You Broke It Why The Hell Should We Replace It??

[tenzilkem]

Ok, I work for a computer company, I do both field work and phone support, why is it when some moron hooked up some 3rd party crap to his system and it blows out his motherboard and I inform him we can't replace his motherboard for customer stupidty/ignorance, they immediately go but "if I never mentioned the 3rd party item you'd be replacing my motherboard, so I should have lied" (exact quote). I just loved informing him that the call was being recorded. He shut up fast and just sucked it up. We do offer service contracts for if they do stupid crap like that but he went cheap and didn't pony up the cash for it when he bought it.

[Shabo]

What did he plug into his mobo that fried it?

[Rapscallion]

What did he plug into his mobo that fried it?

Electricity, I guess...

Rapscallion

[tenzilkem]

that's the fun part they wouldn't say what it was, only that it wasn't shipped with the computer!

i mean geez, a printer, scanner, pda, come on people throw me a fricking bone!

[Pezzle]

I'd like to put five bucks on a fork.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Electricity, I guess...

Rapscallion

I would think that electricity would work better than Wesson oil

[earl colby pottinger]

Bad/Wrong Hardware - Live Hardware

There are usually only a few times that a user can do to blow up a motherboard.

The most usual is (un)plugging hardware while the system is live. Since the most computers are not hot-swap designs the power lines get shorted to ground or signal lines.

If shorted to ground a good tech can usually find the scorch marks on the connector or the blown trace lines. If shorted to a signal line there is a good chance that a trace line will blow or the chip crater.

If the customer tried to plug in the wrong hardware often it does not fit and leaves cracks or chipping on the connectors.

I used to find this stuff all the time to show it was the customer's fault doing something they should not have done.

[Pezzle]

There are usually only a few times that a user can do to blow up a motherboard.

Leaving it plugged in during a horrible record setting lightning storm without any sort of fuse between the wall and the computer is my most common.

I open the mobo and there is corrosion from the electrolytic capactiors bursting. Now that's telltale.

[draggar]

Leaving it plugged in during a horrible record setting lightning storm without any sort of fuse between the wall and the computer is my most common.

I open the mobo and there is corrosion from the electrolytic capactiors bursting. Now that's telltale.

Did you ask them if it sounded like rice krispies?

[tenzilkem]

some folks never learn, the same guy called back and was trying to change his story....shame he was talking to me again! He actually tried to get me to lie so he could get a replacement motherboard, happily informed him I wouldn't risk my job just to satisfy a customer.

[EmiOfBrie]

I open the mobo and there is corrosion from the electrolytic capactiors bursting. Now that's telltale.

Actually on computers made between 1999 and 2001, there was a rash of inferior capacitors that were subject to bursting through no fault of the user's.

Basically, an until-then reputable capacitor company tried to rip off someone's new design and got part of the compound wrong, and it affected a LOT of computers, cross-platform.

[myswtghst]

We get a lot of similar stuff going on around here. When we do part requests, we have to ask "Is there any liquid, lightning, smoke, burn or physical damage that you are aware of?" I've had customers who call in to report a lightning strike, tell me parts stopped working because of a lightning hit, then answer "no" to the above question, and get upset when I question them.