The last Friday I received my Q1 and after have it turned on one time to be sure that everything was working I upgraded it's RAM to 1 GB. After this upgrade the AVS Now partition did not work anymore.
This issue was known to me and I also knew that the solution to it was to enter in the boot menu pressing F8 and deleting the hibernation file. But for my surprise that solution did not work for me. Talking with Kevin Tofel from jkontherun he advised me to do a full restore of AVS Partition using the option for a full restore after having formatted the Hard Drive. He had the same issue and that was the only solution that worked in his case.
Well, that did not work for me either. At that point we started to compare what was different between his machine and mine and we found that in my case the AVS Now Partition had a size of around 1.5 Gb while his partition was around 2.4 Gb. That clarified why my AVS Now was not working: my partition was not big enough to hold the new hibernation file. I spent around a day or two looking for a way to resize that partition but without any luck. At this point I thought that only one thing could be different between Kevin's Q1 and mine: The AVS Now Restoration CD. And I was right, my CD is version BA46-0496511 while his is version BA46-04965A12.
He made an image of his CD (around 400 MB compressed) and uploaded it for me in a ftp site, from that image I created a new CD and restored the AVS Now. That fixed the problem!
I want to add that Yesterday I contacted Samsung's Tech support and they did not have a clue of was going on. But they were very "friendly"and promised me to look into this problem and to contact me with a solution Today. And They did it. When I was in the middle of downloading the 400 MB file I received and email from Samsung asking me for my Q1 Serial No to send me a new CD.
Of course, I have sent Samsung all this information.
Conclusion: The AVS Now partition will not work after a RAM upgrade from 512 to 1Gb. This issue can be fixed entering in the boot Menu pressing F8 right after turning on the AVS Now, and deleting the hibernation file. This solution will work only if the AVS Now has a size of 2502 MBs. If your Partition is not that big you have to restore the AVS Now partition using a CD Version BA46-04965A12. You have to select the option of Restoring after a Hard Drive Format. This option will destroy all your Hard Drive information, that means that you will have to restore the XP partition and reinstall the drivers CD too.
It will be fantastic to install AVS on a EO AMtek T700...
ReplyDeleteITSLABEL (www.itslabel.com), the french import, work for a developpement like AVS on Linux support for AMtek T700.
And TabletKiosk ??
The problem is going to be how to log into that partition. The Samsung is prepared with a two ways switch to do that. In Amtek you will have to edit the boot.ini and add the second partition probably.
ReplyDeleteQ1 does not have a trackpoint...
ReplyDeleteThe EO does not have AVS...
The manufacturers refuse to propose perfect machines to us...
Samsung is stupid.
AMtek also.
that's why it's called first generation? ;)
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said: "It will be fantastic to install AVS on a EO AMtek T700..."
ReplyDeleteWell, I've been testing GeeXboX today in my ago7 (Amtek T700) and it works pretty fine, not perfect, but... it's free! :D
Link?
ReplyDeleteOops! Sorry Frank :)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.geexbox.org/en/index.html
Don't worry, I was looking for it using my new search engine!
ReplyDeleteCheck my latest news!
hal9000 tell us more about how did you use it? did you created a new partition in your Amtek or what?
ReplyDeleteNo... not yet at least. :)
ReplyDeleteI burned it to a CD-RW and booted from an external USB DVD/CD-RW combo drive. My next step will be to try and install it to an USB pen drive.
As for the features, I played DVD, WMV, WMA, MP3 and DivX AVI files with just some frame skip, but at this moment I don't know if it's for the decompresion process or for a low read speed of my external drive.
would be good if you can create a linux partition and install this in there!
ReplyDeleteUSB memory stick is good but I really do not like that too much.
Well, yes... that will be the next step to my next step :p
ReplyDeleteFirst I want to try with the memory stick just to see how fast or slow is the booting process with that kind of device. One think that is not working is the network connection, the WiFi card used in T700 is not supported by GeeXboX, not out of the box at least, but I'll investigate more on this, because it would be really fine to use the UPnP client capabilities of this media center.
what about the touch screen, it's working?
ReplyDeleteKeep me informed. I want to write about it here!
No, the touch screen is not working, but it doesn't matter really because GeeXbox can be controlled with the cursor keys, and enter and escape keys, and the keyboard hot key seems to be working as escape... So I'm much more interested on WiFi.
ReplyDeleteTested from USB memory stick and booting fine, but almost the same speed than from my USB CD drive.
ReplyDeleteHi, I just google for solutions for AVSNow and come across your blog.
ReplyDeleteJust wondering, if 2.5 GB is required for 1 GB RAM, then, what will be the requirement for 2 GB RAM? Since the RAM module is much cheaper than before, I'm planing to upgrade my Q1 to 2 GB RAM...
Nobody knows.
ReplyDeleteFor those of you who have wondered about a 2gig memory upgrade and also how to get AVS Now working, here you go.
ReplyDeleteI did some reading and figured out the problem.
The default installation of AVS Now creates a dedicated partition of 2gig.
Unfortunately, AVS Now when first launched creates a cache file equal to and maybe greater than the amount of physical RAM installed on the Q1.
As you can imagine, once you have installed 2gig of RAM, AVS Now cannot function, as its trying to install a +2gig cache file into a partition that is not big enough.
The way around it is this.
1. Download the GPARTED Live CD from this url:
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
2. Burn the Live CD image to CD with a utility that will allow ISO burning.
3. Ensure that you have the BIOS upgrade to allow the running of a 2gig memory upgrade.
4. Make sure you have done a full back up of your partition info and disk contents.
5. Install the Memory.
6. Boot your Samsung Q1 with the GPARTED Live CD you created at step 2.
7. Resize your partitions. I made the AVS Now Partition 6gig to be on the safe side.
You might need to decrease your primary (windows) partition in order to enlarge the AVS Now partition. Click on apply changes and wait for about 1 hour-ish.
8. Once complete, do a normal re-boot into windows. This will allow windows to acknowledge changes to the disk structure, then shut down.
9. Reboot with the AVS Now Restore disk.
10. Select "restore AVS Now" option. DO NOT REFORMAT!!
11. On completion, reboot. I had to do this 2 times. First time I think is to allow AVS Now to rebuild the cache file.
12. With luck it should all be working fine now and you can boot into windows and AVS Now, mine is! If not, thank god you made that back-up.
Good luck guys.
Thanks for the update Steve! Now I have to find what is AVS Now useful for! :D ;)
ReplyDeletehi, "On completion, reboot. I had to do this 2 times. First time I think is to allow AVS Now to rebuild the cache file."
ReplyDeletewhat process did you do 2 times, just a reboot or reboot twice using the restore cd?
further instructions gratefully anticipated.
Hi Sammy,
ReplyDeleteAfter adjusting the partitions and re-installing AVS-Now, select the reboot now button.
While your q1 shuts down and restarts, eject the AVS-Now install CD and continue to boot into windows.
Then shut down and reboot into AVS Now. At this point be patient it may take a while the first time and reboot.
The boot into AVS Now again and it should work ok.
Steve, it worked a treat, cant tell you how many times I've tried and failed, following various solutions on the net.
ReplyDeleteMy partition is just over 6gb, can I reduce this now? Seems hell of a lot of gb to keep for av station, just wondering.
Thanks again dude.
Sammy, Glad to be able to help and share the knowledge.
ReplyDelete6gig Probably is a bit of overkill, however I just wanted to be on the safe side while I was experimenting.
I think 3gig to 4gig should be about right. 2 to 2.5gig for the cache file. Plus some space for the program itself and all its thumbnails and config files. Unfortunately I have no idea how much space this takes up.
I'll have a look and see if I can find out anything more.
I finally cracked this whole AVS Now thing myself. I have the original Q1 and upgraded it to 2GB of PC5300 667 mghz RAM so I could get Vista installed. (mostly to run Oragami 2.0 - only will install on Vista). Like everyone else has seen, AVS stopped working after the upgrade. Not even the F8 and deleting restore data will work. I had to start over at the top to get everything back in order. Here are the steps I took.
ReplyDelete1. After installing the Ram, I had to format the whole drive. There is no other way to get this to work with Vista and AVS now.
2. Install AVS now with the AVS Now restore disk. After install, do not reboot and allow it to try to create the cache file via hibernation or you will have to do step one again.
3. After this step, download the Gparted partition program from sourceforge.net and burn the iso to disk.
4. Run Gparted and make the avs now partition 5 gb. This is all that is needed. I would start this before you go to bed because it requires 3 steps that take about 5 hours to do. Resizing the large disk for OS install, moving this partition to the end of disk, then resizing the AVS now partition.
5. Run the AVS now program and let it create the cache file and startup. It works just fine with nothing on the other partition but really useless right now until we can see the file system we are about to install.
6. Run the Vista install. When you get to the part where it you see the disk to install on, click on advanced and format the large partition and make sure it is clean. If you get any error messages, start the Vista install over again and do the format again. Let Vista do its thing and install.
7. After you are in vista, install the samsung Q1 drivers for Vista from the samsung site for chipset, lan, wlan, audio, video. Do a restart into vista. TURN OFF USER ACCOUNT CONTROL (UAC) or else you will get really frustrated and break your Q1 by accidentally throwing it off the balcony. - start menu--> type user accounts in the search --> click on search result in the top. You will see the option to turn it off.
If you get blue screens, install the rest of these drivers in safe mode. Shutdown and restart. Let it log in and check to make sure things are running. shutdown
8. Start AVS NOW and press f8 a couple of times and choose the option to delete the restore data. If you do not do this, you will not be able to see your Vista file system, rendering AVS now useless.
There you go guys ! Hope it helps.
I could not find this info anywhere on the net so I hopt it helps someone. Later!
Thanks Phil!
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone still have a copy of the BA46-04965A12 version of the AVS Now! Resore CD? I'd love to FTP a copy of it. I got a handmedown NP-Q1 and had the same problem after upgrading the RAM.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Let me see what I can find Kin. I may still have it laying around.
ReplyDeleteIf possible I could use also the AVS Now Restore CD ... I bought a used one Q1U and it didn t came to me with any kind of CD... I can provide an ftp server if someone has the CD .
ReplyDeletemy e-mail: dimlocogr(at)gmail(dot)com
Thanks in Advance :)