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These thin clients by default have a Write Filter enabled to prevent users from wearing out the flash drives they operate on. Since in most environments they’re supposed to run applications on and save data to a network server, the only reason in that situation to permanently write to the flash is for maintenance.
There should be an icon in the system tray showing the status of the write filter. What you should do is reboot the machine, disable the write filter, install your software, make sure the changes are saved and then re-enable the write filter. (Sorry, I forget exactly how the 9450XE’s filter works, it’s been a while since I had to mess with it.)
@farends wrote:
But the temperature at full load, must be much higher isn’t it?
I’ve got the same mb, and i will try it allso.That’s true – but I figured I’d give it a try at “idle” first – if it overheated then, obviously it wasn’t going to work under load!
I haven’t been able to find a program that will yield temperature data running under XPe, so I’ve been somewhat hesitant to try to load down the CPU and see how hot it gets. (OF course – it’s possible this motherboard doesn’t have that kind of temperature sensor to begin with…)
The advantage the 9450XE has is the vertical design, which I think tends to encourage convection cooling.
The only way I can think of for you to install XPe would be to find a way to use WSI to write the image to a flash drive, then make a blockwise copy of that to the hard drive – I use a Ubuntu LiveCD with the “dd” command – and then use a partition editor (like GParted, also on the LiveCD) to expand the partition to fill the hard drive. Once you’ve done that, you could then permanently disable the Enhanced Write Filter if you want, since one of the reasons for using it is to prevent the Flash from being destroyed by constant write activity. (The other, of course, is to keep Ordinary Users from messing up the system configuration.)
I haven’t actually tried this, mind you – but it might be possible to do this using an IDE-to-CompactFlash adapter and a suitable CF card in place of the Wyse DiskOnModule that plugs directly into the IDE port on the motherboard.
Also, if you have access to Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, you would probably find that it runs MUCH faster than standard XP; it’s based on XP Embedded, actually, though the user experience is much closer to XP Pro. Unfortunately, it’s not available as a retail product – it’s only officially available through Microsoft’s Software Assurance program.
Good luck!
I’ve run my WT9450XE for some time after changing the front-side bus speed from 100MHz to 133MHz – changing that jumper block above the right-hand side of the DIMM slots from 0101 to 1100. The boost in CPU speed from 550MHz to 733MHz seems to be quite stable and I haven’t had any thermal issues at ordinary room temperature.
Note – the RAM modules MUST be PC133 rated; I had put another stick in that turned out to be PC100 and I got a ton of bluescreens; once I made sure all RAM in the machine was PC133 – it was rock-solid.
The boost in processor speed of 33% is noticeable and useful to me. Obviously in a major deployment it might not be worth having to physically deal with each unit, but smaller deployments or where there just isn’t budget for newer units might find this information useful.
@ConfGen wrote:
You can use the S90 images also. Latest 256MB image is 9S92_S496_256.exe.
Interesting! Is there a newer work-alike for the 9450/9455’s as well?
GM
The downloads offered by Via for this motherboard are available here: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/downloads.jsp?motherboard_id=21 and they include the User’s Manual. This documents many features of the motherboard, including the auto-power jumper.
But to summarize – you want jumper J2, which if you’re looking down at the motherboard with the I/O ports (parallel, USB, etc.) at the top is very near the lower left-hand corner, right near the screw hole in that corner. It’s below the header for the front panel connections. Jumper pins 1 and 2 (nearest the screw hole) to disable, 2 and 3 to enable.
Hope that helps!
I really appreciate that image – I found some documentation on the Via site once I realized it wasn’t a custom motherboard… but the PDF I found didn’t document the FSB jumpers the image you provided did! Shifted one jumper and that switched from 100MHz FSB to 133MHz, resulting in a CPU speed jump from 550MHz to 733MHz! No crashing or thermal problems so far.
I did finally get the unit re-imaged, but it was a real Rube Goldberg solution – had to install the USB imager on a small HD in a USB case, then pull it out of the case and hook it up via IDE and boot it that way…. Immediately booted the 9450 up with a Linux LiveCD and grabbed a blockwise image so I don’t have to go through that again if I manage to foul it up.
Thanks for the help… I’m sure I’ll be learning a lot more as time goes by!
@ConfGen wrote:
BIOS is always part of the image. Just image the latest firmware and you will get the latest BIOS together with it.
I haven’t had any luck with re-imaging … but I don’t want to hijack this thread, so I won’t go into that here.
GM
@ConfGen wrote:
Wow, then you really have an old ismage and old BIOS running on your 9450. You should consider upgrading them.
Where would one go looking for a BIOS update for a 9450XE? I didn’t see any on Wyse.com.
@jonconley wrote:
Has anyone found an external CDROM that can work efficiently or AT ALL just being powered off of the V90 USB?
There is a Targus CD/DVD combo that uses a cable w/ two usb plugs to pull enough power, but at $160 it seems a little spendy for an external CDROM.
I don’t know if the V90 will put out enough current, but I recently put together a slim external combo drive for my EeePC. ComputerGeeks.com has slim combo drives for $25, and the external USB slipcase for $17 – a whole lot less than $160! All you do is slide the drive into the case and secure it with two small screws.
Another hint – if the V90 can’t put out enough current for the optical drive, try using a powered USB hub in between.
