Worst computer you have worked on

[dracken]

What is the worst computer you have worked on and why?

I think I had one of the worst machines that ever came into the repair shop. The owner's cat had urinated in the laptop. The customer wanted the information retrieved from the hard drive. The laptop was an original Ibook. In the Ibook you have to take it a good ways apart before you can get to the hard drive in the unit. Was definately the nastiest machine I had seen.

I was able to retrieve the information from the hard drive, although the computer was ruined.

 

[Bryce W]

I cant beat your cat-pee story but have come across a PC that was really really dirty with stains on the case and smelt like old cigarettes.

Have you ever seen those news stories about the rental "tenants from hell" that have holes kicked in the walls and garbage as high as the roof? Well, this computer was in one of those houses. It was nasty.. but I dont think it beats your story, I know how bad cat pee can smell.

 

[focuz]

I had a buddy doing a dell warrenty call for a power supply replacement. The orginal power supply failed because it was full of cockroaches. Needless to say his equipment was not fixed and my buddy left the house right away.

 

[gunslinger]

What is the worst computer you have worked on and why?

I think I had one of the worst machines that ever came into the repair shop. The owner's cat had urinated in the laptop. The customer wanted the information retrieved from the hard drive. The laptop was an original Ibook. In the Ibook you have to take it a good ways apart before you can get to the hard drive in the unit. Was definately the nastiest machine I had seen.

I was able to retrieve the information from the hard drive, although the computer was ruined.

I use that program as well, made it portable and it rides in my usb drive.
as far as the worst machine i have worked on, i'm not sure but i made a house call the other day to get a customers dial up internet up and running. once there i noticed that he had no phone jacks. I explained that dial-up internet works much better with them. Came back 2 days later after he had jacks installed only to discover that his computer ( a bottom of the line dell) had no modem. Ah , what fun.

 

[gunslinger]

Oh , i almost forgot. two weeks ago i was trying to find a house with a dell going out. the woman informed me that it was the one with 100 or so animal cages in the front yard ( we'll call this red flag #1), when i actually found this house and stepped in i almost got sick, the smell was awful. there was at lest 5 dogs 2 cats and a few chickens living in the house. I checked for spyware as the blind dog humped my leg and the chicken supervised.

 

[dracken]

Oh , i almost forgot. two weeks ago i was trying to find a house with a dell going out. the woman informed me that it was the one with 100 or so animal cages in the front yard ( we'll call this red flag #1), when i actually found this house and stepped in i almost got sick, the smell was awful. there was at lest 5 dogs 2 cats and a few chickens living in the house. I checked for spyware as the blind dog humped my leg and the chicken supervised.

Lol, that is pretty bad. Been in some messy onsite appointments(Dorm rooms), but nothing like that.

 

[DarkEdge]

My worst software wise was a system with over 32.000 infected files

Hardware wise was a system about two years ago. Customer came and said computer was not booting up and his son (supposedly a IT Technician) already looked at it but could not find anything.
When I opened the computer I was shocked to find that his son had broken the heat sink retention and cut the CPU fan cables. The CPU was burned of course, the mother board also beyond repair.

 

[breadtrk]

Computer terminal in a Rock Crusher at the bottom of a Quartz Quarry. This thing was used to control the size of the crush, different clients required different sizes. It had been down there 8 years. It also had a dialup internet connection so the operator would have something to do between adjustments.

Full tower case literally completly clogged with Quartz dust, it was like they used a funnel to fill it to the top, then packed in some more. The monitor was the same way, I just could not believe that it even worked at all, the fans had stopped spinning long ago. They also insisted that the machine could only be down for an hour, couldn't stop production. It was crippled with spyware, first run of spybot found about 10gb of junk. I sort of got it running again but gave no guarentees.

Up top I toild the situation to the foreman and stongly suggested that they either replace it with a machine built for that environment, or allow me time to clean that one out, seal it up and put a filter on the air intake.

Thankfully they opted for a new machine and allowed me to commission a case to be built with a differential air filter warning (like 18wheeler have for their air filters) so they can maintain it better. I also schooled them in the use of antiviri and anti spyware. None of the machines in the entire company had any protection at all. I spen over a week cleaning machines and deleteing porn. I had never seen so much porn and porn dialers in my life.

I even turned them onto a few "safe" porn sites I have encountered over the years since this was accecptable use in this bunch, Even the Secretary had her own gay porn collection.

5 years later and I'm still shaking Quartz dust out of my hair.

 

[iladelf]

My folks own a rock quarry, so I know all about the dust situation. Even in their office, everything gets dusty. That's why they have filtered computer cases.

 

[cole]

I've had my share of confused, misinformed, or just plain ignorant customers, but oddly enough they haven't been much of a problem for me. At the forefront of my mind though is a time where I did a tech call for a nice old gentleman (well over 80 years old) who had purchased a computer so that he could keep in touch with his children. I was working for someone else at the time, and my boss was a bit of a greedy bugger who was hardly customer minded, so he insisted that if I helped the guy it would be on my own time. I was fine with that, and went to visit the gentleman at his apartment in the local old folks home. He was a nice enough guy, and I had him all set up fairly quickly. I also got his printer installed and set up his dial up connection. As I was working I heard an odd sort of creaking noise, but wasn't sure where it came from. I listened to the fans computer for a second, but the sound did not repeat. However sound was the least of my problems, as a ghastly, choking smell confronted me, and I realized that the creaking noise I had heard was the nice old gentleman farting. The smell was overpowering and my eyes began to water, and it was all I could do to keep a straight face. Needless to say I finished my work up quickly and left. Of course when I told my boss his first comment was that I wasn't eligible for hazardous duty pay.

 

[nonchalant]

I checked for spyware as the blind dog humped my leg and the chicken supervised.

haha..thats funny..

Dont you just love it when you go round to a customers house dressed in your best shirt and tie etc, and the customer insists the 20 yr old dog comes in from outside to sniff and rub itself up against you..

 

[MrMille]

Isn't that what Mace is for!

 

[gunslinger]

Isn't that what Mace is for!

Oh no, you save the mace for the 300 lb. woman with the leather thong on that meets you at the door.

 

[MrMille]

Dude! macing fat chicks is like so 80s!

What do you think taser's were invented for!

 

[freessp350]

I'm in the process of getting my business off the ground and you guys are scaring the crap out of me! LOL Maybe I should invest in a HazMat suit!

 

[gunslinger]

I'm in the process of getting my business off the ground and you guys are scaring the crap out of me! LOL Maybe I should invest in a HazMat suit!

Might not be a bad idea. In going to peoples houses you will see about everything in time, but you will also meet some good people. You are dealing with the public so expect to see the good the bad and the ugly.

 

[MrMille]

Worst computer I've every worked on...
To be fair, most are okay,
but I remember riding my bike to a (former) friend's mothers house,
and worked on her 500Mhz PC.
It was full of trojans, dialers, etc, and it only had 256MB of RAM.
I made the mistake of rebuilding the machine, and then installing some software that slowed the machine down.
I must have gone to that house 3 times, and even though it was a 'friends' I never got paid. Which is a shame, he was a nice guy, but that meanness put me right off. Months later, he offered to pay, I wouldn't touch his money at that stage.

 

[IcedFalcon]

I had a lady bring in an old electronic typewriter once and tell me she wanted windows on it. I told her I couldn't put windows on a typewriter and offered her a new computer. She then started yelling at me that I didn't know what I was talking about because her neighbor gave it to her and he said it was a computer and that I should never call a customer a lier. Sorry... Lier!

Another one was actually my Grandmother. I had bought them a color printer and she sat down and typed a letter in word. Then printed it out and couldn't figure out why it wasn't printing (black text...) in color.

 

[Jory]

I worked on one that had been in a fire. Oddly enough it still worked but was completely covered in black soot inside and out. That was not fun to cleanup at all. If I remember correctly I charged them extra for the cleanup and they gave me a tip on top of that.

 

[mdshann]

We had one that came in that we called the PEEtop. The customers dog had ****** in the laptop and of course it was dead. We had our worst employee tear it apart and then it sat in double plastic bags untill the customer finally picked it up.