[HN Gopher] Adam? ... is there a reason your laptop is in the fr...
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Adam? ... is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge? (2006)
Author : vikrum
Score : 304 points
Date : 2023-10-05 14:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.kempa.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.kempa.com)
| praveen4463 wrote:
| Wow, didn't know I could do that :) Perhaps a compact desk fridge
| would be the best to save the kitchen roundtrips.
| tguvot wrote:
| my wife had lg g4 that develop overheat boot problem: by the time
| it booted it was overheated enough to reboot itself.
|
| in order to get everything off the phone i froze it in freezer.
| it gave me enough time to boot it and copy everything via usb
| tput_bel wrote:
| Ooh I have a related story. My brother dropped his phone and
| cracked his screen and damaged some internal components as well.
| Sometimes the screen just wouldn't turn on, but the touchscreen
| would work. I told him to get a new one and he said no, this one
| is fine, he just has to throw it in the freezer for about 2
| minutes at the start of each day. After a few minutes of
| freezing, the screen actually turned on. I thought it would
| eventually warm up and need refreezing again, but sure enough, it
| stayed on for the whole day.
|
| I guess there is some circuit that determines if the screen comes
| on or not, but if it's already on, it won't switch it off, so he
| just disabled auto-lock and avoided the lock button all day.
|
| My next question was how he figured it out. He lives in a cold
| climate area and his phone screen would consistently work
| whenever he walked to the store, and consistently not work when
| he was at home. Eventually he realized it was the temperature
| that made it work. I've seen stuff about computers in the
| freezer, etc, but there's something funnier about needing a quick
| freeze and it's good until you lock it again.
| davesmylie wrote:
| Never seen this done to a whole laptop, but it wasn't an uncommon
| last ditch method for pulling files off a dying HDD back in the
| days of spinning platters.
|
| Preferably in a zip lock vacuum bag and left over night.
|
| This is a 17 year old article, but I'm a little skeptical that 10
| minutes in the fridge whilst still in the laptop would have made
| much difference. Probably the forced reboot did just as much.
|
| On the other end of the heat spectrum, there's baking a
| motherboard to reflow the solder:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/6dygu...
| tiffanyg wrote:
| As to the fridge point, fridge vs. room temp probably wouldn't
| make _much_ difference in what I glean of the scenario from a
| quick glance. It 'd help a bit - would cool things a bit
| faster,* but, eh ... I wouldn't expect that to necessarily be a
| KEY element.
|
| That written, temperature may still have been quite important
| (i.e., reboot alone wouldn't help). Particularly with a device
| containing something like _spinning platters_ (as well as
| potentially extra heat generation associated with certain
| failure modes), and the additional factor of laptop heat load
| trade-offs, ... simply having the laptop off for some minutes
| might have been essential. In fact, the writer notes that
| transfer stopped during the first attempt to retrieve the data
| (after 10 minutes in fridge), hence a second round of 20
| minutes was carried out after which the remaining data was
| retrieved.
|
| The fact that that second pause was 20 minutes AND was carried
| out in a fridge may have had little to no role in success the
| second time. To me, that's something like a 50-50 odds event
| ... particularly with this kind of infrequent (for an
| individual, hopefully) 'high-terror' n=1 event / 'data'.** It
| may have primarily been the difference between having
| transferred other files prior to transferring that (last? not
| checking that detail) file vs. not.
|
| * Newton said proportional to temperature difference, but
| that's a rather rough guide in general for this sort of
| scenario - even with just basic details missing here
|
| ** I.e., where most people aren't too interested in carrying
| out any kind of more detailed post-mortem ... most are much
| more interested in leaving the terror part behind.
|
| _Edit: OTOH, one should not discount the power of belief out-
| of-hand - i.e., 'externum-placebo' or something to that effect,
| if you please (my_ verbum fabulists _will know). As a certain
| purveyor of cheap movie-branded trinkets once said in response
| to the soft and breathless exclamation of "I don't believe
| it!": "That ... is why you fail."_
|
| _(Though I may be mixing up my little Gs from movies ...)_
|
| _In any case, the fridge may have had more of an effect than
| my crudely rational analysis above suggests. {In any case}^2,
| this entirely unnecessary but necessary addendum will conclude
| with - ha ha, but, also, serious._
| mhandley wrote:
| I did that baking-the-motherboard last-resort trick on a Mac
| Mini three years ago.
| https://twitter.com/MarkJHandley/status/1245730555846635520
|
| Reallyt didn't think it would work. And when it acctually did,
| I was sure it would only be a temporary solution. Much to my
| surprise, it's still going strong today (mostly used as an
| Octoprint server for my 3d printer.)
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| I'm sure there's other nasty substances not covered by it,
| but I'm glad RoHS2 exists for things like this.
|
| Otherwise you would have really had to get a dedicated oven
| to do that reflowing. Or lead all over your oven.
| nanidin wrote:
| One of the fixes for the red ring of death on Xbox 360 was to
| wrap it in a towel so it would get hot enough to reflow bad
| solder joints.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Reminds me of a time that a friend of a friend had me attempt
| to reflow an old laptop with a $20 heat gun. HP DV6000 or a
| 9000, if anybody remembers those failure rates. He had two.
|
| I'd worked in a warranty depot and had some experience with the
| tear down by then.
|
| The reflow didn't work for us, but we did manage to make one of
| the two functional again.
| kwertzzz wrote:
| I once had an issue with my LG5 phone who entered in a boot-
| loop (also a common issue with LG4). I don't have a head gun,
| so I put it in the mainboard of the cell phone in oven for
| maybe 10 min at 150degC to reflow the soldering. At least I
| could reboot the cell phone and copy the important files. But
| after about an hour, it enter again the in boot loop and was
| broken for good.
| opan wrote:
| I normally solder at 300C-350C, I can't imagine under 200
| reflowing the solder, especially without contact. I have a
| cheap hot air rework station that I run at 400C-450C (or so
| it claims) and it is still quite difficult to get anything
| molten with it (except nearby plastic that I forgot to
| cover in kapton). Maybe the closed space has some
| advantages that make up for the lower temp.
| alex_lav wrote:
| When I was ~11ish I found my desktop was overheating quite
| regularly. The solution I came up with on my $0 dollar budget
| was to pop the side of the case off and point a box fan into
| it. Worked like a charm...for a while.
| srean wrote:
| Yup. I tried this on a whim on a self assembled AMD K6 and it
| worked. Without that 'fix', compiling the Linux kernel would
| fail. Compiling the kernel and making GNU Chess play itself
| at highest levels were my standard stress tests.
|
| This box wasnt completely self assembled in the sense the CPU
| was already mounted on the motherboard. Redoing the heat sink
| with thermal paste fixed the problem, mostly.
| darkwater wrote:
| Ahahah did the same with an AMD Athlon that was overheating
| and hanging a lot at my first job in a very scrappy company
| (but I was 20!)
| low_tech_love wrote:
| I did this a lot as a kid, up to the point where I just
| didn't care about having a case anymore. I completely removed
| the whole thing and put it on top of a rubber plate, and
| covered it after use with an old horizontal metal case from a
| 486 or something. I loved how confused my mother and then
| later my girlfriend would look when they saw me
| working/gaming in that total barebones setup. To be honest I
| have very fond memories of it and would definitely do it
| again if I didn't have two small kids!
| dotnet00 wrote:
| My current desktop setup uses a mining rig frame and tends
| to get the same confused looks from people.
|
| I have it setup that way because there are no motherboard
| options for my CPU which allow for sufficient spacing
| between two triple slot GPUs to provide adequate airflow.
| vidarh wrote:
| There was also the opposite direction: Putting a drive that's
| locked up in an oven on low heat to unstick the drive-head....
| I knew someone who had to do that ~30 years ago after a long-
| running server had a power failure and the head had stuck to
| the platter as it cooled.
|
| This was back when opening the drive itself up to figure out
| what was wrong was still reasonably unlikely to make things
| worse (I know _that_ first hand from having "kickstarted" my
| own drive every morning for months while saving up for a new
| one by opening it up and nudging the platter)
| cl3misch wrote:
| I have also tried the Laptop baking many years ago with an
| ancient Dell Laptop which was known for its buggy internal
| Nvidia GPU.
|
| However, I have learned in the meantime that lead-free solder
| requires temperatures much higher than achieved by baking PCBs
| in a literal kitchen oven.
|
| Is there an explanation why this method is nevertheless so
| popular (maybe even successfull)?
| alx_the_new_guy wrote:
| https://youtu.be/I0UMG3iVYZI?si=JztMr1sIkBzppkmn
|
| The PS3 issue described in the video was more specific to it,
| but similar in it's nature.
|
| TLDR from my very imperfect memory: The whole board-solder-
| chip sandwich expands at different rates due to heat, so
| internal stress and cracks develop in solder joints, which
| makes them fail. Baking PCB in an oven does something like
| making the crack close a bit, so that the solder joint works
| again.
|
| Problem is, neither the crack, nor the internal stress that
| has been built up is gone, so the solution actually doesn't
| last.
| KronisLV wrote:
| I remember getting my 9800 GT GPU to work a bit longer this
| way.
|
| I was playing Mount & Blade back then, but noticed that the
| polygons would glitch out (e.g. vertices in random locations
| instead of where they should have been, like stretched out 3D
| models), shortly after which there would be screen artifacts
| (random colored pixels) and it would all freeze. After that,
| the PC would fail to boot.
|
| I took the GPU out, propped it up on some tin foil balls, put
| it into the oven on over 210 C for a while and after that it
| would start working again. Seems like something was wrong
| with the card though, because eventually the temperatures
| would get to 90-100 C and it would crash, but until that
| point I put it in the oven like 3-4 times and it seemed to
| work for a little bit every single time.
|
| After that I replaced it with a GTX 650, which still runs to
| this day in a now friend's computer.
| get-logname wrote:
| I can confirm that this method resurected my GTX 970, but
| only worked for a couple of months more.
| [deleted]
| perakojotgenije wrote:
| I was luckier, this method also resurrected my GTX 970 and
| it worked for two more years. It was still working when I
| sold it.
| speedgoose wrote:
| And this is why I don't like to buy used hardware.
| lstodd wrote:
| So that you get to bake it yourself?
| CableNinja wrote:
| Ive recovered a few drives through the freezer trick. It took a
| lot though. Freezer for an hour, use until lock, freezer for
| two hours, then rinse and repeat until data recovered
| completely. Doesnt have to be overnight, just long enough to
| get the metal to contract, and theres a point where that change
| no longer happens and keeping it in the freezer is only wasting
| time.
|
| On the topic of reflowing in your home oven.. ** _DONT**_!!!!!
| Thats how you get metal poisoning or other non fun diseases. If
| you plan on reflowing, use an oven that can go to the scrap
| yard after, or that will be dedicated solely to reflow.
| Reflowing can cause vaporization of metals in the solder and
| the chemicals from flux, etc, and thats just not fun to eat.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| You're absolutely right about the health risks. Additionally,
| a small oven can be bought online for under $/PS/EUR50 in
| most countries, and there are many guides online about
| modifying these to have precise temperature control for
| delicate soldering jobs. These modifications use inexpensive
| (usually <EUR1 each) thermocouples, along with digitally
| controlled relays or MOSFETs to do pulse-width modulation.
| simmo9000 wrote:
| 10 mins does sound a little quick?
|
| I can say from experiencing, 20 mins in the freezer for a bare
| 3.5 or 2.5 HDD would give about 5 mins of "quick, find
| important stuff" time...
|
| >_last ditch method for pulling files off a dying HDD_ Before
| pulling it apart and and putting the platters in an identical
| donor drive. (Dam IBM DEATHSTAR drives back in the day!)
| samplatt wrote:
| >I can say from experiencing, 20 mins in the freezer for a
| bare 3.5 or 2.5 HDD would give about 5 mins of "quick, find
| important stuff" time...
|
| Well that's just pulled up a few traumas I'd forgot I'd
| buried. Gawd, that repeated "race against time" of that 5
| minutes when it's working. Knowing that every time you do the
| freezer/recover cycle, it's closer to straight-up never
| working again.
| helb wrote:
| Did that with an old Thinkpad (X32 iirc) years ago. I use Gentoo
| and some packages (like gcc) could only be compiled during winter
| months or in a fridge.
|
| Also sucessfully rescued some old NVidia card with baking oven
| around that time...
| umarniz wrote:
| I grew up in a city with temp reaching 48 Celsius in the summer
|
| Of course this wasn't very good for electronic devices and hence
| every console I bought died with a year of over heating.
|
| For my PS2 I managed to extend the lifetime by placing big blocks
| of ice in a tray underneath it and the console sitting on top on
| a rack to avoid contact.
|
| I had to replace the ice every hour but the system worked well
| enough till the console died eventually of water damage.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Large water bottles that are closed, placed on top the case and
| get replaced regulary also help a lot with no risk of water
| damage ..
| als0 wrote:
| > till the console died eventually of water damage.
|
| That's so sad!
| bonton89 wrote:
| Towards the end of the life of my NES it started to overheat
| after maybe an hour of use. I remember being very stressed
| trying to defeat bosses in legend of zelda and save as quickly
| as possible. For whatever reason, mild graphical corruption
| would start to appear for awhile prior the system resetting
| itself so I usually knew I didn't have much time left.
|
| If I were smarter I probably would have just disassembled the
| NES and cleaned it but I was a dumb kid at the time so I just
| lived with it.
| rokizero wrote:
| When I was a kid I had an laptop that would overheat when
| playing age of empires. So I had a bicycle pump setup under my
| desk so I could quickly blow in some air every 3-4 minutes...
| If I was to late or forgot the whole thing would just die and
| all game progress was lost. I remember laughing at the whole
| situation whenever I had to pump in air. At some point I bought
| one of those laptop stand with built-in fans.
|
| Thanks for reminding me of those good old days :-)
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| I love this story. As an adult the thought of stopping every
| few minutes to manually cool your computer is insufferable, I
| would rather just not play on that laptop. But yeah, as a
| kid, I could see myself perhaps having done this.
| bArray wrote:
| Even with a hot ambient temperature, you can still keep your
| devices at a safe temperature by increasing air flow with large
| external fans. You need larger air flow because you'll saturate
| the air quicker, and you have less thermal run-off (close to
| max temperatures).
| datavirtue wrote:
| I have seen articles claiming you can retorque the screws that
| hold on the cover plate.
| Zetaphor wrote:
| Small world, I used to work with this guy.
|
| If you're reading this Adam, they never got back to me on the W2.
| I ended up having to call the corporate headquarters.
| LocalPCGuy wrote:
| Smaller world, I also used to work with him. And just recently
| used the fridge trick on an old dying hard drive (it worked
| fwiw), but don't remember if he was the source of why I thought
| that might work.
| r-s wrote:
| Smaller smaller world - I work with him today!
| gorbachev wrote:
| I have done this. My work laptop is prone to overheating under
| heavy workloads, and the fastest way to get it back to operating
| temperature is to stick in the fridge or freezer for a few
| minutes. Works every time.
| timetraveller26 wrote:
| I was expecting KDE compiling on Gentoo
| sfmike wrote:
| i would do this with cell phone batteries constantly like Note 1
| back in the day.
|
| Back when I'd carry an extra battery because they were swappable
| and was an easy way to get a 80% ish charge on the go without
| what was then a poor quality power bank.
| tforcram wrote:
| This reminds me of a time I tried to install Ubuntu on an old
| thick Dell laptop many years ago.
|
| Each time I would try the system would overheat and then crash.
| The existing (windows) system still appeared to work fine with
| light loads so I was pretty sure I just needed to get past the
| install and decided to try one more time.
|
| It was winter at the time, I can't remember if it had snowed
| recently, but I think it was probably close to 40 degrees F
| outside. So I hooked up a wired keyboard and mouse, and then
| plopped the laptop outside on the deck and closed the door with
| only the keyboard and mouse inside. There was a window which I
| could see the screen through and start the install.
|
| Sure enough with the natural winter cooling the install completed
| and I was able to use the laptop for a few more years.
| Const-me wrote:
| Good story!
|
| Still, IMO a better solution is fixing the hardware. Many years
| ago, I had similar symptoms with an old thick HP laptop. I
| think I have paid something like $30 for the new fan assembly,
| it's a large part which includes a fan, radiator and couple of
| heat pipes. The assembly connects to the motherboard with a
| small plug, no soldering was required. It only took half an
| hour (and a blob of thermal paste) to replace the part.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Opening it up and vacuum cleaning the fan from dust also can
| do wonders with old and "broken" laptops as a first step.
| Tiny bit of WD40 in the fan mechanic is the next, then
| thermal paste, then replacing parts.
|
| (Advice, prevent the fan from spinning while doing vacuum)
| Modified3019 wrote:
| As mentioned by another commenter, many of the compounds in
| WD-40 "dry" out, either by evaporation or oxidation
| (turning to lacquer/sticky goo like what you find in the
| oven). WD-40 is meant for penetration and water
| displacement, not desirable for achieving long term
| lubrication.
|
| An example of something better to use is 3-In-One
| Multipurpose or Motor Oil.
|
| Another FYI is that oils break down grease, which is found
| in bearings (WD-40 aggressively so), so it's not generally
| desirable to apply oil to bearings, unless it's already
| having issues and you just need some additional life out of
| it.
| HankB99 wrote:
| WD40 - Nooooo! It gets gummy. Use a proper lubricating oil.
| Or replace the fan.
|
| "Pro tip:" Do not direct the output of a strong air stream
| (e.g. the kind used for automotive work) at the fan as it
| can de-blade the fan.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| And if you do that anyway, don't be a dingus.
|
| Disconnect the fan cable from the socket so that the
| motor doesn't send pulses of energy back into your
| laptop. It probably won't harm it, but better safe than
| sorry.
| malfist wrote:
| Motors have flyback diodes. Otherwise they'd burn out
| things every time they turn off
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Good to know, but in those few fans I used it for, it
| worked so far ..
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| As someone else stated, WD-40 is a solvent and a degreaser.
| It is designed to displace water.
|
| In fact, for bearings which need grease, WD-40 can remove
| the very thing that is keeping the bearings from wearing
| out!
|
| If the fan is very old and no longer works properly, it
| just needs to be replaced.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "If the fan is very old and no longer works properly, it
| just needs to be replaced. "
|
| Sometimes it is really complicated replacing them with a
| danger of damaging stuff, if you have no routine. Then
| using something to spray is easier to fix it for some
| time. It helped in my cases, even though I will
| definitely try something else next time ..
| bonton89 wrote:
| I used to frequent overclocking forums and at the time a lot of
| this was crazy custom work instead of purpose built cooling
| products or things like water cooling AiO setups. I remember
| people building intakes into their window so the computer case
| sucked in cold winter air from outdoors. There was even a guy
| that installed a homemade water cooling setup and had the
| reservoir tank outdoors and piped through the window. I think
| the later had a real risk of freezing if his folding at home
| rig stopped working on very cold days.
|
| I mostly just installed insanely loud tornado fans myself,
| which were in style at the time. This was before building a
| quiet PC was on anyone's radar it seemed.
| piperswe wrote:
| I would assume folks would use antifreeze when doing sub-zero
| liquid cooling, that would prevent issues in all but extreme
| cold. It would have a bit of an impact on heat transfer
| though...
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Ive done that. I am doing that. Using the outdoors as a
| natural heatsink isnt crazy. In a couple months it will be
| -30 outside my window. Why should my computer fans whirl
| around constanly using 20c indoor air when literally inches
| away there exists and unlimited supply of -30c outdoor air?
| Some simple water cooling parts, a 30$ heat exchanger and a
| little radiator fluid. Net result is lower temps and
| significantly lower noise. The only practical problem is
| consensation, but with dew points of -30c even indoors that
| isnt much of a worry.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| I had this idea but never executed because it's only bitter
| cold outside for about 3 months out of the year. And then
| I'd basically be doing a semi-annual detachment/attachment
| of my PC from the wall and probably removing/adding an
| insert from a window for the other end of the loop.
|
| This combined with my roughly 4 month itch to rearrange my
| office made it seem like much more of a pain in the ass
| than it was worth to ever actually do.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I've done it a few times. I find that seasonal
| temperature changes are not as much of an issue as I
| first thought. Automotive radiator fluid basically never
| freezes. And once you have a coolant loop running
| outside, your options are far greater. Even radiators are
| a unnecessary. I once has a coolant loop run outside to
| 20-gallon washtub sitting on the ground under a wood
| deck. No radiators or fans. The entire rig cost less than
| 100$. Just a tiny aquarium pump pushing water up the loop
| into the house. The tub was in thermal contact with the
| ground and was so massive that it took many hours for my
| computer to warm it up even in high summer.
| bityard wrote:
| It's a neat hack but I have to wonder whether the hole
| through which you pass through the pipes leaks more heat
| energy to the outside than the fans take to run on an all-
| indoor system.
|
| Plus, in the winter, you get "free" heating by running the
| machine completely indoors. Not actually free of course,
| but free as a side-effect of using the machine for other
| tasks. Had a friend who tried splitting his electrical
| service off into a cheaper heat-rate branch to run his
| bitcoin mining rigs and claimed they were the same as a
| space heater. I don't think the power company bought it.
| pwndByDeath wrote:
| https://www.instructables.com/Mineral-Oil-Bitcoin-Mining-
| for...
| notfed wrote:
| Hilarious imagery!!! Thanks for sharing.
| aizyuval wrote:
| Download with some help from god. Haha
| KMag wrote:
| Though, at 40 F, you could have put on some socks, shoes,
| shorts and a t-shirt and sat outside, instead of peering out
| through the window in your underwear.
|
| Or, were you fully clothed and this was in Florida or
| something?
|
| (I half joke, but when it warms up to 40 F again in the Spring,
| in Minnesota we break out the t-shirts, if not shorts.)
| just-tom wrote:
| My laptop was once heated inside it's case, it was hard to touch
| it. I don't know how it didn't explode, it was so hot I decided
| to put it in THE FREEZER. I thought I'd leave it there for 5-6
| minutes, but I fell asleep and forgot it THE ENTIRE NIGHT. 7-8
| hours. In the morning I panicked as I remembered what I have
| done. It then had a black screen for a few minutes and I thought
| I was drowning in my stupidity, but later it worked like a charm.
| Conclusion - laptops are fine in the freezer.
| lelima wrote:
| I dont understand how come condensation while de-freezing
| didn't damaged the components, but if you spill a bit of water
| in the keybord might damage the laptop,
|
| what brand was that laptop?
| [deleted]
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Recover fail Hard Drives after keeping it in the Fridge.
|
| Ice packs on top of the routers.
|
| I thought these were common practices all along. :-)
| chrismorgan wrote:
| In 2020, I was doing a lot of video encoding on my Surface Book
| in India in ambient temperatures in the range 25-35degC, and I
| found that lying its heat source down on a marble floor sped it
| up by 60% within a minute or so, the floor acting as a large
| heatsink.
|
| (I also learned that the Surface Book has a dedicated "I have
| shut down because I overheated and must cool down before I will
| start up again" screen (an illustration of a thermometer), which
| I wouldn't _expect_ most computers to have, though I think I've
| only caused thermal shutdown one other time; during Hyderabad
| summer, recording in the late afternoon in an upper room, the
| ambient temperature got as high as 45degC, and there wasn't
| enough thermal headroom for throttling to save it, so it needed
| extra makeshift external heatsinks. I quoted 25-35degC in the
| first paragraph because I was doing the actual _editing_
| overnight when it was somewhat cooler.)
| permo-w wrote:
| where were you working that had a marble floor?
| ayx wrote:
| Marble flooring in homes is quite common in India.
| sparrowInHand wrote:
| Its very common in loads of countrys - or at least terra-
| cotta tiles: Spain, Mexico, Italy, Greece. Its a good way
| to keep a house cool in summer.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Back in the day, our IT guy in his 70's pulled this trick on
| someone's hard drive to recover a critical last minute
| presentation. The story became a staple of office parties. See
| you on the other side John.
| kapitanjakc wrote:
| I did this for my cellphone, it got too hot to hold sometimes
| even when it was idle.
|
| Ironically it was from a company called "Lava" so ...
| Trias11 wrote:
| The problem is getting laptop out of a fridge. Everything
| immediately gets covered by humidity.
|
| Easy to brick electronics.
| jonhohle wrote:
| If I could go back in time and tell the author about rsync, this
| delightful post wouldn't exist.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Meanwhile, on an older macbook air (still with SSD, so I thought
| no problem, the fan won't need to engage for a while anyway), I
| didn't need to fix anything, but once had it in the trunk of a
| car at -25C. When I went to turn it on it was _not_ happy with me
| at all.
|
| Had to wait for it to warm up closer to ambient to function
| normally.
| zoltrix303 wrote:
| I one needed to run a photoshop script to remove automatically
| the background from thousands of products image. The script was
| relatively simple, but my laptop at the time kept overheating so
| i put it outside.. let me tell you that montreal winter is cooler
| than a fridge!
| aaron695 wrote:
| The reliability of computer parts is quite remarkable compared to
| the past.
|
| I'd expect this to be a less useful trick these days. Not sure.
| arcastroe wrote:
| Keeping a running laptop in the freezer will keep it cool for a
| little, but eventually cause it to overheat. Refrigerators are
| good thermal insulators, but they work just as well at trapping
| heat as keeping it away (similar to your coffee mug). A running
| laptop is constant source of heat, whereas the freezer only
| gradually cools, relying on "trapping the cold" in.
| aketchum wrote:
| Since everyone is sharing their similar stories - I had a dell
| laptop at boarding school and by my senior year it was on its
| last legs. My friends played a lot of League of Legends and my
| laptop would overheat, cut off, and my friends would lament that
| I went afk for the 5 min it took to reboot and relaunch the game.
| So naturally I started wrapping an ice pack in a washcloth and
| placing that under my laptop whenever I played a game. Was always
| nervous about water damage but I luckily was able to avoid that.
| hakonhaki wrote:
| Reverse of this - I still have a MacBookPro 2011 with a dedicated
| GPU that suffered from brittle lead free solder issue, where I
| had to wrap the laptop up in a blanket for 30 mins to over heat
| it, soften the solder around the GPU to allow it to boot into
| OSX.... Then once there I could then switch to iGPU and use the
| Amphetamine app the keep it awake/never sleep.
|
| If I needed to shut down I'd need to repeat this overheating
| process again.
|
| Laptop still works to this day though I had a guy in the UK
| install a new dGPU with leaded solder.
| Lammy wrote:
| I got a free XBOX in 2004 via this method. Keeping the HDD cold
| allowed it to work for a few minutes at a time so I was able to
| softmod the console and extract the drive-specific key. Then
| XboxHDM could prep a replacement drive. A modchip would have been
| way easier but those cost money :)
| p2detar wrote:
| Had a Quantum Fireball hard drive as a kid.
|
| I was playing HoMM2 one day, saved a game and try to reload only
| to find out the my save file was nowhere to be found. It all went
| downhill from there: Files reported saved, but no longer there
| after reboot, other data inconsistencies. Norton Utilities for
| DOS didn't do anything to help and at the end my PC did not boot
| anymore.
|
| It seemed like a problem with the spindles or the head. I wasn't
| quite sure as a kid. Desperate, I tried the only other option I
| could think of - dismounted the hdd and dropped it from several
| inches high. To my astonishment that did work and by repeating
| that procedure now and then, I was able to squeeze at least a
| month or two out of my Quantum before it finally gave up.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| I used to overclock my Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop and putting it
| into a mini fridge helped keep the Prescott P4 running cool for
| benchmarks.
| m0rissette wrote:
| Adam? Why don't you have ketchup in your fridge like a human
| being? Are you a cyborg?
| [deleted]
| overgard wrote:
| I tried resoldering a laptop in an oven once in 2007ish. Sadly it
| only worked a very short time, like, maybe got the boot screen (I
| don't quite remember) and it uh was not in good shape. Dumb
| things you do in college
| RajT88 wrote:
| I took a few RROD Xbox 360's and revived them (for a while) by
| baking them in the oven with the capacitors insulated.
|
| I reckon across 3 boxes I did this to, I eked out a couple
| hundred more hours of use.
| bilekas wrote:
| It's funny but I've done something similar with putting my laptop
| into the oven for a short period as it wasn't getting any charge
| at all and I guessed after trying everything lose that the board
| where the power connector was misbehaving.
|
| It actually worked after but it was pure luck I think.
|
| Another time I did it with a graphics card that had been
| overclocked and definitely was having some board issues, took it
| apart and did the same, it seemed to reseat the solder and it was
| working fine for a few months after but obviously none of these
| are long term solutions, but it's interesting the major impact
| temperatures will have on your hardware!
| type0 wrote:
| > reseat the solder and it was working fine for a few months
| after but obviously none of these are long term solutions
|
| This is why I want to eventually get MiniWare MHP30M Mini Hot
| Plate
| redbell wrote:
| I find it hilarious that I still use the fridge to cool my iPhone
| in 2023.
|
| I find it nostalgic to hear the word _PowerBook_ in a time where
| you only hear _MacBook_
| sniglom wrote:
| I remember back when Macbooks had issues with their temperature
| sensor. They would die due to the sensor cable being too short
| and everything expanding when the laptop got hot. Apple later
| resolved this with a firmware update.
|
| Anyway, I got asked if I could fix a Macbook that was turning
| itself off. Sure, that's probably just performing the firmware
| update. But when I got the Macbook, it turned off just moments
| after starting OSX.
|
| I put it in the freezer for 20 minutes and tried booting it
| again, yup, this time it took longer before it would turn itself
| off. I put it back in the freezer for a few hours. Booted it,
| started the firmware update, praying that it wouldn't turn itself
| off. Everything went successful and after that the laptop worked
| perfectly!
| naet wrote:
| When my laptop was getting extremely overheated during certain
| intensive computation (not necessary having drive issues) I used
| to grab a bag of frozen peas from the freezer, put an extra
| ziplock around it to prevent moisture, and pop it under my
| computer. Worked like a charm to bring the temp down and get
| through the crunch.
| xe4l wrote:
| Several friends of mine and I were known to leave our laptops
| running Gentoo in the freezer with the power cords in for really
| large software builds many many years ago.
| user3939382 wrote:
| On Mac you can use this
|
| https://ports.macports.org/port/cputhrottle/details/
|
| http://www.willnolan.com/cputhrottle/cputhrottle.html
| edude03 wrote:
| I used to do this on the 2019? 16" Intel MacBook Pro when doing
| heavy rust/flutter compiles. It was more thermally limited than
| power limited, so doing a compile while outside the fridge would
| draw ~40w, doing a compile inside the fridge would draw ~120w. I
| eventually just bought a Mac Pro since I was worried about
| condensation killing it, but in the mean time it worked pretty
| well!
| RugnirViking wrote:
| We had a problem with a robot overheating here in denmark and we
| had a fridge in the office. We tried to make a copper heatsink
| but it was still struggling, and so to keep it working so we
| could develop on other issues, we had a cycle of putting
| leverpostej from the fridge on it for 30 minutes before replacing
| it with another. It had the bonus of heating the leverpostej for
| a nice lunch lol.
| jensgk wrote:
| Leverpostej FTW :-)
| Aachen wrote:
| Liver pate that is in English apparently. I recognised it as
| leverpastei in Dutch :)
| olifante wrote:
| Leverpostej is the most disgusting thing in Danish cuisine.
| Just the smell of it heating up in the oven gives me nausea,
| while Danes start drooling in anticipation.
| bloopernova wrote:
| That's hilarious!
|
| I sometimes idly wonder about harvesting the heat from various
| components, like we're Apollo astronauts getting every last
| smidgen of efficiency from our craft. In my daydream, I have
| wall sockets for dumping heat back into the house from, for
| example, the fridge, or the excess heat from the oven. I know
| it's not at all practical, but the idea of a hyper-efficient
| home is deeply appealing to me :)
| RugnirViking wrote:
| That's a really fun idea. I always loved the concept of
| circular systems, terrariums and the like. I'd love to try
| and do the calculations to get oxygen-neutral with the plants
| in my house vs my own exhaled breath, or treat and reuse
| water on a local level.
| pkolaczk wrote:
| Putting electronics in a fridge may work sometimes, but it may
| also cause irreversible damage if you're unlucky. The biggest
| threat to electronics is not just temperature but also moisture.
| Cooling the air captured inside a laptop may cause water to
| condense on electronic components and may cause subsequent short
| circuits, which may burn something irreversibly once powered on.
| Whether it happens depends on the relative humidity of the air
| you start with and the temperature delta. In dry areas this may
| be ok, but really don't try that method in tropics (or even in
| Europe in Summer - I can see condensation happening almost all
| the time in my fridge).
| looping8 wrote:
| But in cases like the one in the article, the damage doesn't
| matter that much, no? Their highest priority were files, so
| they did what they could to save them. But yes, just putting a
| piece of electronic in the fridge for a test is very risky.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| The air inside a fridge is _really_ dry, simply because it is
| cold, but also because the heat exchanger inside has to be even
| colder in order to keep the fridge cold, and so all the
| condensation occurs on that. If you put a warm laptop inside a
| fridge, any moisture in the laptop will be sucked out by the
| dry fridge air and condensed on the fridge 's heat exchanger.
|
| However, it's when you take your cold laptop _out_ of the
| fridge that it may get problems with moisture. If your laptop
| is colder than the dew point of the air, then the moisture will
| condense on it. To solve that, put the laptop into a sealed
| plastic bag while it warms up to stop the moist air getting to
| it (although this may be incompatible with actually running the
| laptop).
| DonHopkins wrote:
| My pre-M1 x86 Macbook Pro would overheat so badly and grind to a
| halt, that once I had a Zoom meeting scheduled that I could not
| miss, so I took a bag of frozen peas out of the freezer, and
| rubbed them on the bottom of the Mac until it cooled down enough
| to run Zoom. I made the meeting in time, but it ruined the peas,
| though.
| circuit10 wrote:
| I often make the bottom of my laptop slightly wet so it can
| evaporate and cool it. My parents think it's a bad idea but I
| think if I don't get it inside the laptop it should be fine?
| KineticLensman wrote:
| I worked at a place (early '90s) where the server room was full
| of (some sort of) Sun machines and a legacy Symbolics Lisp
| machine. One day the server room's aircon failed and the Sun
| machines started to die for no obvious reason. The Symbolics was
| the only thing with a thermometer and its console error messages
| (complaining about the heat) were the clue that revealed what was
| going on.
|
| Although it was the size of a fridge itself.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| One day I'm going to connect my water heater inlet to a water
| cooling block or two and schedule the workloads to queue until
| somebody takes a shower.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| Perhaps a flow sensor rigged up to trigger processes avoids the
| need to schedule. (How? Don't ask me)
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Yeah that was the plan. I was using "schedule" in a bit
| looser sense.
|
| My thought was that a Raspberry pi notices the flow and
| triggers an Apache airflow dataset every 10 sec or so while
| it's still flowing. DAGs which consume that "dataset" (a
| misnomer in this case) will run. Flow stops, DAGs stop.
| tehlike wrote:
| When i needed to cool down a laptop, i used gel ice packs.
| fifilura wrote:
| Me too!
|
| Intel MacBook Pro combined with Microsoft teams meetings does
| this all the time for me.
|
| I have a gel ice pack in the frezer.
|
| When I put it under the laptop it cools down very quickly and I
| can work again.
| haolez wrote:
| I've done this once. I got a laptop from a new company that was
| really shitty, but I had hopes that running Gentoo with some
| nasty CFLAGS would make it usable. However, the thing would heat
| a lot when compiling the base system and would crash in the
| middle of the installation.
|
| Fair enough! I put it in the fridge and ran the installation from
| there. It concluded without issues and the laptop was MUCH faster
| than with a "normal" Linux distro. (I don't think this kind of
| big performance difference holds up on modern machines though).
| eru wrote:
| What's a 'normal' Linux distro for comparison?
|
| Do you mean one that ships binaries, or perhaps one that also
| enables a GUI by default?
| haolez wrote:
| I think it was Debian with i386 packages. Compiling with
| Gentoo targeting my CPU and not a generic i386 machine made
| things much faster for such a crappy device.
| pjerem wrote:
| Well you know the old adage : Gentoo is compiled for your
| computer in its condition so that's why it's fast. Here the
| Gentoo was baked in excellent atmospheric condition so that's
| why it was an awesome install, configured for coolness :)
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| Did condensation not pose a problem? Not just immediate shorts,
| but perhaps corrosion and the laptop dying earlier than
| expected.
| eru wrote:
| You get condensation when you move from a cold environment to
| a hot one. When your piece of equipment is colder than the
| surrounding air's dew point.
|
| So you need to worry about condensation, when you take the
| equipment out of the fridge at the end.
|
| (Where I live now, our dew point is typically at 24C
| throughout the day. So anything at or below that temperature
| collects water. That's about 75F.)
| mattclarkdotnet wrote:
| Fridges are very low humidity environments.
| [deleted]
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| It's the humidity of the kitchen that gets you though.
| Moru wrote:
| I guess that is meaningful in a location with higher ambient
| temperatures. Here we just open up the computer a bit and aim a
| big table-fan at it for better cooling :-)
| PeterStuer wrote:
| I have done this. Many years ago I was forced to work with a
| _terrible_ laptop. It was one of those Dell 5cm thick things that
| were basically cramming a desktop cpu and gpu into someting that
| looked like someone had bolted a second box undeneeth a standard
| laptop. Fans ofc screeming loudly all day. So I had the brilliant
| idea to just run everyting of an external drive so that when I
| could work from home, I could seamlessly switch to a better
| computer.
|
| Now the powerbrick for the laptop from hell was also huge and
| heavy (I remember the total package was over 4.5 kg, and the
| battery lasted 80 minutes when new, so you always needed
| wallpower), but it had the exact with and lenght of the exteral
| drive cage. So fancy me had the great idea that when I tidied up
| my desk putting the drive on top of the powerbrick, ofc neatly
| allingned with the desk edges, looked perfect.
|
| Perfect until the drive crashed hard due to being right on top of
| the very hot powerbrick. All code was checked into subversion,
| but the 127 pages of a product manual I had been writing the last
| week were gone without backup.
|
| Having come across the freezer method, I decided to give it a
| try. Nicely sealed in a ziplock freezer bag, I left the drive in
| overnight. Tried booting it up the next morning without success.
| Put it back in the freezer on a whim, but had to start writing
| the manual anew and forgot a out the drive.
|
| I came across the drive again while fetching some peas from the
| freezer a few weeks later. Gave it another try, and lo and
| behold, it worked!
|
| Learned my lesson about excess heat on drives and no nightly
| backups though, so never needed this procedure again.
| hollander wrote:
| > Fans ofc screeming loudly all day.
|
| Once I worked in a small office and we used ancient but silent
| servers and we needed new ones. We had a rack in one of the
| rooms, so without thinking I bought two new rack servers. Worst
| decision ever.
|
| They were screaming loud. You could hear them in all the
| offices. Temperature in that room went up to 45degC. In the end
| we could store them somewhere in a closet and ignore the noise.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Pro tip: Install the cables on the drive before putting it in
| the freezer inside the ziplock bag. Close the bag with duct
| tape or something to stop air getting in. Then when you take it
| out to use it, keep the drive in the bag and just plug in the
| cables. Keeping the frozen drive in the bag will prevent the
| instant condensation the moment you remove it from the freezer.
|
| Double pro tip (I've done this): Forget the freezer. Put the
| drive a bag, with cables hanging out. Then immerse the
| drive/bag in a bucket of ice water. That keeps it cool even
| while being used. Just be careful to keep the cables away from
| the water. Last time I did this I used a garbage bag large
| enough that I didn't need to seal anything.
| fredrikholm wrote:
| > but the 127 pages of a product manual I had been writing the
| last week were gone without backup.
|
| This hurts just reading it. How'd it go in the end?
| q87b wrote:
| > I came across the drive again while fetching some peas from
| the freezer a few weeks later. Gave it another try, and lo
| and behold, it worked!
| actionfromafar wrote:
| By then the deadline could've flown by.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Rewrote the manual from scratch I'm afraid. Second time went
| faster ofc. Still, a lott of needless double work.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| This kind of experience is hard to replicate therefore hard to
| learn without the suggestion, thanks for sharing
| ahoka wrote:
| Replacing the thermal paste usually helps.
| sergioisidoro wrote:
| Same happened to me with a phone. (nexus 5x). It stopped working
| all the sudden during a vacation.
|
| Putting in the freezer would allow me to boot it and backup the
| data. Fridge was not enough as it was not cold enough to
| dissipate the heat of the device on boot.
|
| As soon as the phone was out of the freezer it would die in about
| 30 seconds.
|
| Saved all the vacation pictures this way
| wisemang wrote:
| I had an iPhone 4S that would often lose wifi connectivity. But
| if I cooled it down in the fridge for a while it would stay
| connected for longer.
|
| (Would want it off when in the fridge otherwise the battery life
| would get obliterated. Presumably from looking for signal but it
| did also sometimes die abruptly on very cold winter days.)
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Things I've baked which worked:
|
| - HP laserprinter motherboards, 2 of them, one just a few days
| out of warranty. After a few minutes in the oven they went on to
| work for years and might still do so for all I know.
|
| - HP JetDirect cards, 3 of them. All worked fine after baking,
| one of them needed a second bake after about a year. One of those
| is still in use, the other 2 got fried by lightning strikes -
| that was before I installed a surge protector in front of the
| fuse box.
|
| - HP DV6000 motherboard, it worked for a number of years after
| that and probably still does, the LCD display eventually died
| which was the end for that piece of plasticky garbage
|
| Notice a trend? HP seems to have had problems during the
| introduction of the RoHS directive [1].
|
| - Asus something-or-other laptop motherboard, still works, one of
| the SoDIMMs died which left it with only 2 GB and it got retired
|
| - PSU board for a 24" Hyundai monitor, still works and is hooked
| up as second monitor to the...
|
| - Apple "Late 2009 27" iMac" graphics card, still works after the
| first bake, I'm using that machine (running Debian) as my main
| workstation.
|
| The oven and the BGA reworkstation have saved a lot of equipment
| from early retirement, both at places I worked as well as here. I
| just repaired the PSU board for a HP (again HP...) 2910ag switch
| even though I could have swapped it on warranty because replacing
| a transistor and resistor is much quicker than going through the
| motions of a warranty replacement and to be honest also just
| because I can and to be even more honest because I only found out
| about the 100 year warranty on these switches after I had already
| fixed it...
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst...
| opan wrote:
| >Notice a trend? HP seems to have had problems during the
| introduction of the RoHS directive [1].
|
| It wasn't just them. I got an old Sony PVM-8044Q from an
| auction a year or two ago that was stuck displaying black and
| white on one of its inputs. Apparently a known[0] problem. I
| took off the case and located the general area of the PCB said
| to have issues and reflowed the solder of a few points with my
| iron. Color worked after that!
|
| [0] https://crtdatabase.com/crts/sony/sony-pvm-8044q
| widea wrote:
| Tried that a long long time ago with a failed harddisk, worked.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Adam? ...is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1274907 - April 2010 (38
| comments)
| [deleted]
| FFP999 wrote:
| I did this once with a client's machine at the rinky-dink data
| center I used to work at. The breakroom fridge kept his server
| going long enough for us to get his data off.
| p2hari wrote:
| I have done this with my mac. I believe the 2010 model. Used to
| get hot very quickly and had to cool it down. :)
| itsthecourier wrote:
| Why does this happen?
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| It doesn't; the whole thing is an urban legend. Goes like this:
|
| Try copying files, fails. Try copying files, fails. Try copying
| files, fails.
|
| Put laptop / drive in fridge. Try copying files, fails. Works.
|
| "Hey, putting it in the fridge worked!"
|
| Nope..it worked because they kept trying. People who comment on
| things like components shrinking don't understand how hard
| drives work.
| prettyStandard wrote:
| Maybe metal contracts at lower temperatures and thus the drive
| head is able to move with less friction.
|
| I will be trying this if I ever experience it. I don't have
| computer hardware fail that often.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Shrinkage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_height
| mugivarra69 wrote:
| either it was running buldozer cpu or intel's recent power
| reactor cpus
| [deleted]
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| The best one I ever saw was someone took a few gallons of 3M non-
| conductive liquid, put a working 486 motherboard in the bucket,
| put the bucket in the freezer, then overclocked it until it
| burned up.
|
| They got an impressive overclock out of it, for a few seconds.
| lol
| spcebar wrote:
| I had an old Galaxy smartphone that had some kind of thermal
| issue. It would constantly run hot, and, god forbid it should run
| out of batteries, would only start after it had been lightly
| chilled in the freezer. When it was running it performed okay but
| I ended up replacing it because it wasn't exactly reliable in an
| emergency situation.
| orbisvicis wrote:
| Hrrm. I've had a similar experience but with opposite outcome.
|
| _Edit_ : There's also the trick about reseating chips by warming
| the motherboard in the oven, or something along those lines.
| Never could get my parents to let me try that one out.
| dmos62 wrote:
| A friend would do this with his Apple M1 laptop when we would
| play something online. He'd take some frozen fresh cheese out of
| the freezer (in a plastic bag) and put it under the laptop.
| Otherwise, his framerate would crater. Sometimes, in winter, he'd
| put a coat on, open the window, and play with the laptop on the
| window sill. Apple laptops tend to be slim and silent, but their
| thermals always seem to pay the price.
| ibash wrote:
| oh! Something to test against this issue:
| https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/m1-m2-flickering-ghosti...
| WildGreenLeave wrote:
| This has to be the Air, because that one is passively cooled. I
| also use it and in the hot summer I've got 2 fans. One to cool
| me down, and one to cool my laptop down.
|
| Still love the thing, so small, light and convenient while
| traveling. The few days it is hot here I can run another fan
| :-)
| dacryn wrote:
| so I assume he has the M1 laptop with no cooling, the basic
| macbook?
|
| Because I have a M1 max macbook pro, and it never gets hot
| ever. It also never really makes any noise.
|
| My main game is cities skylines and civ 6. Don't know if those
| are not that intense since they are quite some years old. But I
| dont need to resort to crazy stuff like your comment.
| dansalvato wrote:
| Pretty sure the M1 MacBook Air will thermal throttle if you
| give it a sustained load for more than a couple minutes. I
| also have a Pro and am really impressed by its thermals--the
| fan only ever spins up under the heaviest of sustained loads,
| and it's whisper quiet when it does.
| RajT88 wrote:
| The freezer also works if you need to power on a cell phone
| without associating it with a cell tower.
|
| (Why would I do this? I found a cellphone and needed to break
| into it to figure out whose it was. If the guy had a new phone
| under the same IMEI, it would have knocked him off the network.
| Eventually, I found out when I finally busted into it and tracked
| down his identity, he had since enlisted in the Marines and there
| wasn't anything he probably was missing on that phone anyways)
| madrobot wrote:
| i once repaired a macbook pro, around 2011, which didnt boot
| anymore with a towel, blocking the vents and constantly powering
| it on until, it overheated. it must have been enough to bridge a
| broken solder point. Took 5 Mintues. Worked for some hours to get
| the important client data and project files off of it.
|
| the idea came to me after the ibook gpu problems which i repaired
| with a manipulated tealight (3 flames) placing on the gpu, having
| the ibook upside down, and also turning it on all the time (it
| directly went off) until it worked for ever.
|
| i was a broke student at that time and loved McGyver growing up
| when i was a kid.
| dacryn wrote:
| yeah those had bad solder joints with the GPU.
|
| I assume it had a discrete gpu in it, which caused issues with
| stability.
|
| I fixed mine by putting the gpu in the oven for a few hours.
| Continued to work for a few months. Then i did it again, and it
| worked again for a few weeks. Couldnt fix it a third time
| though
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| What is the optimum temp? Maybe 4 degrees to avoid any moisture
| turning to ice. Or lower if you can really dry it out?
| rbanffy wrote:
| Been there, done that.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99Sk2ZnjGQA
| [deleted]
| bluepoint wrote:
| I had a laptop which had a faulty memory module, it was working
| quite well after I put it in the fridge for some reason. Also
| linux at the time would have kernel panics while freebsd would
| have some application crashes, but would keep running.
| Uptrenda wrote:
| I think this is genius tbh. If you're faced with the prospect of
| losing important data and feeling silly for trying something so
| unorthodox I know which one I'd prefer. I've also seen videos on
| YouTube where repair technicians are able to temporarily fix
| broken (clicking) hard drives by giving them a good flick with
| their finger. It seems like magic to me. I've had a hard drive
| fail recently and I wish I knew about these methods. I wonder if
| there's any other hacks that might work for saving failing
| drives?
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