What odd, or strange things have your students/staff done to your hardware?

[6Foot2]

In response to this reply:

 

Think we need a new thread : Strange things that students / teachers have done to tech

 

in this thread:

 

Link: What annoying things did you do today ?

 

We have this new thread.

 

The comment that inspired it:

 

I once had an SEN student urinate on a machine after throwing it off the desk and kicking seven bells out of it.

 

The caretaker had put it in the bottom of a cupboard - which I soon labelled as the 'nope' cupboard. As in "Are you even going to touch what's in there?".

 

Post away!

Edited October 17, 2016 by 6Foot2
Formatting.

[DalekSec]

2 1/2 years into the tech world and the only things i've come accross if the odd cup of tea/coffee over the laptop!

 

Nothing of interest (Which is a good thing i guess!)

[korifugi]

I can also state that a laptop that has had Bailey's (other Irish Creme drinks are also available) spilled in it and warmed smells absolutely terrible - seriously, worse than milk (which I've also had) or wine (far too often an occurence for my liking).

 

 

I've ALSO had a staff laptop ran over.

[6Foot2]

I started a thread a while back:

 

Link: What is the most bizarre item you have found in a closed laptop?

 

This new thread is more about damage but mention of underwear (here in the office, but that's another story) reminded me of me my first post in that old thread:

 

...my technicians have just come back from setting up a temporary laptop/projector deployment in one of our blocks. The laptop was last used by a member of our staff before Christmas and returned to us on the last day of term last year.

 

When they opened it to power it on and connect it to the projector they found the lower half of a skimpy set of female underwear (black, lacy)

 

This has caused some hilarity in the office this morning with speculation as to how they got there, what happened before the laptop lid was closed, and why the underwear has not been missed yet...

 

The item in question has now been returned no questions asked.

 

Edited October 17, 2016 by 6Foot2
Clarification.

[googlemad]

SMT Member

 

"Sorry I dropped my Blackberry in a bowl of curry last night"

 

What?!

[Narwhal]

I have had a laptop returned that had fallen off the roof of the user's car and been run over by the car following his. I have also had a laptop that had a green fruit/veg smoothie spilt in it, there was no fixing that one!

[DalekSec]

SMT Member

 

"Sorry I dropped my Blackberry in a bowl of curry last night"

 

What?!

 

Has a member of maintaince drop his iphone 3gs into a bucket of wet red paint.

 

Once it dried i opened it up and actually managed to get it working after cleaning it up and replacing several parts!!

 

But within a week the micophone stopped working so had to replace the unit :/

[Garacesh]

I recall that my ex-NM once mentioned opening a computer case and finding a sandwich inside it. Kids used to push in the blanking plates for the CD drives and stick stuff in. Personally I've not had anything quite that bizarre, just pens, pennies, etc.

[Tesla]

Somone once left their laptop on top of their stove (their words, not mine!), think they had laptop on while doing stuff in kitchen and later one of the teenage kids used said stove without moving laptop. It was very melted!

[Meldrew]

Once had a teacher leave a running hairdrier on their laptop keyboard. It was only when the melted keys started flying off when they realised. Totally killed the laptop.

 

Meldrew.

[NB9457]

I once went to a PC in a High School that wouldn't power on, turns out someone had stolen the motherboard, CPU, RAM and HDD.

 

Probably explains why it wouldn't power on.

[6Foot2]

I once went to a PC in a High School that wouldn't power on, turns out someone had stolen the motherboard, CPU, RAM and HDD.

 

Probably explains why it wouldn't power on.

 

In that case, there was nothing.

 

[andydis]

not hardware but strangest thing i found was

and I am not sure how but one day the MERU wifi access points were all broadcasting a random SSID across the whole site instead of our normal SSID,

I downloaded a wifi tool to track the signal strength and found a windows xp laptop with 1) the wrong wifi driver (not sure if this added to the problem) and 2) windows ad hoc wifi setup , immediately turned it off and it all started working again, looking back wish i had more time to caprute the settings as it was a great wifi Denial of service of our channels..

[cburrows]

Best one for me was way back when doing my apprenticeship Floppy drives were still around although hardly used, someone put a whole packet of mini cheddars in the drive one by one and then the packet. Staff member went to use it and of course it wouldn't work!!

Quite amusing telling said member of staff why it didn't work! What a waste of mini cheddars.

[Chris_]

Found a couple of wifi acess points wrapped in tinfoil last week... No wonder we were getting complaints of poor wifi!

[diddylord]

Had someone use a cctv as a coat hanger once.

I did wonder why the screen was black.

[smurfomatic]

One of our teachers spilt coffee on his laptop a few years back, tried to use the hand dryer in the gents to dry it out...fortunately we'd bought that particular batch with accidental damage cover so he got it fixed!

 

Not strictly ICT, but still one of the funniest thing that's happened in my current job: Nine years ago, Year 8 trip to France. Children only allowed to take disposable cameras rather than expensive digital ones. Teacher comes to the front of the bus after doing a "bin bag run", to say that $FemaleStudent has thrown her camera in the bin because she'd used up all the photos, and it's a disposable camera...

[AJWhite1970]

Many years ago I was working as a civilian IT Manager at an army base. One unit wanted a ruggedized laptop so I got one in for them. The CO wasn't impressed and asked one of his team to test it so he took it outside, dropped it in a bucket of petrol and set fire to it. It survived. Still unimpressed the next thing I know it's been thrown on the floor and 5 minutes later a bloody great tank appeared and promptly ran over it twice. Still it booted with the screen intact. We purchased another 50 that afternoon....

 

God I miss that job

[mrbios]

Years back one of our IT teachers painted the top bezel of all the monitors in his classroom. Each row was a different colour, to signify a different team in his classes. Good idea, poor execution.

[rad]

I've had a bottle of tippex hit a wall and splattered the back of the two nearest computers

Ribera thrown over a PC

And somewhere on here is a picture of someone's lunch wrappers and crusts inside a computer base unit, the PC was still being used, there was no sign of forced entry

[sted]

a teacher opened their laptop up at such an angle the tea light on the table behind it burned/melted the rear lid and destroyed the screen. They got it back with a new screen and the burn/melt as was

[pcstru]

Pot of yoghurt carefully poured (spooned) into a PC via the cooling slots on top.

[6Foot2]

Pot of yoghurt carefully poured (spooned) into a PC via the cooling slots on top.

 

Adding a bit of culture after watching a YouTube video featuring Donald Trump?

 

[DalekSec]

Called to fix a jammed printer, one of those HP 1005. The paper pickerupper (is that a word?) had a tea bag crushed in it and tea leafs EVERYWARE in the printer. Didn't work again, must of got onto sensors or something.

 

Always check your paper doesnt have a teabag on it before you print!

[korifugi]

a teacher opened their laptop up at such an angle the tea light on the table behind it burned/melted the rear lid and destroyed the screen. They got it back with a new screen and the burn/melt as was

 

Holy burned laptop, Batman!

 

Called to fix a jammed printer, one of those HP 1005. The paper pickerupper (is that a word?) had a tea bag crushed in it and tea leafs EVERYWARE in the printer. Didn't work again, must of got onto sensors or something.

 

Always check your paper doesnt have a teabag on it before you print!

 

I hope you didn't swear - remember, keep it PG.