Saturday, September 29, 2007
Video iPod
Philip brought me his iPod that was stuck in "Do not disconnect" mode and also had a stuck center button. I tried all the tricks to reset it but with the center button stuck there was no success. So, while Philip verified that his warranty had expired I disassembled the iPod. It comes apart a bit different than the older generation iPods I have taken apart in the past. I was able to take the center button off and manually activate the controls but the iPod still would not reset. So, I disconnected the battery. That got it to reset ;-) When I plugged the battery back in all seemed to work fine, but as I started to reassemble two small rubber pieces appeared mysteriously on my desktop and I had to figure out where they went. After searching through various websites with pictures of disassembly steps for the iPods I still didn't have a description of what these things were or an idea of where they went. I gave up on the Internet and just fiddled around with the pieces until I could come up with a logical place to put them. Once I found a spot I reassembled the iPod and then did another search on the Internet and came up with this site that has the best write-up of iPod disassembly I have seen. Great job, even to the point of showing the little rubber pieces and where they go!
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Monday, September 17, 2007
Broken switch
I'm starting to get a little bit paranoid about the electrical devices in this house. This light switch was in the attic, and when I was working on installing the shelves the switch quit working. I took the switch out and found that it was broken. I think the switch broke because the wire into the box was pulled on, but...
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Sunday, September 16, 2007
Hacking IBM 240x BIOS password
This story starts long ago in a galaxy far far away...
Well, not really. It starts a couple of years ago when we were living in England and I wanted a small Windows laptop to hook up to my GPS so I had a bigger screen and could use it as a navigational tool. I bought an IBM Thinkpad 240 on eBay and was very happy with it -- screen size of 10 inches is just about right for in the car. However, some time in the last year the LCD screen on the laptop got crushed and so the only way I could use the laptop was to hook it up to an external monitor. Whilst this does provide a working computer, it is not very useful as a LAPtop.
Enter the next problem in the saga -- my 2003 VW Eurovan had the check engine light come on. Now that the van is out of warranty I decided I would like to have the ability to read the ECM codes so I could fix the van myself if possible. So, I bought a special cable to connect the car's computer to a personal computer, but of course, the software only works on Windows. And, the only Windows PC that can easily go to the car in the garage (versus bring the car into the living room) is the laptop. But, the laptop needs an external monitor. So, I lugged a 19" CRT into the garage with the laptop to read the codes (maybe I will post about that some other day). While carrying the CRT monitor out of the garage I made up my mind I would start cruising eBay for a broken IBM Thinkpad 240 that I could buy for the screen. Not being in much of a hurry I patiently waited for the right laptop to come along for the right price. I ended up winning a Thinkpad 240x which has a newer, faster processor than the 240. The only problem with the laptop was that it didn't have a power supply (no problem, already have one of those) and it had a BIOS password that was unknown (no problem, I only want the screen off the laptop).
But, once I got the laptop in my hands, knowing that it had a faster processor in it I thought MAYBE I could upgrade my laptop slightly. So, I searched the Internet and found this site. I already had a breadboard and the correct resistors from my electrical engineering education, so I went to Fry's and bought the two zener diodes and DB9 connector. This afternoon I tried to take a nap but found I wasn't tired, so I decided to play with the laptop a bit and see what I could do. The first step was to uncover the ATMEL chip on the motherboard, which required disassembling the entire laptop because the chip is on the bottom of the motherboard. The IBM web site helped with this. In the process of taking the new laptop apart I went ahead and removed the screen and installed it on the old laptop (yes, it works!). Then came the fun of soldering a couple of wires to the motherboard of the new computer so I could read the information stored in the BIOS and find the password.
Knowing that I had already achieved my objective of a working laptop, I only had minimal trepidation as I tackled the soldering -- it turned out to be a bit easier than I expected.
After the soldering was done I put together the little circuit and connected it to the DB9 connector.
Once all was connected I was able to use a freeware program to copy the information off the ATMEL eeprom chip and then another program to decipher the password. Viola! I was able to get past the supervisor BIOS password and then found out the hard drive wasn't bootable. But, no worries, next project will be to get a new operating system onto the hard drive of a laptop with no CD drive (or network connection).
In this picture you can see the "old" laptop on the left with the "new" LCD screen on it. It is the machine I used to get the BIOS password off the "new" laptop. The next bit of messy wires is the circuit to connect the two computers. In the middle is the "new" laptop disassembled with no monitor and wires coming out from underneath, and on the right is the external monitor connected to the "new" laptop showing that I've made it past the BIOS password and am in the BIOS setup menu.
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Well, not really. It starts a couple of years ago when we were living in England and I wanted a small Windows laptop to hook up to my GPS so I had a bigger screen and could use it as a navigational tool. I bought an IBM Thinkpad 240 on eBay and was very happy with it -- screen size of 10 inches is just about right for in the car. However, some time in the last year the LCD screen on the laptop got crushed and so the only way I could use the laptop was to hook it up to an external monitor. Whilst this does provide a working computer, it is not very useful as a LAPtop.
Enter the next problem in the saga -- my 2003 VW Eurovan had the check engine light come on. Now that the van is out of warranty I decided I would like to have the ability to read the ECM codes so I could fix the van myself if possible. So, I bought a special cable to connect the car's computer to a personal computer, but of course, the software only works on Windows. And, the only Windows PC that can easily go to the car in the garage (versus bring the car into the living room) is the laptop. But, the laptop needs an external monitor. So, I lugged a 19" CRT into the garage with the laptop to read the codes (maybe I will post about that some other day). While carrying the CRT monitor out of the garage I made up my mind I would start cruising eBay for a broken IBM Thinkpad 240 that I could buy for the screen. Not being in much of a hurry I patiently waited for the right laptop to come along for the right price. I ended up winning a Thinkpad 240x which has a newer, faster processor than the 240. The only problem with the laptop was that it didn't have a power supply (no problem, already have one of those) and it had a BIOS password that was unknown (no problem, I only want the screen off the laptop).
But, once I got the laptop in my hands, knowing that it had a faster processor in it I thought MAYBE I could upgrade my laptop slightly. So, I searched the Internet and found this site. I already had a breadboard and the correct resistors from my electrical engineering education, so I went to Fry's and bought the two zener diodes and DB9 connector. This afternoon I tried to take a nap but found I wasn't tired, so I decided to play with the laptop a bit and see what I could do. The first step was to uncover the ATMEL chip on the motherboard, which required disassembling the entire laptop because the chip is on the bottom of the motherboard. The IBM web site helped with this. In the process of taking the new laptop apart I went ahead and removed the screen and installed it on the old laptop (yes, it works!). Then came the fun of soldering a couple of wires to the motherboard of the new computer so I could read the information stored in the BIOS and find the password.
Knowing that I had already achieved my objective of a working laptop, I only had minimal trepidation as I tackled the soldering -- it turned out to be a bit easier than I expected.
After the soldering was done I put together the little circuit and connected it to the DB9 connector.
Once all was connected I was able to use a freeware program to copy the information off the ATMEL eeprom chip and then another program to decipher the password. Viola! I was able to get past the supervisor BIOS password and then found out the hard drive wasn't bootable. But, no worries, next project will be to get a new operating system onto the hard drive of a laptop with no CD drive (or network connection).
In this picture you can see the "old" laptop on the left with the "new" LCD screen on it. It is the machine I used to get the BIOS password off the "new" laptop. The next bit of messy wires is the circuit to connect the two computers. In the middle is the "new" laptop disassembled with no monitor and wires coming out from underneath, and on the right is the external monitor connected to the "new" laptop showing that I've made it past the BIOS password and am in the BIOS setup menu.
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Saturday, September 08, 2007
School starts and attic fans
Per our usual custom, we started school the day after Labor Day. However, many of the school books were still scattered across a couple of locations including several boxes in the attic. So, Labor Day weekend saw us dripping sweat in the 110 degree attic moving boxes around. Once started we decided to enhance the storage space and experience with the addtion of floor space and shelves.
While up there I notice that there are TWO power vents to help move air through the attic on hot days, but that ONE of them was not turning on. After troubleshooting I determined the motor was bad. I was able to order the exact same fan off the Internet (wonderful!) to replace it.
To extract the fan from the housing it is in I had to climb up on the roof and take the motor out fromt the top. The new motor arrived yesterday so I plan on putting it up this weekend.
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While up there I notice that there are TWO power vents to help move air through the attic on hot days, but that ONE of them was not turning on. After troubleshooting I determined the motor was bad. I was able to order the exact same fan off the Internet (wonderful!) to replace it.
To extract the fan from the housing it is in I had to climb up on the roof and take the motor out fromt the top. The new motor arrived yesterday so I plan on putting it up this weekend.
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Sunday, September 02, 2007
Macintosh SE Superdrive
I've been trying to get my old Miracle piano system working with an old Mac SE for a while now, but my Mac only smelled like smoke when I turned it on. Yesterday I found a guy in Lewisville who had a Mac SE Superdrive (same as FDHD but was branded slightly different, apparently somewhat rare) for sale for $20. So, I picked it up yesterday and today swapped my own motherboard and hard drive into the new case. Booted right up! Now I am looking for the right cables to connect the piano to the computer. No luck so far.
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