Saturday, 23 October 2021

Adding a Mitel 5201 phone to a 3300 controller


Previously we've been able to just change the MAC address on the 3300 controller when we swapped out faulty phones, but had some problems with that recently. The phones were appearing on DHCP and in the unprogrammed IP phones list (see under Maintenance > IP Telephone Inventory) but weren't actually picking up the extension number.

The phones start up normally, light flashing for a minute or so before going out for a couple of seconds and then re-appearing solid. Turns out the solid light indicates its in registration mode.

Make sure the previous MAC address of the old phone is cleared from extension number (Users and Devices > Advanced > IP telephones > Single line) and that it doesn't reappear after a few seconds (that would indicate the old phone is still online). Then on the phone you have to type the registration sequence NNNXXXX followed by the Hold key. NNN is the Registration Access Code (System Properties > System Feature Settings > System options) and XXXX is the extension number.

If succesful the light should go out and you get a dialtone. If it fails you'll see the light blink quickly and stay on solid.

I did notice the previous Registration Access Code was ### not sure whether that's what it actually was or if that means its masked. There's also a Replacement Access Code which I guess might get you around having to delete the MAC address of the previous phone.


Wednesday, 13 October 2021

Dell OptiPlex 7070 external speaker humming with Realtek audio driver

The external speaker on my Dell OptiPlex 7070 SFF starts humming every few minutes. A quiet low level, deep hum. Sounds a little like the speaker is vibrating on the desk. You can clear it by playing some audio or clicking the volume control button to make it ping. This is happening on Windows 11.

The installed driver is the latest one from Dell using the Command Update software. Its listed as version 6.0.9235.1 (7 Sept 2021). The problem goes away again if you revert to the Microsoft driver "High Definition Audio Device" version 10.0.22000.1 dated 5 June 2021.

To install it right-click on the Windows menu, choose Device Manger then Sound, video and game controllers. Right-click Realtek Audio > Update Driver > Browse My Computer for drivers > L
et me pick from a list and choose the High Definition Audio Device. You can accept the warning about compatibility.

Friday, 5 March 2021

HP ProDesk 400 offline missing ethernet network adapter

Possibly the strangest call for a while ... a cat stepped on the keyboard and the computer went offline! Tried all the obvious fixes for airplane mode, reset network, troubleshoot network, BIOS, etc, then spotted there was no ethernet device in the Network Adapters section of the Device Manager. Just the WAN Miniport drivers. You can see in the image a typical list - the Realtek is the ethernet cabled network connection. GBE stands for Gigabit Ethernet.

Looking under View > Show Hidden Devices revealed the Realtek driver, greyed out, not recognised by Windows as a current device. Updating the driver didn't recover it. Uninstalling it removed it completely and it didn't come back when clicking Scan for Hardware Changes.

The fix was to reload the driver from the latest HP download (transferred via USB flash drive from an online computer)
https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp95501-96000/sp95572.exe

Realtek Ethernet Controller Drivers version 10.32.1206.2018, dated 9 Apr 2019, at time of writing this.

Trust 1&1 Internet for your domain name registration, from only £1.99/year!. Check now!