PC fettling and repairs thread

[lazybloke]

Sort of PC fettling. My son's Samsung screen packed in during this weekend's heat (he was at a motoracing event) and it overheated and ping, no screen (no cracks, Samsung S21). Fortunately he has insurance, but has had a mare with finding the IMEI etc and also two stage authentication as his phone is borked. I pulled the protective case off, and could see the IMEI on the back but it was that tiny, neither of us could read it. His works Apple couldn't get a good ic, so I used my S23 Ultra camera - bingo nice picture of the code.

So insurance 'repair sorted', he now needs to check phone - fortunately there is SAMSUNG DEX built in the phone, so he was able to plug the phone directly into my Thinkpad USB C hub, so he has mouse and keyboard access, and the 'screen' on a monitor. At least the can get at the 'important' emails etc.

Yes my old Xiaomi Redmi could plug into my laptop dock (a Targus USB-C/Thunderbolt thingummy). It would do fast charging, pick up the external keyboard, and would display to my monitor. All good things for a 50s bloke with fat thumbs and bad eyes!
No software needed, all plug&play.

The pixel isn't quite as good. Keyboard, charging and ethernet are picked up just fine, but the monitor stays stubbornly black.
Apparently a displayport cable (instead of HDMI) might work.

 

[fossyant]

Yes my old Xiaomi Redmi could plug into my laptop dock (a Targus USB-C/Thunderbolt thingummy). It would do fast charging, pick up the external keyboard, and would display to my monitor. All good things for a 50s bloke with fat thumbs and bad eyes!
No software needed, all plug&play.

The pixel isn't quite as good. Keyboard, charging and ethernet are picked up just fine, but the monitor stays stubbornly black.
Apparently a displayport cable (instead of HDMI) might work.

It's saved his bacon as everything he does is on the phone.

 

[MrGrumpy]

Ok our iMac is absolutely crawling now , since the last couple of software updates . I’m clueless wit these , with windows I’d be formatting and booting from a pen drive and starting again . What do I do with the Mac ? It’s only 4yrs old not used much so I’m guessing something is not quite right. It’s unusable just now !

 

[DCBassman]

Ok our iMac is absolutely crawling now , since the last couple of software updates . I’m clueless wit these , with windows I’d be formatting and booting from a pen drive and starting again . What do I do with the Mac ? It’s only 4yrs old not used much so I’m guessing something is not quite right. It’s unusable just now !

Only have small experience with Macs, but they can be reset similarly. Am away from mine at the moment, so can't be more precise than that.

 

[MrGrumpy]

Only have small experience with Macs, but they can be reset similarly. Am away from mine at the moment, so can't be more precise than that.

Adobe acrobat seemed to come up eventually complaining about a software update ? Did that and it seemed to calm down ? I’ll double check it again when I get in from work .

 

[DCBassman]

Could be something odd like that. But if not, back everything up and resetting to factory settings will return its speed. Just that it's such a faff...

 

[Grant Fondo]

.... yes, a big offload of pc bits yesterday.
Two pc's and a gaming case dumped at the tip! I reckon i could have sold a few bits off but couldn't bear the faff.
An old Sandybridge one from 2012 and an AMD from a few years later. The hardest bit was chucking a bequiet dark rock pro cooler ... an overclockers best friend for many a year ....

 

[ColinJ]

The vendor DID accept my offer on the other speaker too. It would have been weird to accept it for the left side speaker but then turn down an identical offer for the right side one. I'm just hoping that these replacement speakers are not ALSO blown. They come from a dismantled laptop so it is possible!

I decided to have a go at the speaker replacement job today.

It turns out that...

1. The speakers are pretty accessible once the bottom panel of the laptop has been removed. And yes - fortunately, I DID know about the 2 screws hidden under the rubber strip on that panel so I didn't break anything trying to remove the panel!
2. My replacement speakers do NOT match the ones in the laptop! I can see that the general design is the same, but the mounting plates for the new ones are significantly shorter than the originals. Either the design changed at some point, or (more likely) these are from a different Lenovo model. I can't be bothered trying to get my money back... It is possible that I could get these to work by making some new mounting posts and gluing them in. But first though...
3. There was a lot of dust and debris on the little speaker cones. It had clearly found its way in through the tiny speaker grilles on the base of the laptop over the past 7 years. I reckoned that a good clean might sort the distortion problem out!
   
   
   
   The left speaker is the one that has been playing up for over a year. The right has only recently started distorting. As you can see, the left one looks much worse than the right. I felt cautiously optimistic that cleaning would help...
   
   A good clean later... The right speaker was now okay, but the left one was no better. I decided that would do for now. I merely did what I did before which was to mono the sound and then fade the left speaker volume way down until it stopped distorting. I put the base panel back on and... the left speaker was silent! I probably broke a wire or displaced a connector when reassembling the system. Since the left speaker is now dead, it wouldn't hurt to give it another clean and try to fix the connection. OR try and jerry-rig the new left speaker in. I'll do that another time.

 

[DCBassman]

Have spent some time patching the Macs to run Catalina as opposed to their normal max of El Capitan and High Sierra. Both will run Catalina but poorly, as the more recent versions of macOS make heavy use of GPU acceleration, which most operating systems do not. Have returned them both to High Sierra as that runs fine on the Mac Pro, and is correct for the iMac.
I still fail to see why people think macOS is so good. UI interaction seems quite primitive IMHO, especially their 'natural scrolling' being in reverse to the rest of the UI universe. A classic "everyone else is out of step" piece of arrogance, in my opinion.
The Mac Pro running HS is reasonably saleable, so that will likely be moved on.
The iMac is staying!

 

[ColinJ]

The new clean-sounding monoed right laptop speaker will do when I want to quickly check a video on YouTube.

For better quality listening, I have rearranged the power wiring to my old TV soundbar so I can switch it on from my sofa. (I switch it off at the mains when it is not in use because it uses too much power in standby.)

 

[cyberknight]

need to sort out the laptop screen, unless you have it open at a certain angle the screen flickers so i reckon a loose connection, the times i tell mini ck 1 no to carry it around open and fling it about but try telling a teenager owt

 

[MrGrumpy]

We have a MacBook Pro with a screen that is cracked . Denial from son whom left something hard on the keyboard and slammed shut .

Does work though if plugged into a monitor . However huge cost to replace so can see it being scrapped .

 

[ColinJ]

need to sort out the laptop screen, unless you have it open at a certain angle the screen flickers so i reckon a loose connection, the times i tell mini ck 1 no to carry it around open and fling it about but try telling a teenager owt

Too right...!

And if they have HDDs rather than SSDs (ie old fashioned DELICATE hard disk drives), don't slam the lid shut and throw the laptop on the sofa while it is still shutting down. On a family visit...

Niece: "Right, I'm off out." Slams laptop lid shut and tosses device onto the sofa

Colin: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, don't do that!!! The hard drive is still spinning and they are very delicate. You will break it!"

Niece: "Yeah, whatever... I do it all the time. No problemo!" Off she went.

ColinJ: [Muttering under breath] "You'll see!"

Next day...

Niece: "Ok, I'm going to the shops. Anybody want anything?" Slams laptop lid shut and tosses device onto the sofa

Colin: "I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT!"

Niece: "STOP WORRYING ABOUT IT!" Off she went.

ColinJ: [Muttering under breath] "Honestly, you bloody well WILL see!"

I finished my visit and went home. A month passed...

Niece switches laptop on... Click, click, click, whirr, whirr, clunk, BLEEP - a box pops up on screen 'FATAL DRIVE ERROR'!

Niece, on phone: "Er, uncle Colin - you know about computers. How do I get it working?"

Colin: "Take it to a computer shop and pay them £100!"

I was wrong... They charged nearer £150!

 

[lazybloke]

Children don't appreciate being protected from their own ignorance.

Our son recently blew his top and shouted at my wife : "YOU NEVER LET ME DO ANYTHING DANGEROUS" !!!

He had got his hands on an old rusty chainsaw with a very slack chain, and didnt see any problem with using it up a tree with zero protective equipment

 

[lazybloke]

Well, maybe a pair of Crocs.