Bartman's Blob

Got a faulty DLink DWA-132 USB WiFi adapter that is no longer working. I thought it would be interesting to take it apart to see what’s inside this device. To open this adapter, I used a flat metal spudger and jam it in-between the housing: After prying it open and removing the top cover, we can see the main WiFi processor of this adapter. Here’s the back view of the adapter with the front cover removed. Removing the PCB board from the housing, we can have a better view of the board. It uses the RALINK RT5372LSoC Here’s the back view of the PCB   A better view of the IC marking. Since I don’t have much use for this after snapping a few picture of the board, off it went to the e-waste recycling bin. That’s it. Hope you find this useful.

Thought I will have some fun taking apart this faulty DBS bank 2FA token to see what’s inside.   There is no screws used on the token.       The front and rear of the token seems to be covered by adhesive labels. Removing the Front reveals the following:   Remove the rear label, reveals a CR2016 coin cell lithium battery: Removing the PCB out from its “chassis”. Here’s the front view of the PCB.   And here’s the rear view of the PCB.   That’s it.  

After replacing my Teclast X98 Air tablet’s badly bloated battery a few months back with a new battery, the battery is bloating again. Here’s the link to my first battery replacement https://bartman88.blogspot.com/2018/03/replacing-badly-bloated-battery-of-my-teclast-x98-air-3g.html . After the first incident, i am better at spotting the signs of a bloated battery on the tablet. One of the most common signs of a bloated battery is that the tablet is not able to lay flat on the table. This is a very obvious sign that something is wrong with the battery. You might also noticed that the LCD is touching the digitizer surface internally (which it should not be doing). So I opened up the back cover of the tablet once again and true enough, the battery is bloated. But this time, the battery is only half bloated. Since this replacement battery is made up of 2 lithium polymer battery wired in parallel, only one of them has gone bad. Not wanting to spend more money on...

Recently, I noticed that the LCD screen on my XiaoMi REDMI note 2 phone is starting to peel off from its frame. I was wondering what could be wrong with the phone. What’s causing the LCD screen to peel off from the frame? Could it be that the adhesive is loosening up? So, I open up the back cover to perform some simple check. Suddenly, the battery flew out from its slot. The battery was so bloated, it is only held in place by the strength of the rear cover. Looks like it’s time to get a replacement battery. I search around and settled for a OEM replacement battery (battery model BM42) on Aliexpress and ordered one. Have a look here if you need to get one for yourself. After almost 4 weeks of waiting it finally showed up in my mail box. Placing them side by side, you can see how badly the original battery has bloated. The new battery fitted into the phone nicely and it is working fine. However, after a few rounds of capacity measurements, I found tha...

Got this defective XiaoMi 5000mah lithum polymer power bank or power pack quite some time ago. It’s time to strip it apart to have a look under the hood. To get inside this power bank, as there are no visible screws from the outside, you will need to pry out the covers on the sides to reveal the screws. With the screws removed, just slide the battery out from the case. Inspected the PCB and found a burnt component. Looks like its some transistor or a MOSFET. Here’s the rear of the pack in its chassis. But in order to have a clear view of the top of the PCB, the chassis has got to go.. Finally after a short struggle with the double sided tape that is holding down the lithium polymer battery, the front of the PCD is revealed. Hope this is helpful to someone out there. This powerbank is available from Amazon here for those who might be interested.

Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro USB on Windows Server 2016 OS? Will it work on a server box? (It works on Windows Server 2008 R2. Check out the post here .) After some testing, I manage to get it running on the Windows Server 2016 OS on a HPE ML310eGen8 v2 server box. There’s no driver specifically meant for Windows Sever 2016. You will need to use the Windows 10 driver instead. However, I found that the latest drivers (2018-Sep) when run, will prompt an error message saying something like the OS is not supported and refuse to continue. Even without installing any drivers, once you plug the Sound Blaster into the USB port, Windows Server 2016 will detect and install the generic sound card driver for it. Although the OS is able to work with the sound card, but without the other accompanying software like “Entertainment Console”, you will not be able to make use of the full capability of the sound card. I wanted to install the driver from the driver CD that ...

Got a defective Kindle Ey21 3G quite some time ago for a friend. It’s being laying around and collection dust in a hidden corner. Time to put it to good use, by taking it a part for all to see what’s under the hood. This unit either have a faulty main board or a defective display. It is constantly stuck in the display. To get to the internals, the first thing is to peel open the front bezel that is glue down with double sided tape. Once the front bezel is removed, all the screws will exposed. After removing all the screws, the display can be removed from its housing. Flipping the display over will reveal the main board and battery. The controllers and processors are all hidden under RF shields. Removing the battery and Wifi/3G modem. I was quite surprised to find a SIM card in this Kindle. Removing the bracket that is holding the wireless antennas. And finally, removing 2 of the flex cable connection on the left and right side of th...