Sometimes your computer breakage . It happens . You spill something , or throw off something , or you endeavor to boot up and nothing happens . Many of us correct the number with a big use of Google , and others take the failing gimmick toa person trained to fix information processing system . And some the great unwashed thoroughly screw up their machine attempt to fix it themselves , and then take it to a mending store .

We reached out to some technical school financial support agents around the state to memorise some of the worst ways multitude have endeavor to fix their computers . Do n’t do what these mass did .

They add batteries to their Ethernet cable

Some people have really good intentions when they attempt to fix their computers . They really go and learn some YouTube videos and make an effort . But if you lack a basic understanding of how electronics body of work than you’re able to end up being the victim of a very giddy prank , like the one tech financial backing agent Peter Lopez from Brooklyn ran into on a call .

He arrive at the client ’s home to feel that they ’d taped AA batteries to an ethernet cable television service . “ I asked why they did that , ” Lopez assure Gizmodo . “ They enjoin me the batteries on the cables triple their internet connection . I was surprised by how strongly they put up by this opinion , but then they show me why … This picture is a prank , but a respectable one , and they thought it was real ! ”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRmMkiTB_uE

Photo: Alex Cranz/Gizmodo

Photo: Alex Cranz/Gizmodo

Just because a guy has a nice clean setup , a pressed shirt , and a fancy mic on his pinch does n’t mean he should be trusted . A agile hunting of Google would have saved Lopez ’s client a wad of embarrassment .

or else , if you want to better net speeds thaninvest in better equipment , move your router , or find an ISP with upright stop number .

They stick a wet laptop in the oven

I worked tech support in college dorm , share the same spaces with my many client . Usually , I knew a client needed help because they would knock on my door at 2 am or call me just as party weekend was sound off into high gear . But once I actually found the client because of the stench of roasted laptop computer .

Perhaps seeing the achiever others had had by using the oven to dehydrate food for thought to produce crispy granola and chewy fruit leather , this particular client thought a quick turn in the oven would dry out out her damp laptop .

It did not . What it did do was put down the cover leave some sweet fade suntan stain in the case , and make the student residence kitchen smell unspeakable for half the weekend .

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Screenshots:Reddit

And I have n’t been the only one to find an enterprising repair enthusiast availing themselves of the over .

From a technical school musical accompaniment agent in Texas :

One customer put his motherboard in the oven to heat his reckoner chips . This is obviously a sorry thing to do to fix a computer and extremely life-threatening . This can deflower an oven by go out traces of risky atomic number 3 as well as begin emit poisonous lead vapours from the soldering .

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Screenshots:Reddit

“ bake the motherboard ” is a vernacular DIY solution tofixing a computerwith a bad bonding job . It can on occasion work , but the chance of poisonous vapor or drift condenser is in high spirits enough that it ’s likely a really bad estimation to risk it .

They stick a wet laptop in rice

oven are n’t the only way people have endeavor to cursorily dry out their laptops . laptop in rice comes from an early , sort of good ideathat you could salve a loaded phone with a Sir Tim Rice bath .

https://twitter.com/embed/status/1221625384367788032

https://twitter.com/embed/status/826884907850936324

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

https://twitter.com/embed/status/1054500906954301441

“ Do n’t put your estimator in rice , ” William , who did n’t want to give his last name , from a Portland , Oregon ground - technical school sustenance shop told Gizmodo . He pointed to times he had to interchange fan jammed with rice and USB outlets ruined by the grain .

While rice , a known desiccant , does n’t necessarily help , it usually ca n’t further harm a phone , which has few points of ingress for diminutive particles of rice amylum . But the same ca n’t be allege for laptop , with big gap vent-hole , interface , and the slots between keyboard keys .

William Duplessie

Umer Perez from TechSupport MS in Fort Worth , Texas also finds the process cockamamy . Pointing out that it would be virtually out of the question to draw all the wet out of some bragging laptops without afford them and drying them by hand .

Rice is not a strong enough desiccant to dry out a A-one soaked estimator . Instead , if your computing machine is the victim of an inadvertent drenching , immediately power down , unplug , and , if possible , remove the battery . Then absorb as much water as potential with a towel and let the machine dry out for 24 - 48 hours . If all goes well , your computer should be working . If all start ill , you ’ll need to visit your technical school support guy , but at least they wo n’t have to fish rice out of your system of logic gameboard .

They stick a bad hard drive in the freezer

Once upon a timesticking a strong drive in the freezer was a good way to give some cash in one’s chips knockout drives enough life that you could copy important data point off of them . The mind was that chilling the gruelling drive would constrict the metal platters inside enough that they could gyrate their ways through a quick computer backup . Butchanges in hard drive designs , and the speedy rise in popularity of substantial state drives — which have zero platters — think of this old hack is better off put to pasture .

That has n’t block multitude from still making the attempt , as a technical school sustenance workshop in Texas learned :

A rogue DIY client study an article online that he could recovery his datum if he put his hard drive in the freezer . He was look to save some money so he gave this a attempt . Needless to say , this did not work and he had to use our services to call up his data point .

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And that store was n’t the only one .

https://twitter.com/embed/status/1203908009916846080

I was desperate so I stuck my laptop computer in the freezer and it ’s really working ? ? ? ?

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— Zuva Seven ( @ZuvaSeven)December 18 , 2019

https://twitter.com/embed/status/1210777608427724802

Laptops are not meant for utmost temperature — either hot or cold . So try and keep them out of any appliance found in your kitchen .

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They perform electronics surgery when they shouldn’t

We all like to usurp we hump everything about our electronics , and that anything can be fixed with a footling elbow grease and a quick perusal of Youtube , But that is not always the causa .

Screenshots : Reddit

fresh motherboard , RAM , and CPU are all here . Surgery on my computer pop out in a few hours

Photo: Jae C. Hong

— Ethan Hansen ( @BlinkshotTV)February 2 , 2017

Surgery on the computer is not doing well .

— Ethan Hansen ( @BlinkshotTV)February 3 , 2017

Doctor Who Omega

A piddling humility run low a longsighted room towards keeping you from break something . As I say this as a person who once tried to supplant the mogul supply on a computer and take up a small flaming rather .

estimator surgery is best left to professional , and in some case avoided all together . Such as this call Ryan from New York City ( he did not want to give his last name ) hold up on :

One of my repetition node ( we ’ll call him “ RTFM ” ) has a habit of ripping out wires , destroying connexion , and break hooey further in an attempt to get his things to lick . I get a call that his Bose Wave Radio remote is act up , only to show up and find the proprietary connecter cable on the unit completely sliced in one-half . He allow in he did n’t know what to do , but I ’m still wondering why he fall back to that …

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After swapping in a Modern coin cell battery in his remote ( and deprive / taping his severed transmission line ) , he was back up and running .

If you ’re not sure what you ’re doing , why are you doing it ?

computing machine

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

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