Here lies the remains of my Asus Craptop. It is now dead again. This time it was due to an attempt to improve it's performance with an SSD upgrade. The sharp laser cut steel frame for the hard drive had worn away much of the plastic tape and coating on the flex circuit for the keyboard during 5 years of intermittent use. It cut completely through the flex as I pulled the plug in hard drive from the computer.
I ordered a replacement keyboard from China and reassembled the computer so that I could use it on a recent trip with a wireless USB keyboard.
The new keyboard has arrived from China. It is a flimsy flexible thing as was the original. It is attached to the front panel by melting the edges of about 50 tiny plastic pins that protrude through the keyboard from the front panel. The only way to remove the original keyboard is to cut the heads off of each one of them. This leaves no way to mount the new keyboard other than tape and hot glue.
I give this unfinished repair about a 50% chance of success.
I ordered a replacement keyboard from China and reassembled the computer so that I could use it on a recent trip with a wireless USB keyboard.
The new keyboard has arrived from China. It is a flimsy flexible thing as was the original. It is attached to the front panel by melting the edges of about 50 tiny plastic pins that protrude through the keyboard from the front panel. The only way to remove the original keyboard is to cut the heads off of each one of them. This leaves no way to mount the new keyboard other than tape and hot glue.
I give this unfinished repair about a 50% chance of success.
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I agree.
It seems that "false advertising" these days doesn't get investigated like it should.
Philips, Cree, and Luxeon are reliable brands, yes.
Back in may 2019, I re-did my kitchen "under counter" lighting, having been fed up with the cheap chinese flourescent tubes that kept crapping out.
I researched and chose the Luxeon XR-2020 module strips - 11 inches long - and bright as hell, (1100 Lumens each) with a service life of decades.
Four of those strips now illuminate my counters with the equivalent of 400W of light - using less than 35 watts AC - dimmable to a night-light glow with a variable power supply designed by me.
I'm highly impressed by them and recommend them to anyone.
The Philips LED bulbs out in my garden area have been going flawlessly for 9 years now. - on from 6PM till 1:30 AM every evening.
And when I do custom work on stuff, I use Cree LED's.
It would appear that the laptop surgery that was shown in post #582 was successful and it is working again....for now.
George -- where did you get the six pointed "star driver" to remove the screws of the laptop's bottom. I have nothing that tiny in my tool-kit.
I am going to redo the power supply connections which always seem to fail.
Mine has ordinary Phillips screws on the back cover and throughout the insides.
I did get a cheap set of "electronic tools" on Amazon some time ago that has the bits needed to crack open most electronics.
I recently got a Ryobi 100+ piece driver set at an outlet mall tool store, but I wouldn't recommend that junk to anyone. The first three small bits that I tried just twisted up when I tried to crack open a dead hard drive.
I did get a cheap set of "electronic tools" on Amazon some time ago that has the bits needed to crack open most electronics.
I recently got a Ryobi 100+ piece driver set at an outlet mall tool store, but I wouldn't recommend that junk to anyone. The first three small bits that I tried just twisted up when I tried to crack open a dead hard drive.
Hi Jack,
Often those bit assortments will have the proper bits. If you get a set for "security screws", you should be able to open just about anything.
-Chris
Often those bit assortments will have the proper bits. If you get a set for "security screws", you should be able to open just about anything.
-Chris
Harbor Freight used to sell those little security-bit sets a few years ago, when I lived in California.
I think I've seen the same item at Princess Auto in British Columbia.
I seem to have lost my old ones, and I need a new set myself. So many manufacturers use those annoying "security screws" to try and keep you from repairing their products now.
-Gnobuddy
The CFLs have never quite, for me, shot flames out, but I've seen them try. Between crap electronics and the mild Mercury I am gradually getting them ALL out of the house.
I have had few LED failures but I assume they are built by the same wizards who built those CFL ballasts down to a penny.
The can my LED module is in was originally rated for 100W incandescent. None of these new lamps can throw 100W of steady heat. Yes, they may smell.
In 2006 I had to reload Windows onto my PC.
I had a backup drive which held a copy of all the data on the c: drive so great stuff.
Installed Windows on my C: drive no problems.
I then came to copy from backup drive to c: drive and Windows install had formatted both drives........
I managed to find some DVD's I had burned months earlier but they were miles out of date. Also a lot of stuff i had wasnt even on DVD's so was lost for good.
Since then been paranoid about losing data. So backup drive, 3 flash drives, occasional DVD and flash drive with everything on in the car in case of pc theft or a fire.
Been fixing some software I recently wrote.
The software has a menu bar and a toolbar and for some reason as the menu bar was updated the toolbar flickered annoyingly.
The menu bar changes depending on software mode so couldnt just display it once on program start. I found that when I clear the menu bar before adding items again it flickered. So fix was to add blank item at the end of the menu bar. Delete all items in menu bar except blank item and add new items again. A bit of a bodge but works fine now.
The software has a menu bar and a toolbar and for some reason as the menu bar was updated the toolbar flickered annoyingly.
The menu bar changes depending on software mode so couldnt just display it once on program start. I found that when I clear the menu bar before adding items again it flickered. So fix was to add blank item at the end of the menu bar. Delete all items in menu bar except blank item and add new items again. A bit of a bodge but works fine now.
Could you guys maybe bring this to a full recycle of history and move the computer discussion to "The computer thread" and stop derailing this thread, a la 2 years ago?
Hi PRR,
We got rid of all CFL lamps in the house as soon as LED lighting became stable. I still have some fixtures with circle-line bulbs. I also now have circular LED assemblies with ballasts. Guess what I'm going to do shortly? 🙂
They aren't a 1:1 replacement, so there will be some arranging and multiple LED assemblies used. Too bad that EL never amounted to the high brightness that LEDs can throw out. From playing with them, I discovered that the higher the current you can force through them, the brighter they are. A sine wave isn't going to do what you want. So you want to hit the panels with high frequency transients (in other words, not a sine wave). Now to figure out if a square wave, triangle wave or some other "peaky" waveform turns out to be most effective. One thing to remember, the panels sing with whatever wave form you hit them with.
-Chris
We got rid of all CFL lamps in the house as soon as LED lighting became stable. I still have some fixtures with circle-line bulbs. I also now have circular LED assemblies with ballasts. Guess what I'm going to do shortly? 🙂
They aren't a 1:1 replacement, so there will be some arranging and multiple LED assemblies used. Too bad that EL never amounted to the high brightness that LEDs can throw out. From playing with them, I discovered that the higher the current you can force through them, the brighter they are. A sine wave isn't going to do what you want. So you want to hit the panels with high frequency transients (in other words, not a sine wave). Now to figure out if a square wave, triangle wave or some other "peaky" waveform turns out to be most effective. One thing to remember, the panels sing with whatever wave form you hit them with.
-Chris
Hi Nigel,
I'm only one lonely little moderator, but I would tend to agree with you, This is all about fixing things. But, as this is primarily an audio oriented web site, I can also see where leadbelly is coming from. Since we are also in the lounge area, rules are somewhat relaxed as you fellas know. Given this place is for our members, you should be able to sort it out yourselves.
One almost rule we mods have is that we don't moderate a thread we are participating in. So, would you all prefer the moderating team gets involved? Or, can you sort it out on your own? Personally I would prefer that participating members come to some kind of decision on your own.
-Chris
I'm only one lonely little moderator, but I would tend to agree with you, This is all about fixing things. But, as this is primarily an audio oriented web site, I can also see where leadbelly is coming from. Since we are also in the lounge area, rules are somewhat relaxed as you fellas know. Given this place is for our members, you should be able to sort it out yourselves.
One almost rule we mods have is that we don't moderate a thread we are participating in. So, would you all prefer the moderating team gets involved? Or, can you sort it out on your own? Personally I would prefer that participating members come to some kind of decision on your own.
-Chris
"You cant please all of the people, all of the time."
I just felt the comment was a bit harsh in the lounge.
I didn't mean to be harsh, and I'm obviously not the only one who thinks so, read post #539. In this case, history is repeating itself almost exactly in a 2 year period: "The computer thread" was started in January 2018.
If the subject was meant to be just audio then the lounge isn't appropriate.
Lounge is defined as "other subjects" or maybe I maybe read it wrong ?
If repair can be compared with the word fix, then it doesn't mean you have to physically open something to complete the task. While I agree this thread is more interesting when discussing physical repairs, I think we have to consider the other side of the coin.
I agree that forums are not used consistently. My opinion is that "Everything Else" is for technical, non-audio threads and "Lounge" is for non-technical threads.
My point was that long posts about reinstalling OS's on computers are derailing it, and arguably are not really a "repair" except in the broadest and useless sense.
My point was that long posts about reinstalling OS's on computers are derailing it, and arguably are not really a "repair" except in the broadest and useless sense.