A customer brings his laptop into our computer repair shop. It’s about a two- or three-year-old model by this point.

Customer: “My laptop has died. It won’t turn on.”

Me: “Okay, let’s have a look.”

I put the laptop on the bench in front of us, plug it in, and press the power button — which on this model is located fairly conspicuously just next to the keyboard. Lo and behold, it powers right up on the first try.

Customer: “Oh, I had no idea that there was a button there!”

Yes, he genuinely had no idea that the power button even existed and had simply never turned the computer off since his wife had turned it on a few years ago when it was new.

Related:
Laptop Flop, Part 35
Laptop Flop, Part 34
Laptop Flop, Part 33
Laptop Flop, Part 32
Laptop Flop, Part 31

Eighteen months ago, I bought a new tablet from [Massive Online Retailer]. It worked absolutely fine until one day when the screen started flickering. I hadn’t dropped it or anything; in fact, I had taken obsessively good care of it. It just randomly started fritzing out.

I contacted support for the company that made the tablet, and they told me that they don’t do repairs only replacements, and as it was over a year old, this would cost me 350 euros.

I tried taking it to a repair store anyway.

Me: “[Tablet Company] says they will only replace it, but is there anything you can do?”

Awesome Repair Dude: “Where did you buy it, and how long ago?”

Me: “Eighteen months ago from [Retailer].”

Awesome Repair Dude: “Under German consumer law, it is guaranteed for two years. We can administer that for you at a cost of 29 euros.”

While I could have handled it myself, having someone else deal with it was well worth the cost to me, so I forked it over.

Two days later, I had a brand-new replacement tablet.

The moral of the story: check what local laws apply rather than just believing the manufacturer!

Related:
It Pays To Know The Law

While biking home one winter evening, I take a bit of a spill. I’m not injured, but the bag holding my laptop hits the ground hard, and once I’m home, I find the laptop to be dead; pressing the power button does nothing, even with the laptop plugged in. A bit of troubleshooting later, I’m pretty sure the hard impact broke something in the laptop’s motherboard, so once I’ve scraped up the necessary cash, I remove the SSD for safekeeping and take the laptop over to a place in town that does computer repair.

I walk in and tell the tech that I’ve got a laptop that needs a new motherboard. They give me a form to complete, and I’ve filled out the first few items when I come across a field reading “Password”.

(A note of context for the uninitiated: one of the basic tenets of IT security is to never, EVER give out your account password to ANYONE, no matter what.]

I bring this to the tech’s attention.

Tech: “Yes, you need to put down the password for your user account on the laptop.”

Me: “This is just a hardware repair; it doesn’t require any sort of operating system access.”

But they keep insisting that they need my account password.

Me: “Is there someone else I can talk to?”

I end up in front of a senior tech. The senior tech reiterates that they need my account password.

Senior Tech: “It’s so we can get into the laptop once the new motherboard’s installed and run a piece of our software to verify that the new motherboard’s actually working.”

Me: “Simply getting to the login screen in the first place would already be proof that the new motherboard works. All I need you to do is replace the motherboard; I’ll take care of any software aspects.”

Senior Tech: “We can’t replace the motherboard without logging in afterward and running our software, and we need your password for that.”

I repeated that all I was asking them to do was replace the physical motherboard and that I would take care of everything else, but they still refused to replace the motherboard without having my password on hand.

I ended up having to shell out considerably more money to buy another laptop of the same model and swap the old laptop’s SSD into it. (Fortunately, I use Ubuntu, so the process of swapping OS drives between computers is essentially painless.)

The place I went to to try to get the first laptop’s motherboard replaced — a franchise of a larger chain — has since gone out of business, with a different store taking over the building. Given their appalling attitude toward computer security, I’m honestly not surprised!

One fine day, while attempting to work, I got the call we’ve all gotten. Mom was in an absolute tizzy because her computer didn’t work. Agh.

My retired mom loved to Click All The Things, as moms do, and had gotten one of those viruses that lock your computer for “security violations” or something, with a dire warning to call “Microsoft” at the number provided.

Sadly, she actually called the number and listened to the pitch in broken English. Happily, once the guy at the other end started demanding a credit card number, she finally got suspicious and hung up (despite her mortal fear of appearing “rude”) and called me.

However, she had recently moved to a farm several miles from her remote ancestral village, at least four hours away from me, and there was no way this was something I could coach her through without tears on both sides.

Man, I would give $100 to get out of this predicament… and thus the light dawned.

Me: “Mom, on the tiny road to your remote village, there should be a little house with a sign outside saying ‘COMPUTERS’ or ‘COMPUTER REPAIRS’ or something like that. Do I guess correctly?”

Mom: “Um, yes, I’ve seen something like that…”

Me: “Good, there’s one in every village, even yours. Okay, here’s what you need to do. Take your laptop, along with the power adapter, to this house tomorrow morning. Inside that house will be a man with a large beard.”

Mom: “Wait. How do you know he has a beard?”

Me: “He will have a beard; trust me. The bushier the better. Anyway, give this man your computer, tell him exactly what happened, and ask him to fix it.”

Mom: “Oh, gosh, I’m so embarrassed…”

Me: “That’s okay; he’s heard it before. But it’s very important that you do not lie to this man. Answer his questions, if he has any. If you don’t know, that’s fine; just say you don’t know. He will probably seem a little gruff and grumpy, but don’t worry about that. He will grunt and tell you to pick it up in a day or two.”

Mom: “He sounds mean…”

Me: “No, he’s not mean. Just, um, well, that’s how the best computer people are sometimes. He’s probably not really a people person.”

Mom: “Oh, like your father was.”

Me: “Uhh, yeah. Anyway, pay the man with the beard — it will probably be about $100 — and then follow his instructions. He’ll install software to make sure this doesn’t happen again, so make sure you read and do what it tells you.”

And lo, dear readers, so it came to pass, exactly as predicted in every detail.

Tiny house, gruff man, wildly majestic beard, $99, and all. Mom had her computer back in a day or two with a clean Windows install and a decent antivirus installed. Mine was not the only Mom in the village who clicked All The Things.

Even better, she returned to Beard Guy when she needed other help and followed his advice when it was time to upgrade.

Thank you, bearded man.

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I am working at a computer repair store when a woman brings her daughter in with their new MacBook.

Customer: “It’s defective. We need a replacement.”

Me: “What’s the nature of the defect?”

Customer: “It’s making loud noises.”

I turn the computer on, and she freaks out.

Customer: “There! I can hear the noise!”

Me: “That’s the CD drive spinning.”

These are the days with optical drives and MS Office on CD.

Customer: “What do you mean, it’s spinning?! I’ve never heard of that before; this computer needs to be silent!”