I got a HDD dock from startech.com. It works great and does everything I need. The problem is it has the brightest goddamn blue LED I have ever seen. It is so unnecessarily bright. My eyes hurt looking in the same direction as it. What the fuck should I do? Return it? De solder the stupid ass LED? It works great aside from this one issue.

Edit: I opened the thing and drew with sharpie on the LED. It’s bearable to look at now.

  • @[email protected]
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    415 hours ago

    Duck tape it. Because every single product have decided that blinding blue leds is the way to go.

    I miss my dim red leds.

    • @[email protected]
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      31 day ago

      I bought a keyboard from ThinkGeek that had an LED that would hit me right in the eye. A little piece of tape and that keyboard served me well for years.

  • @[email protected]
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    524 hours ago

    You can get LED film off Amazon for like, $7. It blocks those annoying LEDs on tech devices, monitors, wall outlets, kitchen appliances, and my nemesis, smoke detectors with stupidly bright LEDs.

    Best $7 you’ll spend this year.

  • @[email protected]
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    423 hours ago

    I usually use a little tiny piece of electrical tape, which should work unless the power button is absolutely minuscule. Desoldering it also works, but is more permanent.

  • @[email protected]
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    121 day ago

    Blue LEDs are the worst offenders. No need to return it as long as you keep a bit of black tape ready. If you still need it as an indicator, you can use layers of yellowish tape. The one used while painting your walls works great. Masking tape it’s called in English.

      • @[email protected]
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        152 days ago

        i had a monitor like that once. big bright af blue power light baked into the power button, bottom center of the bezel. blue led was the ‘new’ thing back then. the barton-era matching pc (which i didn’t have) had a larger matching button on its front. if you know your '00s pavilions, you know the ones.

        it was horrible. that monitor lived its entire life with a black piece of paper taped over the whole switch and light. i was not saddened when it finally gave up and failed to turn on. i was more annoyed that it took 15 years for it to fail.

  • monovergent 🛠️
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    31 day ago

    My monitor had a bright blue power LED smack in the middle of the lower bezel. I took it apart on day one and brutally ripped out the LED, only then did I ever connect it to my computer.

  • @[email protected]
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    172 days ago

    Likely not, it seems wasteful if the product is otherwise good in all other important regards. I’d just cover up the LED with tape or paint.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      82 days ago

      Yeah it sucks that I sleep in the same room as my computer. It’s damn near impossible to find a case without RGB.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 day ago

        Should be possible to just not plug them in.

        But I have no idea why they are there in the first place.

    • lost_faith
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      21 day ago

      Last pc i built i had 1 hard request, “I don’t want a damn xmas tree in my pc.” girl laughed and the only light is from the heat sync :(

    • Dyskolos
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      2 days ago

      Amen. I do love LEDs since their dawn and have a big-ass collection. But on every single stupid computer thing? I don’t wanna pay extra just because my mouse can have stupid rgb-lights. Or my damn RAM. It adds absolutely nothing, costs more and has another part that will go broke.

      I hate the rgb-craze…

      One my Xbox controller’s light is so bright it could power our solar-panels. I had to put multiple Band-Aids on it 🫤

  • Captain Aggravated
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    31 day ago

    No, but I did case mod a computer for this once. My Fractal Node 202 my last computer is in has a very bright white power button LED, too damn bright. Fortunately in this case it’s a standard 5mm through hole LED standing up off the board on its leads a bit, bent to point out the front. So I bent it to point upward. Dimmed it down significantly.