27 Nov
2011
27 Nov
'11
11:43 a.m.
On 11/25/2011 08:54 PM, David Riley wrote:
Yeah, there are aven computer-users who don't own a soldering iron, a
mutlimeter or a logic analyser. Kids these days....
I normally carry a couple of known-good mains leads in my toolkit when I
do repairs. Alogn with any other 'standard' cables that I suspect I might
need. The katter deoebd ib wgat U am working on, if it's an HP machien
I'll carry a few HPIBm HPIL and HP-HIL leads, for example
Oh yeah, power cables. I have so many and forget
that other people
don't; sometimes I'll go somewhere and don't bring the cord and get
weird looks when I act surprised that my hosts don't have spare
computer cords.
I've experienced that myself. :) I was shocked to learn that there
are people who use computer equipment in their day-to-day lives who don't have a box of power cables sitting around.
I also laugh when
people (annoyingly) bring their broken (invariably PC) computers to me
to fix, with the power cable plugged into the back.
Hmm... Not half as annoying as when I get soemthing for repair and the
(non-stnadrd) cable is not included with it.
I prefer all cables to be included when I get something to repair, if
only beceaus the cable could be the cause of the problem. If the machine
won't power up at all, I do want to check the mains lead. Ove here, where
mains plugs normally contain cartridge fuses, I want to know if the
machine is blowing that fuse (if it is, it points to a short-circuit
early in the power circuitry).
I once had a C64 to repair which only produced mnonochrome output on the
Commodore monitor, that was an open-circuit wire in the video cable.
-tony