c/computer-technicians

14

the_kim•1d ago

My $40 surge protector died and took my backup drive with it

I had a cheap power strip from Target that I thought was surge protected, but it failed during a storm last Tuesday and my external hard drive stopped spinning. Opened it up and saw the MOV was completely fried with no breaker trip, so the surge went straight through to my drive. Has anyone else had luck recovering a drive that got zapped by a cheap protector, or should I just accept the data loss and move on?

17

riverknight•2d ago

TIL a loose RAM stick can cause random blue screens that look like a failing hard drive

Spent 3 hours last week swapping drives and running chkdsk on a client's Dell in Austin before I noticed the RAM wasn't fully seated. Anyone else had a false alarm like that?

4

faithj10•2d ago

Warning: Found a huge dust bunny inside a server tower at a library in Springfield last week

I was called out to the main public library in Springfield last Thursday because one of their catalog servers kept overheating. When I popped the side panel off, I couldn't believe what I saw. There was a solid mat of dust and cat hair about an inch thick covering the entire CPU heatsink and the power supply fan. Looked like it had been building up for years, maybe five or six. I vacuumed it out carefully, replaced the thermal paste, and the temps dropped by 25 degrees. Has anyone else run into neglected public machines this bad, or was this just a unique case?

16

robinson.quinn•5d ago

TIL cheap thermal paste can cost you a CPU and 3 days of troubleshooting

I spent $8 on a random no-name thermal paste from Amazon for a new build and after a week my CPU was thermal throttling at idle. Turns out the paste dried up and cracked in 2 days, nearly frying my i5-13600K. Have you guys ever lost money or hardware to a cheap part that seemed like a good deal at the time?

1

the_morgan•5d ago

That one client who brought in a tower covered in dust bunnies from 2014

Had a guy walk into my shop last Tuesday with a PC so caked in dust the fans wouldn't even spin. He said 'I just want it faster,' but the CPU was hitting 95 degrees under idle. I had to use a shop vac and a toothbrush for 20 minutes just to get the heatsink visible again. Anyone else ever get a machine that looked like it survived a desert storm?

7

henry_hernandez•5d ago

Walked into a client's server room and saw a Windows 98 machine still running their HVAC

Went to swap out a failed switch at a small manufacturing plant outside Austin last Tuesday. They told me the server room was a mess but I wasn't ready for what I saw. There it was, this old beige tower humming away in the corner, hooked up to the building's climate controls. The foreman said it's been running since 1999 and nobody wants to touch it because "it just works." I get it but also... yikes. Have any of you run into legacy stuff like that still in production?

1

alexj99•8d ago

After 8 years of thermal paste application methods, I finally changed my mind

I always did the pea method for CPU thermal paste, but last week I tried spreading it thin with a credit card on a used 3700X build. The idle temps dropped 3 degrees C and the load temps stayed more even. Anyone else have a method they used to swear by that ended up being worse?

18

avery_nelson•11d ago

Found a quick way to test PSUs without a multimeter today

I had a desktop come in last week where the motherboard lights flashed for half a second then nothing. Usually I grab my multimeter and probe the green wire to ground, but I left it at a job site in Denver. Tried a paperclip to jumper the 24 pin connector and it worked fine. Connected a case fan to the molex to see if it would spin. Turns out the PSU was good but the board had a cracked trace near the CPU socket. Saved me an hour of guessing. Anyone else keep a spare paperclip in their bag for this exact trick?

22

derekgibson•11d ago

That server room at a law firm in Denver taught me not to trust the floor drain

Came in Monday morning to find three inches of water from a burst pipe and the UPS units sitting right in the puddle, so I had to pull every single battery pack and dry them out with a shop vac, and has anyone else dealt with water damage on rack-mount UPS gear?

26

ray648•11d ago

Found out 90% of my UPS batteries were actually junk from 2018

I was checking logs on a server rack at a law firm in Austin last week and noticed the runtime tests kept failing... Turns out 8 out of 12 APC units had batteries that expired over 4 years ago. Nobody had ever looked at the date codes on the stickers. Have you guys found any hidden time bombs in client gear that were just sitting there waiting to fail?

24

jamieh76•11d ago

Old timer told me to never use thermal paste from a tube that's been sitting in a hot van

I thought he was just being dramatic. Left my Arctic Silver in the glovebox for about 3 weeks last summer. Applied it to a client's gaming rig and within 2 months their CPU was hitting 95C under load. Redid it with a fresh tube and temps dropped to 72C. That stuff definitely separates or dries out way faster than I figured. Has anyone else had a batch go bad from heat exposure?

18

the_hugo•13d ago

Tried replacing thermal paste on a 2015 MacBook Pro and the temp dropped 15 degrees

I had this 2015 MacBook Pro that was running at 95C under load and the fan sounded like a jet engine. Decided to swap the thermal paste with some Arctic MX-4 I had laying around on Tuesday. After cleaning off the old crusty stuff and applying a fresh pea-sized amount, it dropped to 80C under the same workload. Has anyone else seen that big of a difference from just repasting an older laptop?

1

shah.shane•14d ago

TIL I've been replacing thermal paste wrong for 5+ years

Used to just blob it on and hope for the best. Last week a customer brought in a gaming rig with temps hitting 95c under load. I repasted it using the thin spread method and dropped it to 70c. Does anyone else do the pea method or are you team spread?

16

river_adams25•14d ago

Showerthought: Hit 1,000 motherboard repairs last week without even realizing it

I was just cleaning up my bench and decided to count the repair logs I've been keeping since 2018. Ended up at 1,023 boards total, mostly dead capacitors and blown MOSFETs from that one bad batch of power supplies a few years back. It didn't hit me until I saw the pile of old boards in the corner, all stacked up from different jobs around town. Made me think about how many machines I've kept out of the dump just by swapping a few parts. Anyone else keep a running tally of their work?

22

thompson.finley•16d ago

Unpopular opinion: running a system restore is sometimes faster than troubleshooting

I was at a client's house in Arlington last Tuesday trying to track down a weird driver conflict on a Dell optiplex for 2 hours before I nuked it with a restore point and the fix took three minutes, so which side do you techs lean toward when you hit a wall like that?

15

beth_stone•16d ago

Discovered a bootable USB trick that saved my bacon on a dead drive

Had a customer bring in an old laptop with a dying hard drive, clicking and all. Tried cloning it directly but the drive kept failing halfway through at around 30%. After 3 tries I gave up on traditional methods. Used a live Linux USB to boot the machine and pull files straight to an external SSD instead. Has anyone else had better luck with Linux for data recovery over Windows based tools?

26

emma349•16d ago

The weirdest day I ever had fixing PCs started with a pickle jar

Last Tuesday I had three calls in a row where the issue was just a loose power cord. First one at 9 AM, then another at noon, then a third at 3 PM. It made me wonder if I should start asking clients to jiggle the cord before I drive out. Has anyone else had a run of these phantom problems?

18

hugog43•17d ago

The thermal paste debate: less is more or gob it on?

Ngl, I used to think you needed a thick layer of thermal paste to get good heat transfer. But last month I rebuilt a Dell Optiplex 3020 and tried the pea-sized drop method for the first time. Temps dropped by 8c compared to my old spread-it-even method. On a $200 shop computer that's a big deal for longevity. So is there a real consensus here, or is it all just personal preference based on what you learned first?

24

rowanjenkins•19d ago

Why does nobody talk about thermal paste applicators?

I had to pick between the standard syringe and one of those little spatula tools for a CPU build last week. Went with the spatula because it felt more precise, but now I'm wondering if I just made a mess for no reason. Has anyone else tried one of those and actually seen a temp difference?

8

calebscott•20d ago

Fell for a $200 data recovery scam last month

My external drive crapped out and I panicked. Found this place online called QuickByte Recovery in Portland, they promised a 90% success rate. Paid them $200 upfront and all they did was run some free software I could have downloaded myself. Has anyone else gotten burned by those emergency data recovery shops?

25

the_wesley•22d ago

My coworker insisted the weird fan noise was a bad bearing, not a cable

He was right, a SATA cable was just barely grazing the blades. Anyone have a good trick for routing those cleanly in a tight case?

3

dakota479•23d ago

Stopped by the old RadioShack in my hometown and they still had a bin of IDE cables.

Made me think about how much simpler some of the hardware was to explain to customers back then. Anyone else miss the days when you could just point to the one big ribbon cable that needed to be plugged in?

16

the_cora•24d ago

TIL my coworker was right about using a hair dryer on a laptop

My coworker Mark told me to use a hair dryer on low heat to warm up a stubborn laptop hinge that wouldn't close. I thought it was a bad idea, but after trying everything else for an hour, I gave it a shot for about 30 seconds. The plastic frame got just warm enough to let me work the hinge back into place without cracking it. Has anyone else found a weird but safe way to deal with old, brittle plastic on machines?

3

derekcarr•27d ago

A client in Fresno told me my cable management looked like a 'plate of angry spaghetti'

I started using Velcro ties and a label maker for every single wire after that, and now my workstations look clean enough to eat off of. Anyone else get a comment that made you totally change a basic habit?

24

taragrant•28d ago

Pro tip: Check the PSU before you blame the motherboard, like I did on a Dell Optiplex 9020 last Thursday.

I spent 2 hours swapping parts in a client's machine only to find a bad 450W power supply was causing the random shutdowns, so what's your go-to diagnostic step for power issues?