I was an apple tech for a time. With iPads that were out of warranty (basically go buy a new one or GTFO) and exhibiting a certain display issue, I would take it in the back and slam the thing on a counter at a certain angle. Worked every time for that particular problem.

Stopped using the PC for a week. Came back and an update came out and everything was good. Sometimes theres nothing you can do.

First things first: if people call me they really have a problem and 9 times out of 10 it is not their fault. But, me standing next to the machine while they reproduce the problem "fixes" it about half the time.

Seems like random glitches that only last a minute or two.

I have possibly the dumbest workaround to anything in history

bindntr=CTRL,C,exec,hyprctl activewindow | rg -q "class: Wfica" && ( sleep 0.02 && hyprctl closewindow class:alacrittyclipboard ; alacritty -qq --config-file ~/.config/alacritty/alacrittyclipboard.toml --class 'alacrittyclipboard' --title 'Office 365 Desktop (SSL/TLS Secured, 256 bit)' -e sh -c 'sleep 0.03 && xclip -o | copyq copy - ; copyq clipboard | xclip -i' ) & ( sleep 0.2 && closewindow class:alacrittyclipboard )

windowrulev2 = float,class:(alacrittyclipboard) 

windowrulev2 = stayfocused,class:(alacrittyclipboard) 

windowrulev2 = noborder,class:(alacrittyclipboard) 

windowrulev2 = noanim,class:(alacrittyclipboard) 

windowrulev2 = noblur,class:(alacrittyclipboard) 

windowrulev2 = opacity 0,class:(alacrittyclipboard) 

windowrulev2 = maxsize 1 1,class:(alacrittyclipboard) 

allow me to explain this monstrocity... the clipboard in citrix workspace is broken in a stupid way

it doesn't update the system clipboard unless you move focus away from the window... and out of focus windows can't update the clipboard for security reasons... this makes it so that if I hit ctrl c when citrix is open it opens a terminal window that's tiny, invisible and steals focus that essentially forces the clipboard to work.

nonsense hack, but it works

Lots of percussive maintenance going on around here, but one that sticks in my mind was testing some of the first 486DX PCs in 1990. One particular specimen from Compaq would only boot after hard power off by taking the lid off and tapping the CPU with a screwdriver. Worked fine after that.

Smacked the shit out of our old CRT TV, worked!

I have revived multiple computers and my mom's windshield wipers with concussive application of a rubber chicken.

For several years my pc would only turn on while at a 45degree angle, not on its side and not upright but tilted 45degrees. After it turned on I could put it back and it'd be fine.

Eventually I moved and the pc ended up upside down and shaken, I put it down and a screw fell out of the psu. Problem solved!

Had a dvd player that would skip all the time even if it was a brand new dvd. Got pissed off and threw it at the wall. Girlfriend plugged it back in a couple hours later and it never skipped again.

Maybe not dumb just dark and absurd, but called the cops.

Worked at a retail computer store with repair shop. Extremely assholish customer drops off his machine for an install of a "defective" piece of hardware he couldn't manage to install on his own, arguing that install should be free because it's our fault, somehow. Service manager cuts him a deal anyway just to make him happy.

He drops off his PC. Tech takes the machine, boots it up, bam... CSAM on his desktop. Cops came and got the PC, never saw the piece of shit again.

Actually this happened a few times but only once was the customer rude at first.

Retail is depressing.

In my early 20s I had a part-time job as a pizza delivery driver. When there were no deliveries, I would answer phones or take orders at the counter. One day one of the touchscreen monitors at the counter stopped working. It was just black all the time. So we were told not to use it.

A few days later I was on lunch shift and bored, I was trying random things to see if I could fix the monitor. Switched the inputs, switched to a different VGA cable, etc. At one point I discovered the touch panel was still working, I could interact with the OS, even though nothing was displaying. I was pressing around different areas of the screen and I accidentally found that pressing right in the centre of the screen caused the display to re-appear! It would disappear again after a few seconds. Press that spot again, it came back. I was fascinated by this, I showed some coworkers, they didn't care.

Over the course of the day it was getting harder to make the display re-appear. It gradually needed to be pressed quite forcefully to come back. I started using my knuckles to knock sharply on the spot, and that was working.

When my manager arrived for the night shift, I was excited to show him my discovery. I said "hey man, I kinda fixed this monitor, watch this!" And I enthusiastically knocked hard on the centre of the screen with my first. The LCD lit up and showed the display, but at the same time shattered in a rainbow ring the shape of my fist.

The look on my manager's face was of awe and horror. I was trying to explain what I had meant to do, but I realised what it must've looked like to him. "Hey man, watch me fix this monitor!" Before smashing the screen with a swift punch. It wasn't possible to explain it a way that didn't sound crazy.

In the end I convinced him that the monitor was faulty anyway, and we were going to replace it anyway, so my accident breaking it more is not a big deal.

Definitely just poking a stick inside a printer

When I worked as an intern in a fancy restaurant I had my workspace in the kitchen below the radio (which was always on when we were prepping). I had braces at the time and the general opinion was, that I was functioning as an extension to the antenna. The radio was only working when I stood at one specific spot (or when I was not present at all).

The old televisions. Used to be able to get a better signal by sticking a paper clip in the back; and then taking another paper clip and bending it so it can connect to the first while gripping a butterknife

Beating things up in hopes it works. Its weird how often it worked

Around 2013-2014ish when the fake FBI viruses when commen, I worked at a tech help desk at my university fixing student computers.

We didn't have a bootable virus scan avaliable but I discovered it you ctrl-alt-deleted you could tell the system to log out, it would close everything and log out.

but if during a split second when the device was turning on before the virus blocked the screen and actions you opened a word doc or something,

then when you logged out it would close everything (including the virus's window that was blocking the screen) but the word doc and ask if you wanted to save the document first. By hitting cancel it would stop the logout completely and we could run the various virus scans to get rid of it.

Took an angle grinder to a mini-ITX case to fit a full ATX size board in it.
The board is resting unsecured on an anti-static bag and has a few mm of wiggleroom.
The powersupply is resting, unsecured to anything, on top of the PCIe lanes.
The rear fan is pressed up against the back grill by cables.
The harddrives are just kinda chilling where-ever.
The cables are routed with hopes and dreams.

This is a hypervisor and is the backbone of all my infrastructure.

At a previous job we were swapping a ton of laptops out with newer models and at the end of it the boss let us know that we could keep some of the old ones for ourselves if we wanted. Everyone then set about to re-imaging their designated laptop only to find that there was some Dell encryption on the drive that functionally bricked it if you didn't unlock it before you formatted it (I don't remember the specifics but none of us were able to figure out how to bypass this). We only had one laptop left that hadn't been touch and still had the app necessary to unencrypt them but there was only one hard drive slot so I ended up pulling the dvd drive out and sticking a sata cable in the slot for that and using an old PSU off the shelf and jumping it to actually power the drive. It was incredibly janky but it worked.

Was playing Pokemon Platinum trying to catch Rotom while a friend was struggling to get his Nintendo DS to read a game cartridge. Part of catching Rotom is walking up to old electronics in a haunted building and smacking it, including an old CRT TV. Since my friend was still struggling with his DS after I caught Rotom, I walked up to the old CRT in the room we were in and thumped it with my hand on the side. His DS started working again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Coworker's story: Trying to fix a prototype in a hotel room at a European trade show. Soldering iron on hand, but it was a 120V iron and glowed white hot when plugged into a 240V outlet.

So they had one person solder and the other person keep unplugging and replugging the iron from the wall at roughly 50% duty cycle.

I’m a web applications developer…. So a lot. But here’s the king of dumb shit fixes I’ve done. Back in the days of VGA a few friends and I met up with some other dudes for a counter strike LAN party. Everyone’s hauling their towers in and if you were lucky, your heavy as fuck 17” CRT. So I set up and my monitor won’t work. Has power, no signal. Switch from the gpu vga port to the integrated one and it works. Switch back to gpu and it works as long as I hold it in a weird position. So it’s all fine, just the connection is wearing out. For some reason I figure a little moisture will help so I lick the vga plug, reattach it and it totally solved the problem.

So yeah, I licked a gpu into working again.

An ice tray to cold down a router.

I changed ISP, the new one told me that it would take like a week to send me the credentials to use my own ADSL router 🙄, in the meantime I had to use the cheap-ass one they provided.

The new service crashed like after five minutes of use, after some some back and force with the technical support unsuccessfully I notice that the router was extremely hot when the connection crashed and normal when it started to work again.

It has not any cooling system, and being in the middle of the summer didn’t help either.

So…. I tried to put an ice tray from the freezer on the router and it worked. To be “safe” I put a plastic bag between them to avoid any condensation dripping onto the device.

My coworker was frustrated that his laptop kept shutting down randomly, going to sleep while he was typing. I looked at his wrists and asked if he was wearing magnetic bracelet, which was 100% the cause. Laptop has magnet sensors to detect the lid was closing, so it went to sleep. His destress (/s) tool became the source of considerable stress until I figured that out

Friend's desktop was so fried from Kazaa and Limewire, that he couldn't even open a Windows explorer window. Ended up opening Notepad and copying all of his files to a thumbdrive using the file open dialog box before reformatting.

I have two… these are from the old days of computing :)

One: guy said his monitor was showing wavy lines on the screen (old CRT monitor days). Went to his office, looked at his monitor. Sure enough wavy lines. Looked the top of his monitor. Removed the clock sitting on top of said monitor, no more wavy lines. Don’t put electric clocks on CRT monitors folks.

Two: working in a school system. Just before classes started. Get a call “none of the computers turn on”. Go to the classroom. Check a few machines. Machines “turned on” but didn’t boot the OS. Listen to one of the machines… hmmm, no drive noise. Tap it with the back of a screwdriver. Drive spins up, computer boots. Later found out that it was a semi-known problem with Seagate drives. If they sat to long without use, the heads would get stuck.