[TriLUG] Ideas for Replacing Home Office Workhorse Computer?

[John Franklin via TriLUG]

Another option is to remove the battery and let the machine sit for a day or more.  I thought I blew out an Acer Aspire when a static charge jumped from me to the machine through the keyboard.  As soon as I touched the keyboard, there was an arc, and the machine shutdown.  Nothing I could do to it would get it booting again.

A few weeks later, I tried turning it on just because, and it came right up.  Probably blew an internal breaker or confused the PMU to the point the battery had to drain entirely for the machine to reset.

jf
-- 
John Franklin
franklin at elfie.org



> On Jan 4, 2019, at 4:10 PM, Matt Flyer via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
> 
> I will take a look at the pin with a flashlight.  It would be nice to
> get the machine going, at least temporarily if nothing else than to get
> the data off the drive and get it wiped. 
> 
> You're correct in that the host controller is required to detect an
> overload condition and shut the port down. I am pretty certain this is
> per USB specification. It should have been designed to take a full short
> and have clamping diodes to keep it from causing a catastrophic failure.
> It's weird. I also agree that it shouldn't have caused a failure such
> that it won't boot at all. It makes me think that a fuse may have been
> popped somewhere.  Maybe I will investigate or take it in for a repair
> sometime if I can't figure it out. 
> 
> On 2019-01-04 15:03, Brian Henning wrote:
> 
>>> It's possible you may have bent the power pin of the USB port to the point that it's touching the outer shell of the USB port.
>> 
>> That's a really badly-manufactured USB port if that's possible to do with an object as blunt as a 3.5-mm phone plug!
>> 
>> It also seems really unlikely that even a permanently-shorted USB power pin should keep the whole machine from powering on.  USB is supposed to work in such a way as to shut down the port if too much power is being drawn; the +5 pin in the connector should absolutely not be directly tied to the mobo's +5 rail and, if it is, that's a very badly-designed, standards-violating mobo.
>> 
>> I'm quite curious to hear what you find.
>> 
>> -B
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: TriLUG [mailto:trilug-bounces+bhenning=pineresearch.com at trilug.org] On Behalf Of shay walters via TriLUG
>> Sent: Friday, January 04, 2019 2:56 PM
>> To: matt at noway2.thruhere.net; Triangle Linux Users Group General Discussion <trilug at trilug.org>
>> Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Ideas for Replacing Home Office Workhorse Computer?
>> 
>>> As embarrassing as it is to admit it, I accidentally killed my Asus
>>> laptop yesterday when trying to plug in the 3.5mm headphones and I think
>>> I accidentally hit the power pin on a USB port instead.  Thing won't  > even power up ...
>> 
>> Take a look in there with a flashlight and see if it's like that.  If so, you can probably bend it down with a sharp tool so that it no longer shorts and maybe get the laptop going again.  That USB port might not be usable again after this.
>> (If it's like this, it's already not usable.)
>> 
>> -Shay
>> --
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> 
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