c/ancient-tech-fixers

Stumbled across a computer repair shop in Portland that still works on CRT monitors

I was visiting a buddy in Portland last month and we walked past this tiny shop called Rose City Electronics. The sign said they fix anything with a screen so I popped in to ask about an old Dell CRT I've been storing in my garage. The guy behind the counter had a whole shelf of CRT chassis and flyback transformers. He told me he gets shipments of parts from a warehouse in Ohio that still stocks stuff for monitors from the 90s. I spent like 20 minutes talking to him about discharging capacitors and recapping old boards. He even showed me a test rig he built himself using a breadboard and some salvaged parts. I came home with a list of components to order and a newfound hope for that Dell monitor. Has anyone else run into a shop that specializes in this kind of retro fix work?

Had a TERRIBLE week with a Windows 98 machine that just would not boot

I spent 3 whole days trying to get an old Dell OptiPlex GX110 to start after it sat in storage for 5 years. Turns out the CMOS battery had leaked and corroded the motherboard traces near the socket. I tried cleaning it with vinegar and alcohol but no luck. Has anyone else had a board die this way or is there some trick I missed?

Warning: Don't trust those "recapped" retro consoles on eBay

I spent $150 on a Sega Genesis last month that the seller said was fully recapped and working perfect. Got it home, opened it up, and three of the replacement caps were installed backwards. Like, not even close to correct, they just slapped them in there. I've been fixing old computers for about 5 years now and even I missed it at first because the solder joints looked clean. The problem is people buy a kit online, watch a 10 minute video, and call themselves experts. If you don't check the polarity yourself you could end up with leaked electrolyte all over your motherboard in 6 months. Has anyone else dealt with sellers lying about their repair work or am I just unlucky?

My buddy swore a 60-watt bulb would keep my 1998 iMac from crashing in the cold

I left it in an unheated garage for two days and found the logic board cracked from the heat stress, so has anyone else tried something like this for an old machine that turned out way worse?

Dilemma: replace the battery or keep it plugged in forever?

I spent 6 hours trying to revive a 2011 Toshiba laptop last weekend. The battery barely holds 20 minutes of charge now. Do I hunt down a replacement for a 13 year old machine or just treat it like a desktop and keep it wired? It runs fine on AC power but the battery expansion has me worried. What do you guys do with ancient laptops that still work but have cooked batteries?

Can we talk about thermal paste on old laptops?

For years I just used whatever cheap thermal paste came with a cooler or I found at a local shop. Then a guy on a YouTube comment section said I was probably using stuff that was 5 years old and dried out. He pointed me to a tube of Arctic MX-4 that cost me $8 and showed me how much difference a fresh application makes. I tried it on my old Dell Latitude from 2012 and the CPU temps dropped 12 degrees C under load. Now I toss any paste that has been sitting in my drawer for more than a year. Has anyone else noticed a big difference just from using newer paste?

Rant: I hit the 10,000 charge cycle mark on my 2012 MacBook Pro and it's still kicking

I was just messing around in coconutBattery today and saw my old 2012 MacBook Pro hit 10,023 charge cycles. That's just insane to me, most modern laptops don't even make it to 1,000 before the battery swells or dies. It's got its original battery still inside and I get about 1.5 hours on a full charge now, but for a machine I use daily to run my cleaning business schedule and QuickBooks it's a tank. Has anyone else seen numbers this high on their ancient gear or am I just lucky with this one?

Just blew $60 on a fake battery for my 2005 iPod

I found a deal on eBay for a replacement battery for my old 30GB iPod video, and it said it was new old stock. Turns out it was some cheap knockoff that lasted two hours then puffed up inside the case. Anyone else get burned buying parts from random sellers online?

Ditched my soldering iron for a hot air station on a 1988 Apple //e power supply

I was desoldering a bulging cap on a logic board and lifted the trace with my iron running at 350C. Switched to a $30 hot air station and pulled the cap clean in 10 seconds without touching the board. Has anyone else made the same swap and seen their success rate jump way up?

My Windows 98 machine just crossed 10,000 days of uptime

Hit 1,000 hours on a Dell laptop from 2012 last night

I've been using this old Latitude for work and light gaming since I got it used off Craigslist. Last night I was entering a moving estimate and noticed the uptime counter in the BIOS said 1,000 hours. That's like 41 straight days of this thing chugging along. Has anyone else checked their old hardware's run time and been surprised?

TIL my old Pentium 4 PC boots faster with Windows 98 than XP ever did

I swapped XP for 98 on my 2002 Dell last month and it went from a 4 minute boot to under 90 seconds. Has anyone else found an older OS actually made ancient hardware feel snappier?