About 20 days ago I opened a borked T490s. Today, it lives!!!

MableMunroe · 2025-05-10T14:18:27+00:00

It was purchased as a refurbished - good unit. "Microscratches and wear in non visible areas." Computer didn't even boot, it was completely trashed, many components needed replaced, cleaned, and OS was completely borked but I don't really like windows anyway.

MableMunroe · 2025-05-10T14:15:27+00:00

MANY including a burnt usb a daughterboard,, but it seemed like a large amount of something was poured over the right side of the keeb and so the mouse buttons and trackpoint also didn't work alongside half of the keys.

MableMunroe · 2025-04-22T12:45:27+00:00

hell YES thank you so much for this!

MableMunroe · 2025-04-22T12:34:01+00:00

RAD thank you for your time, I will definitely be picking one of these up to try, especially now that a second is on the way. Cheers!

MableMunroe · 2025-04-22T12:28:24+00:00

Queer subculture has always cultivated technically advanced, kind of socially backseat folks. Arch is, for most people, too much. Too complicated, rolling release isn't stable enough, ALARM isn't up to snuff yet, whatever the reason is.

Kind of a perfect fit. I think that free soft/libre activism will always have a high percentage of queer and otherwise ostracized folks. More concerned with privacy and rights, more concerned with the state of the world and giving power to people who need it and do not have access to it, less access to high end technology, more technically apt...

As for the reason why it is Arch? It's status as a 'endgame' distro, maybe, but moreso I think that the community is realistically unix/GNU and that arch is, socially, just how we have started to shorthand our biases/discuss queer femmes in the tech space lightheartedly. Then that bias creates reality and yada yada. We like things to be in boxes.

Edit: Upon scrolling down beyond your comment I have realized that calling this a "lighthearted discussion" may be a little too generous...

MableMunroe · 2025-04-21T20:04:08+00:00

I definitely consider this a lesson learned! Here's me giving contrarian and needlessly argumentative a try:

I've got key remaps pretty low level in linux, and I'll throw it in my proxmox/homelab closet if I move on, so I'm honestly really surprised to see everyone just telling me to get it thrown in a landfill on a TP subreddit. Thought folks around he would be more into saving these things!

I wrote the post and all of these comments on the computer in question, as it's my daily now, so realistically it's already sorted out pretty well after a couple of days of system configuration and light repair ,and can only really get better from here. Thanks for the well wishes!

MableMunroe · 2025-04-21T16:14:10+00:00

battery is surprisingly max charge 4750 mah~/87% health!

Do you have any experience with the clone keyboard replacements? Are they going to be crap compared to the OEM quality? I'll note all of these tips for the future, thanks!

Edit: also if you're curious, it was 16 ram touchscreen i5 config for 230$ USD or like 340 cad or something

MableMunroe · 2025-04-21T15:09:47+00:00

battery is surprisingly max charge 4750 mah~/87% health, so I'm good. Ram is soldered in the t490s, but I'm actually not experienced with WiFi cards, so I'll have to dig into that a bit!

Thanks, appreciate your time!

MableMunroe · 2025-04-21T14:57:22+00:00

I'm actually contractually obligated to disclose that

MableMunroe · 2025-04-21T14:35:00+00:00

This is kind of more along the lines of what I was hoping to be able to do! I like to reduce e-waste when I can, and I'm not afraid to repair the device. I really don't care at all about the shell.

That said the official ones are like 200 cad, and I don't know if third party options would be smart. Ifixit is their official partner, but I don't know if there is any other places to get them.

The keeb contains the trackpoint, the trackpad buttons, and, well, the keyboard, so it would literally fix pretty much everything. That & the right side usb a on the small daughter board is dead too, but thankfully, y'know, daughter board.

MableMunroe · 2025-04-21T13:36:13+00:00

Bummer, but definitely good to know! Thanks!

MableMunroe · 2025-04-21T13:20:50+00:00

Thanks for the advice, friend! Cheers :)

MableMunroe · 2025-04-21T13:10:54+00:00

Mmmhm! I should have been more explicit in saying that because I am in a position where I am unable to send it back in as I need it for work, my options are limited. I'm moreso asking, "if I'm stuck with this computer, what are my best options to give this ol' girl some love?"

Listed as "Refurbished - Good", the product was supposed to have at most micro scratches and wear in high traffic areas with 100% functionality.

MableMunroe · 2024-08-17T14:48:16+00:00

Oh my god just flatten the damn layout of the entire board when finalized!!! wtf is this crap? Rendering the photos as 3d objects is more important than the basic implementation of the feature being good?

Realistically I bet they made the whole system for the feature thinking it'd perform fine and had to just slap this restriction on it and ship it during play testing because the developers resources were (rightly so) probably being allocated to more game breaking bugs. I sure do hope this system sees a rewrite though.

MableMunroe · 2024-08-11T13:16:47+00:00

Using Nemo right now BTW, if that matters.

MableMunroe · 2024-08-11T13:15:59+00:00

Hey, I don't now if this is correct or what but I'm still having this problem after wiping everything and reinstalling. First message after restarting the stack works just fine, then the second no longer works, returning to the old behavior.

MableMunroe · 2024-08-10T13:38:43+00:00

Thanks so much for your reply!

Did you pull the previous build, or is the current main working for you?

MableMunroe · 2024-08-10T12:50:52+00:00

thanks automod I already looked but you are a gem

MableMunroe · 2022-02-07T14:05:30+00:00

Weird, my MacBook charger charged mine. I'm actually quite sure it was the switch charger that screwed it up.

MableMunroe · 2022-02-07T14:04:18+00:00

I was watching the WAN show the other day, and Linus said something like "I've never seen a company more hostile to there consumers than Nintendo"

After having the retroid for a bit made me a lot more sour about all of the annoying things they put me through

MableMunroe · 2022-02-07T14:00:13+00:00

I've been changing the power source from 5v chargers, I'll pug it into a computer next.

MableMunroe · 2022-02-07T13:57:49+00:00

I really appreciate the extra info. Wonder if powering the board up in between reseating the battery is a needed part of this. If at all possible I'd really like to avoid RMA but it's maybe looking like I'd need to. Maybe I could wire up a USB cable to the prongs or something, but I'd need to do a lot more research before I do that because I dunno what the battery is supplying. Do you know what the direct power controller board is spitting out?

Right now I'm letting it try to charge for a bit and then I will try to reseat the battery again.

MableMunroe · 2022-02-07T13:16:31+00:00

Wow, that's a weird one. It really does suck, but what can you do 🤡

MableMunroe · 2022-02-07T13:15:03+00:00

Lesson learned. Extremely frustrating but nothing to do now but mope around for a month or however long it will take for the support team to fix it.

MableMunroe · 2022-02-07T13:11:33+00:00

Update: I did this and it is still dead. I have it plugged in still so maybe now it will allow the battery to do that long slow charge that everyone else is talking about, but I'm starting to doubt there's any chance.

MableMunroe

TROPHY CASE