Lenovo B570 15.6 inch Laptop Frozen Issue.

It never cease's to amaze me how PC manufactures apply thermal compound too their CPU's.

My nearly 1 year old laptop was running around 50 degrees Celsius at idle and 70 degrees Celsius while watching 1080P video's and last night it froze up on me. I take the laptop apart and look at the heat sink and fan everything looks fine no dust, I take the heat sink off and what do I see ???

Enough blue thermal paste for 3 CPU's all over the place and dried out, I think they were applying it like cake icing. 

I clean up the mess with 91% rubbing alcohol and apply a little Arctic silver 5 thermal grease, put it all back together and turn the laptop back on. 

 

luckily the laptop still works. 

 

Now my max temps never get's beyond 60 degrees Celsius while watching 1080P video's and my idle temp is around 40 degrees Celsius.

I know I should have taken photo's but I was kinda upset I had to disassemble a new barely used laptop and replace the thermal compound so soon.

Netgear N300 (WNR2000) Wireless Router Review

This is a really nice indepth review on one of the wireless N routers I'm deciding on getting.

YouTube video uploaded by:

Wanderer001

Thank You

Update 1

After a few weeks of using this router I'm thinking to myself "why didn't I buy the sooner" my old wired router would just barely do 13 mbps download. The Netgear N300 (WNR2000) Wireless Router go's up to my max download speed of 25 mbps so over all I'm very much satisfied by it's performance and it doesn't get very warm at all.

My home is around 2080 square feet and made of brick and mortar, I get pretty good coverage in every room. I've yet to do an outdoor test and see just how far I can really go before I lose signal.

Update 1.5

It's been a few weeks since my last update but due to the remains of Sandy I've not had a chance to do the outdoor range test (a laptop isn't waterproof). But so far the router is going strong and there has been no problems (knocks on wood).

Update 2

It's been a while since I last updated (October 2012) and the wireless and wired is still performing great (Knocks on wood).

I'll update more later if I have any issues that come up and how I fixed them.

Thank You

(^_^)

Belkin N600 Wireless Router Cooling Mod

Part 2

I seen this while looking up reviews and cooling ideas.

YouTube Videos Uploaded by

Makaio2011

Thank You.

1991 RCA 25 Inch Cabinet TV Review & Possibile Mod Idea

This TV was manufactured in 1991 and still works to this day with no problems (knocks on wood). This must Have been when RCA made their products to last by using quality parts.

I use Comcast Digital Cable via an RCA Component video cable (seems to give best picture) because the coax cable seems to blur the image slightly for unknown reasons. 

The back (The 2 wires go to 2 satellite speakers that I find give better sound then the stock speakers built in the TV)

Back sticker shows model and manufacture year.

The component video/audio ports and an S-video port to the Left. 

The back with cover removed (cough cough very dusty in here) as you can see there is a lot of room here that gave me the idea I had.

Circuit diagram for any future repairs.

The high voltage transformer.

Now on to my possible mod to make a retro High Def TV/PC setup.

as you can see in the photo with the back off there is all kinds of room, So I was thinking that when the TV gives up the ghost someday I was thinking of gutting the inside and tossing everything like the picture tube and all the circuits and have nothing but the cabinet left even toss the black trim around the screen.

I done some measuring and I believe a 37 Inch LCD/LED High Def TV would fit nicely in the cabinet (might have to do something to cover any possible gaps) and with all of the room still available add a high performance gaming PC in the cabinet as well. 

It's only an Idea for the advanced DIYer out there and shouldn't be done if you have know idea what your doing. With everything in place add the back panel with some mounted fans to help move out hot air (4 x 80 mm case fans).

this idea might have been already done but I like to think of the possibility's for older tech that still works and seems part of the family.

Lenovo B570 Hardware Maintenance Manual

The PDF can be viewed at link below.

Lenovo B570 Hardware Maintenance Manual.PDF

Lenovo B570 Laptop Update

when the time comes I will try and post photo's of the tear-down and cleaning of the heat sink and fan the the reassembly.

The RCA DHG535 EMTA Cable Modem Review

After using this modem for a few years I've found it to be one of the better ones that I've used by my cable company. There is only one problem that I find quite cheap about it from the manufacture. That problem is that it tend to run very hot and has very few vent holes or any heat sink/fan to speak of.

From Left : Power, 2 Telephone Jacks, 1 Ethernet jack, 1 USB port, Cable In.

In the photo's above you can see there are hardly any vent holes to let out the oven like temperatures that quickly builds up inside.

Too my surprise with the high temperatures, this modem didn't have any connection drops or random reboots you would expect from an overheating condition.

But as you can tell you can’t have a high temperature inside any electronic device without some signs of stress as you can see in the photos below.

Front with cover removed.

Close up of the Broadcom chip and circuit board.

Power supply board with signs of heat stress.

In the photo's above you get a better idea of how cramped and tight it is inside and with very few places for heat to get out the modem has been slowly cooking it's self over the years and signs of a capacitor failure is showing.

these 3 capacitors are bulging and the one in the back left has started to leak on top.

 

Surprisingly the modem still works with no problems though I'm sure it's on borrowed time with the 3 caps looking like this.

When they fail it may just go out in a puff of smoke or a bang they are kind of unpredictable when they are in an unstable state. So in my attempt to get more life out of the modem I've removed the cover and left it off so the heat can escape. My internet speed has improved slightly and voice calls are more clear and understandable.