One of the many Microsoft Intellimice i have kicked the bucket.
It would randomly give usb errors and die... I did find some cracked solder joints on the internal PCB but resoldering had no effect.
anyway, since I have a few others, I happened to notice that the dead one and my other 3 are not the same.
Background info: The dead one was from a thrift store. the other 3 are from Purdue university surplus.
for these pictures, the dead one is on the left and the good one is on the right.
you can see the good one is yellowed... cosmetically it is kinda ugly, hence why I bought the one that died (It was used with my laptop). form this view, nothing else looks different.
BUT:
from the bottom, the labeling is obviously different.
even the shells are different... note that the dead one has the 2 screws missing... also, there are 2 gray supports that are in different locations, disallowing the swapping of shells.
but the biggest difference:
The guts are obviously not the same... the dead one is all on one PCB, while the good one is split into 3. ironically, the switches and usb connector are all in the same spot. also, the good one uses 1 small 'lytic cap, while the dead one uses 2 larger caps.
the only other ting the mice have in common is they both use the same brand cap... wincap (ironic that that brand was found in a microsoft product?)
from the looks of the revisions marked, the dead one appears to be a newer build... and also a cheaper build. when resoldering the dead mouse, the single sided PCB seemed very cheap and i was surprised the traces didn't lift off on me. also, I noted that the dead one used clips not screws to hold in the pcb and shell components, unlike the good one.
my only guess to why they changed a good product was since this model was once a top tier product but became lower tier as laser, 4-way scroll, and cordless mice became the high end products and cost became more important than quality.
Any comments?
It would randomly give usb errors and die... I did find some cracked solder joints on the internal PCB but resoldering had no effect.
anyway, since I have a few others, I happened to notice that the dead one and my other 3 are not the same.
Background info: The dead one was from a thrift store. the other 3 are from Purdue university surplus.
for these pictures, the dead one is on the left and the good one is on the right.
you can see the good one is yellowed... cosmetically it is kinda ugly, hence why I bought the one that died (It was used with my laptop). form this view, nothing else looks different.
BUT:
from the bottom, the labeling is obviously different.
even the shells are different... note that the dead one has the 2 screws missing... also, there are 2 gray supports that are in different locations, disallowing the swapping of shells.
but the biggest difference:
The guts are obviously not the same... the dead one is all on one PCB, while the good one is split into 3. ironically, the switches and usb connector are all in the same spot. also, the good one uses 1 small 'lytic cap, while the dead one uses 2 larger caps.
the only other ting the mice have in common is they both use the same brand cap... wincap (ironic that that brand was found in a microsoft product?)
from the looks of the revisions marked, the dead one appears to be a newer build... and also a cheaper build. when resoldering the dead mouse, the single sided PCB seemed very cheap and i was surprised the traces didn't lift off on me. also, I noted that the dead one used clips not screws to hold in the pcb and shell components, unlike the good one.
my only guess to why they changed a good product was since this model was once a top tier product but became lower tier as laser, 4-way scroll, and cordless mice became the high end products and cost became more important than quality.
Any comments?
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