Thanksgiving with family= me fixing everyones computers

yup Im stuck troubleshooting for the fam.

Computer number 1
A dell Optiplex gx 270
Thing needed a good cleaning. Still needs a new processor fan. And it wont recognize either any usb's or usb mouse or PS/2 mouse.
Already checked the bios and everything looks good.

Computer 2 he
another dell is my uncles sons computer. for some reason cd-rom drive wont always read his game disc. I already tried updating drivers and all other forms of cd including other games work in his pc. So I thought it was the disc. But the disc boots 100% of the time in my laptop.

yay for working for free on thanksgiving....

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Comments

slinuxuzer

you might want to become more evasive about what you do for a living, people don't realize reloading their PC for four hours on the weekend for free isn't fun. I love to help people, but this situation got so bad in my life at one point I couldn't take it anymore, before long I was doing work for people I didn't even know, come to think of it, I completly rebuilt a domain for a guy a couple months ago I'd never laid eyes on, funny he paid a guy 350 to fix his issue, the guy took his money and ran. He offered to pay me, but I felt so bad because he got ripped off I didn't charge him.

Dragonranger

Yeah appearently saying youre studying computers college means 'hey my nephew can fix anything including my sons Wii.' I working on junk box 1 still and in safe mode. This thing just took 20 min to load add remove programs....

echo465

On one hand, I can always say, 'sorry, I work in vmware and Cisco switches all day, I've never even used Windows 7'.

On the other hand, I'm thankful that I have had the opportunity and capacity to be "good with computers".

SteveLord

I sure hope they aren't "thankful" for you today since you're whining about it behind their backs to the internet. Geez.

colemic

pc1 - tell them it is too old to fix (or not worth the effort)

pc2 - tell them the CD drive is bad and can't be replaced.

tpatt100

I joked one year way back when I told a family member "sure ill fix your PC as soon as you change the oil and rotate the tires on my car". This was a person who always told me I should learn how to do basic maintenance on my car.... He thought I was joking but now a days I rarely do much in the realm of fixing desktops.

vCole

I'm pretty lucky, my mom makes sure to deflect the family from asking me. I've trained both my parents to be fairly self sufficient when it comes to their tech stuff. (They have a desktop, laptop, Kindle, iPad, Wii and Xbox 360.)

My mom just tells everyone I'm way too busy, and they can ask me directly if they're planning to pay/compensate for my time. 9/10 times, they just don't ask.

swild

Family sucks. I decided to stop talking to mine, told them as much. Didn't answer the phone. Listened to voicemails for a few months, called them when it actually sounded dire, it never was. Then one night, about 10pm, they came knocking at my gate, unannounced, saying they weren't leaving until I let them in. So, I did the only reasonable thing I could think of: I called the cops.

Haven't heard much since then. Occaisionally I will still get a birthday or christmas card, but thats about all.

I am thankful for not having family to put me deeper into debt, to ask my opinion and never use it, to only talk to me when they need their digital device fixed, to whine and complain about the sucktastic situation they put themselves in because they didn't use my advice, etc.

I am thankful to have my inlaws that I really do like more than my family, most of all my mother-in-law.

I am thankful to be married to the black sheep of the black sheep of the family.

oh, and the GX is too old, and the other one needs to have the optical drive cleaned or replaced. A can of air can do wonders, just make sure to remove it from the pc and let it sit for several hours before plugging it back up. I learned that lesson the hard way. kablooie.

xenodamus

I used to do alot of side work, paid for friends and labor free for family.

I still work on family junk labor free, but as my career has progressed I just don't have time to do the paid side work. I try to make time for family tech problems because I know that they would all do the same for me. Not all of them have skills, but when I need a few backs to move some furniture, all I have to do is ask. That's what it's all about. As long as people appreciate your help and are there for you when you need them, it's worth it.

Plantwiz

colemic wrote: »

pc1 - tell them it is too old to fix (or not worth the effort)

pc2 - tell them the CD drive is bad and can't be replaced.

OR,

simply fix it with the supply of old parts you have already laying around.

The easiest thing would be to politely let them know that they could bring it by your office and your fees are 'x'.

Or, how about simply being honest and saying that you no longer work on computers on your free time, but you can recommend a place where they may take their machines.

apr911

xenodamus wrote: »

I used to do alot of side work, paid for friends and labor free for family.

I still work on family junk labor free, but as my career has progressed I just don't have time to do the paid side work. I try to make time for family tech problems because I know that they would all do the same for me. Not all of them have skills, but when I need a few backs to move some furniture, all I have to do is ask. That's what it's all about. As long as people appreciate your help and are there for you when you need them, it's worth it.

+1

Most of the free family work I do, I do because I know they would be there for me if I need them. I rarely ask for payment from family but they often times pay me for my work anyway.

There are still a few family members that Ive had to take a tougher line with though and either request payment or refuse to do their computer work because they've abused the privilege.

Ive also drawn the line when it comes to family businesses. You may be family, you may own the business but it is still a business so no I will not redesign your company's website for free or fix your company's servers for free, I will try to help but if it takes me more than an hour, you'll be paying me my contracted rate for services.

Same thing goes for friends, Ill take a quick look for free but if it takes me more than an hour we are talking about my rates.

Another reason why I do it is because some of my family members know enough about IT to be dangerous and/or Ive set them up in some sort of custom configuration that cant be fixed/managed by the normal support techs that are sent out to the house or work at bestbuy, etc.

My dad is a prime example of this and my parents home network even more so. We have a custom configuration because we have too many devices and the standard verizon fios router isnt capable of adequately supporting the devices, so Ive set up Cisco switch, a DD-WRT enabled router, VPN so I can login and fix things, wireless roaming, QoS, DYDNS, etc. Without fail, whenever there is a problem, my dad calls up verizon before calling me (because he doesnt want to trouble me), they send out a tech who goes and disconnects everything so that the Verizon router is back in front.

Without fail that breaks things further since vlan tagging no longer functions, the switch port-channel no longer functions correctly, and I can no longer log in to at least partially fix it because DYDNS and VPN are down. My parents are forced to live with it until the next time I come home and can reconfigure the network (usually about once every 6 months). The standing order in the house now is to call me for any and all networking issues.

colemic

Plantwiz wrote: »

OR,

simply fix it with the supply of old parts you have already laying around.

The easiest thing would be to politely let them know that they could bring it by your office and your fees are 'x'.

Or, how about simply being honest and saying that you no longer work on computers on your free time, but you can recommend a place where they may take their machines.

Except I don't have any supply of old parts laying around. The Army banned 270s from their networks over 2 years ago, and if they say they are too old to fix, then they truly are not worth the effort.

The easiest thing for me to do is just tell them that I don't work on PCs anymore. (I really don't).

altjx

Dragonranger wrote: »

Yeah appearently saying youre studying computers college means 'hey my nephew can fix anything including my sons Wii.' I working on junk box 1 still and in safe mode. This thing just took 20 min to load add remove programs....

LOL. I know how you guys feel and it can become annoying. As someone said above as well, as I've progressed in the field, I don't feel like putting in a Windows OS disc anymore and dealing with it. Not that it's hard, but it's boring. It was all fun and games when I just started college and got my A+. I'd prefer someone coming to me with some questions regarding their Cisco equipment now. I hardly ever want to be bothered going grab another power supply from the store.

TechJunky

Don't worry, you werent alone. Girlfriends mom's computer hard drisk crashed. I had to buy a new one, reload everything... It's a slow computer so it took all day to do updates etc.

She gets on the computer and within 2 minutes she gets a virus... Mind you she has antivirus already... She did the "allow button". So needless to say I spent 2 days basically doing nothing but PC work.

There wasn't enough beer or good food to compensate.

altjx

TechJunky wrote: »

Don't worry, you werent alone. Girlfriends mom's computer hard drisk crashed. I had to buy a new one, reload everything... It's a slow computer so it took all day to do updates etc.

She gets on the computer and within 2 minutes she gets a virus... Mind you she has antivirus already... She did the "allow button". So needless to say I spent 2 days basically doing nothing but PC work.

There wasn't enough beer or good food to compensate.

Lmao! I've had clients that experienced the same thing. Talk about annoying.

I remember specifically one lady called me 3-4 times in the matter of 2 weeks to fix the same virus. Each time, I've wiped & reloaded, restored nothing as it was only meant for games. Those "we only use it for games" clients are always downloading viruses.

So, after the third or fourth time removing the virus, I TeamViewer'd into her machine the minute we got it reloaded and told her to do what she normally does so I can watch her. She always tell me she's not doing anything to get it. Come to find out, she's downloading this well known "PC AntiVirus 2011" software that I told her 1k times to avoid if seen. I eventually handed her off to a friend.

IEWANNABE

So many people wish they had your skills! Helping others will go a long way towards a smoother road in your own life. Consider it a service to humanity. You DO get rewared for your selfless acts...often times, we just don't know or realize it.

chrisone

IEWANNABE wrote: »

So many people wish they had your skills! Helping others will go a long way towards a smoother road in your own life. Consider it a service to humanity. You DO get rewared for your selfless acts...often times, we just don't know or realize it.

True but keep an eye out for those who will use you and take advantage of your generosity. There is nothing wrong in life for being rewarded for your hard work and efforts. God made the earth for you to plant a seed and be rewarded with its fruits.

Learn how to say no, it is a healthy habit in many psychologists writings.

universalfrost

i used to fix the family PC's and even built a few machines for some family members.

I got real tired of it when I spent a week at one family members house completely rebuilding their machine (hardware and software) got it up and running fine and then they went and bought a new machine as soon as I left. Only reason they wanted the old machine fixed was so they could sell it. .... at that point I actually sent them a bill for my time (I was on vacation at the time visiting family back stateside while i was stationed overseas).... I now never help anyone out while on vacation back home and they know not to ask me because word quickly spread about how po'd I was at the one relative.

to this day I will help them verbally and anything beyond that i point them to staples or best buy.

cyberguypr

universalfrost wrote: »

i used to fix the family PC's and even built a few machines for some family members.

I got real tired of it when I spent a week at one family members house completely rebuilding their machine (hardware and software) got it up and running fine and then they went and bought a new machine as soon as I left. Only reason they wanted the old machine fixed was so they could sell it. .... at that point I actually sent them a bill for my time (I was on vacation at the time visiting family back stateside while i was stationed overseas).... I now never help anyone out while on vacation back home and they know not to ask me because word quickly spread about how po'd I was at the one relative.

to this day I will help them verbally and anything beyond that i point them to staples or best buy.

No good deed goes unpunished. That's why I always wear the same shirt to family gatherings...

IEWANNABE

chrisone wrote: »

True but keep an eye out for those who will use you and take advantage of your generosity. There is nothing wrong in life for being rewarded for your hard work and efforts. God made the earth for you to plant a seed and be rewarded with its fruits.

Learn how to say no, it is a healthy habit in many psychologists writings.

I agree 100%! You don't want to be a doormat. In fact, if they're sincere about needing your help...it's a good time to teach them a thing or two and help them before more proficient. Who knows..they may become hooked!

IEWANNABE

universalfrost wrote: »

i used to fix the family PC's and even built a few machines for some family members.

I got real tired of it when I spent a week at one family members house completely rebuilding their machine (hardware and software) got it up and running fine and then they went and bought a new machine as soon as I left. Only reason they wanted the old machine fixed was so they could sell it. .... at that point I actually sent them a bill for my time (I was on vacation at the time visiting family back stateside while i was stationed overseas).... I now never help anyone out while on vacation back home and they know not to ask me because word quickly spread about how po'd I was at the one relative.

to this day I will help them verbally and anything beyond that i point them to staples or best buy.

It's unfortunate that most often, it's family members and friends that will do you wrong quicker than a stranger. It's certainly happened to me before, but I try not to let those things make me so cynical that I won't help others in need. Every situation is different, and so we must make our own call as we sit fit.

Cpl.Klinger

If it's immediate family, I will generally fix it/offer advice. But if it goes beyond that, or to a friend of a friend kind of deal, then I had better be getting paid, preferably in cash. Either way, it's known not to ask for it to be done during a family event. I also will trade for services. I've worked on several machines for a relative, and in exchange he helped me put new shocks/struts on my car.

IEWANNABE

That's a good idea ^... in fact a lot of people within some communities are trading services with each other instead of paying with cash or credit.