Custard30
From DotelTech
- Client: Old Man
- Problem: It's TOO Clean
- My Job: Screw turner.
A customer comes up to me ad starts asking me questions about computers and building them, while I'm answering them he keeps comparing things to his days as an electronics officer long long ago. Evidently he was an engineer on alot of the old Vacuum tube computer systems. Now many people would be bored out of there mind listening to this "old man" ramble on about ancient technology. Well lucky for him, listening to him gave me a reason to not be working, and I quite have a fondness for legacy Tube systems. I love the elegance, simplicity and shear genius of these systems. But... thats besides the point.
This man was having problems with the computer he was building. He was convinced it was a contact problem between the parts. I highly doubted this, modern parts are pretty well standard now, hard to find parts that don't "fit" right. I tell the man to bring his computer in.
He does, I open up the case, and notice all the parts are nice and "SHINY" really shiny, very shiny, in fact way to shiny for there good. I attempt to pull a card out. I find that my fingers can not get a firm enough grip on the card to physically remove it. My fingers kept sliding off the cards, they were covered in a thin oil. Well Computers are not suppost to be filled with oil, so I ask the customer about this.
He explains that when he was in the military working on the old tube systems, they would coat the cards in di-electric grease to prevent oxidation and shorting. What he didn't realize was di-electric grease is a great insulator, and by placing it inside the PCI and AGP slots he also prevented them from making contact with the motherboard.
Lucky for him, there was no serious damage, a mild bath in an electronics cleaner and all the cards worked great. Proof that 1960's and 2000 technology are not great bed fellows.