Client brought in a PC caked in dust from a barn and blamed me when the hard drive failed after I blew it out

Had a guy from a farm outside Topeka drop off a tower that was literally packed with hay and dirt, I used compressed air to clean it like normal, and he called 2 days later saying his 3-year-old Seagate died because I 'forced dust into it' - anyone else deal with customers blaming you for their own hardware's age?

4 comments

4 Comments

hugo_nelson18d agoMost Upvoted

That dust belonged there, it was holding his ancient drive together.

finleycooper17d ago

Dust is just trapped grit that wears down moving parts over time, not some magical structural support.

uma_baker9917d ago

You know, Hugo, I used to be one of those people who would blow out every speck of dust the second I opened up an old computer. But that line "it was holding his ancient drive together" really made me stop and think. I've got an old Pentium III machine that I kept running for years, and I finally replaced it when it died. I remember opening it up and there was this perfect layer of dust over everything. I cleaned it all out before I sold it for parts, but now I wonder if that dust was actually doing something, like filling in gaps or insulating something. Maybe those old drives and components just settle into a certain way of working over time, and we disrupt that balance when we try to "fix" them. It's a strange thought, but it makes me want to leave my current old laptop alone.

oliver71917d ago

Nah, dust is just grit that slowly destroys things, I've seen it kill more fans than heat ever did.