The HP Printer USB Sticker Trick Also Works for Thermaltake PSUs | Hacker News Reader

The HP Printer USB Sticker Trick Also Works for Thermaltake PSUs

full.pr0gramm.com

82 pointsalpenbazi56 comments

Just because it has the ports doesn't mean it has the internals to support them. I would check that before doing anything not to spec... it's a power supply.

Those connectors are soldered to the PWB, it wouldn't make sense to do that unless the internal components were also soldered.

And if some of the used caps are smaller you are in for a hell of a debug. The PWB only transports from one endpoint to another it's not a componnt.

If they bothered to mount extra connector they didn't bother to remove rest of the parts, I'd imagine the connector is connected to same power rail anyway.

It's still probably at wattage as advertised, but I wouldn't be surprised if some models that differ by "only" 100W had only difference being current limit resistor set on the different value.

> If they bothered to mount extra connector they didn't bother to remove rest of the parts

This is not true, as a rule, even if it is true here. Sibling comments point out that the void left by the missing connector would be tricky to fill.

There are a variety of other reasons that it might not be worth their time to change or omit the $.08 connector, but it would be worth their time to remove e.g. the expensive $3 voltage regulator IC.

But to your point, the same logic may be applied to the sticker-vs-PCB tradeoff, and it may turn out that they are identical. Someone disassembling them and comparing the circuits would be able to determine between the two cases.

Wildly in my experience (at least at the hobby level) it's the connector that $3 and the IC that's $0.08

Exactly. The connectors are easily the biggest cost to most pcb boms

See how it fills the void left by the case. It might not be easier to replace it with a blank instead, and a different case is expensive due to NRE.

Does it though? Is that connector actually functional? And if it is, does the PSU inside have the required wattage or will it trip when you plug something into it?

It's also possible that they put stick on that hole because it turn out the products did not meet the requirement it originally designed to meet. Plug into both holes at same time actually trip it? Let's just cover one of them and ship.

Extremely unlikely, PSUs are not built in the way where that would be really possible

Someone get that person a nail care routine!

From what the skin above the nailbeds looks like, the person probably has a retinol deficiency. Please get them some cod liver cans as well.

I'm out of the loop. Could someone explain the original trick ?

The HP trick was that HP started shipping “WiFi only” printers, they put a sticker over the USB port saying something like “for service only” or something similar to encourage the user to connect and use the printer over WiFi. However if you peeled the sticker away and plugged in a USB cable you could still use the printer like normal.

I’m guessing thermaltake did the same, hiding some pins behind a sticker because that’s cheaper than creating a whole new version of an existing product.

Apparently there's more to this. They're blocking the usb port to get the user to set up over wifi first, not because it's non functional. Why does a printer need to be set up over wifi? Because certain models are tied to hp ink's subscription service and sold at a discount.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37007036

This is exactly what they do.

Not to worry, they also region lock the ink as well.

I wonder what happens when car companies increasingly connect their vehicles to cell towers?

Things such as this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37971038

They will make using an app on a vendor-locked smartphone the only way to unlock the doors, start the engine etc.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscription...

(I believe they rolled it back after an outcry)

People have started identifying and pulling the fuses on vehicles' cell radios. I would also be interested in digging down to the radio itself and replacing the antenna with a dummy load.

That may create a parasitic battery drain if I radio is constantly seeking connection to a cell tower and not finding it. Subaru experienced a similar problem with their StarLink service after the 3G network shut down, car batteries started draining while trying to talk to towers that no longer existed.

Buy HP from costco. They don't have the DRM.

Better still is to not reward companies for customer-hostile design and buy a different brand. Brother laser printers are my recommendation as ink-jets end up costing a lot more and involve more faffing around with trying to clear dried nozzles after they're not used for a while.

Brother printers are really something. I recently replaced my old Brother laser with a new one and was surprised to find that it's just as "it just works" as the last one was (which was also surprising).

I connected it to the network, and boom, everything I have can print. Didn't need to install drivers on most things (but the printer utility is handy). You can send it documents via IPP, but also any other protocol that might be a good way to get a document to a printer, including USB, POP3, IMAP, LPR, and like a dozen other options. It feels like one of their engineers sat down at one point and just went through every possible protocol they could think of and implemented a module for it, and they just kept it that way for the last 10+ years.

Plus second-hand toner just works, no DRM, and toner is relatively cheap all in all. I'm not getting screwed by them on printing cost, and if I were I can go somewhere else for my consumables.

Can I ask what model you have?

brother has in the past pushed automatic updates to lock out third party toner

Or don't buy HP =)

Was the wifi only printer cheaper for the consumer? I mean they would save a few pennies for not needing to ship a USB cable but I can't see that being a big enough win for them to add a step to their manufacturing process to add that sticker. Same with the PSU on the photo, although in that case I can imagine they were able to remove some more of the internals and target a different market.

Also, this reminds me of a common CPU manufacturing practice; most CPUs from a generation are the exact same, except that the ones with flaws in them will have that part of the CPU disabled / severed and the unit sold as a slower and cheaper model.

Just recently brought my brother a cheap cannon inkjet [1] and that didn't come with a USB cable, I don't think (esp at the lower end) they give two craps about bundling a cable any more because either the customer already has one (which my brother did) or they will just pick one up at the same time as getting the printer.

> Also, this reminds me of a common CPU manufacturing practice; most CPUs from a generation are the exact same, except that the ones with flaws in them will have that part of the CPU disabled / severed and the unit sold as a slower and cheaper model.

Happens in the oscilloscope market all the time, create one unit per "family" of products and keep locking features away until you have created every model between the bells and whistles and the budget models (Obv its hard to "software lock" extra channels :-P but I've seen even sample rate/memory depth being software limited, and big jumps in sample size/memory depth will often have different internals), as for placing a sticker on a unit, well the printer out of the box is covered in stickers to prevent things moving about during shipping so I don't see it that much of a PITA to add one more over a USB port to encourage the user onto the network to make it easier for it to phone home. (though that doesn't "explain" the PSU case, just gonna presume that it doesn't cost too much in labor where the PSU is manufactured/packaged to add a sticker)

[1] yes, yes, I know, shoulda gone laser/led... And if it was for me I would have gone laser/led, But he aint the brightest tool in the shed, the cannon was cheap (so if it breaks its not the end of the world), printhead is in the cartridge so if it clogs, its just a new cartridge, and his old cheap inkjet lasted over 10 years before that died. And while he don't print a ton, he wants colour, not take up a ton of space, and not cost a fuck ton (he aint too bothered about on-going costs as he will just buy 3rd party ink from the local supermarket. So Inkjet it was.

side note: went cannon because fuck HP's Instant Ink BS :-P

Printers traditionally never come with cables.

It's not about the USB cable, it's about getting the device on the purchaser's network so it can phone home with all kinds of juicy telemetry that may (in the case of consumables) or may not (in the case of other data gathered from the network) have anything to do printing.

HP (and printer manufacturers generally) have long led the way in enshittification.

In the case of HP, it's because they sell printers where you get a discount on the price of the hardware if you promise to sign up for an ink subscription, and that requires the printer to phone home with the ink levels.

It's not just in CPUs. The government stipulates this in munitions that are sold / given / whatever to other countries, including allies. They agree to send bombs with guidance accurate to 10m, then send some bombs capable of guidance accurate to 1m, but with that capability locked out.

Source: I interviewed for a job attempting to hack these munitions to re-enable the functionality, as a cross-check that they were locked out well.

> they would save a few pennies for not needing to ship a USB cable

Very few printers I've unboxed actually shipped with a USB-cable... They always use USB-B ports which nobody has cables for and seldom include a cable in the packaging, infuriating.

I’m old/crusty enough to remember parallel cables not being shipped with printers.

What do you mean "old enough"? They still don't ship parallel cables with printers. :D

I've done this when executives decry any PC with PS/2 ports as obsolete, but are perfectly happy with the same PC sans PS/2 ports.

I remember older PCs that shipped with graphics card - but had onboard graphics, too. They’d cover the VGA port on the motherboard so that customers would plug into the right one.

But if you configured windows right, you could use both and have a second monitor.

Some HP printers had USB port covered by a sticker with warning not to use it, but it works just fine.

https://boingboing.net/2023/08/04/hp-printer-usb-port-covere...

I think it's something along the lines of there being a model of HP printer which was advertised as being wifi-only, and apparently had no USB port, but if you removed a strategically-placed sticker you'd find this was a lie.

Judging by the picture, that CPU has a sticker over one of the power ports. Just peel it back and you've upgraded your PSU.

A quick google confirms that some HP Printers have USB ports that are covered similarly, but with a warning not to use it, rather than just being hidden.

Sir, did you just call that PSU a CPU?

This reminds me of the late 90s computer illiteracy... the monitor was the "computer", and the computer was the "hard drive" :)

Well, seeing that a modern Apple monitor has the guts of an iPhone 11 and runs a version of iOS…

And everything was the modem.

Today everything is a router.

My router is a firewall, VPN, DNS server, file server, print server, media server, and Docker host. Like, what can't it do?

BTW, I don't use most of those services but it's advertised with them.

It probably is to some extent, too.

OMG. Yup, I did. I have no defense for this.

Edit: I got it right the second time, though! :D

Nothing wrong with a Central Power Unit!

Unlike the hidden USB sticker, this is a power supply that is sending high current through its wires/connectors... please be careful for your own sake

Edit: fixed a technical issue about current & voltage

Nitpick but a PSU is not sending a lot of voltage through its wires, quite the opposite: it is sending low voltage but high current.

Also to your point, a sticker than can fall at any moment shouldn't be relied upon for safety.

Thank you for the correction and I do agree with you on the 2nd part

I would never buy any hp product again. They used to do pretty solid engineering, but now it's just a money grab. Bring back Woz!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com