ULTIMATE Tech Tool Bag - See What Linus & Slick Carry
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
3,061 words · ~15 min read
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for a limited time only buy an Intel Core I5 or core i7 CPU and get a free
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3-month subscription to iracing.com available from participating retailers
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click the link in the video description for more details now I've been asked a
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ton of times to show what I think is sort of a an ultimate Tech bag what do I
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carry around with me what does slick carry around with him when working on
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computers or just generally doing Tech things so we're going to do that episode
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today and we're going to start with the big stuff I always carry a laptop these
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days with such small laptops available I use an Ultrabook just because it's
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really convenient and it doesn't take up much space in my bag which is otherwise
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very very full I'm one of those hopeless obsessives who actually carries a mouse
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pad around just because I can't stand using a mouse without one a tablet is
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great to have just for looking up something next to you or sitting and
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watching videos while you're otherwise working on something so do carry a
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tablet with a nice durable case on it in this case I use my iPad for that all
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right next pocket we've got a webcam
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never know when one of those is going to come in handy we've got an SSD never
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know when one of those is going to come in handy uh this I'll keep an OS on so
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that gives me a nice fast platform in order to boot up to and sort of do any
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Diagnostics if they have you know a slow virus who ridden hard drive that I
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otherwise basically can't use I always carry a spare Mouse to go with my spare
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mouse pad so in this case it's a Logitech g9x it's an older Mouse but I
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really really like it so business cards no self-respecting Tech should go
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anywhere without their business cards because you never know when there's going to be a PC in need copy of
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antivirus these days it's less necessary so that's more of a figurative thing um
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because you can download them anti-static bag somewhere safe to put
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stuff that you take out of a system sometimes customers will go oh well I
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don't really need that RAM anymore now that you put the new stuff in there you
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can have it want somewhere safe want to be able to take that home with you
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that's good stuff notepad little notepad
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for sticky notes SATA cables never go
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anywhere without those spare router
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sometimes when you're diagnosing a network problem the problem is the
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network so you can use your router either as a wireless access point and
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router or you can just use it as a switch if you need to wire up a few
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different computers spare cooling fan can be great
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for diagnosing cooling related issues so you can take this strap it next to
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something that's overheating and find out if that's what's actually causing
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the problem multimeter this is great for
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even just basic stuff like diagnosing power supplies is this is this extension
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cable even working all right USB hub especially
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when you're working on Modern computers if it's a laptop for example a lot of
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them don't have more than a couple USB ports and it's great to be able to plug
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in a keyboard mouse and a USB drive or
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and any of the other things that you might need wire strippers these I carry
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maybe not necessary for everyone but uh power adapter for my laptop as well zip
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ties use those all the time notepad
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bigger notepad this is great for doing things like overclocking let's face it
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it's not always the most convenient and fastest thing in the world to have two
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computers going and be documenting things in Excel and I personally find
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myself jotting things down with pen and paper all the time even these days
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isopropyl alcohol you don't have to carry around a whole bottle of it but I
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still find it's very useful for removing thermal compound which is also in here
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you can usually borrow toilet paper wherever you happen to be so I keep a
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3/2 mm um extension cable just because I
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find that comes in handy for me every very so rarely once in a while USB
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cables um a to mini B so this is great
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for digital cameras and stuff like that uh a to micro b so this is great for
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cell phones charging up your phone whatever else and this one's attached to
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something A2 or did I say a to mini B that was a to B A to B so that's for
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printers and a to mini B so in this case it's pre-attached to my external optical
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drive which I also carry around with me again because if you're working on a
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laptop that doesn't have one and you happen to need to oh I actually need to
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use a CD then you'll be pulling your
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hair out if you don't have that a power bar is great to set up at your temporary
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workstation so you can make sure you have all this stuff plugged in while you
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work I recommend getting one that has a fairly long cord so that you can can run
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it from somewhere inconvenient if you need to alternately you can carry an
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extension cable as well electrician tape never know when that'll come in handy
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keyar for mechanical keyboards this is a slick special I don't actually carry one
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of these but he does uh Apple cable even
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if you don't own any Apple products you know how many times I've been asked if
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someone can borrow one of those it's just nice to have it on hand uh okay
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apparently we had more than I thought for those USB cables that was a USB a
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Tob uh little mini heat sink this is another one that's good for diagnosing
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weird um just weird issues is it heat related is it not um and then carrying
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around some double-sided thermal adhesive is another good one so you can
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actually Stick it to stuff uh this is my iFix it
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toolkit it contains a whole bunch of really cool stuff so number one is an
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anti-static wrist strap right there uh number two is a bunch of cool like
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tweezers and pry tools that I can use to take stuff apart or get stuff out of
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hard to reach places huge set of uh
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precision screwdrivers including some security bits and things that you can
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use for taking apart stuff that's they don't want you to take apart so that's
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uh that's really great and then last but not least some more pry tools and
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measuring tools and all that kind of good stuff um not that impressed with
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the build quality of the kit overall to be perfectly honest I I bought it a
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little while ago and I I was trying to
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remove a screw from my fs700 camera and now my one of my Philips heads looks
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like this cuz I I'm apparently super
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beast bent way too easily okay always carry a pen never
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know when that'll come in handy my Windows 7 pen to go with my Windows Vista
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backpack awesome uh side Cutters these
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are great for cutting off cable ties that you're wire managing with or
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cutting wires that are in your way for example I'll use these to cut off the
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ac97 uh header block here my evidence
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going off uh I'll use these to cut off the ac97 header block so that it's not
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ugly and the way and it'll just plug in the HD audio needle noose pliers holy
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crap you can use these for almost anything I used to carry vice grips with
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me but I've stopped doing that now that I don't water cool as much because what
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I'd do is I would use vice grips to tighten compression fittings with a
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cloth or um or some you know paper towel
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to keep them from getting damaged screwdriver multi-head
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screwdriver the bits that I use are slot
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um small Phillips so that's I think that's a number is that a zero I don't
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remember what this is but it's a it's a little little tiny one and then a big
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Phillips I think that's a number two can't remember for the life of me
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I'm sorry guys I'm not really good at tools but big Phillips small Phillips
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and medium Phillips and then I also carry a slot and that stand standard
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size Roberts Robertson whatever it is like I said not a tool guy um that's
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used for almost everything so those are the bits that I carry this is a Snap-On
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ratcheting screwdriver so it's great for working extremely quickly electric
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screwdrivers you they go as fast as they go um so especially when you're
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threading in a screw and you need that fine touch it's nice to be able to do
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this with your fingers it has a knurled portion here so you can do that and then
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wrench it tight when you get to the end it's also great for going quickly cuz
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you can move as fast as your fingers can move or you can wrench it like that so I
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love this screwdriver I've had a lot of people ask me about my screwdriver so
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there you go I've been using it for years now I've had that for about eight
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nine years all right always carry headphones in fact those are a headset
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those are the steel series flux inor pros and this is a weird one but I
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actually carry two USB sound cards because you never know when some weird
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issue like Premier was crashing the other day on Diesel's workstation
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problem ended up being the Onboard video or the onboard sound on the motherboard
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we were using this one didn't fix it but this one did so I have a steel series
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one and I have a Zonar u3 from ASUS which has been very handy um video
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adapters I'm missing my dv a VGA adapter that should be here but I also always
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carry mini DisplayPort to full-size DisplayPort DisplayPort to DVI and
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just in case I have an active powered
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dis mini DisplayPort to dual link DVI
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um that will only come up in very rare scenarios but you never know Molex TOA
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you never know when you're going to have to install a hard drive in someone's computer and they don't have any spare
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SATA connectors so I I carry a one to two one so that I can plug in my SSD
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plug in the new hard drive do whatever it is that I need to do a wall wart for
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your USB charging just in case you're sitting somewhere a while you need to charge up your phone while you're
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waiting and then I personally carry a bunch of fan adapters so some Splitters
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one to two so you can take only one available header and plug in two fans
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lots of computers won't have extra headers and maybe they got a cheapo OEM
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fan that doesn't come with an adapter and then I also carry a fan speed
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controller this is more for my personal use or it's not a controller this is
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just a Molex that splits out to 5V 7vt
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and 12vt so this will give you a good idea of the startup voltage of a fan if
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you're just curious and you want to know um ha this 32 mm to um RCA super handy
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use it all the time uh 3 and 1 12 mm to
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whatever that bigger one is and then the other way around the bigger one to 3 and
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1/2 mm keep those together keep them with you at all times never know when
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you're going to need those full set of Allen Keys super handy again I carry one water
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cooling Barb with me cuz you never know when you're going to be one short
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but that's kind of a a hold over from when I used to water cool a lot more
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once again um external hard drive so USB
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drives aren't always enough and this one right here has a modular USB R 3 to SATA
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adapter that comes with it so I could plug this into some other drive and use
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it like this as a USB drive if I needed
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to this is one of seagate's goflex things awesome like that's a must have
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for any Tech tool kit love it um battery
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bank so USB charger this one charges out
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of a little thing that comes out of the bottom this isn't a particularly big one but these are so
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handy uh SD card reader and SD card
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never know when you'll need one of those USB drives Galore so I usually carry a
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USB drive in my back oh there it is USB drive in my back pocket that's my main
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one it's a 64 gig Patriot um Supersonic
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and then I always carry at least one or two backups so in this case we've got a
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Survivor as well as a flash or these are I think a 64 and a 16 gig or 32 or
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something like that more screwdrivers what's great about these screwdrivers
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versus the ones that come in the iFixit toolkit is they're fantastic for putting
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fans in radiators for example because they're just over uh 25 mm long so you
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can get right in there and they're you know you can torque them enough in fact
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you can use the vice grips that I used to carry around with me or even the needlenose pliers which now I can't find
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anymore to grab onto the grip here and
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tighten things even in really hard to reach places so I carry a full set of
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small slots as well as a full set of
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small Phillips and this is a special one this actually came with a lean Lee case
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so this is a hex on the top here this is the size of motherboard standoffs highly
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recommend carrying around one of these it allows you to tighten them in so that
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when you go to remove the motherboard it doesn't undo the standoff from the back
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plate rather than undoing the screw from the standoff which can be a real pain um
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yet another screwdriver you can never have enough screwdrivers uh USB wireless
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adapter always carry a USB wireless adapter just in case you're trying to
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diagnose a networking issue and their Wireless dieses for example that's my
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wife calling but it's okay we're almost done here extra Sano an Loops always
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always always extra doublea batteries in handy in yeah comes in handy all the
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time and what's great about anal Loops is you can leave them in your bag and they don't discharge that quickly micro
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SD to SD adapter so that you can use the car card reader where's our card reader
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ah yes our card reader uh in order to read them and then we've got aha uh car
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power to USB never know when that'll come in handy and finally we've got a
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couple of Ethernet cables so guys what
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I'd like you to do if you made it all the way through this video is leave your
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own suggestions for things that you feel like we missed in the comments under the
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video or in the Forum thread Linked In the description I'm going to show you a
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few more things that didn't make it into my bag but are things that could come in
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handy carrying around one of these little uh one of these little battery
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powered speakers can be useful um if you don't have a phone that you know has
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great speakers built into it like mine does kimchi bow noodle never know when
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you're going to be working for a long time this was Slick's suggestion he actually carries an extra kimchi bow
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noodle and a fork in his bag at all times so there you go USB number pad
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okay this is a useful one and I personally am oops I personally am more
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of a mouse and mouse pad de but slick carries the number pad as well as a 10
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keyless keyboard around with him in his bag when he feels like it'll come in
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handy this is his limited edition one that I think he just wanted to show off
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cuz it's limited edition but this is not the actual one he carries a smart guy um
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but he does actually carry one I've seen him do
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it uh also in here we've got the cable for that as well as a measuring tape and
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this this one's me uh I actually carry a calculator in my bag at all times don't
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like the touchcreen interface and I like being able to see I carry this instead
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of the number pad so if I need to add something up or whatever else I use this
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so thank you guys for checking out our ultimate Tech tool bag don't forget to
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