Did the Dell phone adviser put me in danger?

Question

I recently bought a Dell PC and when I got it, it was dead. No amount of pressing or holding the on button at the front would switch it on.
So I log onto Dell and speak to an adviser via their rather good technical chat facility. I then receive a call from the tech support adviser who I assume was calling from India by her accent.
Anyway to cut a long story short she asked me to open up the PC unit with a screwdriver and talked me through checking inside. I have no PC hardware skills so most of what she advised me to do went over my head. In the end I put it back together and an engineer is coming to look at it tomorrow.
Was this risky?. It seems odd for someone at Dell to ask a novice to open up a PC. I had no idea what I was doing and could have caused all sorts of damage. Also if the power lead was still connected (she asked me to plug it in while the case was open to check if it was working) could I have been electrocuted?

I'm concerned and wondered what others thought.

Answer 1

The suggest having the computer plugged in to prevent any damage from static electricity. The is doesn't really help anything as the sudden drainage of electricity from a persons body can still damage the traces and electronics whether or not the computer is plugged in.

As for being electrocuted, I highly doubt it. If the computer was plugged in, but not on, you would have to touch bare wires (which I have never seen but have heard of happening) or you would have to take the connector and actually make contact inside the pins of the connector with some form of conducting material.

The reason they do this is because the problem may have been very simple. An example of this is maybe the connector for power isn't snapped into the motherboard to supply power to the CPU and memory, etc. If they get you to open the case, and the solution is this simple, not only does your computer work right away but it saves them the money from having to send a tech out to your house.

Maybe the problem was with the tech support person using too much technical jargon. I am pretty sure if they spoke at the same technical level as the person they are dealing with, there is usually very little of a problem.

Answer 2

If you have a PC open either the power lead SHOULD be in, or it should be on an earthed mat, otherwise static electricity from your body can fry components.

Also mostly they'd be asking you to check connections, all of which are fairly robust. It's quite normal, especially with dell, to ask you to go through this.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

Yes, it certainly was risky. The employee should not have tried having you troubleshoot like that. Not only is it a health risk, but if you happened to have damaged any components while inside you could have voided your warranty.