Geekery galore
May 4th, 2007 @ 9:24 by NormMonkey
My inner geek ran wild the last couple of days.
DAY 1
Let’s jump back in time about a year when I first told you about my crummy, crummy laptop. For those playing along at home who’re too lazy to follow hyperlinks (it’s, like, sooo hard!), my old Toshiba laptop decided electricity was more of a snack than a main course. With my girlfriend using Guinness once in awhile, the problem worsened to the point where Guinness wouldn’t charge at all while powered up, and only slowly while not. My favourite blue devil had to wait for the battery to charge and could only then use it for an hour or so until the battery drained again. Rinse, repeat.
Clearly that was no good.
I harnessed the infinite power of teh intarwebs to find out that my power problem is well known for this model, generally due to the fact that the DC power plug is held to the main board by just a few small solder points that tend to fail. I found some hints on taking her apart, and then I began my adventure.
You are in a cubicle. Before you sits a brickblue laptop. You are surrounded by sharp, pointy tools. A shit-eatin’ grin slowly dawns on your face.
> Attack laptop with screwdriver
Before you sit pieces of plastic laptop shell, a pile of disconnected components and a pile of screws. Little wisps of smoke trail from your screwdrivers. During your attack you deduced that the label F8 stands for the long screws while F3 means short ones.
> Attack power supply connector with soldering iron
You apply liberaljudicious amounts of solder to places where it counts. You have no way of testing your work, what with the bits of laptop strewn about.
> Re-assemble laptop
You are 99% finished reassembling the laptop. Before you lies an F3-sized screw and an F8-sized hole. You note with dismay that the DVD-ROM drive will not properly insert into its bay. Looking ino the bay, you see the tail end of an F8-sized screw protruding.
> Curse like a sailor (the dirty bastards, they go from port to port). Disassemble the laptop again, paying attention this time
An expert in Toshiba A70 disassembly now, you remove screws and components until you find the place where you stuck an F8 screw into an F3 hole. You swap the screws, hope you didn’t break anything and properly reassemble your laptop. You find you have no left-over parts.
> Wonder how the hell that happened
Unrecognized command.
> Insert laptop battery and turn it on
You fail to notice huge sparks flying from the laptop with flames engulfing the battery. It works as expected! Huzzah! FTW!!one!
Guinness’ Guts
Notice the group of more than 20 black screws near the keyboard. There’s some silver screws to the left, there, too.
But wait! The geek adventure continues!!!
DAY 2
You are in a cubicle. Before you sit two dead DVD players that have become yours through inexplicable circumstances. Nearby you have a TV that you borrowed from sales-land. You have all the cables needed to connect the DVD player to the TV as well as a test disc. You also see your trusty set of tools. A quiet cackling noise ensues.
> Attack the uglier of the two players
The guts of a DVD player lie before you. You note that the optical assembly has two lasers. You assume one of these is for the DVD and one is for CDs.
> Poke at guts with tools
After prodding and poking the beast, you discover that it seems able to spin the disc and focus the DVD laser which is a visible red. However after spinning the disc up and trying to read it, the player spins the disc backwards, spins it forward again, and then gives up. Presumably it is trying to read it with the invisible IR laser used for CDs. Removing the nasty pile of hair entangled around the spindle motor does not improve the situation.
> Give up and move on to the next player
After putting the last player back together, you attack and destroy the next DVD player. It lies before you, guts exposed. You notice during your poking and prodding that this one has only one laser. It behaves differently: where the last player would spin the disc up, this one makes a sick groaning noise.
> Compare disc spindle motor between dead players
Lo and behold, you discover (after re-dis-assembling the first player) that they use similar motors. Both are brushed and are roughly the same shapes. The model numbers printed on the side of each match but only partially. The corners of your lips are twitching.
> Swap motors
Armed with your trusty soldering iron, you swap the two motors. Damn, those little screws are small and fidgety! You now notice that the latter player behaves as a working player should: you power it on, it spins the disc up and reads a track near the center, then travels to the outer edge and starts reading. Using the FFWD and SKIP buttons causes the laser assembly to move in ways that make sense.
> Use TV to test DVD player
You are dismayed by the fact that none of the buttons on the front of the TV are able to put it into Line-In mode. Not even by changing the channel to its lowest number, which is the exact thing everybody you show this to tries first. You cannot find a remote control for the TV, and the remotes for the DVD players are non-universal, non-trainable el-cheapo sorts.
> Use laptop as a remote control
You research into IR software, download some, set it up, and test it. This entails about an hour and a half of work along with a reboot to actually enable the IRDA port in the BIOS (that solves all sorts of inexplicable problems). Eventually you are able to read signals from one of the DVD remotes, giving you confidence that the port’s actually doing something. You wiggle through the series of tubes and find some Toshiba codes that may or may not work for this TV. You find, after trial and error, that one set of codes is actually able to turn the TV on and, more importantly, put it into Line-In mode.
> Test DVD player
You fail to notice huge sparks flying from the DVD player with flames engulfing the unit. It works as expected! Huzzah! FTW!!one!
The revived DVD player is now sitting on top of a nice 32″ Sony Trinitron TV that I found one day last year on the side of the road in my neighbourhood while driving to work. They sit in my roomygirlfriend’s room. Total out-of-pocket expenditure? Two small blobs of solder and a bit of extra gas for hauling the TV around. Reward? Working entertainment system, +5 geek experience points, +5 linux points for learning about LIRC, happy girlfriend.
You’d think the adventures were over, BUT WAIT!! The adventure re-continues again!
DAY 3
You are in your cubicle, recovering from your adventures. A cow orker comes up to you, hat in hand. But wait! That’s not a hat, it’s a plastic bag full of PlayStation 2 components! More specifically, a PS2 that got dropped on the floor and has a broken power switch. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make some teenagers happy by restoring this PS2 to working condition.
> Look cubicle
Your cubicle is equipped with your trusty set of tools. Looking into the bottom of your mug of water, you see your mug smiling back at you with that shit-eatin’ grin.
> Divide and conquer PS2
You convert the PS2 from a single entity to many pieces. After disconnecting a small circuit board on which lies the power switch, you concentrate on that for a bit. You note that the power switch is a tiny surface mount component with four solder points, all of which have become disconnected. The switch is held in place by the remnants of some glue.
> Re-connect switch
You attempt to solder the tiny little solder points back together. Eventually you come up with a system where you use one hand to steady the other, and you use your sponge to get a small, pointy bit of solder ready on the tip of the gun.
> Re-assemble PS2 and test
You combine the various bits on your desk into a single unit, which you connect to the TV that’s still there from earlier (it’s still in Line-In mode, too!). The DVD player powers up and plays!
Discussing the original problem with your client, you discover that after it was dropped it worked for awhile with the kids poking the switch, but eventually the switch fell off.
> Re-dis-assemble PS2 and glue switch
After decreasing the available space on your desk with PS2 bits, you apply a drop of thin cyanoacrylate to the switch. After that dries, you apply hot glue to either side of it.
> Test again
You discover that the CA glue has worked its way into the switch using capillary action and it won’t budge.
> Lose it
You lose it.
> Snap
You lose it! You snap! You give that switch a left and a right, followed by a kalarby to the solar plexus. As the switch lies there you say, “How’s that ‘wont’ budge’ enough for ya?!” Ever since then you been the champ.
Your pounding on the switch has loosened it enough that it will turn the PS2 on if you poke it firmly. Your quest is complete, the teenagers can happily nurture their mindless violence streaks with shoot-em-up games once more.
You’d think your adventures were finally over, BUT WAIT!!eleven! They are.
As reward for reading all the way down to to here, you get to check out this photo of a real cutie:
My Favourite Blue Devil Many Moons Ago
While she was packing for her move she came across some old bus passes. I couldn’t help but spot the radiant beauty emanating from them so I borrowed ‘em and did some scanning. Gorgeous, no?
/drunk or slightly so
but to many days …. whoa
I fully enjoyed though… looking at picture of dev, if her hair is brown though reddish now
it looks nice in the black tooo
maybe there is no true great colour for devs hair and looks good regardless.
mur lyles ran away for weekend… lonleys with no one in ktown anymore boowho…
/hugs for both
Thanks for commenting Codie!
You’re right, I write a lot. A *LOT*.
I think you’re also right about Dev’s hair. We’ll see soon enough, she’s making noises about changing it soon. I look forward to it.
Next time Lyles runs away for the weekend, come visit the *other* K-Town, Kanata! We have room for ya! There’s even four cats growling and hissing at each other to entertain you! (better come visit soon, the growling and hissing may not last long).
We hope.
And I was 17 in that picture… Grade 12 for sure.
I will be 27 next month.
Wow … did you hear about the plans for the first?