So last week a customer brought their tower in. They aren't exactly tech saavy so the best I could get out of them was "it's giving me error messages." No problem, I fired it up and saw that Vista was installed twice. One install on the large partition looked to be riddled with viruses. The other install was a fresh install, although it was installed on the recovery partition, so it was already completely out of room. The customer explained that he's fed up with the computer so he wants it just completely reset. I nuked and paved and sent him on his way.
I get a call the next day from the customer and he says it's still giving him the error messages. I was able to determine that he was referring to blue screens. Strange that it was happening right after a fresh nuke and pave, but I told him to bring it on back so I can take a look. The two things installed since I gave it back was Norton anti-virus and a Kodak printer. I ran the system for a few hours and was not able to get the BSOD. I ran the system through full hard drive and memory diagnostics, and it got a clean bill of health. Now I've heard many horror stories about Kodak printers, so I suggested that the customer not hook the printer back up and see if the problem goes away.
He calls back the next day and says its still happening even without the printer attached. Whats worse is he said that 4 times out of 5, the system will BSOD on bootup. When he does it get it booted, it BSODs within a couple of minutes. I ask him what he has plugged in. Keyboard, mouse, monitor, and ethernet, nothing else. I have him read me the BSODs and they are just generic stop errors, the kind that can be anything. The customer tells me he tried two different monitors, so I asked him to bring the computer in with his mouse and keyboard, since thats the only difference between how he has it hooked up and how I do. The customer brings them in along with the monitor just in case. I hook it all up exactly how he does, sure enough, no BSOD for me.
At this point, I schedule an onsite with him, but tell him to not hook up his cable modem when he gets back. If it doesn't BSOD, it's gotta be something with his cable modem. If it still does, I'll take a look when I show up for the onsite.
Sure enough, he calls back and lets me know it BSODed. At this point, the only remaining variable is the power. Before I go for the onsite, does anyone have any suggestions at all? I've never seen something like this before.
I get a call the next day from the customer and he says it's still giving him the error messages. I was able to determine that he was referring to blue screens. Strange that it was happening right after a fresh nuke and pave, but I told him to bring it on back so I can take a look. The two things installed since I gave it back was Norton anti-virus and a Kodak printer. I ran the system for a few hours and was not able to get the BSOD. I ran the system through full hard drive and memory diagnostics, and it got a clean bill of health. Now I've heard many horror stories about Kodak printers, so I suggested that the customer not hook the printer back up and see if the problem goes away.
He calls back the next day and says its still happening even without the printer attached. Whats worse is he said that 4 times out of 5, the system will BSOD on bootup. When he does it get it booted, it BSODs within a couple of minutes. I ask him what he has plugged in. Keyboard, mouse, monitor, and ethernet, nothing else. I have him read me the BSODs and they are just generic stop errors, the kind that can be anything. The customer tells me he tried two different monitors, so I asked him to bring the computer in with his mouse and keyboard, since thats the only difference between how he has it hooked up and how I do. The customer brings them in along with the monitor just in case. I hook it all up exactly how he does, sure enough, no BSOD for me.
At this point, I schedule an onsite with him, but tell him to not hook up his cable modem when he gets back. If it doesn't BSOD, it's gotta be something with his cable modem. If it still does, I'll take a look when I show up for the onsite.
Sure enough, he calls back and lets me know it BSODed. At this point, the only remaining variable is the power. Before I go for the onsite, does anyone have any suggestions at all? I've never seen something like this before.
