The Community Guide

c/computer-technicians

25

ellis.felix•11h ago

Debate: Should we charge per device or flat rate for house calls? I had a week that made me second guess everything.

Last Tuesday I spent 45 minutes at a home in Phoenix fixing a simple driver issue on a Dell laptop. Charged my standard $75 flat fee. Then Wednesday I had a printer swap, two router setups, and a virus cleanup at one house that took 4 hours. Same $75. Felt like I got robbed on Wednesday but the Tuesday guy probably thinks I overcharged. My buddy swears by per device pricing. Says you get paid for what you actually do. But I worry about scaring off the little jobs. What do you all think is the better way to bill?

13

charlie269•1d ago

Debate: Do you tell the client the full truth or keep it simple?

I had this older guy bring in a laptop last month (at my shop in Austin). He asked me straight up if the hard drive was failing, and I told him yes, it's showing reallocated sectors and bad blocks. But then I thought, maybe I should have just said "your computer is slow" and replaced it without the scary diagnosis. Some techs say clients get scared and don't trust you if you give too much detail. Other say full honesty is the only way. What do you all think, is there a line between being helpful and overwhelming them with jargon?

18

harper_singh18•1d ago

Had a client tell me his computer was making a "humming noise" and it turned out to be a dying PSU fan

Guy brings in his Dell desktop last Tuesday, says it's been humming for like a week. Opened it up and the power supply fan was barely spinning, bearings shot. Replaced it with a $45 EVGA unit and he was happy, but it stuck with me how many people ignore that sound until something dies.

12

barbara_kim•2d ago

The customer who watched me swap a drive and then asked if I "downloaded more RAM"

Last week at a small business off Route 9, I replaced this lady's dead HDD and she stared at me the whole time. When I finished, she asks "so did you download more RAM while you were in there?" I just handed her the invoice and walked away. Have any of you gotten a question so dumb it made you speechless?

25

logan263•2d ago

Caught myself using canned air upside down for 3 years before someone pointed it out

Was clearing dust out of a power supply last week and a coworker just watched me for a minute before saying 'you know that liquid that comes out is freezing the components, right?' Made me feel like an idiot but now my desktops actually boot after cleaning.

4

miller.eva•4d ago

That old server room smell got me thinking about battery backups

Last week I was swapping out a dead UPS in a client's basement server room. The thing was a 1500VA model from 2016 and it hadn't been tested once. I overheard the office manager say "it's been beeping for three months but we just unplugged the alarm." The batteries had swollen so bad I could barely get the front panel off. Made me wonder how many people are running gear on batteries that are way past their useful life. What's your cutoff for replacing UPS batteries, 3 years or 5?

18

drew_thomas9•4d ago

Spent 45 minutes troubleshooting a loose DisplayPort cable

I was chasing a weird flickering issue on a customer's gaming rig yesterday. Checked drivers, swapped graphics cards, even re-seated the RAM before I realized the DisplayPort cable was just barely not clicked in all the way. Anybody else waste half a day on something that simple?

17

julia_hayes•5d ago

Heard a client say 'it's just a computer, how hard can it be' while I was working on their water-damaged laptop last Wednesday

They had spilled a full soda into the keyboard and expected a 10 minute fix. I spent 3 hours cleaning corrosion off the motherboard and still had to tell them the logic board was toast. Has anyone else had a client seriously underestimate how much goes into this job?

0

seth_allen•6d ago

Finally changed my mind about thermal paste application methods

I used to be a pea-size drop guy through and through. Then a client brought in a Ryzen 7 that kept hitting 95C under load, and after repasting with a spread method the temps dropped 12 degrees. I checked the old application and the paste had barely covered half the IHS. Now I spread it thin with a credit card on everything. Anyone else seen a big temp drop from switching methods?

13

the_phoenix•7d ago

I used to wipe thermal paste off with coffee filters until a buddy stopped me

He watched me do it on a Ryzen build and just goes "dude those have paper fibers that'll scratch the IHS." Now I only use those Kimtech wipes from my workbench, never going back. Anyone else learn a basic cleaning habit the hard way?

18

hugo_coleman28•9d ago

Rant: Had to pick between a used Dell Optiplex or building from scratch for a client

This guy came in last week with a $300 budget for a basic office PC. I was stuck between grabbing a refurb Optiplex off eBay or piecing together a cheap AMD build with parts from Micro Center. I went with the Optiplex because I figured it was less headache and I could slap in a cheap SSD. Now I'm dealing with a weird power issue where it won't boot after 8 hours idle, and I'm wishing I just spent the extra afternoon building something fresh. Has anyone else had these random gremlins with old office PCs?

17

andrewh95•11d ago

Watching a client lose 6 months of work taught me about backup redundancy

I had a client back in Austin last year who ran a small real estate office. Their server crashed hard and their only backup was a single external drive that had been corrupted for weeks without anyone noticing. They lost almost six months of client files and inspection photos. Now I always tell people to follow the 3-2-1 rule, has anyone else run into a similar situation with a client who thought one copy was enough?

18

mason.margaret•13d ago

Had an SSD die on me mid-shift last Tuesday and lost a whole backup job

I was running a backup for a client's server at 2 PM, everything was fine, then boom, the drive just clicked once and went silent. It was a Samsung 870 Evo that I had installed maybe 18 months ago, not even that old. I ended up having to pull an old spinner from my parts bin to finish the job, which took twice as long. Has anyone else had reliability issues with these newer SSDs or was I just unlucky?

12

viola171•17d ago

Tried using compressed air cans instead of an electric blower for a dusty PC build

Last week I had to clean out a desktop that was caked in dust from a workshop environment. Normally I'd use my electric air blower, but it was busted so I grabbed a couple cans of compressed air from the office supply store. I figured it would work fine for a quick job. But after about 30 seconds of spraying, the can got ice cold and the pressure dropped way off. By the time I finished the second can, I had only cleared maybe half the dust. Learned that compressed air cans are really meant for small bursts, not sustained cleaning. Has anyone else run into this problem on particularly dusty builds? I'm thinking of just buying a better electric blower instead of messing with those cans again.

25

elizabethhart•18d ago

Old IT guy told me to quit using compressed air on fans

He said it spins them too fast and can damage the bearings. Blew out a couple old server fans after ignoring him for a month and sure enough they started grinding. Anyone else just use a soft brush now instead?

13

miaa41•18d ago

I finally stopped using canned air for cleaning computer cases

I used to go through a can of compressed air every week cleaning out desktops at work. Then I picked up a Metro Vacuum ED500 from a shop in Portland for $80 and honestly it's way better. Anyone else switch to an electric duster and never look back?

18

sanchez.mary•19d ago

I finally learned to check the power supply first after a weird boot loop in a Denver office

I was at a small law firm downtown last month, trying to fix a desktop that would power on for two seconds then die. The user said it just started happening. I spent like an hour reseating RAM, checking connections, even swapped the CMOS battery. I was about to pull the motherboard when I noticed the power supply fan wasn't spinning at all during those two seconds. I mean, it was a Corsair CX650, not some no-name junk. I had a spare unit in my kit, popped it in, and the thing booted right up. I felt so dumb for not testing that from the start. It's the most basic thing, but you get focused on the harder stuff and miss the simple fix. Has anyone else wasted a bunch of time on a problem that turned out to be just a bad PSU?

3

elizabethhart•22d ago

Remember swapping out those big hard drives for a new OS?

Back in 2005, installing a fresh Windows XP meant pulling the whole drive, cloning it to a new one with a bulky IDE dock, and hoping the image took. It was a 2 hour job, easy. Now, I just plug in a $20 USB 3.0 stick, boot from it, and the installer runs in 20 minutes. The shift to solid state and UEFI around 2012 changed everything. Anyone else miss the physicality of it, even if it was a pain?

13

emeryp23•22d ago

My buddy swore by using a hair dryer to reseat a laptop GPU, and I finally tried it.

Had a 2 year old gaming laptop from a client that would crash under any load, and he insisted a 5 minute blast on low heat over the chip would fix the BGA solder. I was super skeptical, but after re-pasting didn't work, I gave it a shot and the thing has been stable for a week now. Has anyone else had a weird, low-tech fix actually work on a modern board?

18

dixon.felix•24d ago

Had a weird power supply hum that turned into a full motherboard swap

I was at a small office in Springfield last week fixing a desktop that wouldn't boot. The owner said it just died with a pop. I swapped in a new power supply, but when I turned it on, there was this low hum from the board near the CPU. I checked all the caps with a multimeter, and one near the 12V rail was reading way off. The board was old, so instead of trying to replace the cap, I just told them a full board swap was the best move. We got a basic B550 board and a Ryzen 5, moved everything over, and it fired right up. The whole fix, with parts and two hours of work, came to about $350. They were just happy to have their files back. Ever had a bad cap make a noise like that before a total failure?

12

matthewgonzalez•28d ago

Had a chat with my 8 year old niece about my job that made me stop and think

She asked me what I do, and I said 'I fix computers.' She looked confused and said, 'But my tablet doesn't have any parts, it's just a screen.' I tried explaining the cloud and software, but she just nodded like I was making it up. It hit me that for her generation, the physical machine is almost invisible. I've been elbow-deep in hardware for 15 years, but her normal is just apps and icons. Makes me wonder how we explain our trade in 10 years. How do you guys talk about tech repair with people who've never opened a case?

16

the_hannah•29d ago

Rant: Everyone says you need to reinstall Windows for every weird slowdown

I fixed a machine yesterday by just clearing 40GB of temp files and running a disk check, which took 45 minutes. Why do we default to the nuclear option instead of basic troubleshooting first?

14

hugo_coleman28•1mo ago

My buddy told me to just 'tap the side' of a stubborn old hard drive to get it spinning again, and honestly, it actually worked for about 3 minutes before it made a sound like a coffee grinder full of gravel and died forever.

Ngl, I was so shocked it spun up at all that I almost called him a genius, but now I need to know if anyone else has a better trick for data recovery from a truly ancient 40GB Maxtor drive before I tell the client it's toast.

3

ruby494•1mo ago

My worst day this year was fixing a water-damaged gaming PC from a flooded basement in Dayton

The guy brought in a custom rig that had been sitting in two inches of water for a week. I spent six hours just cleaning mineral deposits off the motherboard with isopropyl, and the GPU was a total loss. Has anyone else had a system that was surprisingly salvageable after something like that?

5

river_jones•1mo ago

Walked into a Best Buy in Springfield and their demo laptops were a total mess

Every single one had like 20 browser tabs open, random toolbars, and the fans were screaming. One of the HP Pavilion models was so hot you could feel it from a foot away. How are people supposed to trust us to fix their stuff when the store shows them this is normal? What's the worst 'tech demo' fail you've seen?