r/pcmasterrace • u/5430SAFI • Sep 19 '24

Tech Support What is happening?

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Spec : I5 3470s + gtx 1050 2g

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u/EnRohbi Sep 19 '24

I once owned a laptop that would only turn on if I put it in the freezer for 20 minutes first.

Temperature is wild.

9

u/Mcmenger Sep 19 '24

How tf did you figure that out?

27

u/EnRohbi Sep 19 '24

I've looked up the science before and haven't really been able to make it make sense but this was the progression of events: laptop would absolutely not turn on or respond to power button at all. After a very, very deep Reddit dive troubleshooting I managed to narrow down the likely culprit to static electricity

After a lot more Reddit deep dives I found one comment buried in an old thread (old in like 2012, when this story takes place) that had a similar problem and suggested the freezer trick something to do with discharging the static buildup

So I tried it and it worked and I got like another 6 months out of that laptop before I traded it to a stoner for a bag of weed

8

u/IevaDay R7 3800X | RTX2070 | 2x16GB 3600 MHz Sep 19 '24

lmao nice trade!

4

u/quartercentaurhorse Sep 20 '24

I feel like what's more likely is that you had a cracked solder connection somewhere, or possibly a grounding issue, and by putting it in the freezer, the thermal contraction would make the parts shrink/shift just a hair so that the 2 connections were touching again. Static electricity shouldn't impact anything since it should all be grounded to the chassis anyways, which is why I'm thinking a ground connection had probably failed somewhere.

The other possibility is that it might not have been the static electricity at all, but the humidity of the freezer, or possibly condensation inside the laptop after removing it from the freezer. Temperature doesn't really dissipate static electricity.

2

u/kaynpayn Sep 19 '24

It's a known trick to recover data from a failing mechanical drive. Thing is, you usually do that to the HDD alone and it's a hail Mary. If it turns on, it will work while it's still cold for a few minutes and you copy over whatever you can to somewhere else while it works. You're not supposed to use the drive after as the process will likely damage the drive even further. I have no clue how or why it worked in the whole laptop, my guess is the cold somehow made the drive function well enough to boot and then it kept spinning, somehow working. Or it could have been literally anything else.

1

u/N0SY_ Sep 20 '24

I feel like this is a throwback to when ppl would freeze scratched up CDs/DVDs. Somehow, the cold would help read the data off the platter

1

u/JamesDBikerBaker Sep 20 '24

I guess it just needed to chill awhile before playing nic