Servers weren’t much of a problem, they’re mostly virtual and could be just restored from a backup. The several hundred workstations were a problem. They needed a physical touch. All are encrypted with BitLocker, requiring passkeys stored in AD. Over half are laptops. Most of those don’t have wired ethernet ports, and an account with local admin rights hasn’t logged in since the day they were imaged. Throw in a proper LAPS config, where randomly generated passwords of three dozen characters in length are also stored in AD…

… Yeah, today was a bad day.

I’ve got several years of experience riding motorcycles. It’s taught me to read traffic. I see a gap in a line of traffic like that, it’s either a driver who’s smart enough not to block an intersection (rare), or someone letting another someone out.

Well, what’s out there?

Upstate NY is just the cold weather version of the Bible Belt.

It tastes like sarcasm.

This whole thread is sarcasm, dipped in a whipped sarcasm batter, crusted with crushed sarcasm, then deep fried in a pure sarcastic oil for a sarcastically long time until it’s a nice even color. It’s then drizzled with a sarcastic reduction, and presented on china with a sarcastic pattern with accompanying cutlery.

I’ll do that. Should I be using the “Ender-3 4.2.2 mainboard (32bit)” firmware? I’ve read that the Marlin firmware isn’t compatible with the GD CPUs, so I’m assuming the “Ender-3Marlin2.0.6HW4.2.2GD” won’t work.

Update: support got back to me, with instructions to reflash using the latter firmware. The symptoms changed: during the firmware “upgrade”, the 05 LED flashes about once a second. I let it run for ten minutes, but the printer never rebooted. Powered it off, removed the SD card, powered it back on… Still nothing but a blue display, though the 05 LED keeps blinking once a second.

I’m thinking it’s a bad motherboard. Waiting on support, now.

I’ve got a laptop running Linux on it; connected it up at some point during my time with it. The laptop was able to see the USB to serial adapter, but I didn’t poke at it to see if anything was talking on the other side. I’ll try that today!

Checked for that, too. Both the original panel and the replacement only have one “port” for the cable on the back. The board has spots for two more to be connected, but both are missing. Looking at the front of the panel (as if I’m using it), the port is the left most of the three.

Gentoo. I’d tell you the version number, but I’m still compiling.

Just the basic Ender 3, I believe. No version number, so implied v1. Not a Pro, SE, or other appendment to the model.

That’s next on my list, if the replacement panel doesn’t fix the issue. Figured I’d go with the obvious solution first. Doesn’t help that I took a long look at the list of the firmware available for the Ender 3, and figured I’d cross that bridge another day. Creality does not make it simple to identify what’s what.

I picked up an inexpensive “open box - brand new” Ender 3 just after Christmas. Figured it was cheap enough to give up if I didn’t like it, with enough open routes to tweak and improve if I stuck with it.

The display panel shows only a blue screen after assembly,though. Oddly enough, the only part not sealed perfectly (in its antistatic bag) was the panel. Packing slip noted it had been previously returned as it was “ordered by mistake.” Got a feeling the prior owner swapped the panel out with a defective one, then returned it. Waiting on a replacement to ship out as a result.

Your projection is showing.

Do you see apartheid and genocide as political issues?

If Israel continues to treat the Palestinians as they have historically done so, it’s likely there will always be a Hamas or their equivalent.

" Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

Friedrich Nietzsche

Oh, Oliver boy, what did you do? But crushed a hand you never shook Then robbed the rights of people to be free Oh, Oliver boy, it’s a terrible state You left behind the worse off race Where dignity and pride fought for their place Oh, Oliver boy now you are gone And we’re still here where we belong Forgiveness being our strength you’ll never see

• Flogging Molly, “Oliver Boy”

You’re absolutely right. We have the choice between a shit sandwich, and a fifty five gallon drum of pig shit that’s been left out in the summer sun in Texas for six weeks.

Either way, shit’s on the menu, but the bread does make it a bit more palatable.

My parents got me a subscription to Family Computing. Spent way too many hours typing in the lines of BASIC code contained in each one, debugging my mistakes, and playing them. There’s a joke in there somewhere…