AAAHHH!!! I guess this is why servicing PC's can be so distasteful.

[Jeff7]

I spent several hours backing up stuff, reinstalling Windows, installing applications and updates, restoring the backups, yadda yadda...and it's been there for maybe a week or two now. It's already screwed up - a few days ago, it had a LOT of spyware on it. Spybot took care of it. Well now, guess what - it's sort of stuck in Safe Mode. One of the users of it (a husband and wife are the users, friends of my mother) was dabbling in DOS apparently. I don't know if that was the cause though. Plus, when they try to boot to Normal Windows, it gives a "General Protection Fault, press any key to shut down" message. When a key is pressed, the computer just goes beeeeeeeeeep, until it's shut down.
Maybe I'll just get them Windows XP like someone suggested, so I can lock them out of just about everything in the system.
Ok, rant over.

 

XP is a big timesaver for people like you. After I did a fresh install of XP on my parents' machine, I stopped getting calls every week about why something doesn't work.

 

[Ulfwald]

At least you don't have inlaws who ask you to support AOL on dial up.

You have never gone to service a PC at a trailer park, where the people there look like they belong undert the trailer instead of in it. The keyboard is covered in crusty "gunk" (I put on gloves just to touch it). The heatsink and fan are covered in tobacco smoke, tar, nicotine, dust, etc. There is a decapitated roach in the PSU fan, stopping it from spinning. The chair reeks of all sorts of bodily odors, the desk is a mud stained piece of 2x12 on milkcrates, with a spare tire as a footstool. The monitor only does 800x600 with 256 colors, and smells like it is about to burn up. When you go to format the hard drive so you can reinstall the OS, the "man" of the house asks you if this will erase his "movies" you say YES, and he threatens to kick your arse if he can't watch them anymore, so you take out a spare HDD and back them up to that. When restoring the the movies, you realize that they all involve crack whores and animals. The mouse only works after banging it on the "desk" a few times. You get a splinter from the "desk". When all is done, you ask for payment and they give you a hard time about how much it costs, so you threaten to turn them into the police for all the illegal movies they have just so you can get paid, then the check they wrote you bounces so bad that you have to re paint the walls. Take them to court, win in court, but when you try and collect again, in cash, they complain about not being able to make lot rent, feed their kids, he is out of work, etc. So you wind up just taking the computer for payment, only to be stuck with it because it is so old no one wants to buy it.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: jumpr
XP is a big timesaver for people like you. After I did a fresh install of XP on my parents' machine, I stopped getting calls every week about why something doesn't work.

XP Home or Pro? I'm thinking that Home should be enough - it has NTFS and the accompanying security features right? I'd probably give them restricted user-level access, and have the administrator account locked out with a password that ONLY I would know. I just KNOW that if I'd give them the password, but tell them not to use it, the first time anything went even remotely wrong, they'd use the forbidden password and admin account...
though I'm just thinking, some useful programs need administrator-level permissions to run. Maybe I could give them an admin account, but restrict it - throw out group permissions then.
Suggestions?


This computer was pretty dirty (smoker's household, with dogs and cats), but it can't compare to that one, Ulfwald.:Q

 

[Adul]

:beer::beer:

a few drinks and we'll all feel better

 

[Gand1]

My mother just e-mailed me to see if I can walk her through changing the battery in her PC. It wont keep time anymore.
Lady, go to Beastbuy, you barely know how to use a screwdriver!

 

[ATLien247]

Originally posted by: Ulfwald
At least you don't have inlaws who ask you to support AOL on dial up.

You have never gone to service a PC at a trailer park, where the people there look like they belong undert the trailer instead of in it. The keyboard is covered in crusty "gunk" (I put on gloves just to touch it). The heatsink and fan are covered in tobacco smoke, tar, nicotine, dust, etc. There is a decapitated roach in the PSU fan, stopping it from spinning. The chair reeks of all sorts of bodily odors, the desk is a mud stained piece of 2x12 on milkcrates, with a spare tire as a footstool. The monitor only does 800x600 with 256 colors, and smells like it is about to burn up. When you go to format the hard drive so you can reinstall the OS, the "man" of the house asks you if this will erase his "movies" you say YES, and he threatens to kick your arse if he can't watch them anymore, so you take out a spare HDD and back them up to that. When restoring the the movies, you realize that they all involve crack whores and animals. The mouse only works after banging it on the "desk" a few times. You get a splinter from the "desk". When all is done, you ask for payment and they give you a hard time about how much it costs, so you threaten to turn them into the police for all the illegal movies they have just so you can get paid, then the check they wrote you bounces so bad that you have to re paint the walls. Take them to court, win in court, but when you try and collect again, in cash, they complain about not being able to make lot rent, feed their kids, he is out of work, etc. So you wind up just taking the computer for payment, only to be stuck with it because it is so old no one wants to buy it.

Please tell me you made that all up... :Q

 

[Rufio]

Originally posted by: Ulfwald
At least you don't have inlaws who ask you to support AOL on dial up.

You have never gone to service a PC at a trailer park, where the people there look like they belong undert the trailer instead of in it. The keyboard is covered in crusty "gunk" (I put on gloves just to touch it). The heatsink and fan are covered in tobacco smoke, tar, nicotine, dust, etc. There is a decapitated roach in the PSU fan, stopping it from spinning. The chair reeks of all sorts of bodily odors, the desk is a mud stained piece of 2x12 on milkcrates, with a spare tire as a footstool. The monitor only does 800x600 with 256 colors, and smells like it is about to burn up. When you go to format the hard drive so you can reinstall the OS, the "man" of the house asks you if this will erase his "movies" you say YES, and he threatens to kick your arse if he can't watch them anymore, so you take out a spare HDD and back them up to that. When restoring the the movies, you realize that they all involve crack whores and animals. The mouse only works after banging it on the "desk" a few times. You get a splinter from the "desk". When all is done, you ask for payment and they give you a hard time about how much it costs, so you threaten to turn them into the police for all the illegal movies they have just so you can get paid, then the check they wrote you bounces so bad that you have to re paint the walls. Take them to court, win in court, but when you try and collect again, in cash, they complain about not being able to make lot rent, feed their kids, he is out of work, etc. So you wind up just taking the computer for payment, only to be stuck with it because it is so old no one wants to buy it.

ahahhha
that is the best rant i've read in a long time!

 

[Ulfwald]

Nope, it is all true. I left out some of the "grosser" details, like the 400lb wife walking around in her nightgown, roaches crawling over the cat food, and the lighting so poor that I had to use a 4 d cell mag light just to work on the computer.

 

[djheater]

Are you employed by a company that does this? Or is it your business?

Based on previous painful experiences, I don't do housecalls (unless they're close friends) and only offer a 30 day and then limited support on anything I sell.

 

[Pyxis]

Originally posted by: Ulfwald
At least you don't have inlaws who ask you to support AOL on dial up.

You have never gone to service a PC at a trailer park, where the people there look like they belong undert the trailer instead of in it. The keyboard is covered in crusty "gunk" (I put on gloves just to touch it). The heatsink and fan are covered in tobacco smoke, tar, nicotine, dust, etc. There is a decapitated roach in the PSU fan, stopping it from spinning. The chair reeks of all sorts of bodily odors, the desk is a mud stained piece of 2x12 on milkcrates, with a spare tire as a footstool. The monitor only does 800x600 with 256 colors, and smells like it is about to burn up. When you go to format the hard drive so you can reinstall the OS, the "man" of the house asks you if this will erase his "movies" you say YES, and he threatens to kick your arse if he can't watch them anymore, so you take out a spare HDD and back them up to that. When restoring the the movies, you realize that they all involve crack whores and animals. The mouse only works after banging it on the "desk" a few times. You get a splinter from the "desk". When all is done, you ask for payment and they give you a hard time about how much it costs, so you threaten to turn them into the police for all the illegal movies they have just so you can get paid, then the check they wrote you bounces so bad that you have to re paint the walls. Take them to court, win in court, but when you try and collect again, in cash, they complain about not being able to make lot rent, feed their kids, he is out of work, etc. So you wind up just taking the computer for payment, only to be stuck with it because it is so old no one wants to buy it.

:Q lol

 

[KC5AV]

ghost or imagecast or something similar can save a lot of time, too.

 

[Ulfwald]

I USED to run my own business, got out of it shortly after that. Got tired of doing "favors" for friends and not getting paid. That little episode really clenched it for me. Although I am thinking about getting back into it, but only for SOHO setups, let the people who use them only for email and web sufing go back to the vendor they bought it from. Do some networking, etc.

 

[NTB]

Wow:Q. I moan and groan about the few housecalls I have to make sometimes - family and friends - but I've never seen anything as bad as some of the stuff in here. Mostly it's just my grandparents that I have to help. They haven't majorly FUBAR'ed anything yet, but one of them will be fiddling with it, and get it to do something, and then not remember/realize what they did to get it that way, or how to get it back. Pretty easy to fix, really, but it gets annoying after you fix the same problem four or five times . Oh well.

Nate

 

[djheater]

Originally posted by: Ulfwald
I USED to run my own business, got out of it shortly after that. Got tired of doing "favors" for friends and not getting paid. That little episode really clenched it for me. Although I am thinking about getting back into it, but only for SOHO setups, let the people who use them only for email and web sufing go back to the vendor they bought it from. Do some networking, etc.

I'd sort of like to break into that as well. The LAN setup market has gotta be huge, but it's another one of those things where I think it would be a true pain in the ass. You'd have to do wiring, etc. I guess you could sub-contract.... hmmm...
If you were in Chicago I'd say you should hire me, and we could make a go of it.

 

[kindest]

Originally posted by: Pyxis

Originally posted by: Ulfwald
At least you don't have inlaws who ask you to support AOL on dial up.

You have never gone to service a PC at a trailer park, where the people there look like they belong undert the trailer instead of in it. The keyboard is covered in crusty "gunk" (I put on gloves just to touch it). The heatsink and fan are covered in tobacco smoke, tar, nicotine, dust, etc. There is a decapitated roach in the PSU fan, stopping it from spinning. The chair reeks of all sorts of bodily odors, the desk is a mud stained piece of 2x12 on milkcrates, with a spare tire as a footstool. The monitor only does 800x600 with 256 colors, and smells like it is about to burn up. When you go to format the hard drive so you can reinstall the OS, the "man" of the house asks you if this will erase his "movies" you say YES, and he threatens to kick your arse if he can't watch them anymore, so you take out a spare HDD and back them up to that. When restoring the the movies, you realize that they all involve crack whores and animals. The mouse only works after banging it on the "desk" a few times. You get a splinter from the "desk". When all is done, you ask for payment and they give you a hard time about how much it costs, so you threaten to turn them into the police for all the illegal movies they have just so you can get paid, then the check they wrote you bounces so bad that you have to re paint the walls. Take them to court, win in court, but when you try and collect again, in cash, they complain about not being able to make lot rent, feed their kids, he is out of work, etc. So you wind up just taking the computer for payment, only to be stuck with it because it is so old no one wants to buy it.

:Q lol

hahah they didnt have a hot daughter? sometimes these wonderful specimens produce super hot daughters.

 

[bleeb]

Originally posted by: jumpr
XP is a big timesaver for people like you. After I did a fresh install of XP on my parents' machine, I stopped getting calls every week about why something doesn't work.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Ulfwald
I USED to run my own business, got out of it shortly after that. Got tired of doing "favors" for friends and not getting paid. That little episode really clenched it for me. Although I am thinking about getting back into it, but only for SOHO setups, let the people who use them only for email and web sufing go back to the vendor they bought it from. Do some networking, etc.

Well that's one thing - I will not work for free. I sort of do a reduced rate thing, like the guy who used to fix our PC's (back before I learned all I know now). He normally charged $60 an hour; for us, $20. However, what I am getting paid isn't enough to make up for the time spent - I have a full-time job already (Walmart, but still, a job) and working on this particular PC is getting a bit irritating. I've been near to saying "I'll take the PC back for $XX.xx - now go get a Dell."

 

[MrBond]

For as much as people rail on it, XP is about the best OS out there right now for a consumer PC. System restore wizard has saved my rear a couple of times.

End-user pc repair is not worth it anymore. People refuse to pay high labor prices (which you have to charge to stay in business), so you end up charging them an hour of labor for what might have been a three hour job. Small shops get hammered on hardware prices (we gave up on TechData and D&H and just started using newegg), so you've got to pass that along to the consumer.

Business PC repair isn't so bad. A company is much more willing to pay you for what you worked, not "what they think is right". When I worked at the PC shop years ago, we made the decision to stop doing end user PC repair and concentrated our time on business users. We still did light pc repair for existing customers and customers with internet access through us (but only if it was internet related).

It's amazing how a little AdAware and some time spent cleaning up the registry can speed up a PC. My buddy was going to buy another PC, so I spent some time with his for him. Found a ton of spyware and removed it all. He was super happy, the pc ran like new

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Ulfwald
At least you don't have inlaws who ask you to support AOL on dial up.

You have never gone to service a PC at a trailer park, where the people there look like they belong undert the trailer instead of in it. The keyboard is covered in crusty "gunk" (I put on gloves just to touch it). The heatsink and fan are covered in tobacco smoke, tar, nicotine, dust, etc. There is a decapitated roach in the PSU fan, stopping it from spinning. The chair reeks of all sorts of bodily odors, the desk is a mud stained piece of 2x12 on milkcrates, with a spare tire as a footstool. The monitor only does 800x600 with 256 colors, and smells like it is about to burn up. When you go to format the hard drive so you can reinstall the OS, the "man" of the house asks you if this will erase his "movies" you say YES, and he threatens to kick your arse if he can't watch them anymore, so you take out a spare HDD and back them up to that. When restoring the the movies, you realize that they all involve crack whores and animals. The mouse only works after banging it on the "desk" a few times. You get a splinter from the "desk". When all is done, you ask for payment and they give you a hard time about how much it costs, so you threaten to turn them into the police for all the illegal movies they have just so you can get paid, then the check they wrote you bounces so bad that you have to re paint the walls. Take them to court, win in court, but when you try and collect again, in cash, they complain about not being able to make lot rent, feed their kids, he is out of work, etc. So you wind up just taking the computer for payment, only to be stuck with it because it is so old no one wants to buy it.

Why did you even bother trying to collect? Seems like the effort wouldn't be worth the small amount of money they probably owed you. How much was the bill?

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: kindest

Originally posted by: Pyxis

Originally posted by: Ulfwald
At least you don't have inlaws who ask you to support AOL on dial up.

You have never gone to service a PC at a trailer park, where the people there look like they belong undert the trailer instead of in it. The keyboard is covered in crusty "gunk" (I put on gloves just to touch it). The heatsink and fan are covered in tobacco smoke, tar, nicotine, dust, etc. There is a decapitated roach in the PSU fan, stopping it from spinning. The chair reeks of all sorts of bodily odors, the desk is a mud stained piece of 2x12 on milkcrates, with a spare tire as a footstool. The monitor only does 800x600 with 256 colors, and smells like it is about to burn up. When you go to format the hard drive so you can reinstall the OS, the "man" of the house asks you if this will erase his "movies" you say YES, and he threatens to kick your arse if he can't watch them anymore, so you take out a spare HDD and back them up to that. When restoring the the movies, you realize that they all involve crack whores and animals. The mouse only works after banging it on the "desk" a few times. You get a splinter from the "desk". When all is done, you ask for payment and they give you a hard time about how much it costs, so you threaten to turn them into the police for all the illegal movies they have just so you can get paid, then the check they wrote you bounces so bad that you have to re paint the walls. Take them to court, win in court, but when you try and collect again, in cash, they complain about not being able to make lot rent, feed their kids, he is out of work, etc. So you wind up just taking the computer for payment, only to be stuck with it because it is so old no one wants to buy it.

:Q lol

hahah they didnt have a hot daughter? sometimes these wonderful specimens produce super hot daughters.

Those wonderful specimens also protect the aforementioned hot daughters with blunderbusses.

- M4H

 

[NTB]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire

Originally posted by: kindest

Originally posted by: Pyxis

Originally posted by: Ulfwald
At least you don't have inlaws who ask you to support AOL on dial up.

You have never gone to service a PC at a trailer park, where the people there look like they belong undert the trailer instead of in it. The keyboard is covered in crusty "gunk" (I put on gloves just to touch it). The heatsink and fan are covered in tobacco smoke, tar, nicotine, dust, etc. There is a decapitated roach in the PSU fan, stopping it from spinning. The chair reeks of all sorts of bodily odors, the desk is a mud stained piece of 2x12 on milkcrates, with a spare tire as a footstool. The monitor only does 800x600 with 256 colors, and smells like it is about to burn up. When you go to format the hard drive so you can reinstall the OS, the "man" of the house asks you if this will erase his "movies" you say YES, and he threatens to kick your arse if he can't watch them anymore, so you take out a spare HDD and back them up to that. When restoring the the movies, you realize that they all involve crack whores and animals. The mouse only works after banging it on the "desk" a few times. You get a splinter from the "desk". When all is done, you ask for payment and they give you a hard time about how much it costs, so you threaten to turn them into the police for all the illegal movies they have just so you can get paid, then the check they wrote you bounces so bad that you have to re paint the walls. Take them to court, win in court, but when you try and collect again, in cash, they complain about not being able to make lot rent, feed their kids, he is out of work, etc. So you wind up just taking the computer for payment, only to be stuck with it because it is so old no one wants to buy it.

:Q lol

hahah they didnt have a hot daughter? sometimes these wonderful specimens produce super hot daughters.

Those wonderful specimens also protect the aforementioned hot daughters with blunderbusses.

- M4H

Umm...guys....I think he did find the hot daughter (or other relative; he did say inlaws).

Nate

 

[Double Trouble]

One thing that I've been using for a while is VNC. Whenever I set anything up for someone, I put VNC on there with a password that I know, so that when there's something wrong (but the PC is still functional), I can just hop on VNC and fix it for them without having to go out to their place......

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: Ulfwald
I USED to run my own business, got out of it shortly after that. Got tired of doing "favors" for friends and not getting paid. That little episode really clenched it for me. Although I am thinking about getting back into it, but only for SOHO setups, let the people who use them only for email and web sufing go back to the vendor they bought it from. Do some networking, etc.

Thats what im doing too now on the side. I won't do people's personal PC's. Just small businesses, that way I can talk them into the security features and into locking down the PC's so no one can mess with them. People's personal PC's are too much of a mess and the users just piss you off by doing stuff you tell them not too. Some people just don't need to be around a computer.

 

[CinderElmo]

Originally posted by: NTB


Umm...guys....I think he did find the hot daughter (or other relative; he did say inlaws).

Nate

That can't possibly be his inlaws. He is not entirely clear but I think he is talking about two separate issues. For his sake I sure hope so.