10/29/2023

Getting Intel NUC DCCP 847DY -DYE Bluetooth working with Headphones for Windows 7 x64

This took a long time to figure out. Here are the basics;

The NUC arrives with [ Intel(R) Centrino(R) Advanced-N 6235 ] its a dual Ethernet Card and Bluetooth Adapter.

When you install the Ethernet drivers, it does not install a Manufacturers driver for the Bluetooth Adapter, instead it installs a generic Microsoft driver which does not include Bluetooth Profile Providers for the various functions of the device. Thus you could pair a headset with the adapter, it would show up in the Devices and Printers section, but it would have no profile providers and not appear as an audio device.

The fix is to find a complete manufacturers Bluetooth driver with Profile Providers and then pair the device.


 

TLDR - get the Lenovo 

Intel(R) Centrino(R) Wireless Bluetooth(R) 4.0 + High Speed Adapter Software for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - ThinkPad T431s, X230s

Its large,  298 MB but its worth it.

It comes from 2013 but it does install, separate and side by side to the existing and working Ethernet driver and it installs a complete set of Bluetooth Profile Providers.

A few tips;

Any pre-existing paired devices will not be "fixed" simply by installing this after they are paired and showing up in the Devices and Printers.. you have to remove them, reboot and pair again.

During the install there is an EXE and an MSI phase.. so it looks like its installing multiple packages using multiple methods.

After package install and pairing, Device Manager will show an anemic looking "Bluetooth Audio" device, which is a little odd for a Bluetooth device the Bluetooth Profile Providers don't usually show up in Device Manager.

All oddities aside this Lenovo driver package seems to follow the Bluetooth design guidelines to a "tee" and integrate with Windows 7 x64 very well.

Final Tip!

When downloading from Lenovo, it will popup a box asking for a Serial Number, lots of text .. ignore all of it. Go to the very bottom and click [Cancel] and a banner will appear over the same page you were launching the download from. It warns this software may not work with your hardware - click the download link again, it will begin downloading.









10/20/2023

Qnap vs Synology - NAS Storage systems

From my perspective; both are based on Linux, both are companies based in Taiwan. The QNAP OS (Qnap Turbo Station) is intuitive for Apple Mac users, The Synology OS (Disk Station Manager) is intuitive for Windows users. 

Qnap is more a build it yourself solution that lets you select from many hardware options and sticks to EXT4, everything is an add-on. It supports more traditional RAID levels and can appear bare bones. RAID drives need to be identical in size.

Synology is more a complete solution out of the box preconfigured hardware with fewer options, with access to BTRFS out of the box. RAID drives can be different sizes and leverage SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID) 1 and 2. So in that way its closer to having Drobo like features.