Eww...

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Thought I'd drop this note here, as I'm sure everyone might enjoy a laugh...kinda.

Back story, I occasionally volunteer at a place that refurbishes old machines from businesses and sells or outright gives them to charitable causes. Anyway, got a donated desktop tower today that came from a local fast-food joint. No names, obviously, but lets just say it smelt rather of burgers.

Anyway, I tried to boot it, and it goes to post but that's it. Lights are on but no-ones home, won't even make bios. So, power down, isolate and crack the case...and recoil in horror as this brown sludge oozed out of the case! For a moment or two I just blanked on W.T.F it was, all I could think of was bad B-movies!

Then I released that this poor machine had been sitting in the kitchen for years, and aside from the inside of the fridges, was probably the coldest thing in there. All the vaporised fat and grease in the air had condensed inside it, coating everything in a thick greasy, but thankfully non-conducting layer. There had to be at least a couple of inches of rancid semi-solid fat at the bottom of the casing.

Unfortunately, it had also gummed up the fans and while a half inch layer of fat isn't electrically conductive, it is a damn good thermal insulator...and the cpu's heatsink was embedded in a semi-gelatinous blob of it with no fans working. The processor was as fried as something forgotten and carbonised lurking at the bottom of the deep-fat fryers.

I have to admit... it's the first time I've seen a computer that died of heart disease!

Although the absolute capper was one of the other volunteers asking what I recommended doing with it.. I suggested calling the Environmental Protection Agency to cart it away.

Comments

[tullamoredew.livejournal.com]

I remember replacing a server in a bakery once - even in car repair shops the servers never were so dirty inside


btw, isn't the heat supposed to be dispersed by the grease? Oil-submerged PCs do come to mind

[dysan27.livejournal.com]

It's not the oil it the large surface are of the oil container that does the cooling.

In oil submerged PC's the oil is a lot less viscous then fat and grease and will slowly flow around the cpu heat sink via convection. And because it has a higher specific heat capacity it doesn't have to flow as fast as air to remove the same amount of heat.

Eventually the whole tank will reach an equilibrium between the heat generated by the CPU (small area) and heat dissipated by the surface of the aquarium (large area).

See here (http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php) for a specific example, with charts even.

[tullamoredew.livejournal.com]

oh, I know how it works, I just said the mentioning of a think layer of grease reminded me of toying around with these submerged systems

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Not when the grease clogs around the fins of the heat sink, reducing the surface area..plus, no fans working.

[tauren-wardrums.livejournal.com]

I hear you on this. I got a machine one time that, according to the nice old lady who dropped it off, made a thunderous sound that was like the crashing of a tree branch onto something the size, shape and molecular density of a clown car. When I opened it up, there were literally hundreds of those little roach corpses inside of it, clinging to each other like so many army ants. The smell alone was enough to gag me out.

[loquaciousquark.livejournal.com]

I have never gone from zero to gag reflex so fast in my life.

[tauren-wardrums.livejournal.com]

Just imagine if you'd been standing next to me. We could have started a chain-reaction puke-a-thon together.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Oh man, gross! I did hear about a co-worker who opened up a case once and find a wasps nest inside...a very much inhabited and angry wasps nest. [apparently, it was cold when the guy boxed up the machine.]

That cleared the shop faster than the smell from the dead hamster did...

[tauren-wardrums.livejournal.com]

Dead...hamster?

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Teenagers desktop machine, usually located on the floor under a desk apparently. The hamster had gotten out, and it had managed to crawl into the machine though an open backplane, died inside [cause of death unknown but probably electrocution given it's skull was found in the PSU... and there it had stayed. With the computer still running for about a week.

The kid had brought his machine in because it was running hot...and the reason for that was because decomposition had set in, and the liquefied remains of 'Hammy' had gummed up the CPU fan.

I do not even want to know what the youth's room was like that he hadn't noticed the smell before., but it cleared the entire comp-lab pretty quickly.

[lwj2.livejournal.com]

That is beyond disgusting.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

I know! You ever tried getting the smell of decomp out of a computer?! You just can't!

[lwj2.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, no, I haven't. I'm a nerd-luser. Doesn't mean that I don't vacuum out my box, and we AREN'T going to have a roach infestation. Period dot end.

I did dump a perfectly good set of scrubs because of that. SWMBO said they didn't smell. I damn well KNEW they did. Psychological, of course.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Ok, I think you win the door prize for gross stories!

Stuff like that, you've got to wonder what sort of roach-motel they live in, and why in hell didn't she notice scurrying things creeping in and out of her machine?!

[trayce.livejournal.com]

Oh my, what an excellent story! >:D Supreme pwnage is the greatest joy of a shitty job.

[lwj2.livejournal.com]

That is awesome. [tips hat]

I did, once respond to a line-breaker's question of "Do you know who I am?" with "Yeah. You're the git who broke line and who's going to the back of it. Now."

[ptstech.livejournal.com]

Awesome job!

"How Clean Is Your House" indeed!

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

I hear you on this. I got a machine one time that, according to the nice old lady who dropped it off, made a thunderous sound that was like the crashing of a tree branch onto something the size, shape and molecular density of a clown car. When I opened it up, there were literally hundreds of those little roach corpses inside of it, clinging to each other like so many army ants. The smell alone was enough to gag me out.

I was going to say there's nothing worse than a machine that's lived in a house with smokers for an extended period of time, but you made me realize I was wrong. Ugh. ::shudder::

Canned air ain't gonna clean that up.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

I think I've read some of those stories... scariest thing I ever found was a spilt box of mixed loose shotgun shells. I shudder to think what could've happened. [and I still don't want to think why anyone would hide shotgun shells in computer case, aside from them being illegal here of course.]

[lwj2.livejournal.com]

Good gods, it's come to that over there? The nation where the Purdy shotgun is made?

I agree that putting shells inside a computer case is, at best, a poor idea.

[cheezemeister-x.livejournal.com]

I use do some some freelance home computer reapir. I had a woman bring me her son's computer that had stopped working. When I cracked the case (which was a very large tower) I found two porn magazines taped to the inside panel and two tubes of lube; one tube of KY and some other flavoured lube.

I put on gloves before I fixed the computer, and then carefully put all the "accessories" back in the case, closed it up and called his mom to come pick it up.

Hey, who am I to deprive the kid of his spank bank?

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

I'd have been tempted to put another in as a 'special surprise'. Make him wonder a little... *evil grins*

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Nah, I'd just add a couple of post-its with the urls for some decent porn sites. Kid that enterprising, he'd find away around the parental controls. [mind you, who's to say it was the kid's stash, it could have been his dad.]

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

I can't see dad being so desperate as to hide hide his porn and lube that he'd put it in the kid's computer. It is entirely in the realm of reason that a kid would apply that much effort to protect his stash. (after all, Dad can just go buy another at any gas station, right?)

The good porn site postit is a grand idea. Make him work for it. Maybe he'll develop some skills along the way? Win-Win situation!

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Point. Although maybe depending on what the Mom was like... some women just do not like having porn in the house. But yeah, much more likely the kid's.

Heck, I'd have gone so far to doodle the postit into a 'quest' style note, like in WoW or whatever the kid has installed... lets face it, there has to be more than a few decent programmers who started as kiddie hackers finding their way around security to get to the 'good stuff'.

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

Pics or it didn't happen!

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

a] not allowed cameras in the shop [no idea why]
b] you think I'd handle any kind of camera with hands covered in that goop?!

[miertam.livejournal.com]

As someone who also works at a not for profit that refurbishes old computers then sells/gives them away. You are not alone. The nastiest thing this week came in covered in green slime and had about 8 inches of river mud in the bottom of the case.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Dude! What did they do, salvage it from New Orleans?

[miertam.livejournal.com]

They pulled it out of a ditch where it was sitting under water. Why they thought we could do anything with it is anyone's guess. The same people brought in 4 monitors and a couple TVs from the ditch. There is nothing quite as disgusting as mystery fluid run down your back while you are carrying in a monitor.

[attackgypsy.livejournal.com]

I've done some work like that as well.

Had one come in that was dead. Popped the case, and there was all of this garbage in it. Shredded paper, little bits of plastic.

Turns out it was a mouse nest. When we pulled it out, the little thing had zapped itself and was stuck to the motherboard. Didn't smell for some reason though, so it must have just happened.

The mouse turds though, those did smell.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

That's the weird thing about mice...if they die they don't really decompose and and stink, they just sort of mummify and dry up. [I have cats who bring their kills home..sometimes the mouse isn't completely dead and it gets away only to be found later.]