Comments on: One week at 100Mhz: Scary power failures

By: Eclipsed, obsoleted, retired « Motho ke motho ka botho

Eclipsed, obsoleted, retired « Motho ke motho ka botho — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:17:51 +0000

[...] had two reasons for doing it. The first I mentally categorized as an act of mercy — the power switch was unreliable and potentially dangerous. Disassembling it gave me the opportunity to look at it, although I knew beforehand that I was [...]

By: Putting the Pentium back to work « Motho ke motho ka botho

Putting the Pentium back to work « Motho ke motho ka botho — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:37:09 +0000

[...] a 13-year-old laptop have evened out a little. In other words, I’m not afraid I’ll send spontaneous pulses of electricity through the thing, just by turning it [...]

By: More observations on the effects of environment on antique hardware « Motho ke motho ka botho

Tue, 26 May 2009 13:14:51 +0000

[...] one of the ways I notice it through that misbehaving power switch on my 100Mhz laptop, the one that will randomly pulse at times, cracking a wicked on-off-on-off [...]

By: An apology, and an update « Motho ke motho ka botho

An apology, and an update « Motho ke motho ka botho — Sun, 17 May 2009 12:01:57 +0000

[...] course there are the hardware quirks. And the occasionally irritating lag while one thing or another does what it’s supposed to [...]

By: A puzzle that doesn’t need solved « Motho ke motho ka botho

A puzzle that doesn’t need solved « Motho ke motho ka botho — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:33:39 +0000

[...] failures on this machine are not unheard of, although since the weather turned warmer and stayed warmer, the flaky power switch I described [...]

By: Role reversal « Motho ke motho ka botho

Role reversal « Motho ke motho ka botho — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:39:00 +0000

[...] rtorrent slave), and while network speeds are significantly slower through a wired PCMCIA card and occasional reboots are a possibility, it can do the [...]

By: karthik

karthik — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:25:15 +0000

I had a 350 MHz Pentium II lying in the attic for several years. Trying to resurrect it last year, I wiped the dust off the case, plugged it in and pressed the mechanical power switch.

The switch stuck, causing the scary pulsing you mentioned here. The power supply unit sparked, and the fuse for the electrical mains melted. Turns out the power supply unit blew, cracking the RAM chips in the process. Apparently disuse had caused the insides of the plastic switch to harden and collect grime.

These mechanical “hard” switches scare me.

By: Onyros

Onyros — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:14:39 +0000

Hehehe, you’ve fallen in love with long text! The same thing happened to my e-mails when I started using a console MUA (that’s how fine mutt people like to call their app).

That’s why I can never, ever be a journalist again, even though that’s what I was trained to be: I write way too much. Love the long text! Long live the long text!

I hope your 100MHz warrior survives the heat, I’m really enjoying the experiment.