Netduino Plus + Visual Studio 2015 + Windows 10

Just grabbed my old Netduino Plus Gen 1 and wanted to use it but it's quit challenging to find information of how to this in a modern setup.
Installing the .NET Micro Framework SDK v4.2 from the the downloads page does not work because it requires Visual Studio 2010.
After a bit of trial-and-error her is what finally worked for me:

  1. Browse to netduino.com/downloads and download and install in the given order this from the "netduino 3, netduino 2 and go" section:
    1. .NET Micro Framework SDK v4.3
    2. Netduino SDK v4.3.2.1
    3. Netduino Legacy Templates Not available anymore
  2. Run MFDeploy.exe to verify that you can Ping your device and press "Ctrl + Shift + C "to check that you have the latest firmware (v4.2.0.1, upgrade if you don't have it):
     mfdeploy
  3. Run Visual Studio 2015, open the Extension Manager, install ".NET Micro Framework Project System" and restart your IDE.
  4. You should now have the right project templates available and are ready to go:
    vs2015_newproject

Boot UEFI Shell on Intel S1200KPR

Today I needed a UEFI Shell to update the firmware on my LSI9211-8i controller but I was unable to find any menu entry
in the BIOS to start the shell.
After googling I just found this post in the Intel support community but without a solution.

After some more googling and trial-and-error testing I found this solution working for me:

  1. Format your USB stick with FAT32
  2. Create this folder structure on the stick: "EFI\BOOT"
  3. Download Intel's Tianocore UEFI Shell 1.0 and rename the file to "BOOTX64.EFI"
  4. Copy "BOOTX64.EFI" to "EFI\BOOT" on your stick
  5. Enter the BIOS (F2), go to "Boot" -> "UEFI Boot" and enable it:

  6. Plugin in your USB stick, boot and hit F10 to enter the boot menu. You should now see something like "UEFI: FAT32 File System":

  7. Press enter the shell will start. When loaded type "fs0:" to switch to the USB stick file system:

  8. Do whatever you like Cool

     

Flash IBM ServeRAID M1015 to LSI9211-8i with UEFI mainboard

Note: This is based on Pieter's post on servethehome.com and describe how I managed to flash my M1015 card with a UEFI based ASUS mainboard.

Step 1: Get the firmware and flash tool
Download this zip archive and extract it somewhere and your hard drive: M1015_to_LSI9211-8i.zip (12.70 mb)
The firmware in this package is already the latest release P15 (November 2012) by LSI.
You can check here if there is a never version available when you read this.
I also added Intel's Tianocore EFI Shell 1.0 (shellx64.efi) that we need later for flashing.

Step 2: Get the SAS address of your card
We need this address later for flashing and you can find it on a green sticker on the backside of the card.
It should start with "500605B" fallowed by some hyphen separated groups of digits and letters.
Take a photo or write it somewhere down:

Step 3: Prepare the FreeDOS USB boot stick
Download the FreeDOS 1.1 USB Boot Image here and the Win32 Disk Imager here.
Open "FreeDOS-1.1-USB-Boot.img.bz2" with 7zip or Winrar and extract the "FreeDOS-1.1-USB-Boot.img" image file.
Start the Win32 Disk Imager, select the extracted image file and your USB stick and press "Write":

When done copy all the file from the extracted firmware archive on the top to the root of the USB stick (should now named like "FREEDOS1~1A").

Step 4: Delete the existing firmware from the chip
Restart you computer and boot from the stick (I have to press "F8" to enter the boot menu).
When started enter this two commands:

megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
megarec -cleanflash 0

Step 5: Flash the new firmware
Now comes the tricky part.
When using the "sas2flash.exe" from FreeDOS you will get an error like "ERROR: Failed to initialise PAL. Exiting Program."
In order to flash with a UEFI mainboard we need to use the "sas2flash.efi" file that require to execute it from a EFI shell.
As I already said on the top the firmware archive contains a file named "shellx64.efi" this is such a shell.
My mainboard (ASUS Maximus V Extreme) want this "shellx64.efi" file on the root of the stick, however if you have another manufacturer you probably have to search how to start this shell.

In my case I need to enter the UEFI (pressing "Delete" on start up) click "Exit" and select "Launch EFI Shell from filesystem device":

When the shell has been loaded enter "fs0:" to switch to the USB root directory. Your screen should now look like this:

Now enter this to flash the card into the LSI9211-IT mode (pass through, no RAID):

sas2flsh.efi -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flsh.efi -o -sasadd 500605b[THE REST OF YOU ADDRESS WITHOUT HYPHENS]

To flash other modes take a look at Pieter's post on the top.

You're done
When you now reboot you should see the new firmware on the card:

DELL XPS 15 L502x: Replace HDD with SSD

First of all here is a great YouTube video of how to this but the quality is a bit poor so I made a few pictures to clarify each step.

The first step is obviously to remove the battery, then remove this little screw and push the two clips down in the marked direction:

When you removed the palmrest like described in the video you have the remove the 4 marked screw to access the HDD case:

Now we need the remove this two screws on each side of the case, then you can place in your new SSD/HDD:

My old 80GB Intel SDD fits perfectly...

...and is detected correctly by the BIOS:

Easy... isn't it?