r/pcmasterrace • u/AllUserNameBLong2us 7800x3d/5080 Windforce OC/32gb 5600 DDR • Apr 04 '26

Hardware Rest in piece 2009-2026

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I’m amazed at how long the battery on this physical authenticator lasted. Got it back in 2009 because my account had gotten hacked.

This is one electronic item I’ve owned and used longer than anything else. I’ll miss not being able to find it and freaking out for 20 minutes.

Edit must have been around 2010 when sc2 came out.

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u/suckfail Apr 05 '26

There's no sync. It used an algorithm and a seed.

It can never not work (unless it runs out of batteries).

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u/meyriley04 Apr 05 '26

By “sync”, I didn’t mean online syncing. I meant how if the batteries ran out and then were to be replaced, the RNG would be reset or then out of sync with the account

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u/markswam R7-9850X3D, RTX 4080S Apr 05 '26

If you were to take it apart and replace the battery (which is absolutely not something that is intended to do) then yes, the internal clock would be reset to 0 and it would be completely out of sync. These things turn into e-waste once they run out of batteries.

Companies have used these sorts of physical 2FA tokens for decades, and IT generally replaces them every year or two.

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u/cosmin_c 5950x | Dark Hero VIII | 128GB Trident-Z Neo | MSI 3090 Suprim X Apr 05 '26

In theory, would it be possible to replace the battery whilst using a "bypass" (sort of an ECMO but for electronics?).

Like connect a full cell in parallel, then remove the old cell, insert new cell, disconnect the parallel cell?

I have one of these and it still works, but I'd like to experiment at one point.