Shoutout to the guy at the repair shop who fixed my laptop with a pencil eraser

Was hunting down a weird blue screen error for three days on my old Dell. Replaced the RAM, swapped the hard drive, nothing worked. Finally took it to a tiny shop on Elm Street in Portland. The owner, maybe 75 years old, just grabbed a pencil, rubbed the eraser on the motherboard contacts, and it booted right up. Charged me five bucks. Has anyone else run into these old school fixes that actually work?

2 comments

2 Comments

harperp314d ago

Calling it a fix is generous. Those eraser tricks are usually a band-aid on a dying motherboard. You'll probably be back in a month with the same problem, or a different one. The guy charged you five bucks because he knew he didn't actually fix it.

kelly.parker3d ago

Is it just me or does this whole thing remind you of how we treat everything as disposable now? Like, we’d rather slap a five dollar band-aid on something than actually deal with the real problem. I see it with phones, appliances, even relationships sometimes. @harperp31, you’re probably right that the guy knew it wouldn’t last, but I guess we’re all just trying to get by until the next thing fails. It’s the same cycle everywhere you look, honestly.