Experiences with non-techies

[Frankie]

Only one of my friends knows enough to build a PC. For the rest I am IT god that fixed their sh*t and build PCs for them (More fun for me I guess) 

[Clyne]

I had a bunch of idiots that was working on a computer project....they didn't do anything and that made me fed up so i went to the teacher to complain about them and they got zero credit in that computer project part.....

[MuffinTopMike]

My friends are pretty clueless when it comes to computers, but they still know the basics like what all the components are. There is only one other person in the group who is a tech enthusiast and for the past year we have been trying to convince them to get into PC gaming instead of consoles, its kinda working but none of them having gaming computers yet. 

[Dredgy]

Yea, few know anything about PCs but my friends are all exceptionally talented and intelligent in their respective careers and hobbies.

 

For everything I know about computers, travel or fishkeeping, they know something awesome that I don't know.

[shorinman]

Trolololil

Get the point? The thread is as pointless as this comment

[H4X3R]

One of my friends (only got 2 REAL ones [in school]) asked me for advice when buying a laptop (mainly for school and light gaming). I suggested the the MSI GT60, he said it looked to flashy for school (to gaming oriented), then i went on to suggest the lenovo y50(-70), and he dismissed it saying that it didn't have an apple logo on it -.- He then bought a 13inch macbook for 300 more than the y50 (and much worse in terms of specs and IMO looks as well). His justification --> it has the apple logo and OOOH fancy retina display (what BS, the y50 has the same (very similar) resolution) With intel iris pro HD5200 GPU he won't be playing games (the Y50 had a 860M).

What's the point of asking someone for advice when you know you won't listen to it anyway?

 

All the others are console peasants (except for one who got a pre built gaming PC...at least a PC and it's not alienware).

[Cybertism]

If you keep talking about different computer parts and shown them as you build a rig - they will learn trust me!
My mates are all console peasants, however one of them recently asked me to build him a rig as he hates his PS4's graphics..

We might just have a console deserter on our hands...

[Razarza]

Had to explain a friend what a SD-card is last week..

I had to explain what a USB flash drive was to a 15 year old kid last night, he knew what it was but just didn't know what they were called...

[Rohit Jackdaw]

My friends don't know what a PSU is. Also fhey believe that Hard Drives have fans inside them to keep them cool and that's why it vibrates. That made me laugh. Some also say they have Graphics Card with 16 GB of VRam.

[asquirrel]

Last night I spent 6 hours on the phone with my dad helping him build a PC (originally I was going to help him in person, then he cancelled his visit to me for ~reasons~). After it was all assembled "it won't turn on!" and he became super frustrated thinking he had a DOA part (his RL job is server repair in datacenters). I looked up a photo of the case and made sure he had:

 

1. Flipped the power switch on the PSU into the 'on' position {He had / no error}

2. Plugged both ends of the cable in (long day, mistakes happen). {He had / no error}

3. Double-checked the front panel connectors on the MOBO, as they like to pop out {they were still attached correctly}

4. Firmly connected the 24pin and 4-pin CPU power connectors {they were right}

 

...so guess what it was?

 

"And you are pushing the horizontal bar in the top-left corner of the case right? The one just below the bezel and above a 1x1" square?" "*hear a faint click* Oh, it turns on now. I didn't realize that was the power button. I thought it was <an LED over the USB ports>"

 

...LOL. Granted, the Corsiar 250D isn't labeled...but really? REALLY?! He didn't read *any* of the manuals, or rather glanced at them, decided they weren't GI proof, and ignored them. >.< He'd hate technology a lot less if he wasn't afraid of learning.

[MLG Doge]

My Granddad has a fairly old computer with a Celeron.

it has some old 5400rpm HDD so it takes a while for them save fairly large files...

so he thinks clicking another seven times will make it go faster.

guess what, it doesent.

he ends up saving a bazillion copies of the same thing.

 

and also he and my Grandma always click those links 'adverts related to your search' which just

happens to be the exact thing they searched. hmmmmm

[Pie-jacker875]

Why shouldn't I use Safari? It's the browser you're supposed to use on Apple products!

 

[NerdNinja]

 

Why shouldn't I use Safari? It's the browser you're supposed to use on Apple products!

 

 

 

To be fair. On paper Safari is the best as far as performance on Apple products but it all boils down to personal preference 

[elecxonica]

One of my friends isn't necessarily a non techie, but he's mentioned a few times he needs to reinstall. I've offered to help him but everything he's said no and he'll wait for my and his other techy friend to help.

That said, our other techie friend thinks you need an i5 at least, if not an i7 for gaming.

[STRMfrmXMN]

One of my friends isn't necessarily a non techie, but he's mentioned a few times he needs to reinstall. I've offered to help him but everything he's said no and he'll wait for my and his other techy friend to help.

That said, our other techie friend thinks you need an i5 at least, if not an i7 for gaming.

There's too many people I see that end up getting some crazy high-end i7 and then getting a GT 630 with 4GB of VRAM because big numbers mean better, right?

Ah well, we're all noobs at some point.

[Extingquish]

There's too many people I see that end up getting some crazy high-end i7 and then getting a GT 630 with 4GB of VRAM because big numbers mean better, right?

Ah well, we're all noobs at some point.

9590 with 9800GT

[STRMfrmXMN]

9590 with 9800GT

FX-4300 with a GT610

[DigitalHermit]

FX-4300 with a GT610

 

At least it's not an i7 with a GeForce 210...

[Extingquish]

FX-4300 with a GT610

Oh, I was outdone. damn.

 

Need processing power? Armed with the powerful AMD Vishera FX-4300 processor, you've got four cores and a maximum 4.0GHz of speed ready to go when you need it. Combined with a NVIDIA GT 610 1GB discreet graphics card and 8GB of ultra-fast DDR3 RAM, the Gamer Ultra GUA880 has got the performance for all your computing needs.

[STRMfrmXMN]

At least it's not an i7 with a GeForce 210...

I cry everytim

[Boink]

My school's computers are slowly getting more and more locked down. They recently blocked the downloads folder... I hope they realize that sometimes people need to download things for schoolwork.

Funny thing though, downloads can still be opened directly from Chrome.

[Extingquish]

My school's computers are slowly getting more and more locked down. They recently blocked the downloads folder... I hope they realize that sometimes people need to download things for schoolwork.

Funny thing though, downloads can still be opened directly from Chrome.

Chrome isn't installed on our PCs and there's no way to install it not even having a portable version on a USB drive works

 

EDIT: 600 posts woo!

[DARTHNEXAN]

Customer came into the store and said that his trackpad wasn't working. When we checked he had disabled the trackpad!

[Ballwalrus]

My mother is just awful with anything technical. I am not an expert at all but I know enough that any problem she has she comes right to me and sometimes its rather fustrating. Anything that goes wrong she assumes I can fix it and if I tell her i cant she yells at me.

 

I have tried to show her how to use a USB Drive maybe 20 times already.

 

She downloads anything and everything off the internet, I tell he not to she says ok, but still downloads stuff..lol

 

A while ago our printer was out of ink, so she replaced it. After that nothing was printing and we eventually just thought the thing went bad because it wasnt a good printer. we were about to buy a new one when my dad decides to look inside the machine and sees the orange pullaway tab on the inkcartridge.

 

The other day She was yelling at me her web browser was broken because the bookmark tabs dissapeard, I told he that she probably pressed something and she yelled at me and says she didnt press anything, she was in fullscreen mode.

 

This one does not involve my mom. My father is an electrician and he was doing work at a fox reporters home, I was helping him at the time, she had music playing on the laptop when her windows media player crashes. She cant figure out how to get her music back, my dad tells her I can help I look at her computer and all she needed to do was click on windows media player icon..lol

[Beskamir]

My school's computers are slowly getting more and more locked down. They recently blocked the downloads folder... I hope they realize that sometimes people need to download things for schoolwork.

Funny thing though, downloads can still be opened directly from Chrome.

how about just changing the location to which files get downloaded to? Pretty sure that's doable with a browser running of a USB drive. If I recall correctly I had Firefox on my USB drive for most of grade 7ish to 9 since IE is a nightmare to use. I than got a laptop for High School and scraped my ideas of having a browser on my USB drive.

 

Also I experimented with very light versions of Linux which could boot off and function from a USB drive. (It might have been Slax or Puppy Linux) Anyways a MAJOR hole in my plan popped up when I found out the IT people put bios passwords on all of the desktops I might have had to use. (Library, computer lab, etc) Thankfully the computers I usually had to use were the (at the time) newly acquired laptops which didn't have a bios passwords so I was able to experiment with booting off a USB then.

 

Funny how when I look back now I'm amazed that I actually had been able to do all of that stuff. I just consider that everything I learned about technology had been mostly after I finished junior high and yet I know that I had done a lot of technology related things prior to finishing grade 9. And back then I didn't even know about razethew0rld (now called Tek Syndicate), Linus, or any of the other tech related youtubers and writers that sometimes make "how to" guides that we can learn from.

 

 

 

This one does not involve my mom. My father is an electrician and he was doing work at a fox reporters home, I was helping him at the time, she had music playing on the laptop when her windows media player crashes. She cant figure out how to get her music back, my dad tells her I can help I look at her computer and all she needed to do was click on windows media player icon..lol

Windows media player, ewww! I mean foobar2000masterrace but then she was from Fox so what am I expecting.