Computer Repair – Paul's Tech Talk

Will Nvidia fail after EVGA announcement?

PaulSeptember 18, 2022

Is this end for Nvidia?

We can only assume that EVGA got away from Nvidia due to the strict rules set aside for all AIB (Add-In Board) companies. I don’t say that lightly, Nvidia has said in the past what AIB could and couldn’t do. They were so controlling, that most couldn’t even make enough money to the public. It’s almost always a lost leader for most of the companies because they are told how much they can sell their Nvidia boards for weather it be for EVGA, MSI, or some third party such as Dell, and Alienware. Then Nvidia could come along and under cut them by selling their own for much cheaper and easier. Let’s not forget to mention that Nvidia would wait till the last minute to give AIB’s driver’s and even information about what the next version of the GPU will be like.

This is just a power move

There’s been talk about this being a power move by EVGA but I really do not think so. They have stated many times that they will not go to AMD or intel, but people still think they will do that. Others say that EVGA will be back in the GPU arena later on after everyone cools off. I don’t know about that either because I can’t see EVGA coming back without some major reason that would give them the advantage they are looking for. Either way, it doesn’t look good for EVGA for sure and sooner or later they will need to start laying people off. You can’t have all those people doing nothing.

What’s next for Nvidia

I can only guess what will happen with this announcement. Of course Nvidia did have stocks drop over the weekend and maybe that was too expected but I don’t see this as being a big issue with them. They knew it would happen once EVGA announced it, they had to know. The problem is what will Nvidia do to get customers to want to buy their stocks and keep them going. Will the 4000 series be any better than 3000 series or will it just be a tiny bit better. We will not know until people start looking at the 4000 series and doing their benchmarks for how it reacts to any given game. In the meantime, if you have bought a EVGA card what’s your thoughts on this. I know I bought a 3050 two months ago and now am a little worried if my card fails will I get another 3050 from EVGA or what will happen.

What’s your thoughts on the EVGA and NVidia debacle? Will they join forces or stay apart?

Why most computer technicians are all over the place.

PaulSeptember 3, 2021

Too many things and to few technicians

This is really the most common problem. If you haven’t been watching there seems to be a labor shortage, that means most jobs aren’t getting filled even in the really tech related market. I can pretty much say with some certainty, businesses are going to be picky who they hire and why they will not hire others. They might have a goal, or want to fill a position with the best possible candidate. I am sure most of the businesses are trying to fill the positions but people have thought long and hard and wanting to be appreciated. This is going to not stop the labor shortages anytime soon. You can expect that the shortage to last for some time in the future as people rethink what they want to do and how to get that dream job. It will make it harder on the technology industry also because they will always be short handed until this levels off and the work load gets back to normal.

Most technicians are probably ADD(Attention Deficient Disorder)

Yes, you’ve probably guessed right. We tend to be more all over the place due to to have the attention span that is normal with working on computer. There are some that are way better at hiding it or maybe they don’t have it in the first place, but I’m willing to bet at least half do have some form of this disorder. It’s got to be because it’s why we got into the computer field. We enjoy seeing what might be around the corner or what will a customer bring into a computer repair shop. That’s something we have a lot of experience with is seeing how broken the system is due to inexperience people.

Most technicians have high level of intelligence

This could be bad or good depending on how you see it but I’ve found this to be true with most technicians. If you seen the Big Bang Theory and seen how Sheldon reacts that is kind of what a technician might do. Technicians sometimes don’t have those filters you would expect them to do have but they are very friendly. I am sure if you think about Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory, you might see some of what I am talk about.

Technician’s are not socials sometimes

It might not seem like but sometimes I tend to stay around people they know or maybe even be around people that know about computers. I know myself, I rarely go to events that isn’t interesting. If it interests me we can talk about it for days but if it isn’t that interesting, I would probably fall asleep. This is where computers for me at least brought me into the field of being a technician.

I know this is a short post but I thought maybe some of you would like to know what a technician might be or how he might react. Do you have suggestions on why a technician might be all over the place or even why he acts the way he does. Why Not leave a comment and tell your story or tell me what you know.

More advice for new computer technicians

PaulAugust 13, 2021

Job Searching is outdated!

In My previous post, Some advice for computer technicians, I did talk about what a technician usually has to do to fix or repair a system. He even has to deal with some very difficult customers.

Now with that said I wanted to change directions and talk about the job search area and what you should expect. Being a computer technician that has the educational background but not the experience of actually being a computer technician, can be quite frustrating sometimes when it comes to job searching. It can just make me scratch my head when they require a 1 to 2 or even 5 years of experience to even start doing the job we went to school to get the education to do the job. How is any employer going to over a entry-level job and still require some sort of experience that shouldn’t even be a requirement to get the job.

This just seems like someone is not understanding what the word entry-level means and why it shouldn’t require much to get that job or position.

Don’t Apply for every job

This one just seems like it needs to be said. Just because you have the education, don’t apply to all the jobs that you are interested in before doing a little research. Figure out what you want to do and how much you are worth. Use places like Glassdoor and indeed to make sure the company you are considering applying for has a good reputation or at least got some good reviews by previous employees. You know you will have to deal with bad bosses from time to time, so you can figure out if you want to apply for a job that has a bad boss or if you might just hold of on taking that job or applying for that job.

You are worth more

This one is even better because some people will take these low paying jobs because they want to get their foot in the door or get the experience. I say don’t do it, find an employer who will pay what you are worth. I could go down the street and get paid to bag groceries than maybe an employer who only wants to pay me 12 or 13 dollars to start off on. That just boggles me, that I went to get an education and still can get a job that pays more than what I got my education for. If we stopped allowing them to do this by not applying or accepting those jobs, the pay will eventually go up but we must be able to say no.

Don’t expect that Dream job

I say this with some trepidation that we shouldn’t expect to find that dream job right away. In fact, we will probably have to work at a dead end job for a year or two at the very least to be able to have the requirements to get that dream job. In truthfulness, you could easily find that dream job right after getting your education but the chances on that are slim to none, I’d say. This is something, I’ve seen time and time again that people loss hope right after getting their education to be stuck in a dead end job. This is the time to keep looking for a better job and create notifications to help keep you looking for a better job down the road.

Avoid Job text Bots

This one seems quite common. You get the text that says you’d be a great fit or something along the lines and you ask a question in text and it says “Perfect . . . .“. These are just bots that I have come across, this is how lazy recruiters are trying to recruit people for their job. If anything, his means the job might not be all that it is worth and they are having people quite left and right and this is the easiest way to try to find people to fill the job position. Seems kind of a catch 22 in my book, if they aren’t going to actually read my question and answer it then the job isn’t for me. I’ve turned them off by texting stop when I find out it was bot that answered me or when I get the perfect or some other way to say we want to talk to you before they even read your text.

These are just what I’ve seen in the job market as of late and thought I would talk about some of these and others ways to find a job in the computer repair or a technician jobs. You can even figure out how much a computer technician should make by using Glassdoor or even Indeed to find out the salary rages someone would be making in your area.

What are some things you’ve seen that makes you cringe when looking for a job as a computer technician? Have you seen some of this? Leave a comment below and tell me your experiences as a job seeker. If this post has helped you consider using my affiliate links to say thank you for this great post.

How to repair a computer after a power surge

PaulAugust 9, 2021

Computer repair after power surge

Is that even possible? There seems to be some questions about that with a few friends of mine. We’ve been talking about this and I thought I’d would bring you along for the ride. If you didn’t have a Uninterruptable Power supply(UPS)(Amazon Affiliate Link), then maybe it is time to buy one. See my affiliate link of all the possible UPS that Amazon has. The problem with some computers is that they have so many things that could happen that you might not really know what could of been hit. I’m going to walk through some possible areas where to look for burns and or shorts in the system to possible know what you might need to do to get your system back up. Be advised this is only a way to tell what might be the problem and it may be worse than you can know just by looking and seeing.

Power Supply

The first place I always look is at the Power supply. Since that is where electricity is designed to go to. If you push the start button and the power supply doesn’t even turn on, than you might have a blown power supply. You can however check the motherboard and memory but I usually check the PSU when I suspect the power supply might of gotten hit by lighting or a surge in the system. The PSU does have a fuse inside it that might of blown. That is usually something you will not be able to get at. However if you have another PSU you can use to plug into the system than you might be able to know if the PSU is the issue in the first place. Do you need a new PSU, why not check out my Amazon Affiliate link and see if you can find another one for your needs.

Depending on your system setup

If you suspect that it was from your LAN(Local area network) network that you got the power surge, than I would start looking inside the computer around the LAN connection. Some people use WIFI and it will not cause any problems but if you use a LAN cord to connect to the internet that is the next place to look at to make sure it’s not burned or any black areas around the connection. If that’s the case the Motherboard will most like need to be replaced but that is if nothing else works. You’ll probably need to buy a CPU and motherboard and depending on your setup the GPU. If the GPU was close to the LAN, than that might need to be replaced too. With the high prices of GPU’s this could get really expensive really fast. However if the system turns on and still refuses to post without errors, you could always try to problem solve the motherboard issue before you switch it out. Even my Gigabyte b450m ds3h(Amazon Affiliate Link) motherboard wouldn’t be to hard to replace if I had to but I would have to buy another i9 LGA 1200 CPU which would cost a lot.

Motherboard powers on

If the motherboard powers on and you’ve done the problem solving for the motherboard. The last thing I usually try is to remove everything possible besides the CPU and one stick of RAM to verify that there isn’t anything that might not be working. If you do that and it boots then it’s either the RAM(Random Access Memory) or the GPU (Graphics Processing UNIT) if it has one in the first place. If however you get the CMOS or CPU FAIL error than the motherboard or the CPU is bad and at that point the only good option is to replace the motherboard and everything else associated with it. You can however try to use the CPU and memory on a new motherboard if you want to know if they are good but I usually just replace it completely because you never know when those other parts will fail and than you will still have repair and upgrade the system at the same time. You probably won’t be able to find the same CPU again unless you buy it second hand.

Well these are the area’s I usually look at when I suspect either a power surge or a lightning strike has just happened and my system won’t boot or even start due it. If it happened to you, I feel sorry for you but you should either invest in a UPS or a extension cord that has a circuit breaker to prevent you system from being fried.

Did it happen to you? How did you handle it or was it worse than you thought? I’d love to hear how you solved your issues and what it was like to have those issues. Why not leave a comment and talk about it. Don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter and receive notifications when I post new content.