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Admin
It just buffers the extra voltage in case power is lost, duh.
Admin
It makes sense. They used a 220v power source instead of a 110v one, so they ran into a buffer overflow.
Admin
That's nothing... I've seen a stick of SDRAM in an ISA slot.
It actually fits.
Admin
Another guy got a mobo without AGP slot and an AGP card. He managed to plug it into ISA slot but the sockets ended up towards the inside the computer. He called a friend because he didn't like the looks of it before he powered the computer on.
A guy from the service plugged the last node into a BNC cable directly, without the T-connector and terminator. Well, it didn't work.
And there was this REALLY tallented service who built the computer I work on currently. It has a side pane with 2 USB sockets and microphone and earphone jacks. If you plug the microphone in, it displays "unrecognized USB device" and continues doing so till you reboot, despite removing the microphone.
Admin
Another guy got a mobo without AGP slot and an AGP card. He managed to plug it into ISA slot but the sockets ended up towards the inside the computer. He called a friend because he didn't like the looks of it before he powered the computer on.
A guy from the service plugged the last node into a BNC cable directly, without the T-connector and terminator. Well, it didn't work.
And there was this REALLY tallented service who built the computer I work on currently. It has a side pane with 2 USB sockets and microphone and earphone jacks. If you plug the microphone in, it displays "unrecognized USB device" and continues doing so till you reboot, despite removing the microphone.
Admin
Couple of problems here:
Don't build a computer unless you know what you're doing and you update your knowledge to include the generation of computer that you will be building.
Unless it is painfully obvious that that is the location, don't try to force things into connectors they are not designed for. I'm sure it didn't look quite right when they put the power plug in there.
Common sense... While they could have a power adapter on the sound card if it had some special power needs, he bypassed reading the instructions on the card, if he got a boxed card.
Although the outputs might have been buffered, the voltage differential from the power plug would probably the voltage differential that the audio circuit was designed for.
Admin
Too bad this website isn't buffered.
Admin
Hah... reminds me of a time when a friend of mine decided to plug the floppy power into the hard drive master/slave/etc. pins. Hard drive still worked. We never let him live it down, either.
Admin
What's the problem? You underestimate what a little persistence can mean. If you what something to plug into something else, and you scream hard enough, it will work fine.
I don't even have a motherboard.
Admin
Yeah, even if we're talking TTL-level buffers (which is far fetched -- everything is CMOS these days, no?) -- the buffering is only good for logical high/low levels at their low current levels. A power supply is going to feed 5 and 12 volts at many amps. It would certainly overwhelm and fry the buffers.
Now if he had built a buffer out of solid-state relays...
Incidentally, I once was faced with a similar problem of connecting a digital output from a CDROM drive into a Guillemot Fortissimo sound card. My solution involved LED jumper cables, wire cutters, staples, and masking tape. It worked perfectly, and I even had a webpage up describing the hack for a while.
Admin
Not THAT stupid actually, coming from an electrical engineer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_amplifier
Admin
That's a good philosophy. Though I was able to get the square to go through the round hole with a hacksaw and hammer, the game was never quite as fulfilling again.
Admin
I've got a few stories about PC "techs" too :)
1: When a friend of mine's old PC went MIA, with some usual beeping sounds, I figured it would be one of the components who had just died. Graphics card was my first guess, and it was a partially accurate guess. It was a problem with the graphics card, alright... but not because it had died, because it had been GLUED to the AGP slot with what seemed to me like thermic glue. Took out the decaying glue, replaced the card on the AGP slot, and everything was working again...
2: While checking some prices on DDR RAM, at a local shop, me and a couple of friends overheard this conversation between one of the employee's and a custumer. Aparently, the custumer was complaining that the video compressing program he used was compressing his videos with very low quality. The "techs" advice? Buy a stick of 512MB RAM... that should make it compress better. I had to try hard not to laugh... but now I regret that I didn't try to talk to the poor guy, cause he really seemed like he was swallowing all the BS... :(
3: I didn't witness this one, for it was told to me by a friend. When his PC fried, he took it to the local shop where he bought it. There, the tech opened the PC, took out the graphics card and pointed it towards the light, looking at it like it was a $100 bill, trying to find out if it was fake or not. "What are you doing", the custumer asked. "I'm checking to see if the RAM chips are ok" 0_o
Admin
cute. even the colors match up somewhat.
But connecting 12 volts into the left-audio input probably is exceeding some absolute maximum rating somewhere.
As for "they're buffered", it's not a complete wtf. "Don't worry, it's a high impedance input" would have been a correct statement.
Admin
Admin
Actually, what is funny is that you guys with your purely SW background do not understand that this is just HW jargon. Even if the sentence is quite lame, it is still correct:
In HW, "a buffered I/O" means you use a "buffer" which is generally an open collector "YES gate" which provides a protection against short circuit thanks to the pull-up resistor which prevents the ground from being directly connected to the Vcc. This is not completely correct as the protection can be done using serial resistors (most usual) are optocouplers, but it is still a valid sentence from a HW point of view.
The computer science does not revolve around WebDev, I would even say that it is not part of Computer Science. Don't forget that you use something you don't really understand...
Admin
I have had mobos where the AGP card would partially pop out, probably due to poor case design. I could almost understand someone wanting to glue the dang thing down in such a case.
Admin
I did something similar to this once... Connected the CD-ROM audio connector to a power header on the motherboard.
Caused smoke as the insulation melted and destroyed the cable, but amazingly both the CD-ROM and motherboard continue to work, to this day...
Of course, then there was the time (years later on a different PC) when I found that the cable for the case fan didn't reach the header on the motherboard. I extended the cable using cabling from an old PSU and blue-tack...
Never caused a problem, but I acquired a new case a few months later. (Mainly because it was an "almost-ATX" case with the ATX PSU held in with string...)
Admin
Yeah, I've seen PC's where the people who built them, usually local screwdriver shops, glue power connectors into place on drives. They're going on the assumption that the average customer will never even open up their PC, much less try and upgrade anything. It's kinda of annoying really because the first time you encounter this you have to futz with the fact that it's been glued into place. I've never seen it done to a video card but it does explain why there's that little PCI-E "latch" mechanism available now.
Admin
The real WTF is the knowledge of electronics, the 'victim' of this article was right about the buffering; the inputs and outputs of an audiochannel are usually provided with a small capacitor (aka buffer) to correct for a possible DC-component. So inputting +5V or +12V DC into the input of a decent audiochannel (like the input of this soundcard) does not do any harm.
Nothing more than a collision of jargons.
Admin
I overheard this conversation once at an otherwise very good and reliable IT store.
A young lady was complaining that her laptop would not do video editing properly.
She said she could import the video using a firefire connection and edit the video in Windows MovieMaker alright (well, that may be a WTF by itself), but burning the video to DVD would not work - her DVD player and all the other players she'd tried would not play the DVD. Only if she put the DVD into her laptop's DVD drive it would work. Also, when e-mailing the video, nobody would be able to play it.
The guy at the shop suggested she'd need to buy a new video editing program (not a bad response, considering that she was using MovieMaker). She would also need more RAM.
That's when I entered the conversation asking her which video format she was exporting to - WMV? MPEG? AVI?. Both the clerk and the lady had big question marks in their eyes, asking "Video format?".
As it turned out the lady had burned a whole bunch of DVDs containing nothing but the MovieMaker project file.
Admin
I see here that my comment was a sent it too early, hadn't seen this comment while inputting mine, sorry. Yes, to me this seems a jargon-clash too.
Admin
Like the flight sim, this is another case of computers making learning practical skills safer:
Sure we could talk common sense and the importance of reading the instructions (as many of these comment do already) but if you don't understand the risks of play trial and error with something you've shelled out a fair bit of dosh on, well my friend, you FAIL
Admin
Also from the story:
"We really never tried to find out what he was talking about."
So TRWTF is the people sitting there laughing at the guy with the real knowledge.
Admin
Reminds of a guy I once worked with. We got in a dual-processor celeron system (6+ years ago) and he decided to see about overclocking it. Well he pushed it a bit too far and it wouldn't boot so he went to jumper reset the bios, but instead managed to jumper one of the motherboard fan headers. Lets just say a bit of electrical smoke and ozone smell later and none of the fans would work ;)
Admin
Admin
I got strange looks in the office coz I actually lol'd when I read that! whistles innocently
Admin
There's a nice german website with lots of hardware abuses. Even if you don't understand german, have a look at the nice pictures (-> Gallery). http://www.dau-alarm.de/
Admin
A number of years ago I worked with a fresh A+ graduate (who managed to rate higher on the payscale than I due to my lack of useless certificates) who attempted to jam a P2 into the AGP port of an S370 motherboard. My cow-orkers and I watched as our "higly skilled manager" killed a motherboard and nearly killed a fairly expensive CPU.
Admin
This illustrates perfectly why you start with the simple stuff and make no assumptions about a user's skill level. I've seen many techs try to jump to an overly complex solution to what is often times a very simple problem.
Admin
I was working with a VME rack once which had some cards with EEPROMs which I had to occasionally update. The programming, or write, voltage was different from the read voltage (24v versus 12v if I remember correctly), and the voltage applied was controlled by some jumpers. Normally such cards are set up for read-only access to the EEPROM. One card had a three-pin system where the jumper was either on 1-2 or 2-3 to switch between the two voltages. Another card from the same manufacturer had two sets of three pins -- a set to enable/disable each voltage separately. So one day I moved the jumper on the 24v supply to enable write, and didn't notice that I had to move the other jumper, located nowhere nearby of course, to disable the 12v supply. The result when I powered on the rack was flames shooting out about 3 inches and a melted board. Luckily I had left empty slots in the bus separating that card from the other cards, or another one or two cards would have gotten melted as well.
Admin
Admin
While not a high on the WTF scale, a USB male connector is the same width as an ethernet RJ45 connector. Many times I have blindly gone to connect a USB device to my laptop and stuck it in the ethernet port - and then wondered why the %^( device didn't work.
Admin
OK now that it's St. Patrick's, there isn't an Irish girl advertisement. Shenanigans!
Admin
Poor engineer, no wonder "he didn't work there for long".
Can anyone whom knows their stuff with hardware confirm the plausibility of the stated diagnosis that the slot was fried?? I'm no hardware guy, though I would have expected the card to survive (ISA soundcards are tough in my experience) I can buy that it failed, but the slot too - I mean it's more mechanical than electrical right ??
Just very carefully cleaning the slots contacts and pray to the god of buses that the boards not a writeoff.
Admin
The worst thing here is, it REALLY shouldn't have killed the slot. Maybe not even kill the card, aside from this particular input...
It is just 12V, not like a lightning strike or something. It frying the particular input in the chip it's connected to is understandable, but with a proper design it should not affect components beyond that.
Admin
Hehe... I worked in computer repair after school and during summers for several years and the best ones were always the ones where the customer's "knowledgeable friend" had helped to assemble the computer. One day I arrived at the shop and found a partially disassembled computer ready to be looked at, with no description of the problem other than "assembled by customer's friend, now doesn't work." Turned it on and white smoke immediately came out of the motherboard. Turned it off, allowed the smoke to clear, and looked more closely. The friend had neglected to install stand-offs between the motherboard and the metal motherboard mounting plate. Amazingly the only thing that died was the DIMM sockets, which weren't in use; after installing the stand-offs, the machine passed all our tests.
Admin
If the computer was missing, it was probably the burglar alarm beeping.
Admin
I was about to say "sounds like it's opto-coupling he was talking about", but dams said it already.
Still as the card was toast anyway, it was a bit glib to say it would be fine. I expect he now spends his time on messageboards making replies that start with the oh-so encouraging "WRONG!".
Admin
Back in the day, when I was working as a journalist on a PC magazine, we were sent a machine for review by company that was, at that time at least, fairly well-known and moderately successful.
So we set it up for test as usual, hit the power switch and were greeted with a series of "I'm not very happy" beeps from the BIOS.
"Let's take a peek inside." someone suggested, so we duly removed the case and were greeted by the sight of the CPU dangling rather forlornly from its cooling fan's power cables. We might've overlooked this -- blaming some sort of excessive shock during transit -- had it not been for the length of duct tape that had apparently been applied to the chip/fan in an earlier attempt to mitigate the problem. Even had it succeeded, the fact that the tape was blocking the fan would almost certainly have caused the CPU to overheat anyway.
We took pity on the supplier, and called them to make sure that this really was a product that they wanted us to review. No-one was surprised when they immediately dispatched a courier to take the PC off our hands.
Admin
Or indeed, "they're buffered" http://www.extron.com/technology/glossary.aspx?id=B http://www.guitarelectronics.com/category/.wiringresources.glossary/
Admin
This...
Although, in my CS program we had to do a bit of CEG building PLU's and doing some extremely basic chip design an extremely simple processor by the end of the second quarter.
So maybe not entirely this... Still different words have different meanings based on context. Imagine that.
Admin
I screwed up my ethernet port trying to plug my phone line into my modem blindly reaching around back. Learned not to put ethernet cards and modems adjacently just for that reason... Luckily, was able to careful pull the affected pins back out and salvage the card.
Admin
1: Gluing AGP cards was fairly common a while ago. Cheap PC cases/boards would allow the AGP card to pop out while shipping. I've also seen IDE cables glued in place for the same reason. Thankfully board makers added locking clips to the AGP slots.
3: I can understand this one.. it used to be the case that you could tell if an 8 pin DIP ram was toast if the ink on the part was discolored from overheating. I don't think the ink used for most parts these days is that sensitive due to the higher heat most chips generate.
Admin
Admin
Reminds me of a situation I had with some tech people and a certain large electronics retailer. I took my computer in because it had quit booting and was still under the extended warranty. I'd already had it open and noticed that one of the power plugs from the power supply to the motherboard had become blackened and, logically, concluded that this was the problem. I told them about it and they said they'd fix it. About a day later I get a call and the guy tells me that I have a virus on my computer. I told him that I didn't. He then told me that I didn't have anti-virus software. I told him that I did. He then asked me if I wanted to come pick up my computer. I asked him if it was fixed and he mumbled something about if I don't want them to install their anti-virus (and charge me for it) there's nothing they can do. I then asked him if he'd even had the computer open and to explain how this alleged virus had managed to physically damage the machine. He didn't have an answer for that so he promised he'd send it out to be fixed. It took about another 2 weeks before the damn thing eventually came back with a new motherboard and new power supply. (and no charge!)
Admin
Someone I knew had one of the first Pentium 60s when the Pentium first came out, he paid lots for it and was very very proud because 'he had a Pentium PC' and we all still had 486s.
So one day he was proudly 'having a look inside' and pointing at all the nice new white PCI slots etc - while it was running of course. When he pulled his hand out his metal wrist watch strap caught on the edge of the case and his watch fell off his wrist onto the motherboard. After a pop-hiss everything went dead, and that was the end of that.
I also saw someone fit a 486-DX50 CPU into a board, push it down firm (before ZIF sockets were around), turn it on, and after about 3 seconds all the on board cache RAM started to smoke. Of course the CPU was the wrong way around in the socket, but after turning it around and checking it this time it all worked ok, which was pretty cool.
Admin
this is TRWTF
Admin
A buffer from an EE perspective is different than a buffer from a CS perspective. It's just a mechanism used on I/O pins that (among other things) isolates the pins from the main part of the circuit to protect it from harmful signals such as static electricity or putting the connector on improperly.
Admin
Before we go any further, lets go back to the facts. The article does not say what type of sound card it is. Therefore, we don't know that the proper buffering/isolation/etc was ever implemented on that particular card. Without the proper protection, and an inexperienced EE employed by the sound card designer, it could definitely fried the board in a heartbeat. This is ISA we're talking about, and quite a many times I ran across a card that wasn't really up to snuff with standards, etc. We can't assume anything at this point without looking at the schematic or reverse engineering.