🐿️Pinecone Attack

c/computer-technicians

11

mason209•14d ago

Saw sketchy wiring at a coffee shop downtown - be careful where you plug in

I was fixing a router at a small coffee shop on Main Street yesterday and noticed the extension cord situation behind the counter. There were 3 power strips daisy chained together running a fridge, espresso machine, and 2 laptops. That's like 15 amps on a single 15 amp circuit with no breaker protection between the strips. I told the owner and she said it's been like that for 2 years. Has anyone else run into fire hazards like this at small businesses?

24

parkerb75•18d ago

Just realized I wasted 3 hours troubleshooting a PC that just needed a power cord reseat

Spent my whole Saturday afternoon swapping out RAM, testing the PSU with a multimeter, even pulled the CMOS battery... all because I was too stubborn to try the simplest thing first. Customer brought in a Dell Optiplex that wouldn't post, no beeps, nothing. I was so sure it was a dead board. Turned out the 24-pin connector was loose by maybe 2mm. Charged the guy $45 for the diagnostic and felt like a complete clown. Anyone else ever go down a rabbit hole and miss the obvious fix?

19

hernandez.jordan•18d ago

Upgrade mobo now or wait for next gen CPUs?

Stuck deciding between two paths. One side says grab a current gen board and CPU combo while prices are low. The other side says hold out six months for whatever AMD and Intel drop next. I went with the upgrade now route. Picked up a B650 board and a Ryzen 7600 for $380 total on a Newegg deal. Worked fine for three weeks. Now I see rumors about better efficiency in the next chips. Kinda kicking myself. Did I jump too early? Anyone else wrestle with this timing thing and regret picking one side?

1

dixon.daniel•18d ago

Hit 500 motherboard repairs last week and it got me thinking

I've been doing bench work on the side for about 4 years now, mostly local drop-offs. Last Tuesday I counted up my repair logs and realized I'd hit exactly 500 motherboard repairs, not counting simple swaps or PSU replacements. Most were bad caps or blown mosfets on older Dell and HP boards from office PCs. Is that a decent number for a part-timer, or am I just slow compared to you guys who do this full time?

21

scott.grace•20d ago

Latex gloves trick for thermal paste cleanup saved me 20 minutes today

I was swapping out a CPU on a customer's gaming rig this morning and the old thermal paste was that dried out crusty stuff (you know the kind). I usually use isopropyl alcohol and coffee filters but it takes forever to get it all off. Today I tried putting on a fresh pair of latex gloves and using my finger to rub the paste off first before wiping. It came off in 30 seconds flat and left almost nothing for the alcohol step. Has anyone else tried this or am I just late to the party on this one?

16

faith_perez•22d ago

Shoutout to the retired IT guy at the library who told me to check DNS before swapping hardware

Last Tuesday I spent 2 hours swapping out a router at a client's office before some old timer at the reference desk asked if I checked DNS and that one question saved me from an hour of testing gear I didn't need to replace.

0

mason209•23d ago

Shoutout to the guy who fixed my DNS with a Post-it note

Had a client last month who kept losing internet every Tuesday at 2pm. Spent 4 hours swapping cables and testing ports. Turned out the office cleaner was unplugging the router to vacuum. Client wrote 'DO NOT TOUCH' on a yellow Post-it and stuck it on the wall. Problem solved. Anyone else deal with stuff that's more about people than hardware?

14

barnes.morgan•24d ago

Thermal paste replacement dropped my CPU temps by 12 degrees

I repasted my old i7-4790k last week and went from 85C under load to 73C. The original paste was totally dried out after 7 years. Anyone else see that big a drop just from fresh paste?

15

parkerb75•24d ago

Unpopular opinion: refurbs are better than brand new for most office builds

I see everyone in here always pushing to buy new Dell OptiPlex towers for business clients. But after doing about 30 builds over the last 8 months for a real estate company in Denver, I switched to off-lease refurbs from a local reseller. These are former corporate machines with 3 years of use on them, but they cost me $180 each instead of $650. I put in a cheap SSD and bump the RAM to 16GB and they run Windows 11 perfectly. Had one DOA out of the batch and the reseller swapped it same day. New machines come with bloatware and warranty hassles. Refurbs are tested and already burned in. Anyone else find that new gear fails more often in the first month than used stuff?

1

lily511•25d ago

The 3-year difference in thermal paste deterioration on a single GPU shocked me

I repasted a GTX 1080 I built in 2018 and the temps dropped 15C under load (from 84C to 69C). The old paste was literally crumbly like dry clay. Has anyone else seen paste go that bad that fast?

1

parker_foster53•25d ago

That driver update took me 8 hours on a simple printer install

Got a call about a HP LaserJet that wouldn't scan to email on a small office network. Tried the usual driver reinstall, checked the firewall, even swapped the ethernet cable. After 4 hours I figure out the latest Windows update broke the HP driver completely. Had to roll back three different system updates before it worked. Anyone else had a simple job turn into a whole day mess because of a bad update?

3

max808•27d ago

Grabbed a cheap continuity tester over a multimeter for once

Needed to check a bunch of ribbon cables fast on a fleet of Optiplex 3020s and my Fluke was too bulky. Grabbed a $12 pocket tester off Amazon - worked perfectly for the job and saved me 30 mins per batch of 5 machines. Anybody else switch to a more basic tool for a specific task?

10

claire992•27d ago

Discovered the thermal pad gap on my old laptop was way bigger than I thought

I was digging into a 2015 Dell Latitude that kept thermal throttling no matter what I did. Replaced the paste twice, cleaned the fans, still hit 95C under load. Then I found a forum post from some guy in Germany who measured the gap between the die and the heatsink on the same model. Turns out it was 1.5mm, not the 0.5mm I assumed. I had been using thermal pads that were way too thin. Swapped in a 2mm pad and the idle temp dropped 15 degrees. Fixed a three month headache with a single measurement. Has anyone else run into this with older laptops?

32

abby836•29d ago

Overheard a customer say 'can't you just Google it' to a guy in our shop

This guy brought in a tower that wouldn't post, beeping 3 times long. My coworker started explaining RAM diagnostics, and the customer's friend pipes up with 'can't you just Google the beep codes?' Like yeah, we know that, but we also know 90% of the time it's a seating issue or a dead stick, not some mystery. I took over and fixed it in 5 minutes by reseating both sticks and blowing out a slot that had a dead cricket leg in it. The friend didn't say a word after that. Has anyone else had a customer or friend try to 'help' by suggesting the obvious?

11

abby_martin28•1mo ago

I broke 500 service calls last month and it was a wake up call

I do computer repair from my van in Austin and last month I hit 512 completed jobs. That's way more than I thought I was doing, and it made me realize I'm burning out hard without noticing. I had to drop my cap to 15 calls a week just to keep my sanity and actually give each job the proper time. Has anyone else hit a number that made them rethink their whole workflow?

27

casey943•1mo ago

Pro tip: stop relying on thermal paste spread patterns to diagnose CPU mounting pressure

Used to think uneven paste meant uneven pressure until I pulled a cooler off a Ryzen 5 last Tuesday that showed perfect coverage but still hit 95C due to a bent pin on the socket I missed for 20 minutes, has anyone else been burned by assuming the paste tells the whole story?

21

calebm75•1mo ago

Overheard a guy at the parts counter say he fixed a weird boot loop by swapping the RAM sticks into different slots.

He was picking up a new power supply, but he said the real fix was just moving the sticks around. I always check seating first, but I guess I never thought to try different slots if they're already in. Has anyone else run into that? Seems like a weird motherboard quirk.

25

jason_fisher4•1mo ago

Appreciation post: that $12 thermal paste I bought on a whim

Had a gaming rig in the shop, overheating like crazy. Owner said he tried everything. I had a tube of this cheap paste from a random online order. Figured why not, slapped it on. Temps dropped 20 degrees instantly. He thought I was a genius. Anyone else have a cheap part that just works way better than it should?

23

beth_hunt•1mo ago

Had a customer in Phoenix tell me to just 'listen to the box'

I was swapping a power supply for a guy, and he kept saying his old PC made a soft hum before it died. I was focused on my meter readings, but he made me stop and just listen to the new unit for a second after I installed it. He said, 'The quiet ones are the keepers.' Now I always take that extra five seconds after a hardware swap to just hear if it sounds right. Anyone else pick up a simple check like that from a user?

14

wyatt_chen86•1mo ago

A client told me my diagnostic notes were useless to them

I had a regular customer bring in a gaming PC with a weird boot loop. I fixed it, a bad RAM stick, and wrote up my usual ticket. It just said 'Replaced faulty memory module, system stable.' The client called back a week later asking exactly which stick I swapped and what brand I used, because they wanted to match it. They were nice about it, but said my note didn't help them at all. I always figured the fix was the important part. Now I list the specific part number, slot location, and even the test results that led me there. It takes an extra minute, but people seem to really appreciate the detail. Has anyone else gotten pushback on being too vague in their service notes? What details do you make sure to always include?

10

mason209•1mo ago

Vent: A customer in Akron had a PC that wouldn't boot, just beeped once.

After pulling the RAM for the third time, I noticed a single bent pin on the CPU socket I'd missed. Anyone have a good method for straightening those without a special tool?

22

elliots49•1mo ago

Heads up on those 'universal' laptop power adapters

Bought a cheap one for a client's older Dell, cost me $25 and two hours of my time before it fried the charging circuit. The voltage was off just enough to cause a slow, expensive failure. Anyone have a reliable supplier for genuine, older power bricks?

2

spencer_wood•1mo ago

Appreciation post: Switched to a $20 iFixit toolkit and my repair speed doubled

For years I was using a cheap, mismatched set of screwdrivers from a hardware store. Last month, I finally bought the iFixit Mako kit. The first time I used it on a 2021 Dell laptop, I had the whole thing apart in under 15 minutes. The right bit for every screw and the magnetic mat kept everything organized. Has anyone else had a simple tool upgrade make this big of a difference?

10

abby_martin28•1mo ago

Serious question, what's your go-to method for cleaning old thermal paste off a CPU?

I used a tiny bit of 91% isopropyl on a coffee filter yesterday and it worked way better than the old cotton swab trick. Anyone got a better tool for those really stubborn spots around the edges?

22

fionarodriguez•1mo ago

Just realized I wasted a whole afternoon on a bad power strip

Had a customer bring in a gaming rig that would randomly shut down under load. I mean, I went through the whole checklist, you know? Ran stress tests for an hour, checked thermals, swapped the PSU with a known good unit from the bench. Spent like 3 hours on it, easy. I was about to start suspecting the motherboard when I finally, on a total whim, plugged the system directly into the wall outlet instead of the customer's fancy 'gaming' power strip. Boom, problem gone. The strip was just failing to deliver clean, stable power when the GPU spiked. It was one of those cheap, flashy ones with the blue LEDs. Felt so dumb for not checking the simplest thing first. Anyone else get tripped up by something that basic before?