Tech Troubleshooting stories

[Emeralis00 she/her]

Share your ridiculous stories about maintaining the computers of people. You know who I am talking about.

Those situations where you have to guide a person step by step on how to turn the computer on.

I have a few gems from my dad. He worked as a computer specialist over the phone several several years ago.

These are some of the conversations he would have.

Person:Why isn't the computer turning on?

Dad: did you press the power switch?

Person: Nooo...

Dad: Press It.

Person: its not working.

Dad: Is it plugged in?

Person: Does it have to be?

dad: Yes.

another one.

Person: Why isn't the computer talking to me?

Dad: It can't talk.

Person: But I saw a movie where a computer talked.

And another.

Person: I keep trying to install windows on my mac and it isn't working.

Dad: (My dad referred this one to his boss)

This is one of my own, this is the point where I learned that phone operated tech support is a futile endeavor.

Person: OK. How do I turn it on.

Me: press the power switch.

Person: OK. Wait, it says BIOS. That is the virus that was on my last computer. %^&* I have to replace this one too.

[mfhscoobydoo he/him]

Ahh yes these stories.

 

Me: Okay whats wrong

Aunt: Last night when i was done working i shut off the computer and now it freezes when i turn it on.

Me: Okay here hmm. (I go get the windows install disk to do a restore to a sytem restore piont) and i find that the day that it stopped booting was the day windows did a critacal update. So my aunt had forced shut off the computer was updating. *facepalm

So  i continue try to boot into safe mode do system repare try to do a systtem restore nothung works. So her boot partition is wrecked, great now i get to reinstall windows. but while getting linux ready to get her files the computer was booting and it sucessfuly did and her computer hasn't had trouble booting since. True story.

[The Invested Beard]

As someone who has worked in this field for ten years I have more of these than I can shake a stick at. For brevity I will contribute one of my favorites, which isn't necessarily about me knowing more about computers...well you'll see.

 

Me: Hello this is Justin, how can I help you?

ER Nurse: Yeah I need my [random system] password reset.

Me: Okay one second while I get that done for you...And you're all set. I have reset your password to the word "Hello". Once you put that in you should be asked to reset your password.

ER Nurse: Hello?...It's not working.

Me: Okay one second let me try again...Okay try one more time with the same password.

ER Nurse: Still not working.

Me: ...Okaaaaay. You're using the password "Hello" right?

ER Nurse: Yeah. H-E-L-O. Hello.

Me: [Internal Monologue] You're an ER NURSE???? PEOPLE'S LIVES ARE IN YOUR HANDS AND YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO SPELL THE WORD HELLO????

Me: [Out loud] Um, no that should be H-E-L-L-O, Hello.

ER Nurse: ...Oh...okay. It works now. Thanksbye. *hangs up*

Me:

[Just another guyn he/him]

I apologize for thread necroing, but my dad got a Mac mini, and to save space, wanted to Velcro it to the bottom of the desk upside down. Velcro. upside down. It lasted for about a day, fell and the hard drive, airport card and ram shattered. He still hasn't replaced the whole thing, just some of the parts. It's slower then a raspberri pi trying to run adobe aftereffects.

[Massik he/him]

So, I was troubleshooting this PA that was drawing too much current, burning filters and popping transistors, and I start looking down the RF path, and notice a transformer turn that doesn't look quite right on the grounding.  I got to unsolder it to move its placement for better grounding.  I'm using flux and a fat solder tip, but the center wire/solder just isn't getting hot enough for the wick to suck up the solder.  I look closer, and.....  yep, they put a transformer with the wrong bent on.  Basically, the center wire and shielding are all on the ground plane, effectively taking the turn completely out of circuit, causing and imbalance and super poor efficiency.   No wonder making power was impossible to do without burning up components......

[Mulk he/him]

This happened a couple of months ago. It sounds like an internet meme or something but this actually happened:

Hey, my computer won't come on

Oh, sorry about that, what happens when you try?

Nothing, screen is dark, won't do anything.

That sounds bad.  Would you double check the power cord is plugged all the way in?

Hard to tell, it's dark in here.

...what?  You have no power?

No. Is that why it won't turn on?

 

 

SIGH

[Voidus]

Times like this I'm glad I moved on to programming, now I only have to deal with people making simple mistakes... actually it's pretty much the same as when I was on phones.

"Hey, I found a bug."
"Bet you didn't."
"Well I tried to log in as my boss and the app isn't loading properly."
"That's because you're not your boss. You're not supposed to be able to sign in as other people."

[Moonrise]

I do not have a turn it off/on again story, but programming indeed has its own bugs...

"My new Matlab function won't work"

"You are using FunctionName inside the script for FunctionName. It doesn't work because it doesn't exist yet. Why do you need it here anyway?"

"But how is FunctionName supposed to work without FunctionName inside it?"

"That's why you are writing FunctionName in the first place"

 

[kenod]

To be fair, that one could be because the person with the issue was used to languages that allowed for recursions.

[Moonrise]

On 5/8/2018 at 0:38 PM, kenod said:

To be fair, that one could be because the person with the issue was used to languages that allowed for recursions.

I have been teaching Matlab for a while , and believe me that was not the case. I helped the student figure it out so now there is just a mildly entertaining story.