PC Horror stories?

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I've worked on several PCs that were eat up with viruses and adware. It usually takes a few hours, but I am able to clean them and repair them without formatting.

I have one I am working on right now... sort of. It is an old Dimension Something. No ethernet, so I can't just connect it and do my thing. The owner has not updated this thing in forever, and uses AOL. No antivirus, no firewall, no nothing. Her song downloads music from where ever. Windows is screwed up, and the restore partition won't work. I tried using a WinXP Home disk, but it can't repair it (missing file).

I have finally got it so it will run a full adware scan, but it takes over an hour, sometimes two (P4 1.4). I am too embarrassed to say how long I have had it sitting here. I am to the point I am ready to just toss it, or just format it and start over... if it will let me. Safe mode pulls up a blank screen, no task bar, no nothing. Argh!

I am actually setting up a PC for my mom and went with the free aol software. The new aols have a firewall and spyware built in. The firewall is decent and the spyware is...passable, but what I like about it is no choice- it just runs without you having to so much be at the pc. Good for older people or kids.

I'm actually a fan of AOL when it comes to software. Their service SUCKS, but if anyone knows how to make software that is **** usable its AOL. Once you gain a bit of net maturity it becomes overkill, but for the occasional user AOL is bliss. Some of the things they have in beta at the moment, too, show why they dominated the isp market for so long.
 
Agess agoooo, there was a naked lady icon (similar to somthing like that dont remember) on my desktop, and it would pop up webpages of porno. And this was my family pc!

pfft i didnt do anything tho!!
i think i got rid of it somehow....dnt remeber how but yeah i did.....hope nobody else saw it;)

And..another time there was like this baloon message saying "scan your computer for viruses and blablablabla so i got fed up and formatted the ****ing thing...hehe its still there i think!....but we don use it
 
;_; JK

Well, when i worked on the first ladies PC, I couldn't even boot past the windows welcome screen, I think her son had pornography on the thing and downloaded it from everywhere and it hindered the boot process(i've done this before and my father has beat me senseless because of it). What could be wrong 'now' is that they forgot EVERYTHING i told/wrote down/explained to them the night that I did everything. I am learning to do as much as I can without a complete reformat, I watched a woman reformat her PC once and ended up having to replace her modem, (what?)

In regards to the lady, she didn't explain the problem as colorfully as I'd hope she would and I have to take another trip to her house in order to look at everything again.

I also had a man who asked me for a few good virus scanners(back in the day when I worked retail) I pointed out a few that we had available(norton, etc) he nods and says okay, I wasn't aware of which program he bought but, the next day he brought his PC in, apparently he installed the software wrong and was unable to 'now' get on the internet, I just don't understand what they do but it amazes me.

I remember one of my friends explaining how she built someone a PC(professionally in a PC shop), set up a RAID something of the other, back up, everything, come to find out the guy brought the PC back after some choice 'at home' repairs once it started to mess up. But he was a complete SLOB! there was peanut butter near the heatsink, Sata and powersupply cables were cut, there were bugs and dirt inside the case and dent marks all across the the outside, he told her, "I tried to fix it."

That is just amazing. These people shouldnt be allowed to use computers. They are putting themselves at risk in doing so. And people wonder why they are the victims of online fraud/identity theft...
 
That is just amazing. These people shouldnt be allowed to use computers. They are putting themselves at risk in doing so. And people wonder why they are the victims of online fraud/identity theft...

True, "omg 'credit card company' just emailed me asking me to verify my card by sending in my credit card number and pin and apparently this email is from me, it looks like i forgot my SSN I had better email that to myself right now!"
 
True, "omg 'credit card company' just emailed me asking me to verify my card by sending in my credit card number and pin and apparently this email is from me, it looks like i forgot my SSN I had better email that to myself right now!"

You could so see people in the above posts falling for that.
 
When I was 10 I decided to reorganize my files, I put all the .dll files from the windows directory in the same folder. I couldn't find out why Windows98 wouldn't boot anymore.

Pure horror.

(I also stuck a new disk in the cdrom everytime my computer said it was low on disk space)
 
Back in Dec 05 when I first got my gaming rig it was in a Diablotek Black case, had an Abit KU8 mobo, 1GB RAM, 9600 Pro, DVD Burner and 400W PSU. I installed some games on it and played for a while, went to sleep and woke up the next morning to find my PC off. I figured "mom or dad must have turned it off" or at least that the power went out, so I press the power button and get nothing, then I make sure all wires are plugged in and everything is secure, press and hold the button this time and guess what? Sparks flew accompanied with a light show of blue and purple sparks and an unpleasant burning smell. Needless to say I learned my lesson about using PSUs that come with a case, now I buy good PSUs from Companies like OCZ and I always read the reviews now. That was a scary sight though, especially with it being my first gaming rig and all.

LOL, a buddy of mine never learned that lesson. He has lost 2 psus from doing that and the first time it took out his mobo and cpu too.
 
When I was 10 I decided to reorganize my files, I put all the .dll files from the windows directory in the same folder. I couldn't find out why Windows98 wouldn't boot anymore.

Pure horror.

(I also stuck a new disk in the cdrom everytime my computer said it was low on disk space)

Are you kidding me? That's funny.... :p
 
Well, have any of you fellow tech's run into problems/issues/bugs/annoyances from your customers that you cannot understand why or how they happen?

When the sassar worm (or one of those big ones from 2003) first came out. It was out for 24 hours before most antivirus program's could catch up with it, and I was out onsite trying to fix a computer that keep on wanting to restart.
Orginally I thought i was dealing with faulty hardware as both my antivirus tool where coming up blank.
 
Well since I'm stupid, I have done many things.

LOL, you'll think I'm a noob for doing this...

2 years ago, I was cooling down my computer stuff. x1600pro. YES THIS IS RETADED. XD I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. I thought, hey, I know how to warm it up. I put it in the microwave. LOL. Did not work. 1 second in, sparks flew everywhere, causing a nice odor to go out through the kitchen.

I was bored one day and decided to add an old cd drive in my computer, and it just sparked and blew for no reason as soon as it went in. I'm scared yet to this day sparks will fly again.

many many other things
 
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