Personal computing discussed

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llisandro
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Nov 06, 2017 8:56 am

on a related note, does Noctua make bathroom fans? :wink:
 
just brew it!
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Nov 06, 2017 9:11 am

llisandro wrote:
on a related note, does Noctua make bathroom fans? :wink:

I'm sure you could rig one with a 12V power brick. Some duct tape and string might also be involved...
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
llisandro
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Nov 06, 2017 9:33 am

I guess that would negate, my primary, umm, secondary reason for using the fan. :oops:
 
Usacomp2k3
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Nov 06, 2017 10:21 am

How about a Delta?
 
ludi
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Nov 06, 2017 12:56 pm

just brew it! wrote:
I'm a little surprised they can get hot enough to start a fire, given the relatively small amounts of power these motors use. But I imagine current draw goes up during a stall; combine that with the airflow stopping and you've got a bad combination.

Yeah, it's a cumulative thing, on the order of hours. But since the fan is stalled, people are less likely to notice that the switch is still turned on (or in the case of the blown timer, that the switch is incapable of turning off the circuit).
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Usacomp2k3
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Nov 06, 2017 12:59 pm

That reminds me that I need to actually install the exhaust fans. Our house is old enough to have been built before that code was in-place. I ordered the stuff off Amazon about 6 months ago but never installed them in either bathroom. Now the weather is cool enough that I can go in the attic without sweating to death.
 
Mr Bill
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Nov 06, 2017 4:19 pm

Waco wrote:
An air compressor with a good impact wrench works magic on bolts like that. Done are my days with 6 foot levers and lots of weight only to break tools and/or snap bolts.

PB Blaster + impact wrench == unstuck bolt. :)
Makes me wonder how its possible to compare static torque wrench measurements versus variable torque impact wrenches.
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Darkmage
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Nov 07, 2017 7:58 am

The sole of my shoe started to become unglued from the rest of the shoe. I tried a quick fix with a hot glue gun, but that lasted about two days. So last night I mixed up some epoxy and did it that way. Pop in something long on YouTube and just held it closed while the epoxy dried. So far, so good.
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SecretSquirrel
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Nov 07, 2017 8:10 am

Darkmage wrote:
The sole of my shoe started to become unglued from the rest of the shoe. I tried a quick fix with a hot glue gun, but that lasted about two days. So last night I mixed up some epoxy and did it that way. Pop in something long on YouTube and just held it closed while the epoxy dried. So far, so good.


Shoe Goo

--SS
 
DPete27
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Nov 07, 2017 1:20 pm

My neighbor shared this nugget with me a couple months ago. Anyone hate those annoying dried water splotches you get when you wash your car in the driveway? It's annoying, especially on the windshield. Wet a (clean) rag with white vinegar and wipe those pesky spots right off!!

This was a "duh" moment for me when he mentioned it, but I'd never thought of it.
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Kougar
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Nov 07, 2017 7:58 pm

SecretSquirrel wrote:


Or GOOP, they made a shoe variety. GOOP comes in many formulas. It's like liquid duck tape but better if you match the right formula for the need. Besides the different materials the formulas are designed for most goo/goops have different water resistance, setting temps, and high temp thresholds so keep an eye on those if shopping between various goo/goops and the like.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Nov 07, 2017 8:02 pm

DPete27 wrote:
My neighbor shared this nugget with me a couple months ago. Anyone hate those annoying dried water splotches you get when you wash your car in the driveway? It's annoying, especially on the windshield. Wet a (clean) rag with white vinegar and wipe those pesky spots right off!!

This was a "duh" moment for me when he mentioned it, but I'd never thought of it.

It also removes mineral deposits from beer fermenters. Not that most of the other people reading this thread would care... :lol:
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
ludi
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Nov 07, 2017 11:00 pm

Mr Bill wrote:
Waco wrote:
An air compressor with a good impact wrench works magic on bolts like that. Done are my days with 6 foot levers and lots of weight only to break tools and/or snap bolts.

PB Blaster + impact wrench == unstuck bolt. :)
Makes me wonder how its possible to compare static torque wrench measurements versus variable torque impact wrenches.

The impact wrench is set to break away at its torque limit...and re-engage, break away again, and again, several times a second. Has the effect of hammering the bolt loose (or tight) with dozens or hundreds of impacts at the torque limit, rather than one massive, over-torque twist with the breaker bar, which tends to crystalize the metal in the bolt shaft. For wheel lugs and other bolts with significant torque limits, you're supposed to stop using the impact wrench as soon as it breaks the first time, then use a static torque wrench to finish the job.

Speaking as someone who has replaced a lot of sheared wheel studs, not all of them my fault.
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Chuckaluphagus
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sat Nov 25, 2017 4:10 pm

Took one of the last warm afternoons to remove the spalling paint of the concrete step at the front door and reseal it. We think that, like the paint job applied to the outside of the house before it went on the market, the concrete was handled incompetently. Better to get it done now before the winter sets in.
 
a_non_moose
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sat Nov 25, 2017 6:53 pm

Not today, but last week had the pleasure of *finally* getting fans that I ordered; from China and then 'egg and wallah, the 'egg's arrived 3 days before the China ones did. Even after ording 1.5 weeks later. urf.

Anywho: Radeon 6850. Breakdown the whole card to get to fans. Busted one mount because of stubborn screw. Tiny, tiny screw that seemed welded with titanium.

Replaced seized fan, reassembled and used AS5. Full tilt folding at 995Mhz under 70deg C. Nice.
 
SecretSquirrel
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Dec 04, 2017 10:41 pm

Lot's of fixing stuff around the house of late.

Took apart, cleaned, and lubed the pressure regulator on my 55 gallon Craftsman air compressor. It really needs the gasket kit for a complete rebuild, but I didn't feel like ordering it right now. Went from just gushing air to a mild leak. Before, it would leak down to about 60 PSI. Now is leaks down to about 110PSI.

Last Thursday, came home to no display on the oven. Keypad would beep, but any attempt to either oven would result in an attempt followed by an error code beep. Error code just translates to "replace controller board". Debated over spending $300 for something that might fix the problem and waiting two weeks with no oven to find out. Bought a new oven Saturday and installed it. A 30" double oven is bloody heavy. Luckily my daughter's boyfriend was over and he helped move it into place.

Final item was the kitchen facet. Over the last month or so, it had gotten very rough when swiveling back and forth. There was a bit of build up at the joints, but it didn't look like enough to make it as rough as it was. I took it apart and when I lifted the faucet body off, a pile of rusted out metal spilled out. It looks like the faucet had a metal slip "ring" that was designed to make contact with the faucet body. I'm assuming that it was designed to provide a ground path between the faucet and the sink, to help keep galvanic corrosion of the faucet down. I guess it was made of some sort of steel and it just rusted into a pile of crud that started working it's way into the moving parts. I scrubbed all the gunk out and cleaned things up. Put it all back together and it is much, much smoother when it swivels now. I'm wondering what the long term impact of missing the slip ring will be, but for now, things are much better.

--SS
 
just brew it!
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:09 pm

I repaired absolutely nothing today, at home or at work. I did sign off on a code review, and had seemingly endless debates with co-workers over Slack and in person regarding the relative risk/reward of rolling out a potential bug fix for a long-standing issue, and going over potential root causes for several other issues. Oh, and I attended a weekly status meeting. Some days you just don't feel like you've been productive at all. I'm happier when I'm coding.

I did manage to order myself some new glasses online during my morning commute. While not exactly a repair, it addresses the fact that I'm on my backup backup pair of computer glasses.

I also repaired my wife's borked Windows installation over the weekend; does that count?
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
demolition
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 12:10 am

While not exactly today but recently I just finished repairing a dead VIC 20 and modded the video output for Luma/Chroma (originally just Composite) so now it has a nice and sharp picture. Still need to make the case look good as it is quite yellowed but hopefully it will look and function like new when I am done with it. :-)
 
frumper15
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Thu Dec 14, 2017 10:47 pm

When I started, nothing was broken, it just didn't work how I wanted it. So, I made sure to break something along the way.

I've always been a bit of a storage nerd, so when I found myself with 3 - 2.5" drives from new laptops I had taken them from to replace with SSDs along with a PCIe Dell RAID card, I decided it would be fun to make a RAID0 array for a scratch disk/temporary storage location in my main machine. Things didn't quite go smoothly from the beginning, but with a little care and feeding (and some rather ugly case modding with a pliers to make the SATA and power connections) I had my little 3 disk array up and running.

It only stayed that way for a few days before interminably long boot times (seriously, what is that thing doing on startup? Calculating Pi to 1M places?) and more often than not complete failure to boot, I pulled the card out and left it that way for a few weeks.

Last night, I decided in my infinite wisdom that I would use the built-in Intel RAID on my motherboard to create a RAID0 - that would solve the boot speed issue and I wouldn't need the extra card. So, after figuring out which SATA ports were active (some get disabled when using an M.2 ssd) I hooked all the drives up and booted into the BIOS to set up an array. And that's when the problems began.

I'm sure none of you are like me and have a 2 year old W10 install that has been set to AHCI mode for the SATA controller from the beginning of time. If you have experienced this before, you will know that it is not as simple as switching from AHCI to RAID and booting back into windows. I read about 10 different guides and they all made it sound pretty simple, except no one seemed to be doing it with a NVME ssd and few were using Windows 10. I tried every suggestion I could find, but no matter what, when I set the SATA controller to RAID mode in the bios, I would get a failure to boot.

At that time I figured that maybe the SSD was the variable that was causing my pain. I couldn't quite figure out how SATA controller mode related to the SSD which is NVME so SATA shouldn't be a part of the picture, but I'll be darned if it certainly seemed to affect whether or not it would boot. I had a Eureka moment some time in the process and decided to clone my SSD over to one of the 2.5" hdds and try to get that to boot in RAID mode. I used Macrium Reflect (great program, btw) to perform the clone and then I powered off the computer. I removed the SSD to make sure I wasn't unintentionally booting from it as well as to preserve my known-good configuration and then, for good measure, decided to completely destroy the power plug on one of the hard drives.

Somehow in my brutish yanking on one of the SATA power cables, I inadvertently pulled one of the connectors perpendicular to the drive it was plugged into whereby it used its leverage to simply snap off the plastic bit that holds the power contacts on the drive. Completely gone and the power pins/contacts were not at a lovely 30 degree angle from the drive itself. Nice.
I managed to fix what I broke by ever-so-carefully straightening the pins and then holding the plastic piece (that I was able to find) in place long enough to shove it into an external enclosure I had laying around unused. I guess I have a 1TB portable drive should I need it.

After that drama was behind me, I got back to the task at hand. I had set windows to boot into Safe mode (per many of the guides I had followed) and got into the bios on the reboot. I switched the SATA controller into RAID mode, hit F10 and crossed my fingers. Holy cow, it worked! I had successfully changed into RAID mode on my existing Windows install! I also got a taste of just how horrible it is to use Windows with a slow hard drive. Here's the thing, though, these aren't old drives. They're drives I pulled out of laptops within the last 12 months or so. There are new computers being sold with these turds as their primary storage. At first I thought something was wrong because Windows was taking more than a minute to boot like I've gotten so used to. This was a good reassurance that the best money you can spend to upgrade your machine if you haven't already is an SSD for your OS drive.

After a successful boot in safe mode, change to normal boot mode, boot into windows normally, and convince myself everything was OK, I shutdown and reinstalled my SSD. I booted up from the HDD still and made sure the SSD was recognized in Windows, in RAID mode, and then started the clone BACK to the SSD with the now-RAIDified windows installation. I let that run overnight because it was painfully slow. When I checked it this morning, it had finished the clone and I shut it down. Tonight I created a 2 drive (sad face) RAID0 array, booted from the SSD and can be happy with the fact that I was able to figure that all out.

So, I hope if anyone else finds themselves in the same situation, be happy to know there is a solution. Just have patience, be careful with those SATA connections, and always make sure you have a Plan B if things go south. My hardware is in my signature, but in case that gets updated and someone finds this via google in the future, here's what I was working with:

i7-6700K | Z170X-Ultra Gaming | 512GB 960 Pro | Win10 Pro x64.
i7-8086K | Z370 AORUS GAMING WIFI | 32GB DDR4-2400 | EVGA GTX 1080 Ti | 512GB 960 Pro | 27" Dell 2560x1440 Gsync | Fractal R6 | Seasonic Focus Plus 850W | Win10 Pro x64.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Fri Dec 15, 2017 12:53 am

Not exactly a "repair" (yet), but arguably still in the spirit of this thread... I had an epiphany about a software bug I've been chasing at work for the past couple of days. The flash of insight came at a homebrew club event earlier this evening, after a couple of beers.

Real-life example of the Ballmer Peak?

Sadly, I suspect that suggesting to my employer that we stock the break room with beer would not go over well. :lol:
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
notfred
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sun Dec 17, 2017 3:59 pm

Had an issue with the gas fireplace, the pilot was fine but when we turned on the main burner then sometimes that would drop out every now and then. The fireplace is one with a remote switch on the wall that's driven by a thermopile so it still works if the power is out. I was worried that the thermopile was dying, but I followed the test steps at http://www.mygasfireplacerepair.com/201 ... hermopile/ and it showed good voltage.

I was measuring the voltages when the burner did one of its dropouts and I measured the voltage was all being dropped across the switch wiring. Looking at that article the switch is the most common failure as well and ours is now over 10 years old. I picked up a new switch from the hardware store and I went for a 20A version as it was a bit more solidly built than the 15A. I'm hoping that translates to a more positive connection improve conductivity. When you have less than half a volt travelling over 20ft of wire and through a switch, every little bit of resistance hurts.

New switch fitted and the fireplace seems to be working properly now, no main burner glitches so far.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sun Dec 17, 2017 4:15 pm

Does fixing a string of Christmas lights count?
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
DrDominodog51
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sun Dec 17, 2017 8:04 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Does fixing a string of Christmas lights count?

Did you bleed?
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Captain Ned
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sun Dec 17, 2017 8:10 pm

DrDominodog51 wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
Does fixing a string of Christmas lights count?
Did you bleed?

Did you say "Oh Fudge"??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwF4qieecEM
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sun Dec 17, 2017 8:38 pm

No blood, but I did swear a couple of times!
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
liquidsquid
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sun Dec 17, 2017 11:04 pm

I finally gave up on my weed eater (brush cutter). Apparently 15 years of heavy use and abuse is not repairable. Too much lost compression, bent shaft, weak magneto, sticky controls. It was time...

Went for the easy route and bought a high-end Stihl Kombisystem. Holy smokes! Power plus new blade is fun.
 
B166ER
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:22 am

I'm a bedroom producer and need a decent quality audio interface, I have a Focusrite Saffire firewire interface from like 10 years ago. Prosumer audio interfaces are so damn expensive, even though the tech really hasn't evolved much. I'm in between jobs, so money isn't flowing the way Id like, so buying a new interface is outta question. My interface has been blanking out, no audio coming through, and when I disconnected it, it wouldn't connect back to the computer. It received power but wasn't seen by Windows. Uuuuggghhh. I took it apart, looked it up and down, nothing. But I never once thought it would be the cable, and still, I'm THAT broke where a $5 cable off ebay is a luxury. So I finally buckled down and diagnosed the cable as the issue, and started picking at pins at the connector. I managed to reset the pins and lo and behold, I got it to work again! I know not major, but a true win for me, I needed it as my days have been so depressed, and I was unable to do my favorite stress reducer, making beats for the culture. But I did, and alls right in the world for a while!
 
Mr Bill
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Dec 18, 2017 5:03 pm

This weekend we had a neighbor go under the house and sister 4 joists and add two pier and beams (at each end below where my aquarium is located) across the 4 joists for further support for the floor under my 200 gallon aquarium. I've been running with only 10 inches of water for a month. I filled it full and its fabulous.
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Darkmage
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Dec 18, 2017 9:14 pm

B166ER wrote:
I'm a bedroom producer and need a decent quality audio interface,
Umm... is that an euphemism for pr0n? NTTAWWT, but I'm wondering how you end up in that industry on the tech side of things.
If there is one thing a remote-controlled, silent and unseeable surveillance/killing machine needs, it’s more whimsy. -- Marcus
 
Redocbew
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Dec 18, 2017 9:28 pm

I read "bedroom producer" as a way to describe production on a small scale. If that's not what they meant, then I wouldn't expect high quality audio to be a priority.

However, according to Rule 34 audiophile pr0n must be a thing.
Do not meddle in the affairs of archers, for they are subtle and you won't hear them coming.

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