It still turns on. How. Tech Support |
| Posted: 03 Oct 2020 12:30 PM PDT A few years ago I was at work and a customer sold us his custom-build gaming tower. It was a nice one too with LED strips, light-up fans, an i7-8700K, an Asus ROG motherboard (that ended up being worth over €300 even used), a 2TB Samsung SSD and a liquid-cooled MSI Sea Hawk card - don't remember exactly what it was, a GTX 1080 maybe? The horror really begins with the entire interior of the computer being just ... CAKED in a centimeter thick orange-brown coating composed of dust, cat hair and smoke. And the smell. Oh god the smell. The computer also legit looked like it was used more as a loo than something you'd game with. And somehow, against all odds. This stanky boi actually turned on and booted. No magic smoke or fire or explosion. But of course there was plenty of that stank being wafted around the store once the fans went on and I was of course on task to meticulously clean all the filth out of anything valuable inside it. Oh and everything was all nasty and "oily" once I got all the unholy mess of dust off. It took quite a while to scrub the oil (and the smell) off with isopropyl alcohol and a test to ensure that everything STILL worked by some divine intervention. I should also mention that I was literally ill the next day, likely from cleaning out a "highway rest stop" gaming tower, the "yes, I actually need to take paid sick leave" off work kind of sick. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Oct 2020 02:26 PM PDT Edit: the server and the firewall Linux were both towers. Enclosure does mean rack but the specific devices were not rack mounted. Since my last post got traction, I promised I will write about the ransomware panic of days long past. This, however is not that post. The broom of death has its origins in lost times when server cabinets were invented. Now, cleaning staff is not allowed in the server room since the server room is considered secure and might also contain a safe(for whatever reason). At that time I was responsible for 9 locations-translated to 9 servers and obviously 9 server rooms And out of those 9, a particular one stood out because I would always receive a call Friday night, usually at around 10 that the internet was not working. Now this became so normal that I would have a connection script ready for them that I would just activate as soon as they called, and this script would turn on their VPN. Anyway, this one night, I was out and not having a good time. The call came in well past midnight so I didn't even want to answer. They insist; "what?" "Well, the usual, internet is down". "How the hell do you constantly lose internet on a Friday evening?" I say disappointed. "Well it's the weekly cleaning of the server" she replies. "The server room you mean!" "Yeah" she says. "Well I'm not fixing it now, I'm out, call me in the morning" "b-but the end of day reports, the files". "I don't care, it's been almost a year now, and every Friday you have the same issue, call me tomorrow". I wake up, grumpy and hungover, no call. I call back, 'is your internet working?" "Yea, it came back in the morning", "ok, I'm coming over". 4 hour drive, I call my coworker from the other area "hey, did you get a call from , location?" , "Yeah, you refused to help them so I had to fix the connection at 1 AM!" "Yeah, thanks, we'll talk on Monday" I get there, burst into the office, and politely ask the manager to show me how she 'cleans the server'. She refuses, citing heavy workload. I remind her that she calls me every Friday and I don't need her to clean the server, just show me what she does, and if I have to spend one more minute asking, the entire building will lose any trace of technology with the press of a button. She complies. We get in the server room: "you won't get mad, are you?" "No, I just want to know how you spend your Friday evenings", she takes a key, opens the server enclosure, takes apart the side panel and shows me where she sticks a broom inside the enclosure. All this time she complains about wires coming off of the machines and she having to plug them back in. My mind is blown, I chuckle. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Oct 2020 06:53 AM PDT Firstly, let me start by explaining my parents are pretty tech savvy, they understand the concepts of cpu/ram/hdd, know to keep things up to date, ignore foreign princes and calls from microsoft, find the right download button etc. So usually when they call it's something more serious. But sometimes even savvy people make mistakes... Story 1So I get a call from my mum one sunny day. For context we're in the UK, and usually internet is via the phone line unless you have cable.
I arrive. Hellos/hugs etc. I notice her mobile on the side table... and have a horrible dawning realisation.
A group facepalm follows. It probably should have occurred to me during diagnosis, but sometimes obvious things slip by. I didn't realise they'd called from mum's mobile (they had free minutes on the mobiles and not on the landline any more).
Story 2My parents had agreed to do some digitising old photos and negatives for some family friends, they have a nice high end Epson scanner with all the bells and whistles, from about 10 years ago. I get a call from mum, we usually use speakerphone to chat to people in each room.
They get a replacement from eBay, as it's a generic Epson inline transformer. All good. One week later
I head over and take a look, I start by double checking the cheapo eBay inline transformer, it's providing a nice stable voltage. Plug it all back in and nothing. I unpack screwdrivers, multimeter etc. ready to take it apart and diagnose. Then I notice the power switch on the scanner is OFF.
To say I nearly wet myself laughing at their expense is an understatement. They used to (and still do) turn it on/off as and when they use it and finish using it, but to miss such a dumb step this time really embarrassed them. We all had a big laugh out of that one. Cheers for reading. [link] [comments]  |
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