Upgrading my virtual host

I’m using Toshiba Portege R830 for all tasks, including my virtual lab. This is the older model with Intel Core i5-2520M CPU. Although sometimes limited and slower, this laptop has enough power for my needs.

Here’s my story how I upgraded and empowered it to be still very usable. Let’s begin!

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Hot day, summer in the city

Your cooler is dirty, roaring pretty. Take a brush and make it nifty.

How to clean a PC fan?

Recently, I found a few used PC fans in my box with spare parts. As well as all used fans, those fans were dirty and almost stuck.

With this trick, you can fix troubled fan for a while until a new replacement unit arrives. Let’s begin.

Repair of the KY-013 Arduino sensors

For many Arduino enthusiasts, a KY-013 temperature sensor is one of the first steps into this exciting world of microcontrollers and automation. This simple sensor is very cheap and almost indestructible. Nonetheless, many of those very cheap sensors that can be obtained from Ali Express are incorrectly made.

Here is my story of how I repaired them and made them work for me. Let’s begin.

Activating the AHCI mode after installing Windows 7

A few months ago, I assembled one computer and installed Windows 7 on it. I also installed all necessary drivers and tools. Eventually, I discovered that I left the BIOS configuration of the disk controller in the IDE mode.

In such situation, my machine will be blocked at boot if I just try to change this option in the BIOS settings – Windows 7 will not recognize the boot device. In that situation usually I can either to revert this change back to the IDE mode or reinstall machine with enabled AHCI mode.

I opted for the third way – to enable the AHCI mode in running Windows 7. It’s a time for the magic and mighty tricks.