Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

My parents came to visit and Mom handed me both her ereaders with a comment about them not working (yes, she reads a LOT - especially when she's the passenger in a car for six hours).

One screen wasn't working and the other was shutting down in ten minutes and refusing to come back up.

I grabbed my charger and USB cable (same model) and left both charging for several hours. Once they were fully charged, both came up just fine.

I had a spare USB cable, so I handed it to Mom so she'd be able to leave one charging on her computer while she read on the other and reminded her to leave the computer on while it was charging. I told her that her chargers apparently had broken wires inside and the reader battery wasn't getting enough power to charge up - she might have to leave the computer on overnight and to be more careful with bending the cables so that they didn't break wires inside.

Then I watched her coil up the new cable as tightly as she could to fit it into a bag with the other cables - all of them coiled up tightly, too.

I went on eBay for a spare cable - I know what Santa's putting in her Christmas stocking this year...

I remembered TechTales recently because we had an incident that just fit this place to the T.

We have new vending style machines that allow folks to checkout tools or wireless handhelds by swipeing their IDs in a card reader. People could walk up, swipe their ID, and get whatever was in it.

Well, we started having 'firewall' problems (remember, it is always the firewall's fault). Well, it was not the firewall. Must be the network! The devices disappear and reappear! The switches and routers get dissected, no fault found. They work again. Life goes on for a few weeks, then it starts all over.

After a couple of months of this, one of the folks out on site notices something strange. There are 2 fuses and an exposed, rocker switch on the top of the vending machine. The rocker switch turns the network connection on or off. facepalm.

Yes, someone comes into work, needs a tool and walks up to the machine. They need both hands free, so the set the tool box or lunch in one of two places, on the floor or on the top of the machine. On that exposed rocker switch. The network connection goes out to lunch.

Another one I just remembered about...

So many, many...many...years ago -- maybe about early to mid 90s -- the family computer was having some problems. Turns out the case fan had stopped working. As it was under warranty and house calls were covered, we called to have a tech come by and replace it. Well, turns out the tech replaced the CPU / heatsink fan... *sigh* Really? Told them the CASE fan was not working, NOT the CPU / heatsink fan. Sheesh, talk about not listening. So, call back shortly afterwards, and explain, and THIS time they send out the right part with the tech. Should have just done it ourselves to begin with.

There are a few thrift stores around our area called DI. Well, I recently went to one of them just browsing around looking at the few computers they had. One of them was a server someone had brought in. Well, I was checking the drive bays to make sure it was still in good condition, and one of the employees, rudely, asked me what I was doing, why I was pulling them out. I looked at him and pointedly stated I was just checking it. He then went to complain to another employee who I overheard say something to the effect of, just be sure to watch and keep an eye out (not exact, but again, similar). I'm thinking, are they really that stupid? Well, I didn't get it because 1) it was missing the front bezel, and 2) I didn't know the full state of it. Turns out it was probably a good thing I didn't get it, because the next day, going back, I discovered it had been pretty much gutted with pieces haphazardly just laying there in the case. Really now...? And you asked what *I* was doing?? Hhhmm...

I hadn't even got my morning coffee when my first call came in. The computer wouldn't start and the client was going to miss being able to play her farm game with her friends if it wasn't fixed. I asked her if the light was on on the front of the computer. She said "wait a minute, i need to get a candle." I asked what she needed the candle for and she said "to see the computer silly! The power went out an hour ago and i need it to see the front of the computer."

Like most Techies I get called on by friends and family to look at or fix computers.

One of my pet hates is computer stores that will not look at the basics - ie. check the fans for dust, and will instead sell you a new computer rather than looking at and fixing the old one.

One job I did for a cousin was to do some setup on her computer that she got because she was told the old one was kaput as it kept crashing and turning off.

Anyway in the process of setting up the new computer we needed a file off the old computer and in starting it up the problem was immediately noticeable by the loud noise the CPU fan was making.

Took the cover off and as I suspected the CPU fan was completely clogged up with dust - Turned it off - got the air and cleaned it out and 5 minutes later it was up and running and working as normal.

Just goes to show you that some stores or more interested in your money rather than fixing something.

If it takes me 5 minutes to take the side off and clean the fan why can't a computer store do the same???

Last week, a desktop PC wrapped in 4 layers of odorous plastic was dropped off by a woman who has no concept of how a computer works.

The story she gave me was that her son had been using the PC the earlier in the week, and ever since, it hadn't worked. No lights were coming on and it was generally being un-responsive to everything she was doing. At this point, multiple reasons why were going through my head, faulty ram, damaged motherboard, blown psu, etc. I told her I'd give her a call later when I'd checked it out. I checked it in, and put it on the shelf as something to do later on that day.

Later on that day - I finally get time in the day to check out the PC. I rip it out of its multiple layers of plastic covers only to notice that the side panels are propped against the tower, instead of being attached like they should be.

I immediately notice the problem with the machine as soon as I take a look inside. It was empty. The motherboard and hard drive were gone.

Her son had removed everything, hadn't told her what he did, and left her with an empty case.

My boss, 2 other techs and myself, were dying from laughter.

So I work IT for a hospital and one day I was walking by a station where a couple clerks work and I hear this horrible sound coming from one of the desks. So I asked them what the noise was and they said "it's our computer, but don't worry because it always sounds like that when we first turn it on but it goes away after a while". They also told me that after a while the computer keeps shutting down on them. I assured them that the horrible loud grinding noise was not a normal sound from the computer and decided to take a look at it.

We have these computer mounts that have for the most part all been replaced except this one I guess and its a couple cables that wrap around the computer and hold it to the desk. But this mount has two cable ends that just sit there afterwards and it turns out one of the ends went into the back of the computer through the fan.

So the fan was struggling to turn and eventually would stop which would cause the computer to over heat and shut down. And they thought it was completely normal and had worked with it like that for months.

Okay - I do the "tech support" for my family (waves at Mom, Dad, younger sister, husband, son, and anyone else who has ever asked me a question).

I really try to give simple answers to simple questions.

Why is it when I call in to a tech support desk to tell them that the computer (under warranty since it is less than nine months since we bought it new) isn't working do I get told to reboot it (six or eight times - when I called because it isn't powering up) and then get complicated instructions to reboot it and start either the repair or the factory image recovery?

Again, what part of "it won't power up, please give me an RMA so I can send it back to you for repair under the warranty" is not understood? How many times do you have to try to reboot without managing to get the computer to turn on does it take?

Three? Six? Twelve? Thirty?

Not all problems are PEBKAC. I suppose that one would be PEBPhone&HelpDesk.

This one is a total goof on my part...I fail miserably on this one. So I recently acquired Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (woo!). Just so happens, it's the first time I've actually installed Win 7 myself, so of course I'm not familiar with how it installs everything. Though I'm certainly learning now!

So here it is... Well, I was going through my slave (secondary / backup) HDD files and noticed a Boot folder, and thinking this was from the old install of XP I no longer used, as it was just a secondary / backup drive after all, I deleted the files in it. Well, unbeknownst to me at the time, it was what Win 7 used to boot...OOPS! So I go through the normal routine of trying to repair the startup. Turns out, the "Boot" drive is bad. So I start doing some research and turns out I should have just left ONLY the master drive plugged in, NOT the slave also. Though because the slave was originally labeled as a bad drive by Win 7, despite the fact it still works, I started a scan on it...it sure does take a while, sheesh. But from now on, I know better...ONLY have the MASTER drive plugged in for ANY system install. Though I should have known better to begin with as that's what I've done before with previous Windows installs. Ah well...just goes to show it really does happen to the best of us.

So, we are four states away from home, meeting family at a resort. We have our laptops with us - but not much else in the way of "tech". I am the family tech support. Have been for five or six years...

DH's laptop does the BSOD and "turns off" - at which point he puts it down and comes to ask me for "the repair disk" (because I obviously have on in my computer case, which has an Undectable Extension Charm (or a fifth dimension link to my supplies at home, or something) and it has EVERYTHING in there that he needs.

Turns out that I did not have a repair disk, an install disk, or any blank cds to burn a repair disk to with me.

So I grab his laptop and plug it in next to mine to see what I can do with F10 and "repair" instead of of a disk....

Only to have it "wake up" from the blank black screen and show a "locked" screen where all I needed to do was click on the user name.....

I took him a piece of pecan pie with whipped cream on top AND the laptop - assuming that the temper tantrum meant low blood sugar.....it certainly sweetened his disposition!

I lucked out - if his computer didn't work - we don't get home until late Sunday (so two more days). I'd have had to loan him MINE because he's doing stuff for work!

Here's a recent one. So I've been working on cannibalizing systems which I have recently acquired, because they're either too old or just don't work anymore. Well, I took my roommates old computer and cannibalized it to put parts into a better system I had for them to use. In doing so, I heard a rattling in the floppy drive. Thinking that's not right, I open the drive door and out slides a mini-disc. Then I think, now why...how...who...? It boggles my mind.

Alright, so here's another one I just remembered about. A few months ago, a friend's brother was letting me stay in their (his and g/f's) basement for a while. Well, one time the g/f had a problem with her computer, a MAC. I had seen Macs before and used them once for a few months many years ago in a vocational trade course, though the OS wasn't as advanced then as it is now, so I wasn't quite as familiar with the system. So she calls up tech support, talking to them about a master password, and she had no clue what it was or how to bypass it. They wanted beaucoup bucks to give her full support. She never gave in. So I told her I'd take a look at it. A couple minutes of fiddling around, I found the master password reset option. Apparently, it was blank the entire time...as was the head of the tech who "helped" her. Just goes to show, even the professionals aren't always "professional" and cost an arm and a leg, while the "amateurs" sometimes are AND FREE.

Okay, here's another that happened just recently, within the last week I might add. Our ISP is not one of the greatest and brightest, but it works and it's inexpensive. Their modems aren't the best either. So here goes...

There's been connection issues for a while, slow connection or just none at all. Well, recently the modem required a hard reset, using the Reset button. Got that up and running and configured...properly...or so I thought. Still having issues. So I start going through the modem settings. It was using the main computer as the DHCP gateway for the connection to the modem. Uuummm...NO. So I delete the static computer IP info from the settings, and sure enough, BAM! Instant connection! No more problems. Boy, those modem programmers sure are smart, huh? Sheesh.