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The HP Printer USB Sticker Trick Also Works for Thermaltake PSUs
- petecooper 3y agoSomeone get that person a nail care routine!
- qwerty456127 3y agoFrom what the skin above the nailbeds looks like, the person probably has a retinol deficiency. Please get them some cod liver cans as well.
- DonaldTruck 3y ago[flagged]
- bestouff 3y agoI'm out of the loop. Could someone explain the original trick ?
- mgdm 3y agoI think it's something along the lines of there being a model of HP printer which was advertised as being wifi-only, and apparently had no USB port, but if you removed a strategically-placed sticker you'd find this was a lie.
- wccrawford 3y agoJudging by the picture, that CPU has a sticker over one of the power ports. Just peel it back and you've upgraded your PSU. A quick google confirms that some HP Printers have USB ports that are covered similarly, but with a warning not to use it, rather than just being hidden.
- borlox 3y agoSir, did you just call that PSU a CPU?
- ajsnigrutin 3y agoThis reminds me of the late 90s computer illiteracy... the monitor was the "computer", and the computer was the "hard drive" :)
- NotYourLawyer 3y agoAnd everything was the modem.
- nicolaslem 3y agoToday everything is a router.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- scarface_74 3y agoWell, seeing that a modern Apple monitor has the guts of an iPhone 11 and runs a version of iOS…
- wccrawford 3y agoOMG. Yup, I did. I have no defense for this. Edit: I got it right the second time, though! :D
- michalxnet 3y agoSome HP printers had USB port covered by a sticker with warning not to use it, but it works just fine. https://boingboing.net/2023/08/04/hp-printer-usb-port-covered-with-warning-sticker-in-hopes-you-wont-use-it.html https://boingboing.net/2023/08/04/hp-printer-usb-port-covere...
- Crosseye_Jack 3y agoThe HP trick was that HP started shipping “WiFi only” printers, they put a sticker over the USB port saying something like “for service only” or something similar to encourage the user to connect and use the printer over WiFi. However if you peeled the sticker away and plugged in a USB cable you could still use the printer like normal. I’m guessing thermaltake did the same, hiding some pins behind a sticker because that’s cheaper than creating a whole new version of an existing product.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoWas the wifi only printer cheaper for the consumer? I mean they would save a few pennies for not needing to ship a USB cable but I can't see that being a big enough win for them to add a step to their manufacturing process to add that sticker. Same with the PSU on the photo, although in that case I can imagine they were able to remove some more of the internals and target a different market. Also, this reminds me of a common CPU manufacturing practice; most CPUs from a generation are the exact same, except that the ones with flaws in them will have that part of the CPU disabled / severed and the unit sold as a slower and cheaper model.
- telemeter 3y agoIt's not about the USB cable, it's about getting the device on the purchaser's network so it can phone home with all kinds of juicy telemetry that may (in the case of consumables) or may not (in the case of other data gathered from the network) have anything to do printing. HP (and printer manufacturers generally) have long led the way in enshittification.
- kalleboo 3y agoIn the case of HP, it's because they sell printers where you get a discount on the price of the hardware if you promise to sign up for an ink subscription, and that requires the printer to phone home with the ink levels.
- Crosseye_Jack 3y ago
- Zetobal 3y agoJust because it has the ports doesn't mean it has the internals to support them. I would check that before doing anything not to spec... it's a power supply.
- ilyt 3y agoIf they bothered to mount extra connector they didn't bother to remove rest of the parts, I'd imagine the connector is connected to same power rail anyway. It's still probably at wattage as advertised, but I wouldn't be surprised if some models that differ by "only" 100W had only difference being current limit resistor set on the different value.
- namibj 3y agoSee how it fills the void left by the case. It might not be easier to replace it with a blank instead, and a different case is expensive due to NRE.
- thrtythreeforty 3y ago> If they bothered to mount extra connector they didn't bother to remove rest of the parts This is not true, as a rule, even if it is true here. Sibling comments point out that the void left by the missing connector would be tricky to fill. There are a variety of other reasons that it might not be worth their time to change or omit the $.08 connector, but it would be worth their time to remove e.g. the expensive $3 voltage regulator IC. But to your point, the same logic may be applied to the sticker-vs-PCB tradeoff, and it may turn out that they are identical. Someone disassembling them and comparing the circuits would be able to determine between the two cases.
- SethTro 3y agoWildly in my experience (at least at the hobby level) it's the connector that $3 and the IC that's $0.08
- iancmceachern 3y ago
- Luc 3y agoDoes it though? Is that connector actually functional? And if it is, does the PSU inside have the required wattage or will it trip when you plug something into it?
- mmis1000 3y agoIt's also possible that they put stick on that hole because it turn out the products did not meet the requirement it originally designed to meet. Plug into both holes at same time actually trip it? Let's just cover one of them and ship.
- ilyt 3y agoExtremely unlikely, PSUs are not built in the way where that would be really possible
- OSI-Auflauf 3y ago[dead]
- avipars 3y agoUnlike the hidden USB sticker, this is a power supply that is sending high current through its wires/connectors... please be careful for your own sake Edit: fixed a technical issue about current & voltage
- nicolaslem 3y agoNitpick but a PSU is not sending a lot of voltage through its wires, quite the opposite: it is sending low voltage but high current. Also to your point, a sticker than can fall at any moment shouldn't be relied upon for safety.
- avipars 3y agoThank you for the correction and I do agree with you on the 2nd part
- Titiriti59nj 3y ago[flagged]
- spandextwins 3y agoI would never buy any hp product again. They used to do pretty solid engineering, but now it's just a money grab. Bring back Woz!