Category Archives: Windows

Flashing the LSI Megaraid M1015 SAS/SATA controller firmware

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If someone would like to take pictures and screenshots of the process for me that I can put into the guide, that would be great. Since I do not have a running Windows computer at the moment I can’t make them myself. (post a comment and I will contact you). This line will be removed once I have the pictures i need.
Some guys a reddit.com requested that I made a quick guide on how to flash a LSI Megaraid M1015 SAS/SATA controller for pass-through firmware.
This guide will be on how to flash it for pass-through OR raid functions, since it’s the same method but with two different files.
I will supply you with the files needed as well.

What you need to flash the Megaraid M1015

You will need the following:

  • A Windows XP/vista/7 computer (I have only tested on Windows 7)
  • Package containing the firmware and tools for flashing, you can download it here
  • A USB stick (I Think 256MB is more than enough), it should not contain any data, since we need to format it!
  • This program (hp flashing utility, easy way to make bootable usb DOS usb stick)
  • Win98 boot files, you can download that here

That’s all you need except for the raid controller itself and a computer/server to install it in!
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Realtek network cards and VMware ESXi 5.5

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Yesterday I decided to upgrade my two ESXi servers from ESXi 5.1 to ESXi 5.5 since the update came out some time ago.
The upgrade from ESXi 5.0 to ESXi 5.1 went great, without any problems. But this time, that is not the case.
My two ESXi servers are white boxes made of the following hardware:

  • Motherboard: MSI Z87-G43 (http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Z87-G43.html)
  • CPU: i5-4670K (http://ark.intel.com/products/75048/)
  • RAM: Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600MHz, 8Gb * 2(16GB total) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104173)

The problem was the motherboard that ships with an onboard Realtek 8111E network adapter.
This problem has been verified to be the same with Realtek 8168 and Realtek 8169.
The reason for this, is that VMware removed the drivers from the new ESXi 5.5 iso.
In this post I will show you how to get ESXi 5.5 working with the Realtek network adapters.
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D-link DP-101 or other print server IP reset

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So you found an old D-link DP-101 or other printer server that you need to use, but don’t know what static IP address you gave it years ago?
The solution is simple.
This also on other D-link print server models, if you did this on models that are not listed below, please leave a comment so i can add them.
Verified to work with:

  • DP-101
  • DP-101P+
  • DP-300U

The D-link Dp-101 is a stable parallel to network print server, but it does not have the feature of a “Reset to default settings” hardware button anywhere. If you want to reset the device to default, or change the IP address without knowing what it is now, you have to do it with D-link’s tool, and it only works on 32Bit computers!
Here is how you do it, with link to the software
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Belkin F5U103V serial to USB converter on Windows 7 64Bit

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Update: I have not tested this on Windows 8, but it should work. If anyone does this on Windows 8 (i don’t have a Windows 8 machine laying around), please leave a comment to verify if it works or not.
Yes, this post is about Windows!
I had a problem yesterday, and thought I should post my solution since I had a hard time getting it to work and it might help others.
I have a D-link DGS-3324SR rack switch for my servers, and it had some random IP address on the configuration interface that I was not able to find, and I needed to get into the switch to configure some vlans.
I thought “That’s easy, just connect to the console port and thats it”, but then i came home to notice that none of my computers have a serial (RS323) port!
I then found a serial (RS323) to USB converter at work, the Belkin F5U103V and borrowed it for the day, but when i got home and plugged it into a Windows 7 64Bit laptop I noticed that there was no driver found for the device.
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Temperature measuring using Linux and Raspberry Pi

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The story

I have a small server room, with some rack servers, NAS’s, VMware ESXi’s and other fun stuff, but I had one problems.. in the summer it got really hot, and I had to open the window to let fresh air in, and the old out to lower the temperature again, but I never knew when it was too hot, so i had to drive by the server room once or twice a day to manually feel if it was too hot..
This was a problem, because sometimes I was not home, or sometimes I forgot, or just had no time to drive by to check the temp.
Having a temperature sensor in the room, from a freezer or something like that didn’t help me much, since I still had to drive by to check it manually.
So I had to make something I was able to get the room temperature from, over the internet/lan, and thats when I decided to make my network thermometer.
I looked for weeks on the internet for a good guide about this, but none of them worked. so I decided to write my own to help others with the same problem out.

This post will be about

How to make your own network thermometer, using open source software and a cheap USB temperature sensor!
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