wrong that fuse in the hard drive caddy is for THE HEATING ELEMENT you just peeled off from around the hard drive they use the for the hdd to be able to work in ice cold climate
@@psivewri from what i know it is not always active i think it either uses the hdd temp sensor or uses a dedicated temp sensor on the motheboard of the laptop
My guess is that these Panasonic “tough books” were the civilian version of it. I just found one behind the dumpsters yesterday, a model CF - 27EB6GQCM. The screen is not cracked. All the keys are there. And it does not look like anybody hit it with an ax. But it had been out in the weather for sometime. I just cleaned it up as best I could this morning. Can anybody tell me about this particular model?
In my previous employment at MNC we used that toughbook a lot on field and in office, we needed one dedicated man to manoeuvre 2 panasonic toughbooks. There were 2 battery slots and we used to swap those during machine testing, our servant would quickly run to office to charge those batteries. Once the toughbook fell off from 10 feet height from machine on concrete. I was shocked that it didn’t bend the thing nor display was cracked. Once when I was on machine and machine was in running condition, due to jerk it fell off my hand and our 11.5 tonnes machine passed over it. We were shocked to see that at first but when we opened the laptop only display was cracked. The toughbook was insured hence panasonic repaired it. But the company did fired me.
Toughbooks are amazing. We used to use one at our Ford dealership with Ford software to do a lot of things, they are incredibly slow but holy crap are they tough. Ours has never failed.
What i due is put a drive in my laptop and install windows 8.1 (no activation needed since my laptop came with it) and then i upgrade it to 10 with the media creation tool and pop it into the computer i need it for
Cf-19's are actually one of the easier tough books to find parts for. They refreshed it so they reused the chassis and all of the ports and fitting for two different models (older ones were core 2 duos the refreshers were core architecture 3rd generation). Parts are expensive though that is for sure. I served as an army reservist and we had some cf-28's in our unit. We were given the option to purchase them (minus the hdd's and unfortunately the hdd shock mount caddies) for pretty reasonable. I still have it all these years later and it still works fine.
Damn, really really enjoyed this video. Your content just gets better and better. It's so refreshing to see such a great Australian tech RU-vidr. Thanks from Regional NSW
I have two . A cf-18 which is ex police which I am looking at some sort of cyber deck project with and a CF52 (i5 model) which lives in van for general computing in workshop etc.
Well, they are not same generation machines at all, the most trashed one is Core2Duo based while the more decent one is 3rd gen i5, probably like 5 years newer.
The motherboard could have had issues. Even if the motherboard posts doesn't mean it is fault free. Most are junked for parts or get sold on ebay. Personally I wouldn't touch a toughbook on ebay that has missing parts like batter, hard drive and ram because there could have been a good reason why it was stripped.
I currently hand these out to my fueling tech's here in California. We give them the CF-53 models. They have i5 3000/4000 series CPU and i give them 8GB of ram along with 256GB ssd and windows 10 and they handle amazing.
Awesome video. I got a Toughbook CF-31 free at a contract gig I did a few years ago. I bumped up the ram and added an SSD and it’s great. It plays retro games great and the burner is really nice. It is a GREAT machine for outdoor DJ’s as it’s weatherproof. Greetings from Atlanta, GA! Glad you’re healing up!
Excellent in depth over view of your "Toughbook" findings. I remember seeing these whilst in the Military. Thought they were very interesting but also very expensive. I like the hammer to the bottom plate exploit you found. It's a weak spot.
Great video! I still have a CF29 running XP with over 30k hours, and it's in pristine condition (ex police unit, mostly sat in a car) with an SSD and new battery added. I still keep it around for old phone system programming tools that only run on XP. Even the old ones still have a lot of life for simple jobs such as running a CNC on a shop floor, data collection at a farm or factory, etc.
That's not a challenge. I would love one of those. I currently rock a custom Dell M6300 17" beast. I absolutely love it. Screw thin and light. Hello durable laptops with actual port selection :)
I bought on ex mil one several years ago for $200. to run specialist vehicle diagnostic software, It does all asked of it and has been left out in the rain, dropped violently off a vehicle roof being backed out of the bay and left for more than 6 months without being charged when it was 'lost' and following a charge up it works fine. Its about to get a memory upgrade for now and was in use all day yesterday helping repair an old Jaguar.
I don't know what surprised me more, the fact that this thing had such good specs or that you used a flamethrower. 😁 Either way, nice video as always. 👍
I’m excited to get my tough pad I just found one for 150$ upgraded with a ssd and new battery im a handyman and can’t wait to put all my manuals and easy guides for troubleshooting and documentation and sever support is awsome!
Those things are awesome for anyone who likes to do astrophotography. They have all the necessary ports (rs232) and are nearly immune to dew, cold temperatures and frost. They can also be bought extremely cheap at the start of every year, because that's the time when governments replace them with newer models.
I have 7 ToughBooks 3 CF30, 1 CF19, 2 CF18, 1 CF-28 and I got them all working... you have a lot of what I already have and I guess that's why I like your channel :)
I just got a CF19mk5 from an eBay seller. The office IT mgr said the price was very good for the features, so I went ahead and made the purchase. He was able to get it running as it was missing a few drivers. I use it for tethered photo shoots to get images to the network server and it does well at that. I have also always wanted to own one of these, but yes they were over US$4K new. I am now considering a rugged Dell refurbished model for about US1K, because I have always felt that laptops are quite flimsy and won’t survive field work, including coffee shop trips. Nice video. Take care.
I used to have one of those at one my jobs and I will say that was my one of my favorite PCs. They are phenomenal computers for work and if you prone to dropping them. They'll survive a couple of falls. :)
Damn this brings back some golden memories. These laptoips are absolutely awesome and almost bulletproof. When I was teaching English in Japan, one of my students was an engineer at Panasonic and would always bring in toughbook laptop and tablet prototypes to practice making presentations to potential clients, such as oil companies and various militaries around the world. I couldn't say anything to anyone of course but I did get to play with their latest and greatest for a few years until 2019 when I left.
You have to remember these laptops by Panasonic and Getac are designed to run old software made in the 90s and 2000s. Both the military and the industries that use these laptops don't need sophisticated software, at least not yet.
I’m an emt at the is what we have in our ambulances. They are pretty good and are super durable through the elements and snap into its holder on the ambo wall very nicely.
I saw the specs and i immediately said "yes, you can". I mean, a 1.86Ghz Core 2 Duo T5550 is still usable today, with an SSD ofc. I expected one of the older Toughbooks, like the 2004 models.
Nice video. I picked up a fun anecdote off the internet a few years ago. In the early-mid 2000's, a Navy Seabees (Construction) unit was evaluating the Toughbooks for a large government order. Someone was given the obviously false premise that they were "indestructible". So the demonstrator unit was found to have dropped off a multi-story building, hit a pile of rebar on the way down and got run over by a skid loader. Someone important found it and needless to say, they didn't get any more toughbooks that year.
I would love to have one of these! Sadly, I don't have money for one. And yeah, it's crazy to use one! It's so thick even compared to my old laptop, a Lenovo B50-45 from 2014.
what a beauty you got there. also I have an HP monitor with 5k hours on it and I used to have a laptop with 4k hours on it. needless to say, I love my products when i use them.
1:37 that was definitely from a cop, firefighter or ems worker writing a nasty gram to the dispatcher who just dispatched them to the crap call they’re going to XD.
I have tons of CF-30 and CF-31 models. I used to throw them down concrete stairs while powered on with the original HDD and they barely had a scratch and worked perfectly without a hitch.
We use these at the fisheries research place where I work, and I gotta say they are nuts. We've had fish splash all over them, dropped them, consistently toss them in the back of our trucks, and use them in extreme temperature fluctuations (from -10F to 90F). They have stood the test of time and still function great. If you're an outdoors guy and want to bring a laptop out while camping or guiding people fishing, this is the computer to get, period. They are awesome. Especially the CF-53
The thinkpad series(before skylake) is tough enough for normal outdoor working condition, but you still add some caps to the usb, displayport, e-sata ports to prevent dust intrusion, I love T530, because it has 105 degree celsius TjMAX that means you don't worry about the CPU hit the temperature upper limit that causes thermal-throttling, you just need clean the CPU-radiator every two years.
I have used and worked on those laptops as a warranty vendor for a customer. Panasonic limited the work I could do in the field to basically ordering batteries and HDDs and RAM etc. On dome models I think the CPU came out the bottom if needed (but I never even bothered). Parts are not hard to come by, but Panasonic will not give OEM parts to anyone. They make it extremely difficult. If you want OEM warranty repair (even if you pay for onsite service), you end up sending in the laptop for service in one of their clean rooms.
I have a CF27 and a CF74 that both fine. The CF74 even runs Windows 10. My newest Toughbook is a CF-C2 which can convert to a tablet. Super battery life and plenty fast with an SSD. Only complaint is low volume from one tiny speaker so use earbuds.
For most people I think a Lenovo think book would be a good choice. They are pretty sturdy laptops that are going to survive a drop or 2. I just bought a X250 for about 230usd. A average price in my country,but from a refurbishment centre that gives me 5year warranty. I have to say I am happy with my purchase.
@@realslimsh8y yeah, and its currently with me. 4 hour battery life, 4gb ram, SSD and everything all for basically $5 not quick at all but took it to a beach with me and it rocked through the sand
Changing the shutter speed will often remedy the rolling shutter issue. As I said in the video it is caused by the pulse width modulation. You can't do anything about a shitty screen backlight.
yes buy one. I use mine for network diagnosis and a machine to program my radios and gps deevice while camping. Its also my n64/entertainment/work machine, i take mine with me to every fire season and shes tough. most problems come from the driver installation process. You have to install the drivers in order as well any 2.5 ssd or hdd will work in the hdd enclosure as well. I run windows 10 and kali wl2 in hypervisor mode.dont install linux itself on them unless you have experience compiling and building your own os because everything will be broken and most of the hardware wont be recognized off the bat.Seriously these machines get a bad rap, but its a highly specialized machine with great usability. The running it over test is pretty realistic, I can see someone using it to interface with a canbus. aside from the wifi card you also destroyed the gps chip....
A MK6 CF-19 has been my main portable since 2014. Bought it from my employer when it was retired. I was not fond if its replacement and i kept using it at work. Its still quite snappy with a Samsung 1tb SSD and 16gb of hyperx 2133mhz ram.