is it broke? - just hit it hard and it will work

nerdbert · l33t Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Posts: 981 Location: Berlin

Hi everyone,
you all know some rather nasty techniques to fix things - like hitting the tv or restarting windows (I'm waiting for the first windows ce operated car - will be heaps of fun)...

a friend just told me an interesting story about his old technics hifi system. The cd-drive refused to work for about two years - he had to use his cute little powerbook to listen to his music, which isn't so bad after all.

But then he bought this terrible Shakira cd (famous for its powerful copy protection) and put it in his stereo one day...
guess what? it works since then! All he has to do to is to put the shakira cd into his drive prior to putting the disc in which he wants to listen to.

I know it's strange and I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it in action. I've been thinking quite much about the logic behind all of this. Maybe they should advertise this cd as a 'cd drive repair kit'... I can't think of any better reason to buy a Shakira cd.

But there must be more stories like this and I'm quite curious to hear them... so please post your strangest/funniest repair stories here

oh and if you have a plausible explanation for the behaviour of my friends drive post it too!

bsolar · Bodhisattva Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 2764

antik · Apprentice Joined: 01 Oct 2002 Posts: 212

rac · Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2003 7:38 pm Post subject:

Here's a trick I've had some luck with for resurrecting 3.5" floppy disks.
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nerdbert · l33t Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Posts: 981 Location: Berlin

I could quote bsolar to describe my opinion about rac's floppy solution...

I used to apply similar techniques to printers at work... I must have looked like a shaman... cool

idl · Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2003 2:05 pm Post subject:

this isnt strange, but is kinda funny.....

My GFX card fan decided to break, so i got myself a spare 80mm fan and tied it to the GFX card with some string.. It worked great and I had it like that for 3 months.

Mindstab · Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2003 6:05 pm Post subject: aura

I've got some kind of aura thing going on here.
I let semi broken things sit around me in my room for a day or days or occasionally weeks and they often get some what less broken.

This was really demonstrated with an old walkman that would quite die... permently

And the odd other peice of electronics.

Maybe they just need some rest? make sure they're comfy (I store things on my guest couch like chair usually because I use hte main chair and i rarly have guest (my parentes bemoan this "a chair is for sitting") Maybe i should tell them the electronics are sitting and healing?)

broschi · Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 9:03 am Post subject:

I have an old P166MMX (5 years old?) which has a broken bios that can no longer store settings and the settings that I enabled we're quit restrictive, I wanted the most tweaked bios. It boots the hard drive before the floppy and that's a problem when the HDD comes from another computer. So I just unplug the IDE cable and when the lilo prompts come up I plug it back! I thank whatever supreme entity for not making Linux rely on the bios.
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"Is this type of thing going to happen every time we switch to improbability drive?" "Very probably I'm afraid."

EvilTwinSkippy · Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2003 6:47 am Post subject: Aura, Good Vibes, and Persuasion

Whenever I want something to break, I have to ask my wife to use it. I seem to have an improbablity field around me that allows things to work. This is of course reinforced by the fact that every time someone calls my extension with a computer related problem, it disappears as soon as they try to recreate it for me. My power extends over the phone...

But seriously, if I am in a crappy mood, nothing works. If I am in a good mood, everything works. If I am tired, everything acts like it's falling apart.

When I was growing up, my computer had a habit of crashing at just the right time for me to quick get down stairs and start working on the dishes just as my parents car pulled in the driveway. To this day my first reponse when a computer inexplicably crashes is to glance out the window.
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broschi · Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2003 8:40 am Post subject:

With anything that has a CRT on it just hit it on the side (try both) and it should work again. This technic fixed 90% of my problems whether it's a TV or computer monitor.
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"Is this type of thing going to happen every time we switch to improbability drive?" "Very probably I'm afraid."

scawa · Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2003 12:47 pm Post subject:

When I was in the military, we had a set of rack mounted com switches in one of the communications vans.

Part of the trouble shooting procedure in the Official Tech Order was to remove the switch box from the rack. stand on a stool and drop it on the van floor. Then, remount it and retest..... The switches were magnetic servos that would sometimes get stuck and dropping it on the floor would unstick them...

Gods own truth....

Scawa :lol:

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