Being Tech Support for Friends Sucks

[nanoc]

kinda dated if its running a 8800

I still run a 8800gtx waiting till it dies then maybe i'm finally going to build a new rig. Card is pretty sold giving how old it is, I even used to to play bf3 with it, but now I mainly play LOL in my free time so no need to upgrade for me.

[Peter.Steele]

Well now that I know that I can sleep better. Okay. I would be the same way then. I would also yank all things off the mobo cept the ram and cpu and my custom pc speaker and see if it gives any errors. But that is me. It seems that I will keep coming back until I figure what it is that is busted. All capacitors and regulators look good? Burn/brown marks underneath?

Sorry. Anyways. You are doing great. Keep it up.

hah.

I might have a little more ambition to mess with it next weekend. We'll see. I was pretty pissed about having to hang out in the driveway in the sun this last weekend. That case was REALLY ****ING HOT from the sunlight. It's a Thermaltake Shark, so it's all solid black-painted aluminum. Back about 2007 / 2008 this was probably a pretty badass computer. I'm guessing that the CPU is probably a Q6600, but I can't get into the BIOS or the OS to tell, and since I don't have any Arctic Silver laying around I'm not going to pull the fan and find out.

All the caps look good, too. Nothing is obviously blown. The fans all sound terrible though, now that there's no dust to cushion the wobbling. Did I mention earlier that the CPU cooler was solid with dust, and half the case fans were frozen? I mean, frozen to the point where 120 PSI air wouldn't spin them up immediately?

If it won't stay on long enough even get to BIOS, it sure does sound
like hardware. Wonder if the CMOS battery is any good ? Have
you pulled the ram and just tried it with 1 stick ? Pretty old unit.
Might try a spare PSU to see if it'll lite, but it sounds like maybe
you are just going to put it on hold due to funds and I am with you
on that. I don't buy hardware unless the client gives me money up
front for parts.

CMOS battery should be irrelevant. It'll throw up an error and the clock will be wrong, and that's about it.

I've got a spare PSU. It's a 750W BFG, brand new in the box. Still has the shrink-wrap on it. I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to sell it or not, so I'm not breaking the shrink-wrap on it. Therefore, I'm not going to test with that.

In a few months I'm sure she'll either go buy a WalMart special or buy new hardware to go in this case. Really, the only thing in the case that's worth re-using is the case itself. It's a very nice case. Very solid. The door on the front is annoying as all hell, but it's definitely a well built product.

[Flyin Brian]

I just got a call yesterday from a completely inept buddy of mine that is always having computer problems. He is probably the most computer illiterate person you could ever imagine. I've been dealing with calls for the 10 years we have been friends and I've found it's usually easier to drive over there instead of trying to describe how to do something stupid-simple like cut & paste.

Anyhow, he calls yesterday with a virus and I'm not in the mood so I tell him I can't do it and he should take it to a buddy of mine who owns a local shop. YEAH... no more calls!

This morning, the PC shop guy texts me and says "He ripped the VGA off the main board. It is sitting in there sparking. Didn't realize it was screwed in".

Whooops :P

[olhunter]

Ha. I tell people ahead of time, 'I work for pie'. Literally. You have to bring me 2 Marie Calendar pies if I work on your computer. Then I email them a list of the pies I want. My wife is like, "What?!?!? More pies?!?!? damn'.

I also have a regular deal with a plumber and electrician where we barter. I do their computer maintenance and they do my house maintenance. I'll tell ya, I've come out ahead in ceiling fans, outlets, lighting, water heaters, clogged main lines, hose bibs, etc.

The only problem is my dad. It goes like this..."Ok, see that icon? It's a little picture thingy. See that? Right click it. The other right...no dad, the right side of the mouse...' on and on....lol....exercise in frustration.

[Spyder]

This is why I frequently chuck a computer out the window, and order a new crappy "state of the art" dell.

I'm still stuck in Windows 3.11 days, and if it angers me, I replace it with the newest $400 wonder laptop.

[Fizz]

If you do computer stuff for a living your time is valuable; not even friends get work from me for free. I'll do services on credit, barter or send someone on a shopping/errand run for me, but it's not free. If that scares people off, so be it.

If you do computer stuff as a hobby the experience can be more valuable than direct compensation. There's some overlap for sure, but at some point your professional demands far exceed the personal computing challenges you'll see from friends.

I did OEM/Computer repair for years before becoming IT/Networking oriented. I've spec'ed, built, sold, repaired and serviced millions worth of computers. I don't miss those days too much anymore. However, the experience has been invaluable even though those skills aren't exercised directly in my day to day.

[Fizz]

I'm still stuck in Windows 3.11 days, and if it angers me, I replace it with the newest $400 wonder laptop.

I recently bought a 350 dollar Lenovo laptop (when it was on sale at Office Depot http://www.officedepot.com/a/product...Computer-With/ ). Installed a 120GB Crucial SSD and then 16GB of RAM (I spin up a few VMs every so often).

I'll be content for a few years.

[JaMail]

i never tell people im in IT, i get mad at my wife when she volunteers me to fix her families computers.

[Peter.Steele]

i never tell people im in IT, i get mad at my wife when she volunteers me to fix her families computers.

Hell, I'm not even in IT. I'm a CAD designer. This girl is just in the next cubicle over from me. Has the same job title as me, but does about half the amount of work.

[stilly]

Ha. I tell people ahead of time, 'I work for pie'. Literally. You have to bring me 2 Marie Calendar pies if I work on your computer. Then I email them a list of the pies I want. My wife is like, "What?!?!? More pies?!?!? damn'.

I also have a regular deal with a plumber and electrician where we barter. I do their computer maintenance and they do my house maintenance. I'll tell ya, I've come out ahead in ceiling fans, outlets, lighting, water heaters, clogged main lines, hose bibs, etc.

The only problem is my dad. It goes like this..."Ok, see that icon? It's a little picture thingy. See that? Right click it. The other right...no dad, the right side of the mouse...' on and on....lol....exercise in frustration.

Do you have a friend named Gabriel Iglesias?

[HmoobWarrior]

1. Make sure motherboard and all other component doesn't have any obvious blown capacitor or burnt chipset (All that heat from the dust bunnies).
2. Try reseting BIOS through the jumper on the motherboard near the CMOS battery
3. Try a different PSU just in case
4. Try each RAM stick individually to make sure its not RAM.
5. Try with out HD just in case....
6. Don't put too much time into it, you're not getting paid for it. Especially when your friend doesn't even have the money to fix it too.

[catmman]

Sure does but you always learn something new. That is why I have done it for over 20 years.