P.I.C.N.I.C - Problem In Chair Not In Computer

Now it has to be said that I cut down on the amount of hardware support I do shortly after swearing to find a different avenue that fateful day in 1998 (before Windows 98), when a client stormed into my shop, banged his computer on the counter and proceeded to threaten me because ‘MY’ machine had stopped functioning after his son put a slice of salami into the CD drive.

There have been other memorable incidents, but none which were quite so patently absurd. The one I’m about to relate comes pretty close though.

Some time before moving to Cyprus I received a phone call from a relatively new customer of mine whose computer had a nasty habit of crashing repeatedly without any outward sign of hardware failure.

On my arrival, the user was wearing a sheepish expression and pleading complete innocence to any and all wrongdoing where the machine was concerned, despite the fact that, to paraphrase Monty Python, it had: "…kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibule!! THIS WAS AN EX-COMPUTER!’."

I had examined the machine following previous mysterious crashes, but now I noticed a strange new thing; whereas before its innards had been quite dusty, now they were looking positively polished.

There now follows a rough transcript of my conversation with the user: 

“Have you opened this case in the last couple of days?”
“Err… yes, I give it a bit of a clean yesterday.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, you know… it were looking a bit dusty inside like.”
“I see. And how did you clean it?”
“Oh I hoovered it.”
“With a little handheld vacuum cleaner?”
“Oh no… with me Dyson.”
“Ah… Could you have dislodged something while you were in there?”
“Oh no, I were careful like.”
“Right, so you’re sure nothing got moved or knocked?”
“Well, I did take off that box thingy.” (Points to heat sink)
“Did you unclip it before you took it off?”
“Oh yes, I were very careful.” 

At this stage, being pretty sure that the computer had suffered static-electricity death at the hands of a Dyson, I decided to have a look at the heat sink, just in case it wasn’t seated properly.  After unclipping it, the first thing I noticed was the attached (to the heat sink) AMD Athlon 64 processor, glued into place by dried out heat-sink paste. The second thing I noticed was the fact that the processor locking bracket was in the ‘Locked’ position, which meant that the processor was not supposed to leave its socket, not undamaged at any rate.

“Did it come apart like this when you were cleaning it?”
“Yes, and it were a right bugger to get back in.”
“…!”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” 

I won’t repeat what I said next, but it involved a lot of self-control.

In his defence though, he did try to straighten the bent pins on the processor before calling me.

As it turned out, the client had an intense fascination with the inner workings of the PC and this was not the first time he’d rooted around in there, which quite neatly explained the mysterious crashes.