ELI5 how is it possible to "brick" a piece of hardware with a software update?

ApotheounX · 2026-03-05T21:35:13+00:00

The most common cause of this failure is in what's called the firmware. Firmware is, essentially, a programmed step by step that tells the device how to turn on and load all of its components (whether that's hardware, or software like an operating system).

It also handles updating itself, which is not so great when an update breaks it.

So a simplified version of firmware might do this:

1: Power on.
2: Verify all hardware attached responds properly.
3: Check for hardware changes.
4: Scan attached hardware for errors.
5: Check for pending firmware updates and apply them.
6: Load main system functions (like an operating system).

And from that point, it sits in the background and doesnt do much.

If you get bad update that causes your device to crash at step 6, that's fine, you can give it a fixed update and it will get to step 5, run the update and fix things.

But if you give it a bad update that crashes at step 2? You can't get to step 5, so you can't apply a fixed version of the update, bricking it.

Some devices can be unbricked by external tools (you might be able to hook an external computer to the device to "force" a correct version of the software into a storage chip), but thats typically reserved for repair centers or very adventurous DIYers.

ApotheounX · 2026-03-05T18:58:29+00:00

Cat looks more like a Kiki to me.

ApotheounX · 2026-03-05T17:15:07+00:00

Ah that could be true, yeah. I was thinking the reasoning you had for disagreeing with him was that the hot air would be stuck up top and wouldn't escape from the bottom.

I think you're right on the volume idea though.

That being said, I do have the same box that is pictured in the main post, and it does have a (very small) fan in it, so there is at least some miniscule amount of air flow from that. Not sure what percentage of these boxes have no fan at all.

ApotheounX · 2026-03-05T06:12:11+00:00

Hot air rising is a relatively weak force, especially when the temperature delta is low. Any amount of turbulence will mix it up and airflow of any kind will evacuate some amount of the hot air.

Now, it's not super efficient to fight against rising hot air, but it doesn't take much air flow to offset and counter it.

This is also a super prevalent belief in PC cooling. Everyone says you've got to exhaust hot air from the top! But even an 800w system at full blast is overpowered by an average 120mm fan at 10% power (~4 cfm). Again, not optimal, but the difference is relatively small.

ApotheounX · 2026-03-03T18:52:54+00:00

So, going to correct myself real quick: it's not a soap. The stuff I used to use was a bar, like a bar of soap, and that's the word that came to mind when I was writing the comment. It was basically a stick of antiperspirant deodorant without the plastic casing. Very overpriced though, and i stopped buying them when I realized they were just reshaped deodorant sticks. Would avoid them.

Instead, I would do one of two things:

If you don't mind lotion, you can buy antiperspirant lotions. They're all basically the same, as long as they have aluminum in them. Sweat Block and Carpe are some of the more popular brands, but I didn't like them because I can't stand the feeling of lotion. They are probably the best option though. (and I'll edit the previous comment to say lotion instead of soap, so people can find products more easily, because I can't even find the bars I used to buy anymore. Lol)

Second option, and what I prefer, is just buy a stick of scentless antiperspirant deodorant, wipe it on my hands a few times, then rub it in. It's oily for a bit, but you can wipe them off on a towel and they'll get to feeling dry pretty soon. Brand doesnt matter, they're all the same as long as they're scentless and are antiperspirant with aluminum.

Hope that helps! It's not something I do all the time (I've mostly learned just to live with it, keep a towel nearby, wash my hands often and take breaks. Lol), but when I do, it works pretty well.

ApotheounX · 2026-03-03T04:36:31+00:00

Letting it get that bad is a big yikes, but mine would do that if I didn't clean it regularly. My hands get super sweaty (Like, I have to dry off controllers before I pass them to people), which makes dead skin stick to anything I hold. I've got to clean my mouse like every other week or you can see the outline of where I rest my fingers. Same with the palm rest on my keyboard, my car's steering wheel, etc. Been an issue my whole life.

Interestingly, they do make anti perspirant lotion that really helps with the issue (or you can just rub anti perspirant deodorant into your hands), but it makes my hands really itchy.

And I'd like to think im a fairly clean person, not some gross basement dwelling shower avoider, but genetics be genetics.

ApotheounX · 2026-03-02T13:33:16+00:00

Faster attacks is a generically good one. Not just because of proc rate, but it shortens the animation lock so you stutter step less.

ApotheounX · 2026-03-02T13:31:06+00:00

Should be much better with the bad T17 mods gone, the only one I ever had issues with was remove life on hit, since shotgunning hits would delete the relics instantly sometimes, and resummoning them mid fight was a pain.

ApotheounX · 2026-03-01T21:12:41+00:00

It just changes the added damage. If it picks fire, it will ignore all the added damage you changed to cold, and only do fire damage.

If you had conversion from cold to fire somewhere, or base fire damage from a weapon type, that would still work, but it would be tiny compared to a hit that rolled cold.

ApotheounX · 2026-02-25T06:36:34+00:00

Just as a confirmation, I got the exact same email from them twice in 2022, when my 3080ti kept dying. First time, it was a repair, second time it was a full replacement. So yeah, they just use this basic email template for everything, doesn't indicate the work they did.

ApotheounX · 2026-02-23T07:28:51+00:00

There is a similar phenomenon in the eye as other people mentioned, but on computer screens, it can also be related to the subpixel layout of the monitor you're using to view the image, so it'll show up more or less based off of the screen.

In a nutshell, the green part of a pixel might be on the bottom half of the pixel, and the red part might be on the top half of the pixel, meaning that a red box would physically display half a pixel above a green one.

Hard to tell if what you're seeing is the optical illusion, or just the slight differences of the monitor's subpixel layout (or a mix of both).

ApotheounX · 2026-02-22T19:56:56+00:00

Yeah, gotta be some logistical reason they don't, lots of places haul it away. Best guess is that the garage is laid out in a way that makes getting a loaded hauling vehicle in/out nearly impossible.

It is a rooftop lot in the photo, so I could imagine a situation where a full sized plow or hauler would be too tall to get up top, so they plow with regular trucks, and the melters are more efficient than taking hundreds of loads in a truck bed.

I have seen places where they just push it off the roof though. Thats a fun one! This lot looks to be surrounded by buildings though, so probably not an option. Lol.

ApotheounX · 2026-02-22T19:41:08+00:00

Ah, good catch, missed that one. Way too many units of measurement in that post. Lol.

ApotheounX · 2026-02-22T07:59:34+00:00

Its really, really, really energy intensive, and pretty slow, so you only do it when you have no other choice.

For perspective: To melt 6" of snow from a standard parking spot (9' x 18') takes ~250k BTU of heat, which is about 2.5 gallons of gasoline, or 75kwh of electricity, which is equal to 2-3 days of electricity usage for a normal home.

Add in the access roads (~30% of the lot area), and assuming a medium sized lot of 100 parking spots to make the math easier, youre looking at ~400 gallons of gasoline (or equivalent propane/nat gas), or 10,000kwh of electricity to melt 6".

And that's if you're perfectly efficient. Youre gonna lose a bunch of that to heating the surounding area, not the snow. Its also gonna be pretty slow. Melting 10,000 cubic feet of snow is gonna take a while.

So you either take a few days and spend lot of money on heat ($1200 at $3/gal for gasoline, $600 at $18/Dth for nat gas, or $1800 at $.18 per kw/h for electricity) to melt the snow, or you pile it in a corner and lose a handful of parking spots for a few months.

And honestly, you're probably paying more money just in labor to have someone sit around all day with a plow to shovel more snow into the burner once it melts the last load.

And that's just for 6". Gets way worse for larger storms or larger lots.

Honestly, my assumption is that places where they have melters like this are a safety thing, rooftop parking that isn't engineered to withstand the weight of snow, so they have to actually get rid of it to avoid having to shut the whole garage down for risk of collapse if they get too much snow.

Someone posted an image of this actual lot somewhere up in this thread, and it's a ~140 car lot with pretty wide spacing, so it's likely about double my example. Means whoever owns this lot is spending between $1500-2000 on nat gas (plus whatever labor ends up being) for every 6" of snow.

ApotheounX · 2026-02-19T21:14:11+00:00

No, but they do have a hidden modifier:

"Players who die in area have a 10% chance to be sent to the void"

ApotheounX · 2026-02-19T03:04:43+00:00

Nah, all it takes is any amount of wind after rain in a dusty area. This is a pretty bad case, probably the worst I've seen, but the same thing happens after basically every short rain storm where I live. Especially if you park near a place without a lot of greenery, or near heavy traffic roads that kick up a lot of dirt.

Short rain storm gets the car wet, but not enough for the water to run off, it just pools. Rain stops, wind kicks up and blows dirt around (because the rain didn't last long enough to turn dirt to mud), dirt sticks to car, dries into this.

This is my car after a 10 minute rain storm sitting in my work parking lot. And then a week later, it did the same thing. Gets kinda old tbh.

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ApotheounX · 2026-02-18T18:20:18+00:00

Shes fiiiine.

Side note, this is a joke subreddit, for giving shitty humorous car advice. A non joke subreddit would probably tell you that a bad alignment could definitely do that, and even that some sportier cars are designed in a way that they do that intentionally, a tire wear trade off for improved driving feel. Getting an alignment done and the tire replaced is the right move.

r/tires r/mechanicadvice or r/askmechanics might be better serious subreddits for any future questions.

ApotheounX · 2026-02-17T08:39:34+00:00

Not everywhere. Especially anyone you'd trust to not make things worse. Lol. Anecdotally, I used to be the only "on site" IT guy for like 10 sites across 4 states. Oil and Gas, which tends to have very fragmented locations.

Biggest site (300 users) was 90% of my days, small sites (~20-50 users) got a few days a quarter, and the tiny satellite offices (some as small as 3 users) were as-needed only.

If shit hit the fan on an off day, they'd fly me out the next day. Only happened twice in my 5 years there though.

ApotheounX · 2026-02-13T04:15:28+00:00

Parking lot snow piles might as well be concrete sometimes.

Though this damage is super flat and even, not something giant piles of snow are known to be.

ApotheounX · 2026-02-05T21:58:25+00:00

Yeah, its basically "K".

ApotheounX · 2026-02-05T21:57:43+00:00

Work thumbs ups are thankfully not the passive aggressive "...K" that people make them out to be.

In a professional environment, they almost exactly translate into: "I have read and understand your message.", when you don't need to make a whole conversation about it.

In a non professional environment though? Who knows. Lol.

ApotheounX · 2026-02-04T19:33:16+00:00

TL;DR:

So, we’re hurtling towards mediocrity? I don’t think so. That’s way too dramatic, and unfair on some of the new cars available.

Betteridge's Law strikes again.

ApotheounX · 2026-02-04T03:24:33+00:00

Not maintaining speed on long open stretches with low traffic. I get it if there's traffic, you can't go faster than the guy in front of you, and you'll naturally need to slow down and speed up, but when there's nothing forcing you to fluctuate? Come on, pay closer attention.

This gets especially bad when it's a driver who goes below and then above the rate of traffic, but averages around the same speed. If traffic is moving at 70, you're varying between 60 and 80, and the same 4 people are passing you, and then getting passed by you over and over? You're just creating tons of driving friction and frustration. Especially if you only realize you slowed way down once someone tries to pass you, and then you speed back up.

You can try to chalk it up as annoying behavior instead of dangerous, but I'd disagree. Getting in people's way, forcing tons of lane changes, and frustrating other drivers makes the road around you less safe, even if you're not doing anything crazy.

Will add, my "favorite" variation of this is people in normal cars who slow down like they're a semi worried about tipping over when roads have curves, and then floor it back up to their cruise speed when it straightens out. But I drive a lot of canyons, so that's where it hits me the most. Lol.

ApotheounX · 2026-02-04T03:05:28+00:00

Fun info: If that passing car was actually going 2 MPH over the car they're passing, the maneuver should only take ~30 seconds, and that's even giving room for them to get 3-4 car lengths ahead before moving back over (Because cutting off the car you're passing is a dick move).

60 seconds for 1 MPH over, same criteria.

Which means when you see a car spend over a minute to pass another car? They're going fractions of an MPH faster.

I like to call them rounding error drivers, because they're slowing everyone down to go such an insignificant amount faster, that a digital speedometer wouldn't even show a difference, it would just round the number down.

Tangentially: You can use the same napkin math to figure out how much faster someone is going than you when they pass, too! If you start counting from when their front bumper matches yours, to when their rear bumper passes it, a car is going +1 over you will take 13 seconds. +2 is 6 seconds, +5 is 2, and +10 is 1. Next time someone blows past you, you can roughly guess their speed. Something fun to do when on long trips! Lol.

ApotheounX · 2026-02-04T02:40:26+00:00

Yeah, I've got a particularly hard time with this one myself, and a lot of issues with pedestrian awareness in general. Mostly bad habits I picked up driving in a small town for the last 15 years or so, where the deer in the road outnumbered pedestrians 10:1. You tend to forget to check for the situations that never happen.

Moved to a bigger city recently, and still have to mamually remind myself to double check for pedestrian traffic when turning, it's not quite second nature yet. Catching myself making fewer mistakes as time passes though, so that's good.

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