For computer technicians, it is a very normal occurrence to have to do hardware work on a service call.  Generally, the first step in doing hardware work involves opening the case to get to the hardware.  What happens, then, when you can’t even get the case open?

This is the story of a service call I had last week.  Funny, sad, dumb - who knows!

I ordered a customer some more RAM from Gateway after being called out to fix a slow computer and a ghosting video display (which turned out to be corrupt drivers).  She was using a four year old machine, which would have been one of the first few months that OEMs shipped XP.  Consequently, her machine was trying to run XP with 128 MB of RAM.  For those who have tried this, it is not pretty.  Applications take forever to load, if they load at all, and when they do, you can only have one or two things open at a time.  When Microsoft said 128 MB were the minimum requirements, they weren’t joking.

I handed the customer my business card, and told her to call me when the RAM got in later that week.  Sure enough, just as expected, the RAM came in, and I got a joyful call from my customer, who was very excited to see her computer fly with 512 MB of RAM.  She had no idea what that meant, but it sure sounded cool to her!

The next day, I head out to her house to perform the installation and make sure everything was running well.  It’s just a RAM job, right?  It can’t take more than 5 minutes!  That is, it only takes 5 minutes once you get the case open!

I read up on the case ahead of time, and noticed that it was a proprietary Micro ATX style case with half-size PCI slots (yes, those were the worst idea anyone has ever had in the tech industry.  I’ve seen one thing in 4 years in the business that supports half-sized slots.  Why even put them there at all?)  The case is made to be low profile, which is the reason for the half-size slots.  The problem is - making everything so tiny also makes it a lot harder to figure out.

According to the manual, there was only one thumbscrew on the back that needed to be taken out, and then, the case is supposed to magically slide off - like any other case.  I took the one screw off, and started pulling on the cover in vain.  Nothing.  Not even a budge in any direction.

I pulled, yanked, and clawed at the edges, being somewhat cautious because I’ve broken a cheaply-made Dell case cover before, but seriously, how hard can it be?

Then another thought occurred to me: there might be a latch somewhere that releases the cover.  I poke and prod everywhere that would normally have a latch.  Still nothing.  I look at down at my watch: 15 minutes had elapsed.  So much for that 15 minute job, huh?

I continued to push around on things for a while, still getting no response whatsoever from the case cover.  I’ve been doing this sort of thing for 4 years, and I’ve never had a problem like this before.  After 20 minutes, I gave up and decided that if I couldn’t figure it out, I’d have a Gateway Technical Support person point me to the magic key.

After finding the number, I gave their support a call, and to my amazement, they spoke English.  I explained the situation to him, laughing because of the audacity of it all.  He looked up the model, and did a little research on it.

“Uh, sir, that isn’t a case style I’ve seen before.  We don’t usually use that!” and with this, he continued his search, to tell me, “Well, it looks like there is just a thumbscrew in the back that needs to be taken off.”

I then explained that I had already done that, and asked if he could find anything else.  He put me on hold, and went on with his search.  About 5 minutes later, he clicks back on the line:

“You wouldn’t believe it, but there is a latch built in to the front cover!”

I took another hard look at it, and still couldn’t find anything that resembled a latch.  There were about 5 sections that looked somewhat like small drive bay covers in the front, but they were all the same, and had no labels on them.

“Sir, you’ll notice those panels on the front - its the third or fourth one beside the power button.  Just push those as hard as you can until one releases the cover.”

How nice - it finally worked!  I pushed in as hard as I could on one of those panels, and sure enough, one of them released the cover.  I thank the technician for his time and hang up.   Then I look at my watch again: 35 minutes had past since first trying to open the case.  I was absolutely dumbfounded.

After muttering a few words to myself, I slid the cover off the hinge that it was built on (another odd design) and installed the RAM in no time.

Forty minutes to do a job that should have taken five minutes, all in the name of design.  Thanks Gateway, for another wonderfully innovative contribution to the technical world.  I think I will stick with my Enlight cases.

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On another note, this will be my final contribution to the Kudos and Calamities column.  After doing weekly columns for just under a year, I have been moved up to a more management-oriented role, becoming the first Public Relations Manager for PCMech (read the official announcement here: http://pcmech.com/blog.php?blogid=26 ).  I will continue to write some articles, but they will no longer be on a regular basis.  I’d like to thank all the readers of this column for putting up with me for the last year.  I thank you for all your comments and suggestions, as well as giving us a few minutes every week to read what we have to say.  I have loved every minute of these columns.

Kram will take my place from now on as the second author of this column.  He is my personal pick for this column because of his writing style and knowledge.  He should be a great addition to the weekly staff.