Hardware Relics

[Spastic Hamburger]

I’m partial to grey or aluminum cases myself. They’re really good about not being obtrusive. While nice to have a window to read the error codes on the motherboard without having to open things up, I’m not overly picky about such a feature 😛

Haven’t seen that feature on a microwave before. Mine just blows the circuit when it goes too long and it’s from 2015 or 2016 😛

Looks like keyboards are moving towards magnetic switches from membrane and mechanical. I wonder how they’ll compare in terms of comfort. My mechanical SteelSeries keyboard is very pleasant to use.

[DeVaultSetter]

The little Redragon Kumara K552 has developed a red “F” key, backlighting on it works as with the others, but with a rouge intent. Do stay tuned for more colourful developments. 🙂
So back with the old W10 clunker with a rather unpleasant shock at boot of the date hard on 2055. Apart from the CMOS on the blink and the event logs all messed up, authentication out the window(s), and the mouse batteries flat – the Edge tabbed groups all rolled in one and explorer faltering, everything else is pretty much tickety boo! 🙂

[Spastic Hamburger]

Time for a new keyboard or just going to stick with a red key? No reason to discard it if it still works! 🙂

Yuck. Motherboard battery is easy to fix: just a coin cell battery. As for the rest, no idea. Data corruption, maybe?

I may start double-sleeving my records for extra protection. I already do that for my TCGs so why not records, too?

[DeVaultSetter]

Good idea, always used to put the open sleeve in the cover first, might be ok for 50 years or so – before the plastic starts to degrade. 😛
Getting quite a few 1A bug checks with parameter 3f, often happens in playing videos. Edge HW acceleration is turned off, still happens so could be chip/card – who knows? Performed all the usual checks, memory looks fine. CRC problem likely points more to HW though – time for pasture? The guy in town might be interested in hooking the disks + soundcard onto a new rig. In the meantime, getting back to the HP is the priority. 🙂

• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by DeVaultSetter.

[Spastic Hamburger]

I just re-sleeved some old cards the other day. The 30 year old sleeves were pretty rough. 😛

May be a good idea to run Memtestbefore sunsetting it. HDDs are harder to test but the SMART information may help some

For the CPU, you’ll want Prime95

Granted, Prime95 is mostly for stress testing but could let you know if something is going belly up.

For GPU’s, you’ll definitely want FurMark. 🙂

• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by Spastic Hamburger.

[Spastic Hamburger]

ifixit is a good resource for tools, parts, and repair guides. However, they do focus mostly on more modern stuff. I do wonder if there’s a site that focuses on vintage tech. Definitely trying to find out!

[Spastic Hamburger]

While you can still purchase reasonably priced vacuum tubes, vacuum tube testers themselves are expensive!

[Spastic Hamburger]

Trying to rebuild my list of resources but DigiKey and Mouser seem to be good resources for components. Could be handy for general repairs or even other projects.

[DeVaultSetter]

Great info on the site! 🙂
The Answers section is a bit odd on account of the thin detail in most of the questions – as of late most of those would get a fairly good quality response in the browser AIs.
What kind of vacuum tubes are you working with? There’s some good info at Antique Radios where it’s proposed the reliability of some may not be 100%.
Both have a great range – Mouser has more than double the sensor types than Digikey. 😛

[Spastic Hamburger]

Yeah, their forum seems to be hit or miss. I like the answer in the printer thread: “Try turning it off and on again.” 😛

Honestly, that does fix most printer problems. Sometimes you do need to go into settings though and reset something. For whatever reason, my printer sometimes decides to use the wrong paper size and won’t work unless I switch it back to what it’s supposed to be. Printer firmware is weird. I had one printer that used to print three pages and then, for the rest of the document, would only print blank pages. I never did figure that one out. 😛

No idea yet! Right now, I’m mostly getting the resources together. A lot of tube information will depend on what I need for various circuit projects and repairs. I’ve always liked assembling analog circuits so I’m starting to look at experimenting with them again. Some of the tube sources also sell the sockets and other parts, which will be helpful, and I’m sure I can find cheaper options at some of the parts retailers.

Reading some of the posts, it sounds like tube testers can be hit or miss. Definitely something to keep in mind.

DigiKey does have better filters, though!

AdaFruit also has a more basic selection of parts. Definitely nowhere near the selection as the other suppliers though but the site is friendlier to hobbyists 🙂

• This reply was modified 3 hours, 40 minutes ago by Spastic Hamburger.
• This reply was modified 3 hours, 39 minutes ago by Spastic Hamburger.
• This reply was modified 3 hours, 39 minutes ago by Spastic Hamburger.
• This reply was modified 3 hours, 37 minutes ago by Spastic Hamburger.

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