Computer Technician Stories

[Bryce W]

I am going to create an article that is made up of computer technician stories and I would love to hear some of yours here to put on the front page.

Your story can be a funny moment, a scary one, a disgusting one, a life changing realization, a lesson learned.. anything.

[Xtreme]

This story is about when I worked at a mom & pop type tech shop a few years back. The owner hired a kid out of college, I think he just got his A+ certification, but this kid was obviously not a social persons, he was a good kid, just very quite and you could tell that he lacked social skills. You could hear it in his tone of voice that he was nervous when he talked to customers either on the phone or in person or even to us in the shop.

You could tell when you talked to him that he was incompetent and not a people person. I had to step in several times to bail him out of the hole he was digging in front of customers. Him being incompetent isn't as big of an issue as not being social. If you are friendly and easy to talk to, people will like you and even though that doesn't always cure the situation, it can be a powerful tool to have.

My point of this story is that you have to understand everything that a job entails before deciding what you are going to do with your life. Don't go spending your money to get a certification or a degree in an area that requires strong verbal skills if you are not able to socialize freely with people you just met. Just because your mom, dad or friends say you should go to school for computers because thats where the money is, doesn't make that field right for you.

There is something out there for everyone, find what it is and go for it. Stop sitting behind your computer all the time and make it a point to go out and socialize, meet people, make contacts and network. More and more people are relying on technology to communicate and consequently they are losing the ability to socialize in public face to face.

Here is an audio book (http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/products/ProductDetail.jsp?productID=BK_LIVE_000078&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes) that I recommend anyone to listen to. Throw this in your MP3 player and go walk around the neighborhood, the park or listen to it in your car. This book would be beneficial for anyone.

Another one for motivation, and this is a great one to listen to. Tony Robbins (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpc-t-Uwv1I).

[steve51]

I don't know about funny or scary but I do have one client who has no fingers. This is absolutely true, he has had his fingers amputated due to a medical condition, he now has just his thumbs to operate the mouse and keyboard. It's quite an eye opener to watch him use his computer, nice guy as well, good customer.

On the downside I got called out to a domestic repair some months ago, the lady client told me she had no signal to the monitor, upon arrival i opened her computer tower and literally could not see the motherboard or processor heat sink.
The entire mother board and associated componants were all covered in what i can only describe as a black sticky tar like substance due to many years accumulation of dust and cigarette smoke/nicotene.
I did my best to clean much of the gunk from the motherboard and replaced the 4 pin 12v plug in order to get vga output working again, it seems to have beeen a good repair, the lady has since recommended me to her friends and her pc is still working.

[kdyer]

Probably the most interesting of times was working customer support in a call center - which is where I started out. Let's see here:
We have all heard about the coasters and foot pedals.. However..
I did not take this call, but when working customer support, especially during the Christmas Holiday it can be quite busy and the customers have to wait in queue. As the Technicians taking the calls, they login to a phone queue and customers bubble to the top and the next Tech takes the call.. Anyway, the call came up to the Technician and the guy was in the bathroom doin' a number 2!! Yuck.. Good laugh though!!
A fellow Tech I had worked with had a little too much fun the night before and fell asleep while waiting for calls. She was terminated because of this.
A call that I was on was for a toy and I wound up being the Senior Tech who had to work this case. I would up getting chewed on for two hours. I finally said, "Would you like to get some resolution to your issue? Or continue on with yelling at me?"
While being the Senior Tech, I was flown to another call center where it was bitter cold. On the return trip, wound up being held up an additional day as the main gear for the prop broke.. Fun times.
I worked on an account that had pay for support. Customers were ticked off about having to pay and would continually call to harass us, but not give their credit card information.


Thanks!

Kent

[callthatgirl]

oh, my favorite!!! the porn guy story.

I got a call on a Saturday morning from a guy who just got back into town to find the computer not working, so he reinstalled it, but couldn't get the internet to work. He lived in my neighborhood, so I got the make/model and downloaded the drivers and off I went to the rescue!

Now, keep in mind, my business name is Call That Girl I do get creepy calls about escorting, etc...but they are rare. He seemed very legit with the networking needs, but I did tell a friend to all 911 if I didn't check back within an hour. Just in case.

So I get there to find him looking like hell, dirty as hell and in a wife beater and the apt was freaking gross. I saw the machine and the dirt and was like "what the F"...I had to touch that keyboard????

I installed the network adapter, got him going. Heard his story and did a "hmm, this sounds suspicous". He didn't look like he just got back from a business trip, but it looked more like he got back from a 3 day meth/porn binge. I chaulked it up as he ruined it and couldn't fix it, owell...I did and got $85 quick bucks.

Then he said all his stuff was gone, so I installed my data recovery tools and told him to let it run for a day or so and he could pay by credit card to get it back.

First picture to be recovered? Yep, porn. And tons of it! He was right there when we found it and I was like "Ok, I'm on my way!"

Not even 4 hours later, he calls me, "yeah, I think the internet is gone again and I was wondering if you could come back".

no way pal.

[Alan22]

Little bit of a long read, but it's true and I hope a bit entertaining.

One day I run into a friend of my folks while food shopping. She immediately starts asking me computer questions. She's looking to buy a new computer and starts asking things like "what's a good computer", "what should I look for", "does it come with blah blah blah blah blah".

I tell her to call me to setup an appointment and I'll help her buy a new system (purchase assistance is one of the services I offer). She says "Oh, that's not necessary. I already bought one and it should be delivered in a few days" (ok, thanks for wasting my time with all the questions).

Then she starts asking "is it easy to put together", "will I be able to transfer all my files", "will everything work like it did before". I tell her to call me when she receives it to schedule an appointment - I'll backup data, disconnect the old one, setup the new one, transfer data, etc. I'm thinking she won't. She's a bit on the cheap side and doesn't want to pay for the service. Now, I don't mind helping people out, but this can be a 3+ hour job and I'm not doing it for free. And I know this lady. She thinks that because she knows my family it puts her right in front of the freebie line. Not happening.

I get a call a few days later on a Saturday evening "I'm having some trouble setting up my new computer, can I ask you some questions"? I say "Not right now. It's Saturday night and I'm going out with my wife. Tomorrow is Sunday and I'm taking the day off. I can schedule an appointment for Monday or Tuesday". She replies "Oh, I have appointments all day Monday & Tuesday. If I need you I'll call you". Great! I thought that would be the end of it.

Sunday evening I get another call.....it's from her neighbor (hey, free is better than me, right?). He starts telling me a story about trying to transfer data, how he can't find everything, can't find programs on the new computer, how Windows 7 is so different from XP and how the Internet doesn't seem to be any faster. He ends with "I'm stuck. Tell me what to do". I'm thinking to myself: Yeah, right. Call me at home on a Sunday night asking for free tech support. Not gonna happen pal. Not gonna happen. Tell the lady to blow the dust off her purse and we'll talk.

I explain to the guy that this is what I do for a living and I'd be more than happy to help, but this is not something I can do over the phone. I tell him I can schedule an appointment for tomorrow or the next day. Again, they'll get back to me.

A few days later I get home and my wife tells me I have a message on our home number. Guess who it is. El "help me for free" friend of the family. "I need help, please call me".

Here's the scoop. The computer she replaced is an older system with a floppy drive and a CD/DVD-ROM drive. Her and her neighbor copied data files onto floppies. Well, what do ya know...the new system doesn't have a floppy drive. What to do, what to do? They take the floppies to someone else's house who has a computer with floppy and CD-RW drives. The data is burned to CD then transferred onto the new computer. Now another problem - none of the files will open. Error message: "The item that this shortcut refers to has been changed or moved....." Yep, they copied shortcuts, not the actual data files.

After many frustrating hours not being able to set things up properly, and not being able to get free knowledgeable support, she asks "Do you think you can help me? I'd be happy to pay you." Ding ding ding ding ding. She finally sets up an appointment and I tell her what it's going to cost. However, at this point I'm saying to myself "don't take the job, don't take the job". Stupid me takes the job.

So, I arrive on-site and what greets me? The woman, her neighbor and another neighbor. They all want to watch and see how I'm going to do what I do. If that's not bad enough, the neighbors are asking questions about their own computer problems and what they can do to fix them (looking for more free support). I handle everything very calmly and answer their questions without actually answering them (I vaguely tell them what needs to be done without telling them how to do it). To top it all off, when it comes time to get paid she wants to pay me by giving me her old equipment. I tell her that for an extra $75 (on top of what she owes me) I'll haul the old equipment away and dispose of it properly. The neighbors started cracking up and the look of surprise on her face was priceless.

These days I go food shopping wearing a disguise.

[DarDar]

Before my current admin job, I used to work in a call centre for a large multi-national so I have a couple of stories from cases I had and others. As well as providing over the phone support, we had a network of engineers (outsourced of course!) to send to the home or business.

1: Rant rant rant:mad:
We were a chargeable service and were pretty rigid about not providing free support. This customer calls in to me one day and she had been dealing with one of the other lads earlier in the day for a malware issue. She had run multiple scans at this stage with no joy and was getting impatient. One of the joys of call centre work is that they want the customer off the line as soon as possible to get another in for more cash! We were really pushed to start scans with spybot etc and get the customer to call back in if they weren't fixed. I explained that it does take time for each scan to run but that it was the correct and best procedure (an os-reinstall had been offered on first call in).

However, in her frustration she had just pulled the plug - literally - on the machine during the previous scan and now it wouldn't boot properly. As you can imagine this was tricky to troubleshoot over the phone. It was coming up with a hal error and after 30 mins of me troubleshooting, she says she is willing to do a nuke and pave but demands that an engineer be sent free of charge. This wasn't going to happen! She then proceeded to roar at me for about ten mins and when she had calmed down (worn out is more like it) I offered to walk her through the steps when she wanted but that if she wanted a free engineer she would have to speak to a supervisor. Well of course she wanted to speak to a supervisor :)

Of course he was not going to send out an engineer for free for an issue caused by a customer. She ranted at him for about an hour but he never gave in and in the end she was back on to me to do the reinstall over the phone.

She kept throwing in sly remarks and jibes but I kept my cool and just got on with it. The thing was, she already had a backup of her data (hence being offered a reinstall on first call) and the most awkward program to get back on was Office 2003!

All the hassle and frustration she could have avoided by heeding the advice she was given.:rolleyes:


2: Why use your hands when your feet will do?
This was one that I didn't handle myself but quite funny. A woman rang up with a problem with her new pc - she needed to transfer files from her 12yr old Win95 machine! It had a floppy drive and the new one didn't. The win95 machine had a pci usb card installed but was only usb 1.0 and she couldn't get a memory stick to work. The guy who was working on the call managed to get networking setup between the two and the woman was able to copy over her stuff (mostly a collection of short stories).

The strange thing was that over the course of the call it emerged that the woman was using her right foot to control the mouse! :D She had been used to just a type writer and when she got the original pc she didn't like to move her hand from the typing position. She was able to control the pc almost entirely through keyboard shortcuts. The guy who was helping her said it was one of the most pleasant calls he ever had to do though as she did exactly as she was asked and was very quick on the uptake despite the old pc.

3: The French Keys
This is the best story to come out of that place hands down!

The same guy who handled the mouse lady got this case as well. He just had a knack for getting the strange ones!

A woman rang in with another malware issue and the tech started to setup a remote session. We were using a corporate version of gotoassist and would give the customer a random 7 digit code to put into a website. This is where the fun starts!

The tech - let’s call him Bob - has given the first 5 digits out of the seven and the next digit is a 2, the first number in the sequence. At which point she asks is that the French two? Thinking she means the F keys at the top, Bob says no it’s just the normal two key. She says there is no normal two key on her keyboard! After some interrogation, Bob works out that she thinks the numbers along the top row are the French numbers. Why? - she was told by somebody apparently. :confused:

So Bob says to use the number pad. What’s the number pad she asks? Does he mean the roman numerals? She refers to the number pad as the roman numerals! At which point I should explain that Bob has a masters in theology and a masters in sociology as well as excellent tech skills. He proceeds to point out that they are not roman numerals but she insists that they are. He continues: and if one wanted to be pedantic about it, they are actually Arabic. Well that didn't go down well at all! She screams that she isn't a terrorist! :eek:

At this stage Bob has spent half an hour and two attempted sessions just to try and connect. Most people in the same position would have given in and just asked her to press the French two and be done with it but not Bob. :-) He's set on trying to convince her of the error of her ways. We were based in Ireland and the woman was from Dublin so Bob tries to explain using Irish. He asks her to write down the number 1 on a piece of paper. He then asks her to write down "a haon" (the Irish for one) beside it. He asks her to examine them and asks if they are the same? No she responds! One is English and one is Irish! :confused:

Not long after this Bob just gives up and asks her to call back when her son got home.

[JW The Computer Guy]

Ok, a while back I fixed an elderly ladies laptop. When she came to pick it up I showed her the ropes of all the software I loaded on to it for her, she sat down, and started to move the mouse erratically, and I asked what was wrong, and she replied "I was taught to use a mouse backwards", and by backward I meant the mouse buttons and cord facing you. In order to click, she curled her fingers back so she could reach the mouse buttons. That was one of the strangest things that I have ever seen someone do!

[DrumThumper]

About two years ago (and before I decided to go the IT Tech route I might add), my roommate was having some issues with the new system that he built. It would POST, but would not boot into the OS (he had pulled his old hard drive out of his previous system; he subscribed to the 'if it ain't broke' train of thought most of the time).

I suppose I should also mention that he was, for lack of a better term, three sheets to the wind while doing this.

So he fought with it. And fought with it. For thirty minutes, he fought, cursed, screamed at it, threw the side panel across the room, you get the idea. Finally, he relents and yells for me to come take a look at it.

In his drunken stupor, he managed to hook everything up right. With the exception of the molex going to the hard drive. Overlooked that one.

Hooked it up for him and guess what? Booted right into XP and instantly told him that something had changed with the system. So he calls to reactivate. Took him three times (and a bit of swearing at the poor tech on the other end of the phone) to get the activation code in properly.

Never in my life had I laughed so hard at the expense of another.

[JW The Computer Guy]

In his drunken stupor, he managed to hook everything up right. With the exception of the molex going to the hard drive. Overlooked that one.

You're kidding. Forgetting the power connector:D

[Haktar]

Ok, a while back I fixed an elderly ladies laptop. When she came to pick it up I showed her the ropes of all the software I loaded on to it for her, she sat down, and started to move the mouse erratically, and I asked what was wrong, and she replied "I was taught to use a mouse backwards", and by backward I meant the mouse buttons and cord facing you. In order to click, she curled her fingers back so she could reach the mouse buttons. That was one of the strangest things that I have ever seen someone do!
hahah the librarian at my old school used the mouse this way also

[PBComputer]

A few years ago i had a client, who thought i was there just to ring and i would go running, (even if i was busy with another client) on day, there ring me at 6am!!! i was a sleep, they woke up me, and i asked them to ring back during office hours!. since that day they have never rang or being in touch, in fact i know they have another it firm looking after them. (good ridens to nasty clients, would i go back only if i was on triple time)

[Larry Sabo]

One of my clients was 92 years young and still mentally sharp and curious enough to browse the web, send and receive e-mails, etc. He had outlived two wives and was happily married to his third. During one of my visits, he told me his son had set him up with a wireless connection to a neighbour's router and I casually asked how old his son was. "Sixty seven," he said, "same age as my wife." This took me aback until I realized this son was by his first wife. There can't be many men who can say their son is the same age as their wife, but I had the pleasure to know one. :)

[Larry Sabo]

A SOHO client of mine had been told by the power company to disconnect all electrical appliances in the house because they were about to switch over to a newly-installed power line. This he did, except for the computer, which he simply switched off. The reconnection surge fried everything inside the case: motherboard, power supply, hard drive. Nothing useful was left (and he didn't have a current backup, either!).

I bought him a new computer, as requested, and was about to descend the basement stairs with it, carrying it by the handle cut-out at the top of the cardboard box it came in. As I swung the box in front of me, to negotiate the narrow stairs, the handle ripped out and the box tumbled end-over-end down the full flight of stairs. My customer looked at me calmly and asked dryly, "What do you do for an encore?"

Ross was a terrific guy, one of my most loyal customers, and a true friend. Sadly, he passed away this past year, but not before phoning to say goodbye.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the computer was none the worse for the tumble. It worked just fine.

[technut]

A client I had to see a while ago was complaining of a loud noise coming from the computer. When I got there it was the cpu fan making a helluva noise.
He said the noise would come and go. Everytime it started he said he picked up the front of the tower and banged it on the floor, hard!
He said he had been doing this for weeks everytime the fan became loud and he wondered why his computer wasn't working properly!!:eek:

Had to replace the hs/f and hard drive. Told him never again to bang or kick his computer!

[kagman]

When i was a tech for compusa I saw many strange things.. Case in point. One of our apple techs was given a laptop to work on. He starts to take apart the computer to find that it had become a roach motel. (no joke) Roaches came out of the computer and they also had there eggs all over the laptop. We where all shocked and rather discussed.. he puts the computer back together and tells the boss what happens. We call the customer and ask them to please take this computer back. The lady comes to the store to pickup her computer. She was told what we found and that we could not work on the computer because it was a roach motel. We also assumed that the roaches messed up the computer in the first place.

Turns out that the lady was new to this country, lived in a roach infested apartment and assumed that the roaches in her apartment was a normal part of living in America. She left our store in tears. :(

--Jose--

[NeutronTech]

This one was when I was working for a cable company. I was on call on the 4th of July and got called to go to a customer who's tv wasn't working and the internet was out. I was getting ready to go to a BBQ so I wasn't happy about going out. I get there and walk in to look at the TV first. She has a cable box and it needs to be on channel 3. The tv was on 65.... I put it back on 3 for her and then headed to the computer. Walking into the room I see the modem lights are indicating that it is locked on and working fine. She says "see look at the screen. It's black and that's all it does"........ the computer was turned off. I turned it back on and said happy 4th and walked out. She didn't even say thank you or I'm sorry or anything.

[Checkmate]

Just recently had a client that called in. Had 3 PCs in the house, all of them not working correctly. Various issues like can't start up services, no internet. So as I'm taking information on what the issues are, the client proceeds to tell me that "Homeland Security" has taken over their computers and stops them from doing anything.
So get out to the house, pick up the PCs. None of them working properly at all. One can't even access HDD, bring back to bench. Attempt repairs, recover. Nothing working well... no virus activity. So advise let's move to Windows 7, fix all the little nasties from Vista. They agree, I return the 2 desktops, and get ready to pick up the laptop, and watch the client start going into services and turning stuff off.

Client was saying that Homeland Security was still in the PCs because they couldn't turn off system services. It was giving them the warnings and they sworeit was HS stopping them.

Was just amazed watching this person already breaking their new OS.

[Tech Checkers]

My Father-in-law brought a new PC, more than happy to set it up for him, let myself in, setup, optimised and all good.... 90 mins later received a 'phone call that the Mouse was not working... tried some 'phone support and no joy; drove back over , wandered in and....

He has the Mouse ON the Screen trying to move it round :D

=============

From the World of Coincidence:

Install a new (replacement) DSL Modem Wireless Router all good, 30 minutes later receive a "it's not working" , turn around , back to site and no it isn't ... swap out nothing... 'phone the ISP and IN THE 30 MINS that I have driven away the account's been suspended for non-payment due to the last month's bill having an outdated credit facility !

===========

Setting Up an 8 (!) Screen FOREX traders PC, 3 days and a lot of grrrrr... though he paid "by the hour" for 2 techs and was ecstatic with the Final Result.. maybe I should look at FOREX as a Money Earner !

==========

[drpcfix]

We record all our phone calls, we had 2 really good ones recently..

The first one -

Customer calls and says her daughter was showing her friend her pet turtle via skype, holding the turtle up to the webcam, the turtle peed on the laptop and it stopped working.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15079951/turtle-pee-recording.mp3

:)

Second one, a business customer - I did find the recording.. listen;
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15079951/recording.11.29.2011.mp3

[16k_zx81]

oh, my favorite!!! the porn guy story.

I got a call on a Saturday morning from a guy who just got back into town to find the computer not working, so he reinstalled it, but couldn't get the internet to work. He lived in my neighborhood, so I got the make/model and downloaded the drivers and off I went to the rescue!

Now, keep in mind, my business name is Call That Girl I do get creepy calls about escorting, etc...but they are rare. He seemed very legit with the networking needs, but I did tell a friend to all 911 if I didn't check back within an hour. Just in case.

So I get there to find him looking like hell, dirty as hell and in a wife beater and the apt was freaking gross. I saw the machine and the dirt and was like "what the F"...I had to touch that keyboard????

I installed the network adapter, got him going. Heard his story and did a "hmm, this sounds suspicous". He didn't look like he just got back from a business trip, but it looked more like he got back from a 3 day meth/porn binge. I chaulked it up as he ruined it and couldn't fix it, owell...I did and got $85 quick bucks.

Then he said all his stuff was gone, so I installed my data recovery tools and told him to let it run for a day or so and he could pay by credit card to get it back.

First picture to be recovered? Yep, porn. And tons of it! He was right there when we found it and I was like "Ok, I'm on my way!"

Not even 4 hours later, he calls me, "yeah, I think the internet is gone again and I was wondering if you could come back".

no way pal.

EEW. Just EEW. :(

....................................

[Tech Checkers]

We record all our phone calls, we had 2 really good ones recently..

Second one, a business customer - I did find the recording.. listen;
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15079951/recording.11.29.2011.mp3

LOL - THough you should probably add a NSFW notification to that one ! :cool:

[NOOB_TECH]

I can only think of two

(AKA-The day I forced myself to buy a mouse for onsite repairs)
1. I had a customer that wanted to connect her HDMI TV to her computer. It sounded simple enough, but once I got on site it got really complicated, because she had a wacom tablet for a mouse. A Wacom tablet is some sort of drawing pad that can be used to sketch pictures on the computer. I never used a wacom tablet, but she swore by it, and said it was better than a mouse. This thing was hard to control, and when I asked her if she could control for me she refused. I really felt like she wanted me to learn how to use it. It took me at least an hour to learn how to use this thing. Before you ask, no she didn’t have a mouse this was her mouse.

I have never done an HDMI TV to computer setup, but everything I Googled and read made it sound so simple. The customer sore that it worked at one time. Although, she lived in the lower level in the basement of this building and didn’t get a signal at all. All the connections seemed ok, video driver was good, and she had a HDMI ready mother board. Nothing that I tried worked, so I didn’t charge her, but I did mention that she should get a mouse, they’re only $5.00.

2. I went to fix a no boot issue-
I met the customer at his house. He was a very nice older gentleman, and he said his computer went to a black screen. I said “huh”? He showed me his computer and he says “Oh now it’s a blue screen” , well start up and repair was running, and I waited 10 minutes and turned the power off and then back on. It booted up normally, then he goes “WOW” it works. I said “yeah”… I ran an HP hardware diagnostic, and it passed the first ten minutes, then showed him how to run the full scan. Also, ran malware bytes and showed him how to run a full scan. While getting into the boot menu to show him how to do the HP diagnostic, he said that’s the black screen he saw.. So he saw the boot screen, he must of hit the boot menu button by mistake.

[LedHed]

I worked at a local university for 8 years and here are some of my stories from there:

Got a work order that a printer would not print so I went to check it out with a co-worker. It was an HP Laserjet 4000. I started a print job from the PC and I could clearly see the Data light flashing. The printer acted like it wanted to print but it just wouldn't. I took out the toner cartridge and I began to look at the paper path to make sure there was nothing blocking it. When I tried to put the cartridge back in, it wouldn't go. I was REALLY trying and no joy. After 10 minutes of checking and re-checking my co-worker showed me the empty toner box next to the printer. The empty box was for a Laserjet 4 cartridge! I asked the secretary if this was the new cartridge she bought for her Laserjet 4000. She said yes and then she told me her husband (an engineer) and another guy had a heck of a time installing it. I explained to her that she bought a Laserjet 4 cartridge for a Laserjet 4000 and then she said this..."I saw the number 4 on the box, I just thought they dropped the zeroes." She then asked me if she broke the printer and I said yes. Then she called my boss and told him that I just accused her of breaking her printer!

Got call from a really nice lady that her monitor would not come on. She told me that it had been off for over a day. I asked her if all the cables were properly connected and if the little green power light was one. She confirmed everything was as it should be. PAY CLOSE ATTENTION, HERE IS WHERE IT GETS WEIRD. As I approached the office, I could see her sitting at her desk and I could see the screen was black. I WALKED INTO THE OFFICE...AND THE MONITOR CAME ON. She asked me what I did, I told her "I was out, and then I came in!

I have a few more which I will post tomorrow.

LedHed

[gikstar]

I good customer of mine (an Architect) who now lives 200 miles away (I was the one who moved) contacted me that he couldn't get anything to show up on his monitor... it was blank.
Ok, well bring it by and bring the computer too. Well, it didn't take long for to figure out the problem. I has sold him a Dell Ultrasharp monitor and when moving it about on his desk he had touched one of the buttons, the one that changes the input from DVI, VGA, etc and it was now set to S-Video. When he left that day he left with another of those monitors so he could have a dual setup and drove the 200 miles back home.

He's a good friend and loyal customer and I upgrade his equipment every couple of years. Just got him into a used i7-920, 12Gbs ram and a raid 5 setup, and his monitors are holding up just fine.

[LedHed]

Got a work order that a computer would not turn on. I went to check it out and I asked the lady to explain. She told me that when she pushes the power button nothing happens. The computer was a Gateway and it was under her desk. Apparently, the cleaning crew had bumped it and the front face plate had partially detached. I kicked it to put it back in place and turned it on. Everything came up just fine. She told me that she could have done that. I told her (joking, of course) that I went to college to learn how to do such things and it was not for amateurs. I wrote on the work order "Computer would not turn on - kicked front of computer, it came on."

Got a work order mentioning something about a floppy disk. I went to check it out and I asked the lady to explain. She told me that she put it in her computer and she couldn't get it pull up any info. She told me that all of the information for her students was on that disk and it was really important. I ran some disk tools on it but it there was just nothing there. I told her that the disk was bad and she said "I don't understand how it could be bad, I've been using it for 6 YEARS!"

Once I saw a PostIt note covering the slot for a floppy disk. The note said "DO NOT USE A: DRIVE, IT SAYS IT HAS A VIRUS.

Got several work orders (at least a dozen) over a 3 month period from the same lady. Every single work order was about her computer being slow. It was a Dell Dimension 8200 with 256 megs of RDRAM. I explained to her on several occasions that, short of having her college buy a new computer, there was really nothing I could do. The last work order I got for this problem, I told her that the machine cannot possibly go any faster. She then asked me for my PERSONAL cell phone number. I asked her why she wanted it and she said this, "Tomorrow, when it is still slow, I want to call you personally to come and fix it." I told her that the university does not pay for my phone and I am under no obligation to give out my number. I then went to the help desk and told them to put a note in the help desk software to ignore all work requests from her about her computer being slow. I also wrote this message on the last work order "Computer is slow because it is old...cannot currently go back in time."

[mm201]

I had a neighbor tell me that his computer wasn't connecting to his banking website and he was getting a strange error message. I told him that I suspected a virus and that I'd be around the next day to take a look at it. He went home and took the side off of the tower, looked inside and reported to me that he didn't see anything that looked like a virus to him.

The resolution to his problem ended up being that the CMOS battery was dead and the digital certificate to his bank's website wasn't syncing.

[PCX]

I had a neighbor tell me that his computer wasn't connecting to his banking website and he was getting a strange error message. I told him that I suspected a virus and that I'd be around the next day to take a look at it. He went home and took the side off of the tower, looked inside and reported to me that he didn't see anything that looked like a virus to him.

The resolution to his problem ended up being that the CMOS battery was dead and the digital certificate to his bank's website wasn't syncing.

Ironically, he was going in the right direction . . . I had a similar situation where a guy took apart his laptop and tried shaking out the viruses. Needless to say, it was not the CMOS battery or viruses.

[NETWizz]

Got a work order that a computer would not turn on. I went to check it out and I asked the lady to explain. She told me that when she pushes the power button nothing happens. The computer was a Gateway and it was under her desk. Apparently, the cleaning crew had bumped it and the front face plate had partially detached. I kicked it to put it back in place and turned it on. Everything came up just fine. She told me that she could have done that. I told her (joking, of course) that I went to college to learn how to do such things and it was not for amateurs. I wrote on the work order "Computer would not turn on - kicked front of computer, it came on."

Got a work order mentioning something about a floppy disk. I went to check it out and I asked the lady to explain. She told me that she put it in her computer and she couldn't get it pull up any info. She told me that all of the information for her students was on that disk and it was really important. I ran some disk tools on it but it there was just nothing there. I told her that the disk was bad and she said "I don't understand how it could be bad, I've been using it for 6 YEARS!"

Once I saw a PostIt note covering the slot for a floppy disk. The note said "DO NOT USE A: DRIVE, IT SAYS IT HAS A VIRUS.

Got several work orders (at least a dozen) over a 3 month period from the same lady. Every single work order was about her computer being slow. It was a Dell Dimension 8200 with 256 megs of RDRAM. I explained to her on several occasions that, short of having her college buy a new computer, there was really nothing I could do. The last work order I got for this problem, I told her that the machine cannot possibly go any faster. She then asked me for my PERSONAL cell phone number. I asked her why she wanted it and she said this, "Tomorrow, when it is still slow, I want to call you personally to come and fix it." I told her that the university does not pay for my phone and I am under no obligation to give out my number. I then went to the help desk and told them to put a note in the help desk software to ignore all work requests from her about her computer being slow. I also wrote this message on the last work order "Computer is slow because it is old...cannot currently go back in time."

Two things I learned (by experience) that they don't teach you in College:

1. You cannot fix slow...

2. You cannot fix stupid.

[PCX]

I thought this was worth posting . . . I just had a guy come in our shop and he told me that his roommate pied on his MacBook Pro and fried the motherboard. He then asked if it could be repaired. Of course I told him yes, but that we would not touch it.

Crazy Guy: "Why?"

Me: "You just told me that you roommate pied on your laptop"

Crazy Guy: "Yeah, but it happened like a year ago"

Me: "He pied on your laptop . . . "

Crazy Guy: "Well I just wanted to know if it could be fixed"

Me: "Yes, it can probably be repaired, but we are not going to repair it for you. If you want it repaired, you need to go somewhere else"


He was less than pleased with my response.

[cypress]

There is one thing he should respect from that, you were direct in your response.

[nlinecomputers]

I had some jerk call me to their home to look at the pc. Once I opened it I realized that the cat had pee'd on it. They didn't tell me this and I am sure they knew. They had the gall to get angry when I halted work and refused to even put the chassis back together.

[YeOldeStonecat]

I had some jerk call me to their home to look at the pc. Once I opened it I realized that the cat had pee'd on it. They didn't tell me this and I am sure they knew. They had the gall to get angry when I halted work and refused to even put the chassis back together.

I've seen that too..where a cat peed on the laptop.
Dunno why cats seem to like that...they usually pee on some surface they can scratch up. Maybe it's warmth emanating from it? //shrug

[jft135]

I had a fun one earlier this week. A middle-aged lady brought her laptop in for me to fix because her adult son threw the laptop across the room and broke it. A new HDD and fresh install got it up and running and I sent her on her way. A few days later she called me up and whined about her cursor jumping all over the place when she is typing. Having dealt with this more times than I can count, I told her that while she is typing, her wrist, jewelry, or clothing is probably hitting the touchpad. She insisted that she has taught piano for years and types like she is playing the piano and that can't possibly be what is going on. I told her to bring it in and I'd check it out.

She brought in the computer and after typing a paragraph or so, I couldn't duplicate the problem. I asked her to type, and watched her hit the touchpad with her wrist every other time she hit the spacebar. Not wanting to start an argument (you all know the type) I didn't say anything. I installed TouchFreeze, asked her to try again, and she was ecstatic that I had fixed it so quickly.

This is almost as annoying as when customers come in with broken WiFi. *Click* "Your WiFi switch was turned off."

[Cadishead Computers]

This is almost as annoying as when customers come in with broken WiFi. *Click* "Your WiFi switch was turned off."

I have come across this particular one a few times. A neighbour, calls me, my wifi isnt working.. "I haven't touched anything", it just went off.

Go round, and sure enough her wifi switch was turned to the off position.

I haven't done that, the laptop must of done it on its own.

The switch cannot be changed from the computer, even if it was inadvertently moved, that is the cause.

"I haven't touched anything".. so rather than argue the toss, I say its one of those things, it can easily happen..

Short story here, this 'client' messes around with settings, deleting files left right and center, then calls me, when its not working properly.

It has got to the point now, where I am seriously considering locking the machine down watertight, so that she cannot mess around.

She had this laptop off me in Feb this year.

Notes so far from this year..

slow freezing occasionally adobe flash requires updating.
Checked In By: admin
Status: Picked Up on March 20, 2012, 12:32 pm
Checked Out by: admin

View this Work Order
Customer Notes: Super Anti Spyware has not been updated for 35 days.

Date of last scan 13.3.12 2 viruses have been found and removed. These had been installed, from web sites visited. This is called a drive by attack.

*** PLEASE ENSURE THAT ALL VIRUS / MALWARE PROGRAMS ARE UPDATED ON A VERY REGULAR BASIS. ***

free virus check. plugin container not working.
Checked In By: admin
Status: Picked Up on June 21, 2012, 2:16 pm
Checked Out by: admin

View this Work Order
Customer Notes: Babylon toolbar has been removed.
Conduit has been removed.
48.82Mb of temporary files have been removed.
191.48Mb of temporary internet files have been removed.

In Aug, she wanted the laptop nuking, as her music was all over the place. Turned out she was complaining that a file on the right hand side of the page would not play, yet on the left hand side it would (attempting to play a torrent - then complaining that it was downloading again, when she had already downloaded it). She put her music in very obscure places (system 32, + prog data for eg), then complained that, she couldnt find anything as the computer had done it all by itself.. It was a complete mess, files here there and everywhere..

Easiest thing was a nuke it, using the factory restore. with instructions to only save things in the places where I have set them to be saved. Not to mess around with anything!.

pup appearing constantly.
Checked In By: admin
Status: Picked Up on September 3, 2012, 2:51 pm
Checked Out by: admin

View this Work Order
Customer Notes: We have removed the following programs from the computer
Mcafee Security Plus
Antiphishing domain advisor
Ask tool bar
Ask tool bar updater
Internet Explorer toolbar by sweetpacks
Direct downloader
Mcafee Security Scan Optimiser
Pro Site Ranker
Sweet IM Messenger
Yontoo layers
Startnow tool bar
Yontoo toolbar
U Torrent toolbar

The homepage has been changed from yahoo.co.uk to ddlstart.com, using yahoo as its search engine. This has been changed back again to yahoo.co.uk

Stub_ddlr.exe is a trojan virus. This file was created on the 31st aug at 9.28pm.

This is part of the direct downloader series of programs.

The program itself has been removed. The file (game) - Gaming Wonderland, which was downloaded on the 28th Aug at 9.10pm, is the cause of a lot of the issues.

This program contained a major pup. The file itself has been removed from the computer

573.18Mb of temp files have been removed.
400.88Mb of temp internet files have been removed.

She had not :/ installed the above programs, they had all appeared by themselves, she was only looking for a program to speed her pc up..

I really give up. Hence my comment of locking it up watertight.
Al this work is foc, as she is our resident gardener and the boss won't let me charge her, as she looks after our plants gratis.

[glricht]

... I installed TouchFreeze, asked her to try again, and she was ecstatic that I had fixed it so quickly.

I also have a problem of touching the keypad when I'm typing and it has driven me bonkers! Wasn't aware of TouchFreeze ... gonna try it out right now!

[jft135]

I also have a problem of touching the keypad when I'm typing and it has driven me bonkers! Wasn't aware of TouchFreeze ... gonna try it out right now!

It is a wonderful program. A lot of touchpad drivers work the same; essentially they ignore any mouse movements for a split second after you are done typing. I think what happened in this case is that I used a different driver version than she had had previously, and that's why it started after the clean install.

[TechLady]

I really give up. Hence my comment of locking it up watertight.

These are the kinds of clients that might be good candidates for Ubuntu, maybe.

[Cadishead Computers]

These are the kinds of clients that might be good candidates for Ubuntu, maybe.

Nice thought, but this client, wanted a cheap tablet again earlier in the year. So I sourced one for her. (she purchased it herself). Set it up, no problem, showed how to work it.. No problem..

Then I find that she have it to her niece, as she couldn't work it properly, as it want windows based!. Ubuntu? Forget it lol.

More money then sense.. She also bought a amazon kindle, as everyone else has one, now asked me for a quote to build her hubby a replacement machine, as his is getting slow now.. Athlon xp2600 2gb DDR. ( bear in mind, I 'gave' them this machine some 4 yrs ago to replace the ageing s370 they had.)

[TimJacobs]

She had not :/ installed the above programs, they had all appeared by themselves, she was only looking for a program to speed her pc up..

Nige, You should ask her why she is wanting to speed up the computer.... Offer to do it for her so she can get the "Maximum" Speed possible. Then install Sandboxie... and password protect it...



Al this work is foc, as she is our resident gardener and the boss won't let me charge her, as she looks after our plants gratis.
I am so sorry..... I have a boss like that too....

[TechLady]

Then install Sandboxie... and password protect it..

Or Deepfreeze.

Here's something gleaned from Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/10rdtd/what_is_something_your_current_or_past_employer/?limit=500):

xhabeascorpusx: While working at Staples as an "Easy Tech," we would scan a computer with malwarebytes (not with the ****** norton we were given by corporate, like we were supposed to). If a cookie or something worse would pop up, we would charge them 169.99 to have someone in Canada remove it for them. Even if it was a cookie, I would have to tell the customer that it was a virus, and their system's integrity was in danger. An old lady came dropped off her computer, Mary Anne, she knew me by name and only trusted me. She had me put new memory in, which I charged her an extra 30 for (company policy), and she asked me to do a virus scan. I found a cookie from a stupid game site that her grandson liked to play on. I removed the cookie, marked the computer done, and then called her to tell her that the computer was ready to be picked up. I didn't tell her she had a bad cookie, or that there were any issues, only that there were no viruses. She came, and picked it up an hour before I got there the next day. That day I was called in the office and they fired me. Yep right there. I preformed a free service apparently. What got me caught was that I didn't delete the Malwarebytes log of the cookie and my supervisor found it. Apparently he scanned the computer earlier before me and found that cookie and wanted to make her pay for a virus removal (I wouldn't be surprised if he put it on there himself). When he saw that computer was ready to be picked up, and there was no notes about a virus he checked the malwarebytes log. %$#@ me for having a conscience. Now I am on month 3 and I cannot even get a job at Walmart because I was terminated from Staples.

Nice.

[cypress]

Wow that's really messed up. Even a cookie? Dang, that's low.