What hardware frustrates you? (good-humored ranting encouraged)
Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2025 5:53 am
This is a thread for ranting about hardware, big or small, that has frustrated you enough times that you just gotta 
I'll start with a personal nemesis of mine: The Hirose U.FL antenna cable.
This motherfucker right here.
I did hardware repair on computers, iPhones, and various other electronic devices professionally for nearly 15 years. In that time, very very few other connectors, internal or external, have proven to be more aggravating to deal with, or as consistently fragile as the Hirose U.FL.
These fuckers have been around since 1991 and much to my personal disgust, are still very commonly found in modern devices. They were designed to be space-saving and I'm sure in 1991 they were a godsend, but now? Now there's no reason we shouldn't have something better. It's been 34 years and modern electronics have evolved in a lot of ways. The constant push to make notebook computers thinner and lighter alone has spawned a lot of innovations in internal wiring, and yet here we are still using a 34 year old standard that is well known to break down after a handful of re-uses. You read that right.
They were not originally designed with re-connection in mind.
Let that sink in for a minute.
In many devices, the cable is hard-wired on one end, so if the connector on the other end wears out after a couple times(and it will), tough shit you better be good at soldering. But that's not all! Disconnecting the cable requires a fair amount of force, because the connector snaps on and holds pretty tight, and depending on the device in question, there's often minimal room to grip or pry to get it loose. If the solder holding the male end(the one on the board) is old and weakened, or just of lesser quality/subpar application, or if you're just unlucky, it's not uncommon for it to break off the board while trying to disconnect it. Once again, you'd better be good at soldering. I remind you that these have been known frustrations since 1991. In fact it's such a known problem that multiple companies sell special tools made to remove these connectors(and only these connectors) in a way that merely reduces the chance of breaking them. And yet we still use this! And there have been zero notable design improvements in all these years! Because reasons!
FUCK THESE THINGS
I'll start with a personal nemesis of mine: The Hirose U.FL antenna cable.
This motherfucker right here.
I did hardware repair on computers, iPhones, and various other electronic devices professionally for nearly 15 years. In that time, very very few other connectors, internal or external, have proven to be more aggravating to deal with, or as consistently fragile as the Hirose U.FL.
These fuckers have been around since 1991 and much to my personal disgust, are still very commonly found in modern devices. They were designed to be space-saving and I'm sure in 1991 they were a godsend, but now? Now there's no reason we shouldn't have something better. It's been 34 years and modern electronics have evolved in a lot of ways. The constant push to make notebook computers thinner and lighter alone has spawned a lot of innovations in internal wiring, and yet here we are still using a 34 year old standard that is well known to break down after a handful of re-uses. You read that right.
They were not originally designed with re-connection in mind.
Let that sink in for a minute.
In many devices, the cable is hard-wired on one end, so if the connector on the other end wears out after a couple times(and it will), tough shit you better be good at soldering. But that's not all! Disconnecting the cable requires a fair amount of force, because the connector snaps on and holds pretty tight, and depending on the device in question, there's often minimal room to grip or pry to get it loose. If the solder holding the male end(the one on the board) is old and weakened, or just of lesser quality/subpar application, or if you're just unlucky, it's not uncommon for it to break off the board while trying to disconnect it. Once again, you'd better be good at soldering. I remind you that these have been known frustrations since 1991. In fact it's such a known problem that multiple companies sell special tools made to remove these connectors(and only these connectors) in a way that merely reduces the chance of breaking them. And yet we still use this! And there have been zero notable design improvements in all these years! Because reasons!
FUCK THESE THINGS
We need the culture of repair, maintenance and "consumable parts", and we need it yesterday 