Comments on: The Issue is Not Always What It Seems: My Humbling Experience

By: Pcfixpoint

Pcfixpoint — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:23:05 +0000

Yuhuu, You done a great job. All technicians shold be like you.

By: Martin

Martin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:21:55 +0000

Great Story, i am also an computer tech but never got that type of problems.

By: Adam S,

Adam S, — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:46:31 +0000

When I started with the Geek Squad a few years back I found that being good with computers does not mean that you will be good a fixing them (at first) Odd are if you are really good with computers…yours is never really broken. I was always the guy family and friends would call out to fix their issues. I would usually do a backup and format and reinstall. This does not qualify one as a tech. It was quite daunting when I stepped out in the field and found that an OS reinstall is not always the solution and in some cases for some clients not even an option.

But if you have a decent knowledge of how things work, enjoy a challenge, and have access to google (lol) you will learn quickly. What I love about this job is I learn something new everyday. I am not ashamed to say sometimes I even learn a little something from my clients or something they say sets off an idea.

I still find myself over complicating the issue. Much like this story I dig right into the nitty gritty without looking at the basics first. Always a humbling experience.

Its ok as long as you have learned something.

I live by this quote. I guess I will take credit for it as I have never heard anyone else use it.

“You don’t want the guy who answers you with “I know everything, sure I can fix it!” you want the guy who answers “Sure, I can figure that out for you!” One thinks he knows everything and the latter is confident but not cocky. The latter also knows he/she can do anything they set their mind to. The first guy is more than likely to spend hours making your computer worse and then admit to not being as good as first claimed.

Please excuse the long rant and bad grammar and spelling I am in a rush this morning. Hope this helps someone out.

By: Scott Cordell

Scott Cordell — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:52:29 +0000

I had a similar problem about a month ago too. the caps on the video card were opened on the top which caused the same issue when booting into XP. It took me a while to figure out it would be a hardwae issue.

By: Dallas Computers

Dallas Computers — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:15:23 +0000

To add to the above, leaky capacitors are often seen in older hardware. This was especially prevalent in the early to mid 2000s — there’s even a Wikipedia article about it — it was called the Capacitor Plague!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

By: Clintonio

Clintonio — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:29:58 +0000

My humbling experiences usually come from my own machine than anyone elses. A while ago I got a new pair of mid-high end GPUs for my system, and, shortly after starting a high spec game, it would just lose power. I tried everything except replacing the PSU, or so I thought. After doing this I got ultra sick of trying and quit playing games to cut down the waste of time.
So, then Microsoft release Windows 7 x64 Beta. I start using it instead of Vista x64, not long after I tried gaming on it. And, well, I can suddenly play games again. I had tried reformatting Vista several times, I even changed Vista version. I still don’t know why it was doing that. And, I’m not satisfied with it either. I didn’t think that the OS could cut power like that, and I still don’t. Oh well.

By: Rafiq

Rafiq — Thu, 28 May 2009 04:24:47 +0000

Thank you Bryce, very informative experience you’ve got there. I have come across a similar experience whereby a cmos battery simply wouldn’t work, keeps on bugging me to change my date and time settings whenever the machine boots. Although I’m 100% sure its the battery, but replacing it doesn’t solve the problem. I did some component level checking and realize that the capacitor close to the battery its not supplying the required voltage to the battery. I change the capacitor and its working well.

By: Larry

Larry — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:25:17 +0000

Yes K.I.S.S is cliche’ but needed most in PC repair. Thanks for sharing. I have had many experiences, that humbled me, but my favorite is when a friend has one. My friend, we’ll call him Simon, had a PC he could not figure out why it wouldn’t boot. He took each component out and tested it several ways, even the PSU. By the way guys a PSU tester is a must! All components checked out, at least he said “ALL” components had been tested. I took a look inside the box and noticed a old 56K modem card and that it was very hot. I was joking but didn’t let on and said take out that 56K modem card and it will start right up. He did and it did. He was amazed that I had the technical prowess to know that. He kept asking how did you know. I finally broke down and told him it was a guess and if I was right he would think me a genius, but if I was wrong he would forget about it in a couple of days.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 25 May 2009 18:29:40 +0000

Those are power supply capacitors. They are also right next to the power regulators on that board. They’re electrolytic capacitors which are always used in power supplies and audio applications. Most likely the higher resolution mode required a purer DC signal and since the caps were faulty the gpu couldn’t operate due to ac ripple on the dc line.

By: Teitur

Teitur — Mon, 25 May 2009 02:46:51 +0000

My worst one until now is a computer with a broken PSU, I changed it but the computer would not boot or run good and stable.

Took me a long time to figure out that -5v on the new PSU was out.