Experiences with non-techies

[brownninja97]

some woman came to me today with her dell desktop(i fix pcs every now and then). She says that that her son wants to play games such as Crysis and trine 2, written on a paper of a bunch of games. She says that the pc is broken as it will not run the games even when pc world said it great for gaming. I take a look a dxdiag and it says there is a celoron g550 and a gt210 with it and 3gb ram. I call her up saying for it to run the games on the list she will have to pay at least £200 before the games will run before labour costs. She then calls me a fraud and scam artist and that i should expect the police at my door soon.

[Ruostunut kokis]

I almost got a new friend in high school that said that he ''has decent amount of knowledge on current tech''. Then he asked me how to delete a toolbar in chrome...

 

My hope was gone.

 

Something else on topic: when I was in 9th grade of primary school, I took an IT-course. One girl (she is smarter than me in almost everything) asked teacher how to open a new tab on a web browser. And she got 10 of IT when that course ended (10 = A+). -.- In fact, everyone got 10s, even those who did nearly nothing during that course.

 

During the IT-course I learned almost nothing. Pretty much just helped others, and helped teacher when she was clueless (the only thing she was able to teach without help was usage of OpenOffice 3.3).

[brownninja97]

I almost got a new friend in high school that said that he ''has decent amount of knowledge on current tech''. Then he asked me how to delete a toolbar in chrome...

 

My hope was gone.

 

Something else on topic: when I was in 9th grade of primary school, I took an IT-course. One girl (she is smarter than me in almost everything) asked teacher how to open a new tab on a web browser. And she got 10 of IT when that course ended (10 = A+). -.- In fact, everyone got 10s, even those who did nearly nothing during that course.

 

During the IT-course I learned almost nothing. Pretty much just helped others, and helped teacher when she was clueless (the only thing she was able to teach without help was usage of OpenOffice 3.3).

I took me a while to figure it out on IE 9 as i never used it before. Then i was like wtf am i doing and just googled it. I hate it when they use icons instead of saying options. I think everyone has a derp moment.

[Ruostunut kokis]

I took me a while to figure it out on IE 9 as i never used it before. Then i was like wtf am i doing and just googled it. I hate it when they use icons instead of saying options. I think everyone has a derp moment.

He told me he has used chrome for over 2 years.

 

But yeah. Can't all be good at the beginning.

[brownninja97]

I was watching this game show and someone won a computer with "a powerful dual core processor and a huge 1tb hard drive"

Did they live on a island that had a population of less than a hundred. 

[brownninja97]

He told me he has used chrome for over 2 years.

 

But yeah. Can't all be good at the beginning.

Ill pay you to backhand him

[YellowDragon]

some woman came to me today with her dell desktop(i fix pcs every now and then). She says that that her son wants to play games such as Crysis and trine 2, written on a paper of a bunch of games. She says that the pc is broken as it will not run the games even when pc world said it great for gaming. I take a look a dxdiag and it says there is a celoron g550 and a gt210 with it and 3gb ram. I call her up saying for it to run the games on the list she will have to pay at least £200 before the games will run before labour costs. She then calls me a fraud and scam artist and that i should expect the police at my door soon.

ugh Ive had that happen multiple times, hell even had cops come to my door and then have to explain to them that the customers I typically have are so damn ignorant they cant read system requirements properly and there is no magical way to upgrade a PC for free. It gets old real fast when all customers want to do is shove their know it all attitude towards me only for me to throw it back saying "well if your the expert then tell me whats wrong", that's the only thing that shuts them up.

[juretrn]

My mother:

she used computers for the last 20 years, still a complete newb.

She recently had to do some serious multitasking, with 2 open programsd at the same time. her solution: use 2 computers, of course! And i was like "aw hell no" and brought her my spare monitor and hooked it all up.
Later: how do I send windows to the other monitor? Me: ....

 

[ray_p1]

its not easy with me being the only tech person in the house and 3 folding pc that get used alot. 2 are old q6600's so they are almost useless while folding. I tried telling them to pause wile they use them but all they do is complain its too slow. 

its not as bad as juretrn above me but its bad haha.

[CjlabanG]

Not really an experience, but these people are certainly non-techies. I don't blame them though.

[piplupgao]

Did they live on a island that had a population of less than a hundred

They live in america

[MontyBonjangles]

When you see a relative get their jim jams in a flap when the computer gets a BSOD or an unexpected popup, you can't help but smirk.

[delet my acc pls]

My mom was on her tablet web browsing and when she was going to watch a video there was no sound, so she asked me for help because she could not figure it out herself. So i went over there and pressed the volume up button on the side.

[juretrn]

Also, people that argue that their LC Power PSUs (or god forbid, even cheaper brands) with high wattage are a better buy than a Bronze- or Silver-rated Seasonics and the like of slightly lesser wattage.. 

 

*shudders*

[Guest]

Not really a non-techie (even though he claims he is), but just plain lazy:

 

Whenever my friend wants to play minecraft, he goes and downloads it instead of going to his downloads folder where he already has about 20 minecraft.exe's. -.-

[miyabwah]

My brother thought that when he deleted his user all his games were gone...

[obsidian1200]

Not sure if I mentioned this or not, but I met a guy a week ago that wanted to do some high-end audio work, like for radio shows and podcasting, and thought that the sound quality from a logitech headset would be enough. I kindly introduced him to Blue microphones and all was well.

[Wesley]

I was servicing a Notebook and had to replace the LCD in it and i had the replacement screen and the guy was sooo concerned he said that he paid for "extra resolutions" cause he upgraded his display when he purchased it.  I just thought it was hilarious the way he said it.  Make sure i get my Extra resolutions lol

[brownninja97]

I asked my 7 year old cousin what next gen console he was getting, this was his reply. I was going to get the ps3 but AMD made it so its rubbish and so im getting the PS4, he then went on to saying how he hates Forza so he doesnt want the ps4. Then he starts rambling saying that pc is rubbish out of now ever. He then was about to tell me to piss off but then he ran off because i was about to piss on him. I love how he believed that i was gonna do it.

[cullano]

My Oma and Grandma are pretty bad with computers.

 

My Oma is definatly worse, I think I've tried to explain how the monitor isn't the computer at least every other time I go to look at it for her, and she can't grasp the idea of what an internet browser is. She was mystified when I left her Yahoo home page and started playing videos on Youtube.

 

My Grandma isn't too bad, but she plays all of those pogo type games that old people play and always gets these ridiculous toolbars on her browser (internet explorer yuss) But this one time she asked me if I could back up all of her pictures to an external hard drive, the only problem was she had at least 5 different automatic photo cataloging programs that sorted all of her pictures by date and threw them around in all of these weird folders that were also sorted by date, there were hundreds of these strewn about all through her computer so eventually I just told her I couldn't do it. 

[watts]

Them - "hey I need advice on buying a computer" Me - "sure id be happy to help you pick something out or ill build a great computer for you" *week later* Them - "yeah, i just decided to buy a computer from Best Buy" Me "......................."

This has happend to me soooooo many times.

 

My first day as a technician I got called down to show someone how to use a usb stick. 

[GrievingJosh]

This may be not very nice but, my friend games on PC, I don't know the specs of his Machine but I'm sure it's a FX4130 with 4GB of RAM, the rest is a mystery because he has no idea how to find out the specs. So anyway, he bought this PC (From one of those places that prebuilds them on like eBay or Amazon) and, I know it comes with some crappy generic PSU and a case with awful ventilation. I don't know where to begin if I'm honest, well the first problem arose because to turn the PC off he kept just flipping the switch on the back of the PSU, needless to say it died a week later and took the ENTIRE Computer with it. Luckily it was still under warranty so he sent it back and got a new Machine, the next issue is I have to explain to him everyday that without modding he cannot put another fan in his case, because it has space for 4 and all the spaces are filled, like I literally have to explain everything. Oh and the last thing is, he thinks if he installs BF3 on it, it'll slow the Computer down to the point where it's not even usable anymore. No matter how much I try and explain the game does not really affect day to day operation.

[Air tree]

Not really a non-techie (even though he claims he is), but just plain lazy:

 

Whenever my friend wants to play minecraft, he goes and downloads it instead of going to his downloads folder where he already has about 20 minecraft.exe's. -.-

Why doesn't he just make a damn shortcut lol?

[NihKiller]

HAHAHAHA :lol:  many hilarious stories!!! yea, i've got a really non-techie mom too, and i also often have to learn her some very basic things. oh and grandpa aswell. one time he had managed to change his backround picture on his computer to a half naked pole dancer.... and im still wondering how he got that picture....

[NihKiller]

Why doesn't he just make a damn shortcut lol?

hahaha he probably doesnt know how to do that either!!! :lol: lol