Building a computer repair kit

[Mark Holtz]

Okay, since I am occassionally bugged to repair PCs, and I figure that I might as well assemble a PC repair kit to carry along with me. So far: Ultimate Boot CD Knoppix CD Several boot diskettes Straight network cable Crossover network cable ATX power tester Voltmeter Assorted cables Small screwdriver set Batteries Flashlight Mouse with USB->PS2 adapter Serial mouseWhat I still need to get: Regular set of screwdrivers Network cable stripper Network cable testerI'm kinda doing this from memory, so I probably forgot some things.

Any suggestions? Mind you, I'm not going into the computer repair business. I just want to have something handy in case I get asked "Can you take a look at your computer?"

[cdru]

can of compressed air
Auto detailer's brush - handy to losen dirt/dust
vacuum cleaner (optional)
assorted selection of screwes
slot cover blanks
molex y-adapter power cable
up to date copies of Ad-Aware/Spybot/favorite software
up to date copy of an anti-virus software

[Mark Holtz]

Got the assorted screw & jumper box with screws and jumpers.
Compressed air-need to pick up a four-pack.
Anti-Virus-Ultimate boot disk has the latest when it gets released. Stinger is a good thing to carry along.

[Steve Mehs]

Great list so far Mark, how about a copy of the NT Password Crack. (http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html) Handy utility works great on all versions of NT from 3.5 to 2003. Good thinking with Knoppix. A few weeks ago my other computer had a corrupted file and Windows 2000 wouldn't fully boot up, nothing critical is on that machine except for every MP3 I ever downloaded and I didn't make a DVD back up in some months. I stuck in the Knoppix CD, put in my Flash drives and copied about a half a gig worth of MP3s over to this computer of all the songs I downloaded since my last back up. I’d also like to play around with Gnoppix, which I guess is the same thing but uses the Gnome interface rather then KDE. I would also throw in a few blank DVDs or CDs or maybe a spare cheap 64MB-128MB flash drive for quick back up of documents, pictures, MP3s or whatnot incase you have to reformat.

Oh yeah and I forgot, how about a CD with current service packs of Windows. I run XP, 2000 and NT 4 on my three computers and have a CD with the XP SP2, 2K SP4 and NT4 SP6a upgrades, as soon as 03 SP1 is released I'll download it and reburn.

[CoriBright]

Add one ancient PCI graphics card to the kit..... to test for those "is it the AGP card or monitor?" times. It's better than carrying around an ancient spare 14" monitor (of which I have 4 in the garage!)

[SimpleSimon]

While you're loading that USB Flash drtive with software, don't forget ZoneAlarm. AVG7 for the Anti-Virus is top-drawer. Add SpywareBlaster, HiJaackThis, and WinSockFix, too. Then, copy the thumb drive to a CD-R (not CD-RW - compatibility issues with old drives, ya know).

If you really want to do it right, add a copy of the spyware's updated "Program Files" - set it up so that you can just drag'n'drop it onto the target machine. Done right, it works great and can save a lot of time - and risk.

[RichW]

Add one ancient PCI graphics card to the kit.

Great advice. A spare VGA card has helped me diagnose many computer problems.


Of course the ultimate PC repair kit these days is simply a piece of paper on which is written the number for Dell sales... to get a new computer. :)

[Bogy]

Of course the ultimate PC repair kit these days is simply a piece of paper on which is written the number for Dell sales... to get a new computer. :)
Aw, Rich, that takes all the fun out of it. This afternoon I'm going over to try to solve another problem for a buddy. I don't know what he's going to do when I move. Besides, not all of us have your inexhaustible funds to draw on. :D

[djlong]

Heck, I'm succumbing to the "just reinstall Windows" method.

I have an XP Pro machine that runs great except it started having isntall problems. Install procedures would hang *forever* in their preparation states. Now, it's so bad that I can't shut down the system gracefull as, during the shutdown procedure, XP says "Please wait while these 4 updates are installed" (which failed to install during a power failure that happened when I left the procedures "running" overnight to see if they'd ever time-out or something).. I have to power the bleeping thing down.

I wish I knew where the flags were that tells XP there are pending updates so I could reset them.

I wish I knew what those installers are hanging forever waiting for so I could elimiante the problem.

As it is, I'm going to have to back all the setting up, reinstall Windows and reinstall all of the layered software.

[Mark Holtz]

That's why I'm now GHOSTing my main drive to another drive. I have something to fall back on should something fail.