Client yelled at me for skipping the thermal paste check on a 3 year old laptop

Guy brought in a gaming laptop running at 95C under load. I just dusted the fans and called it good. He got mad and made me open it up again right there. The thermal paste was literally hard as a rock. Now I always peek at the paste condition on any overheating job even if they didnt ask for it. Anyone else got a service they skipped that came back to bite them?

3 comments

3 Comments

blair_martin1mo ago

Man that's rough but honestly I've been there too... sometimes you're just trying to save them money and a headache and it backfires. I had a similar thing where a guy just wanted a quick battery swap on his old ThinkPad and I didn't bother to check the charging port since he didn't ask. Turned out the port was loose and his new battery wouldn't charge... had to eat the cost of the battery and spend an hour fixing the port for free. It's like you learn the hard way that half the job is catching what they don't know to ask about.

roberts951mo ago

Ngl, that's the worst feeling. Live and learn though.

young.nora1mo ago

Blair said 'half the job is catching what they don't know to ask about' and wow, that really hit home. I cannot believe you had to eat the cost of the battery AND fix the port for free, that's brutal. I guess in a way, this kind of thing is what teaches you to be thorough, but man, it's a painful way to learn. I still think about the time I skipped checking a power brick on a desktop that kept crashing, and it turned out the brick was putting out really uneven voltage. That was a long afternoon I don't want to repeat.