Nice Build

[Kodiak]

A customer brought in a custom pc he had built and it wasn't booting so I took a look at it and first thing was the power button wasn't plugged in so I plugged it in and it still wouldn't boot. I noticed, this is a triple channel board, he had the memory in the three first slots so I moved them to every other as they should be then I noticed the board was a little loose and lower then it should be in the case and upon further inspection I noticed he had no stand offs behind the board so I started removing the board and he used wood screws to hold the board in and the user manual behind the board for a back stand. Once the board was out I decided to remove the heat sink to see if he put any thermal grease in and wow did he put thermal grease in, about a whole tube. Once cleaned off I reapplied the correct amount and put it all back together and it booted and was fine. He said it did all run that way. NICE BUILD.

[BOB IROC]

A customer brought in a custom pc he had built and it wasn't booting so I took a look at it and first thing was the power button wasn't plugged in so I plugged it in and it still wouldn't boot. I noticed, this is a triple channel board, he had the memory in the three first slots so I moved them to every other as they should be then I noticed the board was a little loose and lower then it should be in the case and upon further inspection I noticed he had no stand offs behind the board so I started removing the board and he used wood screws to hold the board in and the user manual behind the board for a back stand. Once the board was out I decided to remove the heat sink to see if he put any thermal grease in and wow did he put thermal grease in, about a whole tube. Once cleaned off I reapplied the correct amount and put it all back together and it booted and was fine. He said it did all run that way. NICE BUILD.

Wow... Imagine if he just followed the instructions that came with the motheboard and case on how to assemble a PC he could have saved himself some time and money.

I recently took in a PC that my wife's cousin attempted to build. Cooling fans on backwards, cables a mess and rubbing against the CPU fan. He also left out he motherboard stand offs so he did not put in the metal bracket for the back of the case for the motherboard ports and the video card was not properly seated. The funniest part is he gave this me to see if I could get it working all while bitching how PCs are pieces of junk and how he was going to buy a Mac. I had no issue saying that PCs work fine it they are put together by people that can read and follow instructions.

[slgrieb]

Funny old world! I've got one of these in the shop now. A long time customer just remarried, and after her new husband's favored tech grabbed her tush on the last service call, I was asked to deal with hubbie's wonky computer.

Same sort of thing. Old Crippled Tech had replaced the motherboard (bad caps) and rather than relocate the old standoffs, he removed them and put two plastic standoffs in the mounting holes furthest from the CPU on the upper edge, then used a large sheet metal screw to "secure" the MOBO in the next to the last mounting hole on the second row. Really wish I had followed my first impulse to photograph this!.

So, it you tried to plug in a PS/2 keyboard, the MOBO was free to rotate about an inch and a half. There was no support or insulation under most of the MOBO. Why it hadn't shorted out, I don't know. The front USB port was mis-connected, so it wouldn't recognize any devices, but at least it didn't fry any. The hard drive was installed in a 5 1/4" bay with only a single screw holding it in place.

The weirdest thing was that I know the guy who built the original system, and it would have been done right. How the system got into the sorry state I found, I doubt I'll ever really know.

[Kodiak]

Funny stuff. I had a similar one a while back but not near as bad as this one just no back stands. Fun to read about.

[Guts3d]

I had a crazy one a week or so ago; P.C. won't boot, customer brings it to me and I open her up. The SATA wire ran from the DVD burner connector right into the hard drive SATA connector, and the "left over" wire just lay in the bottom of the case. A quick correction, and it boots up as per design. The red faced gent proceeds to tell me that "That's the way I found it, I didn't change anything" but his embarrased look tells me differently. "No charge" says I magnanimously, trying to keep a hearty laugh out of my voice and he mumbles almost inaudibly " Damn sure shouldn't be any charge"... I smile again, and helped him load it in his car. * Mental note- add $10 to bill next time he brings this in.