Potecchi

SpeedMach Mark V, codenamed Potecchi (ポテッチ), is a low-budget built system based on a quad-core AMD processor, mounted on a recycled chassis from an HP Pro 3500 system.

BTW, her real name is Poteto (ポテト), but her code name is the rōmaji transliteration of her nickname in Japanese, Potecchi (ポテッチ).

Features

Potecchi!

Potecchi was built to replace the aging Pinky system, considering the need for a low-budget system. A recycled chassis from a discarded HP Pro 3500 was used, which included a 300W power source and a DVD drive. A mini-ITX main board with an on-board quad-core AMD processor was selected, and a DDR4 memory and a hard disk was added. Peripherals from various sources were also recalled into service, and a Windows 11 operating system installed.

Specs

These are Potechi's current specs. May vary while the system is optimized.

Operating System

Windows 11 Pro. Subject to change depending on performance.

Windows 11 Driver Info

Drivers from Win7 up to 10 are supposed to work on Win11. Still checking.

TP-Link TL-WN722N USB WiFi Adapter

Adapter didn't work with Win11 out of the box. Since it's v1, drivers are only up to Win8; installed those drivers and worked ok.

Genius MousePen 8x6

Drivers up to Win8. Installed and worked Ok.

Acteck Xtreme Shock Pro XR (AGJ-3350)

Installed correctly with supplied drivers. Worked correctly.

Canon Pixma MP140

Installed correctly with supplied drivers (up to Win8.1). Scanning application MP Navigator also installed and worked correctly.

Hardware Updates

None yet!

Issues

Tablet Pressure not working in Photoshop 2022

Issue: Genius MousePad 8x6 tablet's pressure not working on Photoshop 2022.

Solution: Create the file PSUserConfig.txt (case sensitive) in the folder C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2022\Adobe Photoshop 2022 Settings. The file consist of the following:

# Use WinTab
UseSystemStylus 0

Restart Photoshop. The pressure should work now. On certain cases, users also suggest fiddling with the ink settings on Windows, and setting the UseSystemStylus to 1.

Slow Scanner Transfer Speed

Issue: scanner-computer USB transfer speed is slow when connected to the front ports.

TODO: Check back ports connection.

BSOD on Intranet Access

Issue: BSOD when trying to access a resource on the intranet (another computer or drive).

LCD Awful Image Quality on VGA Source

Issue: The 20" LCD shows right-trailing "shadows" when connected to the VGA source. It's evident it's source-dependent because the On-Screen Menu doesn't show said shadows.

Solution: VGA cable was defective. After testing with another cable, the issue was resolved.

WiFi Adapter Frequent Disconnect

Issue: WiFi connection is extremely unstable. The adapter doesn't appear as disconnected, but we don't get network response, requiring WiFi ON/OFF/ON cycling or adapter reset. Sometimes the adapter self-disables and re-enables.

TODO: Check if the problem is place-dependent. Once the system is moved to its final position, the adapter will be placed nearer the wireless router and the connection stability checked. Buying another adapter is considered too.

I ended up buying a new adapter. It works mostly ok, but it still disconnects on very few occasions (days in between).

Blog

Drawing Tablet Firmware Update

2024 08 24

Huion Inspiroy Ink drawing tablet (H320M) stopped working. After checking the Huion site, I found a Firmware Update Utility. I followed the instructions and after installing it, it first checks if there's any update available (which there was!) and then updates the firmware. You have to connect-disconnect the tablet while pressing a pair of buttons (as shown in the screen). After this the tablet worked ok. It also helped with its use in my new smartphone (Motorola moto g24 power) – I installed ibisPaint and it didn't even showed the cursor that it was showing in my Nokia 3.1 Plus (it was working Ok before). After update, it showed the cursor and correctly restricted the tablet use to the left side.

Memory Upgrade

2024 07 13

Upgraded and maxed out the memory to 32 GB using two Kingston KVR26N19S8/16 16 GB modules. Worked OK.

Windows 11 22H2 Upgrade

2022 11 17

Trying to upgrade to Windows 11 22H2. Since the system in not to the liking of MS's specs, and since I've tried some methods to try and force Win Update to upgrade to 22H2 and haven't been successfule, I 'm using Rufus again to create an Install/Update disk. Downloaded original Win11 22H2 ISO from MS and used Rufus to create the media (checking the appropriate boxes after START). Media was created correctly and ran the setup from Windows. After a lengthy process, it successfully updated to 22H2. Testing if everything is okay.

More RAM

2022 06 23

Added more RAM to Potecchi. As I can't find 2400 DDR4 modules, I bought an ADATA DDR4 2666 8 GB Module. Installed as DIMM A and worked OK. It's running @ 2400 MHz.

Hyper-V Virtual Machine & UTAU

2022 03 30

Is a little difficult to setup and run a virtual machine using the native Hyper-V. You need to enable the Hyper-V feature, restart and create the VM. If you wanna install Win11, you have to make sure the settings are for the minimum requirements of Win11: TPM on, 4 GB RAM, 2 Cores, 64 GB drive, etc. I used the installation disc image I used for my OS. After a first try, I decided to get rid of the checkpoints, since it caused a lot of troubles. Using enhanced session I could access the host's drives and network. All in all, the VM is a little slow, though...

...and the reason I activated a VM was to install UTAU, a free singing synthesizer like Vocaloid. As it is a pretty old program, it uses JIS encoding, so I had a lot of problems trying to make it work. There's a good tutorial here. If you want to use your own WAV files, it needs 16-bit signed mono WAV files. Also, I recommend installing in a user directory to avoid permission problems, and using a path without spaces. I recommend, too, getting rid of Defoko, as it seems it cannot find the files due to their names being JIS encoded.

Git & Preformance Review

2022 03 26

Installed git, and a few others programs since last blog. The system has been performing mostly OK, though it will definitely need another 8 GB of memory for some of my workflows. The Net Adapter annoyance is still present, the Wi-Fi connection is unstable as hell and it disconnects every few seconds in the worst cases. I hope it will get better once I reposition the system.

VGA Cable & VS Code

2022 03 15

After testing the secondary monitor with another VGA cable, it was found that the original cable was defective, and the issue with bad image quality was resolved.

Installed Visual Studio Code. More configuration and extension installation needed.

Radeon Software

2022 03 14

Reinstalled Radeon Software, since it was auto-updated by windows on installation, and it showed it was not the correct version for my hardware.

PowerShell

2022 03 13

Installed PowerShell 7.2.1. Documented the WiFi Adapter and LCD Image Quality issues.

mIRC & AutoCAD

2022 03 10

Installed mIRC 7.66. Also installed AutoCAD 2019.

Emulators, ClipStudioPaint & Python

2022 03 08

Installed JNES emulator, it worked out of the box. SNES emulator ZSNESW doesn't work, so I installed SNES9X, and it worked. Bot work with the GamePad.

Downloaded & installed ClipStudio Paint EX. Worked correctly. The preferences have a WinTab service option, and initially the pressure didn't work. It worked when reconnecting with the program opened. TODO: more test.

Installed Python 3.10.2.

Photoshop Downgrade

2022 03 06

After seeing how much memory Photoshop 2022 grabs, I uninstalled it (leaving the rest of the 2022 programs) and installed Photoshop CC2019. It installed correctly, and required much less memory when ran. It required the same fix for the tablet to work (adding a configuration file — see the March 4 blog entry).

Scanner/Printer, FontLab & Hungry Photoshop

2022 03 05

Downloaded the Canon Pixma MP140 drivers and scanning utility; Canon only offers drivers for up to Win8, but claims they should work in later OSes. It installed both correctly. Scanning took a little time, it seems the front USB ports are quite slow. Shielding issues were not the cause, as a quick check proved the shielding is connected to GND. Maybe using the back ports will prove to be faster?

Opening the scanned image in Photoshop 2022 (8.5 x 11 inch, 300dpi) took a HUGE amount of RAM... practically the whole system memory. I plan to revert to older Adobe software; now downloading the CC2019 version. Photoshop 2022 uninstalled, will try to install only Photoshop CC2019 side-by-side with the rest of the 2022 apps.

Downloaded FontLab 7.2.0.7644. Previous to installation, installed Python 2.7.18 64-bit (which is required by FontLab) without registering extensions or making it the default Python installation. I did it in order to later install Python 3.10. After installing FontLab, patched with a MayanProfecy patcher inside a Windows Sandbox window. It required activating the sandbox in Windows Features, and Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V'ing the file to patch (FontLab 7.exe) and the patching .exe (did this to avoid any possible virus entering the system). After patching, cut-paste the patched file to the program folder, and kept the original as BAK. Comparing with HxD hex editor both files, the changes are minimal (about 10 bytes), and the file size remains the same. Program worked Ok.

Tablet Installation

2022 03 04

Downloaded and installed the Genius MousePad 8x6 tablet drivers. They specify the drivers are for up to Win8, but I could install them properly and get the tablet working. I had to create short path names (and with no spaces) for the installer to load. After installation, the control panel worked too.

Photoshop didn't allow to use the pressure setting, so after a quick search in bing, I found a solution: create a text file named PSUserConfig.txt (case sensitive) in the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2022\Adobe Photoshop 2022 Settings folder. The file consist of the following:

# Use WinTab
UseSystemStylus 0

After restarting Photoshop, the pressure worked.

Office, Visual Studio, Adobe & Activation

2022 03 03

Installed MS Office 2019, though it didn't let me choose the components... it just went for it. Have to check if there's an option to uninstall unneeded components.

Tried using MAS to activate Windows and Office. It seems Win was already active! It showed a Win10 Pro license already there. Office was activated successfully.

Installed MS Visual Studio 2022. Also installed Adobe applications - though they are really bloated! Considering uninstalling and getting an older version.

Gamepad Drivers, Tools & Bench

2022 03 02

Installed the GamePad drivers successfully. The GamePad USB connector is a little faulty, so initially I thought it hasn't installed. A complete check (with a game!) is needed.

Also installed some tools and a missing driver for some security device: I had to extract it from the 662 MB download from Biostar. BTW, a quick benchmark from CPUID showed (as expected) a modest improvement in performance over BRANWEN. It appears also that the integrated graphics have half the graphics units from BRANWEN's graphic card.

Initial Setup

2022 03 01

After much debating how to resolve the Pinky problem (Power Off under heavy load and Significant Age), I decided to build a low-budget desktop system, taking advantage of a previously discarded HP Pro 3500 system that failed (MoBo dead). After checking that the power source could deliver enough power and that the ATX connector is current for most MoBos, I picked a cheap on-board-processor MoBo and paired it with a single 8 GB DDR4 stick (I may buy another later for dual channel and more performance). Also picked a 1 TB HDD since couldn't free a HDD from any of my machines (also, because all of them are also very old). Chassis also has a DVD that I have yet to check.

Hardware installation went smoothly. Had to rebuild the front panel connector (the HP Pro 3500 has a proprietary pinout), taking pin cases from anther chassis. MoBo included back plate and 2 SATA cables, and cabling management was handled nicely.

For recycled accessories, took a very old Microsoft PS/2 mouse (MoBo has also PS/2 connectors!), a USB spare keyboard, BRANWEN's TP-Link WiFI adapter and BRANWEN's 20" LCD.

Windows 11 Pro installation went uneventfully (obtained via Rufus), though the updates are very slow. Had to supply the TP-Link TL-WN722N Wireless Adapter driver, since it didn't work with Win11 out of the box.

Partitioned the HDD (300 GB System, 500 GB Storage, ≈130 GB yet unassigned).

Graphics, Sound and Networking (WiFi, Bluetooth, Ethernet) seems to be working Ok. Most other functions are operative, so I didn't install any other driver.

Links

Previously...

Links for the case/power source's source machine.

• PC Microtorre HP Pro 3500 at MX-ES HP Support Site, for the original machine, from where we got Potecchi's case and power source.
• Intel® Core™ i3-2100 Processor at Intel site, for the original processor in the HP Pro 3500 machine.

Notes: None.

Page last modified July 13, 2024.