I was an apple tech for a time. With iPads that were out of warranty (basically go buy a new one or GTFO) and exhibiting a certain display issue, I would take it in the back and slam the thing on a counter at a certain angle. Worked every time for that particular problem.
why and how did that work, how hard were you slamming it, I am presuming not hard enough to break glass, but than, what would such a slam do? I am going to presume these were LCDs, and maybe the the liquid crystals would have gone too cold, and maybe by smacking, you somehow freed them or something. I would like to know more.
I had a similar thing on an old crt monitor. The screen would start to flicker badly after a while, and 8 year old me found if you banged the side, just right, it would keep working for a couple of hours.
Turns out the circuit board had some dry solders on it and when I hit it on the side where the board was, it got the connection back for a while.
Pretty sure it was a loose cable. They’re basically giant iPhones and I saw similar issues on those. I should also mention said counter had an antistatic mat on it to soften the blow.
Stopped using the PC for a week. Came back and an update came out and everything was good. Sometimes theres nothing you can do.
First things first: if people call me they really have a problem and 9 times out of 10 it is not their fault. But, me standing next to the machine while they reproduce the problem “fixes” it about half the time.
Seems like random glitches that only last a minute or two.
Okay but I am actually good with tech and actually do my due diligence and this still happens to me sometimes and it’s embarrassing!
PC knows when the alpha is about to wreck their shit if they don’t behave.
Lots of percussive maintenance going on around here, but one that sticks in my mind was testing some of the first 486DX PCs in 1990. One particular specimen from Compaq would only boot after hard power off by taking the lid off and tapping the CPU with a screwdriver. Worked fine after that.
Smacked the shit out of our old CRT TV, worked!
That’s where the phrase “out of whack” came from. You just needed to give it a whack.
I have revived multiple computers and my mom’s windshield wipers with concussive application of a rubber chicken.
I have possibly the dumbest workaround to anything in history
bindntr=CTRL,C,exec,hyprctl activewindow | rg -q "class: Wfica" && ( sleep 0.02 && hyprctl closewindow class:alacrittyclipboard ; alacritty -qq --config-file ~/.config/alacritty/alacrittyclipboard.toml --class 'alacrittyclipboard' --title 'Office 365 Desktop (SSL/TLS Secured, 256 bit)' -e sh -c 'sleep 0.03 && xclip -o | copyq copy - ; copyq clipboard | xclip -i' ) & ( sleep 0.2 && closewindow class:alacrittyclipboard ) windowrulev2 = float,class:(alacrittyclipboard) windowrulev2 = stayfocused,class:(alacrittyclipboard) windowrulev2 = noborder,class:(alacrittyclipboard) windowrulev2 = noanim,class:(alacrittyclipboard) windowrulev2 = noblur,class:(alacrittyclipboard) windowrulev2 = opacity 0,class:(alacrittyclipboard) windowrulev2 = maxsize 1 1,class:(alacrittyclipboard)allow me to explain this monstrocity… the clipboard in citrix workspace is broken in a stupid way
it doesn’t update the system clipboard unless you move focus away from the window… and out of focus windows can’t update the clipboard for security reasons… this makes it so that if I hit ctrl c when citrix is open it opens a terminal window that’s tiny, invisible and steals focus that essentially forces the clipboard to work.
nonsense hack, but it works
For several years my pc would only turn on while at a 45degree angle, nit on its side and not upright but tilted 45degrees. After it turned on I could put it back and it’d be fine.
Eventually I moved and when I moved the pc ended up upside down and shaken, I put it down and a screw fell out of the psu. Problem solved!
D:
Definitely just poking a stick inside a printer
Sticks were maybe the first human technology and we’ve yet to top it to this day.
Had a dvd player that would skip all the time even if it was a brand new dvd. Got pissed off and threw it at the wall. Girlfriend plugged it back in a couple hours later and it never skipped again.
You scared the poor little guy.
The irony of that is after I threw it I screamed “You have one fucking job! BE a dvd player!”
I did this with a google home mini. I could not get it to work correctly, got mad, threw it at a wall, and put it in a box.
A few months later I found it, plugged it in, and it works perfectly. Except the strange rattle if you shake it haha
Maybe not dumb just dark and absurd, but called the cops.
Worked at a retail computer store with repair shop. Extremely assholish customer drops off his machine for an install of a “defective” piece of hardware he couldn’t manage to install on his own, arguing that install should be free because it’s our fault, somehow. Service manager cuts him a deal anyway just to make him happy.
He drops off his PC. Tech takes the machine, boots it up, bam… CSAM on his desktop. Cops came and got the PC, never saw the piece of shit again.
Actually this happened a few times but only once was the customer rude at first.
Retail is depressing.
Do I want to know what csam means?
Child Sex Abuse Material.
Basically (and usually) child pronography.
Question, when did it change from CP to CSAM? I was watching a true crime video on YT the other day and was like wtf is CSAM?!
Also who decided it needed to be changed?
I dont really know but I guess CSAM is more broad and includes pictures of children at the beach etc.
Thanks, turns out I didn’t want to know that, but alas. Depressing that there is apparently known abbreviation for it.
It might help in the future for trigger warnings as it’s used in those quite often, at least. Every cloud…
At a previous job we were swapping a ton of laptops out with newer models and at the end of it the boss let us know that we could keep some of the old ones for ourselves if we wanted. Everyone then set about to re-imaging their designated laptop only to find that there was some Dell encryption on the drive that functionally bricked it if you didn’t unlock it before you formatted it (I don’t remember the specifics but none of us were able to figure out how to bypass this). We only had one laptop left that hadn’t been touch and still had the app necessary to unencrypt them but there was only one hard drive slot so I ended up pulling the dvd drive out and sticking a sata cable in the slot for that and using an old PSU off the shelf and jumping it to actually power the drive. It was incredibly janky but it worked.
When I worked as an intern in a fancy restaurant I had my workspace in the kitchen below the radio (which was always on when we were prepping). I had braces at the time and the general opinion was, that I was functioning as an extension to the antenna. The radio was only working when I stood at one specific spot (or when I was not present at all).
Was playing Pokemon Platinum trying to catch Rotom while a friend was struggling to get his Nintendo DS to read a game cartridge. Part of catching Rotom is walking up to old electronics in a haunted building and smacking it, including an old CRT TV. Since my friend was still struggling with his DS after I caught Rotom, I walked up to the old CRT in the room we were in and thumped it with my hand on the side. His DS started working again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The old televisions. Used to be able to get a better signal by sticking a paper clip in the back; and then taking another paper clip and bending it so it can connect to the first while gripping a butterknife
