Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with computer and repair

Should apple require my hard drive to fix my graphic card?

manduca — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:26:24 -0800

The graphics card in my macbook pro failed, which happens at a "higher than normal" rate. Apple agrees that's the problem. Still, they want me to leave my hard drive in the computer when I give it to them for repairs. How diligent are they about protecting your data from theft and ill-use? If data on your hard drive somehow gets set free while visiting apple-land, it doesn't violate the Applecare terms of service (pdf). "[apple is not liable for...] the failure to maintain the confidentiality of data" (section 4). In section 7f, "You agree that any information or data disclosed to Apple under this Plan is not confidential." My hard drive is backed up, but I don't want to risk someone having access to all my personal info. Should I put up a fight? Here's the background; feel free to skip it.

I'm a former IT person, and the diagnosis of graphic card failure seems pretty straightforward to me. All symptoms match. My hard drive is backed up, but I'm worried about my personal info being in the hands of others, especially after stories like this of hard drives full of data going MIA during service. How should I handle my upcoming interaction with the techs in the apple store?

The computer is still under applecare. When I talked with Applecare telephone support, they confirmed the diagnosis but said I needed to send the hard drive in with the system. After reading the terms of service, I was pretty reluctant. I didn't push very hard for them to make an exception. Thinking that I might have more luck in person, and with in-person contact with a geek, I made a genius bar appointment.

My position is that apple should be willing to fix my computer without my hard drive in it, since the problem is clear and isn't related to the hard drive. Every computer repair service has spare hard drives used for troubleshooting. The macbook pro hard drive is end-user replaceable, so I'm not violating any warranty by removing it. Sure, if I screw up the removal, it's my problem, but I'm ok with that.

What I'm not ok with is this: for my data to be relatively secure in this case, I must take the time to securely wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS, and then restore all my data when I get the computer back. In fairness to apple, I imagine that asking for the hard drive generally makes sense since a problem is often not clearly defined before the system is received. And we users aren't always the most reliable or knowledgeable reporters.

Nevertheless, my current plan is to take the hard drive out before I go to the Apple Store. I expect my approach will be in the self-deprecating vein to begin: I'll admit that I'm being a bit of a curmudgeon and ask them to indulge me. I've had terrific interactions with the Genius boys (are they all male in every store?) in the past, and I'm hopeful that they would at least by sympathetic to my position.

Is my request reasonable? Is there a better approach?

Can you recommend a good computer repair place in Hong Kong?

lmm — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 06:57:18 -0800

Recommended computer repair service in Hong Kong? My aunt's relatively new Vista desktop has, for the past couple of months, been consistently shutting itself down after at most 10-15 minutes of use and we've exhausted the usefulness of remote assistance. What is needed now is physical troubleshooting.

If you have any recommendations for computer repair service (on-site or depot), I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

Seeking a permanent solution for my Wacom tablet woes.

iamkimiam — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:09:30 -0800

Sometime around the beginning of this year, my Intuos2 Model 0608-U 6"x8" Wacom tablet driver stopped loading upon login and restart. I reinstall it every time I login/restart. All of the tips, tricks, workarounds suggested by both Wacom and Apple do not work. I am running Mac OS 10.5.7. Is there anything left to try? The tablet works after I reinstall. I have tried uninstalling, disk repair, permissions, reinstalling (various versions of the tablet driver) in all possible combinations. Is anybody else having this problem? What has worked for you?

I'm looking for a permanent solution that does not cost $$. I will reinstall indefinitely if I have to, but it is getting tiresome. Thanks!

No video input detected on bootup.

TimeTravelSpeed — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:45:01 -0800

Computer froze completely during a game, all subsequent downloads of various installer files were corrupt. BSODs galore. Now, when I turn on my computer, no video input is detected whatsoever. Next step? This problem sounds like a combination of a virus, hard-drive failure, and video-card failure, so I'm not sure what to try next. Any suggestions?

Approximate timeline of events from last Friday night, to Saturday morning:

0. Built a near-top-of-the-line computer 3 months ago
1. Friday, started a game Team Fortress 2 using the Steam client (I play this all the time).
2. An hour or so into play, the entire computer froze, game audio was on a 1-second loop. Couldn't even CTRL+ALT+DEL
3. Performed hard reset, tried to defrag, but it stopped progressing after about 20%.
4. Tried to launch Steam again but was told a game file had been corrupted. Uninstalled Steam.
5. Downloaded latest Steam installation and ran it, but was told the installation was corrupt
6. Uninstalled Avira anti-virus, downloaded Avira installer, ran it, and again was told installation was corrupt.
7. Same results with Adaware installation. However, Spybot installation was successful (no results from SB scan btw).
8. Rebooted and immediately got some sort of "NTLDR, unable to boot" error. Hard reset fixed this.
9. Was able to reinstall Avira and begin a full virus scan. 3/4 of the way through, scan stopped progressing and got a BSOD.
10. Now, when I turn on my computer, I can hear the whirring and humming of the internals, but no video input is detected by the monitor. Neither resetting monitor, nor replugging video cable helps.

I haven't touched any of the physical internals yet (e.g. re-seating video card), but will try that tonight.

I tried to keep this brief, so some details may be missing. Let me know if you need clarification.

Recommend some Windows repair utilities

purephase — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:58:00 -0800

If you were going to bring a USB drive to repair a bunch of workstations, what are some of the latest Windows XP/Vista repair utilities that you would put on it? I used to do a lot of computer repair and recovery but my career has taken me in a somewhat different direction over the past few years. Sadly, I'm a bit rusty on the specifics.

I have a work assignment (volunteer) coming-up that involves both training another individual on standard computer maintenance and repair and assisting in getting a number of their workstations into a workable state. Unfortunately, I don't have any of the hardware information to prepare ahead of time.

I know that there have been questions in the past regarding recommended tools to solve Windows issues (viruses, rootkits, registry bloat etc.) but I can't seem to track any of them down. Also, they might be a bit dated.

Give me your best! Thanks.

A few I've come up with are:
RegMon
FileMon
ProcessMonitor
AVG (or ClamWin)
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
CCleaner

Mac mini's mind molten

adamrice — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:36:07 -0800

Mac meltdown: my wife's Mac Mini seems to have bitten the dust. Before I take it in for repair, I want to query the hivemind for anything I might be overlooking. Details on symptoms and efforts so far within. Last night, her mac shut itself off for no apparent reason. It was idle at the time. It's a G4 Mini, a little over 3 years old.

Today we try to boot it. Blank gray screen (no Apple logo). I try booting into open firmware. That works. I do a reset-all and then boot-mac. Blank gray screen again.

I decide to re-install the OS from the DVD. I attempt to boot to the DVD. I get the "prohibitory sign" (circle with slash) and it sits like that for a loooong time, but eventually the first install screen appears. As I step forward with the install process, I discover it's not registering the hard drive as present. I launch Disk Utility from there, and discover that the disk (purportedly) has no partitions. After much gnashing of teeth, I decide to create a partition (nuking whatever might have been on it).

That seems to work. Even before the process is complete, her computer becomes visible over the network to my machine.

I proceed with the OS reinstallation on what should be a virgin drive. It chugs away for a little while without making any progress, and then I get the multilingual kernel-panic screen. At that point I throw in the towel and throw myself upon the mercy of my fellow mefites.

At this point it seems like a hardware issue to me. Perhaps it would be cured by a new hard drive, but I don't want to spend money on that without knowing for sure.

Slow computer is slooooooooow

specialagentwebb — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:09:16 -0800

[FixMyComputerFilter] What's causing my computer to slow down to a crawl? Details inside About a year ago, I purchased a used HP TC1100 tablet. The hard drive was wiped before I got it, and I installed Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). Everything was great for about a month, then things started getting ugly. When I first boot the computer, everything is fine. When I start to use certain programs (Opera, Firefox, The Gimp), the computer starts slooooowing down, and within 5 minutes is absolutely unusable; it will take several seconds to even process a mouse movement, and the only solution is to restart the computer.

Here are a few specifics.

Programs that trigger the slowdown: Gimp, Firefox, Opera, Open Office.
Programs that aren't a problem: Minesweeper, minor games, Remote connection to another computer, instant messaging.
According to a top report, there's nothing hogging the CPU, and CPU usage is never above 50%.
Intel Pentium M 733 / 1.1 GHz
512MB RAM
40GB hard drive
Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

Since it's a tablet PC, it's pretty much impossible for me to access any of the insides without tearing it completely to pieces. Before I do that, can anyone offer me a suggestion as to which hardware I might be looking to replace? Is it possible that it's some kind of software problem that I can't think of? At this point, all I can really use the computer for is remotely connecting to my desktop, which is neat, but not really what I had in mind when I got the computer; if I can fix this with an afternoon of tinkering and a few new sticks of RAM, I'll gladly do it.

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

Need help with a computer diagnosis.

amyms — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 14:39:52 -0800

Computer Diagnostic Help and Interpretation, Please: My son inherited an 8-year-old Dell Dimension L933r from his grandpa. It had been upgraded to Windows XP and had an additional hard drive installed. It was working smoothly for us for almost a year, but recently it went into an infinite reboot loop (which we couldn't resolve ourselves) and we took it to an independent computer repair guy (details and questions inside). The computer repair guy (who came highly recommended for his competence and fair pricing from the guys at my son's favorite independent video game store) said that the C drive was "fried," that "nothing can be recovered from it" and that the CD/DVD drive is "shot" (which is apparently why we couldn't solve the infinite reboot problem with the Windows recovery disc - the machine couldn't read it) but he said that the additional hard drive (which is the E drive) is "fine" and that he can "put it into a new machine and fire it up right away"...

Now, my problem is, I'm conversant enough in computer terminology to have a casual conversation, but when confronted with a computer repair guy who answers nearly every question with a firm "Nope, that's not an option, sorry" I'm not sure how to move forward.

So, my question to AskMefi is: When he says that the C drive is "fried" does he truly mean that absolutely nothing can be recovered from it, no way, no how? (My son so badly wants to believe that he can figure out a way to do so - and he also thinks that his grandpa had the computer configured so that everything on the C drive was automatically backed up on the E drive. If so, would the computer guy see that and would he tell us if he did?)...

The computer guy only charged us $15 for his time in rendering a diagnosis (which was more than fair), but he also pushed pretty heavily for getting us to agree to put the E drive into a "new machine" (which he wanted to sell us). We ended up bringing the tower home and telling him we'd think about our options. I guess I'm just wondering what those options might be (beyond what the computer guy is pushing for) and should we seek a second opinion?

If you need any additional information to be able to answer my question, I'll be away from the computer intermittently, but
will check back as often as I can.

How do I boot off of someone else's internal hard drive on my laptop?

senterstyle — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:00:13 -0800

Running XP on my computer, off of someone else's internal hard drive I'm trying to clean up a friend's desktop from a nasty virus infestation, so I snagged his hard drive out of the case. I am using an adapter to connect it via USB, but was wondering if there is a way to virtually (or perhaps boot off of) this drive. I know that it would be incompatible with my hardware, but I wanted to run some more things from my end, rather than driving to his home. He has XP.

I live in New York City and my computer has just shit the bed.

jason's_planet — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:47:51 -0800

My computer has just shit the bed. I live in New York City. I have very little money. Can anyone recommend a cheap place where I can get it fixed? The symptoms: Last night, the port where I plug in the ADSL modem was glowing bright green, even after I turned off the power. Today, I tried to turn it on and got nothing. I noticed that there might be some dust inside. The off/on button in the front does not seem to engage when I push it. When I plug the computer in, the power goes on. When I unplug it, the power goes off. But the power button doesn't do anything at all. The fan whirs when it has power and nothing, but nothing shows up on the screen.

It's a Dell computer, about one year old or so.

Can anyone recommend a cheap place in New York to get this fixed? I'm really not in the best of financial positions and I need this bugger up and running to help me look for work.

FWIW, I live in Western Queens and would be willing to take this to Manhattan, Queens or Northern Brooklyn.

Many thanks in advance.

What happened to my windows\system32\config\system file??

otherwordlyglow — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:44:35 -0800

How do I remedy the error message I'm getiting on my laptop about the windows\system32\config\system file being missing or corrupt? Yesterday while working on my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, I got some weird blue screen about there being a system problem and needing to shut down the computer. I wish I could remember what it said other than it doing a memory dump, but I can't. So I shut down and restarted and now always get the "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt :windows/system32\config\system" message.

I do not have system install disks. I found documention from Dell saying that they don't provide them routinely but that I can request them from their support group. I've done that but it could be days before I receive them. In the mean time is there anything I can do?

I tried pressing f8 as it was starting up and got the Windows Advanced Options Screen, but none of those options does anything except lead me back to the screen about my file being missing or corrupt.

I'm reasonably computer proficient but need things spelled out for me with regards to Windows (why is their support written so badly?). There is another computer in the house that I can use to download programs or get other support. I'd prefer not to have lose all the data on my laptop in order to make it work.

Help me find my old hard drive.

DulcineaX — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:28:02 -0800

Why would my hard drive show up in the BIOS, but not in Windows? My boyfriend's main hard drive seems to have failed. When we tried to boot it yesterday, it gave us the message that the "self monitoring system has reported that a parameter has exceeded its normal operating range" and would not boot into windows. I ended up putting in a new hard drive and installing Vista to that drive, so now we can at least get the thing booted. But now, once in Windows, it only sees the new hard drive and the old storage drive (that didn't have Windows on it).

I'm trying to figure out how I can just see the original hard drive in order to get data off of it. It shows up in the BIOS, but once in Windows it's not listed in My Computer. I've also looked under Computer Management in Administrative Tools, and it's not listed there either.

Other random info:
- There are four hard drive bays in the computer.
- These are SATA drives.
- I have more familiarity with this stuff than any of my friends/family, but I'm not exactly a guru or anything.
- I'd like to avoid taking the drive somewhere if possible, because I'm a little paranoid about my data getting erased. I know that the information might just be gone, but I'd like to keep Geek Squad etc. as a last resort.

If there's any more information that I can provide please ask; I'm getting a little desperate at this point...it's finals week of senior year in college and could really use some of that data! Thanks so much for any advice.

Is it always cheaper to repair an old laptop than to buy a new one?

Amizu — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:16:05 -0800

Should I buy a new laptop or spend $400 to repair my 2004 Dell Inspiron 600m? This week I turned on my computer and it took about 10 minutes to boot, and then all the internet drivers were missing. Nothing has changed despite my various attempts, so I took it to the Geek Squad. They told me today that the hard drive was damaged and that I could spend about $400 to repair (diagnostic, new hard drive, new hard drive installation, software update - can't find my old stuff, etc.) Money is an object. Should I spend $400 and repair my 4 year old Dell Inspiron 600m, or should I spend about $1300 to buy a new one? Is there any important info I have left out? Geek Squad checked and found no viruses. The Geek Squad guy recommended I buy a new one, fwiw.

They say with cars it's always cheaper to repair an old one than buy a new one. Does the same logic apply to computers?

Is 3 1/2 months too long to wait for a laptop to be repaired?

any major dude — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:12:50 -0800

Averatec is holding my laptop hostage for the last three months, what should I do? They've had the computer since September 29th when I sent it back for an under warranty repair for a faulty motherboard. When I have gotten through on the phone they keep telling me the part is on backorder and they don't know when it's coming in. I asked them if they can get some kind of time frame from the vendor and they say they cannot. They've used this excuse about 5 times. They have a repair log online that I can access but it hasn't been updated since October 3rd. I reported it to the Better Business Bureau about 3 weeks ago asking them to repair, replace or refund my laptop and haven't heard anything back aside from a confirmation email that the complaint was logged. I haven't been able to get through to customer service for the last week. At what point does this become theft? I just don't understand how a company stays in business holding someone's computer for 3.5 months.

Dead PC Diagnosis Filter - am I on the right track?

benzo8 — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:40:36 -0800

Dead PC Diagnosis Filter - am I on the right track? Today my desktop PC when "phut" and died. (Actually, I had my headphones on at the time, and so I don't know what noises it made prior to, or at the time of death.)

Anyhow, it's a self-built machine - I've been building my own machines for about 20 years now (and am normally better at diagnosing faults than I'm feeling today). Quick spec: Intel Dual Core CPU, Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard, ATI X1950 graphics card, mix of hard drives, etc.

Machine died unexpectedly. There was a smell of burning. The nose test indicated the smell came from the PSU, but heck, I'm not a sniffer dog, so that might be wrong.

Now I switch the machine on, no fans turn (including the fan in the PSU) (both case and CPU fan powered from motherboard), and no drives spin up. An LED on the mainboard lights, and an LED on the graphics card. If I press eject on the CD drive, its light turns on briefly, but it doesn't eject.

So, there's definitely some power around somewhere, but here's where I start to get hazy with my diagnosis. As I understand it, ATX PSUs supply 2 voltage circuits - a 12v and 5v one. Am I on the right track thinking that the 12v circuit has died in the PSU, otherwise, I can't see why there is some power to the mainboard and beyond, but no drive or boot activity. (No POST beeps either, btw...)

I have no other power supplies or PCs here to test any further, so before I go out tomorrow to buy a new PSU, can anyone tell me if I'm barking up completely the wrong tree?

Out of my depth?

parilous — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 08:09:23 -0800

Should I attempt to clean up a "demo model" laptop running Windows Vista for a friend? I have never used Vista before and I'm not entirely sure of what programs, etc. may have been put on the computer that can safely be removed. I am of average intelligence and have mid-level computer knowlege -- i.e., not enough intelligence to fix things that are wrong by myself, but enough knowledge that I can do internet searches for help.

Is the knowledge base about Vista sufficient that I could find help if I needed to? Should I even attempt this? (Secondary question: Any reason to convince my friend to let me install XP install on it?)

Computer repair in Pittsfield?

languagehat — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 06:23:25 -0800

Anybody know of a good computer repairman/shop in or near Pittsfield, Mass? My wife's Dell desktop has developed an alarming hum (sometimes loud, sometimes soft), and she'd like to have someone take a look at it, but it would be nice not to have to play throw-a-dart-at-the-Yellow-Pages.

How do I convince Apple to replace my Powerbook with a Macbook Pro?

empty commercial spaces — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 18:20:52 -0800

I believe I have a decent case for Apple to replace my defective Powerbook G4 with a shiny new Macbook Pro. How do I make this happen? I bought a Powerbook G4 a year and a half ago, and it never really ran like a new Mac. Took forever to come back from sleep mode (even after I reset the PRAM), and always seemed to be a little flaky compared to other Macs I've had in the past.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago, when it stopped recognizing one of my RAM chips and eventually started freezing as soon as it booted up. I sent it back to Apple, who replaced the logic board and sent it back to me.

As soon as I started it up out of the box, it froze again. With their guidance, I wiped out my hard drive, re-installed the OS and started over. A week or so later, I moved some library files over from an external drive and the whole thing went down again, this time rendering it unable to get past the white Mac startup screen. Didn't have a chance to back anything up, and tried to re-install the OS again. Errored out on me.

Called them again, they were very apologetic and had me go through a hardware test, which showed that the hard drive needs replaced. They told me to send it back again.

Here's the thing: I have a friend that unexpectedly had his Powerbook replaced with a Macbook Pro after a couple of unsuccessful repairs (because they don't make the G4 anymore and the Pro is the current equivalent). Some research on MacRumors.com reveals that the policy is usually 3 repairs in the first 2 years (as long as you have Applecare) before a unit is replaced, but that can vary based on a number of circumstances. I've also read that they won't do this unless you ask.

Does anyone have any experience in getting what you want from a giant corporation? How should I handle this? I asked the representative about it and he said, "Well, we're probably a few unsuccessful repairs away from that." A few? I'm fairly sure I sent this computer back a year ago, bringing me up to 3 repairs, but Apple gives you no way to see your repair history. He said, "Well yeah, there comes a point where it costs less for us to replace it than to keep repairing it," but it costs me a hell of a lot to keep losing my computer, too, considering that I lose the ability to work when I don't have it.

I'm sending back the computer tomorrow when the box comes, and I want to call while it's in California and make my case for them to replace it. What should I say? How do I do this?

Opening a PC Repair shop?

Phyltre — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 13:13:38 -0800

Considering opening a computer repair store. Input desperately needed. A small section of a building (owned by a company my father is VP of) is going to be available for rent soon. I'm thinking of renting it as I live less than 100 feet away in an apartment (also owned by said company) and can't find a computer repair position in the area. I believe the building costs ~$700 monthly, and it's in a decent location near lots of neighborhoods. I don't have professional experience but have built several PCs from scratch and informally supported PCs back at high school as well as lots of relatives, and recently bought/read/understood Scott Mueller's "Upgrading and Repairing PCs."

I need lots of advice. How much money can a small computer repair shop expect to take in? Is going as an entrepreneur advisable for someone finishing up college? Anyone have any experience running a small computer shop? What should pricing be? What can I do as a sideline to keep income steady? Is the market oversaturated? What supplies do I need? Feel free to pour your hearts out over this one.

If anyone has any input on this I'd be welcome to hear it. Suggestions, ideas, anecdotes, whatever. The shop would be in West Columbia, SC if that's relevant to anyone.

Computer repair woes

punishinglemur — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 15:41:36 -0800

Due to circumstances out of my control, I must find a local computer repair shop and receive a written estimate on the cost to repair my laptop. How can I find a reputable repair shop? I plugged "computer repair" into Google Maps business search, and most of what I came up with were not computer repair shops, or were sketchy services, such as one where the 24-hour service number is also used as a contact number for a poster on some LAN gaming board who notes in one post that his cell phone is also his repair business phone, and that he didn't answer a call from a fellow gamer because he was working at Hooters at the time. There were some potentially promising results, but reviews are few and far between. I'm not too keen on handing off my laptop to someone unless I can have some confidence that they're not a colossal ripoff or totally incompetent.

Many of the repair services seem to be just one guy, and offer in-home service only. This does not seem to fit my needs, as I doubt that my issue can be solved in-home (previously on AskMe).

The system is in the same state now as described in that AskMe, except the power button works now. The backlight is still spotty. Personally, I would prefer to buy a new laptop and dump the data from the old HD to the new system. In addition to the problems described in the previous AskMe, the hinges are cracking, the RAM in the system is inadequate, the hard drive is too small, the left speaker is inoperational, the headphone-out jack has occasional output problems (random cracking sounds), and I suspect that there is a problem with a fan (it's making a hell of a lot of noise).

But, again, the decision is not mine to make. I must find a local repair shop and acquire a written estimate for the repairs, and if I have to do that, I at least want to find a place that I can trust. Oh, and: Appleton, Wisconsin.

Can this laptop be saved?

winston — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 13:28:30 -0800

Can this laptop be saved? eMachines M2105 bought refurbished from Tiger Direct outlet near Toronto two years ago (90 day warranty). Recently the power cord developed the "jiggle it to make it work" disease. Only it turns out that it wasn't the cord but the jack inside the computer that had the problem. Now the jack is completely loose from whatever it had been attached to and so the computer doesn't go. While online third-party parts dealers seem to have jacks for just about any other eMachines laptop, no-one seems to have this one. And the official eMachines parts supplier says I need to replace the mainboard (which costs about two-thirds of what I paid for the laptop for the part alone). My friendly local computer shop basically gets shot down when they inquire with eMachines/Gateway about parts. It seems that the aforementioned parts supplier is the only authorized service provider. I can order the part and then bring it to the local shop -- but the supplier says it only comes attached to the mainboard.

An alternate approach might be to find some other way to charge the battery, but, as far as I can tell, there is no OEM stand-alone battery charger for this machine

How to fix my computer

bad grammar — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 18:51:08 -0800

Can my 2002 iBook be revived? The LCD (liquid crystal display) of my iBook has died. While I was working on a Word document, the screen froze, became covered with vertical multi-colored lines, and went black. It came on a few minutes later, but began to shiver, and went black for good. Turning the computer off and on does nothing, though sounds suggest that the drive may still work.

On Googling, I find that the lines phenomenon is attributed by some to a serious motherboard failure, by others to a mere detached cable. I think the computer is dead because this is how my other Macs went -- the lines phenomenon (black and white on earlier models).

Four years old, the computer is out of warranty and I would have to pay full price for any fixing. Can anything be done?

Why is my computer slicing me?

camcgee — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 14:44:17 -0800

What's inside my computer that's causing little slices on my fingertips? The last two times I've opened up one of my computers, I've gotten long, shallow cuts on my fingertips that I didn't notice until I was closing everything up and saw blood on my hand. It first happened a couple of weeks ago and then again today; the last time there were three parallel cuts, but this time there was only one.

I'm not worried about the cuts themselves -- they are simply an annoyance -- but I am very curious about how I'm getting them.

I've looked inside the box but can't see anything that I can easily relate to the injuries. It's an ASUS Barebones Vintage. Here is a picture of the open box, and a closeup of the area where I was doing most of the work. Here's a picture of my cut finger (ring finger of my left hand).

The first time the injuries happened when I was inserting a firewire card into a PCI slot. Today, here's everything I did:

1. Unscrewed and removed outer covering
2. Blew out dust with a compressed air canister
3. Removed plate covering AGP slot
4. Moved the PCI card to lower slot (because of the size of the new video card)
5. Inserted new video card in AGP slot
6. Rearranged a couple of power supply cables
7. Replaced covering

(As a side note, a couple of days ago I pulled this exact same video card out of another computer and put a new one in, but didn't get any cuts; there seems to be something within this particular box that's causing the problem.)

Any ideas?

Are they all going to make fun of me?

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 12:37:02 -0800

So it looks like my iMac G5 hard drive died some time this afternoon while the computer was on and I was not in front of it. Great! I'm still covered by warranty, so there's that. BUT. When the hard drive died... I, err, may have been in the process of downloading porn through BitTorrent. (Nothing illegal, but y'know, it's porn.) Obviously I have to bring this computer in for repair, and will probably have to give the HD to some kind of data-recovery service, and so when some techno-wizard hopefully gets things going again, there that porn file will be, sitting right out on my desktop. This happens all the time, right? Are they going to be scandalized? (I am in NYC, so my guess is no, but...) What level of humiliation or other problems am I looking at here? And please, don't ask me about my data backup. I don't really have one. I know. Shut up.

Help me help myself

divka — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 10:52:54 -0800

I'm dropping my laptop off for service--what do I need to do to protect myself? This is the first time I've ever handed a computer off to someone else to fix--it is a mechanical issue with a laptop hinge that is better left to a professional. So, off she goes.

I hate to be overly paranoid about this, but I don't like the idea of sending off my computer that has quite a bit of personal information hidden in various spots. It seems like dropping your car off at the mechanic with your social security card in the glove compartment. I'd hope that no one would exploit me--but I'd rather not find out the hard way.

I've gone through my browsers and deleted the cache, passwords, etc. Is there anything else I should make sure I do before the machine leaves my hands?

(FYI: I don't have anything incriminating on my machine, just your standard personal-business-account number-etc. sort of things).