Computer Repair War Stories - Oldest Piece of $hit you've had to work on...

[Phlargo]

After reading Viper GTS's post from earlier today about having to reinstall windows 98 on a co-worker's machine, I thought it might be fun to allow everyone a place to put their most extreme repair war stories.

Let me start with mine:

About a year ago, I got a call from a friend. Apparently her grandmother had tried to install a new OS and had screwed up her computer. 486DX50 - 16 megs of RAM. She tried to install XP on it and couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. Getting Win98 on there wasn't a huge problem (but god is it slow).. but the real problem came to recovering her data. Apparently she had their whole family history archive on their system and hadn't thought to back it up and had allowed one of her attempts to format her hard drive.

6 hours later and 5 different programs later, I was able to start getting some of her data back. So much of it had been corrupted, I was only able to get about 50-75% back.

I made her hire me to build her a new system to put her data on - $150 later, she was running a system 10x as fast

 

[So]

Originally posted by: Phlargo

I made her hire me to build her a new system to put her data on - $150 later, she was running a system 10x as fast

:laugh:

 

[So]

Fortunately for me, I categorically refuse any requests to build or repair computers for non family members, and my family is given my hand me downs, so the oldest rig I have to maintain is of the Thunderbird generation.


Edit: well, that was going to go into an edit, but <shrug>

 

[ViviTheMage]

eh, before I work on it I say this thing is old, I will build you a new one for a great price.
and thats how it goes down, some old computers arent worth salvaging.

 

[Phlargo]

I have like 10 or 15 systems floating around my hometown that I built of the nForce/Thunderbird generation. Pretty solid systems still.

 

[erikistired]

a few years ago before i retired from pc repair we had to put a hard drive in an ibm at. the guy had written a program years and years ago that would only run on the AT so he kept this machine around just to do that. he ended up getting one off ebay and we put it in. it was uh. yeah. this was like, 2002? maybe 03.

 

[FDF12389]

someone just ask me to look at their latop the other day, they said the hard drived wasnt booting, it was a texas instraments 75mhz, the problem = there was no HD in it.

 

[Phlargo]

I had a former employer who had custom software written in Cobol in the late 80s/early 90s who had to employ like 10 programmers to update all their stuff for Y2K. Adapting the databases was all kinds of fun.

 

[Shadowknight]

fisher: Overheard the same thing while I was shopping in a computer store in Raleigh, NC 3 years ago. In this case, the program was the sole database used by a company, and they couldn't run it on anything newer than a 486. One of the employees said he might have one, though the store itself didn't have any. He had it in storage, so he had to drive out of town the next day to get the parts.

 

[Sphexi]

I once had to install a microchannel sound card in an old IBM computer, then tried to get OS/2 Warp to accept it. Before that, I put an ISA Soundblaster in a 55SX, just so I could play the original SimCity with sound.

 

[WT]

I just got back from my fourth, err, maybe fifth .. visit to a customers house to try and set their Verizon DSL modem into 'bridge' mode. They run an old Linksys B wireless modem and every time I have followed the 28 step procedure to a 'T', and every time it will not properly do any DNS entries and fails to connect to the PPPOE server. I gave up, and told them to call Verizon (bahahaaa) to resolve the problem. Bah, I am done wasting my time on it.

To top it off, the 6+ year old monitor crapped out on me while I was setting it back up connected directly to the DSL modem just so they could get back online.

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: Shadowknight
fisher: Overheard the same thing while I was shopping in a computer store in Raleigh, NC 3 years ago. In this case, the program was the sole database used by a company, and they couldn't run it on anything newer than a 486. One of the employees said he might have one, though the store itself didn't have any. He had it in storage, so he had to drive out of town the next day to get the parts.

we maintained a few novell servers for reasons like those. software that the client wouldn't/couldn't leave behind and wouldn't run on newer releases of novell or they were just too cheap to update.

 

[Phlargo]

Originally posted by: WT
I just got back from my fourth, err, maybe fifth .. visit to a customers house to try and set their Verizon DSL modem into 'bridge' mode. They run an old Linksys B wireless modem and every time I have followed the 28 step procedure to a 'T', and every time it will not properly do any DNS entries and fails to connect to the PPPOE server. I gave up, and told them to call Verizon (bahahaaa) to resolve the problem. Bah, I am done wasting my time on it.

To top it off, the 6+ year old monitor crapped out on me while I was setting it back up connected directly to the DSL modem just so they could get back online.

wow... that's pretty rough. It's always awful when you're working on one thing and then something else comes up..

"Finally booted windows! WTF.. mouse doesn't work??"

one of those rare times where you might actually use Shift-F10 (right click on Pre-win95 keyboard)

 

[drinkmorejava]

Oldest PC, 9Mhz 80286 with DOS 6.11, god there were some really bad games back then. Most disgusting was a 750 athlon, luckily it was donated to the school because I took out the CPU, RAM, drives, and hosed the rest down. After a day of drying and a BSD install it was pretty happy.

 

[Apathetic]

Originally posted by: Sphexi
I once had to install a microchannel sound card in an old IBM computer, then tried to get OS/2 Warp to accept it. Before that, I put an ISA Soundblaster in a 55SX, just so I could play the original SimCity with sound.

We *STILL* have two OS/2 boxes around here used as our production fax servers with 24 lines each.
We used to have three, but some "magic blue smoke" (TM) came out of one late last year. I've been trying to convince the business types to upgrade to ANYTHING for the past several years and their attitude has always been "it works just fine, why upgrade?".

Fortunately, last year we had some IT auditors in here who could actually tell the difference between a PC and a rock (I'm still in a state of shock over this) who asked about our "mission critical" faxing. The look on his face when I showed him was priceless.

For some reason, replacing them is now a "top priority".

I do have to say this though, those boxes ARE pretty tough. They've sent about 2 million faxes each over the past 7 years. (And no, we are not fax spammers, these faxes go to our customers).

Dave

 

[Sphexi]

Originally posted by: Apathetic

Originally posted by: Sphexi
I once had to install a microchannel sound card in an old IBM computer, then tried to get OS/2 Warp to accept it. Before that, I put an ISA Soundblaster in a 55SX, just so I could play the original SimCity with sound.

We *STILL* have two OS/2 boxes around here used as our production fax servers with 24 lines each.
We used to have three, but some "magic blue smoke" (TM) came out of one late last year. I've been trying to convince the business types to upgrade to ANYTHING for the past several years and their attitude has always been "it works just fine, why upgrade?".

Fortunately, last year we had some IT auditors in here who could actually tell the difference between a PC and a rock (I'm still in a state of shock over this) who asked about our "mission critical" faxing. The look on his face when I showed him was priceless.

For some reason, replacing them is now a "top priority".

I do have to say this though, those boxes ARE pretty tough. They've sent about 2 million faxes each over the past 7 years. (And no, we are not fax spammers, these faxes go to our customers).

Dave

OS/2 is pretty hardcore, it runs a lot of cash machines and those type things, supposedly it had the best record for uptime and reliability compared to other systems in use.

 

[j00fek]

our fedline pc is still all dos based. this is out production server for transmissions to the fed. reserve in boston. all its used for is sending files over 56k encrypted for credit unions debits for the day.
just had to replace the modem and the floppy in it last month , even tho we are implemeneting a new fedline in june, go figure.
atleast everything now will be through a vpn and a new dell yay

 

[woowoo]

I have a sidejob at a medium sized arena.
We still use a video toaster as part of the Pepsivision system.
It is a toaster tower with an accelerator (25mhz)

 

[wvtalbot]

I replaced the kernal rom in a C64 about 10 years ago.

and yes commodore spelled it with an "a"

 

[AMCRambler]

Originally posted by: woowoo
I have a sidejob at a medium sized arena.
We still use a video toaster as part of the Pepsivision system.
It is a toaster tower with an accelerator (25mhz)

wtf is a video toaster? Like a tv that wil toast your bagel?

 

[JRich]

Originally posted by: wvtalbot
I replaced the kernal rom in a C64 about 10 years ago.

and yes commodore spelled it with an "a"

I'm getting ready to do some work on a VIC-20 here soon

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: Sphexi
I once had to install a microchannel sound card in an old IBM computer, then tried to get OS/2 Warp to accept it. Before that, I put an ISA Soundblaster in a 55SX, just so I could play the original SimCity with sound.

Warp was a tedious OS, but it did manage low core better than anything MS has done. I used to load Warp on older systems because the State Department had newly started installing CD drives. With the LAN card and a couple of other things they had, and the need for a bit of memory for the CD driver, low memory and the IRQ's were very hard to manage. With Warp, they just fell right in.

 

[racolvin]

Please tell me you work on those old machines because you're bored or basking in a sense of nostalgia? Even tho I still remember most of my old OS's enough to get around, I wouldn't work on those for a customer - simply not worth the effort. They never want to pay you for the time you have to put into those things, so why do it? Well, I guess if you're doing it for a church/charity as a donation of your services that might be ok, but for a paying customer? Personally I wouldn't touch them

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: racolvin
Please tell me you work on those old machines because you're bored or basking in a sense of nostalgia? Even tho I still remember most of my old OS's enough to get around, I wouldn't work on those for a customer - simply not worth the effort. They never want to pay you for the time you have to put into those things, so why do it? Well, I guess if you're doing it for a church/charity as a donation of your services that might be ok, but for a paying customer? Personally I wouldn't touch them

When I worked on them, they were NEW! My last cert was W2K!

 

[ForumMaster]

i remember the comps we had at my school: macs with 16meg RAM, OS 8, those imacs, but before the colored ones. the ones where the screen and the computer are one part... they were so slow... then my next school had these pathetic pentium 133mhz w/ 32 MB RAM running Windows 2003 server...it would take 4 seconds for the start menu to load! you know how you computer is after installing windows but before you install the graphic drivers? where just moving a windows is a pain in the ass? like that. i would help fix themm cause the kids constantly broke 'em. for some f-ing reason they would steal the balls from the mice! they tried putting opticals and the kids cut the wires? why?! anyway, the kids would change the boot sequence and then lock the BIOS with password...constantly haad to open the comps and reset the CMOS battery/jumper. in one of the computers, the HDD was stolen!! i felt like i would kill any kid i caught doing it! god it was annoying!