Windscribe VPN

It is quite common to hear that you need to use a VPN any time you are on a wireless network. Your typical free wireless network at the mall or your favorite coffee shop is not encrypted in any way. If you travel, you can rest assure that hotel wireless internet is terribly insecure, just because you never know if there is someone in the next room sniffing all your packets. Lastly, the internet service provider for the hotel is not to be trusted at all. However, VPN companies themselves can be shady and there is not a good way to verify who can be trusted with your internet communications. It is possible for technically minded people to spin up for a virtual machine and provide your own VPN service, but this requires some effort and virtual machines costs can add up. In the end, I decided to go ahead and pay for a dedicated VPN service.

iPhone with Windscribe VPN

My VPN usage is primarily for my iPhone and so I am not gong to go into any detail about using Windscribe on a Mac or Windows machine. Needless to say, Windscribe provides multiple clients and setups for all your devices. I chose Windscribe VPN because of their reputation and my initial experience with their free trial. I pay for a yearly plan, so that I can keep my costs down. Anything beyond a year for a service seems to be a gamble. No one wants to sign a 5 year lease, so don’t do it for software as a service either!

Windscribe iOS App

The iOS app allows you to connect to a variety of locations. I specifically choose the Chicago locations and select Wireguard as the protocol. My experience with iOS and VPN apps is that once you plug in your phone to charge, iOS will close out your VPN after a period of inactivity. This means I have to open the Windscribe app and establish the VPN connection. You can create rules that exempt your home wireless network or other wireless networks you trust so that the VPN is bypassed. For the most part I keep Windscribe on for all connections, wireless and Verizon cellular. I know for a fact that if you do not use a VPN and are on your cellular network, that a telecommunications engineer can actually see all your data in real time, (if they connect to the cellular tower device). If you have a VPN, you might as well use it all the time.

No VPN Allowed

Now there are some exceptions, when you cannot use a VPN connections and you might want to turn it off. These are annoying to say the least, but there is not much choice.

Some eCommerce sites do not allow VPN connections. The website will most likely give you an HTTP error such as 404 with a message that proxy connections are not allowed. I have had this issue with Lowes.

Warehouse stores and my Verizon cell service do not work well. Often when I am at Menards, Lowes, or The Home Depot, I will get zero bars and if I try to use the in store WiFi, they do not allow VPNs and so my choices are to walk out to the outside yard of the store and use my cell service or connect choose an insecure store wifi network.
I do have to say that Target and Walmart have great WiFi and their mobile apps make it very easy to scan for in-store prices.

The other exception is at home when I have apps that need to connect on the home wifi network to see local devices. My Sonos speaker is a good example of this. I want to stream Spotify to my Sonos, and so I can either make an exception rule for my home WiFi or just turn off the VPN.

Block Stuff

Windscribe offers a variety of blocking options. Turning some of these on will save on bandwidth and also keep you safe from malware. Windscribe describes this feature: R.O.B.E.R.T. as a customizable server-side domain and IP blocking tool.

Windscribe ROBERT Options

Turning on any of these options is account specific and will apply to your other devices as well. Note there is a link at the bottom of the screen that takes you to your account, where you can specify your own custom rules.

Final Notes

I recommend Windscribe as a VPN option for your iPhone. Overall it has worked well for me and my kids.

Fixing XFX Power Supply Noise

desk frameSince I work from home now, I started to try and make everything in the home office as quiet as possible. I replaced the fluorescent light ballasts with new ones that do not buzz. In fact, when replacing one of the ballasts, I found that it was actually burned out! I swapped out the tubes as well with new LED ones. The next thing was to tackle the tower Windows Server box that sits in the office. I took the case completely apart and installed all new Noctua fans except for the CPU cooler fan. The fan power control for the motherboard was still too noisy, so I used a Noctua fan controller instead to power most of the fans to be slower. This reduced the noise and I was able to work in a quiet office for several months. What eventually cropped up was the power supply started to make some fan noise. This Windows Server runs all the time, so some components can fail over time.

The Power Supply

This is actually the second XFX power supply. The original XFX 850 failed after a couple of years. I sent in for warranty and received a new replacement. In the mean time I purchased this model:

XFX ProSeries P1-1050-BEFX 1050 W ATX12V 2.2 / ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Now after a few more years with the 1050, it started to whine and make fan noise when the tower would heat up. Trying to get warranty service for slight fan noise, will probably be hard and this power supply is out of warranty at this point. It has been running for 9 years!

desk frame
WARNING! POWER SUPPLY HAS ELECTRICITY AND CAN HURT YOU!

Do not do this if you do not know what you are doing. It is best to just buy a new power supply if you are not proficient with electronics.

Disassembly

I disconnected the power cord from the power supply, then held the power button for a couple of minutes on the computer to discharge some of the electricity. Next, I disconnected all the computer cables from the power supply and unscrewed it from the tower case. After this, I unscrewed the main screws and carefully opened the power supply. The HA13525H12F-Z fan is partially glued to the case, so I recommend a plastic tool to detach it.

Once I had it opened, I did not detach the fan power line to the supply. After using a can of compressed air to clean off the dust, here is what it looked like:

Butcher Block Desk

The power supply and fan were not as dusty as what I thought it would be. Make sure you do not touch the blue capacitors as they may still have a charge. You can google the fan model number HA13525H12F-Z if you want to replace it with a new one. For me, I just want to see if I can keep the original fan after some maintenance. A replacement fan would most likely be $25 or more and so it would be easier to just buy a new power supply.

Butcher Block Desk

This is perhaps one of the easiest fans to work with. It literally snaps apart and once you have it disassembled, you can clean the inside with some cotton swabs and a bit of rubbing alcohol. Be careful, as you do not want to break any of the copper coils.

What I noticed is that there really was not much lubricant left, so this can explain the whining sounds. I used some sewing machine oil and a bit of Permatex Anti Seize lubricant. Less is more in this application, because you do not want any oil or lubricant spilling out. Clean up any excess and check it once more, after snapping the fan back together.

Butcher Block Desk

Conclusion

After this maintenance, my fan noise is now gone and I hope to get a few more years out of this power supply. Another plus is that I kept more electronic waste from the landfill.

HP EliteBook 840 G3

HP EliteBook 840 laptopLast weekend, my son returned to me the used HP EliteBook 840 G3 laptop that I had gotten him for college. He no longer was using it and it was buried in his old bedroom under some of his belongings. He did tell me that the laptop no longer started and that it had a low battery screen. Once I had some time, I inspected it and sure enough, the laptop would not even light up the display and so it seemed it was dead. I spent a couple more hours trying to figure out what it was. I opened it up and tried a variety of options, such as removing the internal battery and disconnecting the CMOS battery. Nothing seemed to work. I even connected an external display to see if that would work.

3 Long, 2 Short Beeps No Display

Finally, I removed both memory SODIMMs and found that it was one of the SODIMMs that was bad. The original Samsung memory would cause the computer to startup with the 3 long beeps, followed by 2 short beeps. The second SODIMM was a new Corsair module that I had added when I bought the laptop originally. Apparently the HP BIOS will not display a screen if one of the memory modules is bad. I have only seen memory go bad one other time on a Dell server. However, I assumed that if the memory module was bad, the BIOS would still boot and display an error. HP does not do that.

I ordered a new 8GB SODIMM and a new battery. The original battery would not charge, so that definitely needed to be replaced.

The laptop was on Windows 10, so I decided to wipe it and install Windows 11. Since this is an old laptop, HP no longer supports it and so the HP Support page will not list any updates for Windows 11. However, I the laptop runs Windows 11 fine. There is a Windows Updates issue where it keeps trying to install the Conexant driver.

Additional Notes

For the issue with audio driver Conexant, I had to run the Windows Update Troubleshooter and force that particular update to no longer show up in Windows Update. Audio is working on the laptop, so the installed driver works fine.

The other issue I noticed was that the battery would not charge past 78 percent. For this, I had to go into the HP BIOS, hit F1 and choose to go into the setup. Under the Power Management, you have to choose to allow HP to manage the battery and then it will charge to 100 percent. The default option tries to save battery cycles.

This laptop also had the LCD screen replaced. The screen ended up going bad shortly after I originally bought it. In all this laptop has lasted a lot longer than I expected. I am not fan of the HP BIOS and I know the Dell Latitudes are pretty cheap when bought used, but they tend to run hot. Next time I will probably try to get a Thinkpad.