Let them eat cake(d on thermal compound)

[brutalentropy.livejournal.com]

So I was working on this guys computer... it sounded like a small child getting sucked in to a jet engine every time you turned it on. Woot, time for new heatsink/fan and case fans. So I pop off the old bugger, and lookee what I found:



Kind of amazing that he managed to get the thermal compound everywhere EXCEPT the die. He's lucky the thing didn't fry.

Another one that comes to mind... we popped the case off the front of a PC, and the fan holes in the front were COVERED in cat hair. I mean, you couldn't tell holes were supposed to be there. It looked like someone had shaved a cat and then shoved its hair in the front of the case. I'm not kidding when I say there was enough in there to make a small sweater. Thank god we have an air compressor here.

What's the craziest thing you've ever seen inside a computer case?

(x-posted)

Comments

[dukesnorre.livejournal.com]

Hah, I thought this was a post by someone on my friends list, with a Donnie Darko theme. (Someone has same icon and likes DD.)

[anamacha.livejournal.com]

only that icon isn't from DD, it's from Office Space.

[alysania.livejournal.com]

How about what's coming out of a laptop case?
http://www.alysania.com/junk/laptopfire.jpg (http://www.alysania.com/junk/laptopfire.jpg)

[jecook]

"Exploding network card? What explo.. Oh dear. He didn't try to install a SECURE-network card in his machine did he? I told him yesterday to be careful about installing and configuring it. They're programmed to self-destruct if someone attempts to override their access parameters..."

From the 1995 vintage

I <3 the BOFH.

[caerleon.livejournal.com]

What's the craziest thing you've ever seen inside a computer case?

Don't even ask..

Oh.. you did..

Coins in the floppy drive.. lots of coins to be honest.. we sold him a new drive for a tenner and got £6.80 back from his old one..

A dead (and well mummified) mouse..

About a can's worth of expanding foam.. (the draughts from the fan were blowing the papers about on his desk, so he blocked the holes up and then his machine "went funny")

Three used condoms in a CD drive (wrapped around the drive mech in a way that is hard to describe)..

A very old toasted cheese sandwich in a Colorado tape drive (there's been a funny smell from the machine!)

There are probably more, but those spring immediately to mind..

[coyoteden.livejournal.com]

that's normal. After heat and pressure is applied, there should only be a very thin (as in nearly transparent) layer of thermal compound between the die and HSF. In a lot of cases, the compound in the die area will stick to the HSF when removed because the die is too smooth for adhesion.

[caerleon.livejournal.com]

Indeed.. that just looks like "we've got to smear this stuff on, so smear on plenty and use the whole sachet" effect to me, which is *great* because it gets hot, runs like a very runny thing and then starts coating the pins of the processor.. fine while it's still in place, but if the processor *does* blow and you have to replace it...

[solradia.livejournal.com]

I did not see this myself, but a friend of mine found an ant colony in one that was in a warehouse.

[knittinggoddess.livejournal.com]

Another one?

The hardware shop at school just got a desktop box full of ants. The tech had to spray it with insecticide and then vacuum out the bodies.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

The guts of a second computer - but that's because I was Frankensteining them together to perform emergency data retrieval when some cheap-ass assembler had decided to use the world's shortest drive cables in the cases, with no spare sockets on the power supplies, and I had no spare cables to hand.

[fusepark.livejournal.com]

My sister was living in Hawaii, and one day as she's working on her PowerBook, cockroach antennae come out of the vents behind the keyboard. They wave around a bit in front of the screen and then vanish back inside. The computer never had a problem. Don't ask, don't tell.

[taqaisenu.livejournal.com]

A mouse nest. Mouse pee everywhere (no wonder the box was acting freaky), dead baby mice, dust and straw.

It started as your typical lightning-strike electrical damage call. I had him pop the box and look inside, reseat the cards, sniff around and let me know if he smelled anything electrical. He said "nope, nothing out of the ordinary," so I had him send his box in for repairs.

"Nothing out of the ordinary" my great Aunt Sally. I'm sorry - mouse nest, mouse pee, dead mice - I'd hate to be in a place where THAT is "nothing out of the ordinary" to be found in a computer!

one more time, with less typoes.

[jecook]

I had one like that. It ended up sitting in the back of my truck for the ride back to the shop on a chunk of cardboard (which promptly got tossed in the trash bin), and the machien itself sat next to the air compressor outlet we had outside the building waiting for the unlucky bastard that got stuck fixing it to come out with protective gear to clean it out.

That's not the worst those poor guys had to deal with, though.

The worst that those guys ran into was a machine that was liberally covered in cigarette tar and by-products. The extended warrenty company refused to cover it, obviously, and I think the owner decided to get a new one. (This was after spending three days cleaning the crap off of it, too! The owner had to pay the cleaning fee at least, so we did not get screwed.)

[blossomingfire.livejournal.com]

Courtesy of the nastiest faculty member we have (the chair, mind you): Roaches. About a hundred of them.

It took me 10 minutes to stop screaming.

[nem0.livejournal.com]

Not inside a computer, but one time I opened a glitchy Sega Genesis to do some repairs.

The inside was full of weevils.

That would explain a lot, now, wouldn't it?

[caerleon.livejournal.com]

were you able to determine the lesser of two weevils?..

[pantherchild.livejournal.com]

~Friend of mine inherited a computer from the daycare he worked at. The computer contained three crayons, two stickers, and one of those little suncatcher things kids like to make.~

[kallell.livejournal.com]

i used to love making thise things . . wait the coloring ones, or the bakeing ones?

[silveryrose.livejournal.com]

What's the craziest thing you've ever seen inside a computer case?

In my own computers, a remote that had been missing for 3 months (I don't watch much tv as you can probably tell :p)

I did some work on a PC for a friend's mother a few months back and found two vials of insulin and a bottle of Starlix.

[azzy23.livejournal.com]

A Kenny G cd.

*shudder*

I still have nightmares...

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

You win! :-)

[sheryls.livejournal.com]

well. you know how some cases are a greyish beige, and some are a more beige-beige?

we had one in that was "running slowly and making grinding noises" - it was a beige-beige case. or so we thought. when we picked it up we realized it was *sticky*. and there was sticky, brown dust in every single hole and fan in the damn thing, just coated in it.

out of morbid curiosity, a coworker sprayed the side with Fantastik...

and the beige-beige ran down the side..the case was grey, and the owner was a heavy smoker, who coated his entire computer with smoke residue, to the point of making the dust into sticky dust and clogging up all the fans.

the smell was horrific. and i think i smoked at the time.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Hah, I had one like that in England, except the guy had a persian cat too. The entire inside of the pc, the vents, the motherboard, the PCI cards, was covered in this kind of 4-5mm deep felt which consisted of the cat hair and his cigarette tar.

When I opened it up, he went "Wow, does that stuff grow inside like that?"

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

Never really gotten anything unusual inside a computer, just some machines that were REALLY dusty.

I was working on this one machine that looked pretty bad, but looks were deceiving, it was really much, much worse than I ever imagined.

I stuck the end of the air compressor hose into the 5-1/4" floppy drive (that kinda dates me, doesn't it?) and hit the button. The drive exploded in a massive cloud of dust.

But what really struck me as funny was watching everyone else in the shop suddenly scramble for cover.

From then on, whenever I blow out a machine, I always wear a surgical mask.

[alanademonkitty.livejournal.com]

An empty coke can.

[ke4peo.livejournal.com]

What's the weirdest thing I've seen in a computer case?

Hmmm...let's see. I had a friend...a really 'grooooovy' friend. A 'mellow' 'laid back' friend, if you catch my drift.

And apparently, his 'stash' was 'stashed' inside his computer case. Except, he neglected to retrieve it before he gave it to me to work on. Needless to say, I played the 'best friend' and didn't rat him out. Though I did suggest he might want to take that out next time it needs service. Other techs might not be so nice. :)

[compwizrd.livejournal.com]

Hydraulic oil in a laptop.

hrmm

[lepermime.livejournal.com]

If I only count the last year I would have to say the craziest thing would be opening up a 1600SC and seeing an inch of floor wax on the inside. It had been sitting on the floor and the cleaning crew just sloshed water and everything else against the case. You could even clearly see where the mop had rubbed up against the chassis the last time the floor was cleaned.

If I count the past 10-15 years of time. It would have to be all the cigarette butts in an onsite support and training I had to do for a customer. I opened the case. Slapped the side back on and left. Got a call when I got back to the office asking where I was. Told her I worked for an internet provider not an ashtray repair company, and hung up.

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

my first PC was purchased second hand from a local Domino's chain.

FLOUR was everywhere. Also, the keyboard had a distinct lack of springback in the F9 key.

"Hey Kevin? What's F9 do in the Domino's software?"

"That's the driver checkout key, why?"

"That explains it. Never mind."

Yes, it was a busy store.

[axessdenyd.livejournal.com]

Weirdest thing?

A dead snake. It was from ebay, and it was hanging from a rope inside the case.

Also roaches.


Worst to clean?

Came from an embroidery shop and they had it set up in a room where they sprayed some sort of glue....so all of the lint was GLUED to the vent holes.

30 minutes with a flathead screwdriver to clear them.

[trayce.livejournal.com]

A muffin. Yep, thats right. A whole muffin, perched daintily atop the hard drive. The best bit was when the IT guy who'd opened the case (friend of mine, was swapping in a new graphics card) saw said muffin, picked it up and tossed it in the bin, all without missing a beat still chatting to me. As if he saw muffins in PCs every day.

(Of course, it turned out to be a prank someone'd played on the guy whos PC it was. Why, I dont know - what would have led the enduser opening his PC and finding a muffin???)

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

"OK - hard drive, CD drive, graphics card, power supply, muffin, floppy drive, looks good to me!"

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

What's the craziest thing you've ever seen inside a computer case?

A family of mice

[jon787.livejournal.com]

airsoft pistol, 2 clips for the pistol, and a small stash of pellets

Another pistol might be joining it shortly.

[jecook]

Oh yeah.

The company I used to work for also had a contract with the lical linen cleaning company. These folks rent uniforms, and have a pickup and cleaning service. The nastiest machines I ever saw were on the "dirty linen intake" side of the plant. I used to wear rubber gloves when I went in there. The machines were sitting on wooden blocks to keep from rusting to the floor because they hosed the floor off every shift (literally!) Very gross.