Hardware

(Sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong community!)

A Raspberry Pi 5 I use (not the one in the photo) fell off the table, and the black square component pointed at by the arrow was straight knocked off the board. Yeah, if you needed a reason why you should always use a case, this is one, ooops lol...

It looks like it came off cleanly, leaving two square metal pads below. I still have the component, the small black box. This happened while the Raspberry Pi was running, and the power LED went from green to red in an instant. Afterward, booting was no longer possible. So, my questions:

1. If this happened while it was running, is it likely that this fried something else and it's not worth getting fixed? Or is this likely fixable?

2. If I want to get this fixed, how do you guys find a good local repair shop? I heard some apparently do sloppy soldering jobs, and given the RAM prices I would like not to have this Raspberry Pi unnecessarily damaged further if it's salvageable. I live in Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany, if anybody knows good local places.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ohaa.xyz/post/11345138

I recently aquired an old hacousto Accent 8x8 Audio matrix, however I cant find any still alive links for the companion software. The only lead ive found so far is an archived version of the website. Archive.org hasnt archived the actual file though. Does anyone know of any mirrors, repositories, archives, or other sources where something like this might still be available?

Edit: this guide doesn’t seem to mention it https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-t-series-laptops/thinkpad-t480-type-20l5-20l6/20l6/20l6s01q2y/document-userguide

I was flashing Libreboot on to my ThinkPad T480, when I noticed this little button. Sorry for the poor images!

asil

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/44200610

RVA23 profile of RISC-V marks a turning point in how mainstream CPUs are expected to scale performance. By making the RISC-V Vector Extension (RVV) mandatory, it elevates structured, explicit parallelism to the same architectural status as scalar execution. Vectors are no longer optional accelerators bolted onto speculation-heavy cores. They are baseline capabilities that software can rely on.

RVA23 doesn’t force scalar execution to become deterministic. It simply makes determinism viable because the scalar side is no longer responsible for throughput. The vector unit handles the parallel work explicitly, and the scalar core becomes a coordinator that can be simple, predictable, and low‑power without sacrificing performance.

To understand why this shift matters, it helps to recall how thoroughly speculative execution came to dominate high-performance CPU design. It delivered speed, but at increasing cost—in power, complexity, verification burden, and security exposure. RVA23 does not reject speculation. Instead, it restores balance. It acknowledges that predictable, vector-driven parallelism is now a credible, mainstream path for performance growth.

so i already have 240W charging over USB-C (framework16), but it would be great if there was a way to also transfer data over the very same cable for low priority USB devices. every hub i found maxes out at 140w per port and the powerbrick does not include a way to inject data.

does anybody know of a way to add data to the mix without compromising power? it would only need to provide a single USB "access point" for that data

note: i do not posess the tools required to safely work on the powerbrick itself, so thats out of the question

Hi, does anybody know which kind of nuts should I buy to attach my M.2 standoffs? My motherboard seems to not have any and obviously without the nuts it doesn't matter if I have screws and standoffs.

...there is a way? What possible application/need would make this necessary/feasible? Sure, my M.2 drives run hot, especially when doing continuous I/O for prolonged periods, but... Maybe I'm just inexperienced. (:

Edit: the link might appear... Fishy? So I added an image.

Edit2: which seems to have deleted the link https://www.newegg.com/p/3C6-038N-00JC6

Instead of just cooling my one router, I thought I'd share the love with some other pieces of equipment too. I bought three older Noctua fans: https://www.noctua.at/en/products/nf-s12b-redux-700/specifications

I also bought a somewhat more powerful DC adapter (max capacity 27 Watts instead of 3.6), tied it all together, and now I'll shut up for good.

Thank you all! :)

Follow the link for background info!

Thank you so much for all the great advice! What a nice community! :)

I pushed out the pins from the 4-pin connector using a SIM tool:

I bought a 12V DC power supply with adjustable voltage (3~12) so that I can adjust the fan speed to my liking (noise, temps). The power supply came with a bipolar terminal. How in the world could I be this lucky. No need to carve any wires here (although it would have been nice to finally learn how to do that too...):

I put back the sense and control pins into the connector in order to avoid accidental shorts and what not. I have no idea why ground goes into the negative node, but it was the only plausible configuration, since the power simply has to come from the positive node, according to conventional current:

And voila! I have no idea why I'm unable to upload the GIF of my fan spinning, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Thanks again!

My computer recently developed an error where the hardware clock displays the time as follows

System date [Mon 31/63/25755]
System time [63:28:25]

The clock runs.

I've tried all the usual tactics: remove CMOS battery, short the pins to force a reset, put fresh battery, reflash BIOS. Nothing.

On boot, I get an error on reading the hardware clock and the system defaults to 3 of September, 2025.

I think I'm looking at a mobo heading to the e-waste bin.

The board in question is a GygaByte AB350M-DASH. It still runs but it's a bit annoying having to set the system clock every single time I boot up the machine.

Any advice on the matter is welcome.

I disassembled an AMD CPU Wraith Cooler, meaning, I took the fan off of the heatsink, because I want to attach the fan on top of a Raspberry Pi that I'm using as a router. The Pi runs quite hot because it transmits several hundred megabytes per second, non stop, and I want to give it some cooling. (It already has its own heatsinks on its various chips inside the chassi and I don't want to use the little shitty Okdo fan, because it's loud.)

Is there any smart solution to how I could power this 4-pin fan? It needs 12V DC.

This is the Pi with its chassi.

And I'm considering something barbaric like this.

~~Are there perhaps conveniently positioned GPIO pins on the Pi that the 4-pin connector could just slide on to and just work?~~ Never mind this. The Pi 4 that I'm using can only output 5V:

Or would I need to cut off the 4-pin connector to expose the individual wires and attach them to a 12V DC adapter?

Or any other genuis solutions? :)

Just wanted to share a pretty sic "notebook kit" that I found at a thrift store. I didn't buy it since I don't need it (I'm carrying around an XTRFY M42 RGB PINK and a Deltaco WK90B TKL). But the fact that it even has RJ11 connectors just blew me away.

Mods: Feel free to remove this post if it doesn't fit here

Can high quality animation be done on a DDR4 ram ??

Hi, I bought a used Dell constellation HDD from eBay. Here's the link for the listing.

It's supposed to be tested by them, but when I received it, it didn't spin up. I tried putting it inside my Lenovo ThinkCentre M900 Tiny, and also tried using an external SATA to USB adapter, but none of them work.

Now, it's a bit weird and different from the usual HDDs. It's 2.5 inch, but thicker than usual, 7200 RPM, and is supposed to be enterprise grade. So maybe I'm doing something wrong, and need a special adapter for it. Or it can be a faulty drive. I'm not sure. If anyone has experience with these drives, please let me know if I should be doing something different. Thanks.

Edit: I came to the conclusion that the drive is faulty. I contacted the seller, and was given a refund.

I'm deploying Frigate (camera NVR software) at work for our 100something security cams. We only buy Dell servers which is a shame because I would have probably went Supermicro in this instance. Anyway. I'm doing some research and it's really unclear to me what Dell server I should go with if I intend to install a GPU in it.

I'm thinking I'll probably go refurbished, like one generation or two old.

Should I go with a 4U server, and if I did, would that eliminate the need for a PCIe riser card?

Do I need a datacenter class GPU? I have read that many of the powerful consumer cards will simply be too large for the server case.

Right now I am testing with an R550 and there is only one available 8 pin on the power supply. How do I power a 12 pin on the GPU if all that is available?

Is it worth paying 90 AUD to upgrade the laptop’s 512 GB M.2 2242 PCIe Gen4 TLC SSD to 1 TB, or would it be better to buy a 1 TB SSD myself and and save the 512 GB for future use?

Also, is it worth paying $150 to upgrade from the included 16 GB DDR5-5600 MT/s (SODIMM) to 32 GB (2 × 16 GB) when buying the laptop?

I’d also appreciate any recommendations on where to buy the cheapest RAM and SSD.

Thanks in advance for any advice or input!