Tech Support Fails: Lessons Learned from Mistakes

Laughter and good company help us learn from painful tech support lessons.

### Laughing Through Tech Support Fails with Origin PC
* 😂  Everyone begins their tech journey knowing little, often learning through **painful mistakes**, but laughter and good company help **ease the process**.
* 💻  Sponsored by Origin PC, the video showcases their **Eon 16X and Eon 15 SL laptops** while diving into some of the internet's most **cringe-worthy tech support blunders**.
* 🧠  One memorable moment involved **removing RAM from a computer**, which the hosts humorously related to their own **high school experiences**.
* 🔌  The discussion also touched on the chaos that ensues when third-party contractors fail to **label connections**, leading to **office internet outages and confusion**.
* 🛠️  As the hosts analyzed various tech mishaps, they emphasized the **importance of proper documentation** and the **need for effective IT management** in workplaces.
* 💧  Another segment humorously critiqued a water cooling setup gone wrong, highlighting the **significance of ensuring all components, like O-rings, are properly installed**.
* 📞  Amidst the laughter, the hosts shared insights about the Eon 16X's impressive specs, including a **240Hz display** and multiple I/O options, making it **ideal for gaming and productivity**.
* 🤪  The video wrapped up with a reminder to **avoid common tech mistakes**, reinforcing the idea that while tech can be challenging, it’s important to **find humor in the journey**.

Everyone starts out knowing nothing. We eventually learn, but not without some hard, painful lessons. Thankfully, we've got the best medicine for that: laughter, good company, and Origin PC, who sponsored this video with their Eon 16X and Eon 15 SL laptops. So come along with us as we laugh together at some of the internet's worst tech support gore, like this one: removing RAM from a computer. Oh my God, you know what? I've actually done that one time. Oh, I've totally done this. It's super cool. I did it to the school computers in high school. And we're off to a great start. Did it look like this? You know, I try to just block that memory out of my mind. What were you thinking? Uh, that it was off. Oh my God, you did it on by accident. Oh yeah, you know what's great though? I've seen it where you can actually rip out RAM sticks and the computer will work for a little bit of time, as long as it doesn't try to access whatever was in that particular stick of RAM or doesn't try

to write to it because the computer still thinks it'll have 8 GB. Yeah, or whatever you had, right? Like, this looks like somebody took one stick out, and then the system was like, Where did those bits go? I don't like this. And that's what happened. Someone unplugged something, and now the office internet doesn't work. Oh my God, you know what's crazy? Our server room looked like that. It wasn't this bad; it was that bad. It wasn't this bad. I mean, that should be easy to figure out, though. Just find your modem. I mean, you know you can figure that out potentially. Yeah, it depends on what you unplugged and if you actually have everything documented. I understand how it happens, and you know what? A lot of the time, it's not the fault of the people who are actually in charge of admitting the thing. Some third-party contractor will come in, they won't label anything, and then your boss is breathing down your neck or your team is breathing down your neck to get their systems back up and running. You go, Okay, well, I've solved it.

now I'll label it later times 15 years plan a burn the office down no one looks for a bullet in a bombing custom Loop oops oh God I hold on hold on no I see it already there's some things about this that look very good the orientation of the radiator will help the air bleed out of it I think I see where this is going no had nothing to do with that what I had to look away what where did it where did the seal break it didn't look like the tubes can you play in slowmo on this don't have the O-rings in the CPU BL it's there though no the O-ring is not in I have seen this happen this generation of block needed to be disassembled in order to change out the mountain remember yeah I totally remember it that's horrible if you forget to put the O-ring in hey that don't seal this is salvageable but my God this is why when you test your water cooling Loop you do it with water not

the like Blue Smurf vomit it whatever the hell that is y oh that's blue fortnite chug jug here we're overanalyzing it big brain yeah well with the higher level of water in the loop you could have the pressure and the gravity no they don't have an o-ring in it I should tell them it's not a touchscreen [Laughter] oh oh okay why is everything they want to touch right in the center Apple if this isn't enough evidence that you need to make your deves touchscreen I don't know what will be what it looks like they were drawing here what are they drawing are they trying to summon some Demon it's like someone just lotioned up and went to town on the monitor dude someone's using lotion at their desk for this you can tell holy but I like it this way it's conven oh my God okay yo this is you like in another life I didn't even realize how bad this was does it work I mean that's a cool

function if you could make it work that way, like if your phone would. Yeah, I'm all for it. When I first looked at this, I was seeing the glass and I was seeing a phone propped on the glass, and I was like, Man, you go and touch that phone, it's going to knock over the glass, your phone's going to get. I thought it was like a battery pack. Yeah, I didn't even notice that the phone is split apart. Yeah, and then the liquid would spill directly into it. But you know, you what you can also do is just lean the phone against the glass. Oh yeah, oh can you see them in the thing? Yeah, you could see them. Oh yeah, absolute Giga Chad right there. Is that Elijah? Okay, that's gross. Go full screen, we need to zoom in. I don't know if I can handle that. No, oh no, this is actually disgusting. Look, it's convenient, so he's got Heineken and Red Bull and Red Bull, lots of smoke. Lots of smoke. Is that pudding in the bottom?

left dude dude. The top of the desk is the tip of this garbage Bird. Yeah, but look at the screen. Look, go up, up, up, up, up. See, like, they're showing it. Power Aid, got to stay healthy. You know why? Do you say healthy? And there's like 17 packs worth of cig. Stay hydrated, I guess. That looks like, dude, that looks, I think that's piss. Oh no, oh God. Are those pea bottles? Oh no, oh no. Why would you leave them open? Yeah, that's the problem, Jake. And they're on the look. This just seems fake. Like, I want to know if this is staged, and I think we can figure it out. Look at this banana. This banana has not been there that long. You know, you're right. A lot of it looks too new. Like, why are all the McDonald's cups so pristine and like the Red Bull cans not crumpled? I mean, maybe this is just a hard day's work. You're drinking a lot. You're going to be peeing a lot. Maybe.

they take pride in their degeneracy like they've been like this for a long time. Yeah, check the comments. Let's see what the comments think. It's just apple juice. How is that possible? Are those Splitters? What am I looking at? Wait, go back. Are those like those two-in-one ethernet splitters that we did a video on? Yeah, looks like that. Like, don't work. What are they? They can work if you use them the right way. Okay, 'cause you can use only four wires. And so if you split the two pairs or two sets of four wires, you can use that way for like cat five or whatever. But look at all the empty ports on the switch above them. Why are they splitting? Like, what are they doing? I don't know what's going on with that. What is the point? Okay, well, what's on the next rack? Oh God, the floor. Oh, you can't even walk in here. Oh, the wires hanging from rack to rack really pisses me off more in all honesty. What am I even looking at? Like, this is a huge

building with a non-trivial number of people, presumably who are being paid, which tells you already that whatever company is operating here has a non-trivial amount of revenue that they clearly do not invest in it. Who hurt you? Who hurt you? That's like if somebody calls you to come work on this. When you walk in the room, you just go, I'm a bill you hourly. No, you go, you turn, you turn around and you leave. No, I'd take it. What, dude? No, I'd take the money. No, I take the money. You know what? It seems like everyone in the comments are on your side. I'll be paid hourly, please. It's got to be hourly. There's no way I would quote the job because clearly that's cobbled together from generations of a hardware. Nothing like malicious compliance. Speaking of malicious compliance, our sponsor wants me to talk about the Eon 16x, but I'm going to do it my way. It's got a 2560 x 600 16-inch display running at 240 Hz for a smooth gaming.

experience. But if you want to use another display like we are today, it's got a ton of options for I/O. It's got Thunderbolt 4, which makes outputting video or connecting to a dock super easy. It's got USB 3.2 Gen 2 type-c, which supports display port and power. And it's got good old-fashioned HDMI 2.1. Plus, unlike many modern devices, it's got three USB type-a ports and a headphone mic combo jack. What it doesn't have is what we're about to look at. My heart stopped beating. That looks like our set. Oh, I've seen this. Oh my God, this is Sarah. Oh good, it's us. Oh no, it's us. Why? Oh God, I remember this. Oh yeah, oh God, it's not aligned. Oh God, what is it so crunchy just ganking it out. Oh Sarah, please just the physical pain of loss is great here. This is just as hard to watch the second time. This is the worst one so far, like actually. Oh no, this got

7,000 upvotes. To be fair, the computer worked after this. Microsoft, please remove the nightmare that is SK from install. These were dark times. All right, that's enough of that. Oh my goodness. Oh wow. Oh God. You want to touch a Wi-Fi there now. Look, accessibility is a good thing. Yeah, this wasn't the right way to do it. Yeah, no. So this is an argument for imaging things. Oh yes, that's a great skipping all this garbage. Yeah, so sometimes when you have to do mass installs for an office or a school, you can set up one laptop and then use Microsoft's imaging to create that and install it on multiple devices. Yeah, that way you don't have to listen to a thousand Cortanas. Yeah, you make the user do it with the out-of-box experience. Exactly. There's got to be a phobia of this, people repeating the same thing over and over again, the voices. IT manager, workstation user one is the domain admin password is. Was the LED name really? I thought Windows doesn't even let you do that. This Windows 7 dude.

what I just like how sorry who is this user one is the domain admin. At least it's not just password that's worse because at least with password they'd have to guess. This is just telling you what the password is. That's fair yeah hey well the good news is when they fire their IT manager they won't have any trouble getting into the system. Yeah exactly I mean there's nothing like building out and maintaining a fancy authentication system and then just making the password the username just don't have it then. This is the kind of office where like no one's really in charge of it. Oh yeah right someone has to go kick the rotor right like this guy's leading the horse to water right here. Yeah holy single cat 5e holding up a rack huh. Oh they' tied it on here I'm so uncomfortable. Oh I've seen this one yeah yeah yeah uh-huh mhm. Oh my gosh that's mint I'm so mad. This one really bothers me I'm confused now cuz it should like hook in.

here yeah why did they take it down? It probably fell. You know what? I bet it is. I think the Deep stuff is too deep to fit in it, but then they've got stuff just hanging out the front anyway. Okay, so it must sit in the bottom portion like it came out. Yeah, here's the pills that help them feel better. Yeah, we'll just tie this ethernet cable. We've done Jank, but I, this is bad. This is terrible. Don't do that at all. Why? My internet keeps dropping. Oh, is this just like follow the cable? Okay, is there going to be a cat at one end of it? This has got to be a cat. Is this the power cable? It's a phone line, it looks like. No, that's the power cable. Okay, okay. Power up over there. The heck is going on. Okay, we're going. Okay, is this going to be a jump scare? Are we going to get huh to another Power? Oh my God, don't do that. Don't daisy chain. Well, are we going down into the

basement. Did we just? We're in the basement now. Is he a crack sha? Another power adapter. Surely he's got a closer power connection. Is the house not wired for electricity except for one outlet in the basement somewhere? That this legitimately possible just open across the floor like the neighbor's house. Another power connector. What the? Sorry, pardon my language. It looks like a light switch. Oh, there is so much wrong with that. You know what's funny is I went through this with Yvon's phone not charging, and I realized that her phone charger was plugged into the bedside. Yeah, yeah, I got you. And it's got a light switch for. Yeah, yeah, it took me. It took me like an embarrassing amount of time to figure out why sometimes it didn't work. I'm surprised it booted. I mean, the MM doesn't take a ton of power probably, so I mean, but with how much other daisy chaining stuff, we don't know what was on the other end of those 18 fridges on it.

who knows what else, yeah, powering the neighborhood, grow up, yeah, yeah, grow up, God damn it, Chromebooks returned end of the year, yeah, yep, yeah. I, at my school, we had a laptop program, we had ThinkPads. Kids did the worst stuff to their laptops. Why would you do this, a child? This isn't your property. So, in fairness though, it's kind of a vibe. I kind of like it. Halloween. Who needs H key when you have Halloween key? Yeah, they're like legitimately using it to learn A for Apple. What else we got here? There's more pictures too. Oh, is there? Yeah, on the right. Let's see if there's... I study pimpology. I'll thunder your grandmother. What? I'll thunder your grandmother. That's not that bad. That one's pretty tasteful. Yeah, I like this one. Yeah, book definitely Chromebook. It's done with like watercolor paint, like they did this in art class. This is pretty tasteful. You know what else is tasteful? Is the back of the origin laptops with the next talking point. No.

it's too soon too. It's so such a good. No, it's seg way do. Okay, fine. Okay, fine. We'll talk about Origins UV printing there. This was done in a tasteful way as well with the Eon 16x and the 15sl. You can add your choice of HD UV prints or laser etching to make them unique. And while they're not going to be able to fix what we just saw, if you do have any issues, you can always call their support line for helping hand. Okay, user spilled coffee on his laptop. Oh no. And put it in the oven. No. Oh, a ThinkPad too. Oh, there's so much wrong with that sentence. And that is a fraction of how dead everything inside it is now. The best part is ThinkPads have drainage holes in them usually, so your liquid will flow through it. That is true. That is some ThinkPad laptops, not all of them. Yeah, but still with coffee, you probably want to take it apart to get some of the gunk out cuz it's not just water. If it just black coffee, maybe.

you're okay, but there are going to be something in there, right? Yeah, but not the oven. That's the TLDR. No, not the oven. The nipple is fine, though. You can still use that laptop fireproof nipple. Yeah, you lost the F key entirely. You can't pay any respects to this at all. F. Oh man, a person mistook LED polarizing film for protective plastic and peeled it off. Oh yes, no, I'm actually impressed that they were able to get that much of it off. I hope you didn't want to close any programs ever again. I think we have an old video on this where you can actually take that film and make glasses out of it, so you can have a private screen. It's also a super fun science project, by the way. Get your kids to do that. It's super, super cool. I mean, like, don't use a good laptop. The Eon 16x is way overkill for what we're doing today, but it's got a sleek and compact design and manages to pack in an Intel Core i9-14900HX.

an RTX 490 mobile GPU, Wi-Fi 60, 64 gigs of RAM, and 3 terabytes of total system storage on Samsung 990 Pro NVMe drives. Moving on, Hospital server room, yeah, don't go to this Hospital, you're going to die. Hey, battery backup though, that's a big one. So, that's something a UPS ain't saving you like one pair of scissors. Who knows who's dying, yeah, like holy wonder what this bracket is from. Hey, they made sure they didn't lose the screws though, they're right there. It's for the UPS. Top comments probably like, I know which cable or something. Found Waldo, click on that. What is, click on the link. Oh, there's a guy, there's a guy. Go back to the picture, no shot. Top middle, scroll down a little to the right. Yeah, he's right there, you can see him. I think I might know that guy, man. The guy that noticed that is wild. User dropped it walking to the car. It came in the day after the Super Bowl. You are so full of you, sir.

that is not from being dropped. That's a I lost my bet or did he spike it in Victory maybe, you know, uh, yeah, depends on how he came in that day, was he upset or happy. Yeah, there's no way that's a drop. Oh no, I can totally see what happened here. Yeah, yeah, literally you can see the bend. Yeah, dropped it while walking to the car. Yeah, I dropped it while walking to the car and then I drove over it seven times. Customer came in with his iPhone, his glass cracked. He thought he could peel off the glass so he wouldn't notice the crack anymore. What I mean, mission accomplished. I mean, yeah, I don't see the crack much. I can still see the crack. How do you even go go that far? It would have broken about halfway. Like, why' you keep committing to it? It's like some real methhead energy or something. I don't know. Why did you keep going? Gouged the out of it. Didn't you reach a point where you were like, maybe I should stop? He he

missed some glass here. There's still glass here. Yeah, he left some of the crack. Yeah, that's the problem with this Jordan. That hey, like my God, fair enough. I need somewhere to set this candle. Yeah, not there. Oh, they put it on top of a computer. It dripped through the top grill. It's like someone barked Pepto-Bismol into the cage. The two capacitors on the bottom right make it look like Kirby. Kirby has consumed This Server. No, I know what it is. It's got to be like a cable box. That would also explain why somebody has a candle on it. Yeah, it looks like there's like RCA jacks or yeah. I think this is a cable box. Oh gross. Is wax conductive? I don't think so. Cuz like I'd be curious on if this PC, as long as it didn't get in anything major, maybe it still works. It'd be warm. Well, cleaning out a PC belonging to a cutting Stone Shop. Oh god. Well, you're going to want a mask for

that it doesn't stop. There's a learnable here. There's a reason those computers that are passively cooled, like the industrial computers. Yeah, there's a reason they exist, bro. Probably going to have, like, as best as poisoning after whatever he's blown out of there 'cause that's nuts. What's the top comment? What's the top comment? So gross, holy. It doesn't stop. It's because Loops. I spit. I'm so sorry, but I. I spit. Actually, that was the funniest follow-up comment. It's 'cause the give Loops DB. Anyway, you need to be using a passive computer, a sealed one. Yeah, for this. Yeah, we have one in our shop for that reason. Well, hang on, folks. We've got another quick word from Origin Piece here. It's all about their Eon 15 SL. If you need something a little smaller with a little less horsepower at a lower price, the 15 SL might be for you. It's still got a 240Hz, 2560 x 600 display, along with most of the same I/O we saw earlier. It's a

great option for anyone gaming on the go. Now this. Oh my goodness, my space heater stopped working. I think a lot more probably stopped. How do you even do? That's straight up so dangerous. It's terrifying. Don't plug a space heater into a power bar, and if you do, don't plug in anything else. No, just don't. Yes, but if you do, no, just don't. It even says on the cable. I know, yeah, but they also, they compounded the error, Jake. They compounded it. This is a compound error. It was next to the heater. So do you think the SP, how does it, how does it get that far, and like you don't, that's a good point too, yeah, like how do you get to this point and nothing failed beforehand? This is every level of scary. Yeah, when it wasn't a phone holder after all. Oh no, oh I've seen this one. Oh my god, when it wasn't a phone holder. Oh wait, wait, wait, wait. Now you can just lift the screen up and hold it up with a drink for like angling. No, no, just peel

it peel off the glass parts. Oh, 'cause the part under it is flexible. You could do both. Is that for like ventilation? That's supposed. I don't know what is that for. I don't know. Yeah, you can't even access it. It's not very big. I what is that for. It's not a phone. It's not a phone holder though. Someone's going to know. Let us know in the comments. I have no idea. Tragedy. Customer put toilet paper between CPU and the cooler because he read online it was almost as good. The worst part is this looks like it was running for a while. It looks burnt like it's got dust and stuff built up kind of where it would be in such zoom in. Are you serious? It looks almost like it's kind of like just turned into powder. And the thing is that with a processor from this era, the computer would probably work a fair bit. It would just thermal throttle to hell in back. Mhmm. And the performance would suck. What article would that have been? Was it

AI, you know what? When was this post made? Let's close out of the, uh, just hit the X in the top right. Yeah, years ago, this would not have been generative AI. Uh, yeah, no, it's not as good as thermal past. Please use thermal past. Don't do that. Yeah, or PTM 7950 LTD store.com. There you go. Bend it, accept. Oh my God, love the edit. The edit makes it so much better. The little just like, this is nothing compared to the time we had the editors build their own workstations. And one of them, Dennis, one of them, Dennis, screwed the motherboard into the motherboard backplate without a standoff when the rest of the board was secured with standoffs. Yeah, was it Dennis? And then proceeded to edit on that machine for several years. It was definitely Dennis. I believe it was Dennis. Okay, end user had a heater next to the PC, was randomly shutting off. She thought she smelled burning a couple of times. It is literally screaming. Yeah, look at the US. I can see the little face with the audio.

and it's literally like it's probably fine yeah but like oh at my old job I 100% saw this yeah I had a client who their computer was shutting off randomly and they couldn't figure out what the source was but they had a heater by their feet and the computer was under the desk so it kept shutting the computer off so I this is probably more common than we would ever like to admit it looks like it's just the bezel at least too it's not like the cases and yeah as long as there's no longevity of heat damage to any of the components right all right we got a couple more here down to the last ones when Amazon support told me to bake my SSD in the oven may I know what happened here I'll I'll be I'll be Amazon you be Amazon all right may I know what happened yes I connected this SSD to my computer I tried both slots and my motherboard did not detect it I have another SSD and it works perfectly in both slots thank you.

for the information, if I may ask, do you have your internal SSD right now, the Western Digital one that I bought from Amazon? Yes, perfect. Can you please try to remove the RAM and then put it back? That's a bit of a twist. Okay, it is a Karen. Oh, it says Karen customer service. Oh, two RS. Yeah, all right. In my computer, I'm using that to talk to you. Yes, please. So polite. The RAM SE is correctly. I can assure you of that. Also, if I did that, I would have to end this call. I do understand that this might be weird, but I'll assure you that this will work. Try to preheat your oven. Oh my God, preheat your oven to 150°F. He just goes with it. How much is that in Celsius? The bot recommends them because they have a broken m.2 SSD to pull the RAM out of their system, preheat their oven to bake the RAM. Did they say to put it on tin foil too? Wrap the RAM tightly in tin foil, so bake the RAM, bake the RAM that

is a wild. I mean, look, reflowing things in an oven can work as a temporary measure to maybe pull data off of it if a solder joint has failed. Don't try to justify anything from... I mean, I've done... I've done data recovery. We had to freeze the hard drive, so the opposite direction of heating. Okay, that's fine. And you especially shouldn't put your RAM in the oven if you have a broken SSD and leave the power cable connected while you're baking it. All right, on to the next one. So, this is why we don't run a 50ft budget HDMI cable. Yes, you've been there. Oh yeah, usually like this is more than we usually get with long... this is pretty good for a super long cable. They're lucky they got anything. Do you remember 16k gaming and the hell we went through with the cables on that? I do, yeah. That's how I found infinite cables. That makes sense, yeah. They were the only ones that had a decent quality long display port C in.

Canada that could ship quickly. Dude, we bought so many cables for that stupid video. Yeah, like I think probably four or five different sets. I mean, the right side of the screen is okay. Just keep your Discord on the right side. Exactly. I hope you all had as much fun as we did. I just want to take another moment to once again thank our sponsor, Origin PC. Whether you need a balls-to-the-wall maxed-out Eon 16x or something a little more modest like the Eon 15s, Origin's got you covered. You can check them out using the link down below. If you guys enjoyed this video, maybe check out the one where we roasted our colleagues' gaming setups.

Reacting To Your Worst Tech Support Nightmares!

Linus Tech Tips is a passionate team of "professionally curious" experts in consumer technology and video production who aim to educate and entertain.


Linus Tech Tips

Learning from mistakes is a part of life, and the video sponsored by Origin PC uses humor to highlight some of the worst tech support blunders.

Removing RAM from a computer and causing internet outages are common mishaps, often exacerbated by poorly labeled cables and third-party contractors.

The video also pokes fun at water cooling setups gone wrong and the need for touchscreens in tech development, all while sharing relatable and amusing experiences.

A Disgusting and Chaotic Work Environment

The conversation revolves around a messy workspace with a phone propped against a glass, causing concern for potential spills.

The desk is cluttered with empty cans, bottles, and food wrappers, leading to speculation about the cleanliness and organization of the space.

The chaotic setup raises questions about the company's revenue and investment in the work environment, with the speakers joking about the absurdity of the situation.

The Importance of Proper I/O and Installation in Tech

The device offers various I/O options, including Thunderbolt 4, USB 3.

The video reflects on past installation struggles and the importance of imaging for mass device setups.

It highlights the challenges of poor cable management and the consequences of improper installations in an office setting.

The Struggles of Power and Laptop Mishaps

The basement has a confusing power setup, with multiple adapters and a questionable light switch.

The conversation shifts to the challenges of a school laptop program, with kids mistreating their ThinkPads.

The discussion then moves to unique laptop customization options and the importance of proper liquid spill management.

A person accidentally peeled off the LED polarizing film from a laptop, causing potential issues with program closure.

The Eon 16x laptop, with its powerful specs, is highlighted as overkill for the day's tasks.

Various mishaps, including a cracked iPhone glass and a dropped laptop, lead to humorous and unconventional attempts at fixing the damage.

There is leftover glass and wax on a computer, possibly from a candle and a cable box.

The PC's condition raises concerns about its functionality and potential exposure to harmful substances.

The discussion highlights the dangers of improperly using power sources, especially with space heaters, and the importance of using passive, sealed computers for industrial work.

A customer used toilet paper between the CPU and cooler, causing dust buildup and potential thermal throttling.

Another user had a heater next to their PC, leading to random shutdowns.

Amazon support suggested baking an SSD in the oven, but it didn't resolve the detection issue.

A customer service interaction involves unusual suggestions, like baking RAM in an oven to fix a broken SSD.

The conversation also highlights the challenges of using long HDMI cables for gaming.

The speaker thanks their sponsor, Origin PC, for providing a range of computer options.