We Are Not Responsible for Your Impending Doom

[Dragon_Dreamer]

A friend of mine works with them regularly... maybe I can get her to take this scenario to them. %D

Not naming names, but she works for a very popular magazine.

[mattm04]

XP is a very old operating system, and soon all support for it will end. Its already been extended, but its a nearly 10 year old OS.

Yet it will still live on to some extent in Corporations for years ans I have see OS/2 and Win 2000 used in POS applications.

[Dragon_Dreamer]

Support for SP3 ends in 2014.

[Fire_on_High]

But it is a myth: someone says that a computer fan can be used as a standalone fan to cool anything

We just want to see it go boom, ok?

Yet it will still live on to some extent in Corporations for years ans I have see OS/2 and Win 2000 used in POS applications.

I ran 2k til about 6 weeks ago. Damn fine OS, but I wasn't up for trying to shoehorn it onto new hardware when the old board went to it's reward unexpectedly.

[Plague*Star]

haha. I'll have to build a rig to test it, and video tape the whole thing for submission to youtube. :-D

I saw a guy hook up a speaker to line voltage. It made lots of 60Hz noise before melting and making lots of smoke. :-D

"Normal harddrives and cdroms want +5VDC and +12VDC. We give them 120 VAC. They like it. Ohhh, they like it. "
from:
http://www.fiftythree.org/etherkiller/

Please note the remote control for "testing" devices.
P*S

[protege]

Close, but not quite. pins 1 and 2 are positive and negative, respectively, pin 3 is a fan speed sensor that reports the speed of the fan to the motherboard. This guy couldn't even tell the difference between AC and DC. That alone would be darwin award worthy.

When I posted that, I was thinking of the fans in the server at work. That thing has several fans mounted in the case. On those, the third wire is simply grounded to the chassis.

[Dragon_Dreamer]

Still waiting for that youtube link. Guy has still not been back. Maybe he got some brains shocked into him?

[Midorikawa]

Still waiting for that youtube link. Guy has still not been back. Maybe he got some brains shocked into him?

Totally forgot about this thread. I'll have to get something together later this week. *makes note on white board next to him*

[Difdi]

I'll be keeping my ears peeled for news of fires tomorrow.

Reminds me of a guy years back, who wandered into the employees-only section of the shop I was working at, into the repair area, looking for someone to sell him batteries. We did carry batteries, but only watch, hearing aid and similar small batteries, plus laptop ones. No AAA, AA, C or D (we were right next door to a place that did, and had a wider range of open hours than us to boot, so we didn't bother to stock them).

I escorted the guy back to the front, assured him he could find the D cell batteries he needed for his boombox next door, and thought nothing more about it. Until I needed a spare part, and noticed that the entire box of capacitors (not all of them as discharged as they should be) next to the door had mysteriously vanished.

Now, I know the terminals don't line up, but even so, idiocy tends to find a way. Can you imagine what hooking up a fully charged capacitor roughly equal in size to a D-cell battery would do to the average ungrounded electronic appliance?

[Ironclad Alibi]

Now, I know the terminals don't line up, but even so, idiocy tends to find a way. Can you imagine what hooking up a fully charged capacitor roughly equal in size to a D-cell battery would do to the average ungrounded electronic appliance?

Karmic retribution?

Did he ever come back claiming that your "batteries" destroyed his radio?

[roothorick]

Normal Electrician: Gets Black, White, Green right at least 80% of the time.
Expert Electrician: Can also deal with Red and Blue.
Superhero Electrician: Also understands Yellow, Orange and Brown.

Anything else? Arcs, sparks & meltdown!

(US usage. YMMV)

Green: Ground (Earth)
White: Neutral
Black: Line (Hot) 120V Phase 1

Red: Line (Hot) 120V Phase 2
Blue: Line (Hot) 120V Phase 3

Yellow: Line (Hot) 240V Phase 1
Orange: Line (Hot) 240V Phase 2
Brown: Line (Hot) 240V Phase 3

(Phase numbers pulled OOMA)

I thought White was hot and Black neutral? Ah well, that's why I compulsively check my multimeter for every little thing. Also, if DC is involved, all bets are off. Yellow is normally 12VDC and red 5VDC. But not always. I've worked in a cabinet where RED was 12VDC and WHITE was logic ground.

You should be able to rig up a fan stand alone, but it would be a lot more trouble than its worth as you need to supply the right kind of power, which is a mere 5 volts. Even a 9 volt battery could probably cook a 120mm computer fan!

Actually, most computer fans are 12V, and will run happily on a 9V battery, but at reduced speed. (This is my specialty, can't you tell?)

A floppy drive is still required to load disk-controller device drivers during WinXP install - which is absolutely required if you want to use your modern SATA hard drives at full capability. That's unless you have the wherewithal to slipstream them into a fresh CD.

You still use CDs? My standard MO now is to use a USB installer with the drivers and OEM certs slipstreamed in. No waste.

[Difdi]

Did he ever come back claiming that your "batteries" destroyed his radio?

Never saw him again. Of course, to make such a claim, he'd have to admit he was guilty of both trespassing and shoplifting...

[Chromatix]

The trouble is, I know that slipstreaming is a viable way to do such things, but I've never actually done it. I just pull out one of my spare floppy drives and hang it off the side of the case.