Technically Easy

Category: Hardware

Any posts that pertain to specific hardware, but aren’t being reviewed, can be found under this category.

  • Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router Not Connecting to Internet

    Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router Not Connecting to Internet

    Recently, my Linksys WRT54G wireless router could not connect to the Internet. The odd thing about this was that just the day before I didn’t have any problems. I have two computers and a Wii connected to the router. Once computer is a desktop that is hard-wired into the WRT54G with a network cable. I was able to connect to the Internet with the desktop without any problems.

    The second computer is a laptop, and like the Wii, it is connected to the router through the wireless connection. Neither system was able to connect, which indicated there was a problem with the wireless signal. After some testing I managed to find a solution.

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  • Couldn’t Print to a Local Printer

    Couldn’t Print to a Local Printer

    I recently had an issue where I couldn’t print to a local printer. The printer was connected directly to a laptop, and Windows had no trouble identifying the printer, but when the job was sent to, it wouldn’t print.

    While I usually like to post more challenging problems, this one turned out to be rather easy to solve. I will explain the symptoms in the post, which will hopefully help others that are experiencing similar problems.

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  • Delayed Write Failure With External Hard Drive

    Delayed Write Failure With External Hard Drive

    I had recently bought myself a new external hard drive because I had out grown my 250GB western digital drive. My new drive is the 2TB Western Digital My Book. My new drive has three methods of connecting to the computer: USB 2.0, Firewire, or eSATA. Since I don’t have an eSATA connection, I used Firewire.

    While doing a simple file copy, I noticed that the copy speed was dreadfully slow. As a short term solution, I disconnected the Firewire, and connected the USB 2.0, at least until I determined why the Firewire was so slow. With the USB cable connected, I received much faster transfer rates, so I decided to backup my data from the drive to my online provider. During the transfer, I received an error message each time that basically stopped the backup procedure.

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  • Finding Your D-Link DI-524 Revision

    Finding Your D-Link DI-524 Revision

    I recently had an issue with one of my tutorial posts that outlines how to secure a D-Link DI-524 wireless G router. The issue was that the steps I provided didn’t exactly match the options that were available on some DI-524 routers. After a few readers reported this issue, I decided I should look into the cause.

    After doing some quick research on that particular router, I learned that there are actually three different revisions of that router. This caused the issue because two of the three revisions had different administrative screens that those I outlined in the post. If you would like to find the revision of your router, then read on.

    Finding Your DI-524 Revision

    As mentioned above, there are three revisions of the DI-524 wireless G router. While not obvious to most that use the router, there are minor differences between the administrative pages between the first two revisions and the final one. To find the revision that you are using, follow these steps:

    1. Login to your router.
    2. Click The “Status” tab at the top.
    3. The “Firmware Version” will indicate the router revision you are using, as this table
      shows:

      Revision Firmware
      A 1.xx
      C 3.xx
      D 4.xx

    Small Differences Between Revisions

    There are a small number of differences within the administration pages that can cause confusion when outlining steps to changing your router settings. A good example, as mentioned above, is the page where you set your wireless security settings. While the settings are similar between the three revisions, how they settings are actually set are different.

    Since I have learned about the three difference revisions, I have since updated my past post on securing the router.

  • How to Reset the Linksys WRT160N Wireless-N Router

    How to Reset the Linksys WRT160N Wireless-N Router

    Learning to reset the Linksys WRT160N wireless-N router is important if you currently change the settings within the administrative pages. The reason it is important is because one wrong setting change could make it difficult to access the Internet or the administrative pages of of the router.

    If you need to start over with your router, one solution is to reset your router back to its factory defaults. This means that you return all the settings on the router back to what they were when you first purchased and setup the router. This post will explain the two methods you can use to reset the Linksys WRT160N wireless-n router.

    Using the Reset Button

    Note:

    Resetting the router to the factory defaults will delete any changes you have made to the router, including any security settings. This should be used as a last resort.

    The first method involves using the reset button that is located at the back of the router. It isn’t hard to reset the router this way, but does require physically being in the same location as the router.

    To reset the router using the reset button, use these steps:

    1. Look for the red reset button at the back of the router.
    2. Press and hold the reset button for approximately 5 seconds.

    Reset the Router Through the Administrative Pages

    Note:

    If you don’t know the user ID and password to access your router’s administrative pages, then you will need to use the first method to reset your WRT160N router.

    The second method involves logging into the administrative pages of your router. This can be done from anywhere that you can connect to your router. While not complex, there are a few more steps than using the reset button.

    1. Log in to the router’s administrative pages.
    2. Click the “Administration” menu option.
    3. Next, click “Factory Defaults” from the sub-menu.
    4. Click the “Restore All Settings” button on the screen.

    Regardless of which method you use to reset your router, it is important to secure your router after it has been reset.

  • Access is Denied With External Hard Drive

    Recently I received a phone call from someone I know that had recently purchased a hard drive enclosure. This allowed them to use an internal hard drive as a USB 2.0 external hard drive. He was attempting to connect the hard drive on a new laptop with Microsoft Vista installed.

    Every time he connected the external hard drive, he was always greeted with a message on the screen stating: “Access is denied”. He mentioned he was logged in with an administrator account, so I couldn’t see why he wasn’t granted access to the hard drive. That is when I thought about a good reason why he wasn’t given access.

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  • How to Upgrade a Laptop Hard Drive

    I recently had an issue with my wife’s laptop. It was running out of disk space. I tried to clean up as much as I could, but after viewing where most of disk space went, I realized it was a losing battle. The problem was I like to take a lot of digital photos, and then upload them on the laptop so my wife could enjoy them. Unfortunately, a 120 GB hard drive just doesn’t have the disk space when it comes to digital photos.

    The solution was to upgrade to a much larger hard drive. When I upgrade a hard drive I usually start over with a freshly formatted drive. This time, however, I wanted to just move everything over to the new hard drive and install it without having to reinstall everything. After a few hours, the new hard drive was installed and all applications still worked without any problems. Read on to find out how I did it.

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  • Matshita UJ-850s DVD Drive Is Missing

    I recently had to fix a problem with a Toshiba laptop where the DVD-ROM drive no longer appeared in Windows. The drive was installed properly, and had recently appeared and the owner was able to use it. After uninstalling Norton Antivirus, the DVD-ROM drive suddenly disappeared.

    The good news is that it could still be seen by the BIOS, so the drive was apparently still working from the system’s point of view. The problem, then, must lay within Windows. After doing some research, the information provided in this post corrected the problem.

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