Gareth Jones

You may recall that I upgraded the RAM on my HP Mini 210 to its maximum 2GB back in March – a process that, thanks to the Mini being incredibly fussy with its memory took no less than three attempts in all.

Around a month ago I realised I wasn’t really using the Mini as much as I had thought I would when I first bought it, and after some thought I decided it was because the machine just wasn’t quick enough even with the RAM upgrade. Booting up and logging in took a few minutes and launching Firefox once I was in seemed to take just as long. This meant the machine wasn’t really the convenient there-when-you-need-it computer that I had intended for it to be. This was a shame because the machine itself is really nice – both aesthetically and ergonomically.

My initial attempt at working around the hardware’s limitations was to install Jolicloud, a Linux operating system that uses HTML5 apps to breathe life into older hardware with its modest system requirements. While Jolicloud was significantly faster to use than Windows, I wasn’t entirely happy with this solution as a) I actually really like Windows 7; and b) most of Jolicloud’s “apps” are actually just website bookmarks which to me just seems like cheating.

So, what I did was perhaps a little crazy – I ordered an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD from Scan. I already had a Vertex 3 in my desktop and a Vertex 2 in my laptop and had been incredibly impressed with them both – indeed, the Vertex 2 in my laptop had transformed the machine beyond recognition just a few months before.

The drive arrived a few days later and I quickly set about installing it. I had also ordered a USB3 caddy from eBay to turn the old drive into a portable HDD, and while Windows was installing again on the Mini I setup my new portable HDD as a portable development drive with all of my work mirrored on it from SVN.

Before taking out the original HDD I ran a benchmark which I also ran on the Vertex once the Mini was all set up. The results are quite amazing: with a linear read speed of just over 30MB/sec, a random read speed of just over 3MB/sec and an average access time of 8.74ms the original drive scored 3,637 points. The Vertex performed on an entirely different level with a linear read speed of nearly 134MB/sec, a random read speed of nearly 53MB/sec and an average access time of just 0.27ms to post a score of 495,793.

The Mini now feels like a different machine. It boots in seconds, logs in instantly and opens Firefox pretty much as soon as I’ve released the mouse button. I now use it all the time! According to Windows Experience Index, the bottleneck is now the CPU with a score of 2.4; the SSD has a score of 7.7 and everything else on the machine sits between 3 and 5. I can’t upgrade the CPU as it’s soldered to the motherboard, but to be honest there’s no need to – the Mini was intended as a convenient web browser and emailer, not a gaming rig, and it now does both of those tasks (and a few more besides) pretty much instantly so who cares if the balance of power is a little uneven inside?

The Vertex was perhaps overkill on a 1.6ghz single-core netbook like this, but what a difference it’s made! Also, I can always swap things around again if/when I get another machine in a few years as it’s not like the Vertex has been welded in or anything. Or at least that’s how I justify it to myself!

Well, the D-Link 655 router that I ordered a few days ago arrived from PIXmania. First off, the router is a French SKU. The manual, the software CD and the guarantee are all French. The alarm bells rang when I first opened the box and found a UK mains adaptor converter, though my first instinct had been that PIXmania had shipped me an American SKU which was how they make their profit margin. But no, it was French. I don’t think I’ll buy from PIXmania again.

Thankfully the router’s webmin was in English so I wasted no time in setting everything up. Or at least, to a point because I quickly discovered that there was no in-built modem and I’d have to use an external modem to connect to my ISP. That’s not really a problem because the Netgear DGN2000 that I’ve used for two years has been great in every way apart from it only being a 10/100mbit unit which is too slow for the Thecus – but obviously fast enough for internet access. I thought I’d set up the network with the D-Link and then connect that to the Netgear for internet access – should be easy enough, right?

Without an appropriate manual, I was left to Google to troubleshoot when my initial attempt failed. The D-Link seemed to connect to the internet as it was successfully checking for the latest firmware, but nothing that was connected to the D-Link could get out.

Over an hour was spent reading various forums, reviews and articles to try and get the information I required, when I then concluded that the internet is FULL of people who have NO IDEA what they’re talking about. One person would claim that the way forward was to disable DHCP on the D-Link; another to disable it on the Netgear. One person would claim that you put the ISP settings into the D-Link and use the Netgear as a pass-through; the other that you put the settings into the Netgear and let the D-Link piggy-back on it. In short, no-one had a clue.

While searching for answers I also found this thread on the D-Link support forums where someone else was experiencing problems with the 655. I was distinctly unimpressed to see such a haughty attitude on Lycan, the “Technical Engineer Global Moderator” of the forum, as he proved particularly unhelpful to anyone who asked any valid questions about the unit.

In the end I stumbled across a short discussion about Netgear. Some guy was looking for a way to set his router as a modem but couldn’t find the necessary option, and someone posted a link with a “try this” suggestion. The link was http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?next_file=mode.htm, and opening this link myself brought me to a minimalist page with nothing other than router mode: modem/router or modem only. I selected modem only and immediately the machines connected to the D-Link had internet access. For some really stupid reason, this page is only available to you on the navigation pane once you’ve already set the router to modem-only – when in router/modem mode, you’ve got to type in the address which means you need to already know it’s there. Who’s the Einstein that came up with that idea?

As for the other settings that I’m using, the Netgear has a LAN IP address of 192.168.0.1, DHCP and wireless are both disabled and the ISP details are specified. The D-Link has an IP of 192.168.0.10, DHCP is enabled with a range of 192.168.0.50 – 192.168.0.254, the wireless is enabled and the ISP details are also specified (manually). The internet port is connected to one of the Netgear’s LAN ports.

Hopefully this post will prove useful to others who find themselves with zero documentation and an internet-full of useless guesses!