Experiences with non-techies

[ionbasa]

my aunt who is constantly complaining about her slow Pentium 4 computer, and when people tell her to buy a new one already, she says "no its fine."

Hey! I still have a Pentium D 925 3Ghz dual core :P

[MontyBonjangles]

I have have a friend of mine, who you couldn't call exactly tech-savvy at all somehow managed to pull the mains connector out of the psu housing. Fully. He then proceeded to shove the cable into the hole left behind. Needless to say that power supply was destined for the repair bench or the bin.

[the_devil52]

I have have a friend of mine, who you couldn't call exactly tech-savvy at all somehow managed to pull the mains connector out of the psu housing. Fully. He then proceeded to shove the cable into the hole left behind. Needless to say that power supply was destined for the repair bench or the bin.

How the hell...

[MontyBonjangles]

I have have a friend of mine, who you couldn't call exactly tech-savvy at all somehow managed to pull the mains connector out of the psu housing. Fully. He then proceeded to shove the cable into the hole left behind. Needless to say that power supply was destined for the repair bench or the bin.

@ the_devil Better not think about it, your brain might turn to mush

[Paperchase]

Back in the 9th grade 2 other buddies of mine and myself started our own school project. Our project was to dismantle a computer, make our own case, and assemble the computer inside the case we built ourselves. For the longest time a friend of mine had been saying that he knows pretty much everything about computers. Turns out he didn't know anything, but i'll get back to that.

I went to a very cheap-ass school, so there were always trouble with the infrastructure there, so as you probably guessed the computers at the school crashed all the time. Also note that all of the computers were "hooked up" for lack of a better term to ONE Server. This was a big school with around 200+ computers all hooked up to this one server. (Recipe for disaster). Since all of the computers were connected to the same server that would mean that if there was one single error on the server, then all of the 200+ computers at my school would simply not work.

These computers all went down the drain atleast twice a week making them completely and utter useless. And everytime the system went down the teachers always asked this friend of mine that thought he knew everything about computers. Let's call him Bob to make it easier to follow. Anyways, The teachers would always have Bob look at the computers, and tell them what was wrong. Ofcourse he didn't know what he was talking about, so he said the following: "Yeah, mhm, okay. Yes it seems that you have gotten a network system error inside the processor, it will be back up in an hour". Yes, that is ACTUALLY what he said, let that sink in for a moment. Oh, I totally forgot; The time he said that it was a "Network system error inside the processor". the teachers were trying to figure out why there was no sound from the speakers. Turns out the audiojack was not plugged in.

Anyways I got really off-track here. My friends and I were assembling the computer into the case that we had built ourselves. When suddenly Bob came by. My friends and I were kind of annoyed at Bob, so we asked him "which one of these components is the motherboard"? I bet anyone here on the forum would be able to point out which component in a computer was the motherboard, right? Bob pointed at the HDD, of course we all laughed, because this was proof that he knows nothing about computers, and was just spewing bullshit all the time. After we all calmed ourselves down, I said: "well surely you know this is the graphics card, right? (I pointed at the CPU). Bob said: "Yes ofcourse, how dumb do you think I am? That's when I almost broke out in tears laughing.

---

Since that event he stopped claiming he knew everything about computers and was an "IT-Guru". Anyways, my buddies and I delivered in our assignment, and got ourselves an A.

Cheers! ;)

[azdaspaz]

have a few stories some relating to me and some not,

An electrician tried to convince my Grandmother that the reason why her lights would sometimes flicker in her house was because she lived on a hill and the electricity sometimes had a hard time travelling up the hill. Some people.

Once I had to convince the teacher on my 10th grade IT class that in order for her computer to show up on the projector she had to actually plug it in via VGA cable. She was under the impression that she had to press a function key on her keyboard and it would automatically show up. You can say that class was an easy A for me >_>

My parents are constantly wondering why the printer won't print their documents, they can understand that it has to be on.

Some kid at school asked me how to transfer photos from their iPhone to their computer. Id go through the steps with them and they would always say "it's not working you obviously don't know what your doing" so i ask them just for giggles if their phone was actually turn on. It wasn't

I've encountered so many situations of uneducated people but i just can't remember them.

[limetech]

I have a non-techie friend who boasts of his "upgraded" computer. He said it's very fast now because he added 3TB of storage.

[cxz]

Back in the 9th grade 2 other buddies of mine and myself started our own school project. Our project was to dismantle a computer, make our own case, and assemble the computer inside the case we built ourselves. For the longest time a friend of mine had been saying that he knows pretty much everything about computers. Turns out he didn't know anything, but i'll get back to that.

I went to a very cheap-ass school, so there were always trouble with the infrastructure there, so as you probably guessed the computers at the school crashed all the time. Also note that all of the computers were "hooked up" for lack of a better term to ONE Server. This was a big school with around 200+ computers all hooked up to this one server. (Recipe for disaster). Since all of the computers were connected to the same server that would mean that if there was one single error on the server, then all of the 200+ computers at my school would simply not work.

These computers all went down the drain atleast twice a week making them completely and utter useless. And everytime the system went down the teachers always asked this friend of mine that thought he knew everything about computers. Let's call him Bob to make it easier to follow. Anyways, The teachers would always have Bob look at the computers, and tell them what was wrong. Ofcourse he didn't know what he was talking about, so he said the following: "Yeah, mhm, okay. Yes it seems that you have gotten a network system error inside the processor, it will be back up in an hour". Yes, that is ACTUALLY what he said, let that sink in for a moment. Oh, I totally forgot; The time he said that it was a "Network system error inside the processor". the teachers were trying to figure out why there was no sound from the speakers. Turns out the audiojack was not plugged in.

Anyways I got really off-track here. My friends and I were assembling the computer into the case that we had built ourselves. When suddenly Bob came by. My friends and I were kind of annoyed at Bob, so we asked him "which one of these components is the motherboard"? I bet anyone here on the forum would be able to point out which component in a computer was the motherboard, right? Bob pointed at the HDD, of course we all laughed, because this was proof that he knows nothing about computers, and was just spewing bullshit all the time. After we all calmed ourselves down, I said: "well surely you know this is the graphics card, right? (I pointed at the CPU). Bob said: "Yes ofcourse, how dumb do you think I am? That's when I almost broke out in tears laughing.

---

Since that event he stopped claiming he knew everything about computers and was an "IT-Guru". Anyways, my buddies and I delivered in our assignment, and got ourselves an A.

Cheers! ;)

Hey you should show a pic of that comp if you have one. Idk if I could create a case, but I probably could throw it in a box though. lol

[cxz]

have a few stories some relating to me and some not,

An electrician tried to convince my Grandmother that the reason why her lights would sometimes flicker in her house was because she lived on a hill and the electricity sometimes had a hard time travelling up the hill. Some people.

Once I had to convince the teacher on my 10th grade IT class that in order for her computer to show up on the projector she had to actually plug it in via VGA cable. She was under the impression that she had to press a function key on her keyboard and it would automatically show up. You can say that class was an easy A for me >_>

My parents are constantly wondering why the printer won't print their documents, they can understand that it has to be on.

Some kid at school asked me how to transfer photos from their iPhone to their computer. Id go through the steps with them and they would always say "it's not working you obviously don't know what your doing" so i ask them just for giggles if their phone was actually turn on. It wasn't

I've encountered so many situations of uneducated people but i just can't remember them.

Ha yeah I love when people say "it's not working you obviously don't know what your doing" I'm like hey you asked for my help, be quiet! Or "I thought you were going to school for this" when I've never seen this before and only been working at it for like 5 min lol.

[Paperchase]

Back in the 9th grade 2 other buddies of mine and myself started our own school project. Our project was to dismantle a computer, make our own case, and assemble the computer inside the case we built ourselves. For the longest time a friend of mine had been saying that he knows pretty much everything about computers. Turns out he didn't know anything, but i'll get back to that.

I went to a very cheap-ass school, so there were always trouble with the infrastructure there, so as you probably guessed the computers at the school crashed all the time. Also note that all of the computers were "hooked up" for lack of a better term to ONE Server. This was a big school with around 200+ computers all hooked up to this one server. (Recipe for disaster). Since all of the computers were connected to the same server that would mean that if there was one single error on the server, then all of the 200+ computers at my school would simply not work.

These computers all went down the drain atleast twice a week making them completely and utter useless. And everytime the system went down the teachers always asked this friend of mine that thought he knew everything about computers. Let's call him Bob to make it easier to follow. Anyways, The teachers would always have Bob look at the computers, and tell them what was wrong. Ofcourse he didn't know what he was talking about, so he said the following: "Yeah, mhm, okay. Yes it seems that you have gotten a network system error inside the processor, it will be back up in an hour". Yes, that is ACTUALLY what he said, let that sink in for a moment. Oh, I totally forgot; The time he said that it was a "Network system error inside the processor". the teachers were trying to figure out why there was no sound from the speakers. Turns out the audiojack was not plugged in.

Anyways I got really off-track here. My friends and I were assembling the computer into the case that we had built ourselves. When suddenly Bob came by. My friends and I were kind of annoyed at Bob, so we asked him "which one of these components is the motherboard"? I bet anyone here on the forum would be able to point out which component in a computer was the motherboard, right? Bob pointed at the HDD, of course we all laughed, because this was proof that he knows nothing about computers, and was just spewing bullshit all the time. After we all calmed ourselves down, I said: "well surely you know this is the graphics card, right? (I pointed at the CPU). Bob said: "Yes ofcourse, how dumb do you think I am? That's when I almost broke out in tears laughing.

---

Since that event he stopped claiming he knew everything about computers and was an "IT-Guru". Anyways, my buddies and I delivered in our assignment, and got ourselves an A.

Cheers! ;)

Hey you should show a pic of that comp if you have one. Idk if I could create a case' date=' but I probably could throw it in a box though. lol[/quote']

I'm sorry, this was a long long time ago, so I haven't got any picture.

[Crowcore]

My little brother used to think that the more data you store on an HDD, the heavier the component gets. He also thought that if you pivot the monitor clockwise during a transfer of files or an installation, it would go faster because the gravity would help the loading bar fill faster...^^

[rickylamperouge]

My little brother used to think that the more data you store on an HDD, the heavier the component gets. He also thought that if you pivot the monitor clockwise during a transfer of files or an installation, is would go faster because the gravity would help the loading bar fill faster...^^

Really? Hahaha xD

[BeryJu]

My mother used to use Internet Explorer with a dozen Toolbars (typical).

My friend's dad Uses 200+ Tabs, because he never closes them (and Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox at the same time).

A teacher asked me if I could fix her Office XP Clipart CD, because it won't work on her Windows 7 Machine. Tunrs out, that there are onyl a bunch of Gif's on that disk.

[Oradian]

Dad: Why doesn't my keyboard work anymore?

Me: Because you constantly spill water on it

Dad: Oh is that bad for the keyboard?

Me: ........

[GH0ST]

I thought this was pretty funny. Saw it on a website and had to screenshot it.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1952[/ATTACH]

[Kev]

When I fix something for someone they usually blame me for any future problem but only after uninstalling the anti-virus software. I am now beholden forever to fixing that shitty laptop.

[LuukvanA]

A couple of years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to look inside a computer, the bad thing was, it was the pc which every person in the house used to do his or her work on.

After looking for a couple of minutes i somehow decided that it would be a good idea to get the heatsink of the graphics card and put my finger on the actual chip to feel if it was hot, by doing that the thermal paste sticked to my finger and burnt so hard i had a big blister on it for more than a week. Second bad thing was the fact that the graphics card died so i had to tell my parents. instead of telling them what actually happened I told them that probably the fan of the heatsink got stuck and that would be why it was broken. My dad decided it was time for a new for a new PC anyways so a wee later we had a new pc in the livingroom:P

I Still think it wasn't worth the pain but yeah.. a new PC is never a bad thing...

Lesson I learned of this, never remove the heatsink of a chip while the machine is running...

[Salmiakbal]

Lesson I learned of this' date=' never remove the heatsink of a chip while the machine is running... [/quote']

I actually did this a few days ago when I was troubleshooting my old P4. The system didn't POST and I had tried everything, so I figured I should boot the system without CPU heatsink and feel if the chip got warm, it did :D Thing still doesn't work though.

[Barodil]

My grandpa was sure the Internet was offline when he couln'd not read his E-Mails. And somehow he thought he it was his fault. In the end he just had no W-Lan connection^^ Oh, and my friends granddad (somehow it's the old people) broke his digicam because he tried to eject the SD-card with a flat screwdriver. This "push to eject" system seems to be way to simple...

[HyperMac5]

The best one I've experienced is when people call any form of internet "wifi"

[Gavinhenderson5]

This is a great idea for a topic!

Most of the time when I am explaining something I just lie to them because they would never understand the real reason.

[Salmiakbal]

The best one I've experienced is when people call any form of internet "wifi"

My mom calls the internet "google" because it's her homepage :D

Also if she wants to go to a site she firstly types it into google, then clicks on the search result, in stead of just typing youtube.com or w/e in the URL bar :D

[amintha1992]

The latest for me, is my mother calling me to ask why her computer mouse doesn't work (while shouting that it's a piece of crap and what not), when I get there, I find she managed to plug the USB mouse in the Ethernet port of her laptop.. Couldn't help facepalming in front of her.

actually the usb fits inside the Ethernet port. obviously it will not work but if its dark and you can not see the port it feels just the same. i have done that few times my self. cant blame her for that, but can blame her for not figuring it out.

[Maddie Duggan]

My grandmothers cell phone shut off for the first time ever, she thought it broke and didn't know what to do. We go her the cell phone 11 years ago, and she never let the thing die.

[nillas12]

This is a great idea for a topic!

Most of the time when I am explaining something I just lie to them because they would never understand the real reason.

Thanks dude. I think the exact same thing. So many funny episodes.