Items you regret not fixing.

FAST6191

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Fairly simple premise. Many around here are no strangers to fixing things, however there are times where you don't have the tools, time, talent, funds or general inclination to fix something, such that you might even deem it beyond economical repair at the time.


What then could you have fixed now you might have some more tools, talents or inclination that you regret getting rid of or allowing to deteriorate further? Could be because it would have been rather valuable today, could be because you would have found it really useful or could even be that you would have found it fun to fix/restore. Could also simply be that you lived with someone that tried to reign in your empire of dirt and other assorted junk and was "helpful" enough to throw it away for you.
 

Deleted member 514389

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As of now, only mostly my V1 Switch's onboard SD card port.

Got all my games as either cartridge/digital, so I'm fine without it for now, as my Lite holds up well.

But every so often I crave some Switch homebrew goodness.

Maybe getting a reflow/soldering combo station would be an option to fix it, but I don't want to take a chance here.
It's only a fickle SD Card slot that makes atmosphere crash reliably, otherwise the Switch is fine.

Funny though how a busted microSD Port locks you out of homebrew.
Funnier even that the Switch lite is constructed much better in that department...

#2 place would be my Retro Trio...
It's not broken, but I handed it to someone to "make a custom wodden case" (as the plastic is godawful toxic trash).
I would love to use my Super Retro Advance again, but without the trio it's not worthwhile...
(as the takes the SRA video and pipes it through the trios own video out. A regular SNES would require hardcore modification and the SRA's own Cinch ? Nothx)

BTW: Don't you have.. a story of your own also ?
 
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D

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This was on my 2nd Desktop Replacement Laptop; it was still early years for the niche so you were basically buying something, oftentimes importing, that didn't really come with warranties.

It was so early that, despite charging exorbitantly, even NVIDIA wasn't supporting nor cared about them outside of promoting on their website.

Something went wrong with the monitor and there were still few YouTube videos on how to disassemble one properly.
I pulled some ribbon cables because I wasn't expecting them there.

If I were more patient and waited for another year or two, I could've done a better job with more tutorials available.
I've contemplated importing parts to fix it several times, but the cost outweighs buying a faster, newer generation laptop, so that never went anywhere.

My regret is not waiting and ending up with more broken bits than my brain can justify importing.
As it stands, that rig is left sitting in my old room somewhere as I've moved on to other hardware through the years.
 
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Tom Bombadildo

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I am sort of regretting not fixing the left mouse button on my 2017 Razer Blade, a common problem with these models apparently. The fix is super easy (literally just replacing a microswitch button on a daughter board) and I had even bought a pack of buttons I could use to fix it, but my cheapass $15 soldering iron died somehow and I can't be bothered to buy a replacement for something I never use. But it's not really that big a deal in the long run, since the button still works if you push in the right place hard enough and it's not like I actually use the touchpad when gaming on it (if I am gaming on it, these days) so meh.


I also wish I could fix an old 2009 budget gaming laptop I bought a year or two ago. Only thing really wrong with it is the motherboard can't pull power from the battery, and I never figured out why. Checked the usual suspects, checked the tabs connecting the motherboard to the battery with a multimeter and it should be pulling but it just...doesn't. Probably some damage or something on the mobo tracing that just won't let it recognize the battery, so the only way to realistically fix would be to replace the motherboard which just isn't worth it. It's not even that good of laptop, the specs are meh and I have much better laying around, but man it's just kind of sitting around doing nothing and I'd love to just get it working and figure out some kind of use for it.
 

enarky

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Well, I got a Galaxian Arcade from a Pub in my hometown for pennies in 1998. It smelled of smoke, had a brown nicotine finish from top to bottom and was filled with nasty gunk, but it mostly worked, besides the CRT screen. It stood in the back of my parents basement for years, till one day they pressured me to take the damn thing with me to make room for something more important. I think it was a pile of firewood or something. Well, MAME cabs began being a thing and dumb me didn't have anything better to do than converting that thing to a MAME cab... by ripping everything out, throwing it away and replacing it with a shitty emulation PC. I have no idea what I was thinking. Converting it to a MAME cab wouldn't hurt so much if I just hadn't thrown everything away!.

Whelp. After dabbling with CRTs for a while now I'm pretty positive I could've repaired what was broken and restaured the whole thing. I wheep when I see the prices original cabs fetch on Ebay. But I can play any arcade game I want in an arcade-like setting, so there's a silver lining. Even though it's just emulation, it's still a lot of fun.

IMG_20191021_194237.jpg
 
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JuanMena

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My SONY Trinitron :cry:

I got it fixed, but as soon as I placed it on a certain site of my room it got a bowed picture.
I attempted to fix it yet again and it got worse.
So I gave it away.

Not gonna lie, that was fun.
Anyone can actually see the process here: https://gbatemp.net/entry/crt-fixed.17515/
 

FAST6191

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my mega-drive video out port was messed up. so i just threw it in the bin. with all the games. hay. who needs video games :cry:
I had the opportunity to buy a stack of megacd games from the dump a couple of years ago but didn't as I was a bit low on fun money that month. Could have had a copy of night trap for the shelf of cool stuff but no.
 
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The Catboy

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I had two OG Xboxes that had their hard drives fail on me and I simply just sold them parts instead of learning how to fix them. I could have had three working Xboxes (instead of just one,) if I had actually taken the time to learn how to replace the hard drives myself.
 
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JaNDeRPeiCH

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My psp broken analog dpad (the unit got water damaged) the technician said dont waste money repair it. Its fully functional my psp even the display works great the only i cannot recover the analog dpad .Other case i have its my gcw zero broken switch power and nobody in my city knows how to fix it because the say its a console generic and dont repair generics. I wish have the knowledge to repair those two consoles.
 

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I had two OG Xboxes that had their hard drives fail on me and I simply just sold them parts instead of learning how to fix them. I could have had three working Xboxes (instead of just one,) if I had actually taken the time to learn how to replace the hard drives myself.

Don't beat yourself up. Each HDD was locked to it's motherboard. If the HDD died, then there was no way to replace it without knowing the correct number, code, or whatever the fuck it was called. That's why you had to hot swap the old HDD out so that you could mod the Xbox with a bigger HDD, and run homebrew or backups.


My psp broken analog dpad (the unit got water damaged) the technician said dont waste money repair it. Its fully functional my psp even the display works great the only i cannot recover the analog dpad .Other case i have its my gcw zero broken switch power and nobody in my city knows how to fix it because the say its a console generic and dont repair generics. I wish have the knowledge to repair those two consoles.

I bet if you asked most of us who repair shit, you would find that most of us learned how by fixing our own shit because either we couldn't find someone to do it for us, or we couldn't afford to pay someone to do it. there are tons of how to videos, and what's the worst you can do? break it so that you can't play it anymore? sounds to me that's where you're at anyways.
 
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FAST6191

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Don't beat yourself up. Each HDD was locked to it's motherboard. If the HDD died, then there was no way to replace it without knowing the correct number, code, or whatever the fuck it was called. That's why you had to hot swap the old HDD out so that you could mod the Xbox with a bigger HDD, and run homebrew or backups.

If you had dumped the EEPROM as part of a softmod you could lock a compatible drive, equally if you did a TSOP mod (if it was available on those models, which if the drive failed it likely was -- don't see too much drive failure on 1.6 family) or mod chip (works on all models) it would ignore the locking requirements as they intercept the boot at BIOS level rather than a couple of seconds later of softmods.
 

6adget

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I had two OG Xboxes that had their hard drives fail on me and I simply just sold them parts instead of learning how to fix them. I could have had three working Xboxes (instead of just one,) if I had actually taken the time to learn how to replace the hard drives myself.

It's a shame that you got rid of them. FAST6191 has a fast, and noob friendly way of fixing them if you had a dead HDD.
 

Jayro

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I regret not fixing the token caps on my old PS3... It was the stripped-down phat 40GB model, so nothing special... but I loved that thing. It was on 3.55 +Rebug firmware too. The token caps fix wasn't out back in 2013, so I threw it away.
 
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Tafty

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i threw out a SNES Jr about 15 years ago that I broke trying to do the old rgb restore mod to it...if i had kept it i could of done the rgb bypass mod which came out a couple of years ago like ive done the the replacement snes jr i now own.

i broke alot of consoles in my early soldering days, which i could easily repair now :( live and learn i suppose.
 

JaNDeRPeiCH

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Don't beat yourself up. Each HDD was locked to it's motherboard. If the HDD died, then there was no way to replace it without knowing the correct number, code, or whatever the fuck it was called. That's why you had to hot swap the old HDD out so that you could mod the Xbox with a bigger HDD, and run homebrew or backups.

I bet if you asked most of us who repair shit, you would find that most of us learned how by fixing our own shit because either we couldn't find someone to do it for us, or we couldn't afford to pay someone to do it. there are tons of how to videos, and what's the worst you can do? break it so that you can't play it anymore? sounds to me that's where you're at anyways.

The last time i want to repair myself a ps2 control it was full disaster since then im afraid to do anything with tech hardware.Software its very easy for me even install distro linux&windows,install bios for any computer,overclocking&undervolt,use a raspberry 3 etc. Thats why i want a technician or someone with knowledge to do it. Even reballing a ps3 cant do it...

Note:The raspberry 3 its very easy to put a flirc case and flash the desire image iso on your favorite microsd. A psp its very different to raspberry 3 and obviously i dont want to use tutorials from youtube,because mount all the parts (displays,buttons etc) if i do wrong i will get a non usable psp .Why i hate youtube tutorials? its very simple for example to put the luma 3ds hack on my nds2xl i dont need to use youtube,here in gbatemp recommends 3dsguide webpage.The novice users here have a ton of problems using outdated tutorials from youtube.
 
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Sigh,

My game PC (1st & only pc I assembled in ~2009), only needed to clean cpu cooler & put it back, but I broke it & still haven't replaced the cpu cooler). Next is my laptop Acer gemstone 18.4" series in an attempt to fixing it I damaged it even more, broke the blu-ray disc tray & next was the backcover when I upgraded/replaced the RAM (I remember it was my darkest day ever when it comes to fixing things & marked my intention to attempt to ever fix something I own again), audio jack is also broken, keyboard also needs to be replaced.
Then there're also my o3ds xl (broken hinge & cpad cap), oled vita 3g screen (rainbow scratch, no skill & money to fix), 2 Samsung Note smartphones Note 2 fixed charging port, but touch buttons needed to be replaced as I think I broke them too & 4 (chargingport & screen is burned in, fixing was to expensive), 2 PS4 controllers (1 charging port & the other maybe battery/bluetooth or both) & many hdd's.

There's also one of my sister's laptop, fixed it, but just when I was about to return it I broke a keyboard key (haven fixed it till this day). 1 of my brothers old cellphones, I couldn't fix it.

Yep sometimes I'm lucky & can fix things just, but more often something goes wrong due me having a clumsy stroke. I have to admit I'm quite good at ruining screws.
 
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