, it can be cheaper than the Xbox 360 wireless adapter.  My old router was £35 compared to £60 for the USB adapter and since it allowed me to connect multiple devices it meant I didn't have to buy an adapter for each device.


The other big advantage with this method is that you are not bound to the speeds of internal or official wireless adapters.  My PS3 has an internal 54G wireless card which has a real world performance of about 20mbps max which is the same as the original Xbox 360 wireless USB adapter.  Even with the new Xbox 360 built in wireless or the Wireless N adapter, those are dual stream which means they top out at around 60mbps at any realistic range, but since the routers I am using are triple stream I am able to get around 120mbps from them at opposite sides of the house.  Remember that even if you decide to replace your existing router with an E4200 triple stream router, the client must support it which means having 3 antennas, and the Xbox 360 only has two.  It will still work, but it will be limited to around 60-80mbps at best, whereas a triple antenna device can transfer as fast as 230mbps at very close range

Wifi speed ratings are very misleading.  One of the most common standards we will have come across at some point is Wireless G which is rated as 54mbps, but since wireless communications are effectively half duplex in the way they work, the bandwidth available is at best half of the rated link speed or less.  In other words when they rate a device as 54mbps, that's 54mbps shared in both directions, operating in the best theoretical conditions.

Wireless G is fine for a lot of people, but is not so good for streaming high definition movies that can have bitrates peak in excess of 20mbps, or people with fast connections.  With the wireless bridge method, the wireless adapter is in effect external now, it means I can upgrade the routers as and when faster products and new specifications come out, so you are never stuck to a certain wifi speed or spec.  In fact right now, it's the Xbox 360's ethernet port that is the bottleneck in my setup.  If it had gigabit like the PS3, I would be able to download up to 120mbps in theory once Virgin carry out the upgrade in the summer.

Take a look at the above picture. In this typical situation, all devices are competing for wireless bandwidth. If someone is streaming movies from the PC to the PS3, it will take away from the total wireless bandwidth that could be otherwise used for the Xbox 360 causing slower downloads or the real possibility of lag.  The PS3 wireless is limited to around 20mbps, meaning that high bitrate movies could stutter and lag and the Xbox 360's original wireless adapter is also limited to around 20mbps (since it is also Wireless G), which means if you have a connection over 20mbps, you simply won't make the most of it.  What's worst is that if your main router is only Wireless G, then it will only have about 20mbps to share out between all the devices, so if when your brother or sister is streaming films on the PS3 from the laptop and it hits a part of the video that comes close to or exceeds 20mbps, the router will run out of bandwidth meaning there is none left for the Xbox and then your download will stall or game will lag.  You should at the very least ensure you have a high quality wireless router, even if you don't go to the trouble of setting up a second router as a wireless bridge.

Now let's revisit that situation but put a wireless bridge in there.  Straight away you eliminate a lot of potential for wireless bottlenecking, in particular with things like streaming.  Now instead of the laptop having to send the movie data through it's wireless to the router, and from the router through the PS3's wireless, the transfer now just takes place over ethernet, which in this situation is way better since the PS3 has gigabit lan, so do most laptops and the routers used in this example (Linksys E4200) have gigabit ports too.  Not only are transfers faster to the PS3, but lag in movies is eliminated and it has no impact on local users as the wireless link is now only used for internet data, and not communication between devices.  Communication between devices is now done on a switch/ethernet level, unless of course you have another laptop connected directly via wireless to the main router/modem.  Since the PS3 and PC are communicating through the switch, the Xbox 360 is free to request data from the internet using the wireless link as it likes.

One of the other cool things about this setup is that I can share my ethernet laser printer on the network, so if you imagine the laser printer is connected at the same point where the Xbox and PS3 are, and that the laptops in my house connect to the first router on the left, it means I can print wirelessly.

Port forwarding remains unchanged too, and rather than having to set port forwards on both devices, you just set them on the main router.  There is no need to set port forwards on your wireless bridge.

The only real downsides to this method are that it can be expensive if you want a good router (£130 for a Linksys E4200 for example) and that the choices of routers are limited by what are supported by custom firmwares, and at the end of the day, you still require some amount of cable (although if you are like me, all your entertainment stuff tends to be in a corner of the room).  One other limitation that was present the first time I tried this was that when your router is set up as a wireless bridge, other wireless devices cannot connect to it directly as the link is used solely for communications between the wireless routers.  Wireless clients will have to connect to the original wireless router/modem as usual. That said, I'm sure you will agree that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.


Flashing the Custom Firmware
For this particular project I will be using DD-WRT again.  Although stability is as much a hardware thing as it is software, my old faithful WRT-54GL has had in excess of 100 days uptime with no signs of getting bogged down with an 8% overclock.  There are two ways to attack this, either check the website to see if an existing/spare router you have is supported (in general, hardware with built in ADSL modems are not supported), or if you are looking to buy some hardware specifically to use as a wireless bridge, check the router database.  I will be using a Linksys E4200 V1 with DD-WRT.  It is currently a work in progress as the hardware isn't really that old in comparison with some of the supported routers.  Normally I would say to stick with tried and tested stable builds and hardware, but my hand has been forced a little into this because the WAN/Internet port on my E4200 was acting funny, so I bought a new one and decided to retire the old one to replace my decrepit WRT54GL.  Although the E4200 is a very good piece of hardware there are certain reasons why it is unlikely that DD-WRT will ever be able to extract the full speed out of it, but people on the forums are saying it should be good for 100mbps over wireless, which is good enough for my use.

1) 30-30-30 Reset
The very first thing you must do is a 30-30-30 reset.  This should be done before and after the firmware upgrade as this clears contents from NVRAM.  If you don't do this, remnants of information may be left in the NVRAM and cause conflicts with the new firmware.

A 30-30-30 reset is as follows.  First with the router switched on and everything else unplugged, hold the reset button in for 30 seconds.  While still holding the button in, pull the power cable out and wait another 30 seconds.  Finally while still keeping the reset button pressed in, connect the power and wait for another 30 seconds.  In all, you should have held the reset button in for 90 seconds continuously.

2) Inital Flash
The next step is an initial flash, which flashes a base version of DD-WRT onto your router, which you may then upgrade later to a version with more features.  The process for flashing can be a little different for each router and may also require different files, so it's strongly advised that you visit the DD-WRT Wiki and look for instructions relating to your specific model.  I'll be using this page for my E4200.  Download the initial flash file, then disconnect all your network connections, turn off wireless and connect the router to be flashed by ethernet cable.  The file I am using for the initial flash is:
ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/others/eko/V24-K26/svn16773/dd-wrt.v24-16773_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini-e4200.bin

Load up the web interface for the router you are flashing.  The exact address for these vary depending on model and manufacturer, but in general Linksys stuff can be accessed at http://192.168.1.1  Once you have logged in, find the administration tab and click to browse for and upload the firmware.

Click start and leave the web page open.  Flashing only took about 30 seconds for my router, but the DD-WRT guys say to wait for at least 5 minutes just to make sure.  When that has passed, click Continue and you should be greeted with a screen similar to this:

When prompted for a login, the default username is root and the password is admin.  These can both be changed later.

3) 30-30-30 Reset
As a matter of course, disconnect all network cables and clients then perform another 30-30-30 reset as outlined in step 1.  This will ensure that the NVRAM is cleared of any settings left by the stock Linksys firmware.

4) Upgrading to a Bigger/Newer Build
This step is optional since the initial build you just flashed should be pretty much fully functional, but you will probably want to flash one of the later builds for increased performance, stability and features.  Routers have a limited amount of flash memory, so this will dictate which build you can use.  Check the wiki to see how much flash and RAM your device has.  Recommended builds are sometimes listed in the Wiki for your device, but may not be up to date, so check this thread for recommended builds.  Pay special attention to details in the Wiki about any special requirements your device may have, such as the E4200 must have a build that uses no more than 60KB NVRAM, as denoted by -nv60k in the filename.  Do not use micro builds as they are reported to brick Wireless N devices.

The version I am upgrading to is:
ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/2011/12-12-11-r18000/broadcom_K26/dd-wrt.v24-18000_NEWD-2_K2.6_big-nv60k.bin

Now that you have your device with the initial file flashed and have performed a 30-30-30 reset, you can proceed to upgrade the firmware.  Enter your router's address in your web browser to reach the interface.  If prompted for a username, it is root and password is admin, then find your way to the administration tab and then firmware upgrade from within that.  Again, making sure all other network devices are disconnected and wifi is shut off, select the firmware to be flashed and press upgrade.  Keep the browser window open all the time while the upgrade is in effect and wait for about 5 minutes.

5) 30-30-30 Reset
After 5 minutes has passed and your router has come back online, perform one last 30-30-30 reset.  You are now up and running with DD-WRT and can move on to configuration.


Configuring DD-WRT as a Wireless Bridge
Setting up DD-WRT to connect to your other wireless routers is very easy but we need to change some settings while the router is connected to only your computer as if you try to add it to the network with it's default settings it will likely cause an IP address conflict.

1) Ensuring your wireless is turned off and the only device connected to your computer is the one you just flashed, enter http://192.168.1.1 in your browser to reach the DD-WRT setup page.  At this point it will probably prompt you to enter a new username and password from the last 30-30-30 reset.  Do so and then click the setup tab.

2) Set the WAN connection type to disabled.  Next under the Network Setup header, change the local IP address to an unused one.  Since most Linksys routers default at 192.168.1.1, if we leave the DD-WRT flashed router with the same address it would cause a conflict.  You only need to change the number in the last segment of the address.  I have mine set at 192.168.1.3.  The gateway address should be that of your router that provides the internet connection.  Net mask should be left at 255.255.255.0 unless you have specific needs.  Local DNS is fine if it is left empty.  Check the option, Assign WAN port to switch.  Disable the DHCP server.  Click save settings and then apply.

Click for larger image.
Left page shows defaults and right page shows example settings for wireless bridging (your default gateway and IP settings may vary)

3) Once those settings have been saved and applied, you will have to enter the new address of the router into your browser to continue working in the GUI.  Once you are back into the setup, click the Wireless tab.  Depending on the hardware you have, you may see one or two sections.  Since I am using the 5GHz link, I disabled the 2.4GHz radio.  To set up the 5GHz radio to connect to my other router, set the wireless mode to client bridge, select your network mode from the drop down (5GHz was disabled by default) and under wireless network name (SSID), enter the name of the router you wish to connect to exactly.  Next go to the wireless security tab and enter the wireless key that you use to connect to the main router.  For Wireless N connections the encryption should be set as AES as TKIP will revert to Wireless G speeds.

Click for larger image.
Left page shows defaults and right page shows example settings for wireless settings (page may differ depending on DD-WRT version and how mant radios your device has)

4) Save and apply all settings.  It may also help if you reboot or power cycle your router.


Conclusion
It's pretty much as simple as that.  Of course I have a little experience with networking now so I am familar with most of the terms mentioned in the firmware, but as long as you know the IP address of your modem/router (which is referred to as the gateway) and you know of an open IP address to assign your router, you are good to go.

There are alternatives to this method.  You can actually buy wireless ethernet bridges from the likes of Linksys and Netgear, but in my past experience I found that they were often much lower spec than the routers and the performance just isn't that good.  All they do is flash existing hardware with their own wireless bridge firmware on it and that's pretty much all that device can do.  Flashing your own router with DD-WRT is a much better choice simply because of the amount of options and flexibility DD-WRT gives you.  For example if you ever decide to change how your network is set up or go wired instead of a wireless bridge, you can change some settings in the router and have it do something else ie working as another router or a switch, unlike off the shelf wireless bridges which tend to have such restrictive firmwares that you can't do anything else with them.

There are of course some alternatives too.  Possibly the easiest method of networking between floors without wires is with power line adapters, but I can't comment on how secure they are, much less the performance of them.  Last thing I heard was that the performance was pretty awful.  Basically they use your house wiring and transfer data over the mains.

Of course nothing beats the speed or security of Cat 6 cable and a couple of gigabit switches, but if like me you only need a means of getting internet data from one place to another this works quite well, and the local transfers are very fast over ethernet too.

Super Turbo Meet 27-29th November

What started out as a weekend in London with Waveskill to play Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo in the Casino (an arcade), has eventually mutated into a meet up with various other players, and a tournament thrown in for good measure.

I'll keep this short and to the point.  Myself and Waveskill were travelling down from Chesterfield and Sheffield to London for what should have been the weekend, however due to working arrangements, we shifted it forward a day and extended it by a day too, so we will be on the road from 27-29th November, which is Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

I found out the other day that there is a tournament happening in Bristol, which just so happened to be on one of the days we were going to London, so we decided to make a detour and take part in the tournament.  More information about the tournament can be found here.  Here is a brief plan on what we intend to do, and where we intend to be:

Sunday 27th November - Sodium Showdown 4 @ Bristol
We will be leaving earlyish to try and avoid the traffic, although the exact time hasn't been decided.  I'd like to arrive before 12:00 which means setting off at around 08:30 since I am picking up Waveskill, but the venue doesn't open until 14:00, so not sure what I will do to kill time.  Perhaps if anyone else is going to this tournament we could meet up and go and do something.  Drop me a message on Xbox live if you are.

This tournament features Blazblue CS2, Mortal Kombat 9, Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, SSF2T (HDR I presume), SF3 3rd Strike and of course Super SF4 AE.  Entry to the venue is just £3, and it's only £1 to enter each tournament, so don't expect big cash prizes.  I haven't heard of this event before, but I presume it's going to be pretty small scale, so hopefully I can finish top 3 again!  The line up is quite big for an event I haven't heard before, so I hope they aren't being overly ambitious.  The organiser has also said, "Arc System Works EU will also be there with copies of BBCS and AH3!", so if that means free copies, then I'm definitely there.

Once the tournament is over, we will be heading over to London in the evening where we are staying at the Cumberland Hotel Harrow, which is the I used in 2010 for SVB.  £92 for 2 nights is reasonable, but not including breakfast.  The hotel is in a good location with shops, cash machine and train station all within walking distance.  It will take around 2 hours from Bristol to London, so I'll hopefully set off for the hotel at around 19:00 providing the HDR tournament is done, and spend a couple of hours in the on-site bar, then have some locals in the hotel room once we reach kicking out time as I'm bringing my Xbox.

Don't forget to check the tournament information here

Monday 28th November - Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo @ Casino
Once we've sobered up and had something to eat, we'll head over to Casino.  It's about 45 minutes drive from Harrow and I intend to stay there most of the day, or if the likes of orf, kaos flare or Ryan Hart are there, as long as my money lasts.  I'm guessing we will be at Casino from around late morning (10:00?) to early evening, after which we will check out some of the pubs (around 3 in staggering distance) and probably make our way back to the hotel close to kicking out time with some more HDR casuals.

The address for Leisure Casino Centre is 69 Tottenham Court Road.  Check the full information here or Google maps here.

I will probably be meeting Herbalholic at some point for some arcade ST action, and there's the possibility of TryDodgingThis and/or AnxiousBrute showing up too.  You can get the tube to Goodge Street Station, and as you exit the station turn right and there is a KFC literally next door with Casino being one of the next buildings.

Tuesday 29th November - Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo @ Casino part 2
I haven't planned much for Tuesday but it will likely be a similar setup to Monday with us being in Casino a good part of the day, but we might take some time out to check out some other things, or if anyone is kind enough, to crash at their house and play some locals.

There will be no hotel casuals on Tuesday as we have to check out around 10:00 so we won't have a base for the day.  We will probably make our way back around 20:00 as I'll be dropping Waveskill off, so I'm allowing 3 hours for the return trip.

Don't forget that if you drive into central London, you may get hit with a £10 congestion charge per day, unless you drive a milk float.

If anyone wants to come along and meet up with us at some point drop me a message on Xbox live, by text or facebook.  I also have a twitter now, so keep an eye on that for updates during the 3 days as to what our plans are and where we will be.
https://twitter.com/#!/Zero1_ST

Hope to see you there.

New Pickup: Victor HP-FX500/JVC HA-FX1000

Some time ago I was looking for some new IEMs to replace my expired Sony MDR-EX90LP.  It was never going to be an easy task, because the EX90 were a very nice pair of earphones.  They were very comfortable, looked great (I'm not exaggerating when I tell you people would stare at them trying to find out what brand they were as I walked past), had very nice build quality, and a nice tone and fair sound stage.  The only thing I could say against them is that they didn't have quite as much bass response as my previous Sony earphones.

Victor HP-FX500, originally only available in Japan, but also sold as JVC HA-FX1000 for almost double the price in the West.  Bargain!

In fact I liked them so much that as soon as they started to show signs of dying (the left earpiece would lose connection, which I found was due to a loose connection in the mould where the single cable splits into two), I looked around online to try and buy another pair.  Sadly, since I had owned them for around 2 years, the range had been revised, cycled out and replaced by the MDR-EX500, which didn't look as comfortable.

The Sony started to die a little while after I bought my K701, so my first point of call was AKG.  I checked out their range and had set my sights on the AKG K370, which cost £50, the same as what I paid for the Sony.  Knowing that AKG is typically more expensive than the equivalent products from other major manufacturers (Harmann is a large company, but in comparison to Sony, could be considered small), and that the K370 also had an inline remote control, I made the assumption that the audio quality might not have been quite as good as my old Sony, so I decided to aim higher and splash out a little more.

During my searching, I came across some very high end/expensive earphones called the Victor HP-FX700 which had gained a lot of attention for being made from wood.  Not only was the enclosure made from wood, but the cone itself was made from a very thin layer too - the theory is that it would help replicate the sound of instruments more accurately.  I knew as soon as I saw them that I wanted these, but at 29,000 yen ($370/£230) the price was too high for me to justify for in ears.

Fortunately, I learned that Victor (known as JVC in the West) offered a less expensive version called the HP-FX500 (which I think was simply an earlier model with the FX700 being a beefed up version released later, rather than the FX-500 being a trimmed down FX700).  The main difference being the driver size, and aesthetics, but at a much more reasonable price of 10,000 yen (or 13,000 yen/£100/$170 by the time I had imported them).

It wasn't until I took these photos that I realised the logo on the earphones is the same logo as HMV use.  HMV Japan is owned by JVC Kenwood holdings.

Victor HP-FX500 First Impressions
The retail package for the earphones comes with 3 sizes of silicone tips, a medium sized pair of foam tips, carry case and an extension cable (since the main cable is just 0.8M long) - pretty standard fare as far as earphones go.

The earphone cable is quite short, which I presume is so that people can connect them to remote controls for portable players and mobile phones.  An extension cord is supplied, but it's thinner and feels of a lesser quality than the main cable.  If you believe things like this make a real difference you might prefer to buy your own extension cable, but I couldn't tell a difference between using the extension and not.  On the subject of the extension cable, a minor annoyance is that the combined length is a little too long to have the cable hanging free with a player at pocket height.  I tend to find the cable swings around what with the weight of the connectors, so you will probably end up bundling it in your pocket.

The headphone cable is the traditional "Y" type, meaning the left and right ear pieces have equal cable length, unlike the more recent designs where the left cable is shorter than the right, so the cable sits on the left and the right earpiece cable goes behind your neck.  I prefer the "behind the neck" type of headphone cable since you can pull the earpieces out when needed and they sit in place around your neck, in contrast to the "Y" cable which you'd have to fuss around and put in your pocket or something.  A minor point sure, but one that could save daily frustration.

They are as comfortable as most other earphones, but my ears felt a little irritated after long term use, but that could be simply because I haven't used canal style earphones for months.  I gave the foam tips a try and they were a lot better, although I prefer the sound I get from my Sony silicone tips.  I also found that after extended listening that they had gradually worked loose since I don't insert them fully into my ears but that might be something to do with the size of the Sony tips, being designed for 13mm drivers and the FX500 being 8.5mm.

At 16 ohms the FX500 are very easy to drive, as is the case with the virtually all in ear earphones and have a frequency response of 8Hz-25kHz, which seems to be about what to expect from decent IEMs.  Something to note about frequency range though.  Frequency range, and frequency response mean different things.  The frequency range tells us the spectrum of frequencies the driver can produce, from lowest to highest.  Frequency response tells us how loud each frequency is played (or how well the driver responds) when a continuous volume sine sweep is played.  This means that you can get some product A can have a frequency range of 25Hz-20kHz and product B can have a range of 5Hz-25kHz, yet it's possible product A will have better bass response.  It may be louder for a given volume, but the driver won't be able to go quite as low as product B.
Check out my section on frequency response graphs

These graphs can be misleading with the dB level since drivers have different impendances, and testers may use different sound levels.  What's important here is the shape of the line.

Out of the box the FX500 come with the medium tips attached, which I immediately switched over to the large tips.  The reason for the change was purely sound related, as in the past I have found I get better bass when using the larger tips, and sure enough I did some testing and it still held true for the FX500.  Using the largest provided the best bass out of the supplied tips, and out of interest I tried the tips from my old Sony EX90 which gave even better bass still.

I would have to put these earphones in the "coloured sound" category, as they aren't neutral.  They exhibit a smiley face style frequency response, which means they have better than average bass and treble response, but the side effect to that is that it can often feel like mids are lacking.  It's not always the case that mids actually are lacking, but more often a case that the bass and treble boost creates that effect.  That's not to say that the sound is flawed or that you would be wishing for more neutrality, this is my opinion purely from an analytical point of view.

The sound signature of these earphones is highly enjoyable.  The bass is deep, detailed and strong.  It's almost akin to the effect a subwoofer gives at low levels but without sounding muddy - an impressive achievement, especially for earphones with a 8.5mm driver.  The treble sits at a good level, giving the higher frequencies a clean, pronounced sound without causing additional silibance (the hissing sound at the end of some words in recordings).

Some people have commented that the treble can be fatiguing, but I have not found this using my Sony tips.  There are also aftermarket foam tips from Comply that have a "wax filter" that also acts to attenuate treble, so if it is an issue, there is always that option.

To sum it up, the sound is crisp and powerful but would have benefitted from a slight boost to the mids.  You will particularly enjoy these earphones if you listen to any bass heavy music or use them outside where bass typically gets drowned out.

The only real sonic weakness of these earphones is the slightly recessed mids, but if that's the price you pay for deep, punchy bass without vocals becoming muddy and crisp treble without silibance, then it's a price worth paying.  I may experiment with some after market tips and post my findings.

Upgrading the Wireless LAN on a Vaio - Follow Up

As you may have read last time, I had taken on the task of upgrading the wireless card in my Vaio to take advantage of the new 3 stream 450mbps wireless N routers coming out.  The second part of this task was to actually get one of these routers, and get everything running smoothly at the new link speed.

The router I decided to go for is the Linksys E4200.  It's very small and unoffensive, with no glaring LEDs flashing on the front as is the case with so many routers these days.  Apparently, blinding blue LEDs are cool.  No, instead the activity lights on the E4200 are hidden on the back as part of the ethernet ports.  They don't emit much light at all, but you can even turn those off if you like.

Setup was really quite easy.  I never bother with the installation CDs and I just jumped straight into the web interface.  I was surprised to be confronted with a page that looked as though it wanted to force me to install the Cisco Connect software, but there was an option to bypass that.  Something along the lines of, "Continue with an unsecured network".  I guess they are trying to frighten ordinary folk into installing their (presumably dummy proof) software.


Once I had set up most of the stuff using the supplied CAT5e cable (which was nice since it saved me some rummaging), I enabled the wireless and connected.  The moment of truth aaaand....  It connected at 300mbps.

All kind of things were going through my head at this point.  Was the antenna supplied (as a free gift) with the wireless card compatible with 5GHz?  Had the antenna broken once I put the laptop back together?  Did it simply become disconnected from the wireless card?  Are my router settings wrong?  Do I need to do a fresh install of the drivers?

It was frustrating stuff, and worrying thinking of what I might have to do to put it right (ie installing a new antenna - again).  I reviewed all my settings.  I know from researching a bit before hand that the 450mbps link rate is only available on the 5GHz band at 40MHz width, so I set the 5GHz radio to enabled at 40MHz width, disabled 2.4GHz entirely and set the network mode to N only.

Still no joy.  So I pulled up the wireless connection info to see if while I was messing with the settings, if I could find the right combination to get the 450mbps link rate.  I didn't manage it, but as the router was saving its settings, I noticed the link rate jump up from 300mbps to 450mbps.  That was a big relief.  At least now I knew the wireless card was working right and was able to pick up the 450mbps signal.  I googled around a bit and found some suggestions saying that I need to go into the properties for my wireless adapter and set the channel width to auto, otherwise it will force 20MHz, which I had done previously.

There isn't much worth changing in the wireless adapter driver, but I recall a feature called WMM being enabled in the router, but in the wireless driver it was set to disabled.  I don't see what correlation this has to the link speed (since it's just software QoS), but I set it to enabled in the wireless driver and the link speed jumped up to 450mbps.

The upgrade was a success.  Can you believe it?  I can't.

Of course wireless is subject to things called walls and distance, so I unfortunately don't get the 450mbps speed at the other side of the house.  That said, I still get 240-270mbps of rated speed, which is a huge improvement over the embarrasing 108mbps the so called "Super Hub" that Virgin supply.  While I haven't done any proper bandwith testing yet, I do know that I can get my full 100mbps download speed, which was my main motive for performing the upgrade.

The Virgin "Super Hub" on the left, and the Linksys E4200 on the right.  Same location, same wireless card.

This was of course, an expensive upgrade overall (£130 for the router and another £30 for the 3 stream wireless card), but for me tinkering with stuff like this is as much a hobby as it was something that needed to be done.

I had intended to upgrade my network for some time now and never got round to it.  Soon I will buy another E4200, flash DD-WRT on it and replace my old WRT54GL to be used as a wireless bridge, so that then my Xbox 360 and PS3 can also have a taste of 100mbps.  I might actually bother downloading demos then.

At almost half the rated link speed, the Intel 6300 and Linksys E4200 still manage over 11MB/s

Upgrading the Wireless LAN on a Vaio

Just recently, I upgraded my internet connection to 100mbps, but I found I wasn't getting the full speed over wireless.  I was downloading at around 80mbps max despite the fact both my wireless card in the laptop, and the modem/router itself are both wireless N devices and connected at a supposed 300mbps.

Surely if it's connecting at 300mbps, and is in the same room, it should reach 100mbps download no problem, right?

That's what I thought too.  I decided to look into it, and it turns out that this is just the way wireless is.  There are a number of reasons for this and I don't know them all, but I'll offer some suggestions as to why.  The first thing that I found is because wireless is effectively half duple - that means it cannot transmit and recieve at the same time, so that halves your bandwith to 150mbps right there.  The next big one is the CPU in the router itself.  Right now they are operating at around ~500MHz and it has to deal with everything from routing to encryption.  Another thing that will have an effect on quoted speeds are retransmissions due to transmission errors.

The theoretical quoted output of 300mbps is something you never see in real world situations, and in fact, you are lucky if you get 1/3 of that.  Just take a look at this chart.  Not even the fastest dual band wireless N device breaks 90mbps, so where does that leave me?

Well fortunately there are wireless N devices starting to come out that offer higher bandwidths up to 450mbps (which I'll take to mean a real world maximum of 150mbps if my previous experiences are anything to go by).  It is much the same as the current 300mbps wireless N, but where the 300mbps variant of wireless N uses 2 antennas (known as dual/two band/stream), 450mbps uses 3 antennas.  However as you might expect, it's not simply a case of buying a three stream router and expecting it to work.  You need a wireless card with three antennas too.

That presents me with a little problem.  Swapping a two stream wireless card like for like is easy.  Just take the back cover off, remove the old card, install the new card and connect the antennas.  However if I want to upgrade the wireless in my laptop to three stream, not only do I have to take the back off to install the card, I also have to remove the media keys, keyboard, LCD assembly and eventually the LCD panel itself to install the new antenna, since they are installed behind the display.  This was an ambitious upgrade, and essentially entailed a complete teardown of my laptop.

This guide details the process of upgrading a Vaio F12 (but should also work for F11 and F13 models) from the stock wireless card (in this case a dual stream 300mbps Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200) to a three stream 450mbps Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300.  If you are simply swapping a dual stream (2 antenna) card for another dual stream card, you may still find this guide of use.

Please note that this upgrade may not be an option for some laptops.  Some manufacturers (eg. HP) lock the BIOS to only recognise certain brands and model numbers of wireless cards and will reject upgrades.  Even if this isn't the case, there is always the possibility that there will not be enough room in your case, cable path or behind the display to install the extra antenna.  Proceed at your own risk.


The Upgrade Process
Replacing the wireless card is easy, but the difficult part is installing the new antenna.  Do not proceed if you are uncomfortable with taking your LCD apart.

Make sure that you have earthed yourself and that you are not wearing any clothing that generates static electricity.

Things you will need:

• A PZ0 Screwdriver.  Must have a thin shaft to fit inside the recessed holes.
• Something thin and flat to push tabs in (eg a flat screwdriver).
• A knife or something sharp to remove LCD screw covers.
• Some sticky tape (not required on the Vaio if you use the original sticky tabs).
• The service manual or a laptop with this website for more detailed information.
• A three stream wireless card (eg Intel Ultimate-N 6300).
• An extra antenna.
• Drivers for your wireless card.
• A backup of your drive just in case.

Notes:
The service manual is for the Vaio VPCF1 series, which appears to cover the F11, F12 and F13.  It contains exploded views and part numbers, so it's worth keeping just in case.
Drivers should be downloaded before hand unless you plan to connect via ethernet.

Please refer to this website for detailed images on opening the laptop.  It's fairly simple, so I shall just talk through the process.  Refer to this other website for details on removing the LCD later.

Installing the Wireless Card
1) Before you start doing anything to your laptop, create a system image and restore disk Windows backup and restore.  This can be found in Start > Control Panel > Backup and restore.

2) Next go into the device manager and uninstall the old wireless card.  You can get to this by right clicking the Computer icon and selecting Properties.  In Windows 7, there is a link to Device manager in the top left of the window.  Alternatively you can press the Windows key and type device manager in the search box.

Expand Network adapters, right click your wireless card and choose Uninstall.  When the next prompt is shown and it asks if you would like to delete the driver, select yes if you are installing a wireless card that is a different model or brand, or no if the wireless card uses a unified driver (for example, the Intel Advanced-N 6200 and Ultimate-N 6300 use the same driver).

3) Shut down, then remove the power cable and disconnect the battery.  I waited a few minutes with the battery out, and then held the power button in for about 10 seconds to drain any remaining power.

4) Now remove the DVD/Bluray drive.  This is secured by two screws, one in the top left near the power button, and one to the left of the RAM cover.  These have 3 small dots above the hole.

5) Proceed to remove the HDD.  Looking at the HDD cover, there are two screws at the bottom, remove these.  Again these have 2 small dots above the hole.  Once you have removed those screws, gently slide the door toward you to reveal the HDD.  Remove the two screws at the top securing the HDD and slide it left.  Once it is free from the connector, lift it out.

6) Remove the RAM cover.  The screw that secures the RAM cover does not actually come out as there is a retaining clip under it.  What you have to do here is unscrew the door as best you can and then lift it up from the screw side (you should be able to slide a nail under it).

Back in the lab.  Removing the HDD, BD and memory cover before removing the back cover

7) Remove the remaining screws from the back cover.  I placed them on a table in the same position that I removed them from the laptop, but it would be better to draw a quick diagram to save confusion.

8) Now to remove the back cover.  This was tricky at first as I wasn't sure what to expect.  The bottom 1/3 of the cover felt as though it was still secured by something.  I thought that maybe there were screws under the rubber pads but that wasn't the case.

Joe Bleau suggests working from the HDD side and carefully sliding the cover.  When I tried this it felt like it wasn't working (perhaps I was doing it wrong), so the method I used was to start from the opposite end and run my fingernail down the front of the case carefully forcing it apart, working from right to left.  I stopped just as I got to the HDD bay and lifted the case at the right hand end a little which also seemed to lift some of the PCB with it.  With the PCB clear of the lower half of the case, I was able to slide it right (as suggested) and get the back cover off.

I suggest going with the original instruction of Joe's of , "Starting from the hard drive bay side, slide the cover, shake & bake with care & patience & remove the cover."

Patience is definitely the key here.  Fortunately getting the case back on is rather easy.

9) You should be able to see the wireless card easily.  It's just to the left of the RAM and up a little.  Remove the screws securing it and slide it left to remove it.  Carefully turn it over and make a note of which antenna is connected to which port on the board.  The Intel boards are numbered.  It might not even matter which port you connect the antennas to, but if you can connect them to the same numbers, you might as well, right?

Wireless LAN card with the two antennas under it

10) Disconnect the antennas from the original wireless card and then connect them to the new one.  It's a very tight connection and you will find you have to apply a lot of pressure, so just be careful.  Once they have snapped on to the new card, slide it into the slot carefully.

11) Work back from step 8 to reassemble the laptop.  Put the back cover on and install all the drives and screws you took out so it is in original condition.

12) Power on and install the driver/software for your wireless card to ensure it works and is accepted by your laptop.  There is no point going to the trouble of installing a new antenna if the laptop BIOS is set to refuse other brands or models of wireless card after all.

If you are using a wireless card that uses a unified driver (like my upgrade from an Intel 6200 to 6300) and you chose not to delete the driver when you uninstalled it earlier, Windows will detect the card and install the driver automatically.  All that was left for me to do in my case was to enter my wireless password and  set my static IP settings.

If you were upgrading an old two stream card to a newer two stream card, this is all you need to do up to this point.  All further instructions will relate to installing a third antenna for three stream cards.

Installing Another Antenna
1) Power down the laptop and remove the battery and AC adapter.  Hold the power button in for around 5 seconds to drain any remaining power.

2) Flip the laptop over and remove the screws show below.  You do not need to remove any drives for this part of the install, just the battery (for safety, but there are some screws under that which we need to remove).  Removing these will allow us to remove the keyboard, media keys/speaker cover and eventually the LCD assembly.

There are two screws under the battery that you need to get.

3) Turn the laptop back over and open the LCD in the normal positon for use.  Starting with the media keys/speaker cover, start from the side nearest the power switch on the right.  Using a sharp object or your fingernails, push it in and gently lift upward.  Do the same to the left hand side, then run your fingernails across the front of the speaker cover to push in the rest of the tabs.  Carefully lift it upwards once it is free.  You may need to move it around a little or angle the LCD to get it free.

Speaker cover removed.  Excuse the dust, it gets everywhere once you've had the back cover off.

4) Now to remove the keyboard.  Carefully lift up one corner for example near the escape key, then insert your thumbnail and work toward the bottom of the keyboard.  You should feel the tabs pop out.  Do the same for the opposite side.  Carefully lift the keyboard up slightly, and pull it towards the LCD at the same time.  You should feel it pop free of the chassis, but be careful not to damage the connector.  Turn the keyboard over so it is resting on the palm rest.

Now would have been a great time to install a sexy backlit keyboard.  Why do I never think of these things ahead of time?

5) Next we have to remove the media keys as the wifi antennas are actually routed underneath them.  Just remove the three wide screws and unclip the power button connector on the right.  This will give us enough space to move the media keys out of the way so we can lay the new antenna cable.

6) Now remove the screws securing the speakers.  Do not worry if your right speaker only appears to have one screw, this is because it is secured from the other side with the screws that hold the back cover in place.  Fold the speakers inward so they are resting face down.  This will give you access to the LCD hinge screws, but we will come to that later.

7) Now that you have the speakers and media keys out of the way, you should be able to disconnect the wireless antennas and the LCD cables.  The LCD cables are on the left.  The leftmost cable should be pulled upwards gently, and the two smaller cables should slide towards the LCD itself.  It's a really fiddly job and you may find it easier if you pull the cable out of it's trench first.  Moving over to the wireless antennas, this is equally fiddly.  I found it easier to ease them out with a sharp object, or if you want to be careful, whip the back cover off and disconnect them there.  If in doubt, knife them out.

These are the only cables you really need to bother removing

8) With the LCD and antenna cables free, you can now seperate the LCD from the base of the laptop.  If you haven't already, move the speakers aside and that will reveal the hinge screws, 2 on the left and 2 on the right.  They are really long screws and tougher than the others to remove.  Be sure to support the weight of the LCD assembly with your other hand while unscrewing the hinges.  Get someone to help is possible, or use a magnetic screwdriver to make life a little easier.  Once that is done, you should be able to pull the display free from the base.

This is how the iPad was born, when Mr. Jobs thought, "Hey, let's take a laptop and remove everything good about it".  Probably.

9) Now it's time to work on removing the bezel (that's the surrounding of the LCD).  It is very flimsy, so be careful at all times.  First take a sharp object for example a knife and prise out the screw covers.  There are 4 in total, two square covers at the bottom left and bottom right, and 2 round covers in the top left and top right.  Once those are out, remove the screws and place them somewhere safe.

Now work on unsnapping the bezel.  It is held in place by a number of tabs.  I suggest working it from the top left or top right where the round screw covers were and push it apart with your fingernail.  Once you have got a bit of a gap started, go around the bezel unhooking the tabs by pressing inward with a little pressure.  This is a long and frustrating job and is largely trial and error.  Just take your time and be careful not to apply pressure to the LCD itself or scratch it.  I had the most trouble unsnapping the lower half of the panel, in part thanks to the hinges.  It's a similar story with the removal.  Once you have everything unsnapped, pull the bezel toward you (if the hinges are facing away from you) and gently wriggle it free.  This is not an exact science, but you can rest easy knowing that putting the bezel back on is about the easiest part of this whole upgrade process.

10) Now the bezel has been removed, it's almost time to install the new antenna, but first we have to unscrew the LCD panel so we can get behind it to install the new antenna.  Just remove the four screws from the bracket securing the panel to the back of the case (two on the bottom left and two on the bottom right).  When it comes to reinstalling these screws, just look for the arrows pointing to the holes in case you forget where they came from.  You may also use this chance to disconnect the LCD from the inverter so you can completely remove it from the case, which would make life nice and easy, but I chose to leave it connected as the cable was slack enough to give me a enough space to work with.

The hinges seemed more trouble than they are worth to remove, but the new cable just pushes in from the side.

11) With the panel removed (or propped up on a roll of tape in my case), we can go about laying the new antenna cable.  We will concentrate on the connector end because we don't want too much slack cable in the laptop itself - slack cable is easier to store in the LCD as there is much more space.  Align the ends of the connectors according to the mounting position on the wireless board, for example the third antenna connector on my Intel 6300, is between the first and second, so the connector for the third antenna needs to be somewhere between the existing cables in length.

Once you have the connectors aligned as you want, push the remaining cable into the side of the hinge and follow the existing cables to see how it's routed.  This sounds like a pretty vague instruction, but once you see the hinge for yourself, you will know exactly what to do.  This method will be pretty easy if you have removed the panel totally, but if like me you was lazy, you might find it easier to run the whole cable under the panel first, route it through the hinge and then pull it through to suit the required length.  This part is mostly trial and error.

You may notice something that look like tabs.  These are very sticky, and if you pull them up carefully, you can run the new antenna cable under them with the existing ones to keep it nice and tidy.  If you don't have such tabs, normal sticky tape will probably do the job.

Be careful when lifting these tabs.  They are so sticky that they might tear.

12) Once you have your cable routed, it's time to stick the antenna on.  The suggestion is to place antennas at least 12cm apart.  I placed mine somewhere in the middle as it allowed me to get a decent distance from the existing antennas as well as not getting too close to the LCD inverter.  Unfortunately the cable is quite stiff and very curly so the finished result looks kind of rushed.  I tried to route it on the inside of the other cables but it didn't quite work out.  It probably would have been better to go to the right of the cables instead.

Rest your LCD panel in it's mounting position to make sure it fits flush and isn't affected by the new antenna (eg it's not resting on it).

Avoiding a cable crossover was next to impossible thanks to how short the cable for the antenna on the right is.

13) Work back from step 10 to get your laptop back into normal working order.  Pay particular attention at step 7 when reconnecting the cables associated with the panel (LCD cables and wireless antennas).  You may find that it's a bit of a tight fit when putting the antenna cables back into their trench due to the fact you have an extra one.  I was able to get around this by pushing them into the clips with a screwdriver.  Once you have worked your way back through all the steps, power on and enjoy your new speed, but remember that you need a three stream router if you don't already have one.

Not a bad job in the end.

Special thanks once again to Joe (check his website here) for his help.  Without his guide and the excellent links he gave me, I doubt I would have had the confidence to attempt this upgrade.

Windows 7 Tips for the OCD

If like me, you are mildly OCD (or perhaps pedantic is more accurate), then you might appreciate these little bits of information that will help make your Windows 7 UI a little more pleasing to the eye.

If you have a large, high resolution screen, you might notice that Windows 7 doesn't look so hot in places, such as the login screen background being very low resolution and suffering from JPG artifacts.  Similarly, if you have decided to change the default user icon/avatar to something of your own, you might find that it looks a little blurry compared to the preinstalled icons.

Fortuantely in my fiddling and tweaking with Windows 7, I've come across some work arounds and information that will improve this situation.

Windows Login Icon
If it's one thing I like, it's a crisp image.  It has been a habit of mine to make sure I get the dimensions right when creating avatars and icons to avoid them being rescaled.  In fact, this is basic and you no doubt already take this into account when selecting or making desktop backgrounds.

I googled around at first to save myself the trouble of trial and error, but all information was pointing to the icon size being 128x128 pixels.  I created my icon with those dimensions and it didn't look as sharp as the supplied icons - I could tell it was being rescaled.  I managed to find a screenshot of the Windows 7 login screen and measured the dimensions of the user icon space in Photoshop.

It turns out the correct dimensions for the Windows 7 user icon at the login screen is 126x126 pixels.  I'm now using a 126x126 PNG as my login icon, and it's pixel perfect, no rescaling anymore.

You might want to note that Windows Live Messenger uses 96x96 pixels icons and also accepts PNG.

Desktop Background
It actually wasn't until last night that I noticed this.  I've been using a scan of some Ocarina of Time 3DS promotional art as my background for a while, and I found a high resolution PNG of it on the Nintendo E3 press site, so I decided to recreate it as the original had some weird artifacting around Ganondorf's hair despite the image being very good quality.  I didn't know why and presumed they were scanning artifacts.

After I had cropped and downscaled the new image, I saved it as PNG and applied it, but the weird thing was is that my recreated image didn't look as good as the image I was replacing.  If anything, Ganondorf's hair looked worse now than before, and I thought I saw some JPG artifacts around Link's ear.  That set some gears turning upstairs, so I pulled up the original PNG in window and compared them.

Left: Original PNG, Right: Original when set as wallpaper in Windows 7.  Notice the artifacts around his ear.

Sure enough the background appeared to have JPG artifacts and was evidently lower quality than the source file despite the fact that the source was a PNG.  It turns out that Windows 7 converts BMP and PNG wallpapers to JPG, and after a quick google, I found it stores them in "%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Themes" (paste that into an explorer window, or press the Windows key and R and paste it in there).

Saturated colours are a huge giveaway.  Who at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to convert lossless wallpapers into JPG of this quality?

Fortunately there are two workarounds for this.

Method 1
Windows will recompress BMP and PNG images to a lower quality JPG, but it does not recompress images that are already in the JPG format, it simply copies it to the themes folder in %appdata%.  Open your BMP or PNG wallpaper in something like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP if you need a free alternative, and save it as JPG using the highest quality setting.  It's not lossless, but it's so good I doubt you will be able to tell the difference.  Apply the wallpaper in the usual way.

Method 2
This method will allow you to use a lossless background (eg BMP or PNG) without ever converting it to JPG.  Just get your image, drop it into an open Firefox window, then right click and choose Set As Desktop Background.  The only real down side to this is that Firefox converts it to a 32 bit BMP, which uses around 8MB for 1080p.  Ouch.

Microsoft, if people select BMP or PNG as a desktop background it's because they want a lossless image.  Don't go around compressing it to a shitty JPG.  My computer is supposed to do as I tell it to, not what someone else thinks is good.

Replacing the Login Screen Background
When I was testing the Windows 7 RC, I noticed that the login screen background was horribly stretched and full of JPG artifacts.  It irritated me, but I let it slide, and assumed they would put lossless backgrounds in for the retail version.  Well it didn't happen.  When I bought my Vaio at the beginning of 2011, it was the first time I had used a full retail version of Windows 7, and I was surprised to see the same low quality background.  It felt like a downgrade, because Vista certainly didn't have JPG artifacts, and I'm pretty sure the Windows XP login, as simple as it was, didn't suffer any quality issues either.

But one day my sister got a new laptop and to my surprise it had its own branded login screen.  The quality was really good too.  This gave me hope.  I had previously not even considered the possibility of changing the login background because I presumed it would be hidden deep within the system files and be tied up within a DLL, a locked file or something that wouldn't be worth the effort changing.

One of the workarounds for the low filesize limitation is to decrease the brightness of the image.

I googled it anyway and it turns out it's stupidly easy to change the login background, however there are a couple of limitations:

• The image type must be JPG
• The file size must not exceed 249KB (256,000 bytes)
• Must be named backgroundDefault.jpg

Unfortunately a filesize that low can impact the quality for large resolutions, but there are a few tricks to help with that which will come later on.

How to use a Custom Login Background
1) The first thing you need to do is download this registry entry.  You may need to show the file extensions in Explorer and delete the .txt that mediafire seems to have added to it (so it ends in .reg).  Double click to add it to the registry (or right click and select merge).  This tells Windows 7 to prefer custom backgrounds over the OEM background.

2) Open an explorer window and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\oobe\  At this point you may need to create another couple of folders if  they don't already exist.  Right click and make a new folder called info within the oobe folder.  Open the info folder and make another folder in that called backgrounds.  Once you open the backgrounds folder, your path should read C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds

3) At this point we need to prepare/compress the image.  To prevent scaling of the image (which is what gives the default login background that pixelated appearance), you need to make sure the image is the same resolution as your display.  Right click your desktop and select screen resolution to find out the dimensions of your display, and match these dimensions if you are downscaling or cropping an image in your photo editing software.  If your image is smaller than your display, it is generally better to upscale it in your photo editing program than let Windows do it.

When you have the image at the correct resolution, it's time to compress it.  We need to get the filesize under 249KB, but at the same time squeeze every last bit of quality out that we can.

For Photoshop:
To save the file, click File > Save for Web & Devices.  This gives us much finer control over the JPG quality levels than the usual JPG export under File > Save As.  Select the Optimized tab to see a preview of your compressed image and then pick JPEG high from the presets in the top right corner.

The Photoshop Save for Web and Devices export screen

Taking note of the filesize in the lower left hand corner of the window, adjust the value in the quality setting (in the top right) until you get close to 245-250KB.  You can also experiment by checking and unchecking Optimized and Progressive as these will usually save you 5-10KB for free.  If embed colour profile is checked, uncheck it.  When you have reached your target filesize, hit save and put it on the desktop for now.

For GIMP:
To save the file in GIMP, click File > Save As.  In the save dialog that pops up, change the extension to .jpg and press enter (just save to the desktop for now).  This will take you to the JPEG compression options.  It's similar to Photoshop in that you have a quality slider with fine control over the amount of compression.

Check the box that says Show preview in image window.  This will enable a preview of the image quality after compression, but more importantly the filesize.  Move the slider left or right until you get to around 245-250KB.  You can expand Advanced Options to gain access to things like Optimise and Progressive which will save a few KB without affecting the image quality.  There are also advanced options such as subsampling which controls how the colour is encoded.  If you are saving a JPG to use as a desktop background like earlier, I'd suggest using the highest quality level, and setting the subsampling to 1x1,1x1,1x1, but for the purpose of the login background, you might want to experiment with the other subsampling options.

4) Once you have your compressed image, it's time to move it to the C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds directory.  The image should be named backgroundDefault.jpg.


Providing you applied the registry entry successfully and got the filesize small enough, your custom login background should now show when you Ctrl Alt Del or lock your system with Windows key and L.  If the background does not show, you might need to reboot.  If it still doesn't work after that, compress your image so it's a little smaller (I read the limit is 256KB, but it appears to be closer to 249KB or 256,000 bytes.

Once the registry entry is applied, you can change the backgrounds in real time without reboots by just changing out the image stored in the backgrounds folder as long as it has the same name.  If it doesn't show, it's likely to be a filesize issue or the JPG settings (eg Windows doesn't like the subsampling or optimisations the program uses).

Disabling the Boot Logo
I had used Windows 7 on a 4:3 laptop (1400x1050) for quite a long time, maybe over a year, so imagine how many times I have seen the boot logo.  Well now that I have a widescreen laptop, that boot logo simply annoys me.  Why?  Because it's the wrong aspect ratio.  Apparently Microsoft can cram their OS with 10GB of redundant crap, but they can't be bothered to put in a boot logo for widescreens.

It's not as if widescreens are anything new either, and they are only becoming more popular as time goes on.  Well there isn't really a fix for this, aside from unpacking a system file and resizing 105 or so images.  It's just not worth the time (even if I automate it) and not worth the risk of screwing something up.

So my solution is to not look at it at all, and here's how you can do the same.

1) Press the Windows key and R.
2) Type msconfig and hit enter.
3) Go to the boot tab and check No GUI boot
4) Click Ok to confirm

Now the next time your computer boots, it just shows you a black screen (with some weird little dotted lines in the top left corner as it loads).  I found that skipping the boot animation speeded up my boot by about 5 seconds, so it's a win-win.

The only downside to this is that I rebooted to run a surface scan on my HDD once, and because the GUI did not load, it just ran the scan with nothing on screen so I had no idea what point it was at.  That wasn't too bad since the program was automated, but it might cause some problems if you ever require user input.

Replacing the Audio Board in a Vaio F Series

It's a common problem, one that has probably happened to you, or you know someone it has happened to.  I'm talking about broken or partially working headphone sockets.  Unfortunately it seems to be a common problem with laptops (as far as common problems with laptops go).  I'm not sure why, but I presume it's because the build quality of the headphone sockets is generally low.

It happened to me not too long ago.  Not because of wear and tear or because the headphone socket was of poor quality, but because of an accident.  Admittedly it was probably partially my fault.  I was visiting family and decided to bring my laptop and K701 along.  Since the K701 use a 6.3mm plug, I had to use the chunky 6.3 to 3.5mm connector AKG supplied (which is a decent weight in itself).  That alone didn't prove too much of a problem, though I'm sure prolonged use wouldn't do the socket too much good.  The problem was that with the size of the plug and the adaptor, it was protruding from the laptop maybe a good 2 inches.  It got snagged on some clothing, and you can figure out what happened next.

Although I have a USB DAC, losing the headphone socket would have been a major inconvenience for me since the headphone socket also doubles as optical output (and I prefer optical over USB for the DAC, as I get some weird interference with USB).  I also occasionally use the onboard audio with earbuds if I am watching something at night.

I hadn't had the laptop too long when this happened, and I had no idea of what it's internals were like, so naturally I raged.  My fear was that the headphone socket was built into the motherboard, as is the case for some laptops.

Dell Inspirion Motherboard.  Note that the headphone and microphone jacks are built into the motherboard.  This would require specialist soldering or a new motherboard.

I can't remember exactly how it went from there, but I recall searching for service manuals (PDF files that Sony service center staff use for repair), browsing forums and looking for images of the motherboard, to try and determine if this was something I could fix myself.

I got lucky.  It turns out this laptop has the headphone/optical, microphone and USB ports on their own small PCB, meaning that as long as I could get into it, I should be able to swap the part out.  After a little googling, I managed to find out the part number, and was able to locate a replacement that was sourced from another laptop from The Laptop Centre.  It's also worth checking ebay.

Vaio F12M0E with the CNX 448 M930 USB/Audio Board (the board inside the laptop is a CNX 448 M931 but they appear to be identical)

The Replacement Process

Replacing the audio board in this particular laptop was easy, and will take you 15 minutes or so.

Make sure that you have earthed yourself and that you are not wearing any clothing that generates static electricity.

Things you will need:

• A PZ0 Screwdriver.  Must have a thin shaft to fit inside the recessed holes.
• A CNX 448 USB/audio board.
• Something thin and flat to push tabs in (eg a flat screwdriver)
• The service manual or a laptop with this website for more detailed information .

Notes:
The service manual is for the Vaio VPCF1 series, which appears to cover the F11, F12 and F13.  It contains exploded views and part numbers, so it's worth keeping just in case.
The audio board in my F12 was a CNX 448 M931, but the replacement I am now using is a CNX 448 M930.  Everything appears to work fine.

Please refer to this website for detailed images on opening the laptop.  It's fairly simple, so I shall just talk through the process.

1) An obvious step, but remove the power cable and disconnect the battery.  I waited a few minutes with the battery out, and then held the power button in for about 10 seconds to drain any remaining power.

2) Now remove the DVD/Bluray drive.  This is secured by two screws, one in the top left near the power button, and one to the left of the RAM cover.  These have 3 small dots above the hole.

3) Proceed to remove the HDD.  Looking at the HDD cover, there are two screws at the bottom, remove these.  Again these have 2 small dots above the hole.  Once you have removed those screws, gently slide the door toward you to reveal the HDD.  Remove the two screws at the top securing the HDD and slide it left.  Once it is free from the connector, lift it out.

4) Remove the RAM cover.  The screw that secures the RAM cover does not actually come out as there is a retaining clip under it.  What you have to do here is unscrew the door as best you can and then lift it up from the screw side (you should be able to slide a nail under it).

Just before removing the back cover

5) Remove the remaining screws from the back cover.  I placed them on a table in the same position that I removed them from the laptop, but it would be better to draw a quick diagram to save confusion.

6) Now to remove the back cover.  This was tricky at first as I wasn't sure what to expect.  The bottom 1/3 of the cover felt as though it was still secured by something.  I thought that maybe there were screws under the rubber pads but that wasn't the case.

Joe Bleau suggests working from the HDD side and carefully sliding the cover.  When I tried this it felt like it wasn't working (perhaps I was doing it wrong), so the method I used was to start from the opposite end and run my fingernail down the front of the case carefully forcing it apart, working from right to left.  I stopped just as I got to the HDD bay and lifted the case at the right hand end a little which also seemed to lift some of the PCB with it.  With the PCB clear of the lower half of the case, I was able to slide it right (as suggested) and get the back cover off.

I suggest going with the original instruction of Joe's of , "Starting from the hard drive bay side, slide the cover, shake & bake with care & patience & remove the cover."

Patience is definitely the key here.  Fortunately getting the case back on is rather easy.

7) You will notice a lone PCB to the left where the HDD bay is.  This is the USB/audio board.  Remove the two screws securing it, and carefully turn it over and remove the cable.  You will need to pull the metal tab toward you at the same time as pulling up on the plastic removal tab.

This is the view as you remove the back cover.  Notice how under normal usage, the motherboard is facing down, making it very easy to upgrade and service.

8) Replace the old audio board with the new one, and connect the cable.  Secure it using the scews from earlier and then work backwards from step 6 to put everything back together.  Power on and enjoy.

CNX 448 M930 and M931 side by side

That's about all there is to it.  It goes without saying that the information posted here is a guide and you should proceed at your own caution.  I'm not a technician or anything, just a regular end user, so if you are worried about anything going wrong, have it serviced properly.  This kind of modification will probably void any warranties, so it's worth bearing that in mind (that doesn't bother me since I deal with stuff on my own).

I want to say a big thanks to Joe Bleau at vaiofseries.com.  Without his help and awesome guides, I probably would have ended up breaking something, so thank you.