Windows – Page 2 – James Batchelor

Review: Asus X205TA

It’s not often that I post a review about a product on this blog, but on this occasion I want to showcase an item that does not have a lot of exposure on the web, nor the reviews do it justice.

I’m talking about the Asus X205TA, essentially a low cost, low weight, basic Windows laptop that does the basics. At a retail price of £179 (less with the offers it seems to attract) its price point puts it among lower end Android tablets and Chromebooks. But here the big attraction is its ability to run full versions of Windows, making it a contender as an ultra-portable daily driver.

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2 Servers, 1 UPS

With the new server up and running it seemed fitting to connect it to my UPS, and thanks to the low power consumption of the HP Microservers I still get around 40 minutes of battery only time with both servers running before the UPS runs out of juice.

Unfortunately, the UPS in use only has one monitoring port which is connected to my original server, meaning during a spell of prolonged power outage, the new server will not know when to shut down safely and will continue to run until the UPS runs out of battery supply, leaving it vulnerable to data corruption that affected the original server prior to battery backup.

But with a simple script and some setup both servers can shut down safely before the batteries run out.

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Trouble Accessing BIOS with Windows 10?

Since installing Windows 10 the option to enter BIOS settings disappeared on my HP Pavillion DV8, with the only way to get it back was to pull the CMOS battery from the laptop and perform a hard reset.

If you’re having the same trouble the solution is easy, instead of clicking shut down to turn off the laptop and switch it on again, click restart instead! Seems simple but I always used shut down to allow the machine to cool off before turning on again.

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