Archive for the ‘Hardware’ Category

I had a very traumatic experience over the week-end. On Sunday morning my ADSL modems lights went off never to illuminate again. This has happened a couple of times recently but the rhythm of percussive maintenance usually brought it back to life… not this time unfortunately. This problem is a good example that all clouds have a silver lining as I will be purchasing a new ADSL modem/router/firewall today with support for 802.11g wireless… if you are going to take the wires away… you might as well do it quickly!! Thus, after the death of a loved piece of hardware… the network will evolve into something greater!!

What an adventure. I took the back off of my non-working television set and made a very interesting discovery. I found a screw stuck under a resistor that was just touching another component and apparently shorting itself out. Interestingly, this screw was in very tightly and I am sure it could not have just recently fallen in to that position. It is conceivable that it shifted through vibration or heat though as on Sunday the set had been run for an extended period whilst watching 24. This leads me to believe then that it has been there since it was manufactured 7 years ago and would explain why this has happened previously. Last time though I paid £50 for a repairman to take the set away and fix a ‘Dry Solder’ joint!!! What he meant is that when the set got to his workshop it worked fine because the screw had moved!!! I am not happy about that.. I am very happy though that I don’t need to go and buy a Plasma replacement…. or am I?? :-/

I am mentally preparing for a challenge today… When I get home after work I need to clear some space and start dismantling my 42″ Widescreen rear Projection television! I realise this sounds like an odd thing to do but unfortunately the thing stopped working last night and before I go out and buy that plasma replacement I thought I should probably have a quick look inside. At the point of failure I was getting to the 4th DVD through the first season of 24. The plan was to watch them non-stop till the end of season 3 which would build up a fantastic total of 72 hours of suspense and excitement. The flow was maintained though as I used a laptop and an external amplifier to watch a couple more episodes before I went to sleep. I just hope that the 40,000 Volt capacitors are discharged by the time I stick my screwdriver in… if you hear no more… you know why!