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Post by Admin on Dec 14, 2022 13:54:58 GMT 10
!! This is my latest acquisition, bought from eBay for $120 (after Black Friday 20% discount). It's a micro form factor (MFF) machine, very compact, something that I have never used, and therefore wished to experience it. The machine arrived with a 65W AC adapter which required a clover-leaf power chord, however, a blade-type chord was sent by the seller. I had to search my hardware cupboard for a spare of the right type. When power was applied the machine failed to boot, requiring date and time update in the BIOS. This was a sure symptom that the CMOS-ram battery was dead. Fortunately I had a spare CR3025 battery for the job. Next, the hard disk would not boot into Win 10, displaying an irrecoverable error, and forced a fresh installation. Running Win 10 then revealed that there is no wireless connectivity, despite the fact that this Dell 7040 was listed as having built-in Wifi, and even came with a Wifi antenna that can be screwed onto a connector at the back of the machine. Opening up this Dell and removing the hard disk showed that indeed the wireless card has not been installed. Either the Ethernet port or a USB Wifi dongle would have to be used to connect to the internet . |
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Post by Admin on Dec 14, 2022 14:38:33 GMT 10
!!
- Connected to the internet with an RTL8821CU wifi dongle, then updated Win 10 Pro to version 22H2.
- Backed up Win 10, then restored it to a Kingston 240 GB SSD which replaced the original Toshiba 500 GB hard disk. Had to use the Macrium version 8.0 USB to do the job. (Version 7.2 failed to recognise the USB storage medium for some unknown reason).
- Booted up with the Manjaro Budgie USB with a view to use TimeShift to restore Modicia OS. Reduced the size of the Win 10 partition with Gparted, and created a new partition for the Linux install. This turned out to be a big mistake because although the Modicia OS was successfully restored into the new partition, the Win 10 was corrupted.
- Had to use Macrium 8.0 to fully restore Win 10 again, then used Disk Manager within Win 10 to shrink the size of Win 10 partition. (This Disk Manager tool controls and decides the maximum amount of Win 10 size reduction, whereas the Gparted tool did not care about this aspect).
_ Zorin 16 OS (backed up from the hpdx2400 machine) was then Timeshift-restored onto a new Linux ext4 partition (sda5) after Win 10 was correctly shrunk in size.
(Must edit /etc/fstab to fix the UUID of the swap partition to resolve the slow booting problem)
- Zorin 16 has no built-in driver for the RTL8821CU wifi USB. Had to install correct driver by using dkms-install.sh
- Created another Linux partition (sda6) in order to restore Modicia OS via Timeshift. This attempt failed (dropped into initframs during boot up).
- Tried a fresh install of Modicia OS (using the Ventoy USB), which worked OK .
- Installed the RTL8821CU driver for Modicia using dkms-install.sh . At first this did not seem to work (sudo modprobe 8821CU failed to show result for 8821) . However, after a system reboot the Wifi USB dongle was detected and connected the the internet.
- Removed this Kingston 240 GB SSD, and replaced it with the Crucial 480 GB SSD taken from the HP8300-USDT machine. This 480 GB SSD contains several versions of Linux OSes which have been used over many recent months, and I wanted to continue my work with them on this new Dell 7040 platform.
- This Dell Optiplex 7040 has a very small footprint, runs very quiet, consumes less power than all of my other desktops. It allows fast access to its internal where hard disk replacement can be quite easily performed. Currently it has become my most favourite machine !
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Post by Admin on Dec 14, 2022 19:39:10 GMT 10
!! Screenshot of Manjaro Budgie OS running on Dell 7040 : Screenshot of Modicia OS version 22.04 : Screenshot of mX-Linux KDE version 21.10 : I quite like the Linux distros listed here a lot . Each has its own strong points . As it happens mx-21 KDE has been my most frequently-used Linux OS, since it has been found to have the most tailor-made tools, and most flexible. |
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Post by Admin on Mar 16, 2023 11:23:57 GMT 10
~ @ ~
* January 2023:
- The motherboard of this Dell 7040 has included provision for an M2 NVMe SSD disk. Therefore I decided to buy a second-hand Samsung M2 128-GB SSD from eBay (for $22) and added to the machine. (Had to do a fair bit of research before the purchase because there are various types of M2 SSD on the market. Must be sure to get the right component). This Dell 7040 had no problem in recognising the Samsung M2 SSD after installation.
- Restored the previously saved image of Win10 (22H2) to this M2 SSD, using Macrium 8 . Win 10 failed to restart from the M2. Attempt to use "automatic repair" also failed. Next tried to "reset Win10 from this device" (meaning the Samsung M2), keeping all personal files of the user's account. This resetting took about half-hour, which was followed by "Installing Win 10" . All this effort actually paid off, and Win 10 Pro- 22H2 now runs happily on the M2 SSD .
- Overall, the Dell 7040 is now equipped with two disks: a 480-GB SATA SSD which contains several versions of Linux distros (Manjaro, MX-21 and Linux Mint ...), plus an M2 128-GB SSD which has Win 10 Pro- version 22H2 installed .
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