Category: tech (Page 1 of 2)

I wanted to get more use out of my Vaio P, i just got tired of waiting on the load times for things and my iPad was just more handy.    I was surprised how low these SSDs have gotten, it’s a special form factor designed for netbooks but it’s only a little bit more expensive then the SSD i bought for my desktop.

This one is made specifically for PC netbooks or Macbook Air Rev A, but work fine in my Vaio P.  If you plan to upgrade keep in mind that you need a different one if your notebook came with an SSD from the factory, mine came with a hard-drive.

The dissassembly was surprisingly straight forward, it’s a little tight in the case and you have to keep track of all the tabs and screws but it’s manageable.  The tricky part is getting it back together and all the tabs lined up.  A quick tip, when you power everything back on, it might take you straight to bios, just save and exit and see if it’s detected, i went back in a second time when this happened, everything was tight, and when i booted same error, but once i saved and exited the bios it picked up the drive.

For the OS, i cloned my original with the included USB drive using Linux and dd.  Both my Win7 and Linux partitions booted up fine but i had issues with my Snow Leopard partition not booting.  I did a reinstall then a migration assistant to get all my files back up to date.

I only measured the load times for a few applications in OSX, but overall it’s much faster in all three operating systems.  Times below are in seconds.

IMG_1528.JPG
Originally uploaded by minhi.

Now underneath the mounting plate, there is rust compromising the circuit board. I think this is screwing up the camera’s logic and there might be rust underneath the board.

Looking around there is also a green rust (copper oxidation?) on the ribbon cable from the LCD, not sure if the LCD is still functional, but even if it was i think there’s no good data going to it.

I don’t know how this camera could have been saved, i wasn’t there but i have to take my sister’s word that it didn’t get directly wet. Oh well, it was a cheap camera–around $120 when i bought it a number of years ago but i hate throwing things away.

IMG_1524.JPG
Originally uploaded by minhi.

Under the LCD is a metal plate that the LCD mounts to, you can see in the corner that rust has moved from the LCD frame to the mounting plate. What i don’t understand is how water or moisture made it this far and then what exactly the rust is feeding off of? This plate is treated, it’s not bare metal yet rust still was able to form.

The bigger problem now is that the rust on the mounting plate has migrated to the back of the plate—which is in contact with the circuit board.

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Originally uploaded by minhi.

So my sister brings back my olympus camera (D-510, 2.1 megapixel a few years old) complaining that it was just beeping etc.

The last time it worked was right before a high speed speed boat trip (on the ocean) somewhere in thailand. I figured it got wet but she swore it was in it’s case, in her bag. So it was dry when you took it out. Well maybe it was the humidity or sea spray, but i was surprised when i opened it up.

Opening it was easy, and then i find all this rust and corrosion around the LCD frame. There is no gasket between the outer plastic case and the edges of the LCD that you see here.

I’ll dissect this picture by picture, for now notice the rust in the bottom right corner of the LCD