5 ms·

When I was younger, I inherited a lot of old PC hardware from my father. One particular motherboard had a massive gouge through the heatsink for the southbridge

When I was younger, I inherited a lot of old PC hardware from my father. One particular motherboard had a massive gouge through the heatsink for the southbridge, and I could never figure out why. One day, I was trying to get Mac OSX to run on this particular system, and on page six of google search I finally found a guide to configuring the BIOS for this board that actually worked! It was one of the very first boards that supported UEFI (iirc, before the spec was fully ratified), and the documentation was very incomplete. I dug a few pages deeper in the thread, and the same poster was describing the poor design of the heatsinks and how they interfered with the full length PCI cards that were used in pro audio at the time. The same poster described how they carefully prized the aluminum heatsink off, screwed it to a board and used a dremel tool to make a slot just wide enough for the card to safely fit. That was strange... I had exactly the same groove cut in my heatsink...

bluedino 5y ago
Sounds right up there with filed-down cards or connectors that had longer grooves cut in them!
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I had a parking light burn out on my car. Went to the car store, and a replacement bulb was $$. Perused the lamps on tags in the aisles, and found one that looked the same but had different "ears" on the side. Bought it, and filed off the ears so it would fit in my car's socket. Worked perfectly, for a small fraction of the price. Of course, my car is full of aftermarket parts, so I am used to making "adjustments" to get them to fit.
  - jimmaswell 5y ago
    I had to look up what a parking light is. It sounds totally unnecessary to me, but I'd say that about a lot of things put in cars after the 90s. Probably not important in this case since it's just a light for parking, but lights for cars cost more due to having to meet exacting DOT standards/testing. I wouldn't do this with a brake light or real headlight.
    - dhosek 5y ago
      Parking lights are a lot older than the 90s. In Riverside, IL, they have "historical" streetlights that inadequately illuminate the streets (or at least did in the 70s). As a result, it was required if you were parking on the street in Riverside after dark that you left your parking lights on.
      - jimmaswell 5y ago
        Apparently the light setting I always skip past is parking lights and I never knew. I always found the headlights/reverse lamps adequate in the dark though.
    - fho 5y ago
      > a lot of things put in cars after the 90s True ... we just moved on from a car build in 1999 to one build in 2011 ... got the "non-extra" version which was half the price. We still got an AC and bluetooth connectivity. What we did not get was a multimedia center, a panorama roof, seat heaters and fancy front lights. I can see that you quickly get used to that ... but tbh I think that most of these are just to justify a higher price because the actual service, getting you from A to B, has not changed in 30 years.
  - grosswait 5y ago
    They’ll have different resistance. Sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn’t.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      I came to post this. The offset ears on the bulb base are used to specify either a dual-filament bulb, such as tail lamps and brake lamps combined, or high-resistance, low-wattage parking lamps that are designed to not run down the battery while the alternator is not charging.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        That makes sense. The cheap bulbs I bought were just slightly dimmer. So they must have had more resistance. But heck, even a parking light will flatten the battery if left overnight.
        dotancohen 5y ago
        > But heck, even a parking light will flatten the battery if left overnight. Nominal modern car batteries are about 12.6 volts. I wonder if the high-resistance bulbs will completely dim once the voltage drops to a specific threshold, say around 12.0 volts. If they do, then they should leave just enough charge to crank, as most starter motors can safely crank over with about eleven and a half volts (and all the way up to over 14 volts). That might be an interesting experiment to test.
therein 5y ago
And the OP was your father? That would have been a nice coincidence.

bluedino 5y ago

Sounds right up there with filed-down cards or connectors that had longer grooves cut in them!

WalterBright 5y ago
I had a parking light burn out on my car. Went to the car store, and a replacement bulb was $$. Perused the lamps on tags in the aisles, and found one that looked the same but had different "ears" on the side. Bought it, and filed off the ears so it would fit in my car's socket. Worked perfectly, for a small fraction of the price. Of course, my car is full of aftermarket parts, so I am used to making "adjustments" to get them to fit.
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  I had to look up what a parking light is. It sounds totally unnecessary to me, but I'd say that about a lot of things put in cars after the 90s. Probably not important in this case since it's just a light for parking, but lights for cars cost more due to having to meet exacting DOT standards/testing. I wouldn't do this with a brake light or real headlight.
  - dhosek 5y ago
    Parking lights are a lot older than the 90s. In Riverside, IL, they have "historical" streetlights that inadequately illuminate the streets (or at least did in the 70s). As a result, it was required if you were parking on the street in Riverside after dark that you left your parking lights on.
    - jimmaswell 5y ago
      Apparently the light setting I always skip past is parking lights and I never knew. I always found the headlights/reverse lamps adequate in the dark though.
  - fho 5y ago
    > a lot of things put in cars after the 90s True ... we just moved on from a car build in 1999 to one build in 2011 ... got the "non-extra" version which was half the price. We still got an AC and bluetooth connectivity. What we did not get was a multimedia center, a panorama roof, seat heaters and fancy front lights. I can see that you quickly get used to that ... but tbh I think that most of these are just to justify a higher price because the actual service, getting you from A to B, has not changed in 30 years.
- grosswait 5y ago
  They’ll have different resistance. Sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn’t.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    I came to post this. The offset ears on the bulb base are used to specify either a dual-filament bulb, such as tail lamps and brake lamps combined, or high-resistance, low-wattage parking lamps that are designed to not run down the battery while the alternator is not charging.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      That makes sense. The cheap bulbs I bought were just slightly dimmer. So they must have had more resistance. But heck, even a parking light will flatten the battery if left overnight.
      - dotancohen 5y ago
        > But heck, even a parking light will flatten the battery if left overnight. Nominal modern car batteries are about 12.6 volts. I wonder if the high-resistance bulbs will completely dim once the voltage drops to a specific threshold, say around 12.0 volts. If they do, then they should leave just enough charge to crank, as most starter motors can safely crank over with about eleven and a half volts (and all the way up to over 14 volts). That might be an interesting experiment to test.

therein 5y ago

And the OP was your father? That would have been a nice coincidence.