Are you kidding me?

[katballou.livejournal.com]

I understand that the customer has coverage for accidental damage.
What I don't understand is how you can say that finding a lizard electrocuted and stuck to the motherboard of the computer would count as anything other than an animal infestation.
You keep saying that I'm wrong and it's accidental damage but you can't seem to explain why you think I'm wrong.
Please tell me the story, it's got to be interesting. Is this one of those computers that has a lizard on a wheel to power it? Did he trip and fall off the wheel? Was that the accident? Cause really otherwise I can see no way that this lizard was supposed to be in the computer with the only issue being that he died.
Yes I'm sure it was an accident to the lizard but really, his family will have to take that up with his life insurance because the warranty on the computer totally does not cover that.

x-posted

Comments

[raventhourne.livejournal.com]

I dunno...considering in our offices in the past week we've found about 3 mice, one scorpion and a bull snake in the cubical areas...its plausible it just hopped in.

[katballou.livejournal.com]

But how would that count as something other than an animal infestation?

[raventhourne.livejournal.com]

Its cooling off in the desert...doesn't matter how many traps we set they can get in..its not really an infestation..its just what happens in our climate.

Its pretty normal here.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

I think you have to prove the abode was infested, not that the computer was.

Was there evidence the creature lived in there, or just that he got curious, crawled in, and played with the lightening?

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

let me guess - the snake was sent in to naturally eat the mice, and then the scorpion was sent in to kill the snake?

Personally, I solved the mouse problem in my house (it had sat empty for 6 months and the mice found their way in and bred like crazy) by letting my 4 cats eat them.

[raventhourne.livejournal.com]

This is a very large corporation in the desert, it just happens when the weather starts getting below 70° at night. But yeah, the snake was probably after the mice.

[billysapphire.livejournal.com]

HELL NO..

I would have to leave the building and never come back! I like my critters outside of the four walls thank you.

[laptop-mechanic.livejournal.com]

Perhaps he was trying to sell some computer insurance?

[mawz.livejournal.com]

One animal is not an infestation, it's an accident. Infestation implies that this is a chronic problem due to a population of the animals in question.

A roach-motel PC is an infestation issue.

A single dead animal is an accident. Unless of course the customer regularly has this occur.

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

If you walk out into the empty desert and die on a stick in a gully, the gully does not have a people infestation. If you and 100 friends move to the gully and you die on a stick, then the gully has a people infestation.

Trust me... I've seen infestations, and one little lizard doesn't count.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

We had a guy call in once with a roach motel for a PC (thing was fried). We wouldn't even let him ship it for service (at his expense) without him providing documentation that the thing is no longer infested. Really, he shoulda been happy if his hard drive didn't fry too and put that in a new box and leave the computer for the garbage collectors.

[kuangning]

Yes, this. Sorry, but one lone lizard being too curious for its own good is not an infestation.

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

I dunno. If you ask me, unless the person *physically* put the lizard there, then the damage would qualify as "accidental" to me, being as "accidental" is generally taken to mean "not intended by the relevant parties."

[phrogg.livejournal.com]

I agree with others, depending on the size of the lizard.

Was it tiny like a swift, or was it big like a bearded dragon?

'cuz with a swift, i can see it getting in there on its own. Anything much bigger than that would have to have gotten in via the side of the case being removed, which would qualify as negligence, imo

[kellirose1313.livejournal.com]

I agree, especially living in Florida, one lizard does not an infestation make. Heck opening my window for a few minutes could mean 4 or 5 get in and then later leave throguh other doors/windows. Unless the house is crawling with them it's just an accident.

[mirar.livejournal.com]

How do you electrocute something on the motherboard? The voltages are pretty low... Most points are 5V, 3.3V and ground, and even if you manage to hit a 12V and ground... Was it a very wet and slimy lizard?

(If it was in the PSU and got totally fried, I can understand it though.)

[thecrazyfinn.livejournal.com]

There's enough amperage on the 5v lines to fry a lizard. It doesn't take nearly as much to fry something that small as it does to zap something bigger.

[mirar.livejournal.com]

Amps aren't really involved here. It only takes 100mA to fry something dead. But lizard skin should be approximately like human skin, giving over 100kOhm resistance. For 5V it leaves only 0.05mA (or much less), a factor 1000 to low to kill something. But maybe lizard skin is highly conductive as opposed to mammal skin? The lowest figure I can find on tissue resistance is around 40 ohm per centimeter. That would hit it (125mA) if the lizard electrical arch wasn't longer much than a centimeter.

But some people here seems to live in lizard-infested areas, is it common that they fry on the motherboard?