Oct 14, 2026, 8:55 PMI love hearing about hardware problems where it's like "well that can't have broken that way, just from doing that" and then there's follow-up and NOPE, it's really broken that way, from doing exactly that. huh. Computers are weird.
Oct 14, 2026, 8:57 PM@foone back in the 2000s my brother's GPU died from unplugging the DVI connector while the computer was switched on. we later found a tiny line in the manual that said it was not hot-pluggable. we got a warranty replacement anyway because lmao what.
Oct 14, 2026, 8:58 PM@foone my guess is maybe ESD caused it, but honestly I've got no clue how that particular failure occurred.
@gsuberland @foone maybe due to the order the pins disconnected, causing current to flow in unexpected ways?
Oct 14, 2026, 10:25 PM
@foone That's in a similar headspace as my least favorite "It's working but I have no idea why. The code as-is should just fall over and catch fire if run."
I see it working, I just can't connect what it's doing to the instructions it's supposedly running.
@foone I once had a broken (like, physically) USB port on a Thinkpad, and the hotline argued with me, saying that any broken plastics must automatically be the customers fault. I still got them go replace it on my warranty plan, because wtf *that* should *not* break *there*.
I later ran an experimental series on a cheap USB hub and it turned out: yes, if you lever/tilt it just right, you can very easily break off the inner plastic tongue on a USB A port while unplugging a cable.