Hey Folks,
I don't work on a lot of machines these days, but my bench tech had me take a look at a problem computer. Originally came in because the client said it was infected. We put it on the bench and it wouldn't POST. I pulled the CMOS battery and let it sit for a bit, put it back in and restarted, system now boots! Performed a few restarts of the system to verify it booted reliability. Find the infections and give the client an estimate to fix.
Work gets approved, we remove the infections, perform a tune up and do the usual things we do. Everything is fine. We shut down the system, then my bench tech realized he forgot to do something. He puts it back on the bench and turns it on, won't post again. Tried resetting CMOS again, no dice. tried resetting via moving the jumper on the board. still no dice. Removed all RAM sticks and add-in cards, swapped power supply with a new one as a test, still nothing. Computer won't POST.
We explained to the customer that the board seems to have failed, I find a replacement and offer to replace it for my cost on the board with no additional labor costs. Customer agrees, i order the board.
Board arrives today, we install it, system boots, no issues. system locks up 2 minutes after. Upon rebooting, it won't post again!
At this point, the only thing I can think of is that their power supply is also faulty (possibly took out the original board, and now this new one).
How do you guys typically handle this? We performed this disinfection which is obviously a software issue, but now its clearly become a hardware problem. My thoughts are that this now also needs a new power supply. I can see my client starting to question it, even if I offer it at my cost. With the price escalating, they could decide they no longer want to fix this computer and purchase a new one instead. But this puts me in a bad spot since I've already done a decent amount of work to this computer.
How do you guys handle situations like this?
Gotta love Fridays!
I don't work on a lot of machines these days, but my bench tech had me take a look at a problem computer. Originally came in because the client said it was infected. We put it on the bench and it wouldn't POST. I pulled the CMOS battery and let it sit for a bit, put it back in and restarted, system now boots! Performed a few restarts of the system to verify it booted reliability. Find the infections and give the client an estimate to fix.
Work gets approved, we remove the infections, perform a tune up and do the usual things we do. Everything is fine. We shut down the system, then my bench tech realized he forgot to do something. He puts it back on the bench and turns it on, won't post again. Tried resetting CMOS again, no dice. tried resetting via moving the jumper on the board. still no dice. Removed all RAM sticks and add-in cards, swapped power supply with a new one as a test, still nothing. Computer won't POST.
We explained to the customer that the board seems to have failed, I find a replacement and offer to replace it for my cost on the board with no additional labor costs. Customer agrees, i order the board.
Board arrives today, we install it, system boots, no issues. system locks up 2 minutes after. Upon rebooting, it won't post again!
At this point, the only thing I can think of is that their power supply is also faulty (possibly took out the original board, and now this new one).
How do you guys typically handle this? We performed this disinfection which is obviously a software issue, but now its clearly become a hardware problem. My thoughts are that this now also needs a new power supply. I can see my client starting to question it, even if I offer it at my cost. With the price escalating, they could decide they no longer want to fix this computer and purchase a new one instead. But this puts me in a bad spot since I've already done a decent amount of work to this computer.
How do you guys handle situations like this?
Gotta love Fridays!
