Diagnosing computer issues over the phone.

[SunnyD]

My wife calls me a little bit ago, she's in FL visiting friends, which I'm ironically supposed to be there too. Unfortunately, due to issues beyond my control, I got shafted and ended up staying home (though spending the week with my girls has been fun, now I play Mr. Mom as they head back to school tomorrow).

Anyhow, my wife calls, asks what she can do with said friends' computer as it's running like proverbial shit. One of the things attempted was running disk cleanup - which after about 20 minutes or so decided to lock up the computer. The next question on the list was "Why does the fan keep revving up like this?" and puts the phone to the computer. Well, it's obviously running hot, so I get her to download and run CoreTemp. Heh, this is good. It's a Dell box, AMD X2 4400+, idling around 50C. No big, I tell her to leave CoreTemp up and do some other stuff, then check back in about 5 minutes. High temp is now showing 70C.

Here's the fun part - how do you tell your friends that there's just about nothing you can do for them 700 miles away?

/blog.

 

[TheVrolok]

Where at in FL? Do they have the AC running?

 

[PottedMeat]

tell her to bring up task manager, sort processes by cpu%, read off the process to you, you look it up and tell her to kill it if the program sucks.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: PottedMeat
tell her to bring up task manager, sort processes by cpu%, read off the process to you, you look it up and tell her to kill it if the program sucks.

Or you have them pop the side panel off and take a can of compressed air to the fan.

 

[Printer Bandit]

use teamviewer.

 

[Savij]

"Honey, there it's too fucked to take care of over the phone. Tell her to take it to geeksquad."

 

[SandEagle]

This is what I usually tell people:

1) install and run Lavasoft Adaware
2) install and run S&D Spybot
3) Disk Cleanup
4) Disk Defrag
5) msconfig > startup: turn half that garbage off that you dont need

usually helps clean out a ton of crap on people's PCs and improve performance. usually

 

[FoBoT]

here is what i tell them to do:

go to Costco
buy a new computer
.
profit!

 

[Maiora]

Originally posted by: SandEagle
This is what I usually tell people:

1) install and run Lavasoft Adaware
2) install and run S&D Spybot
3) Disk Cleanup
4) Disk Defrag
5) msconfig > startup: turn half that garbage off that you dont need

usually helps clean out a ton of crap on people's PCs and improve performance. usually

malwarebytes.org is better than 1 & 2.

 

[us3rnotfound]

Oh God, not sure what you can do in that situation lol, being that it's a consumer-grade Dell...it could be anything.

 

[MotionMan]

Originally posted by: Printer Bandit
use teamviewer.

or LogMeIn.

MotionMan

 

[Wheezer]

Originally posted by: SunnyD
My wife calls me a little bit ago, she's in FL visiting friends, which I'm ironically supposed to be there too. Unfortunately, due to issues beyond my control, I got shafted and ended up staying home (though spending the week with my girls has been fun, now I play Mr. Mom as they head back to school tomorrow).

Anyhow, my wife calls, asks what she can do with said friends' computer as it's running like proverbial shit. One of the things attempted was running disk cleanup - which after about 20 minutes or so decided to lock up the computer. The next question on the list was "Why does the fan keep revving up like this?" and puts the phone to the computer. Well, it's obviously running hot, so I get her to download and run CoreTemp. Heh, this is good. It's a Dell box, AMD X2 4400+, idling around 50C. No big, I tell her to leave CoreTemp up and do some other stuff, then check back in about 5 minutes. High temp is now showing 70C.

Here's the fun part - how do you tell your friends that there's just about nothing you can do for them 700 miles away?

/blog.

sounds like it needs to be opened up and cleaned out good with some compressed air. (I find that needs to be done in about 60-70% of the computers I troubleshoot) which, depending on the Dell can be easy or a real PITA. Then run all the basic cleaning software :
Crap Cleaner
Spybot
AdAware
Disk Defrag
I also like Advanced Disk Cleaner

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: PottedMeat
tell her to bring up task manager, sort processes by cpu%, read off the process to you, you look it up and tell her to kill it if the program sucks.

Or you have them pop the side panel off and take a can of compressed air to the fan.

 

[yhelothar]

tell her to send you a hijackthis! list

Or you could enable remote desktop, and you can do it from your own pc
Right click computer -> properties -> remote -> tick allow connections under remote desktop.

Then tell her to go to http://www.whatismyip.com

she'll also have to add a password that she's willing to share to user account

get her to disable any firewall too

 

[SunnyD]

Ironically - my wife, while not terribly technically inclined, has learned much from me over these past 13 years. She had already cleaned out the bowels of the machine, and had removed dirt and whatnot from the HSF et'al before even calling me. She called this morning, and noted that she had removed the computer from the "cubby" it was located in, and this morning high temps peaked at around 50C with it idling in the low 40's. It amazes me that people don't know better than to put their computer in an enclosed space. Of course it would help if furniture makers didn't indicate it was alright to do so by making computer desks with such enclosures.

From here on out, her mission is to rid the machine of "crapware".

 

[drum]

Originally posted by: SandEagle
This is what I usually tell people:

1) install and run Lavasoft Adaware
2) install and run S&D Spybot
3) Disk Cleanup
4) Disk Defrag
5) msconfig > startup: turn half that garbage off that you dont need

usually helps clean out a ton of crap on people's PCs and improve performance. usually

I would not have people that otherwise don't know what they are doing root around in msconfig

 

[MotionMan]

Originally posted by: SunnyD
Ironically - my wife, while not terribly technically inclined, has learned much from me over these past 13 years. She had already cleaned out the bowels of the machine, and had removed dirt and whatnot from the HSF et'al before even calling me. She called this morning, and noted that she had removed the computer from the "cubby" it was located in, and this morning high temps peaked at around 50C with it idling in the low 40's. It amazes me that people don't know better than to put their computer in an enclosed space. Of course it would help if furniture makers didn't indicate it was alright to do so by making computer desks with such enclosures.

From here on out, her mission is to rid the machine of "crapware".

Your wife sounds like an absolute keeper

If the Windows install is more than a year old and they have their recovery disks, they should just backup their stuff, nuke the hard drive with something like KillDisk, and reinstall just the stuff they need.

MotionMan

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: MotionMan

Originally posted by: SunnyD
Ironically - my wife, while not terribly technically inclined, has learned much from me over these past 13 years. She had already cleaned out the bowels of the machine, and had removed dirt and whatnot from the HSF et'al before even calling me. She called this morning, and noted that she had removed the computer from the "cubby" it was located in, and this morning high temps peaked at around 50C with it idling in the low 40's. It amazes me that people don't know better than to put their computer in an enclosed space. Of course it would help if furniture makers didn't indicate it was alright to do so by making computer desks with such enclosures.

From here on out, her mission is to rid the machine of "crapware".

Your wife sounds like an absolute keeper

If the Windows install is more than a year old and they have their recovery disks, they should just backup their stuff, nuke the hard drive with something like KillDisk, and reinstall just the stuff they need.

MotionMan

She is a keeper. Hell, a few years ago we actually managed to get her a part time job on the IT support help desk I used to work for. Believe it or not, she did quite well and earned the praise of the managers (who pretty much rewarded her with as flexible a schedule as she needed being a "working mother with young children").

As far as your suggestion - that'd always be my #1 course of action. But you wouldn't believe how cumbersome and difficult it is for most lay people to back up their data. Invariably, SOMETHING will get hosed, and you will get blamed.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: SandEagle
This is what I usually tell people:

1) install and run Lavasoft Adaware
2) install and run S&D Spybot
3) Disk Cleanup
4) Disk Defrag
5) msconfig > startup: turn half that garbage off that you dont need

usually helps clean out a ton of crap on people's PCs and improve performance. usually

I do about the same when suggesting tech support, but my #1 is 'restart the device in question'.

 

[MotionMan]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: MotionMan

Originally posted by: SunnyD
Ironically - my wife, while not terribly technically inclined, has learned much from me over these past 13 years. She had already cleaned out the bowels of the machine, and had removed dirt and whatnot from the HSF et'al before even calling me. She called this morning, and noted that she had removed the computer from the "cubby" it was located in, and this morning high temps peaked at around 50C with it idling in the low 40's. It amazes me that people don't know better than to put their computer in an enclosed space. Of course it would help if furniture makers didn't indicate it was alright to do so by making computer desks with such enclosures.

From here on out, her mission is to rid the machine of "crapware".

Your wife sounds like an absolute keeper

If the Windows install is more than a year old and they have their recovery disks, they should just backup their stuff, nuke the hard drive with something like KillDisk, and reinstall just the stuff they need.

MotionMan

She is a keeper. Hell, a few years ago we actually managed to get her a part time job on the IT support help desk I used to work for. Believe it or not, she did quite well and earned the praise of the managers (who pretty much rewarded her with as flexible a schedule as she needed being a "working mother with young children").

Pic of wife

As far as your suggestion - that'd always be my #1 course of action. But you wouldn't believe how cumbersome and difficult it is for most lay people to back up their data. Invariably, SOMETHING will get hosed, and you will get blamed.

I understand. BELIEVE ME, I understand.

Perhaps clone the entire HD to an external drive before nuking?

MotionMan