Age old solution to fussy machines.

My computer was just acting up, so I hit the hard-drive and it started working immediately. I know, I know . . . It's a delicate piece of equipment. You really shouldn't do that. But it works. No clue why it works. But it does. From the first house-hold radio, to the first television set, to the latest computer. When a machine acts up, and you hit it; it'll often times start working properly. No clue why.

Perhaps some of you gentlemen would care to weigh in with your thoughts as to why?

Scares the Gremlins away.

Marginal solder joint gets shaken slightly for the better (or worse)? I can also imagine a broken off piece of *something* being moved around inside.

Lots of variables to take into account, some of which may be very obscure and/or barely unrelated to the problem.

Or you're just scaring it into thinking you're going to hit it harder if it doesn't start working. :shrug:

Dont care why it works, just be glad you're still allowed to dos so. In the past you were allowed to hit workers and children to make em work but nowadays this is frowned upon, lets all cross fingers this kind of taboo doesn't cross over to equipment.....

...........

I've always been a big proponent of percussive maintenance. It's almost a reflex action.

Geoff

Monocrom said:

My computer was just acting up, so I hit the hard-drive and it started working immediately...

Click to expand...

This is something that I've had to do years (decades?) ago when I did desktop support during my college years. As I understood from other techs, it's a sign that your HDD is failing. What happens is that the needle that reads the platter is getting "stuck." Basically think about the old vinyl record players. That's basically still how the HDDs operate.
It would probably be wise to replace the drive as soon as you can.

Even weirder techniques that we had to do for retrieving data from non functioning drives would be to freeze the drive. Sometimes, that would allow us a small window of time to revive the drive long enough to extract data.

my outdated $0.02
AZ

+

Had a dehumidifier that was so damn loud it was truly driving me nuts.
For a while, there was a fix to this torturous racket,..giving it a big whack on its side.

Well, after several big whacks,..it stopped working ###:sick2:

Backup your data immediately. Storage is cheap, free backup programs are plenty, but your data cannot be replaced.

LEDAdd1ct said:

Backup your data immediately. Storage is cheap, free backup programs are plenty, but your data cannot be replaced.

Click to expand...

An excellent idea for most folks. Thankfully, I have nothing important stored in my hard-drive. I'm a bit old-fashioned that way. The best thing my computer teacher did many years ago was demonstrate just how utterly unreliable and fragile computers are. Panasonic's hard case notebooks are the exception to the rule, as far as fragile goes. But when it comes to those two categories, nothing has significantly changed since I was a young kid. So I have nothing important on my computer. Physical paper documents kept at home even from 5 years back take up little space. Not as little as a flash drive. But a medium-sized bin under the kitchen table is far from a pain.

The first PC we had started clicking and stopped working one day. I didn't know anything about how it worked at the time but I traced the noise to the HDD... one good whack with a screwdriver handle and it worked for years after that. Funny, I had forgot about that until now.

I work on copiers for a living and I will say there are few or no problems what will be really fixed by hitting your copier. But I know it makes you feel better!

I find that taking it apart and putting it back together can fix a surprising amount of things, but yet a good wack can fix things but I have also broken many things the same way.

I also find taking apart and reassembling things works much of the time. Sometimes parts just rust or get gunked up. All it takes is a good cleaning to get them going again. Even electronics is sometimes amenable to this type of repair. Socketed ICs sometimes tend to lose conductivity where the pins are inserted. Often just removing the chip and reinserting it fixes the issue. Cleaning rubber contact strips for LCD displays may make missing segments reappear. Rubber button contacts are particularly vulnerable to dirt buildup.

The one good whack solution seems to work much better on people who aren't working properly than machines.

jtr1962 said:

Socketed ICs sometimes tend to lose conductivity where the pins are inserted. Often just removing the chip and reinserting it fixes the issue.

Click to expand...

Yep, that's my general experience too.

In general, connectors are a source of trouble. The contacts can lose the spring force that holds them together, the plating on the contacts can wear away due to small vibrations (fretting) or the plating can oxidize and then cause increased electrical resistance. For tin plated connectors, this is not uncommon.

Of course, for tin plated contacts, you can also have trouble with "tin whiskers", which is a small crystalline growth of tin that can cause shorts. They are quite delicate, so a bit of percussive maintenance can be appropriate (thanks to Flying Turtle for reminding me of that phrase).

As a general rule, getting rid of connectors and any moving parts (i.e. switches) will make a design more reliable and reduce the need for percussive maintenance.

regards,
Steve K.

Monocrom said:

But when it comes to those two categories, nothing has significantly changed since I was a young kid.

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Wrong... SSD's were not readily available(or even non-existent depending on your age) when you were a kid(assuming your atleast 25) and they have changed how durable a hard drive can be.

Look at this youtube vid... they threw a SSD off a 3 story building and it still boots up. Maybe you and your computer teacher should re-evaluate how reliable hard drives can be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4cK0L__B9U


Here's another one... they were playing baseball with a SSD instead of a ball and it still booted up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7W9zeZyhxw

daimleramg said:

Maybe you and your computer teacher should re-evaluate how reliable hard drives can be.

Click to expand...

I think not. I have had my hard-drive for five years. (I know, practically ancient for computers.) Less than a year of owning it, it crashed badly. Badly enough that I ended up calling a freelance computer technician who used to work at Microsoft, before he realized he could make much more as a freelancer. He fixed the problem. Wasn't easy, wasn't cheap. And here's the best part . . . He's been back 3 times since then. And no, not because he's incompetent. Among his clients are Fortune 500 companies. He doesn't even work on personal P.C.s much of the time anymore. As a former and repeat client, he works on mine. Everything on my computer is up to date.

So basically, every now and then it crashes for no reason at all. I'm sure there is a reason, but nothing blatant. The nice thing about paper storage is that unless some sadistic pyromaniac comes into your house, ties you up, and then forces you to watch as he one by one burns all of your documents; you're not losing all of your precious documents the way you would on a computer. One second it's there, and now it's gone! Hey, neat magic trick. Well, not really. Yeah, you can back everything up and pay for that service. But that's like wanting to buy an automatic watch because you think quartz watches aren't "real" watches. But then you buy a battery-powered watch-winder for it so the watch doesn't stop. Seems a bit silly to me.

I use my computer the way I do my T.V. and PlayStation. Entertainment only. All of my important documents aren't getting wiped out in the blink of an eye. I've kept up to date with computer technology. When it comes to reliability, computers are like Ultrafire flashlights. :thumbsdow

nonono not the feb 21 2007 drycleaning reciept. aarrrggggh hes burning it. aarrgghh. have mercy no more no more.oh no not the feb 22 2007 office stationary reciept, arrggh. please dont burn it, ill pay anything ill do anything, aarrggh .

stuff of nightmares.

Monocrom said:

I think not. I have had my hard-drive for five years. (I know, practically ancient for computers.) Less than a year of owning it, it crashed badly. Badly enough that I ended up calling a freelance computer technician who used to work at Microsoft, before he realized he could make much more as a freelancer. He fixed the problem. Wasn't easy, wasn't cheap. And here's the best part . . . He's been back 3 times since then. And no, not because he's incompetent. Among his clients are Fortune 500 companies. He doesn't even work on personal P.C.s much of the time anymore. As a former and repeat client, he works on mine. Everything on my computer is up to date.

So basically, every now and then it crashes for no reason at all. I'm sure there is a reason, but nothing blatant. The nice thing about paper storage is that unless some sadistic pyromaniac comes into your house, ties you up, and then forces you to watch as he one by one burns all of your documents; you're not losing all of your precious documents the way you would on a computer. One second it's there, and now it's gone! Hey, neat magic trick. Well, not really. Yeah, you can back everything up and pay for that service. But that's like wanting to buy an automatic watch because you think quartz watches aren't "real" watches. But then you buy a battery-powered watch-winder for it so the watch doesn't stop. Seems a bit silly to me.

I use my computer the way I do my T.V. and PlayStation. Entertainment only. All of my important documents aren't getting wiped out in the blink of an eye. I've kept up to date with computer technology. When it comes to reliability, computers are like Ultrafire flashlights. :thumbsdow

Click to expand...

Ok... I'm talking about SSD(solid state drives)... when you say hard drive do you mean HDD(hard disk drive)? with a disk that spins? Because those are crap and everyone should invest in a SSD which has no moving parts. Thats why they are so realiable vs the conventional HHD with a disk that spins(5400rpm-7200rpm).

When you say you've had your hard drive for years I'm guessing its a HDD and not SSD. You need to look into SSD's, they will change the way you view computers.

When a hard drive won't spin up and just clicks, the cause is often a dead coil in the motor. The same happens in car starter motors. In a hard drive, it's a sign to replace the drive before more coils go and you're SOL.

Monocrom said:

When a machine acts up, and you hit it; it'll often times start working properly. No clue why.

Perhaps some of you gentlemen would care to weigh in with your thoughts as to why?

Click to expand...

It's called Percussive Maintenance.

It works for the reasons mentioned by others here - resettling a cold solder joint, jiggling a loose IC in a socket (particularly the crap sockets made from tiny leaf contacts instead of machined pins), and it can loosen up a stuck bearing in a hard drive motor, allowing it to spin up again.

Also like the others have said, now is the time to make a full backup to another drive. Hard drives are dirt cheap right now since solid state drives are starting to get better, driving down the prices of traditional spinning media.

You should also keep an emergency bootable CD on hand. Download a copy of Knoppix or grab a Knoppix coverdisc from the computer magazine section at your local bookstore. It's a wonderful rescue tool for a damaged hard drive.

Going back to the loose connectors for a moment, turn the machine off, open the cover and carefully re-seat all of the cables. This is a common cause of intermittents that respond to a good smack.