Reliability - W700ds

Please answer if you have owned or do own a W700ds. Thanks
How long have you owned your W700ds and have you had any hardware problems?
1. Received 1/28/2010 - Main Board Being replaced 12/17/2010 - First problem other than it was shipped with the incorrect DVD drive
Geophyte1
W700ds 2757-CTO

So did both 4GB modules work when installed alone?
I'm running 2 x 4GB Corsair RAM in my W700 without any problems. I upgraded the memory quite a while ago, and therefore can't remember which BIOS version I had at that time. In the change log of version 1.11 however it says under problem fixes: "System hang may occur at POST depending on ME setting." So if ME settings refers to memory there might be a small chance to fix the problem by flashing the latest version 2.15.
ThinkPad W700, W701, T40p, T420, X200S, TPT2, Twist, ThinkStation D20, ThinkCentre M90z, M92p, M93p

Similar Messages

Reliability of ThinkPads

5 years ago, ThinkPads were the most reliable machine, period.
Today, judging by both colleague's experience and posts in this forum, this doesn't seem to be the case.
In general, what is the reliability of ThinkPads today? Compared to what they used to be. Compared to other manufacturers. Out of all the manufacturers around, who comes closest to the IBM ThinkPad of 5 years ago?
Please support what you say. An anecdote is fine: "XYZ happened" "Support staff was ABC". Observations from the 'Net, friends, work, is fine. Unsupported opinions don't help.
mod edit: starting you with a clean slate and conforming to forum rules.

srobertjames,
Ok - I think you might want to look at a number of points to get a clearer picture.
TBR does a quarterly study of the major PC players - here is one from 2009 where we were #1 in commercial notebooks.
http://m.softchoice.com/files/pdf/brands/lenovo/TBR-4Q09_Notebook_Customer_Sat_Report.pdf
And this has carried into 2010 and 11.
http://news.lenovo.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1325
Gartner positioned Lenovo in the leaders' quadrant in their magic quandrant assessment for 2010
http://www.lenovo.com/lenovo/us/en/industry-analyst-reports.html
PC Mag reliability
http://www.pcworld.com/article/211402/reliability_and_service_laptops.html
Rescue.com gave us the top spot even though the model and the featured PC belongs to asus... ad dollars at work?
http://campuslife.asus.com/index/2559/asus-ranks-near-the-top-in-rescuecoms-reliability-rankings/
There is a long list of these, and most were based on their subscribers reporting so you can get various skews to the data and we could debate which might be more right from one perspective or another. But, it is perhaps helpful to look at a number of these and then read a bit in our forums, the dell forums, HP forums, even Apple forums. You see the same kind of stuff (not always the same issues) but stories of where things have gone wrong or people are pretty set on getting the manufacturer to own up to something and make a change.
I'm not sure what kind of an assessment metric you would build to fairly reflect, weight, and rationalize all these different data points...
How do you rationalize the difference in volume of posted issues, if that is your measure? 5 years ago we had 5% market share and just launched the forum (2007). We had a couple thousand members. Today, we have around 11% market share (more than twice as many customers because the market is growing) and we have over 120K registered members in the forum, so by straight math, newer models that more people have will likely have more posts for problems, then the fewer people were only, who had fewer machines posted about 5 years ago..
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and if they had a bad experience on a current model and a good experience on a previous one, then clearly from their perspective, quality and service may be in decline. That is valid for them. But I think it takes broader studies of people chosen at random, not just chosen out of a pool where people are known to come talk about problems to ensure some level of integrity in the conclusions being draw.
The internet is full of citations that can be used to back up either a pro or con view, and both may be truth based on the users that were sampled in that research.
Best regards,
Mark
ThinkPads: S30, T43, X60t, X1, W700ds, IdeaPad Y710, IdeaCentre: A300, IdeaPad K1
Mark Hopkins
Program Manager, Lenovo Social Media (Services)
twitter @lenovoforums
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Question about "Refund Reliability Guarantee"

Hi
I have a Toshiba Satellite Pro A120 been send to www.ebuyer.com for repair and they found my laptop '' unrepairable ''. So they refund for me. The problem is as I recall when I brought this laptop it come with '' Toshiba Refund and Reliability Guarantee !!
I ring them and the funny thing is they told me nothing to do with this kind of warranty!!! Suppose they need to send it to Toshiba and repair and send it back to me, if Toshiba cannot repair Toshiba have to replace another laptop for me as well as refund right!!!
I still can find some of the Toshiba range comes with this '' Refund Reliability Guarantee '' on their website. Did anyone encounter this problem? The '' Refund Reliability Guarantee '' not being cover unless u brought the laptop direct from Toshiba?
I need someone in Toshiba can help me solve this problem or anyone who still remember Toshiba did offer this type of warranty. Thanks.

Hi mate,
are you absolutely sure that this applies to your machine? I googled for that type of warranty and just found this link:
http://www.rewardpromotions.com/UK/tscs.asp?Country=UK
which explains the warranty youve mentioned, but it applies to totally different models. Did you register your machine for that service and do you have eventually some document or proove which shows that this type of warranty applies to your machine?
Would be nice, maybe someone from toshiba reads this but I dont think so since this a user-to-user forum and I never saw that someone from toshi gave some replies here or information. Would be better if you contact an authorized service partner and ask them for that warranty or at least for some information about that case.
Greets

Time Capsule variable network reliability

For years we have had an issue with using Time Capsule for backup through Time Machine. It is a variable issue, but has finally become annoying enough that I am trying to figure it out.
We use an older first generation time capsule for small office backup. There is a 2Gb additional hard drive hung off the Time Capsule for additional backup capacity since the Time Capsule is simply not large enough to handle more than one or two computers. I have partitioned the external drive into multiple partitions so that each computer backing up to the external drive has a separate partition. I understand that there are reliability issues with keeping an external drive mounted on the network so won't worry about that for now.
So here is my problem over the last couple of days. Time Capsule frequently, several times per day, drops off the network and is not available for Time Machine to backup. This results in having to manually hard restart Time Capsule repeatedly. I saw a post indicating that this had been a problem with firmware 7.6.2 and 7.6.3 so downgraded the Time Capsule to 7.5.2. This seemed to help, but we are still having problems with it.
In order to monitor the status of Time Capsule for the past two days I have had Time Capsule along with one of the partitions mounted at all times on my computer and have had AirPort Utility running. Several times a day AirPort Utility will show the Time Capsule as having changed to an error status
"Time Capsule was previously part of your network. Check that it is still in range of your network and is plugged into a power outlet. Forgetting this device removes it from this network."
This wouldn't be troubling if it weren't for the fact that both Time Capsule and the external partition are still mounted and can still be accessed from my desktop so I know that it is actually still part of the network. I can enter Time Machine without a problem using the backup that is supposedly not on the network.
I have also had it refuse to back up to the Time Capsule in Time Machine claiming that the backup could not be located. The drive was still mounted on my computer. I deleted Time Capsule as the backup disk in Time Machine preferences and then reselected it and it proceeded to backup to Time Capsule with no problem.
AirPort Utility and Time Machine are recognizing Time Capsule as being present for some purposes, but not others, even though it is properly on the network the entire time. Any ideas as to where this is going wrong would be helpful.

The problem is not unusual.. ever since Lion.. and more so with Mountain Lion the hard disk of the TC has been disappearing even though actual network connection to the internet or local computer is maintained.
There is no fix. There isn't even a work around. The usual method of fix is to reboot the TC.
I can suggest a few things which I think can help but none is a cure.
When it reaches several times per day.. frankly I would be purchasing a new solution.
You may be seeing the belated death of the TC power supply.. yours (if not already repaired) has clung tenaciously to life.. when most of its peers are long dead. It is really too old to be bothered replacing just the power supply.. although that is possible.
See https://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modem s/apple-time-capsule-repair
Suggested settings.
1. Start with a factory reset.. this will not mess up files on the hard disks. Use SMB naming for everything.. ie windows networking which is the most basic of networking.. all names must be short, no spaces and pure alphanumeric.. for everything in the TC.
See C9 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
2. Same rules for passwords.. but for wireless you can use more characters. (depending on your level of paranoia.. but it is worth thinking about, is wireless worse than ethernet for computers on the network. ie do computers with ethernet have less dropouts??)
3. Is the TC main router for the network? If so I recommend you reduce the dhcp lease time to 20min.. I think this can help keep things updated.. but also use dhcp reservations on everything you can so IP addresses do not change.

New Airport Extremes any more reliable for wifi backups?

I was one of the many folks who spend hours configuring and reconfiguring my network a few years back trying to get Time Machine to play nice with my USB hard drive for the sole purpose of daily automatic time machine backups over WiFi. Something about Apple not technically supporting this practice, but that it *could* work, *sometimes*, *for some people*. In my experience I could get it working for a matter of days at a time before the link would break and my backups would become inaccessible by either wifi or by direct USB connection, forcing me to re backup my entire HD each time it happened, until I eventually gave up on it all together.
Fast forward to today, I still hate having to go through the process of finding my hard drive, plugging into power, finding a USB cable, etc etc etc every time I want to make sure my backups are up to date. Thus, it gets done very infrequently and therefore makes my backups far less useful if I should ever need them.
As luck would have it, over the holidays I acquired the NEW Airport Extreme w/ 802.11n... have these issues been fixed?
All I want is a reliable, daily, automatic time machine backup, OVER wifi, THROUGH the new airport, TO my USB connected Phantom drive. Can it be???

As luck would have it, over the holidays I acquired the NEW Airport Extreme w/ 802.11n... have these issues been fixed?
Apple now officially supports Time Machine backups to a hard drive at the USB port of the "new" AirPort Extreme.
See this Apple support document for confirmation. Look down near the bottom of th document for the pertinent info.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5924?viewlocale=en_US
All I want is a reliable, daily, automatic time machine backup, OVER wifi, THROUGH the new airport, TO my USB connected Phantom drive. Can it be???
"Wireless" and "reliable" are two words that really do not go together well, but your chances have improved with the new AirPort Extreme.

Reliable working combination of VPN client and Sidewinder firewall?

My work's I.T. Dept has deployed a "Sidewinder" VPN firewall with certs at our workplace. All works well with our many remote Windoze clients. The Windoze clients are using a "Greenbow" VPN client.
They (the I.T. Dept.) were never able to get the built-in OS X VPN client to work with the Sidewinder VPN firewall at all. I don't really have any details of what they tried or why it didn't work and they aren't exactly the friendliest types to us Mac users in the organization so I probably won't be getting any further details in that regard.
They (the I.T. Dept.) did get VPN Tracker Player v6.2 client to work on the remote Mac clients -- sort of -- but it consistently fails after roughly ten minutes of connection time at IKE renegotiation. They purportedly had a trouble ticket open with, and were working with, Equinux to try to resolve the issue, but after spending a certain amount of time on it, they basically told us Mac users in the organization that they had already spent way too much time on trying to make the Mac VPN client work, so they weren't going to be doing anything further with it, so too bad, so sad for us. And they've got 100% Director support backing up their decision.
So, the question du jour is, is anyone out there using a VPN client on a Mac and reliably connecting through a "Sidewinder" VPN firewall/server with certs (i.e., no dropped connections after about ten minutes or thereabouts), and if so, what VPN client are using and how did you/do you have it configured?
Thanks

(first and last) bump

DVI to Video Adaptor not reliable.

I received my DVI to Video Adaptor (s-video and composite) today. The first boot up was to no video, a couple restarts later and the login screen was up. I used the mini for a couple hours with the composite video and my tv and then turned it off. I came back later to again no video and after a few more power cycles... needless to say I have the mini hooked back up to a VGA display.
Has anyone had any problems with this adaptor? Any advice as to how to get it to reliably display video?
Thanks.

Does the image seem to triplicate across the screen and jump around with all kinds of distortions? If so it appears you may have the same problem many iBook users were having...
squeeb, "Composit/S-video output adapter Will not work", 08:21am Mar 5, 2004 CDT
You can take the time to read through all those posts, but the news isn't good I'm afraid. It's something to do with the mac thinking the TV is a VGA monitor, so sends out the wrong signal (nobody really knows, Apple never acknowledged the problem). The only person to have fixed it had to have his logic board replaced!
That was an iBook though, this may be different to your problem (you hope).
I certainly hope! I was planning to get a mac mini soon to setup a kind of media center. I was one of the unlucky ones with the iBook problem, so this is very bad news if the Mac minis are having the same problem!
Good luck! Keep us posted if you make any progress.

How can I make my Apple TV more reliable? It takes a day to download a HD movie on a T1 to play later, but when I try to play the movies, Apple TV can't, and says try again later. Doesn't the day download time put the HD movie on the Apple TV device?

How can I make my Apple TV work? I downloaded two movies, to play later, on April 4, 2014. I tried to watch them this evening only to get a message they are not available and to try later. How long can it take Apple to download the movies? I encourage anyone thinking about buying an Apple TV to get a different media player that is reliable. Apple TV is not worth the money, nor the time it takes to download movies, nor the effort trying to get your money back when Apple TV fails,and it failsl oftern.. Apple never seems to have a problem charging for the movies, but it frequently has a provlem delivering what people pay for.

Welcome to the Apple Community.
Try the following steps, check whether things are working after each step where appropriate, before trying the next.
Restart the Apple TV (Settings > General > Restart).
Restart the Apple TV by removing ALL the cables for 30 seconds.
Restart your router.
Reset the Apple TV (Settings > General > Reset > Reset all settings)
Restore the Apple TV (Settings > General > Reset > Restore)

Reliability of Time Machine on Snow Leopard Server

I ran across a message that even though Time Machine is included in OSX 10.6 Server, Apple does not support its use in this system.
Now I can't find it again. Is that true?
Not trying to clone an entire computer, just the Library (for WebServer and QuickTime Streaming), would it be reliable enough for this?
I am using the second internal drive for the backup disk, and already have the entire computer backed up to an external image.
Not asking about strategy, but does Time Machine work reliably for what I am doing?
Second question, is TimeMachineEditor a good way to change the backup time in OSX Server 10.6?
Want to now make it in the middle of the night.
Thanking anyone for answers.
Frank
(I have to say this new forum structure is poor compared to the last one! Much harder to find topics and subtopics, who cares about the fancy toolbar)

It's actually quite usual for backup programs to suck at databases. I believe that even the high end backup systems like Retrospect etc have to take the database off line before it'll successfully perform the backup.
Databases just don't like to be backed up! In fact, if you tail the log in OS X server, when you perform an archive on it, it checks to make sure that the parts of the database that it's backing up that moment are not in use. For a program like time machine, that would just not be reasonable considering the way that it's designed to work.
They include it with OS X server so that tech guys like us can tell it NOT to back up things like the .mach folder and the /System Folder. ...and the netboot images etc. Most importantly, we tell it NOT to back up the Database files.
What it SHOULD back up is those files that your users can delete accidentally. That way you get to look like the hero when you get it back for them!
All that said... Here's what I do with time machine:
I don't back up any files that are duplicated everywhere else. (netboot images, restore images, CD/DVD images) I don't back up Mail, MySQL, and OD. Lastly, I don't back up my Roaming Profile shared folder.
Since my Open Directory only has user information in it, and I don't often delete or add users, I only perform an archive every other month or so.
MySQL gets a back up once a month. - though I only use the MySQL databases for a Forum that I've set up for the students at my school. If they lose a months of social networking posts, I'm not too concerned about it.
Mail... Well, I don't actually use mail on OS X. Being an education institution, we get google apps for free. So I got that route. One less thing to manage.

HP Officejet 6500A Plus will not maintain wireless connection reliably

For the HP EXPERTS on Expert Day, April 18, 2012:
B.L.A.T. (Bottom Line At Top): We have an HP Officejet 6500A Plus purchased about 5 months ago. We wanted to use it as a wireless-connected printer in another room besides our home office. It is useless to us because it will not maintain its wireless connection, even sitting just a few feet from the router in the same room. Except for numerous hours of troubleshooting, we have left it sitting powered up, but unused and idle, for almost the entire 5 months in our home office. DURING ALL THAT IDLE TIME, IT HAS LOGGED OVER 3,200 DISCONNECTS, at a consistent rate of 24 disconnects every 24 hours, even though it ALWAYS reports that the wireless signal quality is “EXCELLENT” (all this is according to the Wireless Network Test Reports we’ve printed throughout the last 5 months). So our question is, what is it that this printer is trying to do once an hour over a wireless connection that is causing these thousands of disconnects? And how can we stop it?
NOTE! Before you round up the usual suspects (namely our router and our PC firewalls) please note that we also bought an HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus ON THE SAME DAY as the Officejet 6500A Plus. The 8600 was also installed with a wireless connection, and has worked without a single network issue for the entire 5 months.
NOW, FOR THE REST OF THE STORY…
WHO WE ARE: My wife and I have worked on HP equipment for 33 years, starting in 1979 as corporate customers of HP when we worked for Exxon; then we both worked for HP directly for 17 years; and we’ve now used dozens of pieces of HP equipment in our home during the last 12 years in retirement. We’re primarily software folks, so we’re not exactly experts in hardware and networking, but on the other hand, this ain’t our first rodeo either.
OUR CONFIGURATION:
PC’s – All running Windows 7 x64 with all important patches applied and Norton Internet Security 2012: HPE-270f and HP AIO 200-Quad, each with full 6500A and 8600A drivers installed on wireless connection. These 2 PC’s themselves can connect either wirelessly or via Ethernet to our home network. The 270f has a dual-band wireless board. Both bands work. We also have a new dv7t laptop with only the full 6500A driver installed via wireless connection. The laptop is now upstairs and it’s connected to our home network wirelessly without any issues. (This is where we had hoped to also put the 6500A, but it needs to work reliably via wireless connection.)
ROUTER: Netgear N600 WNDR3700 providing Ethernet and wireless networking. Router provides a very strong wireless signal throughout the house. No wireless problems with any other equipment including an iPod, two Kindle Fires besides all the HP equipment.
PRINTERS: Besides the two HP printers, the HPE-270f PC has a Canon MP960 installed on it. And if we can’t get the 6500A working right or replaced with something that does work right, we may be buying our second Canon printer. By the way, on the 6500A, ePrint and App’s are set to ON, but of course they’re not being used, just like everything else on this AIO.
OTHER: We also have a Sonos music system that connects to our network via Ethernet and has its own proprietary mesh network (on another frequency) for transmitting ripped music wirelessly to speaker units throughout our house. (If you aren’t familiar with this totally cool system, check out sonos.com). We’ve never seen any evidence of interference between these two wireless networks, or our wireless phone sets either.
HP TOOLS AVAILABLE ON ALL 3 PC’s: HPU
UPDATE 5.003.001.001 (reporting everything up-to-date); HPHDU 3.1.0.17; HPPDU 5.0.0.015 and HPNDU 4.3.0.002.
SYMPTOMS: The 6500A Plus installs quickly and easliy, and connects wirelessly just fine during installation. But sometime over the next hour (usually less), it disconnects and won’t print from PC applications. Sometimes the application puts up an “Unable to communicate with printer” screen, even though the PC usually thinks the printer is “ready”. Other times, the PC thinks the printer is offline (but printers don’t have “offline” buttons anymore!). Often, if you just leave everything alone, the 6500A will somehow reconnect and print out the spooled file 5-30 MINUTES later. So it does usually seem to be able to recover given some time, but that doesn’t always fit our schedule! Occasionally, turning the wireless radio on the printer off and back on will fix it right away. But usually, you have to power the printer completely off, and then back on. As far as we know, that always fixes it…..until the next disconnect a few minutes later!
PREVIOUSLY TRIED: After reading some of HP’s wireless network support websites, I manually assigned a fixed IP address to this printer. It didn’t seem to matter; according to the wireless network test report, it still logs disconnects at the rate of one per hour, and all the failure symptoms were the same.
We also dabbled a bit with setting this printer as “trusted” to the Firewall, but that didn’t seem to matter either.
Next, we connected the printer via Ethernet. The printer immediately started to work, even though it had just been in its “failed” state over the wireless connection. As far as we know, it never failed while connected via Ethernet. This seems to point to a purely wireless hardware/firmware problem on the printer itself.
Late last year, I tried two different chat sessions about this with the inter-continental AIO support teams, each one lasting several hours. Unfortunately, none of their optimistic solution scripts seemed to fit our problem. They both seemed determined to reconfigure the 6500A as a TCP/IP printer, which of course worked fine initially, just like everything else. At this point, they would understandably want to close the chat. But 20-30 minutes later, we could no longer print to it. During the second chat, they got into one of our PC’s remotely and effectively turned off the spooler (by selecting “Print Directly” or something like that). After that, all was well again (as usual) UNTIL the printer disconnected, at which time attempting to print from that PC would HANG the application (since the spooler was no longer buffering) and eventually hang the whole PC. One giant leap backwards. That’s when I gave up on the multi-hour chat sessions.
The three diagnostic utilities (HDU, PDU, NDU) have been tried over and over. When the printer is in its disconnected state, the DU’s usually don’t detect the 6500A at all, or if they do detect it, they are unable to fix anything. Frankly, it’s easier to just power the printer off (which takes about a minute) and power the printer back on (which takes more than a minute) and then wait for the spooler to kick in (usually about 30 seconds). BUT WE DON’T CONSIDER THAT A SOLUTION!!
B.L.A.B. (Bottom Line At Bottom): We have used up nearly the entire black ink cartridge and at least a ream of paper troubleshooting this brand new printer, to no avail. This printer is useless to us unless it can maintain a wireless connection reliably. Please help!
Thanks –
Bob and Jane
(Note: we have an appointment from about 11:20 am EDT – 1 pm EDT, 8:20 am PDT till about 10 am PDT)

I bought the Officejet 6500A Plus about one month and have experienced the very same problem. I tried to remedy this problem following suggestions in a number of different posts (static IP, router, firewalls etc), all to no avail. Last week I called support. The support I received by the tech over several hours and different days for a week was very good. However none of his suggestions corrected the connection issue. After today's recommended fix failed, he advised HP is aware of this issue with the 6500 and other affected printers. He claimed HP was working on a firmware upgrade. He did not know when the update would be provided. The tech also claimed HP acknowledged this problem in a written announcement. He agreed to email the announcement to me. I haven't received it. This has been the only problem I've had with the 6500

Does JMS support reliable messaging (store-and-forward) for app clients?

I need to write an enterprise application client (launched with Java web start or packaged with a tool like Sun's package-appclient) that can send messages reliably from Linux to Windows. JMS seems like the obvious solution, so I deployed an EAR file with an MDB and an application client on a Windows machine (running SJSAS 9). I was able to download the client jar file onto Linux and send JMS messages successfully. However, if the Windows machine is not available, the Linux client immediately throws exceptions and fails. Are there any JMS providers that provide a store-and-forward mechanism for enterprise clients, so that if the remote server is not available immediately, messages are delivered later? (Note that the client can't be a servlet or other server-managed component.)
I'd prefer an open-source solution, but this requirement has an extremely high priority for my customer, so I'll use a commercial product if necessary. And if there's something other than JMS that works, that would be fine. (In my case, the messages on the remote side ultimately go to a .NET service, so WS-ReliableMessaging would be ideal, but it looks WS-RM won't be integrated into .NET until Vista, and the current WS-RM implementation is a beta, etc., etc.)
Thanks,
Mike

You could use Apache ActiveMQ
http://incubator.apache.org/activemq/
which supports embedded brokers inside each JVM which can be networked together in a store-forward mechanism so that each application keeps working and store-forwarding messages.
http://incubator.apache.org/activemq/networks-of-brokers.html
or you can use failover transport to handle automatic reconnection...
http://incubator.apache.org/activemq/how-can-i-support-auto-reconnection.html
If you need to communicate with some .Net you can use the NMS - the .Net Messaging API which has a client for ActiveMQ as well...
http://incubator.apache.org/activemq/nms.html
James
http://logicblaze.com/
Open Source SOA

My laptop is no longer reliable. I want to share my iTunes account with my new iPad 3.   I just started viewing my iPad window on my 50 inch Panasonic wirelessly via Apple Tv 2. That amazing.    I would like to access my iTunes store via iPad for podcast

My laptop is no longer reliable. I want to share my iTunes account with my new iPad 3.   I just started viewing my iPad window on my 50 inch Panasonic wirelessly via Apple Tv 2. That's amazing.
Now I want to share my iTunes account with my Apple TV 1, and my iPad 3, without the need of booting up the unreliable laptop where I set it up last year.   do I have to use my. Pc laptop to access the iTunes store again too authorize home sharing.   I have tried it before. O for a while I thought the we're sharing, now the Apple Tv has gone back to telling me to use my computer too sign into iTunes.
there maybe a far simpler way to enjoy iTunes on my iPad and Apple Tv.   I also have the Sony blurry Google Tv. I will upgrade my PC with Windows Z8 and a screaming ran cache, ram disk on a 79 mother board and then pay 5 bucks a month for OnLive Plus that I hpe to show wirelesslypy on the big scree 50 inch Panasonic.   I have waited for years to upgrade as I wanted to help my kids in college. They are finished and so I have money fr my self.CELEBRATE

Are you using the charger and cable that came with the phone?
Are you using an unauthorized third party charger?

Simplest/most reliable setup for 2 mini's+ext HD+backup+printer?

Hello and a happy 2009 to everyone,
I'm a recent switcher (replaced one PC with a mini). Using it for internet/email and getting to grips with OpenOffice 3.0; transferred photos and music onto an ext HD and using them with iTunes and iPhoto (and trying out Acorn for editing the photos). Very happy so far !
Next step is replacing our other PC with another mini (though I may wait to see if they'll be updated soon) and getting the two mini's linked up and sharing a (non-network) printer, the internet connection (through the ADSL modem provided by the internet provider; it has WiFi and 2 ethernet sockets), the ext HD (with the photos and music files), and a second ext HD (to be purchased, RAID?) for backing up the two mini's and the first ext HD. As my wife and I would have/use each our 'own' mini and hence keep our own mail and bookmarks, there won't be a need to synchronize anything. However, there would be the need to share documents; in fact, we'd prefer to only have one home folder, but I guess that'll difficult/impossible with two machines and thus two OS running.
As I have no experience whatsoever with even the simplest of networks, I have a few (rather basic) questions:
* What's the best/simplest/most reliable way to achieve the above?
E.g.: linking the two mini's thru an ethernet (gigabit) connection and fully sharing everything, attaching the printer and one ext HD to one mini and the other ext HD to the other mini, and both mini's wirelessly to the ADSL modem (which we'd really rather prefer to do thru ethernet, but the mini's only have one ethernet socket each…)? Advantage(?) would/could be that both ext HD's could be FW rather than USB. Would backing up on one ext HD (thru Time Machine), of both internal HD's and the other ext HD work that way?
Or should we get an AEBS (or another router) and connect both mini's (which will be in the same room, not far from each other and not far from the ADSL modem and the printer either) as well as the ADSL modem to it thru ethernet and, thru an USB-hub, the ext HD's (thru AirDisk) and the printer as well?
Or a combination of the above?
Or in a different way altogether?
Are there any other things that I have to take into account?
Any response highly appreciated!

Steve, thanks for your input!
In the meantime I've found out that my ADSL modem is also a NAT router, but 'only' 10/100 Mb/s, so I was wondering whether I get/do/make what I want to achieve a bit cheaper/simpler?
E.g. thru a Gigabit switch (rather than an AEBS) to which I connect the 2 Mini's as well as the modem/router, and the printer and external HD's directly to the mini's?
Some Qs:
* Would a Mini-to-Mini connection thru a (Gigabit) switch work better/faster than plugging both mini's into the (10/100) modem/router?
* Would in either scenario both mini's have to be on (and not 'just' in sleep mode) to be able to share the printer and the external HD's?

How can I get a reliable airport connection on my Intel Mini?

I have an Intel mini and I connect it to the internet through airport. When it is working, it shows all the bars as dark, which I assume means I have a good signal. But some times it does not connect on startup, and can't be persuaded to connect with anything I have tried, using the network control panel or whatever. It just does not work. Some times it will work if I shut it down and start it up again, some times not. I also have a G3 Imac using a Hawking USB adapter on the same network, and it is solidly reliable, so that makes me think the problem is in the mini, not the router. It started doing this a few weeks ago, and the problem may have something to do with one of the many software upgrades, for all I know. This discussion thing is really difficult to use, so I hope I can find this question again, and maybe even a good answer.

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A stable, fast reliable VNC connection to Lion or Lion server

I hope this post help people with VNC setup from non Mac machines to a Mac running Lion or Lion Server 10.7.4.
Apple has changed quite a few things in Lion regrading VNC and screen sharing. As a consequence many VNC viewers are no longer compatible until the VNC software is upgraded to be Lion compatible. You will find many posts about this topic in this forum, eg
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3289794?start=0&tstart=0
Often, the result is that the user can't proceed beyond the gray login screen (screen locks up etc).
This post describes how configure Real VNCs VNC server on Lion Server 10.7.4 to work in conjunction! with ARD, thus allowing you to keep screen sharing enabled and still use ARD from client if that is desired)
Download the VNC server at (Version 5! necessary)
http://www.realvnc.com/download/vnc/latest/
and install the VNC server on the host (the computer you want to login to via VNC)
Single User Host setup
==================
- Install the VNC server and follow the intsruction
(If you your Mac is configured for remote management, screen sharing, remote apple events the installation may complete with error stating to contact the manufacturer....ignore the error as it most likely caused by a port conflict because VNC server and ARD (or apple scrren sgaring both use port 5900 per default), the software was still completely and correctly installed.
- start VNC Server by opening Finder -> Applications -> Real VNC -> VNC Server (User Mode)
You will see a small VNC icon in the top tsak bar of the screen.
(if you open the "information Center" the issues tab will show a port 5900 conflict)
- open VNCserver Options and select the connections tab:
+Change the default port from 5900 to 5901 and serve Java viewer on Port from 5800 to 5801
+ Change Authetication to "Mac password"
+ Select Encryption "always on"
- Selct the expert tab
+scroll down to the bottom of the list and change "StopUserModeOnSwitchOut" to "no"
(this settings prevents the VNC server to be stopped automatically if you have Fast Switching User Mode enabled on the host.)
- select "Apply"
(now if you open the Information Center" again, the port conflict problem should be solved.
- select "open" from the VNC server menu:
If the configuration was succesful, thw window will show a check mark in a green box stating everything is ok.
- In addition you will find the address that the client user will need to connect to the VNC server on the host
it will say something like "VNC viewer user can connect using the address 192.168.x.y:1"
Note: If you start several VNC servers, each session will need a dedicated port (like 5902, 5903 etc)
Router/Firewall Settings:
===================
Depending on the router/firewall you use your ports may have been automatically configured for you (airPort extreme for example).
You need to open port 5901 and 5801 and forward these ports to the IP address of the host. If ARD was alredy working in your setup, you can copy the port coniguration for ports 5900, 3283 and 3306 that are used by ARD and implement the same rules for the new port used by VNC 5901.
Review the settings of your firewall/router.
VNC client
========
- download the VNC client for your OS from
http://www.realvnc.com/download/viewer/
and follow the install instructions.
- Start the VNC client on your client PC (Windows for example) and enter the address that the VNC server reported to you earlier (192.168.x.y:1)
- Encryption : "Let VNC Server choose"
- select "connect"
- enter your Mac username and password that was setup on your host
you are now connected via VNC to your host.
You can also configure the VNC server to allow other users to login to the same! VNC session using their user credentials (friends/family or serverAdmins that want to share access to the host)
To do this open the options dialog box on the VNC server host computer and select "configure" next to authentication.
- add the users that are supposed to get access to your VNC session using their own credentials. (make sure this is what you really want, otherwise read on in the multi user section of this post)
Multi User Host Setup
=================
If multiple users are supposed to access the host computer using their own credentials logging into their own! desktop, follow these instructions:
- first enable Fast User Switching on your host computer by going to
System preferences -> User/Groups -> Login Options and select the check box "show fast user switching menu as..."
- For each user on the host that should be reached via a VNC session start VNC server (user) as described before and assign a new port number to the new user like 5902 etc.
- repeat the configuration outlined above for each user (eg. "StopUserModeOnSwitchOut" to "no")
(note initilally when you start the VNC server for the first time again, you will get notified that a port conflict exists again....this disappears as soon as the new port is configured)
now another user can login via VNC into his own desktop using the server address : "191.168..x.y.:2"
Final notes:
=========
I spent hours trying to get a variety of VNC viewers to work with the new screen sharing/VNC implementation in Lion and finally gave up. I called Apple Enterprise support and they confirmed that "a majority of the existing VNC products are not compatible with the new VNC implementation in Lion yet and that Apple recommends ARD". The discussion on what other non Mac users (Windows, Linux) should do did not go anywhere....
I have tested the above configuration with the free version VNC server 5 on the host and the free version VNC viewer 5 on a client. It worked flawlessly, fast, reproducable and very stable. You need to be aware that depending on the features you want (number of desktops, users etc) that you may have to purchase the personal or enterprise edition for the server.
The featurs are described here:
http://www.realvnc.com/products/vnc/
I personally installed the enterprise edition after I verified that the free editions worked stable and reliably as I needed them to work.
I hope you now have a stable VNC link into your Lion host from the platform of your choice !

I'm using the free VNC edition from RealVNC on Mt. Lion (10.8.5) and the basic information is in this article for Lion is confirmed for the VNC Server 5.0.6 (r113416) on Mt. Lion.
The main Options... window shows the Connections tab and I just changed my port to something other than 5900 and the port conflict went away.
The Free edition does not allow Mac password and encryption can't be enabled. (Ya gotta pay for that.)
Connected to it from my iPod Touch using Mocha VNC with no problems.

Reliability - W700ds

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