How do you make a choice? Why do hot air stations range from $50 to $1800 and what makes them different? How do I pick the right one for me? I’ve bought the wrong equipment and I use these tools every day in a professional environment. I will walk you through EVERYTHING I wish I knew when I first pulled out my credit card to buy a station.

This station is only $57, but good luck getting anything off a multilayer PCB with it!

This hot air station is perfect & makes repair a breeze, but is $1500, which leaves you bankrupt.

Price and experience. Do newbies need good stations?

You can buy an Atten 858D for $58 or a JBC JTSE for $1500+. The cheap station doesn’t do the job, the expensive station makes you too broke to pay the electric bill. Neither make sense for someone NEW to our business. A JBC has nice features, but do you really need a station that can save graphs of your activity?

Don’t mistake my statement as an argument for a $50 piece of crap! People often message me saying they do not need something great because they are just starting out. This is bad thinking! When you are just starting out, you need equipment that is “known good.” When you are new, you have no way to tell if bad results are due to your technique or your equipment. You will blame yourself for what is actually an equipment issue and never improve. Even worse is if your station is fit for a single layer PCB, has a bunch of good reviews, then you try it on a multilayer PCB and it fails. “It has such good reviews, it must be MY fault!!” is something I commonly hear.

Even worse is when you actually find the cause of the problem on a board, but then kill its CPU or something else with cheap hot air. You figured out the problem – great, but you never get to see if you were right because you killed your board roasting it to death with a $55 hot air station. This ruins confidence and desire to learn. With hot air you want to get in, and out, as quickly as possible in a precision manner.

When you are just starting out, you need equipment that is “known good.” When you are new, you have no way to tell if bad results are a result of your technique or your equipment.

Jessa Jones is the only known microsolderer in the world who can afford a JBC hot air station.

Power

By far, the single most important attribute for any type of serious professional rework is the power of the station. If you point the nozzle at the board and the component you are heating does not come off, you’re not going to bill anything. Cheap stations, fringe stations, and also ALL IN ONE stations are often low energy.

This Hakko 851 has less than 6 liters/minute airflow. This means its blowing is weaker than a 59 year old whore. At $650 & incapable of removing a touch IC, it’s as expensive as it is useless.

Weller’s WR3M seems like the ultimate all-in-one tool until you realize that even at its high price it only hits 15 liters/minute of airflow.

Unfortunately, this is difficult if not impossible to properly judge over the internet via spec sheets. Many companies make wattage/temperature/airflow claims that never stand up to real world usage, especially cheaper stations. Some do not publish them at all!

When it comes to temperature, spec sheets are useless. They lie more often than receiver/amplifier manufacturers lie about the rated wattage output for their electronics. Even if it can hit a high temperature, can it maintain that temperature? Does it fluctuate in the middle of a soldering job? Many cheap stations make claims of 600-1000 watts of power or of temperatures up to 500c, but are unable to maintain them. Even worse, many cheap stations display temperatures on their display that they aren’t reaching.

The FM-206 allows desoldering, hot tweezers, and soldering all from one station, but its included hot air doesn’t go over 6L/minute.

When it comes to airflow, you want something that can do at least 20 liters/minute. Larger chips will be difficult to do without going to 30-40L/minute, but at the very least 20L/minute is desired. Airflow is how powerful the pump/fan that propels the air forward is. Even the hottest hot air station will be useless if it cannot propel that hot air forward onto the board/chip you wish to heat and move it into place. Keep in mind most all-in-one stations that try to combine hot air & soldering into one device, while convenient & savers of desk space, have terrible airflow.

Stations that get put in the hall of shame are below for not having enough power to get the job done.

Interface

Hot air differs from standard soldering in that you will often want to adjust airflow and temperature. While a soldering iron can remain at 750f or 840f for the entire duration of a board repair, a hot air station’s airflow or heat you’ll want to adjust based on what you’re soldering. airflow may be desired. If we are soldering a larger IC that is far away from anything vulnerable to heat, high airflow is fine. If we are working on something right next to a CPU, lower airflow may be desired. The ability to adjust these attributes quickly is important. If adjusting temperature or airflow is difficult, the technician will be incentivized to “work around” using the “wrong” setting to save time and this helps no one.

Some stations have analog interfaces you can adjust with knobs, which is ideal. Others have push buttons for changing temperature. And the worst of them all, like the Hakko FR-810 have these 1980s VCR like interfaces where changing temperature or airflow is just a total nightmare. Interestingly enough, the stations with the worst interfaces such as the Hakko are often the most expensive.

The Hakko FR-810 is a clear example of the worst interface on a hot air station I’ve ever seen.

The Quick is not the best interface – knobs are preferable, but still far more acceptable than Hakko’s junk.

This bent nozzle makes workng under a microscope at an angle easier.

Nozzles

Bent nozzles are great for working with a microscope. When working under a microscope, you can’t point the hot air directly at the board from above. It must be placed from an angle. This gives you less direct heat on the board. However, if you have a bent nozzle available, then you can have the benefit of direct heat on your component while under the microscope. As you angle the hot air to fit it under the microscope, the angle of the nozzle allows the nozzle to shoort air directly down on the board. We will be offering bent nozzles for the Quick 861DW shortly!

We must also consider the size of the nozzle. Using a 2mm nozzle to remove an SMC will never work, and using a 10mm to remove a tiny part on a cellphone is overkill. It’s best to buy a station that has a good number of nozzles between 3 and 7mm available.

This straight nozzle makes working under a microscope at an angle more difficult.

Our pick

Our current pick for hot air station is the Quick 861DW. Why?

• Easy to use interface: air & temperature adjustable in single button pushes.
• Recallable presets for common air/temperature settings.
• More powerful than anything we have tried to date.
• Incredibly affordable at under $300.
• Bent nozzles available.

Buy a Quick below!

Louis Rossmann’s preferred hot air station.

The post How to buy a hot air station for laptop & cellphone repair. appeared first on Macbook Repair in NYC | 347-552-2258.

Why we loved the Thinkpad.

The Thinkpad was a special machine, as I’ve explained three years ago when discussing my disappointment with modern Thinkpads.

Thinkpad interfaces allowed me to avoid moving my hand away from the keyboard to move the cursor. The anti-glare screen added to my viewing comfort. The keyboard layout felt like “home” – just like a desktop keyboard, no adjusting to laptop form factor required. The ports, the thinklight, the ability to swap drives without removing a bottom case. It was a special machine.

As laptop design evolved into more trendy, less productive designs across all brands, the Thinkpad stood out more and more as the last device of choice remaining for the practical tinkerer & engineer. The function over form kind of person that just wanted to get to work without feeling limited by laptop form factor bought this machine. The designers, the engineers, the service technicians; and it was a treat.

What happened to the Thinkpad?

The T61 Thinkpad with its classic keyboard layout, 4:3 aspect ratio, thinklight, and small trackpad is considered by many to be the last “true” Thinkpad

The T61 is a Thinkpad many refer to as the grandfather of all modern Thinkpads. Everything after being a compromise in some way.

The T520 went to a 16:9 display, and slightly changed the keyboard.

The Thinkpad T530 is where it became apparent the Thinkpad wasn’t simply a victim of a lack of 4:3 LCDs being mass produced, but rather under serious attack from marketing executives & “user experience” drones hell bent on killing what made the Thinkpad great. These individuals, dedicated to copying what everyone else sold in the hopes of mass appeal, saw fit to destroy the Thinkpad keyboard – the very thing that made the Thinkpad retain its value & cult following.  The keys were no longer located where they would have been located on a standard desktop keyboard anymore. and the trackpad became larger.

The Thinkpad T540 added insult to injury by removing the dedicated trackpoint buttons, and trackpad buttons. Lenovo went full RIMM, making a device with a click button interface, and it sucked. This copied none of the accuracy or feel of what made the Apple trackpad great, while reinforcing every negative stereotype about PC trackpads. aIt was incredibly easy to hit the right click when you thought you were hitting the middle button. It was very easy to hit the middle button and close a browser tab when you meant to right click it. It required bending your thumb for any sense of accuracy. it was garbage.

Palm rejection on Windows has become better, but for Linux users it has often been a bane. You can spend hours configuring it and it still works terribly. Thus adding this larger trackpad made life yet worse for Linux users. Even if you could get around the trackpadFurther, the new trackpad on the XX40 series required endless hacks if you used Linux just to get the buttons to work properly!

A numpad was added to 15″ models as well. The numpad requires we move the trackpad & keyboard to the left, so we now have an off center keyboard that is not standard. We have a trackpoint with no dedicated buttons that allows for easy mistakes in button clicks. We have a trackpad with almost non-existent palm rejection in Linux, and a 16:9 screen.

The Thinkpad is, for all we loved it for, no longer a Thinkpad. It’s dead.

The T530 removed the old keyboard layout entirely in favor of a new, confusing design. The lack of island keys is not as apparent as the confusing location of the delete/page up/page down/home/end keys.

The T540 was the straw that broke the camel’s back. No dedicated trackpoint buttons, a numpad. a terrible large trackpad.

Talk of the “retro.”

Discussion about the retro began about two and a half years ago after anger over the T440/T540 blew over. Lenovo has had two and a half years to go over this decision, polling consumers on what they’d like and milling over how to make it happen.

Personally, I saw talk of the Retro as defeat in and of itself. Putting a proper keyboard back on all the old model lines meant that anyone could pick & choose the machine for them – ultrabook or workstation, 1366×768 or 4k, matte or touchscreen, and still get a proper interface. This would be an admission of defeat to the marketing departments that likely demanded we get this new keyboard, but it would be better overall.

Creating a single retro model meant it had to be all things to all people, and is a show of ego from marketing itself. It isn’t that our design is bad. It’s those weirdos. Those basement dwelling redditors that demand that silly looking keyboard. “Come up with something for them so they shut up!” I can imagine a marketer saying. This is guaranteed to fail.

Retro release.

Fast forward to 2017. Two and a half years after the first mention of the retro, three and a half years after the butchery of the T440 & T540. Do we get a screen with a different aspect ratio? Do we get a thinklight? Are there choices? Are the specs something to die for?

Before we dig into specs….

But Louis. IT’S NOT A WORKSTATION! STOP COMPARING IT TO WORKSTATIONS!!!

Yes, it is not a workstation. That is the point; there is no customizability here. I can’t pay extra to get a beefier processor. I can’t pay extra to get a better screen. So there is nothing else to compare my current P50 to in the retro “lineup.”

If you use an X1 Carbon, there is no Retro ultrabook to compare it to.

If you use a P50, there is no Retro workstation to compare it to.

I am demonstrating how bad this entire retro premise is. Rather than bring good design back to the fully fledged, customizable Thinkpad line, where there was a machine for everyone, we have one model. One model for everyone who wants a good interface.

That is a severe weakness. I was hoping for good design to come back to the entire Thinkpad line, rather than getting a T470, with an older style keyboard and a price premium.

The display disappoints by ANY standard.

People who want the retro want a 4:3, 3:2, or 5:4 screen. They might even settle for a 16:10. The Retro gives us 16:9.

People who want a modern screen want something high resolution. Maybe even 3k. The Retro gives us 1080p.

If the surface can get 3:2, why can’t we?

The Retro gives us the worst of the old, with the worst of the new. The T25 has “old” resolution with “new” aspect ratios. Whether you’re into modern or classic, there’s something to hate with this machine.

Do you get an option for higher resolution for more $$? Of course not. It’s standard for laptop manufacturers to charge an additional $350-$400 for a higher resolution screen when the panel only costs them an additional $50, and that’s fine. At least they offer the option. Lenovo isn’t even going to bother offering a higher resolution screen if you were willing to pay, which is inexcusable. It is difficult to impossible to find a 4:3 screen, but it is not difficult to offer a higher resolution 14″ screen for a premium with a dropdown menu for those of us who use our laptop for viewing schematics and boardviews where 1080p is really a hinderance.

Many will say it is unreasonable to expect a different aspect ratio, as well as difficult to get a manufacturer to produce this. Just look at what Apple did with the A1425 in 2012 .Unlike almost every other pro level laptop, the screen was separate from the backlight. The resolution was 2560×1600 on a machine that was offered five years ago. Apple got LG & Samsung to mass produce non-standard LCDs for the A1425 which started at $1299. Yet Lenovo can’t get anyone to produce an LCD slightly outside what has been the cookie cutter mold for five years, on a machine costing $1899? Apple not only provided a better screen, but Apple’s 2012 A1425 model had an aspect ratio closer to “classic” Thinkpads than the actual Retro Thinkpad. I may crap on Apple a lot, but credit where credit is due.

Apple had an idea for a machine that would sell well. They pitched what they needed to LG & Samsung, and they created it for Apple. Lenovo could have done the same, but didn’t. “What if it doesn’t sell well? What if it isn’t worth it?” All valid questions, that reek of a lack of confidence in this model as well as the ability to market it. That type of thinking leads to what we get here: a half baked effort that makes no effort to even pretend it’s retro. 1080p. 16:9. 2017.

We have grieved the loss of the practical display. When we await the release of a T480, P72, no one is disappointed at the 16:9 display because we do not expect anything outside of 16:9. This is why I think it would make more sense to just put the retro keyboard on every other Thinkpad, rather than release a “retro” model. We would have 3k & 4k options available. We would not experience the disappointment of having “retro” dangled in front of us, only to end up being a 16:9 display. By advertising a retro model, you are teasing people by dangling the idea of a T61-ish screen in front of them and by releasing it with a 16:9 1080p touchscreen you are kicking them in the balls.

Weak, outdated graphics.

Why use the 1050 GPU which is faster and more powerful with same energy usage when we can use this retro to dump out last year’s inventory?

Thinkpad users aren’t looking at cinebench scores. We care about interface, screen aspect ratio, ports. The practical. If we’re going to miss out on some of the practical, and if we’re going to have a price premium, can we at least get some specs from this year? This card is available in laptops less than half the price.

Processor limitations: only dual core.

You get one choice, a dual core, at $1899. Its cpubenchmark score is a 5221, 1403 points lower than a Thinkpad W520 from 2011!

Last I recall there was a company that only offered you dual core options at this price.. yes, Apple. I realize the retro isnot a workstation. As such, people have said it is unfair to compare it to a workstation. I would agree if there were other workstations in the retro family, but there are not. It would be unfair to compare its processor to a workstation class machine IF THERE WERE A RETRO WORKSTATION. I am merely judging Lenovo by my shopping standards from 2011, back when you could choose between an ultrabook, a midrange, or a workstation with a good keyboard. Six years later and the choices are actually worse.

If you had a W520 you were looking to replace, you will be disappointed. Your six year old laptop was more powerful than this, and you might have paid less for it.

Thank you Lenovo for copying the negatives of Apple’s pricing & lack of configurability, without copying any of the innovation.

Battery life.

Lenovo’s never been known for amazing battery life. Early reports show it lasts under 7 hours even with the U processor on the default 3 cell battery it ships with. With battery life you could expect from $1899 laptops from six years ago, at least it lives up to the retro name in one way.

Pricing: starts at $1899.

$1899 is a lot for what is being offered here. There is not a lot of value.

Some will say this is being cheap. The price would not be an issue at $2300, or even $3000 if some degree of customizability were offered. The price would not be an issue if Lenovo pulled a rabbit out of their hat and got LG, Samsung, AUO, Chi Mei, or Sharp to produce a more square display. The price would not be an issue if Lenovo allowed us to configure a higher resolution display, a different processor, or maybe even had bothered to put the indicator LEDs that used to exist back where they were.

The reality is that this price premium is for nothing but a keyboard and a little colored logo engraving. This price premium exists without adding value. We get yesterday’s specs with today’s trends, all in a machine touting itself as worth its price for being “retro.”

No.

Ports

When I say this isn’t worth the price as a “retro” machine, the ports say all that is necessary. This is not a “special” machine, but rather a T470 with an old keyboard and a different logo slapped on.

How many people have tried to use a modern laptop in a conference room or educational setting where the projector only offered VGA? You forgot your dongle at the hotel. Crap.

THIS is where the Thinkpad user’s smile stems from. Being able to pick that up and plug it right into their laptop. This is something that would be doable, cheaply, easily, if they weren’t copying & pasting the T470 motherboard directly into the retro machine.

But they did just that. You get no mini-displayport, only USB-C. You get less USB ports than the P50. You get no VGA port, which is the only port “retro” people were asking to have back.

Granted, one can argue you should be replacing your mini-displayport adapters/cables with USB-C adapters/cables. Yet this is not necessary on last year’s P50, the stronger machine that is $500 less.

Why skip out on the retro port, on a retro machine, that is still in widespread use, unless you just don’t care?

Conclusion: this is not “retro” – this is junk.

Not enough has changed to warrant having its own model.

Lenovo doesn’t want to alienate customers with an “old” design, and as much as I like 4:3 screens, I understand how many modern customers might balk at the idea of having bars as they watch netflix in fullscreen on a lunchbreak. I understand the idea behind making the retro its own model if it was vastly different from what the average consumer would accept. If they put a 4:3 screen, removed the trackpad, added indicator LEDs, a thicker chassis to fit a VGA port, then fine; the machine would have earned having its own model. It would be too far off from what is “mainstream” to be implemented into the standard T, X, and P series lineup.

However, this is nothing more than a T470 with a different keyboard. Here, we get the downside of an “exclusive” model(lack of customization) with all the downsides of the mass produced models(16:9, no VGA, no indicator LEDs).

This is the worst of both worlds, and outside taking some old keyboards out of inventory and shoving them into a T470 casing, they didn’t budge at all.

The screen is straight up 16:9, with the resolution I would expect from 2011. It is missing ports that you can get in a used, two year old T series(which, btw, you can buy with a better processor for less $$). So long as Lenovo sees people who desire a proper Thinkpad as a fringe group to be shut up by a token model that was half assed, they will never return to what made so many so loyal to the line.

To quote Philippe Hébert, 

You said something very important in this video, and it's true. Lenovo marketing dept. ad no idea what they were doing and to who they were marketing this to.

First: They launch it on Facebook ?? Really!? People who buy thinkpad are IT staff, engineer, motion designer, corporate executive, enterprise laptop bought for employees, etc..

Who is on Facebook? Teenagers, and people who don't have a clue about technology. It's the average person who buys a computer with the first thing in mind: price. These people don't buy ThinkPad, because you already pay more than an "IdeaPad" for the laptop. A ThinkPad is a business computer. It's easy to service, it's customizable at purchase to suit your needs, it has an anti-glare screen.

Then you have the T25, which has no vPro support nor Intel Trusted Execution Technology, because it only comes with an i7-7500U CPU, instead of a i7-7600U. Lenovo states that the T25 wasn't aiming the business market with this product, and that they wanted to keep the cost to the lowest, as a 7600U is more expensive.

Well, why are you selling the laptop with Windows 10 PROFESSIONAL if you're aiming to non business people? Why are you selling it with a TPM chip, fingerprint reader and a 3D HELO camera, those are all security features that no home user uses.

Beside that, a i5-7300U cost the same as a i7-7500U, but it as vPro.... The only differrences between a i5 and an i7 this gen, is the few speed MHz bump on the i7, and, the i7 has the Intel InTru 3D Technology. But what is the point of having the Intel InTru 3D Technology, if you ship the laptop with a discrete GPU?? The discrete GPU already offer such feature.

It's kind of an identity crisis this laptop has.

Then you have a touchscreen. Really? The multitouch screen is "anti-glare". But it is still glarier than a regular non-touch screen. Plus, there is an higher resolution screen than 1080p offered in the T470, and they don't even offer it in the T25.

That multitouch screen is dimmer than the 1080p non-touch too. If you compare the option of the T470, there's a 50$ USD extra for the multitouch screen over the non-touch screen. If they cared about keeping the price down for the customer, they wouldn't have forced the multitouch screen in their product, they would have put the non-touch screen instead.

Also when you think about it, they mostly put that multitouch screen in there, to clear their inventory. Because, let's be frank, who is buying a ThinkPad with a touchscreen? This was their way of eeping cost down, by not having to buy more 1080p non-touch screens from LG or Samsung or AUO, and simply using what they had sitting on shelves in their inventory.

20$ USD for a fingerprint reader (see T470 option)
50$ USD for a multitouch screen (see T470 option)
30$ USD for the IR camera (see T570 option)

That's already 100$ you're charging your customer for shit they might not even need. But since you don't offer customization, they are forced to pay for it.

Now, since we all know that it's business customer who buys ThinkPad, we know that Windows 10 Pro makes sense, but it doesn't when the marketing dept. tells you that it was aiming business customers with the T25. So if that's the case, there's another 40$ USD (see T470 option) you can remove if you offer Windows 10 Home instead.

The 940MX is 80$ USD (see T470p option). The 940MX is an old GPU, that consumes the same power as the newer MX150 GPU that is twice the power. Why didn't they put an MX150 instead? Again, probably to clear out their inventory. They didn't care about the price the customer will be paying, all they were caring about, was the price it would cost them to manufacture this model.

Lenovo tried to make a ThinkPad with a bunch of marketing staff that ThinkBad. The end result is that their fans ThinkMad.

The post Why the Lenovo Retro Thinkpad 25 is a piece of junk. appeared first on Macbook Repair in NYC | 347-552-2258.

Hiring Andrew Demski

Delays in transferring the site over result from Andrew’s inability to spell rossmanngroup.com properly, yet he can email me at rossmanngroup.com.

This story begins on early August when we signed a contract to design a new site. The price would be $4600, with a down payment of $2300. Around August 10th, my site was transferred over to their server for development. The first red flag can be read in the email I received revealing that delays in getting the site transferred to his server were caused by a misspelling of my name. Spelling errors are lame to criticize someone over, but are relevant when delays in transferring the site over are used as the primary excuse for all of Demski’s failures.

Two months in, Andrew Demski emails me to take a look at a page he’s designed.

Weeks after pointing out how bad the design of many pages were, Andrew says he has a design for me to review, that he would like to use as the template for the site’s other pages. Great.. right?

After hiring a firm for $4600 to design a website, there is no greater nightmare than being two months in and seeing what you see below for approval. He used the verb design to describe what he had done in this transformative process on October 11th.

This is his newly designed page. This is terrible.

Look at Andrew Demski’s newly designed page. The random text centering. The form at the bottom that doesn’t belong, that leads nowhere.

Note the random text centering at the bottom of Demski Group’s design.

Now let’s take a look at my old website – same page.

Here is my *original* website. Notice how the bulletpoints have sensible margins, proper indenting, no random centering. There are no broken forms at the bottom of the page.

My site may look dated, but has sensible margins and readability.

But wait! There’s more!

One may think my criticism of what you saw above was harsh on October 11th, but there is a reason for this criticism. Almost two weeks prior I had pointed out that the bad formatting and appearance of the site as it was was unacceptable, and that I needed to see better design. He knew I was expecting a good looking page.

I told Andrew that I needed to see something that looked proper in terms of page design. Being over six weeks from the point at which I paid, and being that the contract specified approximately 30-45 days, I was dismayed at the site’s appearance to this point.

Look at my original site on the left. Look at his site on the right. Look at the formatting, the fonts, the way the content pops off the page. Which site is my old one? Which is the new $4600 one from a U.S. designer?

We know what to expect with $300 websites vs. $4600 websites. We rarely imagine that the $300 site be better.

I’ve had websites done in the past in the $300-$500 range. https://mailin.repair is one of them! I had spoken to Andrew Demski on the phone to explain what I wanted the new site to be like. My overall desire was to avoid the lack of cohesion that results when people who don’t speak English from freelancer/odesk are creating a site with no concept of design or common sense. I was clear that I do not have a great sense of aesthetic taste or design, and that I wanted someone skilled in that matter to take care of this. I was never expecting that the person I hired for $4600 would be considerably worse than I at this task.

Imagine my surprise when 2 months in, the call to mail your device in is spelled as it is below. I have no problem with people that do not speak English, but it is necessary that English be a primary language for someone designing our site so errors like this need not be pointed out 7 weeks into the process. 

Nothing spells outsourced to freelancer.com for $200 than having “Main it in!” on the front page of your *mail* in repair webpage.

We gave chances.

We emailed so many times. We spoke on the phone. We conveyed expectations and at the end of the day, the homepage doesn’t even have separate pictures for tools vs. ultrasonic cleaners. This was brought up three times. At some point, he emailed asking for code I had already sent him for a scheduling page, and said it wasn’t included in the scope. We’re 6 weeks in, and he is asking for something I sent at the very beginning of the project. I send this email October 3rd.

email one, with my reply.

At the point that he had no recollection of conversations or emails about specific features we had discussed, with code I had sent, at the beginning of the project, I lost confidence that any of this could be remedied.

We had talked on the phone about adding the page for scheduling a pickup/dropoff page that included this code here for the scheduler. https://bpaste.net/show/3772ebb80db4 It wouldn’t require you coding a scheduler. This is why it worries me that you are emailing me asking for the scheduler page on my original website when I had said on the phone that this was a new feature that didn’t exist on my original site.

Andrew, I want you to tell me what you would do if you were me. You need a site and say you need someone who understands what you are trying to do – that you want a real designer, not a $250 odesk designer who pastes chunks into a template with no understanding of the intended goal. You agree to pay $4500+ for this.

You get a draft from the developer and have to tell them that mac laptop repair, mac laptop repair services, macbook pro repairs and retina macbook repairs was redundant on the front page. Why does he present this to you like that? Does this not seem redundant? Anyone can populate a website and move text chunks around, but you need DESIGN. By design I mean where you do not have to tell someone this is redundant, that you just intuitively realize “hey we repeated ourselves 3 times.” This is the difference between odesk and $4000+ U.S. located developer.

The front page says “main it in” instead of mail. Why is the developer presenting this to you as a draft? Who is spelling mail as main? It isn’t him, because someone who speaks English would not make this specific kind of spelling mistake and email it to you as a draft on a $4000 site. Someone on odesk did that.

We’re six weeks into development and pages like this are being presented to you.

Why?

Look at these pages. The old site is better than this new one.

Why is the favicon a shopping cart? You do board repair. It should be your logo. This reeks of “someone’s customizing a canned magento theme. “

This screams “Since he’s am not blind, he can see the small detail of the font size not matching and mail being spelled as main, on a mail in repair site in large words. But he is either incapable of figuring out how to make it all match with a few minutes of work, OR just doesn’t give a shit that he’s handing you his homework all crumpled up and used to wipe his ass on a $4600 site draft.”

You hired a pro. You know they can make all of this make sense with less than 2 minutes of effort before sending you a draft. If they don’t know how to do this, then they’re not going to know how to have a fast page speed(this site takes 20 seconds per page to load), make changes, or keep the design responsive on mobile, or deal with plug in changes. They’re just not qualified for this.

If it is the latter—they just don’t CARE. Then that is even worse. They’re ubreakifix or some other low quality chain. They’re handing me back a phone that has half of the screws missing and a screen lifted that will crack 10 minutes later and don’t even care. This means they couldn’t be bothered to keep the code neat, care about one box being larger than another later on, and just unable to be the author of the way you represent the face of your business—which hinges on people trusting your ability to deal with intricate complex problems and people’s sensitive data on a regular basis.

What would you do? What would you think?

I need one of two things. I need to see a site that allows me to entirely forget what you have shown me up to this point; something so amazing, that is better above and beyond from what I had in every conceivable way; worthy of an American designer asking over $4000, or a refund. This is not what I agreed to.

I want to see something that I can be proud of here. I want to see you succeed. I really do. But, if you’re unable or unwilling to master this level of basic professionalism then I feel that you’ve misrepresented your ability to me when I agreed to the price, and I will do whatever I can do make sure that someone middlemanning for odesk at $4600 doesn’t happen to anyone else.

His response

He says he has not sent anything over asking for a review yet. However, we’ll soon see this is not true.

This email from September 11th shows that 5 weeks in he was linking me to pages that he had worked on. You can see the results below.

If nothing was sent over to review, then why link me to this page? 

He sent this email saying he worked on that page on September 11th. On October 3rd, I sent my email stating just how bad the site looked. On October 11th, one full month later, he links me to this page for review:

He says he hasn’t sent over any pages to review in the past. Here, he is proudly displaying something he spent two months on. Scroll further to see just what it looks like.

Look at this page. The random text centering. The form at the bottom that doesn’t belong, that leads nowhere. This is what The Demski Group presents to a client after two months.

Note the random text centering at the bottom of Demski Group’s design.

At the end of the day, it was in the contract.

The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the Project is with the Client.

This is telling me point blank, that it is at my risk that I expect quality from Demski Group Dev. And indeed, I risked and lost. I sincerely hope anyone reading this understands exactly what they should expect to receive should they give Andrew Demski money.

The post A $4600 Website by the Demski Group & Andrew Demski. appeared first on Macbook Repair in NYC | 347-552-2258.

Here I go over how we troubleshoot a short to ground on PPBUS_G3H, a main power line on the Macbook Air logic board. Here we have an issue where the CPU vcore circuitry. Many people use the word “short circuit” to describe any type of non-functioning circuit, whether or not it is a short circuit!

Watch this short video to learn from start to finish how we figure out the issue and repair it live on camera.

This Macbook Pro retina logic board has no output on the internal screen. However, using a displayport to VGA adapter, I was able to get a picture to show upon an external monitor, and I was able to run ASD. ASD gave me an error, displayport symbol error. I investigated the displayport data lines and noticed one had no continuity due to a burned via inside the board.

This is one of those things where you will have people all over the internet telling you it is the lcd cable… but it’s never the LCD cable. It’s that good ol’ wishful thinking that there’s a brainless $4 solution to what is a much larger problem.

The solution here was to dig away until I got to the nub that the in-line capacitor in the displayport data line is soldered to. Since there was no pad left, I put solder and flux on a piece of wire, and did my best to tin the nub. I couldn’t use the soldering iron to solder it, even with the micro soldering iron’s smallest tip, so I put some flux there and used the hot air station to flow the little wire onto the nub. Then, I could solder the capacitor to the wire which was soldered to the nub and huzzah.. PICTURE!!!!

We regularly fix liquid spill damaged Macbook Pros with our Macbook liquid spill damage repair service. Watch how below!

No appointment is necessary – come by during our open hours and we are happy to help you!

Just incase anyone doubts!

https://www.reddit.com/user/larossmann  is me

I see many people pointing to dry boxes, thirsty bags, and other hip new “tools” that supposedly fix liquid damaged devices. The reality of the matter is that a burned out component is a burned out component no matter what you put the device in afterwards!

Look at the pictures below. Besides replacing the broken components & running wires between areas where pathways were destroyed, how else can you imagine fixing this?

Firewire worked perfectly with a crisp image on the screen after our repair!

This board had no firewire and nothing on the screen.. surprising?

I want you to think about this when someone says that for $50 they’ll run your phone through some dry box, drop it into silica gel, or use magic software to get data off a phone that’s been in the ocean. Good ol’ fashioned brains & soldering is how we get data back and make devices work again. It takes a lot of thinking, and a lot of work under a microscope. It also brings the greatest rewards – a reliably functioning device over a long period of time.

Hinge filler

How do you make a choice? Why do hot air stations range from $50 to $1800 and what makes them different? How do I pick the right one for me? I’ve bought the wrong equipment and I use these tools every day in a professional environment. I will walk you through EVERYTHING I wish I knew when I first pulled out my credit card to buy a station.

This station is only $57, but good luck getting anything off a multilayer PCB with it!

This hot air station is perfect & makes repair a breeze, but is $1500, which leaves you bankrupt.

Price and experience. Do newbies need good stations?

You can buy an Atten 858D for $58 or a JBC JTSE for $1500+. The cheap station doesn’t do the job, the expensive station makes you too broke to pay the electric bill. Neither make sense for someone NEW to our business. A JBC has nice features, but do you really need a station that can save graphs of your activity?

Don’t mistake my statement as an argument for a $50 piece of crap! People often message me saying they do not need something great because they are just starting out. This is bad thinking! When you are just starting out, you need equipment that is “known good.” When you are new, you have no way to tell if bad results are due to your technique or your equipment. You will blame yourself for what is actually an equipment issue and never improve. Even worse is if your station is fit for a single layer PCB, has a bunch of good reviews, then you try it on a multilayer PCB and it fails. “It has such good reviews, it must be MY fault!!” is something I commonly hear.

Even worse is when you actually find the cause of the problem on a board, but then kill its CPU or something else with cheap hot air. You figured out the problem – great, but you never get to see if you were right because you killed your board roasting it to death with a $55 hot air station. This ruins confidence and desire to learn. With hot air you want to get in, and out, as quickly as possible in a precision manner.

When you are just starting out, you need equipment that is “known good.” When you are new, you have no way to tell if bad results are a result of your technique or your equipment.

Power

By far, the single most important attribute for any type of serious professional rework is the power of the station. If you point the nozzle at the board and the component you are heating does not come off, you’re not going to bill anything. Cheap stations, fringe stations, and also ALL IN ONE stations are often low energy.

This Hakko 851 has less than 6 liters/minute airflow. This means its blowing is weaker than a 59 year old whore. At $650 & incapable of removing a touch IC, it’s as expensive as it is useless.

Weller’s WR3M seems like the ultimate all-in-one tool until you realize that even at its high price it only hits 15 liters/minute of airflow.

Unfortunately, this is difficult if not impossible to properly judge over the internet via spec sheets. Many companies make wattage/temperature/airflow claims that never stand up to real world usage, especially cheaper stations. Some do not publish them at all!

When it comes to temperature, spec sheets are useless. They lie more often than receiver/amplifier manufacturers lie about the rated wattage output for their electronics. Even if it can hit a high temperature, can it maintain that temperature? Does it fluctuate in the middle of a soldering job? Many cheap stations make claims of 600-1000 watts of power or of temperatures up to 500c, but are unable to maintain them. Even worse, many cheap stations display temperatures on their display that they aren’t reaching.

The FM-206 allows desoldering, hot tweezers, and soldering all from one station, but its included hot air doesn’t go over 6L/minute.

When it comes to airflow, you want something that can do at least 20 liters/minute. Larger chips will be difficult to do without going to 30-40L/minute, but at the very least 20L/minute is desired. Airflow is how powerful the pump/fan that propels the air forward is. Even the hottest hot air station will be useless if it cannot propel that hot air forward onto the board/chip you wish to heat and move it into place. Keep in mind most all-in-one stations that try to combine hot air & soldering into one device, while convenient & savers of desk space, have terrible airflow.

Stations that get put in the hall of shame are below for not having enough power to get the job done.

Interface

Hot air differs from standard soldering in that you will often want to adjust airflow and temperature. While a soldering iron can remain at 750f or 840f for the entire duration of a board repair, a hot air station’s airflow or heat you’ll want to adjust based on what you’re soldering. airflow may be desired. If we are soldering a larger IC that is far away from anything vulnerable to heat, high airflow is fine. If we are working on something right next to a CPU, lower airflow may be desired. The ability to adjust these attributes quickly is important. If adjusting temperature or airflow is difficult, the technician will be incentivized to “work around” using the “wrong” setting to save time and this helps no one.

Some stations have analog interfaces you can adjust with knobs, which is ideal. Others have push buttons for changing temperature. And the worst of them all, like the Hakko FR-810 have these 1980s VCR like interfaces where changing temperature or airflow is just a total nightmare. Interestingly enough, the stations with the worst interfaces such as the Hakko are often the most expensive.

The Hakko FR-810 is a clear example of the worst interface on a hot air station I’ve ever seen.

The Quick is not the best interface – knobs are preferable, but still far more acceptable than Hakko’s junk.

This bent nozzle makes workng under a microscope at an angle easier.

Nozzles

Bent nozzles are great for working with a microscope. When working under a microscope, you can’t point the hot air directly at the board from above. It must be placed from an angle. This gives you less direct heat on the board. However, if you have a bent nozzle available, then you can have the benefit of direct heat on your component while under the microscope. As you angle the hot air to fit it under the microscope, the angle of the nozzle allows the nozzle to shoort air directly down on the board. We will be offering bent nozzles for the Quick 861DW shortly!

We must also consider the size of the nozzle. Using a 2mm nozzle to remove an SMC will never work, and using a 10mm to remove a tiny part on a cellphone is overkill. It’s best to buy a station that has a good number of nozzles between 3 and 7mm available.

This straight nozzle makes working under a microscope at an angle more difficult.

Our pick

Our current pick for hot air station is the Quick 861DW. Why?

• Easy to use interface: air & temperature adjustable in single button pushes.
• Recallable presets for common air/temperature settings.
• More powerful than anything we have tried to date.
• Incredibly affordable at under $300.
• Bent nozzles available.

Buy a Quick below!

Louis Rossmann’s preferred hot air station.

Why we loved the Thinkpad.

The Thinkpad was a special machine, as I’ve explained three years ago when discussing my disappointment with modern Thinkpads.

Thinkpad interfaces allowed me to avoid moving my hand away from the keyboard to move the cursor. The anti-glare screen added to my viewing comfort. The keyboard layout felt like “home” – just like a desktop keyboard, no adjusting to laptop form factor required. The ports, the thinklight, the ability to swap drives without removing a bottom case. It was a special machine.

As laptop design evolved into more trendy, less productive designs across all brands, the Thinkpad stood out more and more as the last device of choice remaining for the practical tinkerer & engineer. The function over form kind of person that just wanted to get to work without feeling limited by laptop form factor bought this machine. The designers, the engineers, the service technicians; and it was a treat.

What happened to the Thinkpad?

The T61 Thinkpad with its classic keyboard layout, 4:3 aspect ratio, thinklight, and small trackpad is considered by many to be the last “true” Thinkpad

The T61 is a Thinkpad many refer to as the grandfather of all modern Thinkpads. Everything after being a compromise in some way.

The T520 went to a 16:9 display, and slightly changed the keyboard.

The Thinkpad T530 is where it became apparent the Thinkpad wasn’t simply a victim of a lack of 4:3 LCDs being mass produced, but rather under serious attack from marketing executives & “user experience” drones hell bent on killing what made the Thinkpad great. These individuals, dedicated to copying what everyone else sold in the hopes of mass appeal, saw fit to destroy the Thinkpad keyboard – the very thing that made the Thinkpad retain its value & cult following.  The keys were no longer located where they would have been located on a standard desktop keyboard anymore. and the trackpad became larger.

The Thinkpad T540 added insult to injury by removing the dedicated trackpoint buttons, and trackpad buttons. Lenovo went full RIMM, making a device with a click button interface, and it sucked. This copied none of the accuracy or feel of what made the Apple trackpad great, while reinforcing every negative stereotype about PC trackpads. aIt was incredibly easy to hit the right click when you thought you were hitting the middle button. It was very easy to hit the middle button and close a browser tab when you meant to right click it. It required bending your thumb for any sense of accuracy. it was garbage.

Palm rejection on Windows has become better, but for Linux users it has often been a bane. You can spend hours configuring it and it still works terribly. Thus adding this larger trackpad made life yet worse for Linux users. Even if you could get around the trackpadFurther, the new trackpad on the XX40 series required endless hacks if you used Linux just to get the buttons to work properly!

A numpad was added to 15″ models as well. The numpad requires we move the trackpad & keyboard to the left, so we now have an off center keyboard that is not standard. We have a trackpoint with no dedicated buttons that allows for easy mistakes in button clicks. We have a trackpad with almost non-existent palm rejection in Linux, and a 16:9 screen.

The Thinkpad is, for all we loved it for, no longer a Thinkpad. It’s dead.

The T530 removed the old keyboard layout entirely in favor of a new, confusing design. The lack of island keys is not as apparent as the confusing location of the delete/page up/page down/home/end keys.

The T540 was the straw that broke the camel’s back. No dedicated trackpoint buttons, a numpad. a terrible large trackpad.

Talk of the “retro.”

Discussion about the retro began about two and a half years ago after anger over the T440/T540 blew over. Lenovo has had two and a half years to go over this decision, polling consumers on what they’d like and milling over how to make it happen.

Personally, I saw talk of the Retro as defeat in and of itself. Putting a proper keyboard back on all the old model lines meant that anyone could pick & choose the machine for them – ultrabook or workstation, 1366×768 or 4k, matte or touchscreen, and still get a proper interface. This would be an admission of defeat to the marketing departments that likely demanded we get this new keyboard, but it would be better overall.

Creating a single retro model meant it had to be all things to all people, and is a show of ego from marketing itself. It isn’t that our design is bad. It’s those weirdos. Those basement dwelling redditors that demand that silly looking keyboard. “Come up with something for them so they shut up!” I can imagine a marketer saying. This is guaranteed to fail.

Retro release.

Fast forward to 2017. Two and a half years after the first mention of the retro, three and a half years after the butchery of the T440 & T540. Do we get a screen with a different aspect ratio? Do we get a thinklight? Are there choices? Are the specs something to die for?

Before we dig into specs….

But Louis. IT’S NOT A WORKSTATION! STOP COMPARING IT TO WORKSTATIONS!!!

Yes, it is not a workstation. That is the point; there is no customizability here. I can’t pay extra to get a beefier processor. I can’t pay extra to get a better screen. So there is nothing else to compare my current P50 to in the retro “lineup.”

If you use an X1 Carbon, there is no Retro ultrabook to compare it to.

If you use a P50, there is no Retro workstation to compare it to.

I am demonstrating how bad this entire retro premise is. Rather than bring good design back to the fully fledged, customizable Thinkpad line, where there was a machine for everyone, we have one model. One model for everyone who wants a good interface.

That is a severe weakness. I was hoping for good design to come back to the entire Thinkpad line, rather than getting a T470, with an older style keyboard and a price premium.

The display disappoints by ANY standard.

People who want the retro want a 4:3, 3:2, or 5:4 screen. They might even settle for a 16:10. The Retro gives us 16:9.

People who want a modern screen want something high resolution. Maybe even 3k. The Retro gives us 1080p.

If the surface can get 3:2, why can’t we?

The Retro gives us the worst of the old, with the worst of the new. The T25 has “old” resolution with “new” aspect ratios. Whether you’re into modern or classic, there’s something to hate with this machine.

Do you get an option for higher resolution for more $$? Of course not. It’s standard for laptop manufacturers to charge an additional $350-$400 for a higher resolution screen when the panel only costs them an additional $50, and that’s fine. At least they offer the option. Lenovo isn’t even going to bother offering a higher resolution screen if you were willing to pay, which is inexcusable. It is difficult to impossible to find a 4:3 screen, but it is not difficult to offer a higher resolution 14″ screen for a premium with a dropdown menu for those of us who use our laptop for viewing schematics and boardviews where 1080p is really a hinderance.

Many will say it is unreasonable to expect a different aspect ratio, as well as difficult to get a manufacturer to produce this. Just look at what Apple did with the A1425 in 2012 .Unlike almost every other pro level laptop, the screen was separate from the backlight. The resolution was 2560×1600 on a machine that was offered five years ago. Apple got LG & Samsung to mass produce non-standard LCDs for the A1425 which started at $1299. Yet Lenovo can’t get anyone to produce an LCD slightly outside what has been the cookie cutter mold for five years, on a machine costing $1899? Apple not only provided a better screen, but Apple’s 2012 A1425 model had an aspect ratio closer to “classic” Thinkpads than the actual Retro Thinkpad. I may crap on Apple a lot, but credit where credit is due.

Apple had an idea for a machine that would sell well. They pitched what they needed to LG & Samsung, and they created it for Apple. Lenovo could have done the same, but didn’t. “What if it doesn’t sell well? What if it isn’t worth it?” All valid questions, that reek of a lack of confidence in this model as well as the ability to market it. That type of thinking leads to what we get here: a half baked effort that makes no effort to even pretend it’s retro. 1080p. 16:9. 2017.

We have grieved the loss of the practical display. When we await the release of a T480, P72, no one is disappointed at the 16:9 display because we do not expect anything outside of 16:9. This is why I think it would make more sense to just put the retro keyboard on every other Thinkpad, rather than release a “retro” model. We would have 3k & 4k options available. We would not experience the disappointment of having “retro” dangled in front of us, only to end up being a 16:9 display. By advertising a retro model, you are teasing people by dangling the idea of a T61-ish screen in front of them and by releasing it with a 16:9 1080p touchscreen you are kicking them in the balls.

Weak, outdated graphics.

Why use the 1050 GPU which is faster and more powerful with same energy usage when we can use this retro to dump out last year’s inventory?

Thinkpad users aren’t looking at cinebench scores. We care about interface, screen aspect ratio, ports. The practical. If we’re going to miss out on some of the practical, and if we’re going to have a price premium, can we at least get some specs from this year? This card is available in laptops less than half the price.

Processor limitations: only dual core.

You get one choice, a dual core, at $1899. Its cpubenchmark score is a 5221, 1403 points lower than a Thinkpad W520 from 2011!

Last I recall there was a company that only offered you dual core options at this price.. yes, Apple. I realize the retro isnot a workstation. As such, people have said it is unfair to compare it to a workstation. I would agree if there were other workstations in the retro family, but there are not. It would be unfair to compare its processor to a workstation class machine IF THERE WERE A RETRO WORKSTATION. I am merely judging Lenovo by my shopping standards from 2011, back when you could choose between an ultrabook, a midrange, or a workstation with a good keyboard. Six years later and the choices are actually worse.

If you had a W520 you were looking to replace, you will be disappointed. Your six year old laptop was more powerful than this, and you might have paid less for it.

Thank you Lenovo for copying the negatives of Apple’s pricing & lack of configurability, without copying any of the innovation.

Battery life.

Lenovo’s never been known for amazing battery life. Early reports show it lasts under 7 hours even with the U processor on the default 3 cell battery it ships with. With battery life you could expect from $1899 laptops from six years ago, at least it lives up to the retro name in one way.

Pricing: starts at $1899.

$1899 is a lot for what is being offered here. There is not a lot of value.

Some will say this is being cheap. The price would not be an issue at $2300, or even $3000 if some degree of customizability were offered. The price would not be an issue if Lenovo pulled a rabbit out of their hat and got LG, Samsung, AUO, Chi Mei, or Sharp to produce a more square display. The price would not be an issue if Lenovo allowed us to configure a higher resolution display, a different processor, or maybe even had bothered to put the indicator LEDs that used to exist back where they were.

The reality is that this price premium is for nothing but a keyboard and a little colored logo engraving. This price premium exists without adding value. We get yesterday’s specs with today’s trends, all in a machine touting itself as worth its price for being “retro.”

No.

Ports

When I say this isn’t worth the price as a “retro” machine, the ports say all that is necessary. This is not a “special” machine, but rather a T470 with an old keyboard and a different logo slapped on.

How many people have tried to use a modern laptop in a conference room or educational setting where the projector only offered VGA? You forgot your dongle at the hotel. Crap.

THIS is where the Thinkpad user’s smile stems from. Being able to pick that up and plug it right into their laptop. This is something that would be doable, cheaply, easily, if they weren’t copying & pasting the T470 motherboard directly into the retro machine.

But they did just that. You get no mini-displayport, only USB-C. You get less USB ports than the P50. You get no VGA port, which is the only port “retro” people were asking to have back.

Granted, one can argue you should be replacing your mini-displayport adapters/cables with USB-C adapters/cables. Yet this is not necessary on last year’s P50, the stronger machine that is $500 less.

Why skip out on the retro port, on a retro machine, that is still in widespread use, unless you just don’t care?

Conclusion: this is not “retro” – this is junk.

Not enough has changed to warrant having its own model.

Lenovo doesn’t want to alienate customers with an “old” design, and as much as I like 4:3 screens, I understand how many modern customers might balk at the idea of having bars as they watch netflix in fullscreen on a lunchbreak. I understand the idea behind making the retro its own model if it was vastly different from what the average consumer would accept. If they put a 4:3 screen, removed the trackpad, added indicator LEDs, a thicker chassis to fit a VGA port, then fine; the machine would have earned having its own model. It would be too far off from what is “mainstream” to be implemented into the standard T, X, and P series lineup.

However, this is nothing more than a T470 with a different keyboard. Here, we get the downside of an “exclusive” model(lack of customization) with all the downsides of the mass produced models(16:9, no VGA, no indicator LEDs).

This is the worst of both worlds, and outside taking some old keyboards out of inventory and shoving them into a T470 casing, they didn’t budge at all.

The screen is straight up 16:9, with the resolution I would expect from 2011. It is missing ports that you can get in a used, two year old T series(which, btw, you can buy with a better processor for less $$). So long as Lenovo sees people who desire a proper Thinkpad as a fringe group to be shut up by a token model that was half assed, they will never return to what made so many so loyal to the line.

To quote Philippe Hébert, 

You said something very important in this video, and it's true. Lenovo marketing dept. ad no idea what they were doing and to who they were marketing this to.

First: They launch it on Facebook ?? Really!? People who buy thinkpad are IT staff, engineer, motion designer, corporate executive, enterprise laptop bought for employees, etc..

Who is on Facebook? Teenagers, and people who don't have a clue about technology. It's the average person who buys a computer with the first thing in mind: price. These people don't buy ThinkPad, because you already pay more than an "IdeaPad" for the laptop. A ThinkPad is a business computer. It's easy to service, it's customizable at purchase to suit your needs, it has an anti-glare screen.

Then you have the T25, which has no vPro support nor Intel Trusted Execution Technology, because it only comes with an i7-7500U CPU, instead of a i7-7600U. Lenovo states that the T25 wasn't aiming the business market with this product, and that they wanted to keep the cost to the lowest, as a 7600U is more expensive.

Well, why are you selling the laptop with Windows 10 PROFESSIONAL if you're aiming to non business people? Why are you selling it with a TPM chip, fingerprint reader and a 3D HELO camera, those are all security features that no home user uses.

Beside that, a i5-7300U cost the same as a i7-7500U, but it as vPro.... The only differrences between a i5 and an i7 this gen, is the few speed MHz bump on the i7, and, the i7 has the Intel InTru 3D Technology. But what is the point of having the Intel InTru 3D Technology, if you ship the laptop with a discrete GPU?? The discrete GPU already offer such feature.

It's kind of an identity crisis this laptop has.

Then you have a touchscreen. Really? The multitouch screen is "anti-glare". But it is still glarier than a regular non-touch screen. Plus, there is an higher resolution screen than 1080p offered in the T470, and they don't even offer it in the T25.

That multitouch screen is dimmer than the 1080p non-touch too. If you compare the option of the T470, there's a 50$ USD extra for the multitouch screen over the non-touch screen. If they cared about keeping the price down for the customer, they wouldn't have forced the multitouch screen in their product, they would have put the non-touch screen instead.

Also when you think about it, they mostly put that multitouch screen in there, to clear their inventory. Because, let's be frank, who is buying a ThinkPad with a touchscreen? This was their way of eeping cost down, by not having to buy more 1080p non-touch screens from LG or Samsung or AUO, and simply using what they had sitting on shelves in their inventory.

20$ USD for a fingerprint reader (see T470 option)
50$ USD for a multitouch screen (see T470 option)
30$ USD for the IR camera (see T570 option)

That's already 100$ you're charging your customer for shit they might not even need. But since you don't offer customization, they are forced to pay for it.

Now, since we all know that it's business customer who buys ThinkPad, we know that Windows 10 Pro makes sense, but it doesn't when the marketing dept. tells you that it was aiming business customers with the T25. So if that's the case, there's another 40$ USD (see T470 option) you can remove if you offer Windows 10 Home instead.

The 940MX is 80$ USD (see T470p option). The 940MX is an old GPU, that consumes the same power as the newer MX150 GPU that is twice the power. Why didn't they put an MX150 instead? Again, probably to clear out their inventory. They didn't care about the price the customer will be paying, all they were caring about, was the price it would cost them to manufacture this model.

Lenovo tried to make a ThinkPad with a bunch of marketing staff that ThinkBad. The end result is that their fans ThinkMad.

Hiring Andrew Demski

Delays in transferring the site over result from Andrew’s inability to spell rossmanngroup.com properly, yet he can email me at rossmanngroup.com.

This story begins on early August when we signed a contract to design a new site. The price would be $4600, with a down payment of $2300. Around August 10th, my site was transferred over to their server for development. The first red flag can be read in the email I received revealing that delays in getting the site transferred to his server were caused by a misspelling of my name. Spelling errors are lame to criticize someone over, but are relevant when delays in transferring the site over are used as the primary excuse for all of Demski’s failures.

Two months in, Andrew Demski emails me to take a look at a page he’s designed.

Weeks after pointing out how bad the design of many pages were, Andrew says he has a design for me to review, that he would like to use as the template for the site’s other pages. Great.. right?

After hiring a firm for $4600 to design a website, there is no greater nightmare than being two months in and seeing what you see below for approval. He used the verb design to describe what he had done in this transformative process on October 11th.

This is his newly designed page. This is terrible.

Look at Andrew Demski’s newly designed page. The random text centering. The form at the bottom that doesn’t belong, that leads nowhere.

Note the random text centering at the bottom of Demski Group’s design.

Now let’s take a look at my old website – same page.

Here is my *original* website. Notice how the bulletpoints have sensible margins, proper indenting, no random centering. There are no broken forms at the bottom of the page.

My site may look dated, but has sensible margins and readability.

But wait! There’s more!

One may think my criticism of what you saw above was harsh on October 11th, but there is a reason for this criticism. Almost two weeks prior I had pointed out that the bad formatting and appearance of the site as it was was unacceptable, and that I needed to see better design. He knew I was expecting a good looking page.

I told Andrew that I needed to see something that looked proper in terms of page design. Being over six weeks from the point at which I paid, and being that the contract specified approximately 30-45 days, I was dismayed at the site’s appearance to this point.

Look at my original site on the left. Look at his site on the right. Look at the formatting, the fonts, the way the content pops off the page. Which site is my old one? Which is the new $4600 one from a U.S. designer?

We know what to expect with $300 websites vs. $4600 websites. We rarely imagine that the $300 site be better.

I’ve had websites done in the past in the $300-$500 range. https://mailin.repair is one of them! I had spoken to Andrew Demski on the phone to explain what I wanted the new site to be like. My overall desire was to avoid the lack of cohesion that results when people who don’t speak English from freelancer/odesk are creating a site with no concept of design or common sense. I was clear that I do not have a great sense of aesthetic taste or design, and that I wanted someone skilled in that matter to take care of this. I was never expecting that the person I hired for $4600 would be considerably worse than I at this task.

Imagine my surprise when 2 months in, the call to mail your device in is spelled as it is below. I have no problem with people that do not speak English, but it is necessary that English be a primary language for someone designing our site so errors like this need not be pointed out 7 weeks into the process. 

Nothing spells outsourced to freelancer.com for $200 than having “Main it in!” on the front page of your *mail* in repair webpage.

We gave chances.

We emailed so many times. We spoke on the phone. We conveyed expectations and at the end of the day, the homepage doesn’t even have separate pictures for tools vs. ultrasonic cleaners. This was brought up three times. At some point, he emailed asking for code I had already sent him for a scheduling page, and said it wasn’t included in the scope. We’re 6 weeks in, and he is asking for something I sent at the very beginning of the project. I send this email October 3rd.

email one, with my reply.

At the point that he had no recollection of conversations or emails about specific features we had discussed, with code I had sent, at the beginning of the project, I lost confidence that any of this could be remedied.

We had talked on the phone about adding the page for scheduling a pickup/dropoff page that included this code here for the scheduler. https://bpaste.net/show/3772ebb80db4 It wouldn’t require you coding a scheduler. This is why it worries me that you are emailing me asking for the scheduler page on my original website when I had said on the phone that this was a new feature that didn’t exist on my original site.

Andrew, I want you to tell me what you would do if you were me. You need a site and say you need someone who understands what you are trying to do – that you want a real designer, not a $250 odesk designer who pastes chunks into a template with no understanding of the intended goal. You agree to pay $4500+ for this.

You get a draft from the developer and have to tell them that mac laptop repair, mac laptop repair services, macbook pro repairs and retina macbook repairs was redundant on the front page. Why does he present this to you like that? Does this not seem redundant? Anyone can populate a website and move text chunks around, but you need DESIGN. By design I mean where you do not have to tell someone this is redundant, that you just intuitively realize “hey we repeated ourselves 3 times.” This is the difference between odesk and $4000+ U.S. located developer.

The front page says “main it in” instead of mail. Why is the developer presenting this to you as a draft? Who is spelling mail as main? It isn’t him, because someone who speaks English would not make this specific kind of spelling mistake and email it to you as a draft on a $4000 site. Someone on odesk did that.

We’re six weeks into development and pages like this are being presented to you.

Why?

Look at these pages. The old site is better than this new one.

Why is the favicon a shopping cart? You do board repair. It should be your logo. This reeks of “someone’s customizing a canned magento theme. “

This screams “Since he’s am not blind, he can see the small detail of the font size not matching and mail being spelled as main, on a mail in repair site in large words. But he is either incapable of figuring out how to make it all match with a few minutes of work, OR just doesn’t give a shit that he’s handing you his homework all crumpled up and used to wipe his ass on a $4600 site draft.”

You hired a pro. You know they can make all of this make sense with less than 2 minutes of effort before sending you a draft. If they don’t know how to do this, then they’re not going to know how to have a fast page speed(this site takes 20 seconds per page to load), make changes, or keep the design responsive on mobile, or deal with plug in changes. They’re just not qualified for this.

If it is the latter—they just don’t CARE. Then that is even worse. They’re ubreakifix or some other low quality chain. They’re handing me back a phone that has half of the screws missing and a screen lifted that will crack 10 minutes later and don’t even care. This means they couldn’t be bothered to keep the code neat, care about one box being larger than another later on, and just unable to be the author of the way you represent the face of your business—which hinges on people trusting your ability to deal with intricate complex problems and people’s sensitive data on a regular basis.

What would you do? What would you think?

I need one of two things. I need to see a site that allows me to entirely forget what you have shown me up to this point; something so amazing, that is better above and beyond from what I had in every conceivable way; worthy of an American designer asking over $4000, or a refund. This is not what I agreed to.

I want to see something that I can be proud of here. I want to see you succeed. I really do. But, if you’re unable or unwilling to master this level of basic professionalism then I feel that you’ve misrepresented your ability to me when I agreed to the price, and I will do whatever I can do make sure that someone middlemanning for odesk at $4600 doesn’t happen to anyone else.

His response

He says he has not sent anything over asking for a review yet. However, we’ll soon see this is not true.

This email from September 11th shows that 5 weeks in he was linking me to pages that he had worked on. You can see the results below.

If nothing was sent over to review, then why link me to this page? 

He sent this email saying he worked on that page on September 11th. On October 3rd, I sent my email stating just how bad the site looked. On October 11th, one full month later, he links me to this page for review:

He says he hasn’t sent over any pages to review in the past. Here, he is proudly displaying something he spent two months on. Scroll further to see just what it looks like.

Look at this page. The random text centering. The form at the bottom that doesn’t belong, that leads nowhere. This is what The Demski Group presents to a client after two months.

Note the random text centering at the bottom of Demski Group’s design.

At the end of the day, it was in the contract.

The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the Project is with the Client.

This is telling me point blank, that it is at my risk that I expect quality from Demski Group Dev. And indeed, I risked and lost. I sincerely hope anyone reading this understands exactly what they should expect to receive should they give Andrew Demski money.

One of the things I’ve taken pride in for many years is doing Macbook logic board repair at our store in Manhattan, rather than sending it out to another company like was done eras ago. You can see a video of that below.

Here, we had a machine that was missing PPBUS_G3H, and PP3V42_G3H. PP3V42_G3H must show up before other rails, because

a) PP3V42_G3H powers the onewire circuitry that allows the charger to speak to the machine.,

b) PP3V42_G3H powers the SMC and the ISL6259 which begins the startup sequence as well as turning on main power rails.

The ISL6259 was short circuiting PP3V42_G3H to ground. As a result, we had no green light on the charger. After replacing it, we had PPBUS_G3H, but now we had power-cycling. It was going from 22-38 milliamps. This is why having a way to read how much power the board is taking from the charger is an important thing – whether it’s a USB-C ampmeter for the newer models, or attaching a magsafe cord to a power supply for the older models.

We checked down the list of power rails and found out that PP5V_S4 was short circuited to ground, due to a failed transistor. After replacing it – BAM! Working Macbook!

We offer these logic board repair services in New York from our storefront – come visit us anytime!

We offer Macbook repair in NYC from our storefront – come visit us anytime!

Let’s go over another Macbook Repair here – an A1466 that is not turning on. This Macbook Air is giving us a green light on the charger, which tells us that PP3V42_G3H is present. PP3V42_G3H is what allows the onewire circuit to turn on, so the light can turn on.

Since it wasn’t turning on, we decided to go down the list of power rails, as listed in the schematic. We found that the machine had PPBUS_G3H on one side of its fuse, but not on the other. We found a short to ground on the side of the fuse that had no power, and saw that the fuse itself was blown. Sad.

We looked around and saw that a capacitor on PPBUS_S5_HS_COMPUTING_ISNS looked wrecked. We scrolled through the schematic and saw that this rail comes from PPBUS_G3H. It goes through a current sensing resistor whose purpose is to be part of a current sensing circuit that will allow the machine to tell how much current every component on PPBUS_S5_HS_COMPUTING_ISNS is using. This explains how a short circuit on PPBUS_S5_HS_COMPUTING_ISNS  can affect PPBUS_G3H.

We removed the ailing cap, clearing the short circuit. Now, the fuse is ready to be replaced. Replacing the fuse would do nothing, as it would simply blow again as a result of the cap short to ground. After replacing both, the machine turns on and takes a healthy 500+ mA – fanspin has been achieved.

What’s wrong with this MacBook?

This customer sent in their MacBook Air to our store in New York City for our logic board repair service because it didn’t turn on after liquid was spilled on it. It is not pulling any power from the DC power supply, and the fan does not spin.

How can we fix the issue?

Initial Diagnosis

The first step to solving a board issue on any MacBook that has liquid damage is to look at the board and see where the liquid went. On this board, we looked over both sides, and the only corrosion we found was in the area of the Thunderbolt circuit.

After looking over the board, we measure voltages on the main power rails. These seem OK, with PPBUS_G3H at a steady 8.5V.

Repairing the Board

The first thing we do to this board after we have determined that the liquid corroded some components in the thunderbolt circuit is replace components that look corroded. This board had one nasty looking capacitor next to the CD3211 chip. We can assume that the CD3211 chip is responsible for Thunderbolt muxing, as in newer machines the CD3215 chip is what is responsible for that, and CD3211 is most likely an older revision of the CD3215.

With our hot air rework station and our Amtech flux, we remove and replace the corroded components. After doing this, the machine is fully functional.

I can’t fix this myself. How do I get it fixed?

Rossmann Repair Group offers MacBook Logic Board Repair in New York City. Our repairs are not limited to NYC though, we accept mail-in repairs from virtually anywhere! Visit https://sendyourmacbook.com to start your MacBook repair.

What’s wrong with this MacBook?

This customer sent in their MacBook Pro to our store in New York City for our logic board repair service because the USB ports weren’t working. Before starting the repair, we needed to figure out exactly what was wrong with the machine. We started off by booting the machine into the boot options menu and plugging an external drive into each port to see if it was recognized. We discovered that neither port recognized the drive, so both USB ports were totally dead.

How do we fix this issue?

Diagnosing the board

We start off by checking the schematic diagram for this 820-2936 MacBook Pro to see how the USB ports work. Conveniently located on page 2 of the schematic is a block diagram that shows the flow of the USB circuits. Here we see that each USB port is controlled by a separate hub, with both hubs having a connection to the PCH. This means a few things. Because it is very unlikely that both USB hubs have failed simultaneously, something that both ports have in common must have failed. This can be one of a few things, such as a component responsible for powering both USB hubs or the PCH itself, which is a difficult repair to perform due to the complexity of the chip.

Next, we have to find the components on the board that we saw on the PDF schematic. For this, we check the boardview for this MacBook. This will allow us to see where those individual components are on the board itself. We locate the two USB ports on the boardview and find that both ports are connected to U4600. On the PDF schematic, we see that U4600 is labeled as “USB Port Power Switch.” U4600 has one enable line, one input line(PP5v_S3), and 2 output lines (PP5V_S3_RTUSB_A_ILIM and PP5V_S3_RTUSB_B_ILIM). Each of those lines goes to one of the two USB ports. This means that U4600 is something both ports have in common that can cause neither of them to work if it isn’t working properly.

The next step is to begin measuring voltages to see what lines are present and what lines are not present. We locate U4600 on our board under the microscope, and use a multimeter to measure voltages. First we measure the power lines for each USB port. Both ports are measuring 0.04V, which means neither port is getting power. This tells us that the issue could be one of a few things: Either the chip is dead, the USB power lines are shorted to ground, or the input or enable line for U4600 is missing.

Now, we check the pins on U4600. We find that both the input and the enable lines are present. This leads us to conclude that either the chip is bad, or the output is shorted to ground. Resistance mode on the multimeter tells us that both lines are shorted to ground. Since both lines are on one chip and both lines are shorted to ground, the likely culprit in this situation is U4600, the chip itself.

Repairing the Board

With our Quick 861DW Hot Air station and Amtech Flux, both available on store.rossmanngroup.com, we remove the chip. After removing the chip, the short is gone. After replacing the chip, one USB port functions again, but not the other port. This means that something else on the board related to that one USB port is causing it not to work.

After some more detective work, we discovered that the port is now getting power but not turning on. This means that the port itself is bad, or another component is bad going to the port. U4650, an SMC debug chip going to the port, or L4600, which goes from U4650 to the port are possibly causing this, so we replace them both to rule them out. Luckily, that solved our issue, and this MacBook now has working USB ports again, thanks to our great team of technicians at our MacBook Repair location in NYC.

I can’t fix this myself. How do I get it fixed?

Rossmann Repair Group offers MacBook Logic Board Repair in New York City. Our MacBook Repair is not limited to NYC though, we accept mail-in repairs from virtually anywhere! Visit https://sendyourmacbook.com to start your MacBook repair.

What’s Wrong With This MacBook?

This customer sent in their MacBook Pro to our store in New York City for our logic board repair service because it has no backlight on the screen. It appears to have some liquid damage.

How can we fix the issue?

Initial Diagnosis

The first thing we do with this MacBook is measure the resistance to ground on the backlight circuit with and without the LCD connected. With the LCD connected, we get 24 ohms to ground. WIth the LCD disconnected, we still only get around 320 Ohms to ground. This means that there is an issue with both the screen or screen cable and the logic board.

Repairing the board

The first thing we do here to rule out any issues with the connection to the LCD is replace the LCD connector. We remove the old one and replace it with a brand new connector. After this, we measure the voltage on the backlight circuit with the screen connected. We measure this to be 46.5V, which is the proper voltage. This board should be showing a light on the screen, however we suspect that this is now an issue with the LCD cable, rather than the board. After replacing this cable and running the board through the Ultrasonic cleaner, it should be fully functional again.

I can’t fix this myself. How do I get it fixed?

Rossmann Repair Group offers MacBook Logic Board Repair Services in New York City. Our MacBook Repair is not limited to NYC though, we accept mail-in repairs from virtually anywhere! Visit https://rossmanngroup.com/macbook-logic-board-repair/  to start your MacBook repair.

What’s wrong with this MacBook?

This MacBook was sent to us for our MacBook Logic Board Repair Service in NYC because it didn’t turn on.

How can we fix the issue?

Initial diagnosis

First, we start off by observing that it pulls 200mA from the charger. This indicates that it has either a short on PPBUS_G3H, or the CPU VCORE rail is not present. Next, we check the power rails required for the machine to turn on. PPBUS_G3H, PP5V_S5, PP5V_S4, and PP5V_S0 are all present. However, CPU VCore and ALL_SYS_PWRGD are not present.

Next, we check the schematic to see what creates ALL_SYS_PWRGD, as that is required before VCore can be present. We find all rails normal except PP1V35_S3, which instead of 1.35v is measuring at 2.7V. After checking the area around the chip responsible for that rail, we find that its pins are corroded.

Repairing the Board

This board came in with what we thought was no liquid damage. However, upon inspection of U7400, we found some corrosion around the pins. This chip is on the PP1v35_S3 rail, which is measuring the incorrect voltage. This means that this chip is likely the culprit here. After replacing the chip, we see that the machine now has a green light on the charger and has fanspin, and fanspin means the computer is now functional again.

I can’t fix this myself. How do I get it fixed?

Rossmann Repair Group repairs MacBooks in New York City. Our MacBook Repair is not limited to NYC though, we accept mail-in repairs from virtually anywhere! Visit https://sendyourmacbook.com to start your MacBook repair.