Worst computer you have worked on

[dracken]

We had another one recently, a fujitsu tablet, customer's roommate vomited in it. Usually for fujitsu, we depot them for the damage plan, but fujitsu didn't want the computer returned so they just replaced it for him.

 

[14049752]

I have two that I consider my "worst".
The first was a dell dimension tower, fairly plain specs that wouldn't power on/stay powered on. The customer said that it was a web server that they keep in their basement, so they needed it back quickly. On the outside, the system looked fairly normal, a little dirty. When I took the side panel off, several INCHES of dust/sand fell out of the system. My boss at the time had me clean it despite the fact that the components were literally buried and a new computer (and filtration system was in order). Amazingly enough, after cleaning, it worked fine somehow. I think I may still have pictures somewhere....


The second was a typical cat pee computer. Of course, it smelled awful, some cards were fried, and it was our policy to either pack it up and send it home or require it be cleaned and every pee'd on part be replaced. The reason the system's in my worst list is because the customer ended up being an uncle I hadn't heard from in years...

 

[JimmyW]

I guess Im pretty lucky. I am disabled and most homes around here are not handicapped accessable so my customers bring me their computers. My worst was a HP which was so dirty that there was no ventilation vents open, it was totally plugged up with cat hair, dust, and smelled bad of cigarette smoke. I have a 2 gallon shop vac that I totally filled up with the junk from that computer. Suprisingly it worked great after a major cleaning and replacing the cpu fan and a case fan. The other was a Gateway laptop that had a broken hinge and after they fixed it I got it, they thought that epoxying the broken hinge would fix it, well they epoxied the laptop shut so now Im looking to buy another case for it but they are hard to find. If anyone knows where I can find a Gateway MX6030 case it would be appreciated. Thanks Jimmy

 

[Blues]

Ah yeah I hate that how these smokers PCs smell so nasty the smell just attaches itself to anything. Worst I can think of didn't look or smell bad I just had a bad thought in the back of my head. It was a laptop with so many viruses and of course lots of porn. You can figure why I felt the need to wash my hands repeatedly after working on that laptop.

 

[gunslinger]

I had another one a while back. Guy calls me up and says his home page has been reset and he needs me to come over at once. When I got there he explained that he was afraid his 12 year old girl would see it when she got home from school. I checked it out and sure enough his home page had been reset to a porn site.

This is where it got bad. I sat my flash drive down and started typing, I noticed the the keys felt greasy. When I went to pick up my flash drive it was sitting in a glob of petroleum jelly.

Two tubs of hand sanitizer and lots of soap and hot water and I still felt dirty.

 

[MHCG]

Ha Ha Ha Ha Nasty! Greasy mice and trackballs give me the willies.

 

[JimmyW]

I had another one a while back. Guy calls me up and says his home page has been reset and he needs me to come over at once. When I got there he explained that he was afraid his 12 year old girl would see it when she got home from school. I checked it out and sure enough his home page had been reset to a porn site.

This is where it got bad. I sat my flash drive down and started typing, I noticed the the keys felt greasy. When I went to pick up my flash drive it was sitting in a glob of petroleum jelly.

Two tubs of hand sanitizer and lots of soap and hot water and I still felt dirty.

Now thats gross!!!!

 

[cbclark]

Not as bad as the cat urine, but I had one that I took in and when I set it down roaches fled out of every orifice, and later on virus scan found 39,991 infected files.

 

[Sander]

All nasty things related to animals.

1. Found a death mouse in a pc. I think he did a pee on the motherboard, since it was a little yellow eheh.
2. Found two death frogs in a pc
3. Same as topic starter. A cat urinated on a laptop, in this case it only needed a keyboard replacement
4. A pc which came out of a piggery somewhere. Wow, when you turned that thing on it only blowed a poop smell

I have better days tho

 

[Phishie]

Jesus Christ these stories are horrendous. If I ran into all of these problems I'd probably just open up a shop and stop doing house calls.

The worst thing I had was a customer whose office housed two computers. He had about 15 or so USB devices daisy-chained around his office using USB hubs. He recently bought a new computer and somehow ended up unplugging all kinds of USB devices and then plugging them back in correctly so I had to re-route all of these stupid USB devices so that they would work correctly. It was a pain in the ass but definitely not as bad as anything you guys have listed.

 

[compudoc]

this is why i only pick up and drop off...lol.

Crazy stories.... In the beginning when i was going onsite, I went to an older gentlemans house to help set up a new system. I get to his office, and he had several guns on the counter. I used to live in Montana, so its a sight im used to, but i still told the guy to put them away or I'd have to leave. He did and I went to work. After talking to the guy, he was ex air force and flew the blackbirds. Ended up being one of my fav visits in the end, you wouldnt believe the stories he had.

The other one i always laugh about is the customer who will pay 100 bucks to tune up a 15 yr old pentium 2 with 256 ram! Just buy a new computer...geez...lol.

 

[seedubya]

Couple of years ago I had a computer in belonging to a vascular surgeon in the local hospital. At the time I still smoked and even I came close to puking. It was a small form factor Compaq orginally that kinda creamy colour nobody else but Compaq could manage. This thing had a coating if cigarette tar you could actually scrape with a pointed tool and that was just on the outside. Anyone who's ever replace the ventilation fans in a bar will know exactly how it looked. I cleaned the outside before opening it. I shouldn't have bothered. The tar was so thick inside that both the ps fan and the cpu fan had seized as a result. At that point I was so close to spewing that I called him and said the pc was dead and that I wasn't doing any further work on it as it was a health hazard. He never called back for it, despite numerous calls to his home and workplace. I eventually removed the hdd and sold the rest for parts for €40 to pay his bill. I still have the hdd somewhere in case he decides to come back.

Also, when in Computer Troubleshooters, one of the Australian franchisees got a call to a customers about a dead PC to find that a snake had crawled into the power supply and shorted it. Problem was the PC had been dead for a week when the customer called, so had the snake

 

[NYJimbo]

I thought I was the only one who worked on the "Tobacco Tar PC from Hell".

Seriously, how the f-ck do you get a PC this coated with slimey tar ?.

Dude brought in a PC and you can smell it the second he walks in. I boot it and pop open the CDROM tray and the edges of the drive bay are almost sticky with tobacco smoke/tar/oil.

I can't imagine how many thousands of cigarettes this guy must have blown right into this machine to cause this mess. I can still smell it when I think about it.

 

[seedubya]

That's EXACTLY it man......... I smoked from age 12 until one month ago and no posession of mine EVER looked or smelled like that. Maybe he smoked a pipe or something...

I thought I was the only one who worked on the "Tobacco Tar PC from Hell".

Seriously, how the f-ck do you get a PC this coated with slimey tar ?.

Dude brought in a PC and you can smell it the second he walks in. I boot it and pop open the CDROM tray and the edges of the drive bay are almost sticky with tobacco smoke/tar/oil.

I can't imagine how many thousands of cigarettes this guy must have blown right into this machine to cause this mess. I can still smell it when I think about it.

 

[bmetman]

This is where it got bad. I sat my flash drive down and started typing, I noticed the the keys felt greasy. When I went to pick up my flash drive it was sitting in a glob of petroleum jelly.

Two tubs of hand sanitizer and lots of soap and hot water and I still felt dirty.

That has 2 be one of the most disgusting stories yet. I can handle cat pee but not that. I have definitely seen some porn junkies since I have been doing this but luckily I have dodged this bullet thus far.