Benjamin Burrows

Tech toolkit

This thought has been in my head for many years.  It is something I wanted to do at Burrows Solutions for a long time.  I’ve wanted to create “the perfect tech toolkit.”  Perfect can never really be perfect though because everyone has different needs.  If you include everything possible then it could possibly be wasteful because you may never end up using but a few of the items.  My ideas of the toolkit have changed over the years.  I like to keep my home office stocked with most tools that I think I may need when working on a computer but I can only do so much.  I do very little work at home so I can’t really afford to buy $400 worth of tools and devices that I may never need.  If I made a few hundred dollars a month at home on repairs then I would.  Heck, I’ve spent a few hundred dollars on tools, magnifying lights, solder, heat gun, soldering irons, etc. for repairing laptops and LCD monitors.  But on average I make maybe $100 a month on those repairs so I don’t mind investing money into that to make the job easier, faster, or more reliable.  My desktop tool kit does not include everything that I actually need but because I want to be prepared I continue to add items to it.  Recently I worked on a old P3 system that did not have a NIC and I found that I did not have a NIC card to install into the system anyways.  The only device I had was an old LinkSys wireless B USB device and that would not operate correctly on the system?  So I failed on many fronts there.  I should have had a PCI NIC, a USB NIC, or even a USB wireless device that actually worked.  I ended up borrowing a USB NIC from work and it helped remind me that I was still in search for the “perfect” USB NIC.  I posted here about that USB NIC and still have not found one.  I think my standards are too high for that so maybe I just need to find a reliable and cheap one that supports XP, Vista, and 7.  While a PCI NIC would be ok in some situations I feel that it should not be included in a kit.  Maybe to have one to replace for a customer but if you need a NIC temporarily on a system you are just working on then I think you should go with a USB one just so you don’t have to open the system up.

As I had mentioned this was something I wanted to do for Burrows Solutions. I want to offer a quality kit at a reasonable price and include items that you would need and want.  A few of the items are on the site already but I do not have a full offering for everything.  I kind of figure that most of you that actually read this blog would probably already have half of the items so buying the whole kit may not appeal to you?

So I ask all of you, what is in your kit or what do you expect in a kit?  Eventually I may end up selling something like this at Burrows Solutions.  For now though I would just really like your opinion on this matter.  I guess this could be split into a few categories though.  There would probably be a “home office kit” and “service call kit.”  A lot of those items could probably be moved over to each kit.  Screwdrivers, USB NIC, power supply tester, and many other items would make up the “home kit.”  Then you have specialized service calls where the situations vary.  If you have a customer that says their computer won’t turn on, then you are going to bring a power supply with you.  If they are having networking issues then you could bring a PCI NIC, CAT 5 cables, a switch, a router, a USB wireless NIC, and maybe a few other things.

So please, take the time to share you opinion on what would be a good “basic” tech kit.

Damnit!!

I really don’t want to talk about it much but we lost another puppy.  He was having problems breathing this afternoon so we decided to go for an emergency visit to the vet.  It was the best decision to put him to sleep.  I uploaded a new video the other day but never really announced it I don’t think.  For now here is the first video, he is the one in the front at the start of this video:

The second video I took that day is up now:

What happens now?

The day I’ve been waiting for is upon us?  Maybe it has already passed us?  Either way it is pretty well official that Apple’s latest iPhone is a dud and people aren’t happy.  There have been many bad phones over the years but of course they do not get the publicity that iPhone does.  Consumer Reports confirmed this for everyone a few days ago and I think that may be the final nail in the coffin for this phone.  I watched a very funny video about Best Buy and the iPhone not being in stock but it is a bit vulgar and I can’t find the link anymore.  The video does show how clueless most consumers are.

I’m left here wondering though, how does Apple handle this?  They haven’t had a “bad” product in years, so what will they do?  Honestly in my opinion I don’t think they’ve had a good product in a long time but my opinion is bias because I refuse to pay the crazy prices Apple asks for.  Since I am on AT&T I have thought about getting an iPhone.  Not because I want one and want to look cool but to see if it really is everything people are freaking out for and loving.  I’ve even thought of buying a Mac Mini but their crazy pricing still drives me away from it.  So since I can’t test or use their devices and software I usually keep my Apple hating opinions to myself for the most part.  Well unless Jobs makes a stupid statement (which he does a lot) that I strongly disagree with.  I went a little off topic there but I’m back to wondering what do they do?  Are the Apple minions stupid enough to just ignore this?  Really I guess it could not affect them much since most people don’t use the cell phones as phones anymore anyways?  All they do is text and play games on their little “toys” so who cares about bad reception?

Since my contract with AT&T is up soon and we’ve been having recent problems with reception I’m thinking of moving on finally?  The reception problems seem really strange though, calls to AT&T have placed the blame on a faulty tower that they are checking on but I find it a strange coincidence that the problem started around the time of the new iPhone launch.
I am one of the few people that essentially use their cell phone as a phone so most of this stuff doesn’t bother me. I am not a road warrior so I really don’t need a smartphone. It could be convenient at times but not often enough for me to swallow the additional $30 in charges every month! I do text a little on occasion and would probably do it more if I had a keyboard on my phone, but all the phones with keyboards look uncomfortable to use as a phone. That Droid X looks pretty awesome though and I kind of want one. My contract isn’t up until December though so I’m sure there will be a newer and better phone out then, but maybe I’ll be able to get the Droid cheaper then? I don’t know? Business needs to pick up a lot in order for me to afford it so I don’t think I’ll be doing that anytime soon.

Back to the topic at hand though.  What do you think will happen now to Apple?  Can one bad product really tarnish their “perfect” and “cool” image?  Let us know what you think, please comment!

XFX lifetime warranty debacle [resolved!]

I really love you guys/gals.  I’ve told you this on many occasions.  You push me to try new things and I have started repairing several different types of devices and problems that a year ago I never would have thought of trying.  You help give me great information also.

A few weekends ago I was tipped off that it is a violation of FTC laws for manufacturers to require consumers unreasonable duty for warranty registration.  I don’t want to get into all the details but if you wish to read more about it you can check this link that someone sent me.  So basically it is against FTC rules/laws to require a customer register their product in order to receive the full warranty.  I promptly reopened the old ticket from back in December and shared this new information with them.  While they argued that the link I sent deals with “full warranties” and the video card is under a “limited warranty” they still agreed to “this one time” take care of the card for me.  At this point I was a little worried though because a few weeks prior to getting this information I had attempted to replace the 3 blown capacitors on the card.  My repair didn’t work but luckily I had saved the bad capacitors.  I brought this to their attention and explained that if they would have originally honored the warranty I would not have attempted the repair.  They honestly didn’t say much but said to just ship it to them.  So I was still a little worried but at least I made some progress.  About a week went by (maybe a little more) and I was notified that it was shipped.  So I’m happy now because they actually honored their warranty.  When I received the box though it was not an nVidia but an ATI?  Originally I had a 8600GT with 256MB of memory.  They sent me a 4650 w/ 512MB with a VGA and DVI connector.  I had clearly told them twice that I needed a dual DVI like my card originally was but they screwed it up.  I am also having a hard time believing that I received a card of equal or greater value?  I haven’t taken the time to check any benchmarks but according to price this card is sells for 1/3 of what I paid for the 8600GT.  But of course that was almost 3 years ago so it might not be fair to go by price?  I don’t want to complain too much because they did honor it but they still screwed up.  While they fixed the situation I will still never buy or recommend a XFX card ever again.  I just thought that the information may help you and you might have wanted to know that everything turned out alright for me.

FYI- blown up power supply

We’ve enjoyed watching our video over the last few days.  There was a comment showing some concern and we replied to that.  The customer stopped in yesterday to ask about the computer so I figured I had to show them the video.  They thought it was pretty cool.  This morning they are picking up their new/repaired computer and brought their daughter or grand daughter along.  After a few minutes he told me to show the video to her.  She enjoyed it as well and I’m starting to think that was the whole reason she came along.  So I just wanted to let everyone know there was a happy ending.  Their DVD and hard drive were fine so they are pretty much set now.  If you haven’t watched the video yet it was posted a few days ago, just scroll down a little.

Another successful monitor repair

I really wish more people knew of my services because they could save a lot of money.  I’ve been a little busier than usual the last few weeks and it has been nice.  I always enjoy it when I can repair a monitor or laptop and save people money.  Over the weekend I’ve done a HP “Black Screen of Death” repair, a LCD TV, and another LCD monitor but I’m waiting on parts for that one.  The “Black Screen of Death” looks good so far and I really hope that repair is successful for more than a few months.  This is only the second repair for the BlkSOD that I have done so I honestly don’t have a lot of those repairs under my belt so I don’t know if the repair is a success.  By success I mean that it stays repaired for more than 3 months.  My first repair back in February eventually had the problem come back 3 months later so I am not happy about that.  So I am thinking of providing either a 6 month or 9 month guarantee on the repair.  If it fails within that warranty time then all you have to pay is shipping both ways, I’ll waive the labor.  The TV repair is looking good so far but their problems were sporadic so I’m trying to test it as much as possible before getting it back to the customer tomorrow.  The other LCD monitor looks like it will be a success because I do see 2 bad capacitors.  Only problem, I don’t have that particular capacitor on hand.  I ordered some and hope to have them very soon so I know if that is repaired or not.

Just wanted to let everyone know of my recent successes and remind you that I can handle these types of repairs.  If you ever need help with one or know someone that does, please contact me and I’ll be glad to fix it up for you!!

Also for those of you that are interested in an update for our puppies, I just posted a link for a video I took last night.  Check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f8GKIyomro

We had to do it again, just for YOU!

We had to do it.  Could not control ourselves!  Had Amy drop off our Canon so we could do it again and record it for the world to see.  You all are lucky because this one is the best of the 3 we blew up today.  The first was unintentional but once we knew this board will blow up Power Supplies, all hell broke loose and we had to do it a few more times!  Enjoy:

Sparks fly!!

I am sitting at my bench here at work, about 15 feet away from the boss.  He is checking a system and was hooking up a power supply…..bzzzzt!  I look over and he just fried a power supply.  He said sparks flew but I didn’t have the chance to see them.  Now this is the really cool part of my job because he says “Wanna try it again?”  So I went over and we picked up another power supply off the shelf.  Of course this time he had me hook it up and I was actually stupid enough to hold it this time.  So we hooked it up, fans spun up, but nothing?  So we just stood there looking at it and the board when 20 seconds later….bzzzzt!  HA HA!  This time I got to see it and it was pretty cool.  We think the motherboard is bad so we are throwing together a quote.  However the 19yr old kid that works here just walked in, hmmm……maybe we need to test it again just to make sure?

How tall is your corn?

I really don’t like corn too much, I really prefer Korn but that is another story.  Amy and I decided to grow a garden this year and it has been pretty exciting so far.  Last week though when a few storms blew through, it also blew down some of our corn and pepper plants.  Luckily we were able to put them back up and they seem to be ok.

Ever since I was little I remember my grandpa always saying “knee high by the 4th of july.”  We would drive by corn fields and comment on how high there were.  After the 4th though we then ignored them.  This is our first year so the soil is good and a lot of our neighbors have commented that is why our garden is doing so well.  I just can’t believe that we’ve had some banana and jalapeno peppers so far.  There seems to be a ton of tomatoes, cucumbers, and watermelons growing also.  We have two watermelons that are about the size of apples now so we are really getting excited about them.  We are also finding a lot of cucumbers right now too.  We didn’t expect so much so we are now scrambling to figure out how to use it all and have it not go to waste.  Canning some cucumbers to make pickles and making tomato sauces are a few ideas we’ve come up with.  Weeding the garden right now is pretty easy also because all the plants are consuming the whole garden so nothing else has the chance to grow.  Cucumber and watermelon plants really go crazy when they grow!

The thing that amazes me though is how well the corn is doing.  It is actually about 5 feet high!  While driving in the country I’ve noticed that other corn is doing quite well also but I think that corn is mostly used for animal feed?  I can’t wait until the actual ears start growing.  To the point though, do you have a garden?  How well is your garden doing?  Please feel free to comment.

Recent LCD success stories

My repair services have been quite slow this year. I have had a few repairs but of course not as many as I would like. Late last week though I managed to get several repairs in so I’ve had a busy weekend. Locally though I had a friends LCD to repair and it was quite challenging. The LCD in question had a few bulging capacitors but also had a fried chip. Some day I will figure out all the right names for these parts, but for now just searching for the numbers on the chip does well enough for me. This little chip wasn’t too expensive but after shipping it was almost $20! But she wanted to take a chance and see if replacing it would work. Now this wasn’t a big chip so it was a challenge. I would say it was maybe 5mm by 5mm. It had 4 leads on each side so with it being so small I figured it would be a challenge. I cheated a little and used my heat gun to try and make it easier. Luckily that worked and I just had to touch it up a little with my soldering iron. I was happy and surprised to see it work. So now I am a little more comfortable and confident with replacing individual chips on these boards. So if I find more damage than just the capacitors I still might be able to repair it.

I’ve received a few others and have only had the chance to really look at one and the repair is successful. I have another that is taken apart but I can not see any obvious damage so I’m not too sure about that one yet. The other will spend some time with me later this afternoon.

So just a friendly reminder that I do these repairs along with a few different laptop repairs such as DC jack replacement and reflowing GPUs.  If you happen to need a little help or advice on a repair you are doing I might have the time to help you out a little.  Just shoot me an email and hopefully I have time to spend with you.  I’ll gladly help out a little.  Enjoy the last few hours of the weekend and have a fun work week tomorrow!!