Latex gloves (so you can work on systems without leaving natural skin
oils everywhere, which means that conductive surfaces such as those
found on the edges of daughter boards will remain clean, and so you
can examine the often filthy insides of computers without getting
dirty yourself).
Electrician’s screwdriver (for testing whether the case or chassis
or other exposed parts are live before working on systems that
you’ve left plugged in to the mains to provide good
earthing for discharging static electricity).
Earth strap (for plugging into a mains socket or connecting to the case
or chassis or other exposed parts for the purpose of discharging static
electricity).
Empty anti-static bags (for storing any sensitive components that you
have to remove from a computer system or peripheral).
Empty plastic bags (for storing potentially leaky items such as open
ink cartridges).
Standard screwdrivers (flat-head and cross-head).
Miniature screwdrivers (used by watchmakers and other small-scale
engineers).
Nut-drivers (most desktop and tower PCs have their cases attached to
their chassis using nut-headed screws, and nut-drivers provide more
torque than screwdrivers for undoing tough nuts).
Ordinary pliers (sometimes called combination pliers).
Radio pliers (sometimes called needle-nosed pliers).
Diagonal cutters (for cutting wires and cable ties).
Scissors (for cutting the tops off plastic bags containing new
equipment).
Knife (for opening boxes containing new equipment).
Wire stripper (or a very sharp knife or single-edged razor blade).
Resistor with a significant resistance and a generous power rating (for
deliberate, controlled short-circuiting, such as might be required to
clear the computer set-up information from CMOS memory or discharge
a large-value capacitor in the power supply of a desktop or tower
system).
Tweezers (metal ones for handling small parts in general, and for
removing the tiny rubber pads that cover many laptop screws, such
as those that hold the screen together, and plastic ones for
handling static-sensitive components).
Torx drivers (these are for use with those special screws that have
star-shaped holes in their heads – these are not commonly
used in computer construction, but are used in some devices,
such as Apple MacBooks for example).
Small brush for dusting inside computer systems, and possibly a
miniature vacuum cleaner to suck up the dislodged dust rather
than having to blow it away with puffs of breath (computers
get very dusty inside after a surprisingly short period of
use).
Plastic eraser (used to clean gold contacts on the edges of daughter
boards, so those daughter boards make good electrical connections
when plugged into a motherboard).
Spare CR2032 batteries (these are the most common batteries used to
maintain computer set-up information in CMOS memory).
Small mirror (preferably a dentist’s mirror with a long, slim handle,
for looking at objects inside computers that are not directly
observable).
Small torch (this will make it easy to read lettering on components
which otherwise might be difficult to see).
One of those tiny LED torches that fits on a keyring will usually
be sufficient.
Small bottle of isopropyl alcohol (propan-2-ol) for cleaning electrical
contacts (it removes oil and grease very efficiently and evaporates
quickly without leaving a residue).
By the way, do not use surgical spirit to clean electrical contacts as
it contains castor oil, and will probably make the contacts less
conductive than they were in the first place.
Detailed street-map(s) of the area(s) covered, or a satellite navigation
system if you’re prepared to trust it.
CDs, DVDs, or USB flash drives with extensive collections of diagnostic
programs and other useful software, such as bootable images containing
system recovery utilities (all modern computers should be able to
boot from an optical drive or USB flash drive).
Note that finalised CDs and DVDs are not subject to contamination by
any malicious software, so it’s quite safe to use them in any
computer, however infected that system might be.
USB flash drives should be set up to be as secure as possible, so
that data on them won’t be vulnerable to attack by infected
machines.
Never put anything on such media that you aren’t prepared to be
scanned by a customer’s computer.
Some programs look for images on removable media and automatically
import them.
MS-DOS and Windows XP bootable floppy disks can be handy, just in case
you encounter a very old system that has a floppy disk drive and
can’t boot from a CD, DVD, or USB flash drive.
Laptop computer with long battery life (a netbook computer with a small
screen, and flash memory instead of a hard drive, will probably last
longer than a standard laptop).
Mobile broadband ‘dongle’ for accessing the latest
troubleshooting information, device drivers, etc., just in case
you have no other access to the Internet.
Ethernet crossover cable (Cat 5E) for connecting two computers together
directly, rather than through a network hub, router, or switch.
These cables come ready-made in different lengths, and you’ll
probably find 3 metres or 5 metres most convenient.
The longer of these might be best, because Ethernet works over much
greater distances than 5 metres so you won’t suffer from any
significant signal degradation, and sometimes being able to run
a cable right across a room is very handy.
Wooden toothpicks and metal paper-clips (preferably plastic-coated ones)
for pushing recessed ‘reset’ buttons on routers and similar
equipment to put them back to their factory settings.
External CD / DVD drive in case it’s impossible to reinstall the
operating system because of read errors from an unreliable internal
drive.
Portable hard drive with at least one empty partition on it.
This can be used for emergency backups of customer systems.
You might have to do this when the operating system has to be
re-installed.
On the other hand, you might just take a backup to put a
customer’s mind at rest after they’ve just
admitted that they’ve never made a backup in
their life.
This will give them some time to buy an external hard drive of
their own.
Back-at-base Tools
Anti-static mat (which should be earthed, just as the computer chassis
and your own body are earthed).
Electrical wire (not household flex or cable, but thin wire for making
electrical connections on circuit boards).
Tube of rubbery glue (for re-attaching the tiny rubber pads that cover
many laptop screws when no new replacement pads are immediately
available).
Alternatively you can use glue dots or glue strips that are commonly
used in craft projects.
Roll of masking tape (normally used for painting and decorating, this
paper tape tears easily, can be written on, and is handy for
labelling cables and components).
Packet of nylon cable ties of different lengths (used to make sure that
bundles of cables can be routed neatly and tidily within the casings of
desktop and tower systems, but not for use inside laptops).
Multimeter (for testing the continuity of cables, and the low-voltage
DC outputs from suspect power supplies).
Thermal compound (used to provide a good heat-conducting layer between
central processor units and the heat-sinks that are clamped on top of
them).
Small soldering iron (not too powerful, because large amounts of heat
can damage sensitive components on computer circuit boards).
Solder (this is lead-free nowadays).
Solder sucker or soldering braid (both of these can be used to remove
unwanted solder from a circuit board).
One of those devices that interfaces almost any type of hard disk
drive to a USB port.