ODwilly wrote:

cut a couple wires in the ethernet cable, just enough/the unimportant ones so that it does not have a reliable connection. Iv had this happen before, fun times!

Oh yes, I had a complex USB doohickey once that would sort-of-but-not-quite-work, leading to a lengthy and unproductive Webex session that finally concluded with my semi-random decision to try a different USB cable.

clueless1 wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

konc wrote:

If you want to give him a hard time, get a hammer and smash the PC. Then ask him to glue it back. Come on guys, you're not assessing a person's capability to troubleshoot by trying to think the most evil way to break a PC, unless you're trying to screw him. Even if he miraculously succeeds, this says nothing about his skills in real situations in a work/corporate environment.
Now I don't want to insult anyone (I don't know the team/nature of work/anything at all), but just a comment: I believe that whoever is going to assess this person should know what he wants to see from him, for example I would give him 2-3 of the most common problems that the rest of the team is facing often and don't get solved by a restart.

Sadly, many of the things we described happen regularly in real life.

Yep. Nearly every idea I listed I've come across in real life, in some way, shape or form.

Of course my parents can link some essential file type to the wrong application, of course we've all dealt with all kinds of problems. But again guys, it all comes down to the nature of the work of which we have no idea, "real life" doesn't mean the same thing in all environments. For example in a corporate environment there's no chance to see people physically messing with the insides of a PC to reverse fans/pull cables or having access to change stuff like BIOS settings/HOSTS/network settings, unless they're trying to get fired. In a computer repair store expect the unexpected, I agree! Anyway, it's getting theoretical and I'm reading some pretty nasty ideas here 😉

This reminds me of this 🤣 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9DST-6jIBU

Put there 512 MB of RAM or less, sometimes 256 MB is good, I tried that one time with 7 🤣 and Radeon X300, and you can see if someone can install drivers for that videocard. You can also resize system partition to make it small and move it to end of harddisk, after that reducing or even dissabling page file, in power settings you can set up processor to max 20-30% of frequency, enable hibernation, install heavy antivirus, and much shareware programs. Or you can install win10.

1) Disable AHCI driver in register while trying to boot in AHCI mode.
He get's half a point for doing IDE compatible, and full score if he repairs reg file and switches to AHCI 😀

2) Put old BIOS so that MB will get "upset" it's got unrecognised CPU 😀
(BIOS update from BIOS/DOS utility training).

3) Wrong initial display (forcing off integrated GPU and plugging monitor to MB)

4) Wrong date + bad CMOS battery...

5) Don't secure one of the RAM latches (make it visually "not right"), PC may still boot/work, but you can check this way if he is thorough (he must secure latch before finishing).

6) No themalpaste under heatsink/bad mounted heatsink (throttling/lackluster performance in bechmarks).

7) Always minimum multiplier on CPU (be it from Windows Power Plan settings or hard locking CPU multi in BIOS).

8 ) Not installed drivers for device(s) in device maneger (MEI driver or Smart Connect on newer boards).
8a) For hardcore level :
Uninstall ATK0110 driver (if PC needs it), and force him to find what device is not installed 😀

There are SOOO many options/ways to do this...

Other thoughts :
X) Don't know how old PC you want to use is, but IDE cable select or Slave/Master can be good training.
Y) Making bootable pendrive and installing Windows from it ?

Last thing :
Show him at the beginnig how it works/scores when properly configured.
That way he will know what to look for/what he might have missed.
If he's novice that is (he will know he missed something and will feel he needs mre training), if he claims to be a "veteran"/advanced user - show him on other PC [same spec], but AFTER he's done repairing his PC.

EDIT (Master Level) :
Low performance after some point in LOAD duration test.
Basicly : Throttling on CPU that requires lower than stock Vcore or better VRM cooling to not occur in benchmarks/games.
Best hardware for the job : AMD AM3+ Bulldozer/Vishera with cheap/mid range motherboard 😉
If he goes for lower frequency only, ask why and how Vcore and Frequency are related to TDP/Heat/Temps/VRM's.

I was going to mention inproperly mounted CPU HSF 😁

Especially if it's a 3rd party cooler which is mounted using screws...remove the HSF, clean both CPU and HSF, reapply TIm and then reinstall the HSF, but don't fasten the mounting screws enough for the HSF to make good contact with the CPU.
Another nice nooby thing to do is to mount the HSF without removing the HSF's protective sticker on the underside of the heat sink (so it has super-isolation 😁).

Use a dead SATA cable, so one of the SATA devices isn't recognized.

Plug in the CPU heatsink fan and system case fan into each other's FAn connectors on the mobo.

Plug in the RAM modules so it will not work in dual channel (or similar), or undervolt the memory or perhaps the CPU as well.

Well no fun at all he cancled and turned down the job 🙁

but this is a corprate enviroment, with mostly Optiplex, Precision, and ThinkCenter desktops no gaming to any of them 🤣.

candle_86 wrote:

Well no fun at all he cancled and turned down the job 🙁

but this is a corprate enviroment, with mostly Optiplex, Precision, and ThinkCenter desktops no gaming to any of them 🤣.

ask your next candidate "name those in order of apparition : uhci, ohci, ehci and ahci"

haha dont hire me, I did think that universal came prior open 😁

my guess is that next one will be called xhci for eXpanded host!

it's important to ask him the question this way : "ohci, uhci, ehci and ahci" because it give you 3 choises of answers:

1. what did you say ?
2. I think it's ... hum... ochi, uhci, ehci and then ahci, right ?
3. you already gave them in correct order

I hope you ever get a candidate that answer your response number three 😀

ElBrunzy wrote:

my guess is that next one will be called xhci for eXpanded host!

The future is now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Host … oller_Interface

Next guy we gave a network cable not fully inserted, before checking the cable he went to YouTube 🙁

candle_86 wrote:

Next guy we gave a network cable not fully inserted, before checking the cable he went to YouTube 🙁

Did you ask him to check the local area network time server or the internet streaming was working after you gave him that network cable ?

candle_86 wrote:

Next guy we gave a network cable not fully inserted, before checking the cable he went to YouTube 🙁

maybe he trust you had teaming networking like everyone should have 😉 sorry I can help myself buy being the devil advocate....

Problems I have dealt with on numerous occasions:

- partially working SATA cable (one of the pins was bent out of place - we had a whole batch of these).
- recover deleted files from a memory stick / drive.
- incorrect or outdated proxy server settings preventing Internet access.
- RAM not plugged in or faulty (as others have said - this one is standard).
- Anything else that produces a black screen and BIOS error codes such as faulty graphics card or aux power to card not plugged in.

Also a written test asking about acronyms, file types, hardware compatibility, other procedures would be informative.

Save the pranks (like the desktop background of unclickable icons) for when he is actually hired 😉

brassicGamer wrote:

- RAM not plugged in or faulty (as others have said - this one is standard).

Inserting a RAM module (or any expansion card) halfway through is pretty dangerous. I remember frying a 1GB DDR stick when those were the highest capacity by doing that - the one and only time I've destroyed a part because of my lack of attention while dealing with hardware.

Install McAfee antivirus on it.

yea we don't do alot of what yall say in our day to day stuff. We as a team of 8 support over 40,000 computers. Fixing hardware isn't something we spend alot of time doing

Snayperskaya wrote:

brassicGamer wrote:

- RAM not plugged in or faulty (as others have said - this one is standard).

Inserting a RAM module (or any expansion card) halfway through is pretty dangerous. I remember frying a 1GB DDR stick when those were the highest capacity by doing that - the one and only time I've destroyed a part because of my lack of attention while dealing with hardware.

When I was doing an evening course on computer hardware back in 2000 (I just wanted the piece of paper) there was one thing I learned, which was how to break a motherboard. Someone asked the lecturer how he could destroy his computer to get a replacement so the lecturer says to push a PCI card in at an angle with the power on and short the pins.

So yeah, be careful with this one 😀