MasterTracklayer
Well-known member
davesnow: ROTFL, or at the very least LOL. 
Don't Give Up on Pre-Built
- Thread starter jeff1959
- Start date
blueodessey
Well-known member
Hello Ole Friend,
I love it, nobody can say you didn't do it up right.
Water is bad enough, but with all that Sugar, I used to Drink Dr Pepper, was one of favorite drinks. Can't have now, but Dave it brings back cool memories back in the day.
I thought Dr Pepper had a unique flavor.
OH NO!!!!!! A freaking mess is an understatement!
That stuff is dangerous to computers if left in place too long due to the soda water being acidic in addition to the sugar. I've seen circuit boards that have been hit with Coke, Pepsi and other soda and the boards had to be scrapped. The boards were beyond repair due to the damage done, besides removing and resoldering all the chips would've been too costly at the time and it was easier to replace the cards. This was back in the olden days when we could easily repair boards by soldering components by hand.
Legomaniac
New member
Recently bought a new 144 hz monitor and it has been running Trainz very fast. Also, it can overclock to 165 hz when needed.
I have one of those as well. It's really great too without the micro-stuttering with 60hz displays.
I've never had liquid get inside my computer. However, I did spill an entire 1/2 gallon (or almost 2 liters) of iced tea directly on my keyboard and mouse. For some strange reason, neither of them enjoyed the experience, although I though mice like sweet stuff.
Fortunately, I was planning on replacing both at the time.MasterTracklayer
Well-known member
Long time ago I read (in Byte magazine, I think) about someone having run his computer through his dishwasher. The thing survived the experience, apparently. I do wonder, though, how he dried it before using it.
MasterTracklayer
Well-known member
AFdude06, I agree, it does sound absurd, but I do believe that the report was in dead earnest.
MasterTracklayer
Well-known member
Probably, AFdude06, probably, but I`d be rather leery of trying it for myself. I don`t recall what, if anything, it might have said about cleaning agents. Whatever the guy used, though, I strongly doubt that it was dishwashing detergent.
By the way, I posted that particular anecdote partly because it was both outrageous-sounding and dead serious at the same time. That kind of story often make the best "jokes", being a difficult-to-believe truth instead of being a that-should-be-real untruth or a to-true-to-be-real half-truth. I wonder what comes up if one Googles Byte magazine dishwasher computer.
Anyway, this reminds me of an event that Jerry Pournell reported in his Byte column Chaos Manor: Some kind of automotive accident caused a high-tension transmission like to short across a normal-household-voltage distribution line near enough to his house that every single powered-up electrical item in the house burnt out as dead as the proverbial doornail -- except for one computer. That computer never even noticed the incident and kept on running like nothing had happened. The company that made the uninterruptable power supply unit it was running off offered Jerry a free replacement unit so that they could study what that much juice did to their product. He told the story much better, though, being a professional author.
By the way, I posted that particular anecdote partly because it was both outrageous-sounding and dead serious at the same time. That kind of story often make the best "jokes", being a difficult-to-believe truth instead of being a that-should-be-real untruth or a to-true-to-be-real half-truth. I wonder what comes up if one Googles Byte magazine dishwasher computer.
Anyway, this reminds me of an event that Jerry Pournell reported in his Byte column Chaos Manor: Some kind of automotive accident caused a high-tension transmission like to short across a normal-household-voltage distribution line near enough to his house that every single powered-up electrical item in the house burnt out as dead as the proverbial doornail -- except for one computer. That computer never even noticed the incident and kept on running like nothing had happened. The company that made the uninterruptable power supply unit it was running off offered Jerry a free replacement unit so that they could study what that much juice did to their product. He told the story much better, though, being a professional author.
I know someone who washed his keyboards in his dishwasher. He used to take his Sun Sparc keyboards apart and throw the boards in the washer separate from the keys. He'd then dry them off using a blow drier until there was no water left and then reassemble the keyboards again. Other techs do this as well because the boards wash fine and work fine once all the water is off of them. When circuit boards come out of the wave solder operation, they are dipped into a deep tank of De-Sol (Trichloroethylene) to wash the flux and dirt off the boards and then they go through a dishwasher like unit to rinse everything off. Putting boards through a dishwasher does the similar thing as that.
In the mid-1980s, Mass. Electric, aka National Grid today, was farting around something on the pole outside our house. Whatever they did, they shorted something to ground causing the transformer to blow up and that sent a spike into the Varityper Epics 20/20 my parents had for their graphic arts business. I was typesetting some text when the fuse from the surge protector, a giant line-conditioner kind and not one of those cheap ones from Staples, shot out of the unit and between my legs! The surge took out the Varityper's terminal, causing the power connector on the circuit board to turn to carbonized fiberglass, and ruined some other boards. The reason for the line-conditioner surge protector instead of a UPS was due to the analog power supply drawing way too much current that a UPS can handle. This is true today as well with laser printers.
My parents put a claim in to the insurance company and after many months the claim was denied due to the following.
"According to the Insurance Act of 1907, anything powered by electricity generated by Carbon Arc or other means was denied coverage! " The surge cost my parents $2500 in damages. We got off pretty easy because a new terminal was $10 alone and the Varityper Epics 20/20 system in total was well over $50K. I remember Jerry's stories and that one in particular.
As it turned out, we weren't the only ones affected by the big zap. My neighbor next door had a clock explode, and a microwave blow the door off. None of our regular appliances were affected, just the Varityper Epics 20/20.
MasterTracklayer
Well-known member
Do you remember the one where he lost his mouse-ball and had to fight with IBM to get a replacement ball? Despite presumably having a lot of them in stock, they utterly refused. As I recall, they eventually sent him a replacement mouse with the mouse-ball enclosure sealed shut.
I don't remember that one, but I can fully imagine IBM pulling something like that.
MasterTracklayer
Well-known member
That is probably true with some keyboards, and definitely untrue with other keyboards.
More likely, true with some people and untrue with others. I`ve encountered a few people that should never be allowed to try to fix anything.
More likely, true with some people and untrue with others. I`ve encountered a few people that should never be allowed to try to fix anything.
It also depends upon the keyboards. The cheap $5 or less ones I wouldn't bother with but the older ones, or the more expensive ones with actual screws on them are capable of coming apart. Many of them have those very thin ribbon cables inside that slip into a thin slot-connector. You definitely have to be careful taking those apart because if the cable rips, it's impossible to replace.
MasterTracklayer
Well-known member
I know you said it. ;-)
MasterTracklayer
Well-known member
Well, it looked like you didn`t, is all I can say on that.
