8.5 years old and despite this one hiccup (and a new fan in 2011 under extended warranty), it's been a real trooper! 

 

Blank screen won't even begin to load up general main board code given by caps lock light flashing sequence, suspected dry joints in the old solder..... 

 

Edited 18 August, 20169 yr by FUBAR

screwdrivers arranged in order.

Nerd level.......... 10

Recipe? Temperatures/times?

 

I was putting some tricky components on a board with a dedicated IR reflow machine a couple of weeks ago, got distracted and forgot to plug in the thermocouple...

 

 

...bad smell, melted connector, bits dropping off the other side of the board. Oops!

Recipe? Temperatures/times?

 

I was putting some tricky components on a board with a dedicated IR reflow machine a couple of weeks ago, got distracted and forgot to plug in the thermocouple...

 

 

...bad smell, melted connector, bits dropping off the other side of the board. Oops!

 

185 Deg C preheated oven and foil lined tray with some foil balls to keep it elevated, 10 minutes and left to cool after in it's own time. Could have used a heat gun, but harder to measure and control an even temp so just fired it in the oven and spent the 10 min cleaning the remaining bits and cleaning the old thermal paste crap off the CPU and heat sink etc. Was a win win really, had nothing to loose, only thing I could have done with which I didn't have nor the patience to wait for was some new thermal pads for GPU to heat sink. another 18 months and I've had 10 years hard service from the old dog! Will be pretty pleased with that and will be nice timing to buy a new main laptop. 

Edited 18 August, 20169 yr by FUBAR

screwdrivers arranged in order.

Nerd level.......... 10

 

Should have seen the chaos of the 2.3 million screws HP like to use in their older machines in varying sizes all over the shop during! Second time this week I've had to operate on my ageing fleet of laptops, fan died on Laptop 'B' about a month back and I had just left it and moved all secondary use to 'C' in it's wake. Then 'C' went about 10 days later. £5.74 for new fan and some thermal paste later and all is well again, laptops distributed about the house so I don't need to go to the effort of carrying them with me. 

Edited 18 August, 20169 yr by FUBAR

Should have seen the chaos of the 2.3 million screws HP like to use in their older machines in varying sizes all over the shop during! Second time this week I've had to operate on my ageing fleet of laptops, fan died on Laptop 'B' about a month back and I had just left it and moved all secondary use to 'C' in it's wake. Then 'C' went about 10 days later. £5.74 for new fan and some thermal paste later and all is well again, laptops distributed about the house so I don't need to go to the effort of carrying them with me.

I changed the keyboard on a macbook for a friend recently. 27 screws to remove to get the keyboard out.

I changed the keyboard on a macbook for a friend recently. 27 screws to remove to get the keyboard out.

 

Laptop 'B' is on it's second keyboard (needing a 3rd tbh at moment) and laptop 'C' is on it's second also. They are so cheap now for them it's unreal, fiver delivered lol 

Laptop 'B' is on it's second keyboard (needing a 3rd tbh at moment) and laptop 'C' is on it's second also. They are so cheap now for them it's unreal, fiver delivered lol

Very different to apple then. 2nd hand keyboard was about £100. Genuine new Apple one was £200+.

Very different to apple then. 2nd hand keyboard was about £100. Genuine new Apple one was £200+.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Laptop-Keyboard-for-HP-Compaq-Presario-CQ62-G62-CQ56-G56-Black-UK-/291306228443?hash=item43d3344adb:g:DF0AAOSwD0lUc6tz

 

A bit more than a fiver but that's the sort of thing

I've a 10yr old HP business lappy. Haven't plugged it in for a while but it still works as far as I can tell. Stuck a 60Gb SSD in it a while back and it nipped along just fine with a copy of Mint on it.

I've a 10yr old HP business lappy. Haven't plugged it in for a while but it still works as far as I can tell. Stuck a 60Gb SSD in it a while back and it nipped along just fine with a copy of Mint on it.

 

I like old tech! My oldest still running is a C64 I've had since it came out with cassette drive etc Am sure I have an old PC still knocking about (there must be 5 or so in the house in storage) old Cyrix IBM CPU job, think its sporting an upgraded at the time 32mb SDRAM PC100 Was last actual pre built (non laptop) PC I ever had Then we have my collection of old mobiles FML! 

Very Cool ?

 

Top marks !

 

Surprising that  none of the major components weren't severely damaged given that most CPUs will only tolerate max 100 c in operation, let alone the poly caps.

 

. . . . . . You do realise that they'll all be doing that now, even when its only a stuck CD tray, eclipsing the figures for chip-pan call-outs.

 

Haven't yet had to resort to that with my 13 year old Packard Bell which , although it can't handle the  graphics intensive modern internet,  is still in occasional use for VCDS scans. Had to replace the failed HHD with an SSD 3 years ago and solder a new NVR battery holder to the contacts on the existing (Broken) battery holder, but that's it.

 

 

Nick

Edited 19 August, 20169 yr by Clunkclick

I like old tech! My oldest still running is a C64 I've had since it came out with cassette drive etc Am sure I have an old PC still knocking about (there must be 5 or so in the house in storage) old Cyrix IBM CPU job, think its sporting an upgraded at the time 32mb SDRAM PC100 Was last actual pre built (non laptop) PC I ever had Then we have my collection of old mobiles FML! 

 

 

I've amassed a small collection of old PDAs and early smartphones. They usually came to me at work to try to use for some alternative purpose before heading to landfill. Some were just too good to chuck even though they were effectively useless. 

 

Very much regret selling on the Psion 5 I had at one point and my own old HP Jornada.

 

I should really chuck that laptop but feel bad about binning working tech. 

 

I've amassed a small collection of old PDAs and early smartphones. They usually came to me at work to try to use for some alternative purpose before heading to landfill. Some were just too good to chuck even though they were effectively useless. 

 

Very much regret selling on the Psion 5 I had at one point and my own old HP Jornada.

 

I should really chuck that laptop but feel bad about binning working tech. 

 

I found a pocket TV a couple of years ago while moving, still in a box from several moves before. Batteries still in it and turned straight on sadly UHF is pretty dead now :( Didn't bin it though as it's also got FM  

he he - had to take my wifes old tablet apart the other day and re-solder the charger socket on it as it had become loose and wouldn't charge.  A bit daunting at first but whilst I was in there I added an extended wire antenna to it to improve the wifi reception...   ;-)

Edited 19 August, 20169 yr by skomaz

One of my regrets was lettin my dad chuck -

Amiga 500, with 1.5mb ram internal ram upgrade (first time doing anything like that age 9..) even if it was dead!

ibm XT 486 ... in working order on dos... cant remember what version.

Sickened now when i think about them..

One of my regrets was lettin my dad chuck -

Amiga 500, with 1.5mb ram internal ram upgrade (first time doing anything like that age 9..) even if it was dead!

ibm XT 486 ... in working order on dos... cant remember what version.

Sickened now when i think about them..

 

My A500 and SideKick are still boxed and up in the loft.

 

I went as far as removing the RAM chips (soldered directly to the board!!) and replacing them with faster ones!!!

My desktop replacement sized Dell laptop (Vista) suffered that annoying problem, luckily as I had speced its build with the optional discrete graphics board, I just bought a second hand higher performance version of that card which had its own graphics chip blower and heat tube, so I modified the existing heat ladder and fitted that new graphics board and down loaded new drivers for it.  Well that was okay for just over a year, then same thing again!  That happened quite a few years ago and after the first fright I bought a notebook thing - strangely as yet I have not tried that baking fix - but I really should if only to force me to strip this big lappy and bin it!

 

Initially I took it in to a couple of "pc fixer" places - who immediately said that no laptops were ever built with separate graphics boards, so the "experts" can sometimes be wrong!

 

Edit:-  My old Amstad 128 with extra external disc drive and Amstad monitor and Amstrad printer with spare printer ribbon and spreadsheet software and about 40 discs - all got skipped a few years ago, probably a lot later than its replacement tower Tiny PC (Win 95?) got binned!

Edited 22 August, 20169 yr by rum4mo