Stupid things people do to their computers:
Posted: 2003-02-28 03:32am
http://sct.staghosting.com/index.html
And here's my personal list, compiled mainly from my experiences in the last few years, and the experiences of my friends and business partners:
I've personally fixed the following stupid things people have done with their comps and other stuff:
Stuff crammed into VCRs:
cookies
audio cassettes
a bannana
most of a bag of popcorn
DVD
Computers:
Floppies:
cookies (3 times)
a zip disk (I still have no clue how the hell this happened, granted the front cover was off)
cd-rom in the 5.25" drive (twice)
dust bunny migration clouds (lost count)
CD-ROMs:
floppy disk
dust bunnies
coke or coffee deposits glueing the tray shut (we know exactly how this happened)
broken tray with coffee stains on the front of the box (again, the cause is a duh)
sticky notes
the "CD launcher" (in a mac, something went wrong with the eject actuator, the damn things would actually be sent flying a few feet, hurt like a bitch the first time it hit my hand while I was working on it)
ZIP Drives:
floppies
cookies
dust bunnies
PSU's:
dust bunnies
pencil
part of a screwdriver
string
screws
Front Panel:
pen cap in the reset button
improperly attached trashpaq front panel with normal drives under it (3 times now)
screwdriver
Inside Case:
HDD poprivetted to the case
HDD WITHOUT upper cover (still working fine too, only because the head was under the platter rather than on top or both sides)
HDD with one screw
NICs, modems, vid cards, soundcards that "jumped" the slots (lost count, this is too frequent, usually in machines from "PC Parts and Service" (formerly Computers and Parts (aka: "Scary Jerry's"))
soundcard installed with WOODSCREWS
home made "round" cables
duct taped cable bundles
cards held in with zipties
cooling fan and/or heatsink assembly held in with zipties or tape (had pretty much all the combinations of this at least once)
HDD held in with magnets (didn't affect operation, but that was a shock to find, the only thing it did affect was floppies)
superglued HDD and floppy
hotglued cd-rom
hotglued mainboard
hotglued and superglued cards and processor (differant machines, differant times)
home made ATX to AT power supply (and we wonder why it didn't work)
screwdriver inside the case
loose cards
loose processor
loose drives
screws loose inside case, none in the screw holes, with a power screwdriver on top of the cd-rom drive. (I assumed the builder had forgotten it wasn't finished and slapped the lid on. This was another C&P special by the way.)
IDE cables connected to "air"
single ended IDE cable connected to 2 drives (again, we wonder why the lady couldn't format her hard drive)
a 286 to 486 overdrive chip (yes, you read that right, I wouldn't have beleived it unless I had seen it, and I did see it and I bought it, it's on my friend's window right now next to a DEC Alpha and the Sparc II proc I gave him a while back.)
And about a page worth of other wierdness, these were just the most interesting of them.
Outside of Case:
fridge magnets
glue
pop rivetted addons (this is actually my machine on this one, and one customer's)
custom spraypaint job with neon road marker paint... *shudder*
glued on power bar (I have yet to figure this one out)
mousepad glued on side of case (this one also defies logic as it was on a tower)
Laptop:
spraypainted case... (got called to work on this one because the screen wasn't working and the lights didn't come on... brand new machine too)
jammed PCMCIA card with cracked case (idiot took a hammer to the card when it wouldn't go in the slot, it just so happened it was in at an angle between the 2 slots... system still worked, took me about 6 hours to get the thing reconstructed)
normal mouse superglued to the top of the computer and connected to the PS-2 port...
keyboard that was totally "random" (the woman had cleaned the keyboard by removing the keys, then put them back on... needless to say she didn't have another keyboard to look at)
normal processor heatsink sticking out the bottom of the machine with the space made up for with glued on pieces of 2x2 wood
normal cd-rom with a home made adapter for it to work with the system
normal HDD with home made adapter for the system
drives not opening and the wristpad kept moving (the idiot had glued a foam wristpad to the front of the machine, however he did know how to use the software cd-rom eject....)
battery pack with CCFT inverter from a scanner, wrapped up with electrical tape and a switch with 2 wires coming out, which went to the connector for the laptop's backlight, the original inverter was dead. (this is my current laptop btw, so this one's one that I can claim, though I can say it works flawlessly! since I got the machine for free I can't bitch.)
I've also seen or worked on a large list of laptops with other little bits of owner-induced wierdness.
Monitors:
white-out (no I'm not joking, I had this one twice)
magnets (from my ex playing with HDD magnets near my monitors when we were playing HL, from customers' kids, and from customers getting the damn things too close to the screen while attaching them to the side of the tower...)
cat hair causing the flyback to arc, and covering the ventholes causing overheats (the monitor is NOT a catbed!!)
glued on speakers (customer complaining he could not install the subwoofer)
glued on pocket protector full of pens (this one was actually a joke in one of my classes, someone did it to another guy's usual workstation, however the prankster used superglue)
glued on webcam (customer was complaining about how to replace the webcam since it was "integrated" with the monitor...)
glued on mouse and keyboard (this one still defies explanation, the complaint was that the mouse wasn't working, I wonder why)
monitor with no cover (bare housing, no plastic on it at all, customer was complaining about being zapped when he turned it on, turned out the ground wire was loose, soldered that back on and no problem, but a couple of friends and I were laughing real hard when the customer left. looking back, I would have tried to buy the thing, nice 17" Trinitron type, would have fit perfectly with #2's case)
glued on "tiger tail" (again, defies explanation)
glued in power plug (this one had me pissed off real good)
duct taped on cd holder (complaint was the monitor wouldn't give him his CDs without making them sticky)
And again, there's a good sized list of these.
Peripherals (mouse, keyboard, printer, scanner, external modem, speakers, UPS, etc.):
"neutered mouse" ('nuff said)
"blind" optical mouse (you need to plug the damn thing in, this was the problem in this case...)
paperclip stuck in the mouse rollers
thumbtack in the mouseball
superglued mouseball (obviously a flubup at OC regarding their habit of gluing the mouse ball access cover to keep people from stealing them)
posessed trackpad (driver error+hardware failure = really funny and fucked up problem. the cursor would move on its own randomly and would sometimes click on its own)
2-piece "ergonomic" keyboard (got called about a non working "ergonomic" keyboard, got there to find out the idiot took his tablesaw to it)
the "sticky-board" (you really don't want to know, again it was a "dead keyboard" call, and yes, I took one look at it and then at its owner and just said "get a new one, I'm not touching that one" let's just say the keyboard looked like it had had a jar of mayo dumped on it and spread around at some point... one look at the owner said it wasn't dried mayo)
1-key keyboard (got called asking if I had a 1-key keyboard, turned out to be that they needed a mac mouse)
scanner with glued in document (explanation here was the document kept moving so the woman took some glue to it... hence the call about a document stuck in the scanner (I had been expecting one of those office-wonder printer things))
parallel-SCSI scanner (non-working scanner call, turned out to be an SCSI scanner plugged into the parallel port, no real fix on this one as the guy had no money, however I would still like to know where he got that cable...)
"lumpy mousepad" (do I really need to elaborate on this one?)
"turbo charged UPS" (got called that the UPS was smoking and no power was going to the comp, got there only to find out the old battery had died and the owner decided to take the battery from one of his myriad of non-operating vehicles and put it in there, the battery had a dead short over at least one of the plates, this in turn blew up the UPS... this is why VOMs were invented...)
"liquid cooled modem" (nasty little call about a smoking external modem, got there to see a puddle of water around it and a mostly empty bottle of water over it, it had apparently been running hot, so the owner decided that bottled water was pure and wouldn't conduct... well the woman used mineral drinking water... I think the rest is pretty self-explanatory)
Yes, I do have a computer service business, run out of my house for about the last 4 years with some friends, I primarily do housecalls in the Belfair, Gorst, and Bremerton areas, hence the really stupid stuff I've seen. Before I moved up here I worked in a TV and VCR repair shop in California and did computer repair on the side.
The ones on that site are pretty awful, I've seen some of those in person, however I'm only listing the hardware ones...
And here's my personal list, compiled mainly from my experiences in the last few years, and the experiences of my friends and business partners:
I've personally fixed the following stupid things people have done with their comps and other stuff:
Stuff crammed into VCRs:
cookies
audio cassettes
a bannana
most of a bag of popcorn
DVD
Computers:
Floppies:
cookies (3 times)
a zip disk (I still have no clue how the hell this happened, granted the front cover was off)
cd-rom in the 5.25" drive (twice)
dust bunny migration clouds (lost count)
CD-ROMs:
floppy disk
dust bunnies
coke or coffee deposits glueing the tray shut (we know exactly how this happened)
broken tray with coffee stains on the front of the box (again, the cause is a duh)
sticky notes
the "CD launcher" (in a mac, something went wrong with the eject actuator, the damn things would actually be sent flying a few feet, hurt like a bitch the first time it hit my hand while I was working on it)
ZIP Drives:
floppies
cookies
dust bunnies
PSU's:
dust bunnies
pencil
part of a screwdriver
string
screws
Front Panel:
pen cap in the reset button
improperly attached trashpaq front panel with normal drives under it (3 times now)
screwdriver
Inside Case:
HDD poprivetted to the case
HDD WITHOUT upper cover (still working fine too, only because the head was under the platter rather than on top or both sides)
HDD with one screw
NICs, modems, vid cards, soundcards that "jumped" the slots (lost count, this is too frequent, usually in machines from "PC Parts and Service" (formerly Computers and Parts (aka: "Scary Jerry's"))
soundcard installed with WOODSCREWS
home made "round" cables
duct taped cable bundles
cards held in with zipties
cooling fan and/or heatsink assembly held in with zipties or tape (had pretty much all the combinations of this at least once)
HDD held in with magnets (didn't affect operation, but that was a shock to find, the only thing it did affect was floppies)
superglued HDD and floppy
hotglued cd-rom
hotglued mainboard
hotglued and superglued cards and processor (differant machines, differant times)
home made ATX to AT power supply (and we wonder why it didn't work)
screwdriver inside the case
loose cards
loose processor
loose drives
screws loose inside case, none in the screw holes, with a power screwdriver on top of the cd-rom drive. (I assumed the builder had forgotten it wasn't finished and slapped the lid on. This was another C&P special by the way.)
IDE cables connected to "air"
single ended IDE cable connected to 2 drives (again, we wonder why the lady couldn't format her hard drive)
a 286 to 486 overdrive chip (yes, you read that right, I wouldn't have beleived it unless I had seen it, and I did see it and I bought it, it's on my friend's window right now next to a DEC Alpha and the Sparc II proc I gave him a while back.)
And about a page worth of other wierdness, these were just the most interesting of them.
Outside of Case:
fridge magnets
glue
pop rivetted addons (this is actually my machine on this one, and one customer's)
custom spraypaint job with neon road marker paint... *shudder*
glued on power bar (I have yet to figure this one out)
mousepad glued on side of case (this one also defies logic as it was on a tower)
Laptop:
spraypainted case... (got called to work on this one because the screen wasn't working and the lights didn't come on... brand new machine too)
jammed PCMCIA card with cracked case (idiot took a hammer to the card when it wouldn't go in the slot, it just so happened it was in at an angle between the 2 slots... system still worked, took me about 6 hours to get the thing reconstructed)
normal mouse superglued to the top of the computer and connected to the PS-2 port...
keyboard that was totally "random" (the woman had cleaned the keyboard by removing the keys, then put them back on... needless to say she didn't have another keyboard to look at)
normal processor heatsink sticking out the bottom of the machine with the space made up for with glued on pieces of 2x2 wood
normal cd-rom with a home made adapter for it to work with the system
normal HDD with home made adapter for the system
drives not opening and the wristpad kept moving (the idiot had glued a foam wristpad to the front of the machine, however he did know how to use the software cd-rom eject....)
battery pack with CCFT inverter from a scanner, wrapped up with electrical tape and a switch with 2 wires coming out, which went to the connector for the laptop's backlight, the original inverter was dead. (this is my current laptop btw, so this one's one that I can claim, though I can say it works flawlessly! since I got the machine for free I can't bitch.)
I've also seen or worked on a large list of laptops with other little bits of owner-induced wierdness.
Monitors:
white-out (no I'm not joking, I had this one twice)
magnets (from my ex playing with HDD magnets near my monitors when we were playing HL, from customers' kids, and from customers getting the damn things too close to the screen while attaching them to the side of the tower...)
cat hair causing the flyback to arc, and covering the ventholes causing overheats (the monitor is NOT a catbed!!)
glued on speakers (customer complaining he could not install the subwoofer)
glued on pocket protector full of pens (this one was actually a joke in one of my classes, someone did it to another guy's usual workstation, however the prankster used superglue)
glued on webcam (customer was complaining about how to replace the webcam since it was "integrated" with the monitor...)
glued on mouse and keyboard (this one still defies explanation, the complaint was that the mouse wasn't working, I wonder why)
monitor with no cover (bare housing, no plastic on it at all, customer was complaining about being zapped when he turned it on, turned out the ground wire was loose, soldered that back on and no problem, but a couple of friends and I were laughing real hard when the customer left. looking back, I would have tried to buy the thing, nice 17" Trinitron type, would have fit perfectly with #2's case)
glued on "tiger tail" (again, defies explanation)
glued in power plug (this one had me pissed off real good)
duct taped on cd holder (complaint was the monitor wouldn't give him his CDs without making them sticky)
And again, there's a good sized list of these.
Peripherals (mouse, keyboard, printer, scanner, external modem, speakers, UPS, etc.):
"neutered mouse" ('nuff said)
"blind" optical mouse (you need to plug the damn thing in, this was the problem in this case...)
paperclip stuck in the mouse rollers
thumbtack in the mouseball
superglued mouseball (obviously a flubup at OC regarding their habit of gluing the mouse ball access cover to keep people from stealing them)
posessed trackpad (driver error+hardware failure = really funny and fucked up problem. the cursor would move on its own randomly and would sometimes click on its own)
2-piece "ergonomic" keyboard (got called about a non working "ergonomic" keyboard, got there to find out the idiot took his tablesaw to it)
the "sticky-board" (you really don't want to know, again it was a "dead keyboard" call, and yes, I took one look at it and then at its owner and just said "get a new one, I'm not touching that one" let's just say the keyboard looked like it had had a jar of mayo dumped on it and spread around at some point... one look at the owner said it wasn't dried mayo)
1-key keyboard (got called asking if I had a 1-key keyboard, turned out to be that they needed a mac mouse)
scanner with glued in document (explanation here was the document kept moving so the woman took some glue to it... hence the call about a document stuck in the scanner (I had been expecting one of those office-wonder printer things))
parallel-SCSI scanner (non-working scanner call, turned out to be an SCSI scanner plugged into the parallel port, no real fix on this one as the guy had no money, however I would still like to know where he got that cable...)
"lumpy mousepad" (do I really need to elaborate on this one?)
"turbo charged UPS" (got called that the UPS was smoking and no power was going to the comp, got there only to find out the old battery had died and the owner decided to take the battery from one of his myriad of non-operating vehicles and put it in there, the battery had a dead short over at least one of the plates, this in turn blew up the UPS... this is why VOMs were invented...)
"liquid cooled modem" (nasty little call about a smoking external modem, got there to see a puddle of water around it and a mostly empty bottle of water over it, it had apparently been running hot, so the owner decided that bottled water was pure and wouldn't conduct... well the woman used mineral drinking water... I think the rest is pretty self-explanatory)
Yes, I do have a computer service business, run out of my house for about the last 4 years with some friends, I primarily do housecalls in the Belfair, Gorst, and Bremerton areas, hence the really stupid stuff I've seen. Before I moved up here I worked in a TV and VCR repair shop in California and did computer repair on the side.
The ones on that site are pretty awful, I've seen some of those in person, however I'm only listing the hardware ones...
