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PaperclipPerfector
1yr ago
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Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
Most AC-DC power supplies have a bank of filtering capacitors which can degrade with time. The electrolyte in the electrolytic capacitors can also have some temperature sensitivity. More likely the internals of the PSU are just coated with a layer of grime and dust at this point, and the heat sinks on the switching gear can't reject the waste heat from the conversion effectively. There may be a thermal fuse that trips if the PSU overheats. I would generally advise against opening up an PSU, as even unplugged there can be quite a bit of stored energy in the caps if you just go poking around. If you're fairly certain the PSU is the culprit you can always try blasting it with a can of compressed air, it wont make it any more broken. Immobilize the fans before you do so they don't over-speed.
Gotcha, I don't have any compressed air around, but I'll use a blow dryer. Static isn't really a concern where I live, it's far too humid.
Finally, a use for my vast store of white trash computer repair advice! What you want is a balloon and a biro - pull the pen apart so you only have the casing tube, fill the balloon and put the casing in the opening, tapered end out. It won't do as good a job as a can of air of course, but it will probably shift more dust than a hair dryer, hair dryers generally cover too great a surface area. Also it's easier with a second person - one of you directs the stream, while the other maintains the seal and directs the strength.
Words I didn't expect to hear today, but I'd be lying if I wasn't interested in more tips of this nature haha. I bet the redneck approach to water cooling would be a hoot!
Thanks for the tip!
The only water cooling system I've seen in the wild was a friend's fanless set up which he ran through his central heating system. That was pretty dumb lol. I mean, it worked alright I guess, but his computer sat on the floor and his ac unit sat at about head height, so there were tubes running out in the open. And they weren't very secure, so he basically couldn't concentrate if anyone stood within 2 metres of the thing.
Sadly a lot of my tips are kind of useless these days, we've gotten too advanced to rely on the "she'll be right mate" attitude. We don't use ide any longer, so no need for aluminium foil, and CPUs don't have actual pins on them these days, so it doesn't help to know you can run over one with a 4wd and as long as you can bend those pins back close enough to jam them in their sockets you can get it to boot. We don't use POST any more, so nobody needs to know you can use the speaker from... Was it a baby born doll? I can't remember. One of those babies that make noises.
Others you've probably heard before - using a pringles can to boost wifi range (poke your antenna through a hole in the bottom of the can, the insides reflect and amplify the signal). Or how you can bypass a locked power button by shorting the power pins with a bread knife.
My favourite bit of white trash computer advice is thermal paste related though actually. It was 2002 and my grandparents had just moved to Australia (my whole family will be here eventually, sorry Australia) and my dad and I were going to build them a new pc - my grandpa loved computers, but his wheelhouse was the 2 to 486 era, so he wired us the money and we would buy the parts and go build it for him. My grandparents are crazy though, so they'd moved to Camooweal - a tiny rest stop of a town in the middle of nowhere in NW Queensland. A two day drive if you stop for sleep, although you can technically make it in a day if you drive non-stop.
The problem with driving non-stop though is that it is down some of the loneliest and least maintained roads in the country. Which is why, on our way to build my granddad's pc, we hit a pothole and bent the axle. At this point we were well into the outback, and we hadn't seen another car for about 6 hours at that point, so we couldn't hitch-hike. We had passed a drive and revive (a little prefab rest stop with toilets and beverages for tired drivers to rest and recuperate) an hour back though, so we walked back there to call for help. When we got back to the DNR though, we saw something you actually don't see anywhere near as much as I had expected - the place had been looted. I mean completely cleaned out - there was usually at the very least chairs, a kettle, big cans of instant coffee and a telephone in these things, but there was nothing at all in this one.
I'll admit, I was starting to panic, which is my tough guy way of saying I was flipping the fuck out about our impending death, but my dad remained cool as a cucumber - he had a plan. We spent most of that day walking back to the car, getting our gear and the box of pc parts, and walking back to the DNR, and when we got there my dad got into the pc parts box and started setting out a build - we might not have a phone, but this pc we were going to build had a 56k modem card in it, we could use that to alert someone!
We got to work putting it together, and argued about whether my grandpa would make us disassemble it again when we actually got to their place so he could micromanage building it (I was a naive youth), but we reached an impasse pretty quickly. See I said my grandparents were crazy, but that's kind of the understatement of the century re my grandpa. He believes lead wasn't the reason for Rome's downfall, but it's success. When bees started dying out he celebrated, because there were too many of them and we'd be screwed if they ever organised. They moved to fucking Camooweal because they bought the property on a handshake deal after the seller ensured there was an NFA cache on the property (no longer there, any cops reading this). And he didn't believe in/trust thermal paste. He had zinc oxide paste, and that's what he'd use, because he knew what was in it - zinc and oxide (I can never tell when he is joking). After all, no opsec can protect you if you put the government between your CPU and motherboard!
There was the stock thermal paste on the CPU, but like everything else in Western Queensland it was dry as dirt and useless. A lack of thermal paste wasn't going to stop my dad though. Into our luggage he went, into his toiletries bag - he grabbed out the toothpaste and applied a dollop to the top of the CPU. I helped by standing and staring at him in stunned silence - I was sure this would end in disaster. But dad explained that it wouldn't last forever, but we could run it for about a day on toothpaste - it's more important to ensure there are no gaps between the CPU and fan plate - so we put on the heatsink, inserted the ram, graphics, sound and modem cards and hooked it up to the PSU. To this day POST beeps make me feel relieved. We didn't have a microphone, never mind software to make phone calls, but we kept the line busy and in the morning a cop pulled up to find out what was going on.
Anyway after that my dad and grandpa refused to talk to each other for about 10 years - grandpa was pissed we didn't build his computer and ruined his CPU, and dad was pissed because grandpa didn't care that we were out thousands of dollars and almost died. Since grandpa wanted all new parts now, dad just sent him back the money and we kept the Pentium 3, which ran for another 8 years without a hiccup! After we replaced the now thoroughly cooked toothpaste with thermal paste of course.
I'll call @self_made_human 's story and a half and raise another three-quarters.
I actually discovered this story because it popped up when I was doing janitor duties. If it got reported for anything other than AAQC, I think that should be grounds for a temp ban...of the reporter!
I think that was my AAQC report, I didn't realize those ended up in the janitor queue as well lol.
One of the perks of keeping things clean
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I felt there was something good there, hence why I asked, but that's a story and a half! I do hope you share that in other places, it's too good to languish in a corner of the Motte haha.
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It's not static electricity, it's a bunch of energy stored in capacitors. It's real as you can see by unplugging the computer, then trying to switch it on -- the fans briefly start up, at least for me. But after that it should be mostly safe, if in doubt poke with a grounded screwdriver or something.
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