Re: laptop serial port

[SMS <scharf.steven@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Matt Ion wrote:
> SMS wrote:
>> Matt Ion wrote:
>>
>>> I've run into a couple machines recently that the PS/2 ports have
>>> simply stopped working on... these little gems have saved the day.
>>
>>
>> Often the picofuse on the +5V line will blow. It's replaceable if
>> you're good at soldering.
>
> There is that... but $25 for an adapter is a lot cheaper and easier than
> an hour or more of my time to pull all the cards, remove the board,
> desolder one fuse, find an appropriate replacement, solder it back in,
> and reassemble everything, and pray that that was the actual fix :)

You don't have to use a fuse, just jumper it. The fuse is there because
of stupid UL requirement, where they are worried that a short in the
keyboard cable will heat the cable up and start a fire. When I worked at
a motherboard company, we didn't use a fuse for countries where the
safety agency didn't require it. I couldn't believe that is was actually
any cheaper to put in a jumper than a fuse, but it saved about 3 cents
per motherboard, and we were manufacturing hundreds of thousands of
boards per month.