Fake ECOO E04 battery alert

Recently I’ve got replacement battery for my new ECOO E04 smartphone.

It seemed as original at the first glance. But capacity was too low. It was 1700mAh instead of 3000mAh as listed and not even 2000-2500mAh as it was reported to be on mobile forums.

So I laid down two batteries side by side and they differs a little.

Blue background was shifted to the top and contacts were dark and matt and under cover was no any printed specs.

Beware of this seller on Aliexpress, I’ve got this fake from.

ECOO E04 batteries – fake vs original

If Adobe CC suddenly won’t start

Today one problem appeared that Adobe Media Encoder CC 2014 won’t start at all.

Finally I’ve found answer that works!

Open the file (C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\SLCache\X19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw==.slc or /Library/Application Support/Adobe/SLCache/X19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw==.slc for Mac) in any text editor, delete all of the contents, save it, and set the file to read-only. You’ll never have to delete it again and you won’t need to mess with all of this batch file, load-order stuff.

Source: Adobe forums

ECOO E04 Plus Aurora cheating camera specs

As you maybe know the new hot model of chines smartphone by the name ECOO E04 Plus Aurora has been faced as equipped with good 16 megapixel back camera and 8 megapixel front cam.

Listed as 16+8 MP camera on www.ecoo.hk

But there were some doubts in the community about real resolution of cameras. They say it is really interpolated 16mpx, not actual megapixels.

So now we know it for sure – ECOO E04 has 13 megapixel camera and model of camera sensor is OV13850 by OmniVision.

Here’s the photo of camera module the phone owner pulled out of his ECOO E04 body:

ECOO E04 camera sensor OV13850

Now I don’t even sure about front camera, what resolution it has? Maybe 5mp? Who knows.

Look, the specs of the lower ECOO E03 model: main camera 13mpx, front camera 5mpx, battery 2500mAh. Battery of E04 is known to be 2500 in reality, not 3000mAh as promoted, it was measured to has 2500mAh capacity. The back camera of E04 promoted as 16mpx, but actually 13mpx. Maybe the front camera of the E04 is the same as of E03 too? 🙂

No more chines phones, I think 🙂

PS: In addition – just found change log of ECOO firmware:

Version number: 1478ZF.C63D_ECOO.A1.150204.LWT_KK.FHD.WB128_FB13720.EN.MV1616
Modifications:
1. BUG # 2545 :: [camera] [post OV13850] when the camera is connected to the rear without burst tone.
6. BUG # 2539 :: [camera] [Rear OV13850] rear camera viewfinder interface into slow shoot green screen video
display screen, after freeze prompted Gallery error.
18. taken before and after the update and photo ov13850_mipi_raw ov5670_mipi_raw driven customer’s final confirmation ok

source: http://www.needrom.com/download/ecoo-e04/

Look at the cameras here: OV13850 and OV5670. So we know it for sure, ECOO E04 has 13MP rear camera and 5MP front camera instead of listed 16MP+8MP. Shame on you, ECOO!

Don’t throw away your old 775 motherboard, or to put Xeon into 775 socket

Lately I’ve noticed interesting way to upgrade my old box with LGA775 system. It has Core2Duo E7300 processor and 8GB of RAM.

So I saw somewhere on the web that one can use Xeon processors (771 socket) in 775 socket motherboard, just by applying little patch on it to swap a pair of pins. Sweet.

So, I managed to order one Xeon E5450 from aliexpress.com. It’s about $40 free shipping. After two weeks I have it in my hands.

My chip came already patched and all I had to do is to cut little plastic ledges or keys in the socket. Because 775 and 771 have key cuts on different sides.

One should cut that ledges very gently to not bend surrounding tiny contacts.

After cooler installed with thermal grease, computer was started right away.

Motherboard in that box is Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3 with modded v.F4 firmware from overclockers site. This is not necessary, just addition of microcodes for Xeon CPUs for virtualisation and such.

My CPU now runs at 3.6GHz (3.0GHz nominal), will see how it goes.

Computeruniverse – beware of B-ware!

Lately I’ve purchased some staff from Computeruniverse.com, Germany. Everything’s great as usual, but this time there was some “B-ware” item.
Ok, I really didn’t have in mind to grab some cheaper staff, the only reason B-ware item was purchased is because it was the only in stock of that kind of items. Really. This is sewing machine for my wife, AEG NM 376B and in sewing machines were no one in stock available but that “returned, fully working, cleaned, as good as new” one, so-called “B-ware”.

Well, machine appeared to be broken in part of spool winding. And it has few marks of rough attempt to open it up!

 

How this kind of staff could be listed “as new and fully functional” I have no idea.

So, yesterday I sent to Computeruniverse.com support my opinion on this situation and still have no answer. Too bad.

Have to say – beware of B-ware in computeruniverse.com (computeruniverse.ru).

Wacom Driver lag on startup

Today I managed to get rid of the annoying issue with Wacom Intuos Tablet driver loading on reboot/sleep.

Well, I have Mountain Lion 10.8.3 and Wacom driver of version 6.3.5-3 that is up to date to the moment.

When I restart my computer or log out and log in, or sleep and wake, the Intuos driver was not loaded up to 2-4 minutes. It was awfull to use Wacom mouse without driver, sloooooow and painfull moooovements.

I coudn’t wait anymore.

So I tried to repair permissions, nothing happens. After that tried to remove and reinstall the driver – no use.

To sum it up the solution for this issue was simple: go to the System Preferences, to Blutooth tab and disable all the startup assistants for wireless keyboard/mouse in Advanced section.

Disable any BT assistants at startup to get rid annoying Wacom driver loading lag

Profit.

Now Wacom driver loads immediately.

 

Installing Win7 on mSATA SSD drive

Some time ago I managed to move Win7 to mSATA SSD drive.

As I posted before to do this I pulled off HDD drive to make mSATA SSD drive the only one in the system.

After that installation goes as ussual.

When you get finished with installation and put HDD back, make sure you have mSATA card drive placed above the HDD in BIOS boot list.

Some benchmarks of my a bit outdated Samsung 128GB  mSATA SSD drive:

blank disk, before installation of Win7 and other soft

Samsung mSATA SSD 128GB test

and this benchmark was made with 70% full disk:

Samsung mSATA SSD 128GB test on full disk

Booting up on battery issue

I had no time to share with you this issue I noticed on my Dell M4500 laptop.

Since I installed Win7 onto mSATA SSD disk once I tried to boot on the battery I failed to do this.

After I plugged in AC adapter, this message showed up ahead the boot process – “The Intel ME Ignition firmware is booting from the factory default image”.

Before I moved to mSATA I noticed BIOS was very slow on the battery. And now it was slow and not firing up OS.

The problem was completely solved by turning off the Intel SpeedStep technology for processor in BIOS.

How to upgrade DELL Precision M4500 up to 16GB RAM

Disclaimer! AFAIK You may install 16GB of RAM for QuadCore system only! If you have DualCore processor it’s limited to 8GB.

Yesterday I have got my upgrade kit from Germany, the 1TB HDD and 16GB RAM. Surprisingly, parcel arrived in two weeks, I was very pleased.

From http://www.computeruniverse.ru/

Luckily this RAM suited well my DELL, though it is for MACs. As I have read before, DELL laptop is a bit tasty about memory modules just as MacBooks do.

So I found out that Crucial modules works well for DELL.

Though I could not get kit specifically marked as “for DELL” from Crucial brand, but I managed to get Crucial’s “for Mac” one with the same specs (DDR3 1333MHz CL9) and it works!

Install Crucial DIMMs in Dell M4500

Please be carefull while installing memory in place. I have Slot-A DIMM not recognized at first, but after it was tight reinserted, both modules appeared in BIOS.

Install Crucial DIMMs in Dell M4500

Ok, now power on, go to BIOS (press F2) and check for installed RAM.

 

If everything’s fine, boot up Windows to check it out if Windows works well with your new RAM.

 

Seems Ok, 16GB of spare memory.

As for ratings, memory rating rised up a bit – from 7,3 to 7,4 with new dimms. Previously I had 1066 RAM installed, and now 1333 one.

Next step should be installing Win7 onto mSATA SSD and replacing HDD with new one.

Actually I’ve already installed Win7, but I’m lazy (or have no time) to spent hours installing lots of Dell drivers, uhrrrr.

BTW, if you like me want to install Win7 onto mSATA drive, pull out your HDD drive! Or you will get Win7 spreaded over both drives – some here, some there. Just for note 🙂

Pull off HDD before installng Win on mSATA drive!

CU!

mSATA SSD arrived!

Hi there!

Today I’ve got 128GB SATA minicard for my Dell Precision M4500 laptop. As you may remember I posted about this SSD drive here.

I’ve ordered it month ago from Hong Kong ebayer, this is the link to the item.

Samsung mSATA SSD 128GB

Samsung mSATA SSD 128GB

Firstly I opened the back cover of my laptop. DELL Precision series has very simple and handy way to get deep into the hardware. Just unscrew one bolt in the middle and slide the cover to the front ebge, that is away from the battery apartment, after that lift it up. BTW, battery should be pulled off  before you go inside!

Dell M4500 disassembling – slide the back cover to the front edge of laptop.

When you go to install mSATA SSD drive to DELL Presicion M4500, you definitely want to find WWAN/SSD connector.

DELL Precision M4500 with back cover opened

It’s on the left if you oriented laptop battery to the north.

DELL M4500 – WWAN/SSD connector

Put your SSD minicard in the connector, you can’t go wrong as it will fit the only possible way. I have mine istalled with its label down.

Install mSATA SSD into Dell M4500

Now you will need a little screw to fix it in place. Luckily I have some, it’s chinese screws M2x3 which I’ve got some time ago to fix one of my lens. Those M2x3 are just fine.

Install mSATA SSD into Dell M4500

Install mSATA SSD into Dell M4500

Ok, now put all back together – the cover and the battery, start laptop pressing Power button and hit F2 to enter BIOS.

You should now see your SSD minicard drive among other devices in the Device Information section.

Dell M4500 BIOS

Reboot to the Windows now. Once Windows completed installig driver for the new device, you should see your drive in volume list in Disk Managment tab.

New drive in Win7

I have done some quick tests, namely the CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 and CrystalDiskInfo 5.4.2

Samsung mSATA SSD 128GB test

Next time I am to make my SSD minicard as Primary drive with Intel Rapid Storage Technology application and put  new installation of Win7 on it.

CU!