Day 2 - March 12th 2024

The day started in the early morning, after having breakfast and getting ready. Zeinedin & I took our daily walk to the bus around 8 AM. After sitting on the bus for a little less than half an hour, we arrived at the train station.

There we took the same train as Jens, who works at the same shopping centre as me, the Dún Laoghaire Shopping Centre. The Dart train ride takes about 45-50 minutes until we arrive at Dún Laoghaire. Zeinedin has to leave the train earlier than us though.

At about 9.55 I arrived at work, where we first started by setting up the shop. Once that was done, we picked up where we left yesterday: discussing about a laptop battery’s weird behaviour. First it lost all its battery charge in seconds, then it lost it in minutes and how it is now: working well as normal. We decided to not make any conclusions yet and test this further as the day goes on. After that I took the router motherboard from yesterday and dissected it. Nothing worthy to note was found, so we recycled it. Then I had to disassemble the tower case PC, that a client brought in yesterday afternoon. Upon opening the case, I immediately recognized a very annoying piece of plastic on the heatsink which makes it very hard to remove.

First, I removed the power supply, then going after all the easy targets like the disc station. Then I got to the motherboard and the annoying plastic. The first few attempts to unscrew the 2 screws showed no progress. So I took a different approach: the fun path, destroying the plastic. After cutting a bit near the screws, they finally let go. Finally, I was able to remove the motherboard. It had to go directly into the recycling box. We only took the fan because it was a very strong fan for a PC, 1.3A instead of the usual 0.3A. We tested the strength of the fan and compared it to the usual fan. My boss was very happy with the addition of this fan.

Then I took my lunch break together with Jens. We went into the grocery store for some cheap warm chicken. This cheap food is our go-to food for maybe the whole internship.

Once my break was over I went back and helped install the software for a customer’s printer. This only took 10 min. The customer, an elderly man, returned quickly. I helped him to carry his printer and laptop to his car, placing it inside and then returned to the shop.

“We are just waiting for pickups at the moment,” my boss said. So I cleaned the strong fan. After that, there wasn’t much to do, so I took a short break to get another Coca Cola Vanilla and a cupcake to consume.

When I returned, a woman asked us if we could print something for her. We printed her documents and sent her on her way. Then, a man appeared asking us if we could fix a broken hinge of his laptop screen. Sadly this hinge type is integrated into the screen, which means replacing the hinges requires replacing the whole screen. This was way too expensive to repair, costing around 600 euro. The man left with the answer that the best option would be to buy a new laptop. As a last task for the day I had to install a newly arrived laptop, which arrived an hour before the end of work. I was not able to finish updating it but thats something I will finish tomorrow morning.

At 6pm I left work, after which I went home to have a nice dinner, made by our host family. Now, I will take time to relax and possibly play some Mario Kart with either the other exchange students or the host family’s son.

After that, the day ends for me and I shall return the next day after a nice rest.

Grateful for the opportunities, hospitality and experience I get, I am looking forward to the rest of the internship and staying with the host family.