ResearchA Taxonomy of Home PC Varieties
Anybody working a job where they come in contact with computers in the home, be it in Internet Service tech or a PC repair shop, will recognize some of these home computer archetypes:
The McBox
Absolutely generic store-bought. Frequently running an outdated copy of Windows and with hardware specs well below what the owner thinks they have, since the computer store clerk figured correctly that they'd never know the difference. Has never been opened and when it fails, will usually be thrown away and replaced whole, even if the problem was only a dead BIOS battery. MacIntoshes fit this category as well, since Macs are hermetically sealed systems that are expected to stay that way.
The Hacker Box
Living proof in the saying "The most dangerous thing in the world is a programmer with a screwdriver." Software hackers will run a box with no cover and assembled with the absolute minimum possible effort. Count on every piece of this machine to be held in place with a single screw, or in some cases a strip of duct tape. Computer hardware is seen as a bothersome necessity by software hackers, who wish everything in the physical world could be abstracted as easily as their object-oriented programming languages.
The Cubicle Slave
You don't have to look hard to see that this computer belongs to somebody who also uses a computer at an office job in a cubicle. Their home machine is treated no different: pictures and post-its plastered all over the monitor. A line-up of toys and stuffed animals on it and around it. Sometimes a life-support for a partially dead plant, which would be why the computer is infested with aphids.
The Frankenputer
Always the property of a hard-core computer geek, this is the box on which no two parts match. For instance, it could be running an Intel-2 chip on a K-7 motherboard crammed diagonally into a 486 PC compatible case, complete with mismatched drive bays and something really creative for a monitor, like a portable TV set hippie-rigged to take VGA output. You could put it on cinder-blocks in front of a mobile home trailer and never know the difference. Whatever reason you're called to service this box, it's probably best to hand whatever parts to the owner and let them take care of it. You do not want to explore further.
The Server Toaster
Always the property of a system admin. Usually somebody who works as a heavy-duty mainframe tech and doesn't see their home computer as anything but a toy. Will be guaranteed to be running the highest possible combination of processor, RAM, and front-side bus, but will compensate with the crummiest server monitor salvaged from work, no speakers or video card, and possibly lacking a mouse. Definitely running something Unix-based, and almost as certainly it was compiled from source.
The Mutant
The hard-core gamer's machine, where the performance twink has modded it up to a custom machine running at four times the power for the specs, via overclocking and liquid cooling. This is done primarily so the owner can brag about their insane frame rate in their World of Warcraft forum. The only reason you get called to service this machine is if the cooling system failed and it caught fire.