Tagged: fix

Atheros L1 network adapter fix Windows 7

I was noticing my network adapter dropping connection in midst of media streaming when I upgraded to Windows 7. At first I thought this was a bug in the new HomeGroup setup. So I didn’t pay much attention to it. But then I couldn’t make any Gmail attachments, when I attach a file it would start to upload then my adapter would drop off the network. That’s when I suspected faulty drivers.

Device Manager reported my network adapter as “Atheros L1 Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Controller”, this NIC is built-in on my ASUS P5B-E motherboard, as well as many other ASUS boards. Windows 7 had no problems picking up a driver for the adapter and it installed version 2.4.7.172, dated 2009-06-31. At first I tried the latest drivers from Atheros’ website, they were WHQL certified version 2.4.7.27, dated 2009-06-30. These didn’t work either. So I browsed around ASUS’ support website and found the last beta they posted for Vista, version 2.4.7.4, dated 2007-08-30.

The beta 2.4.7.4 worked! My Gmail attachment that was failing on every try now attached properly, and I have yet to lose a connection. Tomorrow I will test out streaming using Windows 7′s native protocol and see if that bug has been fixed. I have no doubt the faulty driver was the root of the problem.

Interestingly WHQL is not always reliable. Although this is more of a Atheros’ fault than Microsoft’s. I still blame Microsoft for not fully testing out the latest Atheros driver (both 2.4.7.172 and 2.4.7.27) yet certifying them for Windows Update.

Update: My Xbox 360 has been streaming for over 10 minutes now. Haven’t tested the PS3 because it was in a different room but it is the same idea. I also successfully attached a 2 MB file in Gmail while the stream was going on. So I think I fixed the problem! I couldn’t get past the soliloquy of Larry David in Whatever Works before and I checked the time code, it was about 5 minutes give or take. I’m streaming a different file on the 360 (shitty media support unless I use the Media Center Extender) and it’s already past the 10 minutes mark. Hooray!

Office 2008 update causes setup assistant to loop

Or, it could say ‘Invalid CD Key’ and not allow you to enter a new one. Here’s the fix:

Delete .plists located here:

/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist

and

/Users/username/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 settings.plist

Then you want to launch any Office app (Word, Excel, whatever) and the Office Setup Assistant will pop up again and ask you to re-enter the CD key.

blog.entourage.mvps.org

iPhone OS 3.0, an update with more hidden fixes than you may know

I’m not going to go over every feature that was added to the iPhone OS 3.0. They have been well documented on all over the blogosphere. However what they failed to mention, and this is a pretty important fix, is that mapping addresses from the contacts no longer append United States by default.

I first observed this bug from here. At that time I was using NuevaSync to get my Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar synced over the air. I have since adopted Google’s own Google Sync and ditched NuevaSync, but the fact that the iPhone’s native Google Maps app appends United States to every address when using an entry from the Contacts app.

This bug occurs no matter how you access the addresses, whether from Contacts, Dialer or Google Maps itself. As long as your region is set to something other than United States. iPhone OS 3.0 however no longer behaves like this. If no country is stated then it assumes that it is the same as the region you have your iPhone set to. This is nice, saves a line from the Gmail Contacts entry, as wells it tidies up the addresses saved in the iPhone. Hooray.

I wonder what other fixes are present. This can’t be the only odd bug fix.

I fixed iPhone fetch bug!

Since update 2.1 people have reported that iPhone would stop fetching when in sleep mode. It happened to me too and I’ve been looking for a fix for a while now. Over the weekend I noticed that I had under Push & Fetch settings that I can actually disable Push. Apple’s support docs have stated that in the presence of no Push, Fetch would take over. Which is what I have assumed that it would do all this time.

Then something amazing happened. Fetch is working all of a sudden even when the phone was in sleep mode. So if your Fetch stopped working, try what I did and disable Push altogether!