FAT32 is essentially the “standard file system” for many devices, especially embedded and older ones. The Nintendo Wii, for example, only supports FAT32-formatted SD cards, just as many media players (car radios) can only read USB sticks with the FAT32 file system. It has been supported by Microsoft operating systems since Windows 95, but with some limitations – Wikipedia lists these very nicely.

One of these limitations is that Windows only allows formatting with the FAT32 file system for drives with a storage capacity of up to and including 32 GB when formatting via the GUI (context menu in Explorer). Above this, only NTFS or exFAT are offered, both of which are incompatible file systems for many devices.

This is incomprehensible, as significantly larger volumes are supported depending on the selected sector size (up to 2 TiB with the universally compatible standard sector size of 512 bytes!). However, the limitation of individual files to a maximum of 4 GiB cannot be circumvented.

There are several ways…

…to format a drive as FAT32 in Windows anyway. For example, using the command line, where there is no 32 GB limitation:

format S: /FS:FAT32 /Q

format S: /FS:FAT32 /Q

The most convenient way for me so far has been to use a small program from “Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd“: small, free, standalone, and available with or without a GUI.

A description of the application can be found here, and you can download it directly from the developer as a console version here (archive.org). My preferred GUI version is described here (direct download of the EXE, archive.org).

Usage

The application is very easy to use – connect the drive to the computer, ensure that there is only one main partition (Control Panel -> Administration -> Disk Management) and run “guiformat.exe” (as administrator, like requested).

Select the appropriate letter from the drop-down list, set the sector size (for a total size of less than 2 TiB, select 512 bytes to ensure maximum compatibility) and format.
Done!

The file explorer also displays everything correctly as expected:

Der Beitrag Format drives with a capacity of over 32 GB as FAT32 under Windows erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

For the purpose of significantly improving comparability, sp00n, who is active on GitHub and Hardwareluxx, among others, has compiled many benchmark results for different Cinebench versions.

More results are available there for Cinebench R15, R20, R23, and 2024. He makes these available for download on his GitHub repository:

https://github.com/sp00n/cinebench_scores (ZIP-Archive)

To use the downloaded text files, copy the ones that match your version to the “cb_ranking” subfolder in the respective program directory. Then simply start Cinebench and the list of comparison results should be considerably longer.

Der Beitrag Additional results for Cinebench erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

The underlying product is Cinema 4D from the German company Maxon – a performance-hungry rendering software.
Its development history is really interesting; the first version was released back in 1993 for the Commodore Amiga.

This software was used in several movies, for example:

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
• Beowulf (2007)
• The Golden Compass (2007)
• Surf’s Up (2007)
• Spider-Man 3 (2007)
• Chronicles of Narnia (Part 1: 2005 / Part 2: 2008 / Part 3: 2010)
• Serenity (2005)
• Inception (2010)
• Van Helsing (2004)
• The Polarexpress (2004)
• He Was a Quiet Man (2007)
• Iron Man 3 (2013)
• Pacific Rim (2013)
• Furious 7 (2015)
• Avengers: Endgame (2019)

…Bleeding edge rendering technology, you might say. Cinebench was then created to test the performance of hardware for use with Cinema 4D: The first version was released at the end of 1999 and was called “Cinebench 2000”. Since then, there have been regular new releases of this benchmark and annual releases of the actual Cinema 4D software, available for Windows and macOS (newer versions for x86, x86-64, and ARM64).

Cinebench is mainly used to test processors; either all threads or a single thread can be fully loaded and measured. Many versions also offer GPU testing. Here is an overview of the different versions in the form of screenshots:

CineBench 2000

CINEBENCH 2003

CINEBENCH 9.5

CINEBENCH R10

CINEBENCH R11.5

CINEBENCH R15

CINEBENCH R20

CINEBENCH R23

Cinebench 2024

Cinebench 2026

Compatibility and more detailed information

Here, I have compiled a table of all versions known to me, including relevant information:

I myself always use version R23 wherever possible, including additional results for better comparability (more on this in the next post). In terms of load and the hardware period I’m dealing with, this is a good compromise between load and compatibility: After all, I work a lot with older systems (Windows 10 and older) – so it’s helpful when two slower cores and relatively little RAM are still able to run in order to compare the existing hardware or test the effects of settings.

Regardless of this, R23 is also my standard version for overclocking processors and the version used in this blog to test and measure almost all CPUs that appear in “Hardware Setups”.

Even the first version, “CineBench 2000,” is still executable under Windows 11 (64-bit) today!

Download

All versions can be conveniently downloaded from TechPowerUp, among other places.

Der Beitrag Cinebench: The long history of a benchmark erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

Over the years and through numerous new installations of Windows in all editions, versions, and variants, I have established a selection of free standard software. Much of it is even open source, which is even better.

Of course, this is a process based on experience, so the software selection changes from time to time. However, the following list has proven itself over the years and also includes information on what is best suited for whom.

I assume that the software will be used on Windows 10 or 11, on x64-based hardware.

System

Fernzugriff

Hardware

Overclocking

Internet, Browser and E-Mail

Extensions for Mozilla Firefox

Messaging

Multimedia

Network

Office

Graphic / Image Editing

Safety

Optical Media

Tools

Der Beitrag Recommended free software for Windows erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

Like many others, I have found that the fan curves of various ThinkPads are not ideally chosen. In less powerful models (such as our T440s with a 15-watt CPU and no dedicated GPU), this is tolerable, but even these models run at higher speeds than necessary more often than not.

On devices with decent power consumption and output, such as our W540 with a 47-watt CPU and 55-watt GPU, this behavior is less tolerable—the fan runs at low speed for a long time until it can’t go any slower, then revs up repeatedly to quickly cool down the heat generated, only to slow down again a few seconds later. This cycle repeats itself endlessly.

With modern Windows versions such as 10 or 11, the fan often revs up because background processes such as Defender generate short load peaks, which in turn cause heat and thus fan speed peaks. With Windows 7, this behavior is far less pronounced.

TPFanControl

Many ThinkPad users are tech-savvy, and the devices are known for being robust, repairable, expandable, and powerful. You could also call them the “MacBook Pro for practical users”.

As a result, software was developed to control fan behavior very precisely via the energy management EC registers in the devices. The first version was developed by shimodax until 2009, and the second version was then developed by troubadix until 2015. Later, a third iteration by Shuzhengz was added.

The first and second versions of the program are no longer being developed, but the existing versions still run on the supported models. On my W540 running Windows 11 Professional 25H2, the second version from troubadix has been running without any problems and to my satisfaction so far.

Links and instructions

The first version is available at SourceForge:

Thinkpad Fan Controller (tpfancontrol)
by shimodax, troubadix
Click here for the repository

The second variant, which I and many others have successfully used as an alternative in ThinkWiki:

TPFanControl
by troubadix
Click here to visit the website
Good, detailed instructions can be found in ThinkWiki

And finally, the newcomer on GitHub:

TPFanCtrl2
by Shuzhengz
Click here for the repository

Der Beitrag Perfect fan control on Lenovo ThinkPads erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

It is widely recommended and makes a lot of sense to back up your smartphone or tablet more often than not. The easiest but also most expensive way is what a large proportion of Apple device users do: take out a large, paid iCloud subscription and back up everything there.

This is very convenient, but that’s about it. Extract individual data? No chance. Protect data from unauthorized access? Difficult to verify. In addition, backups via mobile networks cost data. There has always been an alternative: making backups locally using iTunes, in this case on Windows. But this also has its pitfalls: everything is backed up to the boot drive C:\ by default and cannot be configured.

Very inconvenient. Imagine an almost full 256 GB iPhone being backed up to a 512 GB system SSD. Neither of these are unrealistic sizes. First, the SSD will fill up very quickly, and second, write operations are exactly what you should avoid with SSDs.

This is particularly inconvenient when backing up multiple Apple devices. The amount of data quickly gets out of hand.

What to do?

There is a fairly simple solution, which would not be necessary if you could configure the destination path in iTunes. Of course, you need a location where the backups can be created instead. An internal or external hard drive would be conceivable, but a Samba network share would be recommended. In our case, we use a Synology NAS for backup purposes.

You can hide the real location for iTunes at the file system level by creating a symbolic link. This has to be done via the command line, but it’s very easy.

First, iTunes must be closed. Then navigate to

%appdata%\Apple Computer\MobileSync

%appdata%\Apple Computer\MobileSync

and, if necessary, copy the existing “Backup” subfolder to the new, desired destination. The folder must then be deleted from its old location. If there is no such folder, no local backup of an Apple device has been created yet.

The “MobileSync” folder should now be empty. Now open a command line with the Windows key + R or via the Start menu with the command “cmd” and create a symbolic link with this line:

mklink /D "%appdata%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup" "\\DS918\iTunes\Backup"

mklink /D "%appdata%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup" "\\DS918\iTunes\Backup"

The destination “\DS918\iTunes\Backup” must of course exist. If everything worked, you can close the command line and should now see a folder called “Backup” again under “%appdata%\Apple Computer\MobileSync” but with the usual “shortcut icon” next to it. Double-clicking on it should now take you to the destination folder, which could be anywhere.

Success.

When you create backups with iTunes, they will now always be saved in the desired path. In our case, the folder already takes up a whopping 1.2 TB of storage space, which would be more than impractical on a boot drive (two iPhones, some older backups, and three iPads).

The disadvantage is that you have to perform this procedure on every computer on which you want to use iTunes. However, the symlink has always survived in-place upgrades of Windows so far.

Der Beitrag Store iTunes backups centrally on a network drive erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

Not too long ago, I came across this fossil of a monochrome laser printer, with a request to dispose of it:

⧉ HP

⧉ HP

⧉ HP

Before throwing it away, I googled it, and my interest was piqued. Should I save this device from the scrap heap? I immediately liked the fact that it only has two buttons and a power switch on the side, that’s it. The easiest way to decide something like this is to weigh up the pros and cons compared to a modern printer.

The starting point:

We currently have two printers in use, both of which are multifunction devices.
Both are laser printers, a monochrome Brother* and a color HP Color LaserJet Pro (Newer model*):

⧉ Brother

⧉ HP

I also ended up with the Brother, as well as the HP LaserJet 2100M.
I bought the HP second-hand—it prints well, quickly, and can do just about anything.
Years ago, it replaced a very unreliable HP Photosmart inkjet printer (due to infrequent use). So why have multiple printers?

The original toner cartridges for the M477fdw* are expensive, and I have had several very unpleasant experiences with refilled or non-original cartridges from various toner and printer manufacturers. In addition, the durability of the wear parts is no longer what it used to be.

The Brother has the great advantage of being monochrome—meaning it only has one toner cartridge—black.
These are relatively inexpensive*, even from Brother directly. Other replacement parts such as rollers or replacement drums are also affordable, at least. Unfortunately, they didn’t skimp on buttons and key combinations.

It prints well, but has already had to work hard and therefore shows slight signs of wear.

What does he need to be able to do to be considered?

My requirements for a printer, in order to decide whether I consider a model to be worth using, are clear:

• Network-compatible, preferably via Ethernet, Wifi if no other option is available
• Low maintenance costs
• Acceptable print quality
• Preferably not an inkjet printer—long periods of non-use are very unfavorable (drying out)
• OPTIONAL: Drivers that don’t cause any problems

After looking in the service manual (https://www.laserexpressinc.com/manuals/HP/hp-lj-2100-service-manual.pdf, archive.org) and the German user manual (https://printego.de/mediafiles/pdf/Laserdrucker/HP/HP%20LaserJet%202100-handbuch.pdf, archive.org) the decision has been made:
If financially feasible and repairable, the HP LaserJet 2100M will remain in use!

Why and how come? Simple:

• The mechanics are very robust.
• Any relevant spare parts are easy to obtain.
• The print quality is really good at 1200 x 1200 dpi, especially considering its age.
• IEC power connector*. Standard.
• The documentation is very good. It could hardly be better.
• No ozone, it’s that modern – luckily, because that would have been a deal-breaker. Health comes before economy.
• The “M” model has an additional 4 MB memory bar installed at the factory, along with PostScript capabilities! (Presumably, M stands for Macintosh, which was necessary or advantageous at the time).
• Toner is cheap*, even from third-party suppliers, and lasts a very long time (5000 pages at 5% coverage!).
• The RAM is expandable (4 MB was standard, so the “M” model with an additional 4 MB has a total of 8 MB)!
• The most important thing for me: you can optionally upgrade to network functionality!

If you read a little about this printer on the Internet, you will find that it seems to have been a real “workhorse,” and many older people among us still mourn the loss of this model series today. Especially in HP’s home country – the USA.

Having a monochrome alternative to the existing Brother is also no mistake, because who knows if something will become irreparably defective one day.

Is it printing at all?

First, I simply pressed the two buttons on the large dial to print a test page. That’s what it says in the manual.

Disappointing, everything is covered in streaks and the opacity is only half there – but at least the rest seems to be working, no unusual noises, etc.
The proportions are correct where the print should have been, i.e., the mechanics are working as intended (the spacing is good, no perspective distortion, etc.).

Next, as also described very well in the manual, open and close all maintenance flaps.
What do I see? The toner is ancient, from a third-party supplier, and has also been refilled with a bottle (the necessary hole was sealed with tape). There was also some toner dust on the toner roller, which shouldn’t be there. All of this could explain the poor print quality.

In addition, the “interior” is visibly dirty, especially the rollers.
So first of all, remove everything you can, blow it out, and clean everything carefully (isopropanol*).

Without knowing whether it would help, I went in search of a better, preferably original toner cartridge:
I quickly discovered a significantly overpriced but originally packaged HP toner cartridge (96A) from a commercial supplier. It couldn’t have been any cheaper than new old stock:

⧉ HP

⧉ HP

Once the toner arrived, I installed it immediately. The printer itself had already been thoroughly cleaned and reassembled.
And lo and behold: the 2100M prints, and even prints really well!

On the first clearly legible test page of the 2100M, I discovered that this model had printed just ~13,200 pages in its “working life” – which is really not much for a business laser printer (a toner cartridge is supposed to last for 5,000 pages, so the device has probably only seen three). The service manual states on page 13 that this model is designed for approximately 15,000 pages per month.

Of course, this value could have been reset, as I will do later.
But the overall condition actually contradicts this – not even the plastic housing is anywhere near yellowed. There was also no typical wear and tear inside, such as grooves, scuff marks, or a lot of paper abrasion.

What can be improved? More RAM!

From a technical point of view, the printer must have a total of four RAM banks, one of which is permanently assigned and directly equipped (i.e., without a slot) with 4 MB.
Therefore, there are only three slots under the plastic cover above the mainboard, of which the rearmost slot in the 2100M is additionally occupied with the special “4 MB incl. PostScript emulation” module described above. This results in a total of 8 MB RAM.

⧉ HP

⧉ HP

⧉ HP

To expand the whole thing, I bought two used DIMMs with 4 MB each for the two RAM slots still available on the printer’s mainboard, adding 8 MB – giving a total of 16 MB with PostScript emulation.
According to the manual, a maximum of two 32 MB modules would have been possible, resulting in a total of 72 MB (32 + 32 + 4 + 4), or even 100 MB if the 4 MB PostScript DIMM had been removed.

At the time, however, only the aforementioned 4 MB modules were really affordable and compatible for me to purchase, and more RAM doesn’t directly make the printer faster, it just provides more space for data (let’s be realistic, $50 plus shipping for ONE 32 MB memory module would be completely disproportionate, which was roughly the price).

I didn’t plan on breaking any world records with PDFs, so I found 16 MB acceptable (better than 8 MB).
If I ever come across larger sticks in the right format (8 MB, 16 MB, or ideally 32 MB) at a reasonable price, I might replace them after all. But I don’t think so.

What else can be improved? The interface, network!

In my opinion, the most important upgrade by far, which suddenly makes the old device very useful again, is mentioned on page 36 of the user manual—the possible expansion cards that fit into the device—for network functionality. The mere fact that this EIO card slot (EIO = Enhanced Input/Output, proprietary to HP) exists at all (on the motherboard, top right connection) shows that devices used to be designed differently – more durable, more maintainable. These are the compatible options:

Without one of these cards, printing is only possible via the parallel port (LPT), LocalTalk, or infrared—none of which are particularly convenient options these days. USB was not yet available on this model, but I wouldn’t have wanted local printing anyway. It is possible to adapt LPT to USB at a reasonable cost, but as I said, networking is the goal.

So I went in search of the only sensible option available today (100 Mbit, i.e., Fast Ethernet—this will definitely work with any network device such as a switch or router upstream; 10 Mbit is already very outdated. I don’t think the theoretically higher speed of 100 Mbit will have much influence on the actual data transfer speed of the printer—everything else in this Stone Age device limits it anyway) in the list above.

I was able to purchase a used JetDirect 600N card in what I consider to be the optimal J3113A version, i.e., Fast Ethernet (10/100 Mbit), for just €12.40 including shipping:

⧉ HP

⧉ HP

Communication via the network was initially impossible because the existing configuration had disabled DHCP (statically configured). By reading the manual, a full reset of everything was quickly accomplished without having to use LPT, and the 2100M now happily communicates at 100 Mbit on the local network via an IP assigned by the router, as DHCP is now reactivated (and working perfectly).

Controls, settings?

It should be mentioned that this printer, more precisely via the now retrofitted JetDirect-600N print server, could also be configured with software that is as old as it is completely incompatible today called “JetAdmin” or a web interface (yes, seriously!). I even got the software to run on Windows XP.

It turned out that this exercise was not in vain – after a full reset, the printer was set to the US-typical “LETTER” format with regard to page margins and standard format, but I was able to change this back to “DIN-A4” using the software. The test page already looked much better in terms of the side margins. I then changed the name of the printer there as well, to make it easier to find on the network.

The web interface only runs in a (very) old version of Internet Explorer with the Java plugin enabled – that also just about worked under Windows XP, but even then I had to turn down or disable absolutely every security setting to get it to work. It was very slow, but at least it worked. Incidentally, the default format setting described above cannot be changed there.

The software actually expects Windows 95, 98, or 2000 – you can tell.

Driver?

Fortunately, this wasn’t a problem at all with this old printer, which I hadn’t expected.
Anyone who has ever had to struggle with a printer driver knows how exhausting and time-consuming it can be—especially when the manufacturer’s drivers are huge but only have limited compatibility (hello, modern HP!).

In this case, however, HP in the 90s deserves praise. But this is probably also due to the technical simplicity of the device, which can only print in black and white and nothing else—a lot has changed since then.

How to get your older darling ready for printing:

Windows provides the necessary drivers via Windows Update. The following procedure installs the printer on modern operating systems such as Windows 10 or 11:

• The printer must, of course, be connected to the network, have an IP address, and be in working order—or it must be connected locally to the LPT port or to a USB port via an LPT-USB adapter.
• Open “Settings” and select “Bluetooth and devices”
• Select “Printers and scanners” and then click the “Add device” button.
• After a brief unsuccessful search, the text link “Add manually” will appear. Click on it.
• The first entry is spot on: “My printer is a little older…” – Correct, so click “Next”
• The LaserJet 2100M should then appear in the list. Click on it and click “Next”
• When selecting the driver, click on the “Windows Update” button.
• Now it takes a while for Windows to download all (!) INF printer drivers available online from Microsoft.
• When the lists finally appear, select “HP” or “Hewlett-Packard” on the left and “HP LaserJet 2100 Series (PCL 6)” on the right.
• Click “Next” to install the driver. It doesn’t take long, and you’re done!

I think this is a great solution, I can’t say otherwise. If all printers worked so smoothly, this issue wouldn’t be such a pain so often. Here you can see how the printer was correctly installed under Windows 11:

Conclusion and thoughts on this printer:

As expected, the device is very slow when it comes to complex documents—really extremely slow.
Large PDFs with many pages can take tens of minutes to print (graphics in particular slow it down considerably). This is where you really notice the extremely outdated hardware struggling with modern data volumes (16 MB of RAM isn’t exactly a lot either, which doesn’t help).

For text documents or simpler print jobs, on the other hand, it is downright fast, and the print quality is very good, which surprised me. The opacity is comparable to a brand-new laser printer, as is the sharpness.

Based on my experience with this model, I would say that it is ideal for use as a label printer, e.g. for shipping labels, in conjunction with self-adhesive paper labels (e.g. from Avery Zweckform*). Or for invoices, delivery notes, labels, and data sheets. Anything that consists mainly of text or simpler structures. The 2100M can play to all its strengths with such requirements and is incomparably robust and inexpensive.

I also find it technically interesting that inside there is an Intel 80960J RISC processor with an impressive 66 MHz driving a 33 MHz bus. Who can say that their printer has “Intel Inside”?
Even if it’s not an x86 processor, which Intel is known for.

All the components I bought for upgrading or retrofitting cost less than €50, including everything except paper. Monochrome laser printing doesn’t get much cheaper than this – the brand-new toner cartridge could last for 5,000 pages.

I’m satisfied and confident that this 2100M has the potential to last for decades to come.
Finally, here is a photo of the “nameplate” on my model:

Der Beitrag HP LaserJet 2100M – A surprising dinosaur erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.