You WHAT!!! Tech Support |
| Posted: 23 Mar 2021 03:03 PM PDT Can't remember if I posted this before here, so sorry if this is a repeat. 3 People involved. Me = Nerd who likes tech stuff. Dad, Mother, The Kid. Little backstory. Some 15 years ago, I was asked to build a new "Gaming computer" for a friend's 14-year-old kid. He had some money from his confirmation (It is called that in Danish, I don't know if it is the correct English word). This way the dad could have his computer for himself (he is also a gamer) and the kid would have his own. Anyway, I used the money he had available to build him a nice gaming rig. He is happy and can now play Counter-Strike and World of Warcraft with his friends. Fast forward about 5 months, I get a call from the dad that the PC is not working, it won't turn on. I tell him ill drive by tomorrow after work to check on it. Now I get there after work the next day and ask what is wrong with it, and the dad says it won't turn on, no lights or anything. I ask the kid when it last worked, and he told me last Thursday before he and his dad went fishing for the weekend. When he got home and wanted to play, he pressed the power button and the computer made a funny noise but did not turn on. After that nothing would happen when he pressed the power button. I go into his room and lift the mini-tower up from the floor onto the desk. it already had the side panel off and he had put lights in it to make it look cool (his words). I pressed the power button, and nothing happened, this is when the alarm bells in my head started to go off one at a time. First I saw rust on some screws. Second I saw lime deposits from water (it was not water-cooled) Third... The smell of burnt electronics. This last one caused me to rip the power cord and every other cord out of the computer within a few seconds. I put my head to the power supply and oh man the smell. The dad asked me what was wrong as he saw the disgusted look I had on my face as well as the panic power cord removal I had just performed. I asked him to smell the computer, he put his head down and made the same disgusted look I had made a few seconds before. Now here is a transcript as best as I can remember it Me to the kid: Did you spill water into the computer?? Kid: No. It worked fine before we went fishing. Me: Are you sure, cause it looks like someone poured a lot of water into this computer, there is rust on some screws and lime marks in several places. It looks like it has been washed. From another room. Mother: Yeah I washed it.Me: You WHAT!!!!! Mother comes into the room. Mother: Yes I washed it. Me: Why....... Mother: After these two left for the weekend to go fishing, I cleaned the kid's room, he had dirty clothes everywhere, and the room needed to be vacuumed as he had ignored my request for him to clean it. (This woman HATES dust bunnies, she is allergic to them if I remember right) Me: But why did you wash the computer?????? Mother: It was full of dust, so I took it to the kitchen and washed it in the sink. I looked over at the kid and his father's faces, his dad just shaking his head and the kid had a look of horror on his face, as he knew the computer was dead after this. Me: You do know that electricity and water don't mix right? Mother: Yeah but the computers can be water-cooled so they can be washed. Turnes out the kid and dad had been talking about water cooling their pc (this was before AIO water cooling solutions were common), and the mother had overheard this and so she thought that the computers could be washed if full of EVIL dust bunnies. She had disconnected the computer, taken it out into the sink, poured water all over it, dryer with some cloth, and put it back, and put the cables back into the correct holes somehow. After she told me that, I just started laughing, she asked why, and I told her that the water cooling goes inside heater blocks and tubes, if water leaks and gets on the computer components, even a few drops the computer dies if powered on. Even if dried the mineral deposits from the water as well as water still under chips can cause shorts. That's when what she had done dawned on her... Luck would have it, they saved the boxes all the parts came in, so the motherboard, ram, hard drive, could be replaced under warranty (after the watermarks were cleaned off). And a new DVD drive, PSU and GPU needed to be bought, as those could not be cleaned well enough. The CPU worked so no need to replace that. In the end, the kid got a faster GPU as the prices had come down and GUILT tripping his mother worked wonders for a few weeks :). To this day she still gets teased about washing her son's computer. [link] [comments]  |
| My apps are crashing and now it’s your problem. Posted: 23 Mar 2021 10:37 AM PDT Edit: sorry for the formatting, I'm on mobile and am new to posting on Reddit. I'll get better, I promise. Also thanks for the awards kind strangers. I am a repair tech at a small family owned phone repair shop. Most of my day is spent swapping screens on iPhones and tablets. Occasionally I get fun stuff or weird challenges and way outside my scope questions. Me=me Cx= customer This morning I get a call from a previous customer who I repaired a broken phone screen for a few months back. Cx: what's going on with my phone!? My apps keep crashing. Me: I'm sorry, what exactly is going on? What device do you have? Are there any notification boxes that provide more info when a crash happens? Cx: it's a well known problem with android web services app and chrome and I spent hours on the phone with Verizon last night. They couldn't help me, so since you fix phones you know how to fix this right? Me: quick google search. Find out this is a bug that slipped through in an update yesterday and is already fixed with another update. Well I wasn't aware of this problem till just now but a quick search on the internet shows that you just need to update both google chrome and android system web view. If you go to google play store and search... Cx: I already did that last night and can't update them. Also wasn't it an update that caused this headache in the first place? Why should I trust an update again. Me: yes a bug in the previous update is the culprit of the problem but it looks like another newer update is out that should rectify the issue. Just go to the google play app and search... Cx: yes but I already did that last night and It didn't have an update button. Me: thinking ok 2 can play this game I see. I tell you what. Do me a favor and restart your phone. Completely power it down. Let's give it a few seconds. Ok now power it back up. Ok now go to the google play app. Ok now search for android system web view. Is there an update button now? Click update. Ok now search google chrome. Is there an update button? Click it. Ok wait for the updates to finish installing. Ok restart your device. Now you should be good to go. Test by opening one of the apps that was crashing before. Everything works now? Ok goodbye. Gotta admit I was really tempted to take the unnecessary steps even further and have the cx restart modem and router too but didn't want to be on the call that long. Since this first call I've fielded several more calls about this bug today and am considering invoicing google for the customer support I'm providing for them. [link] [comments]  |
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