Hardware

Testing gift electronics before wrapping them is an excellent idea

Dave Farquhar Hardware ,
Testing gift electronics before wrapping them is an excellent idea

The late, great Consumerist blog recommended testing a Playstation 4 before gifting it. That’s always a good idea anyway, given that most failures happen very early in the life of an electronics gadget. If they survive the first 24 hours, they are much more likely to have a long life. It’s a good idea with any game console, such as a Nintendo Switch.

This is called burning in.

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How long does a hard drive last?

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , ,
How long does a hard drive last?

If you’re asking how long does a hard drive last, I found this study on hard drive longevity last week.

I take issue with the opening paragraph but the rest of the article is very good. The opening paragraph is a bit deceptive—hard drives were anything but common 30 years ago. Even 25 years ago, they were a serious status symbol. I remember in 1988, a classmate told me his dad had just bought a computer with a hard drive, and swore me to secrecy. Why? Because in today’s dollars, a computer with a hard drive in 1988 cost around $2,000, minimum, and given that his dad was working towards his master’s degree at the time, he probably had a really hard time affording that. If you had a hard drive even in the late 1980s, you were either very rich, or you took your computing very seriously and were willing to make some serious sacrifices somewhere else.

But, like I said, the rest of the article is very good. I’m being a curmudgeon. Read more

The problem with Lifehacker’s computer manufacturer ranking

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , ,

Lifehacker posted a controversial computer manufacturer ranking this week. I’m not sure how you can rank anything with Apple, HP, and Dell in it and not be controversial–someone’s going to be offended that their favorite isn’t at the top and their least favorite isn’t dead last–and while I agree with it more than I disagree with it, there are at least three problems with it.

So, let’s go. Read more

The trouble with routers

Dave Farquhar Hardware, security , , , , , , , , ,

I see the advice going around, again, to disable the Windows firewall and rely on an external router, the justification being that it makes your computer “invisible.” It doesn’t. Only IPV6 can do that–and then, only if you don’t use it for anything.

The trouble with that advice is that there are botnets targeting routers. Routers are nothing special; they’re small computers running Linux on an ARM or MIPS CPU, typically outdated versions with old vulnerabilities that can be exploited by someone who knows what to look for. One example of this is the Aidra botnet. Typically Aidra is used to attack outside targets, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility for an infected router to turn on and attack the machines it’s supposed to protect. And if you’ve turned off your firewall, then you have no protection against that.
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Not your father’s Celeron

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Linux , , , , , , , , , ,

I picked up a Celeron G1610 CPU last week and I’m using it to build a Linux box. Yeah, it’s a Celeron. But it performs like a 2011-vintage Core i3 or a 2010-vintage Core i5, consumes less power than either, and costs less than $50. It’s hard to go wrong with that. Read more

Computer burn in explained

Dave Farquhar Hardware , ,
Computer burn in explained

I’ve worked several different shops now that seem to have a misconception about computer burn in. So I’m going to explain it.

I think there’s a misconception that if you let a computer run with a light load for a while, it somehow gets stronger, and ready to handle a big workday load.

I’m 5’9″ and weigh about a buck-fifty, so trust me, I know a non-bodybuilder when I see one. And computers aren’t bodybuilders. Read more

It’s the end of SSDs as we know it, and I feel fine

Dave Farquhar Hardware , ,

Flash memory’s days may be numbered. The end of the line for traditional flash memory has been predicted for a long time, and gloated about by Luddites who are dead-set against buying SSDs for whatever reason. But I’m not worried about it. All I want is solid-state storage; I don’t care about the underlying technology. The technology behind the RAM my computer uses has changed several times since the early 1980s, and I’m not broken up about it–the SSD in the last computer I built is faster than the RAM in my Commodore 64 was. Speed is good. More speed is better.

So I’m glad to hear about a potential breakthrough in RRAM. Read more

Fix a Dell Poweredge R320 network port

Dave Farquhar Hardware

A vendor–the vendor’s name is unimportant–shipped us a DOA appliance based on a Dell Poweredge R320 1U server (I think the model number is correct) this week. That gave me the opportunity to learn how to fix a Dell Poweredge R320 network port.
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I found a reasonably good, inexpensive keyboard for the Sero 7 Pro

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware , , ,

I bought a keyboard this week for the Hisense Sero 7 Pro. It’s a universal keyboard/case made by Afunta, and I paid $12.50 for it. I took a chance on it, and now you don’t have to. Its spring-loaded jaws nicely accomodate the Sero 7 Pro, and the keyboard works with the Sero 7 Pro with no issues. Plug it in, wait a moment, and it starts working, replacing the onscreen keyboard when you need keyboard input, basically turning your tablet into a convertible. It has a micro USB connector, unlike many 7-inch keyboards, so it works with the Sero 7 without an adapter. It’s odd that most keyboards seem to have full-size USB connectors but most 7-inch tablets have micro ports.

I wouldn’t want to type at length with the keyboard, but it’s much nicer than using an onscreen keyboard on a 7-inch screen.

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Snickering at the Emachine

Dave Farquhar Hardware, War Stories , , , ,

For several years, I administered a command and control system for the U.S. Air Force. I sat in a datacenter, surrounded by racks jam-packed full of servers, and they kept the building at 64 degrees year round. I quickly learned to keep a jacket handy. I did several things, but mostly patch management.

Our system consisted of a diverse collection of Dell 1U and 5U servers, HP blades, and a couple of Sun SPARC boxes. It was a professional-looking setup, and except for the times we were doing massive system upgrades, the system generally worked as well as it looked.

Then we got a neighbor.

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