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.