Septimaeus
@Septimaeus@infosec.pub
- Comment on Dell PSU is “PD3” but cannot do PPS. WTF? Isn’t that non-conformant? OTOH, no USB-PD indicator to begin with. 3 days ago:
What’s PDO?
Power Data Objects are sent by the device to the host (in this case your power supply) containing information about device capabilities and requirements.
The problem is that a laptop could be designed to /need/ PPS
This would be highly unusual, especially for a Dell workstation laptop. Some laptops can use PPS for better internal power efficiency and battery charging rate, but I know of none that require it. The feature is also leveraged far more often in small sealed devices where waste heat has basically nowhere to go, so if any device were to actually require it, I would look to small wearables. In fact, while I haven’t checked and don’t know, I’d wager many smart watch chargers are PPS enabled, which would explain their oversized connectors.
- Comment on Dell PSU is “PD3” but cannot do PPS. WTF? Isn’t that non-conformant? OTOH, no USB-PD indicator to begin with. 4 days ago:
Isn’t that nonconformant?
Not to my knowledge. It has always been optional.
Why? PPS offers the most granular realtime PD adjustments of not only voltage (in tiny 20mV steps) but also of current delivery (at I think 50mA increments but don’t quote me). This is why it’s typically required by manufacturers for their fastest device charging speeds. PPS allows the most precise matching of power delivery to what BMS reports cells can absorb with little to no onboard power conditioning and minimal waste heat. It’s a premium rating beyond standard compliance.
A potentially interesting follow-up question, however, would be whether the laptop’s mainboard PDO tells you the laptop supports PPS, even though the power brick doesn’t.
- Comment on Is there any tape media backup system that works through USB? 4 days ago:
I use LTO4 tapes.
- Bare LC drive eBay $~60. Pulled from a library so I had to switch the operation mode. Missing the bay door and kinda dinged up but worked.
- Celerity FC81en HBA card was $~30.
- 1.6TB tapes sold in packs of 5 around $11/tape. Probably can do better than that at higher volume.
Overall take: slow noisy writes but viable for cheap stable long-term storage.
Note: for each of the components above I set price alerts and waited. If in a hurry, maybe skip tape storage lol
- Comment on What is your weirdest self-hosting problem you've had to solve? For me: Mouse inside the server. 1 week ago:
Note to any future lemmings who find this thread troubleshooting the same symptom…
1. Rule out unswitched (non-chipset, direct CPU lanes) PCI connectivity and power issues by testing without specific PCI components. Unstable PCI errors can be missed during post and present later after boot, and Windows is especially bad at handling it transparently. Common culprits include GPU sag, dubious riser extensions, and anemic PSUs 2. If there is a “high bandwidth” feature toggle for RAM in your BIOS settings that is currently on, try turning it off 3. If your system drive is an NVMe blade with a Phizon controller, check if the manufacturer software has a firmware update available. 4. If the freeze is regular but not persistent, try turning the polling rate down on your mouse, and if it’s wired, try to make sure it’s plugged into one of the board’s SOC-hosted USB 2.0 ports
- Comment on Help Fixing my Dishwasher -- It won't drain and is stop on sanitize mode 2 weeks ago:
Certain styles use a replaceable magnetic impeller that gradually loses its fins. Ours became noticeable at 4/6 fins and wouldn’t drain at all by 2/6 fins.
- Comment on Many such cases 1 month ago:
See “history buff,” “history channel,” etc. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
- Comment on The true embodiment of peak male performance 1 month ago:
Reality of nude athletics: loins evolved to “gird” themselves in response to turbulence, and Greco-Romans saw a lot of athlete penis on TV.