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Tech support consists of many things; it's a range of services companies provide to their customers for products such as software, mobile phones, printers, and other electronic, mechanical, or electromechanical products. But I think that its biggest component is frustration; the soul-crushing feeling every IT person feels when they witness or, God forbid, have to clean up after our stupidity. I'm talking about desecrated HDMI ports, spaghetti cabling, laptops covered in concrete... or as the subreddit r/TechSupportGore calls it—content. This online community collects pics that will make us "cringe to the brink of passing out" and if it gets a point across it's this: technical support services usually provide users with help in solving some common problems rather than providing training on how to use the product. We haven't really learned after Bored Panda's earlier articles on the subreddit here and here. The fails look just as bad!
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#1
Look How They Murdered My Boy
RELATED:
#2
The Computer Keeps Overheating
#3
Yea, The Printer Will Not Print If You Leave The Plastic Packaging On The Paper!
When Bored Panda contacted Coffeechipmunk for an earlier interview, the moderator of the subreddit said that the most popular posts in the community are usually the ones that show a device a moment away from exploding.
“It’s both dangerous and cool,” they explained. “They probably get so big because people post the pics and you think, 'Wow, that's just a bomb at that point.'"
"A lot of the content on the subreddit does rather well, except for people coming for actual tech support, they get redirected to the right subreddit. For actual tech support gore, though, it seems like broken screens and slightly messy wires are the current posts that don't hit too hard," Coffeechipmunk explained.
#4
First It Made Burning Smells, Then It Beeped, Then It Died. Colourful Ants!
#5
Is This The Worst Spaghetti Cabling Ever?
#6
Ps5 In For Hdmi Replacement. Kid Said “I Pushed The Cable In A Little Too Hard”
The moderator believes the reason why r/techsupportgore got so popular a simple one: "Honestly... it's very fun," Coffeechipmunk said.
"In a time where most of the internet can be incredibly serious and most times saddening or angering, r/techsupportgore is fun because you go on it and you can laugh (and/or cringe) at the crazy posts. Where else can you see a post like, 'Wow, these cables really are messy' [or] 'A lizard fried my motherboard' back to back? I love our growing community. They're a bunch of people that just enjoy tech and to some extent, the worst of it."
#7
Unironically Canadian It Gore
#8
Yes, That's Concrete
#9
I Found This While Scrolling Through My Camera Roll From 2018, Enjoy
#10
That Is An Ant Inside The Screen!!!
Casey Burns 4 years ago
Lololol I would've clicked on it for a few hours probably before I realized it was an ant. "This virus is so realistic."
engineer_nope.avi 4 years ago
I had a similar situation with a spider. Gave to support for repair, got back the laptop along with a squashed spider. Needless to say, they removed it for free.
Mark Howell 4 years ago
Is this where Terry Pratchet got his inspiration for the computer in Disc World ??
Alexandra Nara 4 years ago
Best comment!! Just add some dried frogpills to fix this bug
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Shirley Heyn 4 years ago (edited)
Just another system bug. . . doesn't look serious though. . .
Brandi VanSteenwyk 4 years ago
Ewwwwwwww!! Must've heard he could get a byte just inside the door.
Marco Conti 4 years ago
My daughter had a pet spider in her screen. It survived the life span of the laptop.
Rainy Day Wolf 4 years ago
ants get everywhere... I used to like them but now I'm just tired of fighting them
#11
Grossest Controller Of The Year Goes To
#12
Just Had A Laptop Returned That Has A Used Bandaid As A Webcam Cover
#13
Slpt: Laptop Charger Panini Press
#14
Hot Glue Gun Ad On Facebook. Just Why
#15
Forbidden Caprisun
#16
Laptop Left Turned On In A School Bag Mixed With A Moldy Sandwich In The Same Compartment
#17
The Forbidden Capri Sun
#18
One Of Our Clients Couldn't Figure Out Why His Wireless Keyboard And Mouse Weren't Working
#19
It Was A Technological Murder/Suicide Today. Crt TV Landed Directly Onto A Brand New Asus Chromebook
#20
Hard Drive Data Recovery
Nagawa (Cofa) Kishiki 4 years ago
Yes, you need to take the disk out and play it in a vinyl player. Make sure to set the speed to 78 rpm.
#21
"Why My Keyboard Doesn't Work"
#22
User Complains About Weird Smell While Using His Laptop
#23
While Many Of Us Are In The Business Of Tech Support, Self Help Is Often Necessary
#24
Ps4 Botched Repair Attempt. The Shop That Did This To The Client's Unit, Charged Them $100! Should I Put Them On Blast?
#25
Behold The Beauty Of Our Office Server
WilvanderHeijden 4 years ago
State of the art airco for a state of the art server room. Budget for PR is $10 million per year, budget for IT is $10 000 for 2 years.
#26
Free Laptop! Too Bad The Screen And Keyboard Are Ruined With The Spray Paint
#27
Electrician Friend Just Sent Me This, Found During A Portable Appliance Test
#28
Customer Came In With A 512gb Ssd In Their MacBook Pro That Only Had 77gb Of Their Own Data On It, Yet It Was Reading As Full Of "Other" Files. After Some Digging It Turns Out That Apple Mail & Gmail Were Writing A New Encyclopedia Britannica Behind The Scenes. That's A Whole Lot Of Text
Ece Cenker 4 years ago
What does the op mean by "A New Encyclopedia Britannica?" What was all that text?
#29
Really Great Laptop Performance With A Core I7
#30
Lent It To A Friend...
#31
Her: My MacBook Pro Is Running Hot. Inside The Fan: Ant Colony
#32
Someone Tried To Print From USB
#33
Got An Xbox 360 Controller In For Repair. Inside, I Found Multiple Dead Bugs And Everything Was Covered In A Fine, White Powder-Like Dust
#34
Friends Computer Has Been Crashing For Like 3 Years
Lauren Caswell 4 years ago (edited)
Ay! I remember when my dad replaced the cooling fan things years back on our home pc (he did 90s computer tech stuff so we had stuff at home for his work etc plus he bought and refurbished old parts from his work), he had them in bout 30 mins them *BOOM* *swearwords*, dad comes out covered in coffee and black soot. Checked the fan seperately, it was a dud, stopped after approx 1 min. Rang the computer place, 'oh no its specialist we aren't reresponsible blah' plus a bunch of condescending jargon. So dad brought it in and politely schooled them on how their faulty fan had toasted his new hard drive. They replaced it all. I think coz he was 'older' (40s at the time but 90s tech was new), they just were so rude and dismissive. TLDR: faulty fan made expensive computer go boom. Tech experts learned not to judge a technician by his cover ^-^
#35
My New USB C Car Lighter
#36
Why Do We Need To Hire It? Just Plug It All In
#37
Stupidity Strikes Again. Now I've Got A 'Curved' Keyboard
#38
How Do Things Like This Happen
#39
Criminal Poe Adapter
#40
Just Imagine The Smell
#41
Saw The Other Post About Ethernet Rewiring And Reminded Me Of This. It Worked Fine For Almost A Week Until I Replaced It With A Proper Cable
#42
Power Supply Didn’t Fit, I Guess This Works?
#43
Previous Install Company Ran Cat5 Over The Main Junction Box, Decided To Shield The Cable With Aluminum Foil
#44
How To Make Sure Ideas Hold Water
#45
My Little Cousins First Build. I Told Him You Have The Wrong Ram. He Said "How You Know?"
#46
This Fella Got A Black Eye
#47
"User Dropped The Laptop. Please Give Us A Quote"
#48
“Hey, Grab Those Couple Of Pcs In Storage Down On Lower Level, I Need One.” Here You Go Boss, I Fetched A PC For You
#49
Hey Isp You Always Drop Out At Lunch Time, But Only On WiFi!
#50
Next Level
#51
Returned Airpod Pros To An Apple Disposal Centre In Shenzhen
#52
Shoutout To The Cell Phone Repair Shop That “Worked” On This Xbox Series X Before It Came To Me
#54
Easy Fix
#55
Stopped By A Local Sports Bar To Pick Up Dinner, This Is How They Do Online Orders Through Several Providers
#56
I Said To Delete The Data Not Destroy 4 Sas Disks
#57
This Is What Happens When The Tech Before You Puts A PC Right Next To A Cnc In A Cabinet Shop.... Still Working
#58
I Was Wondering Why It's Only 100mbps
#59
I’m Not Sure They Put Enough Thermal Paste On Here
WilvanderHeijden 4 years ago
"You don't need thermal paste when you've got a cooler installed." as I was told by an intern while he sat down on the principals new laptop.
#60
My Work (Industrial) Had Me Burn Up Some Hard Drives At 1750 Degrees In A Carbon Filled Retort. This Is The Result
#61
"Ticket: Student Destroyed Laptop"
#62
This Is A Nice Repair Job I Could Say
#63
Removing Ram Heatsink, What Could Go Wrong
#64
Apparently, This Particular Philippine Brand Of Power Strip With A Laminated Metal Casing Uses Stripped Wires In Between Outlets
#65
iPad Meet Couch
#67
Checked In A MacBook Hair At Work Today
Wombatred26 4 years ago (edited)
Looks like either golden retriever or golden labrador fur to me...
#68
Power Button Broke And Didn't Have A Replacement Lying Around… There Was, However, A Broken Coat Hanger
Cactus McCoy 4 years ago
I don't get this one....are there any two wires which need to be pressed together or what?
#70
I Work As An It Analyst From Home. My Assistant (Two-Year-Old) Pre-Installed This Printers Crackers For Me. He's Great!
#73
Shore Power Cable After ~8 Years Exposure To Salty Air And Moisture
M O'Connell 4 years ago
I've found that potting the terminals with hot-melt glue helps this sort of thing a bit, though judging by the condition of the wires themselves, it was time for a new one anyway.
#74
Guess I Need A New Battery?
#75
Nightmare Server Dungeon At My Job
WilvanderHeijden 4 years ago
On the bright side, you don't have to share the room with the cleaning company who needs the space for their cleaning carts, vacuums and brooms.
#76
Happy Monday, Plumbers Were Flushing The Lines Upstairs And A Couple Gallons Came Through The Ceiling. (The Leak Was Like 10ft From The Server Room)
#77
This Physically Hurt My Brain
#78
Removing Ram Heatsink, Be Sure To Get All That Ram
#79
" It Would Not Enter Into The Hdmi, So I Thought It Needed A Bit Of A Push..." A Pair Of Pliers And 2 Minter Later...
#82
Ohhhh Yes The Server
WilvanderHeijden 4 years ago
Just another situation were IT is underfunded but yet is expected to keep the company running.
#84
Client Was Wondering Why His PC Didn’t Work After Installing A New Gpu
#87
The Guy Who Built This Told The Customer The Water Cooling Was Zero Maintenance.... He Didn't Do A Good Job In The First Place
#89
Decapitated Airpod 1st And 2nd Generations
#90
Gpu Woes Pt.2 - The Fan Of My Gtx 650ti Melted After A Gta V Session. R.i.p
#91
It Turns Out The Ssd In A Microsoft Surface Is Removable After All!
#93
Customer States Their MacBook No Longer Turns On After Updating To Big Sur
#94
Remember To Unlock Your Pcie Lock Before Removing The Gpu
Thomas 4 years ago
That looks more like the result of an heavy graphic card mounted without any structural support. Modern cards can easily weight near three pounds, you're supposed to use brackets (or mount them vertically). coldzero-g...6996b2.jpg 
#95
Gtx 1080 Gave Out At The Worst Time Possible. Rest In Peace Buddy
Allan Breum 4 years ago
I wish you luck in finding anything from the 10 series, or newer, at anything resembling MSRP.
#99
Previous Install Company Ran Cat5 Over The Main Junction Box, Decided To Shield The Cable With Aluminum Foil
Add New Image
What do you think ?
BlackPearltheSeaWing/NightWing 4 years ago
None of these people should ever be allowed around electronics again.
Janus Sanders 4 years ago
all this did was give me anxiety about the possibility of bugs being in my laptop
4 years ago
My dad would freak if he saw these. He yells at us if we hold a laptop by the screen for 3 seconds.
fuggnuggins 4 years ago (edited)
YOU HOLD YOUR LAPTOP BY THE F*****G WHAT!?!? But, seriously, that's such a relevant thing to get pissed about. You buy and replace your own s**t that you treat like s**t all you want, but if you're mindlessly spending someone else's money then of course they get pissed when you're being stupidly careless with it. How much money has he sunk in you so far, and you're still grappling with basic understanding? That's why parents should be able to refund children. "I'd like to make an exchange. This f*****t's faulty." (And I'm sure he loves ya because he does things for you, and him caring about your stuff is him caring about what's good for you, even if he does think you're a f*****t.)
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Camilla Koutsos 4 years ago
This makes my teeth itch. Seriously jonesing for some cable porn...
fuggnuggins 4 years ago
I wouldn't think anyone would have trouble in that regard these days but I hear that they all use OnlyFans now.
Load More Replies...
Lunar Bicycle 4 years ago
In 2007 I started work at a medical company, you know, where a lot of private health information is kept. The company’s 80 computers were a mix of XP, ‘98, NT and 2000 on a peer-to-peer network, and the “server” was just an old desktop running ‘95. No antivirus, no firewall, no password protocols at all. The soon to be fired IT Director said antivirus software was unnecessary “if you were smart.”
Demon Child 4 years ago
I'm not tech-savvy at all and even I know whats going on, that says a lot
Jace 4 years ago
I’m commenting before reading as an experiment: will most of these be about mocking users for not having specialized knowledge, or will they be more about actual horror stories of objectively bad/weird behavior and bad technology? I left IT because I hated the arrogance of my coworkers hating on users, and hate the normalization of bad tech (no, bugs aren’t normal), so there’s my bias right up front. Now to read the article...
Jace 4 years ago
I know happy to see that these aren’t user-bashing posts. I’m not happy to see how many are basically irrelevant to the list subject. I didn’t bother with the page of extended submissions, because that’s just a dumbass website design.
Load More Replies... BlackPearltheSeaWing/NightWing 4 years ago
None of these people should ever be allowed around electronics again.
Janus Sanders 4 years ago
all this did was give me anxiety about the possibility of bugs being in my laptop
4 years ago
My dad would freak if he saw these. He yells at us if we hold a laptop by the screen for 3 seconds.
fuggnuggins 4 years ago (edited)
YOU HOLD YOUR LAPTOP BY THE F*****G WHAT!?!? But, seriously, that's such a relevant thing to get pissed about. You buy and replace your own s**t that you treat like s**t all you want, but if you're mindlessly spending someone else's money then of course they get pissed when you're being stupidly careless with it. How much money has he sunk in you so far, and you're still grappling with basic understanding? That's why parents should be able to refund children. "I'd like to make an exchange. This f*****t's faulty." (And I'm sure he loves ya because he does things for you, and him caring about your stuff is him caring about what's good for you, even if he does think you're a f*****t.)
Load More Replies... Camilla Koutsos 4 years ago
This makes my teeth itch. Seriously jonesing for some cable porn...
fuggnuggins 4 years ago
I wouldn't think anyone would have trouble in that regard these days but I hear that they all use OnlyFans now.
Load More Replies... Lunar Bicycle 4 years ago
In 2007 I started work at a medical company, you know, where a lot of private health information is kept. The company’s 80 computers were a mix of XP, ‘98, NT and 2000 on a peer-to-peer network, and the “server” was just an old desktop running ‘95. No antivirus, no firewall, no password protocols at all. The soon to be fired IT Director said antivirus software was unnecessary “if you were smart.”
Demon Child 4 years ago
I'm not tech-savvy at all and even I know whats going on, that says a lot
Jace 4 years ago
I’m commenting before reading as an experiment: will most of these be about mocking users for not having specialized knowledge, or will they be more about actual horror stories of objectively bad/weird behavior and bad technology? I left IT because I hated the arrogance of my coworkers hating on users, and hate the normalization of bad tech (no, bugs aren’t normal), so there’s my bias right up front. Now to read the article...
Jace 4 years ago
I know happy to see that these aren’t user-bashing posts. I’m not happy to see how many are basically irrelevant to the list subject. I didn’t bother with the page of extended submissions, because that’s just a dumbass website design.
Load More Replies...
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