Reposted by RichardM⑨ddie @mjdxp.labyrinth.zone.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026okay, that's pretty good 62843
Richard @messaroundery.net · 6hLasered lids by the original owner just like that is how I found out I had the same off-lease laptop supplier as a customer of mine 010
Richard @messaroundery.net · 21/09/2026Different breed of horror from an LG monitor, presumably bad capacitors. 020
Richard @messaroundery.net · 07/09/2026This Windows 10 install was so messed up that it fell back to the hidden Windows 7 Basic theme. The built-in reset feature miraculously brought it back, and the clock on year 3224 somehow wasn't a hardware fault. 011
Richard @messaroundery.net · 19/08/2026I've had this Pokémon Go Plus autocatcher with a Chinese rechargeable battery (slots in place of a CR2032) for who knows how many years, but it's now having random charging issues. Micro USB needs rework, but it's also hard to tell if a cell this small has become a spicy pillow. 010
Richard @messaroundery.net · 16/08/2026Motherboard inside looks like a Supermicro X8SIL from the IO, I had one and it was pretty nice, too bad it was the non-IPMI version and this gen is picky about RAM. 000
Richard @messaroundery.net · 12/08/2026One interesting detail in laptops assembled by Flextronics Brazil, like both T420 machines I had were, is the randomly slapped stickers identifying which workers and lines the motherboard went through. 010
Richard @messaroundery.net · 07/08/2026Modded L5420 was a nice upgrade for a board I used to have that was too much of an OEM potato to handle a full Core 2 Quad 010
Reposted by RichardRairii :win3_progman: :win3: @rairii.labyrinth.zone.ap.brid.gy · 04/08/2026i didn’t think it was physically possible, but there’s finally something worse than `curl | sh` 16245280
Richard @messaroundery.net · 01/08/2026It's been a while, but I'm still having fun with obsolete electronic repairs, starting with a ThinkPad T420 board I damaged in 2019 by using a wrong screw. I got a new board back then, which has now failed, so I had a go at the original with the skills I've acquired since. 110
Richard @messaroundery.net · 18/05/2026I'm one of those obtuse people who stayed on Windows 10 for the classic XP/Vista taskbar option. Microsoft are trying hard to bring customization back, but it'll only be good enough for me if they fix the different button sizes when labels are enabled. arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026...arstechnica.comFive years later, Windows 11 brings back much-missed taskbar options (and more)Microsoft is also testing a smaller taskbar and more customizable Start menu. 000
Richard @messaroundery.net · 10/05/2026I have one of those, it's only rated for 16 MHz when using all 16 channels, barely enough for ISA. 000
Richard @messaroundery.net · 08/05/2026Hey there! I don't have the spare time to bring my mods back from the dead, but there was someone working on a 1.4(?) modpack and I gave them a full copy of the MiscPeripherals repo so they could maintain a 1.4 version. I don't remember the modpack name and whether or not they did anything, though. 100
Richard @messaroundery.net · 08/04/2026These dual socket ones were designed exclusively for mining with the launch model RTX 3060 (as defeating its mining limiter required an x8 or higher slot). They found a second life on budget AI farms where PCIe bandwidth kinda matters. 000
Richard @messaroundery.net · 03/04/2026This Realtek part appears to work OK, but it can only reach line speed on a 20Gbit USB port, as 10Gbit USB after overhead is ~7.8 at best. 010
Richard @messaroundery.net · 03/04/2026If there's any plastic left to hang on to, I melt the inserts back in with a soldering iron and use a longer screw. Only partially successful on this machine because the alignment was a bit off. 020
Richard @messaroundery.net · 02/04/2026Actual cause was the screen cable getting pinched by a broken hinge retention mechanism, because as a wise man once said, HP stands for Hinge Problem. 120
Richard @messaroundery.net · 02/04/2026Just repaired a laptop with a built-in analog horror generator. 2135
Richard @messaroundery.net · 07/03/2026Hey, can you upload that disk somewhere? I'd like to take a look at that DOS and figure out why those files are like that. 100
Reposted by Richardtechknight @thetechknight.bsky.social · 06/12/2025I propose a solution to our ongoing RAM shortage: 301824483
Richard @messaroundery.net · 23/10/2025This Sony Vaio laptop circa 2010 has, among other issues, a leaking NiMH CMOS battery instead of a regular lithium cell. Party like it's the 1990s Varta bombs. 020
Richard @messaroundery.net · 13/10/2025Unearthing an Android app that hasn't been compiled in years is always fun. You have SDKs, JDKs, Android Studio telling you to install a different Gradle every step of the way, small Gradle syntax changes, library dependencies that were lost to the JCenter shutdown... 000
Richard @messaroundery.net · 09/10/2025The switch turns 16x 2.0 lanes from 990FX into 32x 3.0 lanes for the slots, as weird as it sounds. There is no 16x+16x uplink, the switch does support it but AFAIK you can't bond them together to speed up a single card (the 2019 Mac Pro has this but only lets you select one uplink for each slot). 110
Richard @messaroundery.net · 09/10/2025Interesting yet deceptive. They put a PCIe 3.0 switch on a single 2.0 x16 uplink (the manual proves the article wrong) and called it a 3.0 board. It's useful for corner cases at best, like running 3.0 x4 SSDs from years later. 110
Richard @messaroundery.net · 17/09/2025The STPC Client was only specified in 66x1 and 75x1 bins, there is a later Consumer II at 66x2 with the same package and feature set but it might not be pin compatible. These chips are fascinating, there's a final 686-class (Rise mP6 based) one that apparently never shipped in volume. 010
Reposted by RichardAlice Averlong 🏳️⚧️ @alice.averlong.com · 25/08/2025if you love something, take it apart until you understand it, then share it with the world. 23532135
Richard @messaroundery.net · 12/08/2025A cheap window air conditioner gave me quite the scare a while back. Control panel was acting weird and eventually started making arcing sounds. Looks like the switching power supply for the electronics failed catastrophically. 030
Richard @messaroundery.net · 28/07/2025My old Wikipedia Chain experiment (inspired by xkcd 214) is now working again after modern browsers broke it. Also added the ability to start from a random page. richardg867.github.io/wikichain The Fediverse bot at mastodon.xyz/@wikipediach... is still going after years of zero maintenance.richardg867.github.ioWikipedia ChainClicking random links on Wikipedia articles couldn't be more fun. 021
Richard @messaroundery.net · 25/07/2025The ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2nd Gen has many flaws, but requiring a SATA M.2 SSD (now a cursed form factor) takes the cake. In upgrading this machine, a brand new WD Green kept crashing so I had to fall back to a China special. 031
Richard @messaroundery.net · 15/07/2025Had a BSOD today, and a frame from the video I was watching managed to sneak in through the GPU video decoder! 021
Richard @messaroundery.net · 27/06/2025Built a bulk hard drive testing rig for validating a job lot of old drives. Horrible chain of power adapters as this PSU has the 5V capacity but very few connectors. Even got an IDE-SATA converter (works surprisingly fine) for the 7th drive. 020
Reposted by RichardTomb💀Time @tubetime.bsky.social · 24/05/2025The existence of Norway implies the existence of Nandway. 1213519
Richard @messaroundery.net · 23/05/2025The underlying plastic plays a role. On this laptop, isopropyl just stripped the coating to reveal translucent plastic underneath, but degreaser cleaned the coating without stripping it: bsky.app/profile/mess... 010
Richard @messaroundery.net · 05/05/2025In trying to clean the sticky rubberized finish on this old laptop, I ended up stripping a chunk of the coating, then asked myself: why not go the rest of the way? It looks way cooler than I expected. Happy little accident. 173
Richard @messaroundery.net · 16/04/2025There's lots of speculation as to what exactly makes an USB-C dock incompatible with the Nintendo Switch. One factor is Power Delivery: docks tend to reduce the advertised current (because their USB ports need power) just enough to fall below the Switch's 15V 2.6A requirement. 010
Richard @messaroundery.net · 02/04/2025The Thunderbolt port failure issue with some ThinkPads bit me... or so I thought. My X390 showed some (controller gone) but not all (15W charging) symptoms, and I'm sure it already had the fixed firmware. A hard reset through the bottom pinhole brought it back to normal. 000
Reposted by RichardAndy @therasteri.bsky.social · 12/02/2025The Windows API is... wild. You're trying to change the color of a button and the answer is like "use setwindowshookex to inject a dll back into its own process using some undocumented GUID" and you're like, surely this is a hack, but its how Word 97 did it so it's part of the official docs now 021
Richard @messaroundery.net · 20/03/2025Had to deal with an Android app that wouldn't build because two dependencies are pinned to versions that were only ever uploaded to JCenter which is gone now. Just those specific versions, all others are on Maven Central. Guess I'm too used to centralized repos like PyPI and npm. 000
Richard @messaroundery.net · 12/03/2025The active USB extension cable has failed. Hub no longer enumerates. I (literally) cracked it open and found the chip is heating up quite a bit on one end. Very minimal design, too bad the chip markings were sanded off. 010
Richard @messaroundery.net · 03/03/2025Chip powered by 3.3V from the slot? This pitfall stops those modern Rage XLs and FX 5500s from POSTing mostly on AT motherboards, even those with an ATX connector like a PC Chips I have. 110
Richard @messaroundery.net · 21/02/2025Also bypassed the fan controller with a solder blob, as it only goes up to about 90% voltage, and only the embedded controller firmware can access it. With both these mods, the CPU runs 12-16°C cooler under sustained load. 000
Richard @messaroundery.net · 12/02/2025Latest adventure: fixing the cooling on ECS Classmate PC netbooks. The Atom CPU throttles under sustained load because all it has is a tiny fan pulling air through a thin metal plate. Friend suggested adding a thermal pad between metal and plastic, which I've seen done before. 100
