LarryS
From last night's Langa Letter: troubleshooting floppy drives
"After all the discussion in the LangaList about floppy disk drives, I felt compelled to relate the following story.
I've worked in the small and desktop computer service industry for over 20 years (I started 2 years before IBM built the first PC!) Over all that time, I've seen just about every problem a floppy drive can have. In recent years, drive prices have fallen to such ridiculously low prices that no technician even tries to diagnose a bad drive these days. Onsite, I check the bios settings, look at Windows Device Manager, change the cable and then, if the drive still malfunctions, replace the drive. The whole process takes about 15 minutes. At $100/hr for service, you don't want your hired gun tech guy spending much time on a $20 drive. As you can imagine, this creates quite a pile of bad drives back at the shop.
Our shop has a kitchenette with a dishwasher. Imagine my surprise when I opened the dishwasher one day to find a whole load of floppy drives in it! One of the senior techs had taken all the covers off of the defective drives and washed them in the dishwasher. I watched in fascination as he carefully removed them and placed them all in the OVEN...... Three hours at 200 degrees!
Almost every one of them worked after a cycle in the dishwasher. I was flabbergasted! We gave free drives away for months to anyone who wanted one - I think I gave more of them away than I did business cards!
Over time, the senior tech applied this bizarre procedure to CD-ROM drives, power supplies motherboards (sans batteries!) and printer parts of all types. I've seen completely disassembled Ink Jet printers in the dishwasher. Interestingly, this ridiculous procedure fixes more than half of these devices, and almost ALL of the Ink Jet printers.
Three secrets were learned over time:
1.) Granulated dish washing detergent is the only way to go - liquid doesn't wash out of all the cracks
2.) That liquid no-spot rinse stuff messes up the works
3.) The oven must be electric and digitally controlled. 200 degrees is the perfect temp - less and the circuit boards do not get dry and more temp makes the plastics melt.
For those who adventure into this at home I recommend having a camera ready before proceeding. It's fun to photograph your spouse the first time they open the dishwasher to find a load of computer parts..... --- Carl W. Lovern"
tc
ps: this is not a joke..I've heard of it before |
