accumulated operating hours question

[Rob]

This is used by professional refurbishers (Rugged Depot for example) to reset the hour counters to 0 hours once they "professionally refurbish them to Panasonic's specifications" too...

[toughasnails]

When I got my 51 the first thing I did was pull the cpu and I can tell you it was new. This thing was so spotless inside it shined...no dust bunnies in there .I was kinda suprised.

[Driller]

Hey Rusty, how you doing man? Good to hear you back in the loop. Back to topic, didn't know if the hours issue could have a reset as I've said before but have seen several units that had extremely low hours on the clock and was wondering on how with all the wear apparent that they could be such low hours. Also noticed this on some bakersfield PD units that I purchased last year about this time that looked beat to hello and back. If it can be done on the cf-51 probably same with the cf-29. This sort of thing is a bit above my paygrade but I'd surely like to learn more on this. I'm more of a hardware type and lacking somewhat on the software end of it but do want to know more. Anyway, good to hear from you........Driller

[rusty503]

On any toughbook, if you can rewrite the model number and serial number, you can change the hours. I have recently noticed several sellers on eBay have reset the hours back to zero. To me that is unethical. One listing showed a CF-18 really beat up with 0 hours. WTF? These were NOT professional refurbishers or such.

To repeat what I have posted before, I have not sent out this info for the very reasons you and I have seen on eBay. Now to be truthful, I have reset the hours on a system I have to experiment on with no intentions of selling. I found that not only can you reset the hours to zero but you can change the hours to ANY value you want.

Now, I do know that there are OTHER timers on some models. I haven't had much chance to play with the ones I have. Things have been really busy my way. I do hope to get more 'playing' time on the systems I have sitting here.

[toughasnails]

Rusty, I do not blame you for not passing this out. The last thing we need is every seller on ebay knowing how to do this.

[Rob]

Rusty, I do not blame you for not passing this out. The last thing we need is every seller on ebay knowing how to do this.

I second this notion!

[Driller]

I agree with not posting this info on a public domain for unethical types to fraudulently misrepresent any wares they wish to sell or mislead others into purchasing their products. I'm not bigdaddy or anything like him or others that want to dupe or lie about the superiority of their products. I may be wrong here but I thought that this website was more or less by invitation only and Rob was the gatekeeper. If anyone wanted to discuss topics that weren't kosher on the forum such as ways to defeat passwords or such could gain INSIGHT here but not an anarchist cookbook on how to....... I haven't sold any of my 40 toughbooks of various model types and would more likely give them to people who I feel they would either appreciate or benefit from their use in an ethical manner. If I'm missing the point here please let me know. I want to know info on scammers and nefarious entities so I can go in eyes wide open and not get blindsided. Trust me, I don't respond well when I'm blindsided and taken advantage of. I'm here to learn and perhaps help others that might be able to pay it forward so to speak. Anyway, I appreciate this website and those who contribute to it as I've learned a lot, but am in no way up to the skill level many of you guys are. I am willing to learn though.........Driller

[rbuljo]

But since this is possible, and god knows there are many dishonest ppl out there, how to be sure that the accumulated hours are real when buying/receiving a TB? I for one are a newbie with a 29 eta Wednesday.

[toughasnails]

Well that's a good question . On the 51 for example you can get to the inside easy so it's easy to see dirt and dust bunnies. I bought one of them with zero hours from buybest13. When I got it the first thing I did was do the core 2 duo upgrade and the inside was spotless . I don't think it was ever turned on but on the CF-18,19,29 and 30 the motherboard is all sealed so it should be clean so you really have to have a good look at the outside of it. There is a few sellers on ebay now selling zero to 150 hours Toughbooks that I know that the hours have been reset. How I know , well I check there feedback and found that he bought it from buybest15...the serial numbers matched it had over 12000 hours on it and he is asking BIG BUCKS for them. Will I name the seller...NO..why because I don't need trouble with a seller . I too am a seller and don't need a seller buying something off of me just to leave bad feedback. If a guy has too many low hour toughbooks then something is fishy. Buyer beware

[rbuljo]

bottom line seems to be that it is very difficult for a newcomer to determine if he`d been "ripped" of since the fully rugged CF`s are sealed..