Greetings from the MidWest!

[pxfbird]

Also, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I'm Tisha and hail from Iowa. I enjoy console and PC gaming both, no real preference. I've been more on PC the last year because the PS3 I was using has been broken for about a year. lol Thought I'd take that time to try to get through some of my Steam backlog, of which I've barely made a dent. lol
I was really bummed this last time my PS3 went down because I was in the middle of GTA V story and it's the farthest I've ever gotten in GTA (since usually I am getting into mischief and outrunning the cops - lol). It also wasn't backed up to my Plus so my save is stuck on that console. -_- (I still despise Sony for locking the HDD to each console versus just locking stuff to our usernames....) Recently I rebought GTA V on Steam for my bf so maybe I will start it over on the PC. I was also about halfway through Alien: Isolation and starting my second playthrough of The Last of Us. (Both of those games I would highly recommend!)
One of these days I will actually reball all the few PS3s I own instead of the temp fix of reflowing them in the oven (which does work, but increasingly with less success.) Then I can get all my saves backed up to the cloud. lol
Anyway, I have lately been playing Conan Exiles and really enjoying the Pet Update. I play single player, for now, on there.
Looking forward to this site growing and nice to meet you all.

[Astraea]

Welcome to the forums! I haven't checked Conan in a while, gonna look up that pet update

[Brenker]

Welcome good sir, merry christmas and a happy new year to you as well

[pxfbird]

Astraea
I got Conan in August (or whenever Humble had it in the monthly bundle) and got bored with it pretty quickly. Might have been different if I had gone multiplayer. I think they released the pet update maybe September, but I didn't get back on it until the last couple weeks.
You can either have a pet follow you or place multiple ones around your base to guard, like the thralls. Only one pet at a time can be set to follow you. It works great as a mule and it will attack enemies that you attack. When I had an entire enemy camp chasing me, my hyena followed me instead of fighting them all off, which I like since I didn't want it to die. (I had a LOT of ore stored on it. lol) I did notice a bug when I accidentally dropped my hyenas in a bag instead of placing them... my bag disappeared and with it my two Greater Hyenas and two normal ones. So watch out for that! lol
I'm hoping that at some point they will give us mounts.

[pxfbird]

Brenker
Thank you.

Sorry for the double post, but it was popping an error when I tried to address both of you in the same post.

[The_Dirk_Diggler]

Lol. I was actually gonna try reballing or cooking a laptop i had. Never worked up the nerve or the money to buy the reballing tools. Awesome to hear of someone doing it.

[pxfbird]

The_Dirk_Diggler
I've never tried a laptop, but we've reflowed a few PS3's in the oven. A quick Google search pops up several posts and vids regarding laptops. The thing you want to be careful of is heat. You can always cover areas that might be damaged by too much heat and I've read guides mentioning Sugru as an excellent insulator.
My bf's PS3 has been reflowed about five times and reflowing just won't work for it anymore. There was a company that used to reball them and last I looked they still sold a rework profile. I figured then that if I ever want to get my old backward-compatible consoles working, then I would have to just learn to do it myself. lol I have the reball jig and the leaded solder balls for the PS3, but I don't have a rework station. I don't want to do it with a heat gun as it seems it would be more stable and less likely to damage anything with a rework station. And I've been busy with other projects and things.
I really would like to fix my original console that was absolutely perfect until an unfortunate incident involving my bf leaving shrimp sauce on a shelf that was above my PS3 and one of the cats knocking it off onto the console.-_- Who knew shrimp sauce was so corrosive? I think the only fix for it is to reroute the circuit, which an old video I watched showed is possible, at least for whatever old-school console the dude was working on. Or if I can find a way to decrypt a PS3 HDD so I can pull my saves off. lol
The way to look at whether to tackle an electronic project like reflowing or reballing is this..... Does it currently work? If not, then what have you got to lose? Fixing it yourself also teaches you a new skill and can be very satisfying and exciting! Unless you can find a company or repairman that guarantees their work and is within a price you are willing to pay. lol An excellent site I recommend is ifixit.com, but I don't know if they have any reflow/reball guides on there. I have used them in replacing cracked screens on a few phones and when I swapped the mobo in my phone.

[The_Dirk_Diggler]

Big reason I haven't tried it yet is time. If I didn't have kids and work wasn't so long I'd totally do it. Do you ever make videos of repairs?

[pxfbird]

I haven't made any videos. I can certainly understand the lack of time. We have a hobby farm so, between that and work, I don't have as much free time and my bf hardly has time to even game.
What kind of laptop are you trying to fix? I can try to find a video (or at least a guide) for it if there is one.