Computer operating systems

[MattBLancs]

.. The very thought of waking up unnaturally to something making a noise is abhorrent...

You do get used to it, thankfully as they get older their waking up diminishes.

Oh wait, not talking about having a newborn baby in the house? Oops sorry!


I do need an alarm, though usually have no issues actually getting up when prompted. I've heard work colleague describing how he needed to set THREE alarms in his phone in order to actually get going in the morning! 2 to 5 minutes apart. Each subsequent disturbance getting him a notch further towards consciousness again! (I picture his getting up being akin to the multiple attempts / glow plug cycles of an old diesel engine on a very cold day! ) I'm thankful I can generally get my facsimile of a functional human being up and running in short order, even at some if the ungodly hours I've needed to do so for long trips away with work.

[Hell Razor5543]

I usually wake up before my alarm goes off, but just in case I were to turn it off and roll over the alarm clock is on the other side of my bedroom. That means that I HAVE to get up to turn it off.

[MattBLancs]

I usually wake up before my alarm goes off, but just in case I were to turn it off and roll over the alarm clock is on the other side of my bedroom. That means that I HAVE to get up to turn it off.

It's good, but it's no "helicopter alarm clock"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Skykaylen-Craz ... B07RPJ297J

I think it's basically some sort of torture device - the helicopter bit basically revs up the rotor and sets off landing somewhere at random in the room. "Only" ** way to shut the alarm off (which is very loud) is find the thing and return it to the base station.

I think I'd quickly learn to wake up a minute ahead of the alarm to intercept it before it set off .... or else have a trip to A&E to have bits of alarm clock shrapnel removed from my hand as pounding the thing into the bedside table would likely be the ** only way a very much not yet awake and very much not in the mood to be playing a game of where's the damn helicopter version of me might decide upon to silence it!

(Perhaps should have got one for my three alarms colleague though!)

[myglaren]

Not so much the OS as the browser. Brave updated today and I can't drag and drop photo's using it, had to navigate to each photo through the file system.
Used Firefox for the last few and that remains unchanged.

[myglaren]

Was wondering why there were huge blank spaces in some forums on Firefox until I updated the adblocker in Brave and Chromium. Where the ads would be, just blanked and not collapsed.

[NewcastleFalcon]

This has mopped up plenty IT related stuff other than the title reveals.

So here is the Laptop charger saga for an HP laptop. In pictures with a few brief words. Thought I had solved it by wiring up that connector, but the colours of the wires were not in any sort of indicative colour. I probably falsely assumed the Black to be negative...you can see it is soldered to the outer metal, Blue to be positive supplying power the the centre pin and the White...dont know..data, maybe not needed as the HP laptop has been without a battery for about 3 years.

Should have proved it first but the bare wires coming out of the charger show, plugged in at source, not plugged into laptop.
19.5 Volts between White and black,
13.1 Volts between Black and Blue
0.00 Volts between Blue and White

Not sure what that tells me

picture shows broken power pin and the wires Blue, Black and White and a correct size connector, not HP, not HP charger specific.	3 Wires into 2 pins doesn't go but which colours do what, One is Power supply, one is return and the other data?
Mick's kind replacement, not quite a match, the critical failure being the internal diameter which for the HP is 3.0mm	The Ali Express route all sorts of component parts available including this adaptor

Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I found this info on an old IT site I used to use Neil, hope it helps!

"Connect the black to the centre pin, the white to the shield and the blue to the inner shield or to nothing. The blue is used to tell the charger what the voltage drop across the laptop is so it can stop charging when the battery is full. Thus with no battery you can leave the blue disconnected."

[NewcastleFalcon]

I found this info on an old IT site I used to use Neil, hope it helps!

"Connect the black to the centre pin, the white to the shield and the blue to the inner shield or to nothing. The blue is used to tell the charger what the voltage drop across the laptop is so it can stop charging when the battery is full. Thus with no battery you can leave the blue disconnected."

Thanks Mick I wired the plug up incorrectly at first but yes the black and the white produce the required 19.5v

Just don't associate Black with what I imagine is the positive pin (it is!)

Black currently goes to outer metal shield, blue to centre pin, but I can attach the wires to any colour rather than resolder the plug bit again

Neil

[Paul-R]

Just don't associate Black with what I imagine is the positive pin (it is!)

This is one of the reasons the harmonised colours for mains wiring in Europe are what they are. Our house in France still has some original wiring from goodness knows how many years ago. And, sure enough, black is live and blue is neutral. No idea what earth is as who bothered with one of those back then!

So the colours eventually decided upon could not be misinterpreted in any of the signed up countries. Blue was only ever a negative or not used. Black could not be used as it had been live in some places and neutral in others. Not sure about the earth but the green and yellow striping was unique, never been used before and couldn't be mistaken anywhere. I don't know about red and why that was not used.

The disadvantage of the new system (in the UK) was that for certain types of colour blindness, blue and brown are very similar compared to the previous black and red.

[moizeau]

Blue is always newt,, yellow green is always earth,everything else is live, depending on the sparky

[Rp0thejester]

I was always told, touch Brown bread your dead, red also your dead, neutral and earth can be anything else, it won't kill you! I'm not sure if that works on computer systems though

[myglaren]

I have a similar plug on a Dell laptop but it has a blue LED in it.
I knows when it isn't pushed fully in to the socket and can't determine the charging amperage. Dreading the day that that breaks as the laptop must be all of twenty years old.

[NewcastleFalcon]

I found this info on an old IT site I used to use Neil, hope it helps!

"Connect the black to the centre pin, the white to the shield and the blue to the inner shield or to nothing. The blue is used to tell the charger what the voltage drop across the laptop is so it can stop charging when the battery is full. Thus with no battery you can leave the blue disconnected."

A slight change as a result of trial and error and the new pin is powering the HP laptop as I type.

Black undoubtedly linked to the outer metal and presumably negative/ground, White to center pin. Blue redundant.
need to tidy it up, but working.

Neil

[CitroJim]

There's a bit of a suggestion going around that Microsoft have relented and are now allowing Windows 11 to be installed fairly legitimately on unsupported hardware...

Allegedly they are aware that it's possible anyway and have accepted that many will when Windows 10 goes out of support next year rather than buy new hardware...

https://www.techspot.com/news/105894-mi ... orted.html

I have an SSD on order and will experiment with installing Windows 11 on one of my unsupported laptops. I'll advise how successful this might be in due course...

[bobins]

If it comes to it, 'Massgrave' might prove useful, Jim. It provides an..... 'alternative' way to install such things