What is the worst machine you've ever worked on?

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 8:38 am

I don't do that much work on other peoples machines but yesterday I was asked to have a look at a mates machine.

Good god if only i knew what i was getting myself into. I think its the same one they designed Stonehenge on.

Single core Pentium processor putting out a mind blowing 1.4GHZ, 128 Mb Ram. Win2000

He asked me if i could make it go faster. I told him only if I dropped it from a great height.

I sent it back with some L-shaped brackets and told him it will make a nice shelf.

So in say the last 2 years, whats the worst machine you've had the misfortune of working on.

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 9:54 am

Not 6 months ago I was called out to the middle of nowhere where I encountered a windows 98 machine. It wasn't even 1ghz. It had 128 megs of ram and a 10 gig hard drive.

Not too mention the whole inside was choked up with enough dust and dog hair to kill several large hoofed animals ...( for a brief moment I thought a small dog had actually somehow crawled inside of the case and died. )
As I stood there mouth gaping open at the wonders of the living dinosaur before my eyes. I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to make it work properly with the brand new digital camera their son had bought them.

It took me nearly an hour to calmly explain to them they needed a new computer, I was finally only able to convince them by plugging the new camera into my own aging laptop and showing them how it instantly worked.

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 10:11 am

Crooked_Ferret wrote:

Not too mention the whole inside was choked up with enough dust and dog hair to kill several large hoofed animals ...( for a brief moment I thought a small dog had actually somehow crawled inside of the case and died.)

I just spilled my drink. Laughing

thats what this machine was like. Piles and piles of dust and what i can only assume was large human skin particles. ewww

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 11:05 am

My boy bring's home this computer one of his buddies gave him, and he's all wanting me to take a look at it. My first reaction was phew " this thing smells of cat piss" and my boy is " ya they have a bunch of cats over there." So I open it up and not only did it have cat litter/shit but there was a nest of roaches up in there. I pitched it out the back door, and told him to hose it off and after it dried if it still worked i would mess with it. Several days latter and a couple of coats of disinfectant I fired it up and it was a 800 mghz pentium 3 system with 128 ram . Put a fresh install of xp , a wireless card and another stick of 128. That was last summer,and they still use it daily.

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 9:33 am

I don't have horror stories myself, since whenever I help someone it's software (hardware isn't my thing, I hated building my previous computer. I'm sure I've had a couple face_palm moments with software related tech help).

However, before I got my previous computer (about 2 years, 2.5 months ago), I was using an aging beast with a whopping 450MHz Pentium III CPU with 100MB of D-Ram with Windows XP (previously Windows 98. I still remember, way back when, I thought XP was too user friendly and such, I was used to Windows 98's setup XD). Took about a decade to boot up, as you might expect. Also, for a looong time before I stopped using it, the HDD was making dying noises (HDD revving up noise mixed with a sort of squee-gee sound).

Lol, my family used an even crappier computer (350Mhz), and they kept it until several years ago they finally upgraded for my Stepdad's job (he got accepted to the working over the net option).

Even back then, it was a bit weak though, at least the CPU was (1.8GHz dual core). They had problems using Windows Vista or something (not playing nice with the work server software or something), so they're now stuck on Windows XP.

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:20 am

The PC I once assembled..10 years ago. It was a time assassin!

http://isohunt.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1722541#1722541

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:20 am

Way back in the day my dad bought an IBM. It had Win 95 and if memory serves a 75 MHz processor and I think it had 32 Mb ram.

Guess what?

He still has it and it still works. Granted its about as fast as bike with no wheels but still...kinda impressive. Very Happy

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:36 am

Back when I was 15 I found an old computer in my school's storage. Was curious if it still worked. It was a 486 with a stunning 100MHz clock speed and I think 32Mb Ram. It had two and I repeat TWO 5.25'' Floppy Disk readers. Obviously it had DOS on it xD

And yeah it still worked (amazing!). I think those things go back to 1989 or something

Edit: I even played the first ever made Prince of Persia on it:

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 11:42 am

Anarhopunk wrote:

Back when I was 15 I found an old computer in my school's storage. Was curious if it still worked. It was a 486 with a stunning 100MHz clock speed and I think 32Mb Ram. It had two and I repeat TWO 5.25'' Floppy Disk readers. Obviously it had DOS on it xD

And yeah it still worked (amazing!). I think those things go back to 1989 or something

Edit: I even played the first ever made Prince of Persia on it:

...you played the original PoP?
My opinion of you just increased, anyone that could tolerate the nightmare that was the original prince of persia deserves a moderate level of recognition.

...I should know I finished it twice Smile

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:24 pm

I think it was when my friend had Windows Vista with 512MB of RAM.
OMFG,
It was so slow!

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:26 pm

Hahaha thanks Crooked_Ferret. I too remember it was a nightmare playing it. I also remember playing some car games like Lotus the ultimate challenge and Ford Simulator.
Ah memories Smile

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:26 pm

I don't know why people insist on upgrading computers that obviously can't handle it, then people with awesome systems will for reasons completely beyond me insist on sticking with xp. Limiting 80% of the potential of their brand new 800 dollar graphics card.

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 4:15 am

I was the first person in Maryborough in QLD to own a P233 with 32 MB SD ram and a mega huge humongous 6.6 Gb Hard disk (Quantum Fireball) - my mate had a Quantum Bigfoot 4.4 gb at the time. We used to make a RAMDRIVE and run DOOM & Duke 3d off it to make it run in (LOL) hi-res...

A guy wanted a copy of Doom but he only had 4 or 5 mb left on his IDE hard disk (no such thing as a portable drive then) so I said, dont worry mate I'll zip it up. He goes... ah no mate I dont have all day... I ran it and it zipped up the whole 8 mb to about 4 mb in less than 10 minutes Smile

it took about 45 mins to run an install using the Win98 CD. and my record I think was about 30 times in one week... (better than running the 30 or so 1.44 floppies i needed for win95 in my previous 486 w/8mb - my first Internet computer)

but the WORST computer was about 10 years ago when I was working at a shop.

The guy brings it in and says "the computer plays the Fleur de-lise in the middle of the night - even when the computer is switched off"

bugger off I sez... that a load of crapola... I sez... (to myself - i take his money and say "I'll look into it" thinking hes a nutter)

I looked through his drive and deleted the demo MIDI of Fl D-L that came with 98 back then and thought, problem solved...

then the next day, his box is sitting in the row of other computers ready to be picked up, leads safely curled up on top of it... when suddenly (and very rudely i thought) it started to beep out the frigging Fleur De-Lise!!! I nearly gagged so hard I'm sure the ppl I was chatting with on ICQ thought I'd fell off me stool...

turns out (after much researching and gnashing of teeth) that it is the motherboard warning you that the battery was running low (or something like that - cant really remember now)... Thought I'd seen it all but that blew me away.... - changed the battery and as far as I know- no more weird beeping muzak in the middle of the night.

---

But then (in 02-03) I tried to work on this older model Hewlett Packard pile of utter dog turd bullsh&t that wouldn't accept my genuine Win98 install CD because it wasn't a HP install disk!!!! B4stards! Still hate HP for that! Told the lady HP was sh&t and had the GM of HP call me at home to bitch to me about my attitude. I told him his hardware sucked and hung up on him... Last i heard of him or HP - refused to work on them afterwards.

then there was the porn computer .... he he he his HD broke and he brought it to me and asked if I could salvage it... I did... Smile

... pulled like 12 gigs of ripe porn from his box and replaced his cpu... nice fix that one...

Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 12:09 am

High4life wrote:

He asked me if i could make it go faster. I told him only if I dropped it from a great height.

You made my day. I couldn't stop laughing for 3 min or so.

cbdude wrote:

then the next day, his box is sitting in the row of other computers ready to be picked up, leads safely curled up on top of it... when suddenly (and very rudely i thought) it started to beep out the frigging Fleur De-Lise!!! I nearly gagged so hard I'm sure the ppl I was chatting with on ICQ thought I'd fell off me stool...

Lol.
I love this topic!

Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 12:25 am

hey BqT - good to see your enjoying it Smile

just FYI though the mods hate it when you 'double post' - you should use the EDIT button instead...

but me never mind...

cheers matie
c.