OT: Dealing with random laptop lockups

Ah, my favorite topic... me. I'm honored.

Yep. My original purpose was so that I could easily find my own postings due to problems with the Google News search tools. Anything worth doing, is also worth overdoing, so I've continued to use it even after giving up on Google News.

Incidentally:

4,560,000 hits. I would think it's now sufficiently common to be considered acceptable.

Hardly. I'm currently working on my second childhood. The idea is to do all the things I neglected to do when I was younger. It's difficult to cram all that into a 1 week vacation, but I'm trying.

Also, we try to have unique names, unique mottos, unique mantras, and unique styles of dress. Architects use unique fonts to identify their drawings. I do some of that to differentiate myself from the horde of other people with similar names and philosophies. Unique spellings and tag lines are hardly childish.

Incidentally, the company motto is "If this stuff worked, you wouldn't need me". My personal slogan is "Learn by Destroying". Both are on my stationary and web pile. Nobody has ever disagreed with either.

Nope. I call them Microsloth or sometimes just MS. Hmmm... only 15,000 hits. Well, after Windoze 10 and computing as a service, maybe the term will become more common.

Dunno. Perhaps I like to spell things the way they're pronounced. Or maybe you're thinking of Hebrew:

Good to know that you're carefully reading and disecting my writings. Thanks again.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

You've mentioned Acronis several times in the past. Including, IIRC, an admonition/suggestion to *avoid* the "2015" version (?)

If so, "why"?

Also, does Acronis run under Windows? Or, as its own, stand-alone (boot alone) utility?

E.g., in the past, I've used Clonezilla (partimage/partclone/etc.) precisely because it doesn't run under Windows -- doesn't rely on any part of Windows being functional; doesn't leave "terds" in the filesystem (i.e., there is no sign that Clonezilla even *saw* your media after it terminates or during operation).

I take lots of images while building a machine:

- after installing Windows

- after drivers

- after updates

- after utilities ...

This is largely because I rarely have a "restore disk" available for the machine in question. So, having just spent a fraction of an hour watching Windows install itself, I don't want to put that time/effort at risk while I *guess* at possible drivers required by the machine! If I screw up and install the wrong driver (e.g., many machines have different video chipsets), I can "undo" all of my actions completely by restoring the "after installing Windows" image.

Likewise, having sorted out the correct BASELINE drivers, I don't want to put *that* effort at risk when I install updates -- some of which may alter the installed drivers, etc.

And, again, having spent all that time installing updates (I use an offline installer as downloading a myriad of BIG updates 30 times in a single day eats up gobs of bandwidth!), I'm not keen on having to repeat the exercise if I install a "utility" that I may later decide shouldn't be present -- or, should be upgraded, etc.

Usually, only the first machine of a given make/model is built like this. Candidate machines are typically chosen based on how many "duplicates" can be built from that original effort; how much the original effort can be *leveraged*!

[E.g., an 18-wheeler full of machines from an "18-month" or "36-month" update cycle may contain two hundred model X machines (often with minor differences -- RAM complement, size/number of optical drives, size/number of disk drives, etc.), another hundred of model Y, *25* of a model Z and *one* model Q. The model Q will typically be a higher end machine (e.g., from the big boss's office or some IT guru at the donor's firm) so it will get put off to the side for the extra effort it will require to build/reuse. The model X's may get stripped for parts if they are low end machines (e.g., perhaps used to implement PoS terminals). The model Y's and Z's will see a bit of effort expended to get an initial sample of each built -- which can be cloned to yield 100+ finished machines for very little effort (build such machines at a rate of about 4/hour -- clean it out, cosmetically make it "presentable", remove all signs of previous owner/donor from the case/BIOS/disk, install OS and core apps, test and move to "finished storage")]

So, always looking for ways to trim a few minutes off a build cycle.

I'm presently engineering a system to automate this process for laptops (don't have room to store lots of desktop machines plus their monitors, mice, keyboards, power cords, etc.). Build "template machine (laptop)". Move image(s) off to server. Server provides an archive of known images (so if I get another batch of the same laptop, I don't have to bother hunting down drivers, updates, etc. again!) and prepares a compressed "factory restore" image for said laptop.

Thereafter, boot a CD (soon, I'll eliminate the CD and serve up a PXE image directly -- eliminate the need to put the CD medium in each laptop as well as having to remember to retrieve it when done!) that contacts the server and downloads some diagnostics to verify the operation of the laptop as well as inventory its available resources (e.g., I may need to add RAM to a unit or install an optical drive if none present).

Once done, download the "factory restore" image, placing it on a partition that it has locally created for that purpose. Finally, *restoring* that "factory restore" image to yield a usable laptop -- without me having to do all these steps "manually".

[At the same time, making a record of the laptop's availability in the "inventory" database]

While this will work even for onesie-twosie machines, it's really intended for multiple instances of identical machines. E.g., as donated by corporations, not "individuals" (a machine donated by an individual would have to be pretty "capable" to warrant that much focused effort for just

*one* reusable machine!)

So the update today is that I've found that in addition to the lockups seemingly being related to temperature, I can often trigger a lockup by rotating the machine about its axis...i.e. it will be working fine if I keep it on a completely flat surface but then if I rotate it towards me it will often lock up.

I'm hoping that maybe it's just something that's loose in its socket.

On Sat, 01 Aug 2015 11:03:35 -0700, Jeff Liebermann Gave us:

That's dissecting...

bitrex schreef op 08/01/2015 om 12:00 AM:

Most Acers do that from day 1 so count yourself lucky and get a proper laptop from the business section at Dell or HP.

Sorry, but my proof reader was out for lunch when I wrote that. I used a spelling chequer, which is a poor second best. However, if you've ever seen my unassisted spelling, either correction method would be considered a major improvement.

Note: I usually ignore one-liners. Insufficient thought, little entertainment value, and no substantiation makes for dull reading.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Really ?

I have two of them, one is one of those little mini with a atom processore and I can't remember what the other one has but its a larger version of the mini..

I use them alot, never had issues with either, but I can tell you they get warm and I always insure they have plenty of air movement around them.

Jamie

2015 does not recognize or backup to many 1.5 and 2.0 GByte USB drives. 2014 works nicely. Acronis left out some kind of driver or config file that breaks these large drives. Actually, the real problem is that Acronis has not updated the 2015 version with a fix, despite chronic complaints. 2015 also permanently removed a few useful features (which I can't recall right now).

So that you're not reading between my lines, I don't really like Acronis. I have more than a few complaints and issues. However, it's the least disgusting of the backup programs that I tested over a 2 year period. There are plenty that are far worse or less suitable, but none I could find that is better for the intended purpose (fast, easy, and reliable image backups).

Both. There's also a OS/X version.

When installing Acronis, it installs the software necessary to run under Windoze. The licenses are by the number of installations. The features used are totally dependent on what the user wants to do. For example, you could do regular image backups to a network server or NAS box, with incremental image backups between major image backups. I don't use these very much because I do not like the idea of running an image backup while the OS is loaded and running. I had a major disaster with such a program (Touchstone) with makes me very paranoid of such convenience features.

One of the installed utilities creates a "Recovery CD" that can be booted to run an image backup, restore, or disk clone. That's what I used most because it does NOT require Windoze to be running. It's also MUCH faster than running a backup or restore from Windoze. I get about 1GB/minute for USB 2.0 devices and as much as 6GBytes/min on really fast machines with USB 3.0.

Yep. I also use Clonezilla for image backups. However, I need something that my customers can use, which means a GUI or some automation. Acronis has the GUI, but the scripted automation isn't there. I've requested scripting for about ummm... 6 years without results.

Ditto, but with a different flavor:

1. When the machine arrives for repair.
2. At various points during the repair/reinstall/untrash, whatever.
3. When I'm done.

I use Acronis to save the recovery partition from the hard disk. I have a fair collection of these for various machines. To recover, I use Gparted to create a small recovery partition, restore a suitable recovery partition to the new partition, point the boot loader to the new partition, and use that to recover. Ugly, but functional.

Oh, I prefer to pick my own drivers. Most major vendors have them on their web sites. I get into more trouble when MS "updates" a driver that either rolls back the driver to something useless, or is defective on install. Worst problems are Nvidia video drivers. I get them from the Nvidia web pile, not from the install media or Windoze Update.

Yeah, if you find or separate out the post mortem installation software. I've had little luck with this and usually just go for the source.

Relax. Windoze saves everything. Once installed, you can roll back drivers back to the original installation. It's not easy or obvious, but it's possible.

Yeah, I have image backups for most of the common systems I deal with. Mostly, they're Dell Optiplex, Precision, and XPS machines. I can usually reinstall from the original Dell Windoze CD's (depending on version) but it's MUCH faster to do it from an image backup.

I usually get one machine at a time, so this is not an issue for me.

I haven't tried this, but it looks interesting: It doesn't do anything for the OS, but looks like it might speed up installing utilities and some apps.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Some detaila and updates:

76154: 2015 Rescue Media does not see my USB3 external hard drives

However, I haven't been paying attention. The latest update to 2015 (6613 on July 20, 2015) allegedly fixes the problem: Nothing like waiting about 6 months for a fix. (Reminder... this is the lesser of all the other backup evils).

65498: Summary of Features Removed in ATI2015

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Shall I assume you mean 1.5/2.0 *T*Byte drives? (I think even flash drives of 1.5 *G*Byte are hard to find, nowadays! :> )

Perhaps support for 4KB sectors?

So, the "system" reflects the presence of Acronis as a tool. It

*alters* the system that you are wanting to image (?)

What about a dead/dying system that you are trying to image? Installing *it* may yield a non-functioning system -- or, not be possible to install if the system is already munged!

In my case, I would have to count each imaged machine as a separate license? We typically get Windows licenses for free so it would be annoying to have to pay for a silly little *tool* -- esp if it is just used to simplify the build process.

Ditto. I don't trust MS to know how to get out of its own way!

My "imaging" speeds tend to be a tad slower. But, restores are a bit faster (1.5G/m on USB2).

Understood. I'm just looking for tools to help me automate the testing and building process. Once I've built a "FACTORY restore image" for each machine, the end user can simply revert to that when needing to restore their system (and, subsequently, add-in any changes since the day it was received/delivered)

I only repair machines for friends/neighbors. That usually involves a fair bit of "other" work (e.g., recovering all of their "user documents", reinstalling any apps they purchased, etc.) so it's more the exception than the rule.

OTOH, if a machine *here* starts "acting up", I'll image and restore the original image (saved from when I built the machine) just to see if something is happening in the hardware (I caught a failing disk drive with this approach).

The machines that I am most interested in imaging *can't* have their original contents preserved. The agreement with the donors is that the disks' contents will be purged, donors' names removed from the cases, licenses, BIOS settings, splash screens, etc.

For desktop machines, the process has been to routinely pull all drives at "intake" and route them to a "scrubbing" station. Then, when time to build a machine, pull a scrubbed disk from "inventory" and start with a clean slate.

For laptops, that's not a very good approach. At the very least, the number of M2 screws that would inevitably get lost, fall *into* the laptop (requiring it to be disassembled for retrieval) would be frustrating.

So, I let the laptop "wipe" its own disk before the image is installed.

Imaging just makes it easier to get from "totally undocumented machine" to "functional machine" with the least amount of "do-over" wasted effort.

[No, I do not want to watch you reformat the disk again!]

I have a collection of 80G bare SATA drives that I use for the machines here (personal). So, I can save all of these "incremental" images that I made while building in case I need to come back to one of those points, later.

For the "laptop building system", I keep the "final" images in a database (as BLOBs) and have the software running on the laptop during its "build" *fetch* the image (by querying the database) when it needs to install it on the "restore partition".

Exactly. As I don't have "restore disks", I've got to spend a fair bit of time researching what's *in* the machine, locating the appropriate driver(s) and downloading them as I build the *template* machines (I don't save them, after that -- they are present in the

*images*!)

I never trust Windows to remove ALL TRACES of something that I want to "undo". It is easier and more reliable to simply "redo" everything from scratch. Hence the value of these interim images.

See above. Ever look through "autoruns" output (Sysinternals suite) and note how many references are "not found"? Clearly, Windows (or something) forgot some aspect of an install/uninstall and left vestiges of it in the Registry.

My personal machines tend to be Dells and IBM (servers). A couple of HP "aircraft carrier" laptops. And, some odds and ends that are treated as semi-disposable (e.g., when I need a virgin machine to do something and will end up wiping it soon after)

Past experience shows building a "template" machine takes me most of a day ("shift"). Lots of time doing research, waiting for downloads, etc. And, usually many "false starts".

But, once the first image is made/available, I can crank out a new machine in just 10-15 minutes (hook a bunch to the server and let them each "do their own thing" -- while I'm fetching more machines!)

Yeah, I've looked at shortcuts like that. I am afraid it will be more hassle than its worth. I can bear the cost of manually building the

*first* machine -- if I can leverage that for MANY OTHERS to follow!

We've had "IT guys" volunteer to help. They always think its similar to their shops at work: "Oh, sure! I can do this!!" But, the sheer quantity and variety of machines quickly proves daunting -- and they slink away ("other commitments")! :>

s

I've had several Acers with no problems, the problems start when the inside s look like this:

-Lasse

On Sat, 01 Aug 2015 15:13:41 -0700, Jeff Liebermann Gave us:

Doncha mean "TByte drives"......

haven't read any others yet, sorry if rerun

How does it act under Safe-Mode w/ Networking?

Oops.

Dunno. I have large drives with both 512Byte and 4KByte sectors but have never bothered to check if that makes a difference. The pile is about twice as large today:

From the perspective of the company, copy protecting the installed software is the only way they can protect their license revenues. So, they need something to be "installed". They don't bother to mention that the CD based "recovery CD" works nicely for both backup and restore, without installing or changing anything on the drive.

I use the bootable "recovery CD". I can set the backup options to ignore bad sectors and continue, unlike some other backup programs that will spend hours trying to read one bad sector and probably damaging the drive with the effort. I've recovered some really bad drives.

Agreed. Use the bootable CD.

I have no idea. I haven't read the software license. The recovery CD works for me.

I repair machines for money. I don't need any more friends or neighbors.

The dollar value of the labor to install, update, configure, and add utilities to a machine with a failing hard disk drive is often much more than the value of the machine. For example, the Dell Optiplex

960 machine on my bench cost me about $150 ready to go with Win 8.1. However, if I had to load and update 8.1 on the same machine, it would take about 3 billable hours (not elapsed time) at $75/hr. Anything I can do to either save or shorting the OS install is a win.

You can save the "recovery partition" if there is one. There are no user files in there. The problem is that it's unlikely to be Win 8.1 on a donated PC. If you're lucky, you can also get recovery CD's from the manufactory, but that only works for older Windoze mutations which can't be resold by a refurbisher.

That's the way the local refurbishers also work. They have a small group that do drive tests and reformats. They do a mild "security erase" during the reformat. That also tests the drive completely.

That depends on the laptop. Some are easy to remove the HD through a door in the bottom. Others were designed to be difficult to disassemble and replace the drive.

The pile now covers the entire desk to a depth of about 1 meter. The losers are in boxes on the floor. I would do a recycling run except I haven't tested most of them. The 2.5" laptop drive pile probably contains 50 drives.

I use a Linux LiveCD boot to produce a hardware list and sometimes test the drive (read only test). If the laptop has a working Windoze partition, I install Belarc Advisor to produce a software list, HDTune

2.55 for testing the hard disk, and HWinfo32 for the hardware list.

Windoze is horrible at cleaning up its mess after an uninstall. Various registry cleaners do a tolerable job of cleaning up the residue. I use Glary Utilities 5.x. However, Windoze also protects old configuration sections in the registry, just in case you want to reinstall something, and somehow find it useful to have the previously corrupted settings magically reinstalled. I use various registry editors to deal with that nightmare. Yeah, a clean install is usually best, but the elapsed time is enormous. I'm now recovering a fairly new Win 8.1 laptop from yet another badly conceived Microsoft misfeature called "refresh". That put the laptop back to Win 8.0 with no updates. I spend an elapsed time of 18 hours downloading (at about

1 mbit/sec) and installing perhaps 6 or 7 GBytes of updates. Win 8.1 update was only 3.74GB to download. With such long download and install times, it's often easier to restore and image from a similar machine, and deal with the driver differences individually.

Agreed. I haven't volunteered for the local refurbisher much but plan to do more when (and if) I retire: Many of the machines come from the local governments, which have decided that it's cheaper to replace a trashed machine than to pay IT people to maintain it. So, they get an assortment of IT people volunteering between jobs. I had difficulties with one aspiring bureaucrat, who tried to resurrect his former organization using volunteers. In frustration, I unload by mentioning that if he couldn't keep literally the same machines running using his methods at the county, he should expect them to work at a recycler. I quit first.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Of course. They;re out to make money, not "do good".

When you're putting another firm's reputation and legal standing on the line, these details tend to matter! :<

Thankfully, I have "good" neighbors and friends -- folks who don't abuse the favors. And, who reciprocate in other ways (e.g., one just dropped off 5 pounds of freshly smoked pulled pork along with some homemade sweet pickles).

OTOH, I'll be making a cheesecake for a neighbor's 90+ year old mom's bday next week... And, spent the past few days playing chauffeur for another neighbor who's mucked up her back... :-/

That assumes you can identify the drive as "failing" before performing those actions. Most "repairs" I've had to make have been spyware or just "mangled software" -- a clean install gets the machine running again. But, you don't know that until you've done it.

Most of my machines cost far less; this Optiplex 745 was $5 (including a newish 8135 keyboard). I think my Blade server is the only $100 machine here (and, it's actually *two* blade servers but

*one* chassis)

I spend far more time imaging the donated laptops -- as that is an ongoing activity.

I *make* a factory partition. So, I can add whatever applications (and settings for those applications!) that I choose.

For the desktops previously mentioned, we're talking two or three of us to triage and process those hundreds of machines (a group of "disabled" volunteers disassemble the machines that we've deemed unworthy of refurbishing). As we have lots of "spare" computers and components, we have built special fixtures to automate many of these tasks (e.g., initializing drives from "master images", testing/wiping drives, etc.).

So, the real concern are those things that require meatware to resolve: sorting out appropriate drivers, building template machines, etc.

If you remove the drive, then you need a harness that will allow you to tether the drive to a machine that can read/write it. Easier to use the laptop *as* that machine and save the trouble of removing the drive in the first place! Also gives you dedicated horsepower for the task -- instead of having a special machine capable of handling N such drives concurrently.

I typically just look at Device Manager for the NIC and video (these seem to be the items that lead to the most confusion when trying to download drivers). We don't, for example, bother updating hard disk (or optical disk) firmware -- even if it is "available". If you have a bunch of "identical machines", they typically don't have identical drives!

Our donations come from "individuals", local businesses, "non-profit" entities that must dispose of their surplus to other non-profits and national chains. Of these, the "individuals" represent the biggest challenge. E.g., someone donating a high-end gaming machine is a significant distraction -- you don't want to just disassemble it on the basis that it's too unique (for the amount of time it will take to refurbish). Likewise with laptops.

Far better to get a boatload of "a few" different models and leverage any effort you spend building the first of these to then build the

*balance*.

s/should/shouldn't/ :>

Yes. They also don't tend to understand the resource constraints in place: "No, you can't BUY a replacement to correctly rebuild that machine. Steal something from some OTHER machine to do the job!"

The most valuable function I've found is that of triaging donations; what to keep, what to tear down, what to pilfer from torn down machines, what machines to squirrel away in the hope of finding more similar, etc.

(It's REALLY easy to fill up thousands of sq ft storing stuff that you HOPE to be able to use -- at some later date! Of course, there's always some other "interesting" things coming in the door that ALSO want to be squirreled away... Takes a lot of discipline to look at a "really neat" machine that's been collecting dust for 6 months and realize it was "obsolescent" when it was donated -- even moreso NOW! Get rid of it!!)

I'm usually suspicious of altruism. There always seems to be a hidden agenda behind "free".

Yep, I know the problem. I use various S.M.A.R.T. utilities for fast checks which will uncover gross problems such as running out of spare tracks. For SSD's, the manufactory usually supplies diagnostic tools, such as Samsung Magician and Samsung Magician DC (for servers). If I need more detail, I use the HDtune 2.55 (free version) for what amounts to reading tea leaves. There is no pass/fail indication. I have to use experience for what good, bad, and marginal drives look like. I don't have any examples handy. Here's my home computah 1TB drive today and 2 years ago. No change, which is good. What I look for is a drop in xfer rate (blue line) which indicates a clogged head, and a widening of the seek time scatter plot (yellow line) which indicates that the actuator arm has become loose. I've caught a few where S.M.A.R.T. says the drive is fine, but HDtune says otherwise.

I would guess my computer related distribution is: 40% laptops, tablets, cell phones, and devices. 15% desktops 15% network appliances (routers, wireless, switches, VoIP) 5% servers and NAS boxes 10% printers (mostly laser) 15% other (wiring, drivel, trivia) That's not counting sewing machine, chain saw, audio/video, 2way radio, ham radio, satellite receiver, repair and various related installation work. Throw in a some RF and antenna design work, and the repair pie gets smaller. The growth area seems to be in portable devices, mostly laptops. Unfortunately, many are designed or built so as to make repair difficult or impossible.

Nice. I should do more of that.

Impressive. The local refurbishers have some of that, but lack the volume to justify the time and effort. Mostly, they do desktops, not laptops.

I use a SATA extension cable.

That's assumed in the job description. My budget for replacement parts was zero. I cheated and bought some missing pieces on eBay and just donated them to the cause. I soon discovered that most everyone else was doing the same thing. When the previous owner would pull the hard disk from the laptop (for security purposes), they would often also remove the caddy and the SATA right angle connector adapter. I can afford to do that occasionally, but not for 300 machines.

Yep. The limiting factor is storage space. I've been trying to get them into selling laser printers, mostly because I'm very familiar with them. It could be done, but since laser printers are comparatively huge, the storage requirements would be a problem. It was being seriously considered when they had a fire in the thrift shop. Space instantly became a serious problem, so the laser printer idea was instantly dropped.

I don't want to post a photo of the triage area. It's embarrassing. I had them save a radio for me. Three days later, is was so buried that it took another week to find it. Similarly, I don't want to post photos of my office and home workshop, which are beginning to look like the triage area.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Yes, I think so. But I've blown it all out and took a quick peek inside and it looks pretty much pristine - it's less than a year old.

This morning I just let it run and it will idle fine for hours, but then when you start using it and put it under load it locks right up within five minutes.

My layman's guess is that there's bad solder joints that are heating up and breaking contact. Kicking the hell out of it would be very satisfying for all the time I've spent, but I'm not a wasteful person and it's still under warranty, so back to the manufacturer it goes.

I heard a rationalization re: altruism many years back that implied it was exactly the *opposite* of what one would claim -- i.e., that it is the ultimate sign of *selfishness*! (I would have to hunt for the reference)

I've had very poor luck with SMART as a predictor of failure. (I think google also has a paper to that effect). Also, how do you decide when you have good criteria to consider something "failed"? How many errors is too many, etc.?

I've asked my friends running large corporate server farms what criteria they use for *detected* ECC errors to indicate that the memory is "going bad". Amusingly, very few can put any sort of "number" on it! (yet, all insist it is invaluable!!)

With the notable exception of laptops from friends/neighbors, I won't bother to repair a laptop (ToughBooks being an excception -- they're easy!). Too many little plastic parts that break on disassembly; too many "special" parts to replace (e.g., even optical drives are frequently incompatible).

For this reason, I've advised against accepting donations from individuals. Even if it is a kickass laptop, if there is *anything* wrong, you're stuck having to purchase a replacement, etc.

By contrast, a business donating 10 or 100 of the same model means, at the very least, you can pilfer parts from one to repair another, etc.

Desktops are much easier. More things you can "share" between machines so easier to get to "a working machine" from a random collection of spare parts.

Yes, but you still need a machine to talk to it! I.e., leave it

*in* the machine and you've saved the hassle of disassembly, cabling, reassembly, etc. Nowadays, everything has a NIC so you can "access" the raw drive with a bit of software and the network interface!

I used to do this with caps (mainly for monitor repairs; if bad caps on a mobo, I'd advocate tossing the mobo -- salvage the heatsink!)

Exactly. Hence the value of reassuring donors that the contents of their drives will be wiped -- not just "reformatted". We've had machines come in with three 1/4" holes drilled through the drives (obviously placed soas to destroy the platters); or, bulk erased to render them useless (servos). A box of 100 500G drives that have been rendered "scrap metal" in this way is saddening...

Trust me, you *don't* want storage space! I think we had 30K (or 50K?) sq ft. Too much stuff gets squirreled away when you have "lots" of storage space. There's always more coming in the door (~2 tons/day,

6 days per week) so you have to move that much *out* the door each day lest your piles just keep growing.

One guy used to save power cords. No, not *modular* cords... rather, anything with two or three prongs on the end! Even if he had to cut it off : "We may need this, tomorrow!" "Um, we'll HAVE more of them tomorrow! Why save any of them today? If push comes to shove, pull one of the modular cords out and cut the end off it!"

Ditto saving (heavy duty) plastic bags: "They're brand new! We can store components in them!" "Then where are we going to store the bags FULL of components??".

You need someone (and policy) to routinely "sweep" the place for items that have been collecting dust for more than a week or two. If someone isn't actively working on refurbishing it, then get rid of it -- something else has undoubtedly caught their attention in the days/weeks/months since they drooled over this piece!

Laser printers are an excellent value item to reuse. I chuckle at the folks who buy/use inkjets -- and the monies they spend printing! It is far more economical to drop your items off at a Kinkos, Officemax, etc. and let *them* maintain the printers! (for color)

We would pull the inkjet cartridges from inkjet printers and trade them at Officemax for reams of paper or other office supplies; the printers themselves were a waste of effort to try to refurbish.

You can't begin to approach the kind of "mess" you can create when you have lots of space! E.g., we'd keep 500 *completed* PC's (plus monitors, mice, keyboards and power cords) "in stock" at any given time. Recall, these aren't in nice pretty boxes. Nor are they all the same size/shape. So, you've just got *stacks* of machines on the floor with aisles to walk between them.

"We need 300 computers for Nairobi..." just pull the first 300 machines and stack them on pallets, shrink wrap and off they go!

My home office is deliberately "space constrained" to force me to carefully consider every item that I bring into it: "what am I going to *discard* in order to make space for this item?" Similarly, I have limited myself to "one wall" of the garage (floor to ceiling shelving) for "supplies" -- cables, spare drives, appliances, various peripherals, etc.

(well, I actually have 1/4 of that space set aside for hand tools; those are indispensible!).

Sunday Lunch -- Finestkind!

Probably from one of Ayn Rand's books, possibly "The Virtue of Selfishness". There was a time in my life when I tried to follow her writings. Eventually reality, expediency, and experience pointed me in other directions. However, some of her ideas were quite accurate. I've done work for a few "charities" that were anything but altruistic. I've also done business with "public servants" that serve themselves, not the public. It's not good to generalize that all forms of altruism are inherently selfish, which is why I said that I was only suspicious. With free software or shareware, it has to be decided on an individual basis.

It's like the old days of tube testers. If the tester said it was bad, it was bad. If the tester said it was good, it may still be bad. Same with SMART results. What's really amusing is running several different SMART utilities and getting different results.

I don't have your volume and replacement limitations , so I can afford to declare anything that looks suspicious as defective. The nice thing about Speedfan is that it provides me with an intelligible report that I can shove in the customers face and demand that they buy a new drive. It produces to numbers for performance and useability. If either drops below 90%, the drive is deemed dead or dying. Above 95% is deemed ok. In between requires a subjective decision. It will sometimes declare a drive that has been on for too many hours as un-useable, when all that has happened is that it was used in a server. I usually ignore those warnings.

If they can't, I certainly cannot. Single bit errors can cause delayed failures and are not necessarily the fault of the RAM. For a while, some of the servers I was maintaining would experience a power glitch, and as long as a week later, would finally decide to crash because one bit had flipped. These days, I use ECC RAM where possible, but still can't eliminate single bit error corrections. Probably cosmic rays.

Yep, with a few noteable exceptions. I forgot the model number of one of the early ones as mostly plastic and just a cheap cosmetic makeover. I still use a CF25 for programming old Motorola radios.

I'll fix anything that the customer is willing to pay to have fixed. Laptops are difficult, time consuming, and often very strange, but given enough time and money, can be fixed. Most common repairs are broken LCD's and destroyed keyboards.

I have a short list of models and their original manufacturers to find similar parts. For example, many Foxcomm laptops will be very similar inside, even if they look different on the outside.

Yep. Economy of scale works. In this case, the local recyclers don't have that luxury and are forced to deal with most donations individually.

Ok, I get the point. Junk does tend to expand into the available space until there's no more space left.

That policy bit me badly in my own office. I kept a few ribbon cables and power cords thinking that I could always get more. When was the last time I needed an MFM/RLL ribbon cable. Well, that hit me a few months ago, and the recyclers didn't have any. So, I paid some outrageous price on eBay. Same with power cords. I got sloppy and tossed a few of the old cords with an oval outline and 3 round jacks as used in old HP and Tek test equipment. I'm now down to one spare power cord for maybe 10 piece of test equipment.

I give away any working inkjets I can find. Sometimes, I even include refilled carts from eBay. I tell the recipient that the printer and ink are free, but when it screws up, they get to pay my regular rates. I usually don't have long to wait.

I have a thing about saving laser printers (mostly HP). I enjoy fixing them, which means I must be insane. Recently, I became bored with HP and am now into Brother laser printers, which are very different. When the basic printer costs $100 refurbished, there's not much room for labor charges. I was looking into becoming an authorized Brother service center, but can't meet the qualifications.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558