"But it was just working a few minutes ago!"

[Geek King]

I'm starting to hate that phrase. Really, really hate it. It almost always signals the beginnings of a long, pointless conversation with someone who wants to know why something broke, but has no hope of understanding the answer. Seriously, things work right up to the point that they don't. I might not know why your computer decided to drop your printer from the Printers & Faxes list, but if you'd let me work, I can have it back in ten minutes.

Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. Sometimes computers do flakey things. I fix them when they do. Unless your computer is doing said flakey thing constantly, I don't really care about the why. I get paid to get you back to work by the quickest reasonable means, not to teach you Computers 102 at your desk. I'll merrily chit-chat with you while I work, but please stop pressing me if you don't understand what I've told you. I don't understand all the government regulations around your job, but I don't make you explain what a Form 3.14159-BS is for. Let's both pretend the other knows what they are doing pertaining to their job, and move on, hey?

[protege]

Ugh. I can't stand that phrase either. In fact, it makes me want to throttle whoever utters it

Case in point, my employer's previous server was a piece of shit. It was designed to be as cheap as possible, and...you get what you paid for. For some reason, it had a pair of SCSI drives in bays that were so close together...that they overheated. About once a week, I had to shut the server off for a few hours so they could cool down. There simply weren't enough fans to handle the heat, nor could I add more...because I'd have to shut the thing down to install them, and well, we couldn't have that. Yes, I see the irony there

After months of this, the boss started bugging me about "what was up with the server." Boss wouldn't accept that the server was a POS and insisted I fix it. Keep in mind this was the same guy who said "could you schedule server failures for more convenient times. And yes, he said that shortly after the damn thing had overheated again

Sick of this, something had to be done. Boss wouldn't spend the cash (nor would he let me shut the thing off) to install fans, so he told me to do the next best thing. That is, he told me to remove the side panels from the case. Not great, but it worked. I left the server like that for well over a year...until one of the hard drives finally destroyed itself! Seems that the "repair" had allowed dust to get into certain components, and damaging them

As I'm trying to rescue the data, no sooner do I go into the server closet...when my boss started bugging me over why the drive failed. I threw some jargon together to get rid of him. I mean really, I'm more concerned about the data. I don't give a shit why the drive failed! It's not that important, and no, it's not still under warranty. Quit bugging me, dammit!

I got *extremely* lucky, in that I was able to transfer everything over to another workstation, set it as the server, with a minimum of downtime. No sooner did I get that fixed, when I got to answer a million questions about that goddamn hard drive. I can't fix it, so quit asking me. It's dead. Deal.

At least the 3rd party tech didn't make me play "20 questions." I told him that the drive failed, transferred the call to the boss...and eventually got a new server to play with. One, that I had some *serious* input in designing. Let's just say that it hasn't overheated once, and that all 4 drives are mirrored. All of that is kept cool by about a half-dozen fans in the case itself, plus multiple fans added later

[tropicsgoddess]

I loathe that damn phrase or something similar to that. "But it was working fiiiinne for over [insert astronomically long period of time]!!!" Yeah, well computers eventually screw up, just like a car. Or the SC's that spout out "But this computer is neeeeeew!!!11!!" crap. Even a freaking Benz can break down too, and remember the Firestone tires clusterfuck? My point exactly. Idiots. If it breaks, get it fixed and do the grand favor of shutting your pie holes with your needless bitching and moaning. </rant>

[Ironclad Alibi]

and remember the Firestone tires clusterfuck?

I remember it vividly. I was working in the government office that handled complaints about the Firestone tire failures (this was the 1980 edition, not the more recent one). Someday I'll have to post some of the stories I remember from then.

[Der Cute]

I hate it when a user gloms onto an idea for failure and thinks that the idea is the real true cause.

My dad...his hard drive in his brand new computer...it died.
He would NOT let go of the idea that it was a virus that killed the hard drive.

I had to tell him - NO it is NOT a virus infection, it is a MECHANICAL failure. The little spinny circle that holds the 1's and 0's? It's not spinning!!!!!!!!!!!

Even worse, I gave him a specific list of parts to get at the BX. He comes home with an IDE HD, when I had said get a SATA. He said it was cheaper. I said, It's not going to fit, so take it back. Cheaper doesn't matter here.

*headdesk*

Cutenoob

[EricKei]

The server at our office has extra aftermarket fans, too! They're outside of the case...they plug into the wall...and they oscillate...

Still have to shut down the whole damn network every week or two and reboot (at a convenient time for everyone, of course) so it doesn't spontaneously lose all net connectivity during a business day, tho...

[taurinejunkie]

My job line's variation:

"But they've been there for 20 YEARS!"

And, somewhat related.
Me: Perhaps it's an unlisted number?
C: NO IT'S NOT, I KNOW IT'S NOT.
Me: With all due respect, unless you are the owner of that phone line, you cannot know for sure whether it is unlisted or not.

[HawaiianShirts]

Only once was I able to have a bit of fun with that one. I'd talked to the customer before, so I knew what I could get away with before taking his equipment to the store techs. (Paraphrased--this was a while ago.)

Customer: It was working just fine yesterday, but now it's dead.
Me: Yeah, that sounds about right.
Customer: What?! This is supposed to happen?!
Me: Well, computers don't typically announce that they're about to have problems, just like your car doesn't come with a calendar of pre-scheduled breakdowns.
Customer: Oh.

Or the SC's that spout out "But this computer is neeeeeew!!!11!!"

For reasons I never managed to figure out, most of my customers seemed to agree on a few operational definitions for their equipment. One of them was "new." For my customers, a "new" computer was up to six months old. (I won't argue the validity of that definition; that was just the general use.)

However, they could not seem to agree on the definition of "brand new." That meant anything between two hours and 12 years.

[Blade_Raver]

Pretty much any human/computer assembled product has a probable percentage chance of breaking after it was working just a few minutes ago. Nothing is bulletproof.

[protege]

Pretty much any human/computer assembled product has a probable percentage chance of breaking after it was working just a few minutes ago. Nothing is bulletproof.

..and this includes new computers. By "new," I mean one that's just been in your possession not even an hour. It's been set up correctly, booted up...and then manages to destroy its hard drive within minutes of opening the box Sadly, I did go through that about a year before I started college. The brand-new PC my parents had given me, did exactly that. Needless to say, we weren't amused.

[Samaliel]

Just like my computer was working just fine the night before last and wouldn't start the next morning... Shit happens.

Fortunately, it turned out the CPU heatsink/fan combo had come loose, and dust had gathered in the fan motor. The CPU would overheat right upon power on and I guess some safety feature would prevent it to complete the boot cycle in order to prevent any further damage?

[lordlundar]

Fortunately, it turned out the CPU heatsink/fan combo had come loose, and dust had gathered in the fan motor. The CPU would overheat right upon power on and I guess some safety feature would prevent it to complete the boot cycle in order to prevent any further damage?

Yup. A good number of Boards have thermocouples monitoring the CPU temp. If it goes above the redline (failure point) the system does an emergency shutdown which effectively kills the power from the power supply.

It beats a trashed internals, a nice sized hole in the MBoard and an inch bulge in the board side of the case.

[Eric the Grey]

Customer: It was working just fine yesterday, but now it's dead.
Me: Yeah, that sounds about right.
Customer: What?! This is supposed to happen?!
Me: Well, computers don't typically announce that they're about to have problems, just like your car doesn't come with a calendar of pre-scheduled breakdowns.
Customer: Oh.

The AS/400, the system I work most on currently, has the ability to predict hard drive failures ahead of time, in some circumstances. I suspect that other mainframes of the IBM variety can as well.

Too bad PC's don't have the cycles to spare for such diagnostics. It could potentially save some headache for the end user if they could.


Eric the Grey

[Samaliel]

Yup. A good number of Boards have thermocouples monitoring the CPU temp. If it goes above the redline (failure point) the system does an emergency shutdown which effectively kills the power from the power supply.

It beats a trashed internals, a nice sized hole in the MBoard and an inch bulge in the board side of the case.

Yes, I guessed that much... I know how to put a computer together without messing up anything, but I am not always aware of every feature of every component. Besides, I didn't put this one together, so... The strange thing, though, is that it was keeping trying to boot... I didn't insist too much, in fear of damaging something. Didn't want to end up with an overpriced paperweight.

Fixing it was pretty easy, anyway.

[wagegoth]

The AS/400, the system I work most on currently, has the ability to predict hard drive failures ahead of time, in some circumstances. I suspect that other mainframes of the IBM variety can as well.Eric the Grey

How old is that mainframe?


At my firm, every night they do routine maintenance, which includes clearing certain caches and pushing out updates, etc. One of my CWs never shut down his computer at night, just locked it and turned off the monitor. Nobody ever noticed until he downloaded a virus because he didn't get the updated security software.