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The Daring Dufas[_8_]

On 12/25/2013 9:56 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 25 Dec 2013 08:21:10 -0600, philo
wrote:

On 12/24/2013 11:40 PM, wrote:

Only once have I gotten on my bench a standard HD that went
into instant failure mode.

I lucked out and found an SMT cap. with a cracked solder joint
and repaired it.

The next day I gave the owner of the machine a very severe
lecture on making backups!
Of the last 5 HD failures I've had come in, 2 were "hard", one
had been slow for months, and the other one had occaisionally had
access problems, which, in hindsight, were a warning. Because it
would generally boot on the second reboot other problems were
suspected - not the drive. When it quit completely, the drive
could not be accessed even as a second drive. Not sure if a new
drive would have fixed it completely as we junked the computer.

There is very little around here that I junk.

If it's a P-4 or above it's well worth keeping. I have boxes of
spare parts and can get just about anything going again.

This was one of the limited number of "acer power" computers that
had problems with sound and compatability with certain printers. It
had been put into a low stress application for the last 6 years - and
it's time had come.

The decent rejects get raffled off to employees for home use.
Sometimes hard to get takers for 7 year old or older computers
around here (silicon valley north) (aka "the technology triangle")

Many of the computers, LCD monitors, mice, keyboards, inkjet and laser
printers, switches, routers, wireless routers and speakers around the
office and house are dumpster rescues or poor abandoned equipment that
needed a good home. That doesn't include the phone systems. We have a
service call tomorrow on a phone system at a drug store and when we do
installations and repairs, all those rescued parts and equipment can be
recycled for use on the job. ^_^

TDD