Tech Bullshit (Or general, real life anecdotes)

[Zeriken]

So here's the story; I have this printer/scanner hybrid machine made by Cannon. I've had it for about a year and a half now, and I finally decided to install the drivers for printing (go-go DnD character sheets as motivation). So I start the loading and it says "Printer spooler isn't running. Restart computer and try again." So I do this, and it still doesn't work. I'm like 'wtf?'

To shorten the story, I'm on the phone with tech support. The guy says 'Since your warranty is void for your computer and your printer, we'll have to charge you 40 dollars to fix this, or 199.99 (read 200 dollars) for a 1 year subscription to our help.' I can't afford that, lol. I said 'no.' (This took 15 minutes. 5 of which was him connecting to the computer to check what the problem was. 10 of which was him not taking 'no' for an answer).

Well, figuring that the internet is our friend, I did a search online about the error and found a forum where people discuss troubleshooting with these kinds of errors. Lo-and-behold, after 20 minutes I was able to install the drivers due to the help of the online community.

Moral of the story? While support can get things done faster (Unless they are trying to persuade you to join their service), a simple google search will yield much cheaper results.

This happened yesterday, but the thing that made me want to post this was what happened today (I seem to be having some tech troubles recently. A whole shitstorm of tech troubles).


Another tech assistant group tried to do the same thing to me. Cisco's linksys router was fucking up for me after a power failure, so I called them up and was like 'Can you fix this?' of course, after about 7 minutes of getting all the information in regards to the router down, they got around to telling me that it would cost me 30 dollars.

I told them the Cannon story and let them know that I was going to do the same thing here, too. Luckily they didn't try to convince me to sign up with their deals like the previous tech support guy did.

Got the linksys to work by entering the cmd, doing a ipconfig/release and ipconfig/connect after reading a quick run-down on how to fix the problem. Same process as before, used internet sources to help.


Any tech bullshit that you guys had to deal with? Or any other 'RL' anecdotes to share?

[ethan_dawe]

You can find steps to reapir just about anything online!

My Sony 46" projection LCD developed a problem after 5 years (in other words after the warranty ran out.) The color seemed to be shifted so everything was blurry. I tried the auto realign button and that didn't work. I tried the factory override and manual adjustment mode (found online) and that didn't work. So I caled the local Sony recommended repair shop. They want a minimum of $200 to look at it and I have to cart it in. They think it will actually cost around $500 dollars to fix given my accurate description of the problem.

So, instead I find a procedure online for reaplcing the two defective chips on the big board. I ordere the chips for $15 each and picked up some tools at radio shack. In the end, after spending 2.5 hours behind my TV with a magnifying light and asoldering iron I turned it on and it worked, and still does to this day 3 years later. Total cost $30 for parts $60 for reusable tools.

Don't get suckered into paying big cash to fix things you can fix yourself :-)

[Flawless P]

I've never had this happen before but then again I am a computer technician or rather I was for 5 years...before my company went out of buisness now I'm a receptionist who's family asks him to fix their computers. But I am happy to give tech questions a shot if you ask, keeps me in the loop.

[Joven]

I'm a computer tech, so I'm on the receiving end of this. NOONE searches google first, no one even tries to think first. Of course, part of the problem is we don't charge for just answering questions, and if its something we're reasonably sure we can fix over the phone for free we tend to try that first (to a point, not gonna spend an hour on the phone with someone trying everything, we've only got one line and we're a damned small business.)

So we get people calling in who it takes 10 minutes to explain to them how to fix their taskbar being on the side of the screen instead of the bottom, because "just click it and drag it down" "doesn't work", and the taskbars definitely aren't locked, except when they are, but even then they're not (until they bring the computer in...).

Of course the biggest bullshit is people with disgusting computers. A crapton of dust we can handle, we just go outside and let loose with the air compressor and try not to breathe, its people with things living inside their computers that's the worst.

In particular we had an old lady who brought in a laptop which big bugs would just crawl out of and on to the screen and keyboard when I was working on it. And she didn't think anything was out of the ordinary about it.

Or a guy who brought in a roach filled computer because the power supply died, sold him a working used power supply because he was cheap, he came back in a week saying that we sold him a "bad" power supply because it was used, and now it doesn't work, even though it was on a UPS. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, while knowing what the real problem probably was, gave him the difference he paid on that towards a new power supply (after practically an hour of him asking and re-asking questions about its warranty). Soon as he left, took the dead one apart and (un)surprised to see 2 roaches melted/cooked onto the PCB shorting out a few circuits. Oh, and we had a roach problem after that (they just practically exploded out of the case when we opened it), luckily after 2 trips by an exterminator and nuking the place with foggers we seemed to have gotten it taken care of.

[ArtfulShrapnel]

Oh god, disgusting computers. I used to work as Best Buy and we had our own roach infested computer. Opened it up and they just poured out. Official company policy is to wrap it in two trash bags and make them take it back. Sometimes I loved their company policy.

We also got one in where the guy's videocard had started overheating suddenly and without any explanation. Assuming that it was a dead fan, we cracked the case open to take a look. Turns out it wasn't that. He had left one of the card slots on the back of the computer open, and some mice had built a nest on top of the fan on his $400 video card. I guess it was a nice warm location, and they packed it with shreds of paper conveniently ripped from the documentation he kept in the bottom of the case. (Which I usually support, so I can't fault him for that decision)

Also, dear god people find the internet and learn to learn. This needs to be included in every single computer manual: http://xkcd.com/627/

[Zeriken]

Roaches and mice inside the computers? Gawd, disgusting. I think I might have nightmares tonight .

[Flawless P]

The side to my case is never on, its easier to tinker with and keep clean that way.

[BeyondSandrock]

I don't have many disgusting tower stories.  The only one I can really remember is agreeing to look a one of my dorm-mates towers and having to pry it open with a screwdriver (he had a bad habit of spilling soda off his desk and it ended up forming a very disgusting dried syrup seal along the case).  Thankfully, I do have many idiot stories from my days as a workstudy tech at my campus IT department.  The best I remember occurred about 2 months into starting work there (around late 2001).  We were getting ready to start upgrading all of the campus PCs to IE6 but had to stop because some of the computers on campus could not access the internet after receiving the update.  As it turned out, the error was being caused by an incompatibility issue with our network software (Novell, god I hated Novell!) and Win95 which all the affected computers were running on.  So the plan at that point was to postpone the upgrade and over the next two weeks take all of the computers in during the night hours in order to upgrade them ( a good majority of the affected computers were staff machines so that meant data backup as well).  The next day I walk into the office and learn that we've been getting calls since 7:00 a.m. about issues with PCs not being able to access the internet.  As it turns out Nick, one of my co-workers, thought he could create a patch for the problem and decided to implement it previous night.  Without notifying our boss.  Or the network admins.  Needless to say the next 3 days were pure hell as we drained our reserve of loaner machines and were re-imaging machines back to back while the phones were ringing off the hook.  Nick, unsurprisingly did not return back to work for about a week.   

[Patrick]

Yeah, mice and roaches are pretty disgusting...

Never encountered that during the long and winding road that has been my obsession with technology for the better part of 2 decades, but I did encounter a computer so packed full of dust and cat hair that we christened it "the bearded computer". It was so packed full of crap that the fans on the system stopped turning and the system was BSOD'ing every 5 minutes (no shit right?!)...

I've had my share of computer mishaps along the way, but none really epic. Just your average burned out components. To be honest I upgrade every 2 years, so even that has stopped being a problem...

[Setherick]

Our dorms at Missouri State were so dusty that I had to blow my computer out at least once every two weeks because if I didn't I was afraid it would overheat and/or explode. One month I had forgotten to clean the out power supply fan and the power supply did explode (literally transistors flew off of it), but that was probably the result of a faulty board than the dust. Annoying as hell though in the middle of mid-terms. I ended up making a surprise trip home (200+ miles) to swap out power supplies.

[Flawless P]

I noted about 2 weeks ago that my power supply was overheating VERY quickly, which is weird because I keep the side off my case and tinker around quite a bit so I didn't think it would be dirty. Turns out that leaving my computer on ALL the time, plus having two cats makes for a fairly thin layer of cat hair blocking off the vents on the back of the power supply. I just assumed it was too hot in my room for the comp so I put a box fan next to the PC, which stopped it from over heating, but when I was installing my new TB HDD I saw the culprit of the overheating issue.

On a happy note, after years of being woefully under the bar for storage capacity I finally upgraded from 3 IDE HDD 2 80's and a 60 gb. To 1 TB SATA drive. Just put a fresh install of windows 7 on it too, life is sweet.

[The_Last_76]

Pretty simple anecdote, but it amuses me;

Have an X-box.
It red-rings.
My warranty has expired on it, and I can't be arsed sending it anyway to get fixed.
Figure 'Fuck It, I Was Getting A New One Anyway' and decide to take the thing apart and find out first hand what makes an X-box tick.
Have a gander inside.
Put it back together.
Notice, after everything is back in place, that I accidentally left out a piece.
Plug X-box back in.
Works like a motherfucking charm.

[Flawless P]

Yesterday I noticed my power supply didn't look quite right and I notice the plug was hanging lower than usual, I don't know how it happend but the area where you plug the cable into is falling out. I carefully inched it back into the Power Supply. Sparks flew and my comp turned off. I was terrified that I blew my hardware, especially my new HDD but everything is working fine, so I glued it back into place, so far so good.

[The_Last_76]

Glue and Gaffer tap can be used to solve any of life's problems.