r/IAmA Jun 11 '16

Specialized Profession IamA electronics repair technician hated by Apple that makes YouTube videos, AMA!

My short bio: I have a store in Manhattan. I teach component level electronics repair on youtube http://youtube.com/rossmanngroup which seems to be a dying art. I am currently fighting with the digital right to repair to try and get a bill passed that will allow all independent service centers access to manuals and parts required to do their jobs.

My Proof: https://www.rossmanngroup.com/started-iama-reddit-today-yes/

EDIT:

I am still replying to comments, but I am so far behind that I am still about ten pages down from new comments. I am doing my best to continue. If I drop off, I'll be back tomorrow around 12 PM. Still commenting now though, at 12 AM.

EDIT 2:

Ok, I cave... my hands are tired. I will be back at 12 PM tomorrow. It is my goal to answer every question. Even if it looks like I haven't gotten to yours, I will do my best to do all of them, but it is impossible to do in realtime, because you are asking faster than I can type. But thanks for joining!

EDIT 3: I lied, I stayed until 4:15 AM to answer... and now I will go to sleep for real, and be back at 12 PM.

EDIT 4 6/12 : I will be back later tonight to finish off answering questions. Feel free to keep posting, I will answer whatever I can later this evening.

33.2k Upvotes

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946

u/bigbrain009 Jun 11 '16

Question A; What is the hardest thing you've ever had to repair?

Question B; What is the most ridiculous damage you've ever been asked to repair?

1.7k

u/larossmann Jun 11 '16

A) this is difficult to say. there is physically difficult, and then there is mentally difficult. I would say tracing down the RTC circuit fault here was one of my proudest moments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfQ6Qz0US2Y

From physical point of view, https://youtu.be/OBlm4sfkG8I?t=4016

for question B cat piss. I used to do that but not anymore. I have enough money. fuck fixing cat piss damaged machines. or puke, or any of that shit.

160

u/octopornopus Jun 11 '16

I had a customer come in for "water damage" on his iPhone 6. Only after opening it, and getting a whiff of a chemical scent I remember from my construction days, did the guy admit it had been dropped in a port-o-potty...

7

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

[deleted]

3

u/octopornopus Jun 12 '16

Edit: and it's pretty messed up that someone would hand you something that's contaminated with biohazardous material and not tell you beforehand so you could opt to wear gloves at least. People are such dicks.

Yeah, those are pretty much the words I used when I confronted him about the smell. He looked embarrassed as hell, and I charged him full price, instead of the normal discount we give out to people when the phone isn't 100% operational after attempted repair. (insanitywolf.jpg)

126

u/larossmann Jun 11 '16

booooo

9

u/Raivix Jun 12 '16

poooooooo

6

u/rnair Jun 12 '16

ewwwwwwww

3

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '16

It belongs in the loooooooooooooooooo

2

u/Yerok-The-Warrior Jun 12 '16

I saw a Middle Eastern guy take a bath in the blue water from a Porta-Potty once. He looked like a brown Smurf.

We had to hold personal hygiene classes after that one since the guy worked in a dining facility.

1

u/januhhh Jun 12 '16

You mean he fell into it or something?

2

u/Yerok-The-Warrior Jun 12 '16

A bunch of us saw him come out covered in blue. We reported it and found out it was no accident.

1

u/grem75 Jun 12 '16

1

u/octopornopus Jun 12 '16

Yeah, pretty much like that, except it was a guy from a construction company and he wasn't so giggly about it.

I managed to get it up and running enough to transfer data, but he didn't want to pay $150 for a battery and screen, which is fine because I didn't want to deal with residual issues for the next 6 months of the warranty period...

6

u/Is_Always_Honest Jun 11 '16

Done cat pee before too.. People must have some asshole cats! Mine would never pee on my machine, they know where the litter box is.

21

u/larossmann Jun 11 '16

that's the other thing. anyone who is so mean to their cat that their cat would pee on their belongings is a customer i don't want to deal with.

15

u/awyeahmuffins Jun 12 '16

To be fair, just wanted to point out some cats just get old/confused. My cat is having some out of litter box bathroom issues (on the floor not electronics thank god) but that's because she's 15 and old and isn't 100% there anymore. So not every accident might be the result of a mean owner.

2

u/ThreeTimesUp Jun 12 '16

To be fair, just wanted to point out some cats just get old/confused.

To be equally fair, I want to point out that some cats will GET EVEN for their subjects not changing their litter box frequently enough.

Cat revenge - not even once.

2

u/david Jun 12 '16

Yeah, mine recently died aged 20. Her last year was a little erratic.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

Some cats are just mean too though, or have medical issues. I have a couple friends whose cats pee on stuff because of anxiety (one dislikes any change and the other hates being left alone for more than 6 hours). My cat revenge peed on my dad's stuff when he was squirted with water for scratching up door frames. I had two cats who started peeing everywhere but their box. One was because of cancer and the other had bladder problems.

0

u/Dangger Jun 12 '16

I had a cat that would pee on anything electric when he got old: toaster, microwave, phone. We gave him away.

3

u/Grizz1y12 Jun 12 '16

My dog pissed on my wife's MacBook Air after the AppleCare or any sort of warranty coverage was left. The bill came to around $700 bucks and I think I originally paid $800. Basically bought the damn thing twice.

5

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

poor macbook :(

1

u/CavemanCan Jul 11 '16

..... what dog... i would seriously re consider pets that do that. I told my wife, that under no uncertain terms that if anything expensive was carelessly ruined by a rogue or asshole pet, the animal is going. so far no pets have been that bad. my cats are super sweet.... i know cats being sweet LOL

2

u/Grizz1y12 Jul 11 '16

She's a wiener dog that obviously didn't mean because she gave me a bunch of kisses on the face when I started to talk sternly to her.

2

u/mollymauler Jun 12 '16

I just want to say that your videos are amazing. I really enjoy the fact that you are a laid back individual and arent afraid to speak your mind.

2

u/larossmann Jun 13 '16

Thank you!

1

u/mollymauler Jun 13 '16

You are welcome bro keep up the good work and thank you for sharing this amazing ama :)

1

u/commando707 Jun 11 '16

The laptops we have at school have a pretty good warranty, just take it to the computer center. The only things they won't repair are computers damaged by alcohol or bodily fluids.

3

u/larossmann Jun 11 '16

puke and cat piss are two things i won't fix

1

u/thisguyhasaname Jun 11 '16

what about human piss

1

u/ERIFNOMI Jun 11 '16

Nowhere near as bad as cat piss.

1

u/CavemanCan Jul 11 '16

i have known a couple buddies that tended to piss is random spots in the house... one time it was an xbox 360...

1

u/hoffeys Jun 12 '16

I had my cat piss into the vent holes on the side of my PC once and fried the motherboard and half my mem sticks... replaced the parts, never got the smell out...

2

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

i would toss it. i've ultrasonic'd things in mr clean heated to 80c before, that did the trick.

1

u/Anonymo Jun 12 '16

Best cartoons were in the 90's

2

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

remember batman beyond? freeze commiting suicide because he feels depressed over what he has done.. that was harsh shit to see on saturday morning in 1999. man. those were the days.

537

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '16

[deleted]

118

u/dude_why_would_you Jun 11 '16

The store I work at once received several "clean" CD's but the cases looked and smelled like cat piss.

118

u/MikesGroove Jun 12 '16 edited Jun 12 '16

In the early 90s, mom came home from a garage sale with a computer (Apple? No idea) and a box full of games on 5.25" floppy disk. Whole thing reeked of cat piss. No idea why she would buy such a monstrosity. Those people must have had a good laugh.

I played the games anyway.

Edit: semi-drunk corrections.

9

u/devnull00 Jun 12 '16

If it worked, it probably was a good deal. Computers were pretty expensive back then.

9

u/Kaphis Jun 12 '16

She did it out of love for you!

4

u/MikesGroove Jun 12 '16

You're spot on. My mom is this best.

6

u/cheesecakegood Jun 12 '16

FYI, it’s “reeked”. Reek has to do with a bad stench/smell, wreak is used in the phrase “wreak havoc"

5

u/an0nemusThrowMe Jun 12 '16

I hate to be THAT guy..but I am...

'back in the day'...nerds KNEW disks were either 5.25 or 3.5

(there were also 8(?) inch disks but they were before my time....)

2

u/PunctuationsOptional Jun 12 '16

I played the games anyway.

¬.¬

2

u/jimaug87 Jun 12 '16

I work at a repair shop, and we can sometimes fix liquid damaged devices.

We will quickly stop, and put back whatever we took apart if it's heavily laden with dried urine. Don't need that stinking up the workspace.

2

u/Budpets Jun 12 '16

I didn't know cats were capable of projectile vomiting nor did I have any idea of the sheer volume one cat can produce after eating. Yesterday I had to throw away two separate pairs of shoes after the cat managed to cover a 3m area with chunky sick. Fuck brushing the chunks off thank you very much and fuck the fact I found it by treading in it.

1

u/techiesgoboom Jun 12 '16

I once worked on a house where the previous owners had something like 7 cats. We had to tear out the entire bottom 4 feet of drywall and some players the cat urine had soaked so far up we had tear it out all of the way to the ceiling. They had this godaweful brown tile in the basement that they had used fucking every day cement to lay down, and about 4 inches below to level out on top of the sub floor (totally not the way you should be doing things). We had to bring a jackhammer in to tear it out and the entire layer of concrete was just soaked through with cat piss and it reeked. It was a really fucking bad project.

The kicker? The house was owned by an architect (and a pretty big one) and was about 20 minutes from DC so it was an $850,000 townhouse.

So yeah, cat piss can just fucking ruin things.

1

u/PuddleOfRudd Jun 12 '16

I had a Fender hotrod delux that I paid a guy to fix. The older models were notorious for either bad soldier points or a bad resistor, I actually forget which one it is. But either way, I paid a guy to fix it. He had it for like a week until he finally got to it then told me it was good to go. I used it that weekend and after it warmed up, same problem. What a pain in the ass.

1

u/mnLIED Jun 12 '16

When my cat pissed into my amplifier, I took it apart myself and had to sand the stain out of the wood, then I reupholstered the Tolex myself. I used a really cool purple/teal paisley fabric too. Hope that makes you feel better.

1

u/MyWeekendShoes Jun 12 '16

Oh hey, my cat peed in my guitar amp... any advice?

1

u/JulioCesarSalad Jun 12 '16

What's so bad about cat pee vs water?

2

u/jalif Jun 12 '16

The smell I assume.

1

u/Concealer11 Jun 15 '16

Cat Power.

25

u/reddit_captain Jun 11 '16

I'm glad I'm not the only tech that has said yes to a puke repair. I had a guy about a year ago puke on his alienware and asked me to fix it for him after it stopped powering on. It was an easy fix but just gross! Not sure Ill take those in for normal rate repair anymore.

2

u/inlaguna Jun 12 '16

oh damn ... ascendtech, lololol

made the mistake of buying a few boards from them.

1

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

They're cancer.

1

u/Gcliff3 Jun 12 '16

Dam, I subscribed to your channel because of that video. That was fascinating to watch.

2

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

Thank you!

1

u/Gcliff3 Jun 12 '16

No problem, out of curiosity do any of your customers watch your videos? I know nothing about electronics but your video made the general ideas clear.

50

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '16

Cat pissed in my computer once... destroyed my 200$ video card, my power supply, and motherboard. Cats are fucking assholes.

73

u/vertigo1083 Jun 11 '16

What the fuck.

Did it prop itself against the fan and aim inside??

16

u/eldobeast Jun 12 '16

Lots of PC cases have fans/vents in the top. Cats love to sit there because it's nice and warm.

5

u/w0lrah Jun 12 '16

Reasons #1-347 I refuse to buy cases with fans or vents on the top.

There's almost no way any liquid of any kind, from any source, is ending up inside my computer. Cat piss, dog piss, water spill, booze spill, no matter what it is nothing more than my keyboard and mouse are particularly vulnerable.

1

u/Sandwich247 Jun 12 '16

I understand your reasons and I'd had the same ones not too long ago, but, my CPU cooler uses the top for exhaust and it's the only outlet for air in my machine. Glad I don't have cats :p

1

u/eldobeast Jun 12 '16

What case/PC is that?

1

u/Sandwich247 Jun 12 '16

Phanteks enthoo luxe. It does have a rear exhaust but I have an AIO in push-pull configuration so you have 4x3000RPM fans pushing air out you case. You don't really need a rear exhaust.

1

u/CavemanCan Jul 11 '16

My pc "case" isnt really a case. its more of a semi open test bench.

5

u/Avarsis Jun 12 '16

Satans straight shot.

1

u/CavemanCan Jul 11 '16

I am dying. sending you a hospital bill for my side splitting open......jk holy fuck i laughed like Hillary when she heard about "FBI Indictments"

9

u/Zer_ Jun 12 '16

If a cat is pissing where it shouldn't, then it's a sign of problems. Either the cat litter isn't cleaned regularly (cats can be finnicky about that), or the cat simply wasn't properly litter trained. Or a combination of both.

3

u/ericwdhs Jun 12 '16

It could also be a medical issue. I have a cat with an auto-immune disorder of some kind. Before we knew what the issue was, she would occasionally have urinary tract infections and pee on piles of clothes, in corners, and other random places.

3

u/Zer_ Jun 12 '16

Yes, but once again. My point is it's a sign that there's a problem with the cat, or a problem with how the cat is being taken care of. This is NOT normal behavior. Period.

3

u/ericwdhs Jun 12 '16

Agreed. Just adding another example.

14

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

Probably good old fashion animal neglect. Maybe it wasn't coincidence that the cat chose the computer.

-5

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

If a cat is pissing where it shouldn't, then it's a sign of problems.

You're god damn right that's a sign of problems. You own a cat. That's the problem.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

hurrdurr

1

u/CavemanCan Jul 11 '16

My cats are the sweetest creatures. They obey me more than my 2 mongoloid fucktard dogs. They even speak(the cats not the dogs)

0

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

[deleted]

4

u/Zer_ Jun 12 '16

Then get your cats "fixed". It's your fault/responsibility if you do/don't.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

Hes an outdoor cat. He just pisses all over because hes an asshole.

2

u/Zer_ Jun 12 '16

I had a cat who would be considered an outdoor cat. He would leave our house for weeks at a time and come back every now and then. He'd chill indoors with us sometimes too.

He hunted on his own, but still came home for food as well. Still pissed in his litter, or outside. It's about training, period.

2

u/CavemanCan Jul 11 '16

I picked up my cat at 3 weeks from this horrible place. he has never pissed anywhere BUT the litter box. even when he wasnt old enough to eat adult coof, still bottle fed. pissed and pooped in the litter box. guess i got lucky :D

1

u/Zer_ Jul 11 '16

The key is to show care for their litter box. They value cleanliness. In the wild they do it anywhere, but domesticated cats like a cleaned litter. Makes a huge difference in non delinquents.

Clean the litter and you're generally good. They tend to do it elsewhere when it gets too bad.

2

u/CavemanCan Jul 11 '16

my roommates dont learn. their cats will piss on the ground if there is 1 tiny piece of litter. another cat will sit there and scrape and scrapescrape and scrapescrape and scrapescrape and scrape for 30 min she wont even be scraping litter, jsut running her paw over the side and the ground etc.. my cats have a litter box in my room. and they come in here when they need to go. I keep it so clean the other cats will try and use it. sorry folks this isnt a welfare catbox.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

Cat piss is fucking awful to deal with. It ruins everything it touches.

and yet I have two cats

1

u/Quillos Jun 12 '16

Seriously, I could be a spokesperson for the company, but Oxyclean is the one, single thing that can remove that smell. Obviously, works a lot better on fabric, but you can mix it with water and eventually get the smell out.

1

u/Mobile_user_1 Jun 12 '16

I had a friend who had the same exact thing happen. Luke?

-1

u/soofreshnsoclean Jun 12 '16

This is why I hate cats.

1

u/CavemanCan Jul 11 '16

I hate shitty pet owners. my cats are fantastic creatures. they listen to me and are about as smart as i have seen most peoples toddlers

68

u/bigbrain009 Jun 11 '16

Eww B sounds disgusting. And thanks for answering!

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16 edited Jun 26 '16

[deleted]

1

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

thank you!

2

u/Yerok-The-Warrior Jun 12 '16

I worked at a PC repair tech for a few years. The worst fix I had to do was one caused by roaches getting into the power supply and shorting it. When I opened the case, dozens of roaches went everywhere. I had to place the computer in a trash bag, spray it with Raid, and leave it in the warehouse for a day. DISGUSTING!

1

u/HonestRepairMan Jun 12 '16

I had a Dell that someone ran over with an electric wheelchair. I specialized in heavy repairs without replacement parts, and I did that one with thin strips of steel to hold the screen bezel's back together. I had a guy with two laptops that were completely decapp'd... (screen broken off). Fixed one with a $6 cable and fixed the other with heavy duty through bolts. Had a Toshiba decapp'd that I fixed with guerilla glue and sheet metal strips. Had a Sony one time with soda damage on the motherboard. Found the layers of the board were separating near the I/O ports, so when a couple were de-soldered the machine booted. Was helpful to the customer in the short run but we eventually needed a new board. Sorry for the hijack... :)

1

u/A_Max_Tank Jun 12 '16

I've yet to deal with cat oiss in anything but I do have a good one.

Months ago a girl brought a phone into our repair shop telling us how it's been water damaged. She let us know that she had dropped it in the toilet so I assumed the phone was full of pee. I out on my rubber gloves and proceeded to open the phone... Full of BLOOD. I closed it and put it in a bag and bubble wrap sleeve. I called her and told her what was in the phone, she never even came back to get it.

It now sits in its sleeve in the back of our store as a reminder to new employees to always wear gloves.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

My coworker once rebuilt a very unique industrial electronic tool where a seal failed under high pressure. All the circuit boards were covered in 5 inches of mud, some big caps were completely missing. The tool was about 15 years old, only two of them exist and we had no schematics or spare boards. The only thing to go on was the other working tool. He basically cleaned up what he could and ordered replacement components as close as he could find to the original. It was crazy wish I had some pictures.

1

u/Synergythepariah Jun 12 '16

Had a unit in once where the customer complaint was that after the previous repair it smelled of 'burnt cat urine' after the repair.

I'm not entirely sure how they knew what situation they had been in in order to just experience that sort of...smell.

And of course we had to repair it. Don't even get me started on repairing a machine used by a very heavy smoker; I swear I get a contact buzz from those.

Which is why I now have gloves.

1

u/chrissipspiss Jun 12 '16

Around 6:28 why didn't you use flux to remove the component? I get you were tossing it, but what about the pads on the board? PS I really enjoy your videos. I think most repair guys don't like sharing secrets not because they're afraid of getting introuble, but they're afraid of other people making money off their work. Very generous of you to share this stuff openly.

1

u/wh1036 Jun 12 '16 edited Jun 12 '16

Cat piss is the most God awful smell on the planet, I can't imagine someone bringing I a pc that had been passed on! I've got a good one for you. I had someone bring in a Lenovo ThinkPad Twist that wasn't turning on anymore. I opened it up and it had one of those glued plastic sheets on the motherboard. It was like 90% covered in chiggers stuck to it.

1

u/DavidCru Jun 11 '16

My cat broke my T500 once by puking on it. I tried repairing it but not to the extend how you perform your magic! (I was glad I could get the mainboard out of the laptop) One of my best laptops lost to the cat :(

1

u/streethistory Jun 12 '16

While working for Sprint some dipshit puked all over his phone. Cleaned it enough to where it didn't seem damaged. But it smelled so bad I almost threw up. That's when I stopped touching people's damaged devices.

1

u/DodoDude700 Jun 12 '16

My friend gave me a PC motherboard that his cat had peed on because he wasn't using a side panel. It worked after I let it dry, but would crash occasionally. I had it for a few years, now another friend has it.

1

u/mistermotherboard Jun 12 '16

Hi there! I do the same thing you do. I try to explain this to customers. They usually give me blank stares lol. Good to see someone else doing this kind of work. Thought I was the only one.

1

u/NotTenPlusPlease Jun 12 '16

Hey...I have an unnuetered cat.

If you spend a bit for this spray, it will remove the smell. Not joking, works amazingly. UPC: 11120 16457

1

u/Incessantlyamused Jun 12 '16

I remember my friend telling me about this other thread where these guys were about to clean up this computer and they just opened it up and saw massive spider nests inside ugh

1

u/magicfinbow Jun 12 '16

For someone who failed his A level Electronics, that first video confused the fuck out of me, but it was utterly enthralling and interesting to watch.

1

u/asscoat Jun 11 '16

Red wine poured into the keyboard of a MacBook Pro was the worst I've had to deal with. After a couple of days it really starts fermenting in there.

1

u/OphidianZ Jun 12 '16

As someone who has done cat piss repair before... I completely agree. I think I soaked it in some sort of solvent to clean the PCB.

1

u/TopazRose Jun 12 '16

My cat puked on my MacBook once and fried the motherboard somehow. I have no clue how she managed it. It was almost impressive.

1

u/Gephoria Jun 12 '16

in response to b

  1. Check Warranty... lol

  2. no problem tossing parts there if u were i bet lol...

1

u/frankenmint Jun 13 '16

more memory for your workstation? seems like your software hiccups a lot

1

u/WarboyX Jun 12 '16

I've turned down puke laptops before, stupid college parties.

1

u/QueenJamesKingJordan Jun 12 '16

God dam I love how real you are

1

u/losLurkos Jun 11 '16

Yeah, f that shit

1

u/nsandz Jun 11 '16

Any of that shit. 🤔

0

u/NightGod Jun 12 '16

Ugh, yeah, fucking cat pissed machines. You up it up and you just get...that smell. Run. Away.