User tries to add graphics card to an OEM computer with a 300w PSU and ends up almost frying computer Tech Support |
- User tries to add graphics card to an OEM computer with a 300w PSU and ends up almost frying computer
- When your system fail lightning fast
- The difference between 5 and 2
- Fingerprint recognition
- Do NOT stop talking to me when I'm busy!
| Posted: 07 Jan 2021 09:35 PM PST TL:DR user didn't know what components they had, moved their components to a bigger case (while barefoot on carpet), then tried to power on, (Without the heatsink attached) the computer with a self-test button on PSU since the case power button didn't work, and almost fried the computer by pressing it too many times (without a heatsink on the cpu) when the graphics card wouldn't display because it didn't have any PCI-e power hooked up. So I'm coming here from a tech support channel where we just had a user basically attempt to murder their computer. This user wasn't very smart and 3 of us ended up getting involved to solve their issue. The guy starts with how he transferred their components to a new case to fit a new gpui and now their computer wasn't displaying anything but if he held the "Temporary power button" the fans would turn on. We asked him what the temporary power button was and after some back and forth we found out he was using the the self-test power button on the PSU, and more importantly they were using an OEM PSU from a dell OptiPlex rated for 300w, the PSU doesn't even have PCI-e power. So we go over trying to check the connection of power button cable to the JFP pins because we dont think they have it connected properly. Simple right? Wrong, It continues to have issues powering on and we ask him if the motherboard risers are installed properly and if they were working on a ESD safe surface like wood or ceramic. They insisted they did to both these things.we asked them to take a picture of the inside of the case to inspect their cable management. In the picture, to our horror they were working barefoot on carpet and not only that but the motherboard was in full contact with the unpainted computer case not screwed in to any risers. And on top of all this, they did not install the CPU heatsink. So they have basically been spooling the motherboard with the self-test power button on the PSU without the heatsink installed just furiously pressing both power buttons. We think the computer is probably dead from thermal malfunction being forced to run without a heatsink and not letting the failsafe do its job. but after the computer was properly assembled it ended up working by some stroke of dumb luck. We are on the fence about whether they were trolling us or just that technically illiterate [link] [comments]  |
| When your system fail lightning fast Posted: 07 Jan 2021 08:08 AM PST So I'm not exactly tech support, but I'm rather a part time DevOps engineer at a startup working on traffic light optimization. Besides the work, I'm a CompSci student (important, I promise). A brand new feature of our product is a website to monitor traffic in real time, and I was the sole developer of that feature. While a really useful (and marketable) feature, my primary interests are the optimization of the traffic light. At a Friday bar at the local college, I was talking to one of my peers a year ahead of me. He's a great guy (and later became my coworker), and I know he's interested in the optimization as well, so I show him the website because you can really tell the difference just by looking at it. Let's call him GG. Also note this is our first live intersection. Here's how the story panned out:
Note: Remember this is Friday. They were gonna film on Monday. After pulling up the website, we stare at the screen for less than 15 seconds before I realize that something is off. One of the legs only get a green every 2 minutes, and only for 4 seconds, so cars are piling up like crazy. By law, the minimum green time is 6 seconds, and if it is our optimization, we're screwed.
I went back to the party to continue drinking. It might have been for multiple reasons by then. Anyway, about 30 min later, my boss calls me back. It was because a freaking lightning had struck one of our sensors nuking it completely. But it was only that one sensor, and our system failed - exactly the way it should. There was a fail-safe when our system goes offline that the light reverts to a time controller, so as our system failed to read the sensor, it just stopped controlling the traffic light, and the fail-safe should have taken over. But the company designing the fail-safe messed up the configuration so that it was actually illegal. So we're off the hook - and the traffic engineer ordered the development of our own fail-safe because he didn't trust the other company. Back to drinking, now with a great story to tell GG. [link] [comments]  |
| The difference between 5 and 2 Posted: 07 Jan 2021 03:10 PM PST Oh boy have I got a marvel for youguys this time. Todays story involves 2 tech savvy nerds, myself (M) and my friend (F). But first, a little backstory: Me and my friend went to college together, we both are devops engineers and as you do after you gratuate we both went our seperate ways, but I (M) went on to start a MSP and F went on to work for some company, F rents some servers from M. We rarely speak at all these days and when we do its mostly server related, this starts just 4 hours before I write this on reddit, I get a random series of texts, read what happened below: F: "Hey M, quick question, when I try to ssh into my VPS on xxx.xxx.225.xxx I get a an error. F: *Sends screenshot of error\* F: "When I look from the KVM console I see that SSH is running and the port is open and when I try to ping xxx.xxx.225.xxx it also doesn't respond." (You, yes you, in the chair, you can see where this is going now right? Well, we couldn't, so enjoy your laugh at our expense!) In the mean time i've fired up the work pc and checked network connectivitiy, as a quick sidenote I was doing some maintenance on some other service at the time and my first thought was that somehow that maintenance caused his issue, it couldn't have, but thats where my mind was at. M: "Hey, I can reach your VPS at xxx.xxx.225.xxx just fine, but at the moment i can't seem to reach port xxx" F: "Well, thats weird." M: "HTTP and HTTPS seem to work as intended." F: "I restarted the SSH deamon multiple times, yet I can't reach port xxx" M: "I just checked the network stack, I don't see any sign of a blockage on port xxx for your ip" F: "*Sends screenshot\* when I ping the VPS I get timeouts " M: "*Sends screenshots of pings from multiple locations\* well all seems fine from my end" F: "Just tried a traceroute, it times out big time" M: "SSH seems to be working for me now, from both home and the vpn" F: "Strange, I assume this is something between me and the VPS then" M: "Yeah, probably, give it some time, keep me posted" And for a good 2 or so hours we leave it at this. I start monitoring the service whilst I finish up my maintenance, play a quick game and then shut off the pc for the night.. then I get another message: F: "Cloudflare also times out when it tries to connect, my 4g celular connection also can't connect, I think the problem isn't at the ISP" M (when walking back to the desk): "Alright I'll have a look, hang on" M: "All seems fine from my end, even the monitoring software seems to be able to connect to your SSH from 6 different locations" M: *Sends link of monitoring software report\* F: "*sends screenshot\* The ping tool on your website also times out, and the traceroute tool also doesn't look good" A quick sidenote, when in college together I built a portfolio site with some useful tools, ping tool, portscanner, traceroute, youknow, the works.. I mostly forget about that these days but he remembered it and used it to test for his issue. Now the failure to connect for those tools is weird, because they are run from inside the same subnet as ip xxx.xxx.225.xxx and should always be able to connect, certainly if the outside world can, at this point i start to catch on to whats going on.... anyhow, on with the story, its close to finished, I promise! M: also runs those same tools and gets expected (working) results M: "*Sends screenshots of working results\* for me they work just fine." At this point this has been going on for 3 hours, neither of us have seen the so blaitaint yet sneaky mistake litterally sent in about a dozen screenshots! M: At this point scratching his head so hard he starts to bald "WAIT A MINUTE!!!" M: "255!!!" M: "xxx.xxx.225.xxx = GOOD" M: "xxx.xxx.255.xxx = BAD" At this point I facepalm so hard, I think it can be felt on the other side of the street, I also go flat out on the ground, amused with the ignorance to detail we both showed, and the blaitaint disregard for basic troubleshooting procedures. We are both techies, so why would I bother doing the basics, I just assumed he did those already. F: "Wait, really? I've read over that a thousand times.." F: "Is that it? I've had 255 in my head the whole time, this also explains why cloudflare wouldn't work!" M: "I also just noticed /facepalm" F: "This explains SO MUCH!" And that, my friends, is why you:
TLDR: Me and my friend should have failed calcules in pre-school, yet we are both functioning adults whilst we cannot differentiate 2's from 5's. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jan 2021 03:23 PM PST First off, Im not in tech support, but like many people have come to the aid of our older generations. I found this story funny and decided to share. My mother (72) has had Apple products for many years and rarely has problems. She recently got a new iPad and was complaining to me today that she can't store a fingerprint on it. She needs her fingerprint stored in order to download new apps, and was telling me about her frustration. I thought her inability to store a fingerprint might be due to her Reynauds, which causes poor circulation in the fingertips. I asked her to show me what she was doing. She brought up the settings screen where it asks her to place her finger on the home button to scan her fingerprint. She had been placing her finger in the middle of the screen where the fingerprint shows. I told her the screen won't scan, just the home button, and she got it. She was able to scan her fingerprint with no issues. I told her it was a PEBCAK issue (problem exists between chair and keyboard) and she laughed. She called it an ID10T error. TLDR; my mom was trying to snag her finger on something that doesn't scan. [link] [comments]  |
| Do NOT stop talking to me when I'm busy! Posted: 07 Jan 2021 09:22 AM PST I used to work at a store that bought, sold and repaired arcade machines. I had a machine where we needed another ribbon cable but we didn't have one on hand long enough to reach. However, for those that don't know, there are types of ribbon cable that can be bought in a large roll, then you buy a bunch of connectors in bulk and clamp them onto the cut ends of the ribbon cable. I found a good deal for a large enough pack that we could probably do between 8 and 20 machines that had this kind of cable that was damaged, depending on the length, and enough connectors by themselves to do even more than that on machines where the connector itself was damaged or worn. The whole shebang cost about 20 bucks, a far cry from the 75 dollar order I just took a shot in the dark on and my boss was okay with it. (If he hadn't been, I would have returned it.) My boss wasn't there for me to approve the order with him directly, but I asked everybody else, including a guy that worked there for 2 years, and they all agreed I should get it. I would have called or texted my boss, but he hadn't responded yet to my previous texted question about something else, and he had a reputation for being unreachable when not at work, and he was only there a few days a week. He owned the business and had no assistant manager or anyone else with any kind of authority to do refunds or exchanges if a customer was dissatisfied. So, with my previous experience and the approval of my coworkers, instead of shooting in the dark, I was shooting by the dim lights of an arcade machine in an otherwise dark room. :) The boss came back and found out I not only tested the machine and diagnosed the actual problem, but ordered parts for it. He was quite unhappy with me, stating that I should have asked him first. I mentioned that I tried to ask him another question via text, after having called him once and him not answering, but since he hadn't responded yet, I thought that sending him another message would look impatient and "selfish" if that's the right word when it's a work question. He basically said that I need to send him another message if I have another question, even if he hasn't responded yet. I pointed out that the parts would be useful with other machines but I could take the responsibility of returning them if he disagreed. He just repeated that I should have sent him another message, and circling back to that if I tried to ask him anything else, even something irrelevant to that machine , messages to him or the parts. Needless to say, my relationship with the owner went downhill fast from there. A few months after I left, I found that the store had gone out of business. Karma can bite you in the rear just like Pac Man eating a ghost sometimes. [link] [comments]  |
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