• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    74
    edit-2
    3 days ago

    Coworker’s story: Trying to fix a prototype in a hotel room at a European trade show. Soldering iron on hand, but it was a 120V iron and glowed white hot when plugged into a 240V outlet.

    So they had one person solder and the other person keep unplugging and replugging the iron from the wall at roughly 25% 50% duty cycle.

    • Evkob (they/them)OP
      link
      fedilink
      219 days ago

      I think this might actually be the dumbest. My fear of electricity is one of the main reasons I focus my tech shenanigans on the software side of things rather than the hardware.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    749 days ago

    I once had to tell a colleague that her breasts were pressing the space bar when she put an invoice in her processed tray. I don’t know about dumb but it was embarrassing.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    69
    edit-2
    9 days ago

    Friend’s desktop was so fried from Kazaa and Limewire, that he couldn’t even open a Windows explorer window. Ended up opening Notepad and copying all of his files to a thumbdrive using the file open dialog box before reformatting.

    • Evkob (they/them)OP
      link
      fedilink
      309 days ago

      This kind of hacky dumb workaround is exactly what I wanted to read when I posted this thread, haha. It’s kind of genius but also I’m horrified to imagine how things got to that point.

    • Drew
      link
      fedilink
      39 days ago

      Didn’t notepad file dialogue also use explorer?

      • dpflug
        link
        fedilink
        139 days ago

        IIRC, yes but it’s called differently. I’ve used that technique to work around nannyware a time or two.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          13 days ago

          This is good to know; does it still work? I’m assuming with the anecdote involving KaZaA and LimeWire we’re talking Windows 2000, ME, or XP.

          • dpflug
            link
            fedilink
            122 hours ago

            I used in 7. I don’t know about 10 or 11.

  • vividkitten
    link
    fedilink
    English
    529 days ago

    Removed the plastic film on a brand new phone when someone complained that the earpiece sounded bad during calls

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    509 days ago

    Around 2013-2014ish when the fake FBI viruses when commen, I worked at a tech help desk at my university fixing student computers.

    We didn’t have a bootable virus scan avaliable but I discovered it you ctrl-alt-deleted you could tell the system to log out, it would close everything and log out.

    but if during a split second when the device was turning on before the virus blocked the screen and actions you opened a word doc or something,

    then when you logged out it would close everything (including the virus’s window that was blocking the screen) but the word doc and ask if you wanted to save the document first. By hitting cancel it would stop the logout completely and we could run the various virus scans to get rid of it.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      179 days ago

      This reminds me of way back when i beat a virus with task manager.

      This one was showing as a process in task manager. If you killed it, it would just reappear moments later. I even tried finding the folder it was installing on my pc via rightclick on the program in task manager and clicking “open file location” closing the program and deleting its install folder. But it would still come back, installed somewhere else.

      After some time messing around, i noticed that another program would show in the task manager, then the virus would appear, and then the other program would close and disappear from the task manager. All within about 1 or 2 seconds

      So i killed the task, waited for the other program to appear right click it fast, open file location, and there it was, a different folder with a program that auto runs when the virus is removed to reinstall the virus and close itself to avoid detection.

      I deleted that folder and then killed the virus program in the task manager, and it didn’t reappear. I had won!

      I seem to recall it was resistent to virus scanners for this reason.

      But this was about 20 years ago so i doubt there are viruses that unsophisticated now.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        8
        edit-2
        8 days ago

        I had something similar. I was looking at my processes one day for some reason, when I noticed CuteFTP. Now, I knew what it was, but I knew for a fact that I hadn’t installed it. Some investigation led to a hidden folder containing some scripts. One of them was for remote control via an IRC channel. So I hopped in the channel and had a chat with the user who was set to admin the bot on my computer.

        Edit: Formatting.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        38 days ago

        Yeah around the same time as those fbi ones there were ones like that but they generated new ones with randomized names trying to hide. I think

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      48 days ago

      Fucking baller status. There were a couple of fixes, not as complex as yours of course, that I figured out during the wild west of internet and virus infection. Can’t remember any of it in detail, but yeah, shit was it’s own kind of puzzle and was awesome to find a fix like this.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    409 days ago

    I have two… these are from the old days of computing :)

    One: guy said his monitor was showing wavy lines on the screen (old CRT monitor days). Went to his office, looked at his monitor. Sure enough wavy lines. Looked the top of his monitor. Removed the clock sitting on top of said monitor, no more wavy lines. Don’t put electric clocks on CRT monitors folks.

    Two: working in a school system. Just before classes started. Get a call “none of the computers turn on”. Go to the classroom. Check a few machines. Machines “turned on” but didn’t boot the OS. Listen to one of the machines… hmmm, no drive noise. Tap it with the back of a screwdriver. Drive spins up, computer boots. Later found out that it was a semi-known problem with Seagate drives. If they sat to long without use, the heads would get stuck.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      58 days ago

      When I was a kid I had a tv develop a big rainbow circle in one corner underneath where I set a speaker on top of it. I took it off but the circle didn’t go away. A quick google search later and that’s how I learned what degaussing was.

      • Stepos Venzny
        link
        fedilink
        English
        18 days ago

        I caused that with a refrigerator magnet, then also fixed it with a refrigerator magnet. Then entertained myself more in the next couple weeks by fucking with my screen with magnets than any actual TV shows or video games.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    36
    edit-2
    8 days ago

    In my early 20s I had a part-time job as a pizza delivery driver. When there were no deliveries, I would answer phones or take orders at the counter. One day one of the touchscreen monitors at the counter stopped working. It was just black all the time. So we were told not to use it.

    A few days later I was on lunch shift and bored, I was trying random things to see if I could fix the monitor. Switched the inputs, switched to a different VGA cable, etc. At one point I discovered the touch panel was still working, I could interact with the OS, even though nothing was displaying. I was pressing around different areas of the screen and I accidentally found that pressing right in the centre of the screen caused the display to re-appear! It would disappear again after a few seconds. Press that spot again, it came back. I was fascinated by this, I showed some coworkers, they didn’t care.

    Over the course of the day it was getting harder to make the display re-appear. It gradually needed to be pressed quite forcefully to come back. I started using my knuckles to knock sharply on the spot, and that was working.

    When my manager arrived for the night shift, I was excited to show him my discovery. I said “hey man, I kinda fixed this monitor, watch this!” And I enthusiastically knocked hard on the centre of the screen with my first. The LCD lit up and showed the display, but at the same time shattered in a rainbow ring the shape of my fist.

    The look on my manager’s face was of awe and horror. I was trying to explain what I had meant to do, but I realised what it must’ve looked like to him. “Hey man, watch me fix this monitor!” Before smashing the screen with a swift punch. It wasn’t possible to explain it a way that didn’t sound crazy.

    In the end I convinced him that the monitor was faulty anyway, and we were going to replace it anyway, so my accident breaking it more is not a big deal.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      118 days ago

      In engineering speak, that’s referred to as “percussive maintenance”.

      I had a situation ten or so years ago working on a machine that displayed an error code i didn’t recognize. I looked in the manual, and it had descriptions for error messages like (E1, E2, etc.), but the message was a couple numbers higher than the highest error in the manual (and as a side note, it’s really dumb to program a machine to give an error message without a corresponding key).

      I looked through the handwritten old log book for the machine, and found someone referencing the same error code in the early 90’s. The error back then occurred after the machine was moved, but it cleared up after being moved again. We guessed that the issue was a loose connection that got jostled back into place. The machine had just been moved slightly again before our issue, so we assumed it was the same.

      We ended up opening the machine, and just poking around until we hit the right wire that reconnected itself and cleared the error message. We wrote that down in the log book as a “digital re-alignment” (digital as in fingers).

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      48 days ago

      Sounds exactly like some shit that would happen to me, lmao. Glad you didn’t lose your job over it!

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    329 days ago

    Needed to get a server back online when it’s CPU cooler had failed

    Found some random cooler for a totally different CPU, smeared thermal paste on it and zip-tied the cooler to the mobo and case as best I could.

    That thing ran like a champ for almost 6 months till I got around to replacing it

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    309 days ago

    Easy.

    When I was 13, we had an Apple IIc. My mother used to take the cable that connected the computer and the monitor to work with her so I’d focus on homework rather than playing Ultima IV.

    But it was a monochrome signal. I straightened out a metal coat hanger and plugged it in… it worked just fine if you didn’t bump it.

    • Evkob (they/them)OP
      link
      fedilink
      149 days ago

      Damn, either you were a really smart 13 year old, or you must have been super desperate and then amazed that that actually worked.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    289 days ago

    Ran a hairdryer all night, propped against my Mac laptop keyboard after a friend knocked over a full pint of beer onto it.

    The next morning the whole bathroom reeked of stale beer, the power bill was astronomical, and the left quarter of the keyboard never worked again.

    Took it in for repairs and was grateful AppleCare swapped it out without a peep. This was a while back, before the embedded moisture strips that void the warranty.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    278 days ago

    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.

    • Lv_InSaNe_vL
      link
      fedilink
      108 days ago

      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

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        37 days ago

        The irony of that is after I threw it I screamed “You have one fucking job! BE a dvd player!”

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    269 days ago

    Told someone to take their headset off their keyboard when help application kept appearing on their screen.

    • Undearius
      link
      fedilink
      English
      149 days ago

      I had to get someone to find a wireless keyboard they left in a random box because they never used it, yet they still connected the USB receiver for it.

    • Evkob (they/them)OP
      link
      fedilink
      119 days ago

      I can’t say I’ve never been confused by keystrokes from objects laying on my keyboard, but I do usually figure it out within a couple of seconds at most.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    269 days ago

    I stabbed a router with a knife twice and it worked. It knew I wasn’t fucking around now.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    23
    edit-2
    8 days ago

    I’m a web applications developer…. So a lot. But here’s the king of dumb shit fixes I’ve done. Back in the days of VGA a few friends and I met up with some other dudes for a counter strike LAN party. Everyone’s hauling their towers in and if you were lucky, your heavy as fuck 17” CRT. So I set up and my monitor won’t work. Has power, no signal. Switch from the gpu vga port to the integrated one and it works. Switch back to gpu and it works as long as I hold it in a weird position. So it’s all fine, just the connection is wearing out. For some reason I figure a little moisture will help so I lick the vga plug, reattach it and it totally solved the problem.

    So yeah, I licked a gpu into working again.