Lenovo Yoga 730-13IKB Keyboard Replacement

Lenovo Yoga 730-13IKB Keyboard Replacement

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Something I wish I knew before picking the Lenovo 730-13IKB in a super-sale open box deal. The Yoga 730-13IKB has 2 really common, and pretty unforgiveable, problems. One is display flickering issues and keyboards that have keys that are randomly flaky. I got the display fixed while it was under warranty (after trying re-seating of the display cable through the hinge and only getting a little improvement), but it went out of warranty when I started having keyboard issues. I would often have the A,S,D keys stop working, but it wasn’t always consistent and was sometimes different keys. One solution that helped was to pull the bottom off, clean the contacts, and re-seat the keyboard connection. That, however, only worked for a little while until it started again.

Time to replace the keyboard with a new one – fortunately it was only $29 in 2021. As for how to do it, It’s Binh Repaired & Reviewed gives a great disassembly demonstration. The most annoying part is the removal of the black plastic wrap over the keyboard. I actually tore the backlight layer – but since my replacement kit had a new one I just tossed the old one. Once you’ve done that, it seems to go pretty well.

Now it appears to work perfectly, hopefully it will continue to do so.

Update 2022: I gave up. The first keyboard worked ok for a few months, then started loosing different keys. I replaced it with another one, and after a few months that one too started having failed keys. I would recommend buying a full price OEM one if you must try this. But I ended up buying a new laptop instead of dropping $100 on a replacement keyboard. I just put it towards $500 for buying a nice lenovo laptop that works as I need it.

ASUS Maximus Z690 Hero failures

ASUS Maximus Z690 Hero failures

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UPDATE: ASUS has issued a recall. You can check the capacitor, or check the serial and part numbers. See the bottom of this article.

I recently bought an ASUS Maximus Z690 Hero for my new i9-12900K build. In the last few weeks since release, some people are reporting their ASUS Z690 motherboards are burning up and quit working. Fortunately for me, I have been unable to find DDR5 memory, so my board is still sitting in the box – which is fortunate because it appears the board I got his this very issue.

What is the issue? Reporters say the system runs for some time, then there is often an audible pop and the system hangs. People report smelling smoke and even seeing the upper corner of the board glowing. After powering down, there is damage to the upper corner of the board by the digital readout. Powering on the board throws code 53 and never reboots.

As more reports came in, they seemed to focus on these two 4C10B MOSFET components getting fried.

Buildzoid started looking at these reports and noticed something strange. The boards that are blowing up have a capacitor that appears to be backwards. These polymer-aluminum polarized capacitors have defined positive and negative electrodes. According to the specs on these types of capacitors, if you reverse the polarity accidently (i.e. if you put them in backwards) then leakage current will increase and ‘the life span may decrease’. This would explain why they might work for a short time, but then burn out.

Here’s a picture of a burned up board with the backwards capacitor. You can see the polarity stripe on the left. All the boards that appear ok have the positive stripe on the right.

There is no official word from ASUS on this yet, but a big reddit thread has basically concluded that this is the issue and discourage anyone from using these boards immediately. If they happen to blow when you are away, the system does not always power down and could present a real fire hazard as people have reported the components becoming glowing hot by the time they can even shut the system down.

Give buildzoid’s whole video a watch:

also JayTwoCents.

12/29/2021 Update: Here’s the recall information from ASUS

We have recently received incident reports regarding the ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard. In our ongoing investigation, we have preliminarily identified a potential reversed memory capacitor issue in the production process from one of the production lines that may cause debug error code 53, no post, or motherboard components damage. The issue potentially affects units manufactured in 2021 with the part number 90MB18E0-MVAAY0 and serial number starting with MA, MB, or MC.

eSports Medicine

eSports Medicine

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Did you know competitive gaming is now a $1.5 billion industry (the NHL is a $2-3 billion industry)? Did you know that 50% of competitive college eSports players have persistent back pain? Did you know that nobody has academically studied the long-term use of game controllers on wrist and hand issues?

Enter the new science of esports medicine. Growing numbers of physicians and physiatrists are starting to study this field. Enter new medicine programs like the New York Institute of Technology’s esports medicine program, Cleveland Clinic, GamerDoc, and others. They are starting to study, publish, and work with the unique injuries and problems that competitive gamers encounter.

Data revealed that the players’ trained an average of 5 to 10 hours per day with many reporting physical injury. Common physical complaints included eye fatigue (56%), neck and back pain (42%), wrist pain (36%) and hand pain (32%). Only about 2% of them sought medical attention.

This is an interesting field of study – because gamers are basically the accelerated version of your average office worker. Studies on competitive gamers seem (at least to my eyes) to have the same kind of injuries that long-time office workers and programmers like myself experience. Perhaps studies on these players can reveal some improvements for all computer users.

Some of the tricks I have learned over time, though I only have anecdotal evidence. I started having some wrist discomfort when I was using the exact same mouse at work and home. I loved the mouse, but I realized I was now using the same hand hold not for 8 hours a day, but 12-15 hours. I swapped mice on my work computer, attended to hourly stretches, and the problem went away. 15 years later, and still don’t have a problem. It’s harder to have a repetitive injury if you’re not repeating the exact same motions by using very different input devices.

  • Use completely different makes, models, and styles of keyboards and mice on all your systems. Example: I have a lighter touch Steelcase keyboard and simple and large 2 button wheel mouse for my work computer. I use a Corsair gaming keyboard and 7 button Logitech gaming mouse for my home pc. Each laptop has one of those low profile keyboards and a wireless portable Logitech mouse. They are as different as I can make them in spacing, pressure, hand size, etc.
  • When working, stop every 1-2 hours (60 min is best) and stretch your hands, massage your forearms, and move your neck/shoulders/arms. There’s lots of techniques – but find REPUTABLE medical stretches (your company has probably paid a bunch of money to consultant firms to give training. Use it – because those people teach techniques that withstand lawsuits).
  • Support your wrists and mouse hand and arm. I love the bead-filled IMAK Ergo wrist and IMAK keyboard rests. I actually prefer the normal ones without the non-skid backing as you can move them around easier.
  • Get regular monthly massages for neck, shoulders, back and especially your arms and hands.
  • Replace your mice/keyboard with new ones every 1-2 years – with completely different makes/models. Even if they are fine.
  • Have reasonable physically regime/fitness – base level fitness improves and helps all kinds of injuries. Unlike mechanical devices, our bodies actually require a regular amount of physical work. Sitting around for long periods hurts us.
Funhouse Die Hard

Funhouse Die Hard

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Time to celebrate one of the best Christmas movies around – Die Hard.

Funhouse Lounge here in Portland has done a Die Hard musical parody show for several years now. This year is no different and all the shows almost immediately sold out. However, given the COVID situation, they also graciously provided a streaming option. I gave it a watch, and recommend you do too – but hurry – there are only a few streaming opportunities left.

Ancient Ethiopian Transformation Magic

Ancient Ethiopian Transformation Magic

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Magic was outlawed in Ethiopia in the 15th century. Presented here and stored in the British Library, is an ancient Ethiopian manuscript with prayers to perform magical transformations (such as turning into a lion or other creatures). Curator Eyob Derillo describes what is in the text and how historians study it to understand ancient African magic beliefs.

Just looking at the text, it appears to be beautifully illustrated. I wonder if you can get downloaded scans…

Super Nintendo programming series

Super Nintendo programming series

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Retro Game Mechanics Explained is a great series on retro game console programming. If you ever wanted to know how the cake is baked, this is a great channel.

One of the best series up so far is how to program the SNES system. His 16 part series talks about background effects, lag & blanking, DMA and HDMA, memory mapping, color math, hardware registers, background modes 0-6, and the infamous mode 7. It is one of the better explanations of mode 7 that I have seen (though folks with a more formal background in graphics might explain it with with affine transforms alone)

He also covers individual games and topics such as how the Atari 2600 ‘Raced the beam’, Atari quadrascan, pokemon sprite decompression, Pac-Man arcade’s famous kill screen, Mario’s wrong warp, and many other fun topics.