Can You Actually Fix Your Tech By Smacking It?

We at Lifehacker get fed up with tech just like everyone else. Beth shared with me the time she learned how to fix her old car with a kick. Stephen Johnson used to own a beater car that wouldn't start until he opened the hood and hit it with a hammer. It was said that it really impressed people that he could open the hood and start his car. Jake is our resident technology editor, who often finds himself smacking his remote in frustration.

Old-fashioned violence is an effective method to make your electronics work again.

It’s called percussive maintenance, and it works (maybe)

There is a reason to be angry about the idea of smacking tech. The term "percussive maintenance" is a fancy way of saying the art of shaking, banging or pounding on something in order to make it.

Sometimes the impact on physical hardware is enough to fix a malfunction. This technique works for a battery-powered remote that might have parts that are not perfect.

If you want to achieve the same effect, you can roll the batteries around in their lodgings, or just take them out and put them back in.

It doesn't mean the professionals respect it because it has an official-sounding ring to it. IT professionals think this approach is more emotional than rational. For many electronics, there is a non-zero chance that percussive maintenance will work.

Tap, don’t hit

The force you apply is the key to percussive maintenance. PopSci says that a good smack can temporarily fix an intermittent connection, but it's risky.

This logic is why you shouldn't do maintenance on your phone. Your phone will not respond well to a rough impact, and you risk damaging the device's internal components. When was the last time you saw someone launch their phone across the room to get it to work better?

When an appliance has moving parts, like gears, or a loose wire, it can be possible for maintenance to work.

The takeaway

There is some logic to hitting certain appliances in order to get them to work again. The emotional benefit might outweigh the rationality of this technique. The risk of whacking your devices might outweigh the reward of a nice smack. It is best left to the professionals.