OK this will be a little long but any opinions would be appreciated:
We have a customer who has 2xPC's. Each PC has one of our stickers on it with a unique ID identifying that PC. The First PC was in here about 12 months ago getting a board/CPU/RAM and the second PC was in here getting about 8 months ago getting a new hard drive as the old one was loaded with bad sectors.
She brought in her PC that had the HDD replaced in January claiming it kept crashing randomly and rebooting. It could happen at any time doing anything. So I proceeded to boot with "Disable Automatic Restart on System Fail" and wait for it to crash to get an error. Well 72 hours of non stop Prime95 + Everest Stress Test and its not skipped a beat.
I sent it back and it came back 2 weeks later with the same issue - apparently sometimes you had to try 10+ times to get it to boot. I set it in a boot loop and made it reboot constantly for 3 hours and not once did it fail. I then stress tested it for another 24 hours and played Unreal Tournament on it for 4 hours after work one day.
Anyway today it comes back in, STILL the same problem apparently, only this time she has a video showing it "crashing" that she took on her mobile phone. I watched it, and all I see is a computer resetting and rebooting, no flash of a BSOD or anything which is fine except - If it was random and could happen at any time, how could she possibly know when to film it for a crash? Based on what I saw its possible she hit the reset button off camera.
Now normally I wouldnt care except for this: She is one of those "You touched it once and now every problem it has is because you worked on it - it wasnt there before you touched it" types. Additionally she keeps trying to tell me we replaced the board/cpu/ram in it and that because its under 12 months she should get a new one for free. I explained to her that according to our job logs only her other PC had the motherboard replaced and despite even confirming the different unique ID with her other PC and that ID being assigned to the hardware replacement, she is insisting we replaced it and she is entitled to a free one.
Now I know for a FACT this isnt even a board we use. Its a Socket 478 PC and 2 years ago we were using Asrock 478 boards that we managed to find and in the last 18 months we have been using some MSI PM800M boards. We have never used another 478 board in that time. Our ordering history also shows this. The board in her machine is a Gigabyte board - Ive never used a Gigabyte 478 board in my entire life.
Currently the computer is on my bench and up to hour number 26 of another round of stress testing and its not skipped a beat.
does her house have dodgy electrics? annnnnnnnd make her sit there the whole day while her machine is on test so she can witness there's nothing wrong. and film her and it while you do so you have visual proof :)
Nah Ive been there, only thing plugged into it is a screen, keyboard, mouse and modem. I thought dodgy peripheral or something once too but got her to swap hardware and locations with her other PC and she reckons its the same. The other PC is perfectly stable.
If the mobo is different than what you sold her, usually thats grounds for instant cancellation of any warranty. So yeah as suggested give her an invoice imo.
Nah its not even different to what we sold as we never replaced the motherboard in this machine at any point in time. We replaced one in her OTHER machine but not this one.
But this second one was bought from you and you can bring up a sheet of the original specs? If you can, I'd invoice her for your time wastage and if she makes a fuss, the fact that shes voided your warranty by getting the mobo replaced herself should give you a good stance (only if you can prove it).
Yeah the one we DID replace the motherboard in I have a job report and matching invoice for it.
She didnt buy the second one from us, we just worked on it. It DID have the hard drive replaced by us but not the motherboard. Im going to wait for my boss to get back and ask him if I can tell her to **** off.
If she didnt get the 2nd puter off ya, did you charge her for the HDD replacement in it? If not, I reckon, make that bitch pay for your labor and stress
Tell her that you have explored every single avenue of trying to tget the PC to fault, and tell her that you've been advised to charge for all service on this machine up ot date if she wishes for you to proceed.
THen show her your service logs/invoice for work done.
yes, it never is. Have to ask Kernal about the froot loop we had at the Applecentre once - this old nut was upgrading her macintosh classic to the original iMac - part of the agreement was we would put her apps on the new machine during setup... ANNNNNNYWAY she got me in the shit because I didnt setup her apple menu (for those that dont know or have forgotten, the old System 9 and lower had an apple menu which behaved like the windows programfiles menu, only it was 100% user configured) EXACTLY as she had it on her machine.
nor did I install all the tiny little ****tart extensions she was running since she was basically upgrading from System 5 or 6 to 8 and many of them wouldnt've worked.
We get stuff like this occasionaly ^_^ I hate people like that I just wanna kill them (have lost muh temper a few times Adam has had to sort it out in the end) especially when they see you outside of work and start making comments. Some people just shouldn't own 1 computer let alone 2
Quote from Aegis;340768: yes, it never is. Have to ask Kernal about the froot loop we had at the Applecentre once - this old nut was upgrading her macintosh classic to the original iMac - part of the agreement was we would put her apps on the new machine during setup... ANNNNNNYWAY she got me in the shit because I didnt setup her apple menu (for those that dont know or have forgotten, the old System 9 and lower had an apple menu which behaved like the windows programfiles menu, only it was 100% user configured) EXACTLY as she had it on her machine.
nor did I install all the tiny little ****tart extensions she was running since she was basically upgrading from System 5 or 6 to 8 and many of them wouldnt've worked.
HAH I'd forgotten about that... (how could you not setup her apple menu the same *tut* *tut*) I reckon that all people who complain like both of these stories should pack their computers up put em back in the box and take em back to where they got them from.
*sigh* I.T. would be a great profession if it weren't for the clients / customers / users.
i just had someone whinge at me that i replaced their faulty ATI 2900XT with an overclocked 3870. they were upset that could buy the 3870 new for less than they paid for the 2900xt last year.
people will whinge about ANYTHING. we had one spanker (end user) write a letter of complaint about me, the branch, the company, and razer because he purchased a razer keyboard and the cable had a slight crease in it. he expected me to refund his money despite the fact he purchased it from another company, and started raging when i told him to go back to his reseller. maybe we should start a thread for horror stories like this. ugh.
Yeah I was heaps disappointed when the warranty replacement for my $495 256 MB 7900GT was a $400 320MB 8800GTS. I think I even started a thread about how unhappy I was.
I've had another custumer file a complaint with police internal afairs about how a uniformed officer was treating me when I wouldn't refund a "faulty"(no fault under testing) TV.
Have you asked her exactly what she was doing when it crashed? She might be doing something on the dodge when it crashes. Particular website or application? It could be something very basic.
Either that or they are doing the ole "mystery problem" to get a replacement/upgrade ;-)
Yeah Ive pretty much decided she's trying to scam free shit. The problem is random, nothing in particular sets it off yet she conveniently managed to film it at the exact moment it crashed. Also apparently booting with "Disable Automatic Restart on System Failure" does nothing either and it just resets, no blue screen. So apparently its pressing its own reset button :|
Ive left it stress testing all yesterday, all last night, all today, and all tonight as well and I have $20 that says when I get to work in the morning, its sitting there still chugging away.
I was thinking about this today. Is there some sort of auditing software you could put onto her computer, similar to logs kept on servers? That may be another option, install the software tell her that it's tracking all actions and documenting them, send her home with the unit and if it bugs again at least you have a hint to the cause :-) It shows that you are being proactive and believe her when she says that a problem exists.
Ah the joys of being a technician, I had one customer, a biology teacher apparently, trying to tell me that ants in a power supply couldnt possibly short anything out. A lot of customers would complain when their fax machines got hit by lightning too. They are an odd bunch. Not to mention the 1500 odd government users who would complain about voice quality on their VOIP phones but couldn't come up with any specifics.
God I love that, they call and whine nothing works right and its broken, when you ask them exactly whats not working right they cant tell you. So either they are more stupid than monkeys or they are lying.
I used to like the ones that rang up going 'ZOMG its the end of the world!!!! my pc wont do x, y or z' and when you go and check it out there is no problem what so ever ... the looks on thier faces hehe.
My father's PC was doing something similar once. It ended up being the USB mouse causing it to reboot. Record the end of the stress test on your phone and show her:)
How can it be your fault mate? She said you touched it once and now its stuffed? How can that be when she sent it in "apparently broken" in the first place?
If it works for you then you shouldnt have to explain or reimburse her for anything, let her choose to take it further if she wants to, until then sit back, chill & continue Playing UT. (UT99 Rocks)
Quote from Menace;342032: How can it be your fault mate? She said you touched it once and now its stuffed? How can that be when she sent it in "apparently broken" in the first place?
awesome point stated right there...
on a side note is there by any chance a wireless keyboard and mouse set up on that machine? I've had problems with logi-tech F*cking up my machine and causing it to fail?
either way, if the issues been resolved good on ya for sticking to her. just hope that lighting comes down the line power lines and blows that machine to pieces...
ignorant and rude people like that don't deserve computers.