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DLink DIR-655 autopsy

On the dissection table today is the old D-Link DIR-655 wifi router that kept flaking out last year.

Getting the cover off wasn’t too difficult. Two screws hidden under the rubber feet are all that need to be removed. A little bit of gentle pushing and prying undid the clips that hold the top cover on revealing the guts of the beast.

Inside a DLink DIR-655 wifi router

The inside is relatively sparse. The large black boxes at the top are the RJ-45 connectors. Based on the icon printed on the HN4843CG and HN2443CG objects below them, I’d guess they’re isolation transformers for the RJ-45s. The bits under the metal shield are probably the wifi radio-related parts.

The large gray thing is some kind of stone-like substance acting as a heat sink for the large chip underneath. It’s held on by a piece of thermal tape. A little bit of prying popped it off pretty easily revealing an Atheros IC (AR 8316) which I think handles the ethernet stuff.

Gray stone-like object attached to a large integrated circuit on the main board of the DIR-655 router
Atheros AR 8316 IC

To the left of the shielded bit, the most interesting thing is an IC labeled MX25L6445EMI-10G which is a 64Mbit flash memory chip.

MX25L6445EMI-10G 64 Mbit flash memory chip

Underneath the RF shield are a few other large ICs: an Atheros AR9223 802.11b/g/n wifi module, an Ubicom IP7150U which appears to be the actual router controller and a Zentel A3R12E4JFF IC (SDRAM perhaps?).

ICs underneath the RF shield

I didn’t see anything obvious to explain why the router kept flaking out. The thermal tape holding the heatsink rock to the AR 8316 chip was mostly holding on by the edges and corners and the sticky part in the center area was shiny, suggesting it wasn’t making very good contact with the chip anymore. Overheating could certainly explain intermittent issues. Would be an easy fix with some new adhesive thermal compound and a low profile heatsink. The RF shield got mangled a bit in the removal process though, so this board is off to the workbench.

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Time to plan for car replacement

The Toyota’s seen a fair bit of work and has spent a fair amount of time in the shop so far this past year. Mostly things that have just worn out from age. Radiator, gaskets, engine mount, hoses, more gaskets.

Most receently, the check engine light has been persistently on due to issues in the emissions/vacuum system. Get one thing fixed, light comes back on with codes pointing at something else in the same system.

Now, considering the age of the car (15 years now), we’re starting to look at replacing the Toyota sooner rather than later.

Not sure what we’ll replace it yet, but it will be a newer older used car, probably about the same size. The folding rear seats with the opening into the trunk is very handy, so having that in the next car would be nice.

Car budget has taken a pretty big hit with all the recent repairs, so we’ll need to fill that back up before we go shopping.

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Castle Wolfenstein!

Not very long ago, the Internet Archive introduced the Internet Arcade, a huge collection of games from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I spent some time browsing around and found all sorts of classic games that I grew up with playing in the arcade and at home.

The other day, a random web page I was browsing made a reference to Wolfenstein 3D, which made me think of Castle Wolfenstein, a game I spent many hours playing on the Apple ][+ and //e.

I wandered over to the Internet Arcade to see if it was there, and sure enough, there it is: Castle Wolfenstein in all its low res glory, free to play in a DOSBox emulator right there in the browser. The manual for the Apple ][/][+ version is even available on the Internet Archive so you don’t have to press random keys trying to remember the controls.

Awesome.

There’s even Beyond Castle Wolfenstein (and manual) as well, another game I spent many hours playing.

The Arcade is a place to hang out again 🙂

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Charleston Eats: Marco’s Pizza James Island

Newish location of Marco’s Pizza opened up next door to the Publix on James Island so we gave it a try.

We had a sausage and meatball pizza. Pretty decent, lots of meat.

MarcosPizza.jpgBig chunks of sausage and whole meatballs cut in half, not slices like you might expect from chains or takeout places.

Nice place. Not fancy, not a whole lot of seating (3 booths, a few seats by the window and a couple of 2-top tables) but reasonably comfy. Most of the customers we saw while eating were coming in for pick-up/take out orders.

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An early start to the 2015 hurricane season

The 2015 storm season got off to an early start a couple of days ago with Ana, which started off as a subtropical system and got upgraded to a tropical storm yesterday.

It skirted by Charleston making things breezy with occasional rain the last couple of days. Ana made landfall around Myrtle Beach this morning.

According to my blogmemory, the last time a storm popped up this early was back in 2007 with TS Andrea. That year ended up being a kind of busy-ish but uneventful storm season.

Hopefully this year will be similar.