 For a limited time only, buy an Intel Core i5 or Core i7 CPU and get a free three month subscription to iRacing.com Available from participating retailers, click the link in the video description for more details Now I've been asked a ton of times to show what I think is sort of a... An ultimate tech bag. What do I carry around with me? What does Slick carry around with him When working on computers or just generally doing tech things? So we're gonna do that episode today and we're gonna start with the big stuff. I always carry a laptop. These days with such small laptops available I use an ultrabook just because it's really convenient And it doesn't take up much space in my bag which is otherwise very very full I'm one of those hopeless obssesives who actually carries a mouse pad around just because I can't stand using a mouse without one A tablet is great to have just for looking up something next to you Or sitting and watching videos while you're otherwise working on something So do carry a tablet with a nice durable case on it. In this case I use my iPad for that Alright, next pocket. We've got a webcam. Never know when one of those is gonna come in handy We've got an SSD. Never know when one of those is gonna come in handy This I'll keep an OS on so that gives me a nice fast platform in order to boot up to and sort of do any diagnostics If they have a slow virus-a-ridden hard drive that I otherwise basically can't use I always carry a spare mouse to go with my spare mouse pad. So in this case it's a Logitech G9X It's an older mouse but I really really like it So business cards. No self-respecting tech should go anywhere without their business cards because you never know when there's gonna be a PC in need Copy of antivirus. These days it's less necessary so that's more of a figurative thing because you can download them Antistatic bag. Somewhere safe to put stuff that you take out of a system. Sometimes customers will go Oh well I don't really need that RAM anymore now that you put the new stuff in there you can have it Want somewhere safe? Wanna be able to take that home with you? That's good stuff Notepad. Little notepad for sticky notes SATA cables. Never go anywhere without those Spare router. Sometimes when you're diagnosing a network problem the problem is the network So you can use your router either as a wireless access point and router or you can just use it as a switch if you need to wire up a few different computers Spare cooling fan can be great for diagnosing cooling related issues so you can take this, strap it next to something that's overheating and find out if that's what's actually causing the problem Multimeter. This is great for even just basic stuff like diagnosing power supplies. Is this extension cable even working? Alright. USB hub. Especially when you're working on modern computers if it's a laptop for example a lot of them don't have more than a couple USB ports And it's great to be able to plug in a keyboard, mouse and a USB drive or any of the other things that you might need Wire strippers. These I carry. Maybe not necessary for everyone but Power adapter for my laptop as well Zip ties. Use those all the time Notepad. Bigger notepad. This is great for doing things like overclocking. Let's face it it's not always the most convenient and fastest thing in the world to have two computers going and be documenting things in Excel And I personally find myself jotting things down with pen and paper all the time even these days Isopropyl alcohol. You don't have to carry around a whole bottle of it but I still find it's very useful for removing thermal compound which is also in here You can usually borrow toilet paper wherever you happen to be. I keep a 3.5mm extension cable just because I find that comes in handy for me every so rarely once in a while USB cables. A to mini B. So this is great for digital cameras and stuff like that A to micro B. So this is great for cell phones, charging up your phone, whatever else And this one's attached to something. Did I say A to mini B? That was A to B. So that's for printers And A to mini B. So in this case it's pre-attached to my external optical drive which I also carry around with me again Because if you're working on a laptop that doesn't have one and you happen to need to, oh I actually need to use a CD Then you'll be pulling your hair out if you don't have that A power bar is great to set up at your temporary workstation so you can make sure you have all this stuff plugged in while you work I recommend getting one that has a fairly long cord so that you can run it from somewhere inconvenient if you need to Alternately you can carry an extension cable as well. Electrician's tape. Never know when that will come in handy Key polar for mechanical keyboards. This is a slick special. I don't actually carry one of these but he does Apple cable. Even if you don't own any Apple products, you know how many times I've been asked if someone can borrow one of those It's just nice to have it on hand Okay apparently we had more than I thought for those USB cables. That was a USB A to B Little mini heatsink. This is another one that's good for diagnosing weird issues. Is it heat related? Is it not? And then carrying around some double sided thermal adhesive is another good one so you can actually stick it to stuff This is my iFixit toolkit. It contains a whole bunch of really cool stuff So number one is an anti-static wrist strap right there Number two is a bunch of cool like tweezers and pry tools that I can use to take stuff apart or get stuff out of hard to reach places Huge set of precision screwdrivers including some security bits and things that you can use for taking apart stuff that they don't want you to take apart So that's really great. And then last but not least some more pry tools and measuring tools and all that kind of good stuff I'm not that impressed with the build quality of the kit overall to be perfectly honest I bought it a little while ago and I was trying to remove a screw from my FS700 camera And now one of my Phillips heads looks like this because I'm apparently super beast bent way too easily Okay, I always carry a pen. Never know when that will come in handy. My Windows 7 pen to go with my Windows Vista backpack Awesome. Side cutters. These are great for cutting off cable ties that you're wire managing with or cutting wires that are in your way For example I'll use these to cut off the AC97 header block My oven is going off I'll use these to cut off the AC97 header block so that it's not ugly and in the way and I'll just plug in the HD audio Needle nose pliers. Holy crap you can use these for almost anything I used to carry vice grips with me but I've stopped doing that now that I don't water cool as much Because what I'd do is I would use vice grips to tighten compression fittings with a cloth or some paper towel to keep them from getting damaged Screwdriver. Multi head screwdriver. The bits that I use are slot, small Phillips. So I think that's a number... Is that a zero? I don't remember what this is but it's a little tiny one and then a big Phillips. I think that's a number 2 Can't remember for the life of me. I'm sorry guys. I'm not really good at tools But big Phillips, small Phillips and medium Phillips and then I also carry a slot and that standard size Robertson Whatever it is. Like I said, not a tool guy. That's used for almost everything. So those are the bits that I carry This is a snap-on ratcheting screwdriver. So it's great for working extremely quickly. Electric screwdrivers, they go as fast as they go So especially when you're threading in a screw and you need that fine touch, it's nice to be able to do this with your fingers It has a knurled portion here so you can do that and then wrench it tight when you get to the end It's also great for going quickly because you can move as fast as your fingers can move or you can wrench it like that So I love this screwdriver. I've had a lot of people ask me about my screwdriver. So there you go. I've been using it for years now I've had that for about eight, nine years. Alright, always carry headphones. In fact, those are a headset Those are the SteelSeries Fluxineer Pros and this is a weird one but I actually carry two USB sound cards Because you never know when some weird issue like Premiere was crashing the other day on Diesel's workstation Problem ended up being the onboard video or the onboard sound on the motherboard we were using This one didn't fix it but this one did. So I have a SteelSeries one and I have a Zonar U3 from Asus Which has been very handy. Video adapters. I'm missing my DVI to VGA adapter. That should be here But I also always carry mini display port to full-size display port, display port to DVI And just in case I have an active powered mini display port to dual-link DVI That will only come up in very rare scenarios but you never know Molex to SATA. 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 SATA connectors. So I carry a one to two one so that I can plug in my SSD Plug in the new hard drive, do whatever it is that I need to do. A wall wart for your USB charging Just in case you're sitting somewhere awhile and you need to charge up your phone while you're waiting And then I personally carry a bunch of fan adapters. So some splitters. One to two so you can take only one available header And plug in two fans. Lots of computers won't have extra headers and maybe they got a cheapo OEM fan that doesn't come with an adapter And then I also carry a fan speed controller. This is more for my personal use. Or it's not a controller This is just a Molex that splits out to 5 volts, 7 volts and 12 volts So this will give you a good idea of the startup voltage of a fan if you're just curious and you want to know Haha this. 3.5mm to RCA. Super handy. Use it all the time. 3.5mm to whatever that bigger one is and then the other way around The bigger one to 3.5mm. Keep those together. Keep them with you at all times. Never know when you're going to need those Full set of Allen keys. Super handy again. I carry one water cooling barb with me because you never know when you're going to be one short That's kind of a holdover from when I used to water cool a lot more once again External hard drive. So USB drives aren't always enough and this one right here has a modular USB 3 to SATA adapter that comes with it So I could plug this into some other drive and use it like this as a USB drive if I needed to. This is one of Seagate's GoFlex things Awesome. Like that's a must have for any tech tool kit. Love it Battery bank. So USB charger. This one charges out of a little thing that comes out of the bottom. This isn't a particularly big one but these are so handy SD card reader and SD card. Never know when you'll need one of those USB drives galore. So I usually carry a USB drive in my back pocket. Oh there it is. USB drive in my back pocket. That's my main one. It's a 64GB Patriot supersonic And then I always carry at least one or two backups. So in this case we've got a Survivor as well as a Flash Voyager. These are I think a 64 and a 16GB or 32 or something like that More screwdrivers. What's great about these screwdrivers versus the ones that come in the iFixit tool kit is they're fantastic for putting fans in radiators for example Because they're just over 25mm long. So you can get right in there and you can torque them enough. In fact you can use the vise grips that I used to carry around with me Or even the needle nose pliers which now I can't find anymore to grab onto the grips here and tighten things even in really hard to reach places So I carry a full set of small slots as well as a full set of small Phillips and this is a special one. This actually came with a Li and Li case So this is a hex on the top here. This is the size of motherboard standoffs. Highly recommend carrying around one of these. It allows you to tighten them in So that when you go to remove the motherboard it doesn't undo the standoff from the back plate rather than undoing the screw from the standoff which can be a real pain Yet another screwdriver. You can never have enough screwdrivers. USB wireless adapter. Always carry a USB wireless adapter just in case you're trying to diagnose a networking issue And their wireless dies for example. That's my wife calling but it's okay we're almost done here. Extra Sanyo Eneloops. Always, always, always. Extra AA batteries Comes in handy all the time and what's great about Eneloops is you can leave them in your bag and they don't discharge that quickly Micro SD to SD adapter so that you can use the card reader. Where's our card reader? Ah yes, our card reader in order to read them And then we've got, aha, car power to USB. Never know when that will come in handy. And finally we've got a couple of Ethernet cables So guys what I'd like you to do if you made it all the way through this video is leave your own suggestions for things that you feel like we missed in the comments under the video Or in the forum thread linked in the description. I'm going to show you a few more things that didn't make it into my bag but are things that could come in handy Carrying around one of these little battery powered speakers can be useful if you don't have a phone that has great speakers built into it like mine does Kimchi bowl noodle. Never know when you're going to be working for a long time. This was Slick's suggestion. He actually carries an extra kimchi bowl noodle and a fork in his bag at all times So there you go. USB number pad. Okay this is a useful one. And I personally am more of a mouse and mouse pad diva but Slick carries the number pad as well as a tenkeyless keyboard around with him in his bag when he feels like it will come in handy This is his limited edition one that I think he just wanted to show off because it's limited edition but this is not the actual one he carries. He's a smart guy. But he does actually carry one. I've seen him do it Also in here we've got the cable for that as well as a measuring tape and this one's me. I actually carry a calculator in my bag at all times. I don't like the touch screen interface and I like being able to... See I carry this instead of the number pad So if I need to add something up or whatever else I use this. So thank you guys for checking out our ultimate tech tool bag. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews and other computer videos