How to fix HDMI problem on Dell XPS 14 (2012 or 2013 version)

My HDMI port stopped working on both Fedora 19 and Windows 7 on my Dell XPS 14 laptop, which I purchased in 2013.  You may also have this problem with the Dell XPS 12 laptop.  Unfortunately, the solution to fix it was replace the motherboard, which Dell was able to do for no charge since my system had 1 week of warranty left.  If you don't have a warranty, you might be in an unfortunate situation.

I had been using the HDMI port for almost a year with no problems on both Linux and Windows.  When I started using the Display Port with the HDMI port to drive two external monitors, that worked for about a week, and then the HDMI port stopped working.  The Dell tech support person on the phone said that they do not recommend that I use both the HDMI and Display Port at the same time on the Dell XPS 14 model, because there is not enough power to drive both (for this particular laptop model).

Here is another guy who had a different Dell model with the same issue, and he also replaced the motherboards: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Displays_Monitors/Q_28337978.html

Fixing Google Chrome on Windows with EMET

Sometime during the spring and summer of 2014, Google Chrome was conflicting with Windows EMET.  Sometimes, Chrome wouldn't display Flash pages, sometimes you'd get the "He's Dead Jim" message, sometimes you'd get the "Woah Google Chrome has crashed" message, and other times, Chrome would start but you'd just get blank white pages, even with the settings page.  The Chromium developers fixed it, but as of July 9, 2014, the stable and beta versions of Chrome are still broken.  Here's a simple fix: install Google Chrome Canary, which is a more cutting edge version, which is working fine for me.

Solve Windows 7 hanging upon boot when loading classpnp.sys

If your Windows 7 installation hangs upon boot with the Starting Windows icon, even with safe mode, here's what might fix it.  If the booting process stalls a bit on classpnp.sys in safe mode, try rebooting, going into the BIOS, and either resetting the BIOS to the factory default settings, or changing the HDD type to something different.  Then reboot either in Safe mode or normal mode, and hopefully you'll get the login screen.

Why does Windows 7 reboot itself every 2 minutes?

I ran into this issue: I had installed the 320.49-desktop-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-english-whql.exe NVidia GeForce driver.  This forced me to install some type of .NET 4 (extra?) runtime environment.  The next time I booted my computer, Windows 7 would automatically reboot itself after about 2-3 minutes.  If I were in safe mode, it didn't reboot.  This is how I solved it:

1. Booted Windows 7 in safe mode (press F8 when booting)
2. Installed an old NVidia driver, such as 314.07-desktop-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-english-whql.exe
3. Reboot Windows in normal mode
4. Now you have to be real quick before your machine reboots: uninstall the .NET 4 runtime environment that had just been installed.  The uninstaller will ask you to reboot your machine.  Reboot it into normal mode.
5. If all goes well, your system will be back to normal!

You can also try reading the logs in the Event Viewer for some hints.

Similar symptom, different solution: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/d7379f4d-9337-4800-9c8b-582fd0c439a7/windows-7-pro-keep-restarting-on-itself-will-not-last-longer-than-2-minutes-but-safemode-works

Ditto: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1672386/computer-rebooting-pretty-stumped.html

Getting Windows 7 NFS Client to Connect to a Fedora Linux NFS Server

1) On linux:

sudo /sbin/chkconfig --level 345 nfs-server on
sudo /sbin/service nfs-server start
system-config-nfs

When the GUI pops up, add in your directory that you'd like to share, and the IP addresses (e.g. your Windows 7 IP address) you'd like to share your directory with.

2) Still on linux, edit the /etc/exports file, and change the following line:

(rw,sync)

to

(rw,sync,all_squash,anonuid=12345,anongid=23456)

where 12345 is your linux uid and 23456 is your linux gid.

That will make files written to your nfs server from anonymous client be owned by the specified uid and gid.

3) On linux, perform a

/sbin/service nfs-server restart

You can also perform the following, to confirm the directories shared:

sudo /usr/sbin/exportfs

4) On Windows 7, go to Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows features on or off

Check all three checkboxes under Services for NFS.  Optionally turn on Telnet Client if you'd like to test out your NFS connection over port 111 (telnet linuxServerHostname 111)

5) Windows-R (run) > \\linuxServerHostname\path\to\nfs\mountname

If all goes well, that will just magically work.

6) (Optional) To mount the nfs server to a Windows drive, you can perform the following on the command line:

mount \\linuxServerHostname\path\to\nfs\mountname z:

And to unmount, either:

umount -a

or

umount z:

Easy.  Well... at least, not too bad.

Maximize Window Vertically in Gnome

You can assign it to Alt-v.  Go to Applications > System Tools > System Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Windows > Maximize window vertically, and assign it to Alt-v

How do I get back the window frame in the Windows 7 Task Manager?

If you're missing the windows frame in Windows for the Task Manager, you can get it back by double clicking the very top part of the window.  This will "restore" (vs. maximum or minimize) the window size.