What is your greatest IT fix, you've ever come up with that worked while doing IT? This can be either for a paid job, or personal.
Mine is where I fixed the paper-output sensor on an HP LJ 4600 series printer with 4 pennies and some scotch tape. The spring that forced it back down unless a stack of paper held it up was broken, so it would print one paper and then error out saying the output tray was full of paper. This had been a problem with this printer for over a year and had been bounced around other IT personnel and even gone up to a higher tier to have checked out but no solution, and then I figured it out when it came to me. I taped on some pennies to always weight it down and it never had a problem again. I felt like McGyver. Also, extra points also for figuring an unconventional solution that no one else did.
Another solution, but it wasn't really IT, more a maintenance issue, was where a coworker came to me and said that everytime HVAC came on, the light right above his desk would start creaking from vibrations. The office he was in was right below the HVAC on the roof. I got up into the ceiling above the ceiling tiles, checked the light fixture out, and found it secure. Nothing was loose, but there was a gap between the top of the light fixture and some ducting. If I put my hand on top of the light fixture while the HVAC was on, my body soaked up some of the vibrations and it didn't make the noise. I needed to figure out how to replicate that without me standing there. The space was just the right size for a computer case to fit. I grabbed an old empty case that was going to be tossed, two pieces of cardboard to go between the duct and case, and the case and light fixture, and I wedged it in there. The light Fixture now no longer vibratied when the HVAC came on. We had no change management system in place, or even a ticket system, so other than telling two people, nothing was documented. I like to believe that that someone later on, found that case, wondered what the heck it was doing there, pulled it, and then was like... I understand why that was there and put it back.
01 Oct 2013, 2:37 pm
