Experiences with non-techies

[Guest andyysplash]

Last night my mother calls me over. She's on her ipad. "How to I put this in facebook". 

"How do you put what in facebook?"

"This" (points to two links)

"Cut and paste it"

"How do I do that?"

(I highlight, cut)

"Go to facebook now and paste it"

(she goes to facebook)

"How do I paste it?"

"Double tap"

(she does two taps 3 seconds apart)

"No double tap faster. Ok now tap paste"

"This isn't what I wanted"

"But these are the links you wanted to copy and paste, mom"

"No this is two things I only wanted one thing"

 

And I thought iOS was meant to be intuitive.

[Mistersprinkles]

From another forum: 

 

Hello,

I'm taking the initiative to thank you for welcoming me to the overclockers' community. As for my first post, you are going to read about one of my systems' adventures during the past 6 months. Let's get it on with!

There I am building one of my personal computers during late 2010. It was the year the new Fermi-based chip-set was announced by nVidia and came into the then brand new GTX 480. What a beast of a GPU, it stood as a legacy for the single-core cards out there being by far the fastest and most well-performing, even though it run loud and hot. Still rocking on heavily to be quite honest. Now, along with the 600-euros-worth card back then, I went with somewhat less expensive hardware but still my choices were not that bad - and I stand corrected by what happened during the last 6 months.

The motherboard of my choice was an ASUS Crosshair Formula IV by RoG, the CPU was a 6 core AMD branded Phenom II 1090T and my PSU a Thermaltake Toughpower 750W. 16GBs of Kingston HyperX memory running hot on 1866MHz and the whole setup (throw in a Samsung SSD) inside a Cooler Master HAF 932, case modded with some fancy heat-sinks and silent yet powerful (plus colorful) fans. The general experience using this system was breathtaking. Games flooded with tons of FPS, I never experienced anything but blissful gaming and multitasking. Up until 6 months ago that I decided to clean up the dust that conspired against it's health. 

I removed everything carefully and cleaned the pieces. The moment to take the CPU's heat-sink arrived, and as I unlocked it and dragged it out, the idiots at my local shop that I trusted to put the pieces together, as I was working and had no time back then, applied way too much thermal paste resulting in it becoming as hard as cement thus the CPU was stuck underneath it and came off forcefully with the heat-sink. At first I didn't quite understand what happened and I was searching for a CPU on my motherboard. There was none. 

That's the moment were I thought that it's over. There's no way the CPU survived the way it came out with the lever intact. Desperate enough to put everything back together in order to see if any damage was done, I faced an even greater problem - the CPU would not come off the heat-sink. I used alcohol (a whole lot of it) to remove the tons of thermal compound, I used heat, brute force, the CPU was not coming off. And wen I pulled the lever up in order to just place the CPU+Heat-Sink as one back into the motherboard, the lever would become an obstacle to the Heat-Sink so it couldn't go in. There was no way.

Or so thought I for a moment.

Filled with disappointment that led to anger, I brutally removed the lever, unlocked the socket with my hands, straightened some CPU pins I accidentally almost broke using a flat screwdriver and punched the thing I was holding on the socket the moment I managed to feel all of the pins in place. I then locked the Heat-Sink and hoped for the best, although I was 100% certain that part was done. Finished. Dead.

As you can probably guess since this is an expected plot twist right now, my system started up. The CPU was fully operational under excellent temperatures. Relieved, I was. 

For six months it run non-stop, until yesterday. The computer just wouldn't start up. At all. And there was no led-lit indication on my motherboard as to what the problem might be. The readings I took on a multi-meter when I tested the 20+4pin ATX connector showed normal voltages plus the paper-clip jump start worked on the PSU thus I concluded that the CPU, since it went through a lot, was to blame. The capacitors on my motherboard all looked neat and that made me take a set of actions that I wouldn't under other circumstances.

Now I don't know why I did all that since I was convinced the CPU was the faulty piece of hardware, but I had a feeling, an instinct that itched, that something was off with electricity in that case despite the fact that my tests proved the PSU in good condition. So I first decided to try another PSU, but not before I did the following, for no obvious reason whatsoever:

Once again, I ripped the Heat-Sink and it's well-stuck-with buddy out of the AM3 socket, took another flat screwdriver and placed it next to the metallic side of the CPU. I then started hitting the screwdriver with a sledgehammer. The Phenom II took more than 10 hits in order to get off. The next step was, without thinking, to - for some reason - clean the thermal compound. I took the screwdriver and started ripping it off the CPU. Gently, but not gently enough - I didn't care what happened to it anymore. It was like peeling off color from some piece of metal. The Phenom was scratched pretty badly after the process, but it was now clean! And so was the Heat-Sink. I applied a random thermal compound I found inside my drawers after cleaning the CPU with some alcohol and put everything back in place, along with a new PSU unit.

And the system came to life. The PSU was the broken link. I am still amazed the CPU is running in, again, excellent condition under optimal temperatures, even lower than the past 4 years!

The quality of engineering plays a definitive role as to how hardware is going to act according to the way you treat it. But most importantly, if the way you treat it follows a logical path, it will most likely survive all blows. Because that CPU took 10 sledgehammer hits, but they were made to the point and at an angle I deemed the least dangerous for it to break. Because that CPU had the thermal compound cleaned with a screwdriver instead of Q-tips, but there was minimal and gentle contact between the two. Basic engineering knowledge can get you safely out of desperate paths, even if you're lost in them for good, in an angry mood, full of bitter disappointment. 

Or am I just lucky?...

[Godlygamer23]

From another forum: 

 

Hello,

I'm taking the initiative to thank you for welcoming me to the overclockers' community. As for my first post, you are going to read about one of my systems' adventures during the past 6 months. Let's get it on with!

There I am building one of my personal computers during late 2010. It was the year the new Fermi-based chip-set was announced by nVidia and came into the then brand new GTX 480. What a beast of a GPU, it stood as a legacy for the single-core cards out there being by far the fastest and most well-performing, even though it run loud and hot. Still rocking on heavily to be quite honest. Now, along with the 600-euros-worth card back then, I went with somewhat less expensive hardware but still my choices were not that bad - and I stand corrected by what happened during the last 6 months.

The motherboard of my choice was an ASUS Crosshair Formula IV by RoG, the CPU was a 6 core AMD branded Phenom II 1090T and my PSU a Thermaltake Toughpower 750W. 16GBs of Kingston HyperX memory running hot on 1866MHz and the whole setup (throw in a Samsung SSD) inside a Cooler Master HAF 932, case modded with some fancy heat-sinks and silent yet powerful (plus colorful) fans. The general experience using this system was breathtaking. Games flooded with tons of FPS, I never experienced anything but blissful gaming and multitasking. Up until 6 months ago that I decided to clean up the dust that conspired against it's health. 

I removed everything carefully and cleaned the pieces. The moment to take the CPU's heat-sink arrived, and as I unlocked it and dragged it out, the idiots at my local shop that I trusted to put the pieces together, as I was working and had no time back then, applied way too much thermal paste resulting in it becoming as hard as cement thus the CPU was stuck underneath it and came off forcefully with the heat-sink. At first I didn't quite understand what happened and I was searching for a CPU on my motherboard. There was none. 

That's the moment were I thought that it's over. There's no way the CPU survived the way it came out with the lever intact. Desperate enough to put everything back together in order to see if any damage was done, I faced an even greater problem - the CPU would not come off the heat-sink. I used alcohol (a whole lot of it) to remove the tons of thermal compound, I used heat, brute force, the CPU was not coming off. And wen I pulled the lever up in order to just place the CPU+Heat-Sink as one back into the motherboard, the lever would become an obstacle to the Heat-Sink so it couldn't go in. There was no way.

Or so thought I for a moment.

Filled with disappointment that led to anger, I brutally removed the lever, unlocked the socket with my hands, straightened some CPU pins I accidentally almost broke using a flat screwdriver and punched the thing I was holding on the socket the moment I managed to feel all of the pins in place. I then locked the Heat-Sink and hoped for the best, although I was 100% certain that part was done. Finished. Dead.

As you can probably guess since this is an expected plot twist right now, my system started up. The CPU was fully operational under excellent temperatures. Relieved, I was. 

For six months it run non-stop, until yesterday. The computer just wouldn't start up. At all. And there was no led-lit indication on my motherboard as to what the problem might be. The readings I took on a multi-meter when I tested the 20+4pin ATX connector showed normal voltages plus the paper-clip jump start worked on the PSU thus I concluded that the CPU, since it went through a lot, was to blame. The capacitors on my motherboard all looked neat and that made me take a set of actions that I wouldn't under other circumstances.

Now I don't know why I did all that since I was convinced the CPU was the faulty piece of hardware, but I had a feeling, an instinct that itched, that something was off with electricity in that case despite the fact that my tests proved the PSU in good condition. So I first decided to try another PSU, but not before I did the following, for no obvious reason whatsoever:

Once again, I ripped the Heat-Sink and it's well-stuck-with buddy out of the AM3 socket, took another flat screwdriver and placed it next to the metallic side of the CPU. I then started hitting the screwdriver with a sledgehammer. The Phenom II took more than 10 hits in order to get off. The next step was, without thinking, to - for some reason - clean the thermal compound. I took the screwdriver and started ripping it off the CPU. Gently, but not gently enough - I didn't care what happened to it anymore. It was like peeling off color from some piece of metal. The Phenom was scratched pretty badly after the process, but it was now clean! And so was the Heat-Sink. I applied a random thermal compound I found inside my drawers after cleaning the CPU with some alcohol and put everything back in place, along with a new PSU unit.

And the system came to life. The PSU was the broken link. I am still amazed the CPU is running in, again, excellent condition under optimal temperatures, even lower than the past 4 years!

The quality of engineering plays a definitive role as to how hardware is going to act according to the way you treat it. But most importantly, if the way you treat it follows a logical path, it will most likely survive all blows. Because that CPU took 10 sledgehammer hits, but they were made to the point and at an angle I deemed the least dangerous for it to break. Because that CPU had the thermal compound cleaned with a screwdriver instead of Q-tips, but there was minimal and gentle contact between the two. Basic engineering knowledge can get you safely out of desperate paths, even if you're lost in them for good, in an angry mood, full of bitter disappointment. 

Or am I just lucky?...

Thanks for sharing.

[Mistersprinkles]

Thanks for sharing.

Wasn't it hilarious? 

[Godlygamer23]

Wasn't it hilarious? 

Yup.

[Kherm]

~snippy

 

 

[Mistersprinkles]

A big one for me is "my computer is running slow I think I need a new one" and thats normally with a pc 6-12 months old it is always bloatware and adware plastered all over the computer that "installs itself" luckily I have this from linus to save me explaning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOCbIPiX81c

 

 

I can't stand it when people say that. Another one is "My computer broke so I bought a new one" instead of "I need to figure out which component failed and replace it".

[Fgtfv567]

From another forum: 

 

Hello,

I'm taking the initiative to thank you for welcoming me to the overclockers' community. As for my first post, you are going to read about one of my systems' adventures during the past 6 months. Let's get it on with!

There I am building one of my personal computers during late 2010. It was the year the new Fermi-based chip-set was announced by nVidia and came into the then brand new GTX 480. What a beast of a GPU, it stood as a legacy for the single-core cards out there being by far the fastest and most well-performing, even though it run loud and hot. Still rocking on heavily to be quite honest. Now, along with the 600-euros-worth card back then, I went with somewhat less expensive hardware but still my choices were not that bad - and I stand corrected by what happened during the last 6 months.

The motherboard of my choice was an ASUS Crosshair Formula IV by RoG, the CPU was a 6 core AMD branded Phenom II 1090T and my PSU a Thermaltake Toughpower 750W. 16GBs of Kingston HyperX memory running hot on 1866MHz and the whole setup (throw in a Samsung SSD) inside a Cooler Master HAF 932, case modded with some fancy heat-sinks and silent yet powerful (plus colorful) fans. The general experience using this system was breathtaking. Games flooded with tons of FPS, I never experienced anything but blissful gaming and multitasking. Up until 6 months ago that I decided to clean up the dust that conspired against it's health. 

I removed everything carefully and cleaned the pieces. The moment to take the CPU's heat-sink arrived, and as I unlocked it and dragged it out, the idiots at my local shop that I trusted to put the pieces together, as I was working and had no time back then, applied way too much thermal paste resulting in it becoming as hard as cement thus the CPU was stuck underneath it and came off forcefully with the heat-sink. At first I didn't quite understand what happened and I was searching for a CPU on my motherboard. There was none. 

That's the moment were I thought that it's over. There's no way the CPU survived the way it came out with the lever intact. Desperate enough to put everything back together in order to see if any damage was done, I faced an even greater problem - the CPU would not come off the heat-sink. I used alcohol (a whole lot of it) to remove the tons of thermal compound, I used heat, brute force, the CPU was not coming off. And wen I pulled the lever up in order to just place the CPU+Heat-Sink as one back into the motherboard, the lever would become an obstacle to the Heat-Sink so it couldn't go in. There was no way.

Or so thought I for a moment.

Filled with disappointment that led to anger, I brutally removed the lever, unlocked the socket with my hands, straightened some CPU pins I accidentally almost broke using a flat screwdriver and punched the thing I was holding on the socket the moment I managed to feel all of the pins in place. I then locked the Heat-Sink and hoped for the best, although I was 100% certain that part was done. Finished. Dead.

As you can probably guess since this is an expected plot twist right now, my system started up. The CPU was fully operational under excellent temperatures. Relieved, I was. 

For six months it run non-stop, until yesterday. The computer just wouldn't start up. At all. And there was no led-lit indication on my motherboard as to what the problem might be. The readings I took on a multi-meter when I tested the 20+4pin ATX connector showed normal voltages plus the paper-clip jump start worked on the PSU thus I concluded that the CPU, since it went through a lot, was to blame. The capacitors on my motherboard all looked neat and that made me take a set of actions that I wouldn't under other circumstances.

Now I don't know why I did all that since I was convinced the CPU was the faulty piece of hardware, but I had a feeling, an instinct that itched, that something was off with electricity in that case despite the fact that my tests proved the PSU in good condition. So I first decided to try another PSU, but not before I did the following, for no obvious reason whatsoever:

Once again, I ripped the Heat-Sink and it's well-stuck-with buddy out of the AM3 socket, took another flat screwdriver and placed it next to the metallic side of the CPU. I then started hitting the screwdriver with a sledgehammer. The Phenom II took more than 10 hits in order to get off. The next step was, without thinking, to - for some reason - clean the thermal compound. I took the screwdriver and started ripping it off the CPU. Gently, but not gently enough - I didn't care what happened to it anymore. It was like peeling off color from some piece of metal. The Phenom was scratched pretty badly after the process, but it was now clean! And so was the Heat-Sink. I applied a random thermal compound I found inside my drawers after cleaning the CPU with some alcohol and put everything back in place, along with a new PSU unit.

And the system came to life. The PSU was the broken link. I am still amazed the CPU is running in, again, excellent condition under optimal temperatures, even lower than the past 4 years!

The quality of engineering plays a definitive role as to how hardware is going to act according to the way you treat it. But most importantly, if the way you treat it follows a logical path, it will most likely survive all blows. Because that CPU took 10 sledgehammer hits, but they were made to the point and at an angle I deemed the least dangerous for it to break. Because that CPU had the thermal compound cleaned with a screwdriver instead of Q-tips, but there was minimal and gentle contact between the two. Basic engineering knowledge can get you safely out of desperate paths, even if you're lost in them for good, in an angry mood, full of bitter disappointment. 

Or am I just lucky?...

that processor is a piece of engineering marvel...

[TheFragment]

My grandma once called me freaked out complaining that the internet was gone. Turns out that her homepage on Chrome was AVG and not google.

[Firenyth]

so this one time I was hanging out with my friend who is the manager at a tech shop by where I live and a girl comes in and buys a 2tb hard drive. we let her know that we install hard drives for $1 (the cost of the sata cable we use) and she says "just because I am a woman does not mean I cant work on computers" and leaves in a huff. two days later she comes back in saying that the HDD is not working so we take the computer in to look at it, we open it and the HDD is nowhere to be seen, so we ask her where it is. and it turns out that she scanned it and put the scanned image on her desktop to install the drive. and to top that off she threw away the drive she paid almost $200 for and she wanted us to give her a new one.

i honestly don't know what to say to this...

[Cybertism]

People thinking they can download RAM....

What you cant download RAM???  Oh $h*t... 

[Pugs501]

What you cant download RAM???  Oh $h*t... 

I know, I got some Viruses and Malware from some Torrents of RAM!

[Kherm]

What you cant download RAM???  Oh $h*t... 

Cant tell if being sarcastic, or just a non-techie 

[Cybertism]

Cant tell if being sarcastic, or just a non-techie 

Clearly sarcastic, i know RAM grows on trees...

[Kawaii Besu]

Clearly sarcastic, i know RAM grows on trees...

 

Seems legit.

 

I get my RAM from my healthy rams there in my farm.  B) 

[soup]

 

 

I get my RAM from my healthy rams there in my farm.  B) 

What ?  You mean the RAM fairy doesn't bring them.

[soup]

Cant tell if being sarcastic, or just a non-techie 

I would hazard that with 1750 posts and not having a 'name' for being a non-techie (not a SURE sign but certainly an indicator) he is being sarcastic

[Kherm]

I would hazard that with 1750 posts and not having a 'name' for being a non-techie (not a SURE sign but certainly an indicator) he is being sarcastic

lol, I would have noticed the post count right off the bat, but i was on mobile, so no post counter 

[Atmos]

Walked into the local Fry's store to pick up a new RAT. Felt like waltzing by the video card displays to see what was the haps and found a sales assistant talking to a customer who was displeased with the 660 he bought from there, because it couldn't drive his 4k screen. The sale assistant was trying to talk the guy into believing that all AMD cards run hotter, and louder than NVidia cards. I started to laugh and immediately corrected him. He then went on to say something along the lines of "well, this 780ti is like, 50% faster than the 980 which came out like a year ago, and it only costs 200$ more!" My heart broke so i corrected the sales assistant again, and had a religious tech talk with the customer for almost 40 minutes about stuff like g-sync, 4k, 60hz vs 144hz and gpu clock speeds. 

 

I couldn't figure out why the sales assistant was trying so hard to get this guy to buy an $860 gpu, until i found out from one of my pals that works there; That department's employees are paid purely on commission. Hurts to see greedy people trying to trick non-techies into getting something less powerful for more money.

 

I should totally be a superstar for saving that man if i don't say so myself. (he ended up getting dual 980's, because and i quote him here "Two is better than one...")

[Mistersprinkles]

Walked into the local Fry's store to pick up a new RAT. Felt like waltzing by the video card displays to see what was the haps and found a sales assistant talking to a customer who was displeased with the 660 he bought from there, because it couldn't drive his 4k screen. The sale assistant was trying to talk the guy into believing that all AMD cards run hotter, and louder than NVidia cards. I started to laugh and immediately corrected him. He then went on to say something along the lines of "well, this 780ti is like, 50% faster than the 980 which came out like a year ago, and it only costs 200$ more!" My heart broke so i corrected the sales assistant again, and had a religious tech talk with the customer for almost 40 minutes about stuff like g-sync, 4k, 60hz vs 144hz and gpu clock speeds. 

 

I couldn't figure out why the sales assistant was trying so hard to get this guy to buy an $860 gpu, until i found out from one of my pals that works there; That department's employees are paid purely on commission. Hurts to see greedy people trying to trick non-techies into getting something less powerful for more money.

 

I should totally be a superstar for saving that man if i don't say so myself. (he ended up getting dual 980's, because and i quote him here "Two is better than one...")

 

I was once at an Office Depot and there was a guy looking at the CDRW drives (this is in ancient times, when DVDRW did not exist *GASP*). A sales associate comes over.

"Can I help you?"

"I'd like to buy a CD burner"

"What do you want to use it for"

"Promotional CDs for my company. Is there a way to professionally write on the CDs I make?"

"No"

I pipe up 

"Get a lightscribe drive."

"What's that?" says the sales tech

I just look away in disbelief. The customer asks the sales guy

"Which one is the best one?"

Sales guy points to the most expensive drive there

"So the most expensive is the best?"

"Yes"

So I pipe up again

"Most expensive is not definitely the best. This slighly cheaper Plextor drive is better than that drive" 

(This is when plextor was the big pimpin emperor of optical drives)

The sales associate says "Ok just let me put my comission tag on that"

The customer yanks the drive away from him 

"I think this guy over here (points at me) should put put HIS comission tag on it"

I LOL.

[Thekidd]

Hehe. Know that double click thing pretty well. I remember back in after-school-club (Direct translation from danish (atleast what we called it)) when people played racing games on the playstation 1, and they sat and turned the controller. Motion controls, now with 100% less motion control.

I know this feel..I think it was more of an impulse though, because I've found myself doing it unintentionally 

[soup]

@Atmos

@Mistersprinkles

 

This must be a real anoyance to sales staff when they are in the middle of their patter to have some other random person come up to them and say "well actually you are wrong there" you wouldn't (I hope) just but in to someones conversation on the street so why do it in a shop? 

The sales assistant may well have a good reason for trying to unload XYZ (even if it is more expensive) such as keeping their job which feeds their kids[1] . As long as it does the job does it matter to you (enough for you to be so ignorant as to butt in) if the customer is getting the best possible bang for the buck?

 

[1] The manager may well have said "sell XYZ or there's the door", they may be trying to maximise their commision as their wages are crap (not everyone can have quarter of a million developer jobs :some must just be sales assistants)

[TD FluX]

My grandfather decided he was determined to become tech savy a couple of years ago (meaning able to use windows), 6 months into his 'tech binge' he called me up saying that there's something wrong with the computer he's tried everthing and can't fix it. I went over and it turns out one of my younger cousins had unlocked the taskbar and moved it to the side. I promptly clicked and dragged it back into place and locked it. Turned around and my grandfather mumbled some form of thanks and proceded to not talk to me for a month after that...at least a few years on he can navigate Windows pretty well now...

[Kawaii Besu]

What ?  You mean the RAM fairy doesn't bring them.

DRAM it, you still believe in those DIMM-wit superstitions?

[soup]

DRAM it, you still believe in those DIMM-wit superstitions?

Good one!