Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Cheeky fucker who sold me that E3630A is trying to screw me. The auction just changed to “for parts or not working” 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392920926783

I don’t think the numpty realises that eBay takes a snapshot at purchase time  . As yet no reply to the return request. If he doesn’t reply by 28th then escalated to eBay 

Don't forget to post the seller name on the forum.



Just been watching a bunch of items on fleabay go for silly money (ie TDS210 for £180), but at least I managed to bag a Philips PM6667 counter earlier, despite several people trying to elbow me out at the last second     which caused the price to jump from £20 to £31   

Waiting on my doorstep when I got home was an Atari 2600 (untested), cost thirteen quid shipped. Surprising lack of crustiness inside, I was expecting multiple leaking caps, blown traces, missing ICs etc etc. Seems intact:


With the shield removed:


The soldering on the IC socket is a bit how ya doin' though:


And wtf are these? Caps in glass jackets?!? As if tants aren't bad enough already, they put these ones in shrapnel-generating casings!
 


The one questionable cap could be the main reservoir, the heatshrink label has some holes in it, but whether this is from the factory or evidence of overheating idk. Gave it some limited juice, uses around 10mA @ 8.6V according to the meters on the TTi 354, which seems fine (7805 is the only power regulation). No carts to test it with yet, though I suppose I could probe the CPU clock, and I could plug in a tv to the rf out, though icr if these have a no-cart boot screen.
The reset and select buttons need new sponge/springs, a quick test with a bit of packing foam gave good results.

Looking forward to getting pwnd at asteroids...


@TorinoFermic, glad you found it was a simple solution!

If you power it up without a cartridge plugged in you should still see something on the screen surely, like a copyright message or similar?
You're right, that chip has either been replaced at some point or the connections reflowed, badly.

[bd139]

Dang it. Found another box when I was unpacking crap earlier  . Another NanoVNA for the telemetry project . Forgot how good these are for abusing into an LC meter



Source: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154053562654 ... came in 3 days via Yodel.

[med6753]

Nice one with the recap med. What's next? Blue     (I'm liking blue  )

Next project is pull down the Pioneer amp and find out what's up. But that may get put on hold. Late yesterday got a phone call from one of the owners of the PC's I maintain. 6 year old Dell tower went tits up. Completely dead, no power. Probably just the PSU but given it's age and it's Win7 told them they would be better off purchasing new. And they need one ASAP and have no backup. So once they purchase one I get the job of setting it up for them and I'll also pull the old hard drive and move their files over. A back up? Surely you jest. 

Maxim 41. “Do you have a backup?” means “I can’t fix this.”   

mnem
13th Commandment: Thou shalt back it up, lest thine data go to heaven without you.

Just got a text from them. They bought an HP tower and they'll bring it over tomorrow morning along with the dead Dell and I'll set it up for them and transfer their data.

And just got a phone call from them. There's nothing wrong with the Dell tower. Bad power strip. I asked that question yesterday and they said they checked it. Apparently not. So they will return the HP tower.

Can't make this stuff up. 

[bd139]

That reminds me of my daughter the other day. Her T470 gave out so I get a text message. So I wander in there, pick up the charger, plug the mains lead back into it and walk out without saying anything. Humans 

[Robert763]

It's than old telephone support joke, "Is it plugged in?" "I'll just get a flashlight and check" "why do you need a flashlight?" " The powers out"

[Robert763]

I once drove over 500 miles starting at 10PM on a Friday night to fix a problem with an aircraft search (not weather) radar system. The local engineers and Radar manufacturer techs had been on it for two days. Took me 10 minutes to find and fix a blown fuse and disconnect the shorted indicator that blew it. 
I was supposed to be flying on holiday from Exeter that morning, so went to the BA ticket desk (in Edinburgh) and the lady said "Your flights from Exeter, and this is Edinburgh!" I said " I thought the taxi took a long time"
It took a second or so before she saw the joke. What she could not understand was why I wanted a refund and a new ticket rather than just a straight swap for new ticket. The boss paid for the new ticket and had not realised that I'd paid full fare so was eligible for a refund even on the day of the flight.
I did get a bonus too, but it was still cheap for the company compared to the penalty charge if the aircraft had not been available per the contract.

[bd139]

And I thought I had a bad day the time I fudged the entry of an IP address and had to do a second round trip between Nottingham and Manchester on the same day  . I feel better now 

[BU508A]

As mentioned earlier:

[BU508A]

It's than old telephone support joke, "Is it plugged in?" "I'll just get a flashlight and check" "why do you need a flashlight?" " The powers out"

Old support jokes:

"What's on your monitor?"
"A flowerpot."

[mansaxel]

I just realised something. The Userfriendly cartoon BU508A posted just now, is a HTTP resource. The forum is HTTPS. This, more or less, amounts to a downgrade attack, as seen by the browser. This is why I haven't been seeing my own images.. I'll see if the hypothesis holds.

[BU508A]

Glad that I could help. 

[bd139]

I just realised something. The Userfriendly cartoon BU508A posted just now, is a HTTP resource. The forum is HTTPS. This, more or less, amounts to a downgrade attack, as seen by the browser. This is why I haven't been seeing my own images.. I'll see if the hypothesis holds.

It’s called “mixed content”. Go look it up and cry.

Everything the World Wide Web is built on is made of shit.

Bring back gopher and usenet.

[VK5RC]

At work we have optical data that gets split to PC, fax and phone lines. The phone stopped receiving voice, but would ring, and fax and data were working.
 My secretary who is really good with initiative, rang the phone company / ISP who advised her to reboot the switch/router , disconnect the optical modem - all to no avail. They (the ISP) then escalate the problem to the optical people (in Aus the NBN co) who were going to take 48hrs. My secretary runs it past me - we reboot the phone handset and all works.
And FFS I am not in the data/modem/phone business.
I can only assume that these help desk guys are following some protocol written by some gorilla - actually that is an insult to gorillas but then again I can have a bad day!
(makes gorilla noises)

[Specmaster]

And I thought I had a bad day the time I fudged the entry of an IP address and had to do a second round trip between Nottingham and Manchester on the same day  . I feel better now 

What, you mean that you never tested the program before leaving, surely not 

[Kosmic]

ElectroBOOM has moved to USA?   

Still living on the Canadian west coast I think. Electricity delivery and wiring are the same in the US and Canada.

[Brumby]

At work we have optical data that gets split to PC, fax and phone lines. The phone stopped receiving voice, but would ring, and fax and data were working.
 My secretary who is really good with initiative, rang the phone company / ISP who advised her to reboot the switch/router , disconnect the optical modem - all to no avail. They (the ISP) then escalate the problem to the optical people (in Aus the NBN co) who were going to take 48hrs. My secretary runs it past me - we reboot the phone handset and all works.
And FFS I am not in the data/modem/phone business.
I can only assume that these help desk guys are following some protocol written by some gorilla - actually that is an insult to gorillas but then again I can have a bad day!
(makes gorilla noises)

Not gorillas - but chimpanzees.

A few years ago I had an internet problem and got onto the ISP's tech support.  They started running their play book and I could see it was going to take a long time to get past all the stuff I'd already tried and all the stuff that didn't match the symptoms - so I jammed in a couple of observations and opinions that were enough to make them think twice and we got to the heart of the matter within a minute or so.

And this is me - whose only networking knowledge has come from stuffing around with my own home network and one I set up for an old time friend.


(I'm sure we all have similar stories.)

[med6753]

ElectroBOOM has moved to USA?   

Still living on the Canadian west cost I think. Electricity delivery and wiring are the same in the US and Canada.

Interesting. That breaker panel has no master disconnect. For that size panel older typically a 100 AMP breaker, newer typically 200 AMP.   I've seen that once before and I guess it is (or was) code legal.

[Kosmic]

Interesting. That breaker panel has no master disconnect. For that size panel older typically a 100 AMP breaker, newer typically 200 AMP.   I've seen that once before and I guess it is (or was) code legal.

it's at the bottom ?

[Saskia]

Tech support for PSSP on IBM SP2/ aix ...
Customer called:and complained about throughput being 16% too low over the css0 interface. Disassembly of the locking code in the kernel showed that the CPU was doing a cache flush before transmission of a packet which it was not supposed to for this CPU type. This was traced back to a bitmask set in a struct in if.h  which was slightly wrong.
Ok, calculate the correct bitmask, go to the kernel debugger, find the network interface address for css0, count 92 bytes, and patch the right value into the kernel.
Rt voila, 15% more throughput, customer was happy. Took us a while to find this bug though, and the how-to was accompanied by a disclaimer. Poughkeepsie, our level3 support, provided an official fix.

[mnementh]

So... the nulls were eating 15% of your BW...?

mnem
Gotta feed 'em something... lest they develop a taste for manflesh.

[bitseeker]

At work we have optical data that gets split to PC, fax and phone lines. The phone stopped receiving voice, but would ring, and fax and data were working.
 My secretary who is really good with initiative, rang the phone company / ISP who advised her to reboot the switch/router , disconnect the optical modem - all to no avail. They (the ISP) then escalate the problem to the optical people (in Aus the NBN co) who were going to take 48hrs. My secretary runs it past me - we reboot the phone handset and all works.
And FFS I am not in the data/modem/phone business.
I can only assume that these help desk guys are following some protocol written by some gorilla - actually that is an insult to gorillas but then again I can have a bad day!
(makes gorilla noises)

Not gorillas - but chimpanzees.

A few years ago I had an internet problem and got onto the ISP's tech support.  They started running their play book and I could see it was going to take a long time to get past all the stuff I'd already tried and all the stuff that didn't match the symptoms - so I jammed in a couple of observations and opinions that were enough to make them think twice and we got to the heart of the matter within a minute or so.

And this is me - whose only networking knowledge has come from stuffing around with my own home network and one I set up for an old time friend.


(I'm sure we all have similar stories.)

Yep, like the time I tried to tell the phone company that the signal-to-noise ratio was too low to reliably deliver the DSL bandwidth they claimed they could get to my house. They sent a truck out three times, where each technician gave a different story about what the problem supposedly was and/or that they fixed it. After three weeks, they finally concluded that I was too far for the speed they were trying to deliver.

Duh! All I did was log into the DSL modem and it was plain as day that there were lots of errors and the S/N was really poor. Boot to the head!

People talking in movie shows,
People smoking in bed,
People voting Republican,
Give them a boot to the head!

Boot to the head!
Nah, nah
Boot to the head!
Nah, nah
Boot to the head!
Nah, nah
Boot to the head!
Na, na, nah...

Mechanics who can't fix a car,
Politicians who can't think,
The salesman who won't leave me alone,
The waiter who forgot my drink.

Boot to the head!
Nah, nah
Boot to the head!
Nah, nah
Boot to the head!
Nah, nah
Boot to the head!
Na, na, nah...

Boot to the head!
Nah
Boot to the head!
Nah, nah
Boot to the head!
Nah, nah
Boot. To. The. Head!

— The Frantics

(mp3 of the skit, Ti Kwan Leep, followed by the theme song, Boot to the Head, @4:37)

[mnementh]

As mentioned earlier:   

reminds me of my gig at the ISD; every Friday I wore this shirt to work:

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

[mnementh]

Nice one with the recap med. What's next? Blue     (I'm liking blue  )

Next project is pull down the Pioneer amp and find out what's up. But that may get put on hold. Late yesterday got a phone call from one of the owners of the PC's I maintain. 6 year old Dell tower went tits up. Completely dead, no power. Probably just the PSU but given it's age and it's Win7 told them they would be better off purchasing new. And they need one ASAP and have no backup. So once they purchase one I get the job of setting it up for them and I'll also pull the old hard drive and move their files over. A back up? Surely you jest. 

Maxim 41. “Do you have a backup?” means “I can’t fix this.”   

mnem
13th Commandment: Thou shalt back it up, lest thine data go to heaven without you.

Just got a text from them. They bought an HP tower and they'll bring it over tomorrow morning along with the dead Dell and I'll set it up for them and transfer their data.

And just got a phone call from them. There's nothing wrong with the Dell tower. Bad power strip. I asked that question yesterday and they said they checked it. Apparently not. So they will return the HP tower.

Can't make this stuff up. 

Yeah; "tested it" means they flipped the switch on/off and/or moved the suspect IEC cable to another socket on the same power strip. 

mnem
*knocks self unconscious with a CPU mallet*

[0culus]

[med6753]

Interesting. That breaker panel has no master disconnect. For that size panel older typically a 100 AMP breaker, newer typically 200 AMP.   I've seen that once before and I guess it is (or was) code legal.

it's at the bottom ?

You're right. The primary is coming in on the bottom. It appears there is a master disconnect located there. Nevermind.