A day in the life of a computer repair tech

File Cleaner Alert gog.exe Virus – Leisure World, MD – 20906

Bob — Sat, 07 May 2011 13:08:52 +0000

Jim K. on Interlachen Dr. — sorry that your curiousity got the better of you. You just had to open that piece of spam. You won’t do that again too soon.

Regardless I am glad I was able to help.

Jim’s problem was that when he would turn on the computer, and try to log in, his desktop would bring up only a splash screen, generated by the gog.exe virus.

Ugh a virus

Luckily, although annoying, I was able to get past it and banish it without too much trouble. Jim – sorry your McAfee did not get it, before you were infected, but at least cleaning it up was not terribly difficult. But as we discussed, your computer is close to being obsolete. Next time there is a problem, lets really work on getting you a new computer, and moving your data from the old to the new. A single core P4 with 512 MB of RAM, just does not cut it any longer.

No Sound – Leisure World MD – 20906 – Silver Spring

Bob — Sat, 07 May 2011 12:58:14 +0000

Mark L. of Beaverbrook Ct, your problem had me stumped for just a a few seconds. Seemed as if the switch on your speakers was busted … but luckily I always try to have my own laptop handy, and could rule that out.

Lucky for you, your computer had two sound cards. An on-board Realtek, and an add-on C-Media card. Seems like the add-on card was dead, so it was good to be able to move to the on-board. Of course we could have replaced the c-media card, with another, but since you simply want to hear the normal computer sounds, the on-board Realtek sound card, should be just fine.

NO Internet Access – Leisure World, MD – 20906 – Silver Spring

Bob — Sat, 07 May 2011 12:48:57 +0000

Sometimes NO INTERNET ACCESS is not a virus, not a hardware, problem, or a software problem. Sometimes the Internet Service Provider, is simply not providing the signal. And sometimes that is because the service is not turned on.

I try to look to the simplest, and most obvious solutions first. So when your DSL light kept flashing …

turned off router/modem … waited … turned on … waited for boot process to complete
still the DSL light was flashing
try again
still the DSL light was flashing

In each case there was not even any evidence of it “training”. So what to do? Call Verizon. Bernard K, I am not sure where there was a misunderstanding between you and Verizon, but I am glad we resolved it. Sorry that you have to wait until next Tuesday to get your DSL back on, but at least in our discussion with Verizon we were able to lower your rates.

Laptop Repair Leisure World – 20906 – Silver Spring

Bob — Sat, 07 May 2011 12:32:30 +0000

Today started off by on a positive note. Returned George B’s laptop to him, and his wife on S. Leisure World Blvd. It was a hardware problem, we were able to get him a new motherboard for $50. It was an older laptop, and one that had been quite popular, so parts were readily available.

The laptop seemed dead. There was no power to the laptop at all. We could have repaired the power chips, but a replacement motherboard was cheaper ( in this case ), so that is the way we went on this.

ROOTKIT virus removal Gaithersburg, Maryland – 20878

Bob — Thu, 05 May 2011 11:56:09 +0000

B.K. of Gaithersburg, I am glad I was able to help you get rid of that nasty rookit virus. It was a nasty one where even running our normal set of tools did not quite do it. I had to re-write the master boot sector to finally get it clean.

Keep in mind, if this happens again, we can send you our Watza Emergency Repair and Recover disk. Boot from our emergency disk, and we can then scan for even the most persistent viruses remotely, even fix the boot sector !!

Regardless, I am glad I was able to help, and you seemed to be off and running virus free, when I left.

Computer Help – Montgomery Village, MD – 20877

Bob — Thu, 05 May 2011 11:48:21 +0000

C.M. of Montgomery Village, sorry that Verizon changed their smtp mail server port without letting you know. Probably they ran on ports 25, and 587 in parallel for a long time, and it was just last week that they decided to cut off 25.

Back when they made port 587 available they probably sent you an e-mail telling you to make the change. That probably went unnoticed, and time went by. Finally last week, the mail admins cut off 25, and you could no longer send email.

Anyhow, a simple fix, you should be all set.

Secure Wireless Network – Bethesda, MD – 20816

Bob — Wed, 04 May 2011 14:15:13 +0000

This was the first time I was asked to secure a customer’s wireless network because the neighbors were complaining!

PB’s network was open to the world, and as she had only one computer, and it was reasonably secured using Norton Endpoint Protection, she was not too concerned.

Of course it is still important to secure your wireless … but she, reagardless, it was not on her radar … UNTIL

Her next door neighbor has two children, who were spending too much time on the internet. So the neighbor was trying to limit her own kids time online. They made the proper adjustments to their own router, to limit internet access … but right next door PB’s wireless was wide open.

So the kids just connected to that, and they had unfettered internet.

No longer! PB’s is secure to WPA2, with a hard to guess key.

Sorry kids, you are going to have to go back to doing your homework, and reading books .

Mouse Problem Gaithersburg – MD – 20878

Bob — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:23:09 +0000

Sometimes a mouse problem, is just a mouse problem ….

J.A. of Gaithersburg. I don’t know what to say, except sometimes a mouse problem is just a mouse problem.

Not quite sure of what you expected, I try to look at the most obvious first. You had done many good and correct things before I got there. Scanning with multiple AV’s, and anti-spyware tools, you picked good ones to try, but you did not try a new mouse.

Also, you seemed very concerned about how much this was all going to cost, but had not tried the most simple, and inexpensive solution yourself.

I am not sure why your business IT department was convinced it was something more malicious then a bad piece of hardware, but even so, why not try the most obvious thing first?

Keep in mind, the folks in your company’s IT org are smart, but they never even looked at the log files, or anything specific to their computer. They had to go on only the information you gave them, and you did not have the solution. That is not a criticisim, or you, or them. Well, really if they had said, we have no idea unless we look at it, and that is not our job, then you would have been better off. So, shoot me, but I criticize them just a tiny bit, for trying to help, when they really did not have enough information to be helpful.

I know you felt a little silly about the result, but be glad it did not seem to be a bad motherboard, or failing hard drive, or rootkit virus. Pretty sure it was just the mouse ……….

Mt Airy MD HP Business Desktop pro 3130 Numlock login problem – 21771

Bob — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:44:46 +0000

HP — you are building some very nice computers right now, but there is one little detail that you have slipped up on.

It is easy to Work Around, but it is ANNOYING.

You are shipping your business desktop pro with a very cool keyboard that does not have a separate number keyboard. It uses less desk space, and really very few computer users ( at least few of my customers), use the number kepad keys. BUT there is no BIOS setting to allow the owner of the computer to manage turning the numlock on, or not on, on bootup.

The Numlock key wants to start up locked on nums. The keypad is integrated into the normal keys on the keyboard …. so …..

If you set up win7 to not require a login/password then you can turn off numlock the first time you login, and it seems to stay off …

If you watch it while you reboot, it actually come on during the bootup process, and once your win7 desktop starts … it is off. Easy Peazy.

BUT if you follow industry standard, or turn on the HP Protect options, then you must visit the login screen during bootup.

UGH — if you watch the numlock lamp, it is lit when you are sitting at the password screen. So every time you log in, you need to click off the numlock before you type in your password ( unless you have a left-hand only password).

The keyboard IS COOL, but you must either change the BIOS to never turn on numlock, or at least change the BIOS to allow the user to manage the BIOS. Given many users never need to look at the CMOS settings, it would be best to add the option, but default it to NOT turning on num-lock.

Ironically enough I am preparing a HP ProBook 4520s for delivery to a customer. It is a well priced, 15″ screen notebook, that HAS a separate number keypad. Go Figure — a Desktop Pro 3130 with a keyboard w/out number keys, and a laptop computer with separate number keys ……

My .02 — fix the BIOS on the 3130 leaving the number keys off is a good move, and take the number keys off of most of your laptops w/ 15″ screens.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE release a BIOS update for the 3130 to address this annoying problem.

New Computer Setup In The Kentlands – Gathersburg MD – 20878 – Tschiffely Square Rd

Bob — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:45:47 +0000

P.D. I am glad we were able to help you find a good replacement for your Dell Computer. I think that in general the HP Business Desktop Pro line seems pretty solid, and well priced. In particular, the system you bought with 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard disk, and a quad core processor should work well for you for a long, long, time.

Glad we were able to help you out.