Where percussive maintenance is the fix
Posted by tmofee@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 64 comments
As part of my job, I look after this older machines that were made around the early 2000s (shock horror, we’re still looking after them today. Parts are becoming harder to find). One of the parts included is a touchscreen. They’re pretty solid after all these years, the only issue is there’s a plastic case surround to it on its edges, so after a while, things like dirt, grease or whatever could possibly get caught between the screen and the plastic surround so we discovered quickly the best fix is a little punch to the screen, nothing too heavy just enough to get it working again.
One venue we looked after didn’t like me. They thought they were more important than the rest of the town. Every now and again I’d get the manager whinging why wasn’t I there the moment the machine played up. You’d ignore the crap. One day he was complaining about the machine not responding to touch, threatening to throw it into the street etc etc. I gave it a wipe over with some iso alcohol, a friendly punch and it’s back and working.
A couple of days later I get a call from the big wigs in the big city saying they got a complaint from one of the venues , apparently I was very angry at them and attacked the machine. Sitting there, scratching my head when was I angry? Yeah, it happens sometimes but things lately have been fine - then it hit me (pun intended) - punching the screen. When I explained the venue and the screen, they just laughed and said they’ll send the venue a copy of our repair procedures proving it’s an actual fix. :P
scyllafren@reddit
I have two 10kg hammer next to my IT desk. One has a writing on it "Service pack 1", other has "Service pack 2". I just need to apply the correct amount of service packs :D
SeanBZA@reddit
14lb hammer in the garage, labelled "Gentle Persuasion". Last use was to persuade a wall to fall apart.
Jezbod@reddit
But a large hammer used gently is more effective than a small hammer used violently.
meitemark@reddit
I once forced an ISA network card into a (virgin)slot using a 10-kilo slegdehammer and vaseline. Those were the tools I had there and then.
With enough force and vaseline, anything is possible :D
(yes, I have been told repeatedly that unless I tell the whole story, it WILL be taken wrong)
PastFly1003@reddit
Define “wrong”.
meitemark@reddit
Well, as a rather large male specimen, telling anyone female or smaller male specimens that "With enough force and vaseline, anything is possible", their mind goes to the gutter, NOT to fixing computers.
And in many cases, this is "wrong".
harrywwc@reddit
you think that will stop us?
meitemark@reddit
"You" are techs as well and does knows that humor in our simulation is something totally different than in the "muggle simulation".
Gadgetman_1@reddit
I have a 2Kg hammer in my office, labelled 'Problem Solver'.
totallybraindead@reddit
Percussive maintenance is always the fix, you just need to know where to apply it
SpiderKnife@reddit
The Mechanicum refers to this as a "technical knock".
Responsible-End7361@reddit
Remember the retired Train Engineer invoice, $20 hitting the engine, $980 knowing where to hit it? (I don't remember the actual numbers but it was funny).
AlcareruElennesse@reddit
Heard the same thing but with a ship's engine instead and the price being much bigger.
ManosVanBoom@reddit
My version involved Henry Ford and about $20k iirc
mikeonh@reddit
I believe the Henry Ford version was the original.
Cyb3r_sage@reddit
It is more along the lines of 1k https://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/10743.html?1138680195
mikeonh@reddit
Yes, and 1 K back then was a lot of money!
Frittzy1960@reddit
Yes but the tools are also important. A length of 4x2 is handy and inexpensive and almost anything with sufficient weight and length can be utilised but going without is not really viable.
Woodfordian@reddit
Especially with uncooperative people.
waitingtobedead77@reddit
I once accidentally applied percussive maintenance to a hard drive, the hard drive was connected to my computer using an USB cable and the computer didn't recognize it, but before the software finished the testing I moved my chair and somehow the wire got pulled, the hard drive hit the floor and I was terrified that I permanently damaged the disk so I quick connected it again, an to my surprise, it now got recognized and and was able to extract all the data.
mikeonh@reddit
My favorite percussive fix relates to the SCSI hard drives in some of the original Sun desktop workstations.
The standard drives had an issue with increasing stiction as they aged, progressing to the point that the hard drive would fail to spin up.
The solution was to remove the drive from the chassis, rotate it 90 degrees to the side, and smartly smack the long thin edge against a hard surface.
Customers were not amused, until they found out their machines worked again. Not knowing how long the fix would hold, we strongly encouraged an immediate backup (often the first ever for the machine which was years old), followed by ordering a new drive ASAP.
foilrat@reddit
"SCSI", Sun...
Memories triggered.
Holy Hera.
Loko8765@reddit
Oh, unsticking drives like that was in no way restricted to old Sun drives… maybe it was more pervasive? A drive that had run 24/7 without ever stopping for ten years had a very good chance of not starting again once it stopped… unless exactly the procedure you describe was applied.
mikeonh@reddit
That particular SCSI drive - 80 GB?? - approached a 100% stiction failure rate over the years.
wolfbob007@reddit
Would this drive have been the Seagate ST296N 85mb drive? I had one and couldn't figure out the problem. Then I heard about the issue elsewhere on a BBS and did the infamous "flick of the wrist" after one too many on-off cycles to get it to spin.
mikeonh@reddit
Possibly - I remember the close to 80 part, and MB sounds better than GB for that era.
I think they were Sun SPARCstation 1 or 2.....
ToothlessFeline@reddit
My favorite was with the old Apple /// computers in the early '80s. They had a heat management problem, and the chips would work their way out of their sockets because of the different expansion rates. Apple's official fix was to hold the machine about a foot above the tabletop and drop it (while powered off and unplugged, obviously). The impact would reseat the chips. Since the case was built like a tank (which was probably a big part of the heat management problem), it didn't damage anything inside when you did this (if you did it correctly).
peterdeg@reddit
Had that happen to me at 2am one morning as I was doing server upgrades. I tried various gentle methods (twisting, tapping) without luck. Finally, I thought “well, it’s f*d already, it can’t get any worse” and threw it on the floor while standing.
Put it back in the server and it worked. It was still working 3 years later when we decommissioned the server.
Capital-Spinach-3868@reddit
Ah yes, the classic 'if all else fails, just hit it' technique—truly the unsung hero of tech support!
Ancient-Composer7789@reddit
Not really percussive maintenance, but I had a tech who was a former F15 radar tech who related that they had a display that was intermittent. But take it from the plane to the shop and it would work fine in the shop. End result - they got annoyed enough that the last time they pulled it out of the aircraft, they "accudentally" dropped it. Wasn't intermittent any longer. It was broken.
CrazyCatMerms@reddit
An embarrassingly long time ago I did tech support for a company who's name rhymes with oh hell. We had a guy call in who'd been told to take his shoe off and hit the hard drive with it. Apparently it had worked for several years doing it. Was one of those calls where the tech gets off the phone and goes "hey guys, you'll never believe this one"
Hot-Win2571@reddit
My favorite act of percussive maintenance was removing an icicle over a power line with a .22 rifle.
wra1th42@reddit
Damn I’d be sweating over that shot. People get pretty mad if you hit the line
Hot-Win2571@reddit
Aiming point was two feet above the power line. No problem. (And miles of swamp for missed shots to land in.)
Dalzombie@reddit
I think you just invented ballistic maintenance.
Tyr0pe@reddit
He outsourced the percussive part to the projectile.
Dalzombie@reddit
Couldn't help but think of these as I read your comment.
Tyr0pe@reddit
Yes!
SciFiGuy72@reddit
Too bad application for a PEBCAK error is frowned upon...
azaz0080FF@reddit
Code 18
Over_and_Over1234@reddit
I call those a ID-10-T error
Kreig_Xochi@reddit
Silencer or gag?
Must answer the important questions before THAT kind of maintenance.
SirLoin05@reddit
The plastic around the LCD is called a bezel.
StudioDroid@reddit
I learned at an early age about fixing machines with a hammer when my mom would send me under the Edsel to whack the transmission with a hammer.
Throwaway_Old_Guy@reddit
I worked in a Paper Mill, not IT
There was a problem with the reel turnover on the tail end of the machine and a Millwright was called.
He looked at the problem, wandered off for a few minutes and returned with a 10 lb sledgehammer.
He gave a pivot point one heavy whack that shook the machine and it was back to normal.
Apparently, percussive maintenance is universal.
ToucheMadameLaChatte@reddit
It worked for my car when the starter was going out. In the parking lot of an auto zone my car wouldn't turn over after picking up a part for a different car. I described the problem, the manager talked with another employee about it, then they came out to the car with a hefty adjustable wrench and just used it to bang on the starter while I turned the key.
I still needed to get the starter replaced, but hitting it with a wrench got me through the next couple days while I ordered the new part.
Ich_mag_Kartoffeln@reddit
Hitting the bottom of the fuel tank is a recognised technique for coaxing a dying fuel pump into working again. Like your starter motor though, it's a temporary measure.
EbolaWare@reddit
Yes, this works when a relay is going bad, iirc. Happens with fuel pumps too. Just hop out and bang on the gas tank. 😂
Handplanes@reddit
That’s pretty standard for a starter and a great trick, it’s gotten me out of a pinch on two different cars when the starters went out.
Also a great way to know if the starter is the problem - if that fixes it you can be pretty confident that’s what needs replacing.
green_swordman@reddit
There's a story floating around Reddit about a retired stream locomotive engineer being called into a restoration shop to help them figure out how to start a newly restored engine. When he worked on them decades ago, they used to hit it with a sledge hammer in just the right spots to get it to start.
Hot-Win2571@reddit
Percussive maintenance in IT used to be common.
When your video streaming was not working, it was common to slap the TV to shake the vacuum tubes and make it work a little while longer. Until you took the tubes to the store, checked them in the tube machine, and bought replacements.
mikeonh@reddit
I remember doing this as a kid - bring the tubes to the tester in the store.
More fun was the old TVs flyback transformer for the CRT. Moisture could cause older units to fail.
One summer I worked for a TV/Hi-Fi repair shop, and the owner stocked up on flybacks in late spring.
People would go on vacation, leaving their TVs off during the humid summertime. Upon return, fire up the TV, hear a snap, and it wouldn't turn on. Lots of service calls! 20 - 50 kV on the flyback.
meitemark@reddit
I'm pretty sure this former navy tech was an enemy saboteur that just got forgotten by his orignal handlers, because in the world of troubleshooting, I would consider that way to be enemy action.
Slider_0f_Elay@reddit
I know on old CRTs the heat of the tube would make the contacts on the rear, that where just slip on friction fit, get loose over time. slapping the shit out of it could make the connection better. And everyone was discouraged, for good reason, not to open up the back because they could keep a huge voltage charge for hours that could be dangerous. So, hitting it was a very valid work around. I also know there was a thing of hitting VCRs because the lithium grease they used for the moving parts would cake up with pet hair. Slapping those also seemed like a higher than 50% chance of helping.
AlcareruElennesse@reddit
Some old CRT's could be off for years and still have enough charge to throw your hand plus you across the room. That flyback transformer is sure wild.
igorpk@reddit
As a young teenager who'd just learnt to solder...
I had a CRT where the green channel(?) stopped working. Not knowing about the dangers, I removed the case, powered the monitor up to get a visual on which solder joint was dry while poking at the electronics.
I found the problem joint, fixed it and carried on.
A few weeks later I was telling a friend about my methods. I was met with looks of horror...
SeanBZA@reddit
Especially those with separate triplers, as the focus and first anode voltage was developed from a tap off the first diode of the tripler. Later sets with integrated focus and first anode controls in the LOPT used a high value resistor off the output to develop the 2kV needed for those 2 pots, which was fed from the output, as it was otherwise hard to split out a tap from the diode split sections and still get them to be reliable. That also conveniently provided a discharge path for the CRT anode voltage as well.
Slider_0f_Elay@reddit
Yeah, Very reasonable to tell everyone to stay the fuck out unless they really knew what they were doing.
VallenceDragon@reddit
In the 70s my dad had a TV that would occasionally stop working and he would smack the top of it to start it again. Eventually the TV had to be moved for some reason and when they picked it up all the insides fell out of the bottom. Turns out regularly thumping it for so long had caused all the physical connections to break.
Redzero062@reddit
I seriously was thinking drum therapy till I read 2000's machine and was like "not FOR OP, but performed BY OP"
nighthawke75@reddit
Still is the norm, especially hard drives. Hard drive inop? Bag it, toss it in the freezer for an hour. Then hook it into an external controller and test. Still no boot? Drop it on a hard surface from ONE INCH. Test. Rinse and repeat until it either boots or it still refuses after 5 attempts.
Then, give the customer an estimate for having it sent off for data recovery.
And a stern lecture about backups.
JoeCoolSuperDad@reddit
Also known as the Technician Tap fixed some TVs too.
Glowing_Trash_Panda@reddit
Best percussive maintenance I did was when I got my old dryer to start working again by kicking it cuz I was mad at it being broken & it just started up & worked again. I am still confused to this day over a decade later how that worked but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth
glenmarshall@reddit
Sometimes percussive maintenance with a sledgehammer is the best way to eliminate hardware problems.