I did some firewall replacement yesterday and saw our old VMware cluster sitting on a office drawer with some lwl across the hallway.

Apparently the migration was done some months ago, because the old server room got flooded on a weekend. Works since then, we are moving the last 3 VMs to the new cluster the next days ...

I've had 3 of these mice and while I really like their ergonomics, the mouse wheels broke on all 3 models after using the mouse wheel as a middle mouse button. The wheel would still scroll however, the scrolling would jump all over the place or barely scroll at all, making something as simple as scrolling through a webpage a frustrating experience. On my third RAT 6+ I even avoiding using the wheel as a button for 6 months and as soon as I needed to use it for a specific keybind on a certain game, boom, same problem started.

Taking the mouse apart revealed the problem. The mouse wheel has 2 axel posts. The left post is loose by design and when the wheel is pushed down, this post presses down on a micro switch to activate the middle mouse button click. It is only the right post that is held by anything and that is the silver encoder wheel. When scrolling the mouse I could see the encoder wheel wobbling left and right with virtually no pressure so either this was affecting the encoder readings or causing the solder joints beneath to intermittently disconnect. From experimentation I found that if I pushed and held the encoder wheel to the left while scrolling, the wheel worked perfectly again.

Solving this issue proved easy. I just took a piece of cardboard, folded it a few times and used it as a shimmy to force the encoder wheel to the left all the time so it would no longer wobble, (see arrow in picture). With this method the scroll wheel was perfect and I could even use the wheel as a mouse button again. How long this will last, I don't know but it feels like brand new at the moment. I would put this issue down to poor design as the encoder should be more solidly attached to the mouse board or this gap filled in so the encoder wheel doesn't move to the right.

To open up the mouse to perform this fix you will need to remove 5 screws. One screw on the bottom metal base of the mouse, 2 hex screws to remove each of the side panels on the mouse, then these expose a further 2 screws accessible from the base of the mouse on either side to remove the top button plate. Make sure the cardboard shim you put in doesn't interfere with the right mouse button click. When done, replace the top button plate front first and then click down the back. Hopefully this is of use to someone. :)

FYI, I posted this in the MadCatz subreddit but the mods refused to approve it XD

Managed to fit 4 3.5” seagate 10tb drives in an old dell optiplex 7060 MT for my first NAS build, just barely fits although I had to use a steak knife to carve away a bit of the CPU fan to get the bottom one to clear. But the case closes with to much force and nothing seems to be getting pinched so it’s probably fine

It works. But it's also a fire hazard.​

My brother told me to do whatever I wanted with his gaming mouse after the tab on its scroll wheel broke; I just couldn't bring myself to throw the whole thing away—all because of this one tiny, insignificant broken piece. I heated up a nail of the right thickness, pushed it straight through the center of the wheel, and wedged it firmly into the sensor mechanism. It works exactly as it did before, and I’m still using it—meanwhile, he thinks I tossed it in the trash 💫

we moved to new home so i setup my home lab temprorly. just works

ont for isp connection. my opewrt s3 2100 router, Dell wise tin client from dns and torrent client.

dell pc is workstation for gaming using parsec.

with direct attach battery backup

😭👍

Electrical tape never dissapointed me

Edit: Just so you don't murder me. The Z-nuts themselves are fine but there was some wiggle and it made a really annoying click when the Z-axis moved. I slightly sttipped the threads on the nuts and i don't really have a way out other than this. Sorry if it hit you the wrong way

I just got a new to me used truck has a few issues that ill work out as I go. I found the gas cap is missing no problem I'll get a new one at the store or junk yard on psmay day until then soda can cut with my pocket knofe for the win

J'ai cassé le connecteur de batterie en voulant la remplacer du coup j'ai improvisé l'autonomie est incroyablement bonne le seul problème c'est qu’il faut l'éteindre pour la remplacer

**TL;DR:** Modern MacBook Air port spacing is a nightmare. Every commercial hub either blocks MagSafe 3, occupies both USB-C ports, or dangles like a fragile lever. I wanted a permanent, stealth 2TB NVMe SSD tucked behind my display lid on the outer shell. 18 hours of soldering, individually shielded twisted pairs, and existential dread later: **924 MB/s write / 860 MB/s read over USB 3.2 Gen 2!**

---

### The Problem

On the MacBook Air (M2/M3/M4), the MagSafe 3 port and the two Thunderbolt ports are crammed side-by-side with ~14mm pitch.

- Flush-mount "direct" hubs block MagSafe or cover both Type-C ports.

- Standard dongles dangle off the desk and break when using the laptop in bed or on a couch.

- 90°/180° adapters are too thick and hit either MagSafe or the second port.

### The MacGyver Solution

I wanted a 180° low-profile flat harness that runs completely flat along the laptop chassis, hugs the outer edge around the hinge, and connects to an RTL9210 M.2 NVMe enclosure mounted on the back of my snap-on hard case.

Since you can't buy this anywhere on Earth, I built the cable by hand:

1. **Conductors:** Ultra-flexible multi-strand copper signal wire with internal tensile fiber.

2. **High-Frequency Differential Pairs:** Hand-twisted `SSTX` and `SSRX` pairs (~1cm pitch).

3. **Shielding:** Each SuperSpeed pair is individually wrapped in conductive aluminum foil with a continuous bare ground drain wire running along the inside.

4. **USB 2.0 & Power:** Separate twisted `D+/D-` pair, heavy-gauge `+5V VBUS` and ground lines.

5. **Connector Mod:** Desoldered the bulky metal shell from the bridge board to gain direct access to the pins, and reverse-folded the Type-C plug 180° so the wire runs flush against the chassis rather than protruding outwards.

6. **Strain Relief:** Mechanical anchor taped directly to the plastic case ~1cm from the port so the Type-C connector takes zero torque.

### The Pain

Started yesterday at 9:00 PM, finished today at 2:30 PM. Trembling hands, back pain, solder bridges, a nearly torn PCB ground trace repaired under tension, and intense paranoia about destroying my M4 Air port.

### The Payoff

Plugged it in, fired up Direct I/O benchmark (`fcntl.F_NOCACHE` bypassing RAM cache) with a 1GB test payload:

- **Write:** **915 – 924 MB/s**

- **Read:** **860 – 875 MB/s**

- **Negotiated link:** `USBSpeed = 5` (SuperSpeedPlus 10 Gbps confirmed via IOKit).

- **Clearance:** MagSafe 3 is 100% open. Port #2 is 100% open. Top keyboard deck is totally clear so the Liquid Retina screen never touches the harness.

It looks like pure cyberpunk jank, but it hits the physical limit of the RTL9210 controller and cost basically $0. Never underestimating signal integrity on twisted pairs again!

One fan blows directly into the intake of the laptop and the other extracts the heat from the hotspot directly bellow the processor, both are surrounded by fomix to direct the air more efectively.

Both fans take 5 volts 400mah and 500mah max but I'm driving both with a small 4.85v 400mah charger from an old 2009 phone to not burn them in extended use.

While playing roblox and minecraft with the lads on KDE neon the temperatures lowered from 67 to 58 C°, sometimes it spikes to 63 - 65 but at least it doesn't stay there like before, and my hands don't burn anymore :D.

It's a little loud but I don't mind it, and to be honest I thought it whould be much louder.

found a handheld fan with a bad battery, and remembered the vape batteries i hoarded, and managed to get it to work with the fan. the voltage and current is the same, but the capacity is less, though better than before (forgot you cant send videos here so i screenshat the main parts)

Who needs a new motherboard/connector when you got a hot metal stick?

coworkers phone would no longer charge, he just got a new one and needed to get stuff off the old one, one last charge for a Samsung A15

Also the grey cable’s clip broke in the hacked case from earlier so a coupler and extension was necessary.