Experiences with non-techies

[matjojo]

Much like how my mother refuses to replace her phone which is already malfunctioning...

 

 

I do this hella much, complaining all the time my shit is slow but I'm just too broke ass

[DimasRMDO]

Dont tell me it was expensive as well

It's expensive (in Indonesia) it's got i5-2500 and a GTX-980, he obviously has toasted both Motherboard and PSU.

He needs to buy those, he still hasn't made up his mind (whether to buy new hardware or to service it). I haven't told him this.... He is still thinking, I'll let him make his choice.

[don_svetlio]

It's expensive (in Indonesia) it's got i5-2500 and a GTX-980, he obviously has toasted both Motherboard and PSU.

He needs to buy those, he still hasn't made up his mind (whether to buy new hardware or to service it). I haven't told him this.... He is still thinking, I'll let him make his choice.

can I have the dead board and CPU?

[DimasRMDO]

can I have the dead board and CPU?

It's not mine, I don't know, they are all still kept by him.

I'm afraid if I tell him this he would kick my ass.

[don_svetlio]

It's not mine, I don't know, they are all still kept by him.

I'm afraid if I tell him this he would kick my ass.

write him a note

[Boink]

Everyone here has undoubtedly had some bad experiences with tech support, well here is mine. Last night the USB port on my Nexus 6 broke, preventing any charging or data transfer at all. I went to Motorola's website and live chatted with a technician to get it sent in and replaced with the warranty.

This is part of the actual transcript of the chat (names removed for obvious reasons) 

 

[03:49:00 AM] Motorola: Can you tell me the exact issue of the USB port is it loosen?
[03:49:04 AM] Motorola: Or what?
[03:50:27 AM] Me: The charging cable fits snugly but the phone won't accept power or data. I tried with multiple cords that I know work and I tried using multiple power adapters.
[03:50:50 AM] Motorola: Can you please verify to me again the serial number of the phone?
[03:51:13 AM] Me: [REDACTED]
[03:51:20 AM] Motorola: So therefore USB port is the one having issue with? Its not the phone itself?
[03:51:49 AM] Me: No, the USB port on the phone, the micro b port.
[03:52:08 AM] Motorola: I see.
[03:52:14 AM] Motorola: So it's not the phone?

 

How hard is it to understand?!?!?!?

 

(And yes, I was up that late. Insomnia is the worst.)

[Helepolis]

This just happened today, but first some background.

 

I work at a large corporate grocery store while attending university for network administration. Our store has multiple lines, the commercial internet line completely hidden from public, a line for the intranet where all our computers and handheld devices send/receive orders and information, then finally a line for our public for staff/customers WiFi.

 

I'm working on paperwork in the back before the store opens (I start at 4 in the morning) and have a podcast playing locally stored locally on my phone. A few of my coworkers begin having connection issues 2 hours into my shift while they're doing inventory. They come into my office wondering what I'm doing, and begin questioning what my phone is doing. I explain I'm listening to a pod cast thinking nothing of it, then they claim I must be streaming and disrupting the network and explain to me like an ISP would your grandparents on how it's going affect your network before I can even figure out I need to explain it's a local file. I stop them (these people know just as much as your average grandparents) and tell them these explanations are very unnecessary, emphasizing I'm currently in school for network administration only to be ignored and told to turn it off anyway because even though you're actually studying in this field, in your mid 20's, we have a full head of grey hair so you're point is invalid. So I lie and say I turned off my "streamed podcast". A few minutes later I get a page from said coworkers being all smug saying the network is working again, to which I reply I never stopped the stream in the first place. A few minutes later it goes down again and they storm back into my office, yelling at me how I need to listen to them and I was disrupting everyone's workflow, single handedly bringing down our network with my iphone. At this point I tell them they're being highly inappropriate and even if I was streaming, they're on completely different networks. Of course they storm off again, but at this point the store is open and I turn off my podcast and turn off my wifi to help conserve power. Half an hour later another coworker storms into my office (apparently it spread word that this was my fault) shoves his handheld in my face with a network error, telling me I need to stop my streaming and that I'm causing everyone issues. Remember, I'm not even using my phone at this point nor was my wifi even on. This continues on for another 2 hours.

 

For fun though, the podcast I was listening to was 250 megabytes, and our public wifi is good enough for multiple users to watch 1080p Netflix similtaneously. Even though it's likely much higher, lets say I can download 1 MB/s, streaming ti would have had it loaded on my phone in less than 5 minutes, but it's a stream so require far less than that to buffer the audio. Now if I somehow did log onto the commercial line and caused congestion with lets say 250KB/s of traffic, you've got a lot more problems going on.

 

Oh and that's not to mention the handhelds connect our intranet with a dedicated connection.

 

P.S. If youre concerned, my shop steward has already been informed and taken names.

[matjojo]

snippy snippet

 

wow, that stupid people, they didn't even believe you when you said it was a local file

[DigitalHermit]

-snip-

What was the issue in the end?

[Helepolis]

What was the issue in the end?

 

Our company servers were down for the entire province. 

[Tmt97]

I was just reminiscing about a past experience you guys might appreciate.

 

There was a "friend" of mine who will not be named a while back who was on an older computer, and it was running pretty slowly. I had suggested that I could try to upgrade it for her, or build a new one, but she acted like I was some sort of witch doctor because I knew about computers rather than simply accepting the magic of the GUI at face value. She refused, and then I suggested she try putting a light linux distro on there at the very least. Her response: "Linux? Isn't that illegal?" At this point I was seriously facedesking. She then switched to an internet explorer tab which had a popup saying her computer was infected, call Microsoft support agent, blah blah, we all know the scam. So whats the first thing she does? Without question, she whips out her phone to call them. Before they answered I was trying to tell her it might not be microsoft, and she was looking at me like I had 3 heads.(I know, why would someone on the internet ever lie to you right?). At this point I just decide to leave, and as I'm walking out I hear her telling the guy from "microsoft" that she thinks I put the malware on the computer somehow even though she didnt at any point allow me to touch the computer.

[Ivelin__]

Do you know how bad that is?

Why? It works now.

Also I always clean my computers with that vacuum cleaner, and I also cleaned the PSU of my secondary PC with it(SafePower PK-400). Never had any problems.

Not joking, yes I am mad, or an idiot, or whatever. But "if it's stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid"

[Tmt97]

Why? It works now.

Also I always clean my computers with that vacuum cleaner, and I also cleaned the PSU of my secondary PC with it(SafePower PK-400). Never had any problems.

Not joking, yes I am mad, or an idiot, or whatever. But "if it's stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid"

Or if its stupid and it works, you got lucky.

[DimasRMDO]

write him a note

Let see where this takes me

[Ivelin__]

Or if its stupid and it works, you got lucky.

Luck, luck, luck everywhere.

I don't know, 3 times and nothing has happened, maybe too much luck?(2 times the PK-400 and 1- daewoo's 150w AT)

[Speedbird]

Luck, luck, luck everywhere.

I don't know, 3 times and nothing has happened, maybe too much luck?(2 times the PK-400 and 1- daewoo's 150w AT)

Same here I guess. Vacuumed a desktop and a laptop. Both still working...

[Tmt97]

What is wrong with you people! Put the vacuums down! No tech has to get hurt if you just turn from the dark side. The cookies arn't worth it.

[Arkzyw]

Hmm...I may be hardheaded, but I don't think using vacuums is really as dangerous as most say. I'm cleaning PCs that way for 10+ years(always using the end with brush though).

Hundreds of PCs cleaned, and not a single issue...stupid luck ?

[matjojo]

how am I supposed to clean the pc without a vacuum? like how will I catch the dust?

[cube45]

yeaaaahhhhh, i kinda used a high pressure air compressor soooooooo.

[Guest acdcman200]

What is wrong with you people! Put the vacuums down! No tech has to get hurt if you just turn from the dark side. The cookies arn't worth it.

I have some insanely expensive vacuum(don't ask me why, wifey bought it 5 years ago), that has a thing were you can put a filter on the hose intake it and put the hose on the exhaust port and turn it into a air compressor. Ive used that method in many clients computers, no issues so far

[I need a better name]

wut 2 us wen cleen pc:

[Tmt97]

I have some insanely expensive vacuum(don't ask me why, wifey bought it 5 years ago), that has a thing were you can put a filter on the hose intake it and put the hose on the exhaust port and turn it into a air compressor. Ive used that method in many clients computers, no issues so far

-facepalm- Filters catch dust/particles, not static electricity. Do you even science bro?

[ShiftHitTheFan]

-facepalm- Filters catch dust/particles, not static electricity. Do you even science bro?

Well, technically any insulàtor holds a static charge, and because air is flowing through the filters, and they are most likely paper, they will build a static charge.

But seriously, vacuuming wont hurt. If your vace did have any metal on it it should be grounded anyways, removing any static.

[Tmt97]

You guys are gonna kill all your rigs. You can laugh it off now. Maybe you guys have gotten lucky a few times with the vacuum, but eventually your lucks gonna run out. You will try to power it on one day and wonder why everything's dead. I'm guessing you will probably try to blame one of us for bad tech advice, but we will know. We will all know what really happened. Its just a matter of time.