"How'd you get that rust bucket to even turn on again? Wasn't the whole system shot?" commented Will, Erin's ever present... annoyance. The computer in question was something from the early 2010's, probably even a 2009 beast of a Dell that was heavier than necessary. It had come in on it's last legs, constantly blue screening and making the most horrendous sounds. She took it apart, combated the dust bunnies and dead bugs with three cans of compressed air. The thing was so caked in it, she was surprised the motherboard or fans hadn't caught fire yet.

"Patience, and not writing it off, Will," she replied, eyes never leaving the monitor screen. She couldn't explain how it worked, but it worked and that was good enough for her. The client had brought in the rig, asking for them to fix it however they could. She'd offered a new computer to him, and he refused, saying that there was something special with that one and he didn't want to lose it. Or something. The older crowd - those her parents' age or older - always seemed very attached to technology that was years behind what was out. On one level she could understand it, not wanting to have to relearn an interface again. At the same time though, it bothered her. Why cling to the past when the future was so bright? So, Erin had upgraded some of the parts that couldn’t be saved - namely his power supply and CPU were so encrusted with dust they were fire hazards. It was a newer CPU but somehow the sockets matched and it still worked, even on the almost decade old motherboard.

“Will it stay working, though?” He asked, leaning over her shoulder uncomfortably. He practically smothered her out of the chair, tapping on the keys. He turned it off, turned it on, off and then on again, pulled up BIOS, pushed the computer to the limit and tried to break the thing again. He was fishing for something wrong, something to show her up in any way. Still miffed about the whole smacking him with a clipboard, apparently.

She let him try. Why bother trying to stop a rampaging bull when she could simply side step him and go to next rig to work on? The next was a simple diagnostic and virus removal exercise. She didn’t have to do much, just let the program do it’s thing. She set it up to run the hardware scan at the same time as the virus removal, and sent it on its way. Erin continued down the row of computers like this, setting up the easy ones with automated tools, and checking on the status of various parts in shipment and internally groaning as she fixed mistakes in the services. Really, who disables the wireless and bluetooth options (and resets them several times without ever actually checking for driver issues or whatnot, then stating it UNFIXABLE) when all that needs to be done was uninstall a faulty anti-virus software? Really, who does that!?

“Are you sure you fixed this? Because it won’t work,” commented Will snidely some twenty minutes later as Erin updated the various clipboards with notes. She glanced over her shoulder at him, and then at the monitor screen. Well of course it wouldn’t work, he’d maxed out the RAM. He glanced at her, just barely keeping the smugness off his face.

Oh yes, still clearly miffed.

“... Move.” Erin shoved him out of the way, almost smacking him again with a clipboard, and frowned down at the computer. Thirty windows for Chrome all open to youTube playing 1080p 90FPS videos. In what world would a sixty year old man ever need that many windows open? She hard shut down the computer and power cycled it, all while Will leaned against the wall, still smug. It rebooted, only to crash to a blue screen. With a few quick taps of the keyboard, she ran the onboard hardware diagnostics. It didn’t even get through the tests before it glitched and crashed again.

How his cheshire grin widened.

Erin pursed her lips, thinking. Could have been bad RAM to start, she supposed, and his stupid tests broke the damn things. Did they have RAM for his motherboard though? Erin dragged the rig back up onto the worktable, opening it’s guts to room. DDR2 RAM was scarce these days in the shop. They carried a few sticks, but usually had to special order for it.

“Shoulda just sold him a new computer, even with his objections. It’s clear the rust bucket isn’t worth it.” The thought of smacking him with the clipboard again crossed her mind. Erin chose to ignore him, turning to the wall of spare parts and rifling through them. RAM… RAM… ah hah! Amid the bottom row of smaller drawers sat the one remaining set of RAM sticks. It wasn’t even a ‘set’ really, just a 2gb stick and a 4gb stick, of two different manufacturers, and probably two different ages.

Well it was worth a shot. Otherwise she’d have to order him some.

Erin carefully plucked his old RAM out, blinking at the warpness to the circuits Will apparently caused, and replaced it with her hodgepodge set. She hooked it all back up, finger hovering over the power button.

“Alright Elder, time to show him how it’s done,” she whispered, depressing the button.

The fans spun, lights blinking on the computer. There was the telltale ping of the system starting up and the monitor flashed with the splash screen. She waited through the ageing OS’s loading, and logged the computer in. It was faster than it used to be, predictably, and never once crashed as she put it through it’s paces.

“That… doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t have… I made sure…” muttered Will from behind his hand, staring dumbfounded at the unit. “... She’s a god damn wizard... she’s gotta be. There’s no way…” He wandered off sometime later, still muttering to himself.

It was only later that evening, as she cleaned up the tech space, that she realized it shouldn’t have worked. Upon inspecting the boxes, one wasn’t DDR2 at all. It was DDR RAM, some the early stuff, and generally not compatible with DDR2. Yet the unit ran quietly and without issue, ready for pick up in the morning.

That was the first clue.


[ WC: 1066 ]