Experiences with non-techies

[Str_Mape]

Guy comes in and looks at Just Cause 3 playing on one of our demo PC's (i7 6700 and GTX 980) and says "this look really nice but it still looks better on my PS4 with my 4K TV"

I was not amused.

[Marinatall_Ironside]

Guy comes in and looks at Just Cause 3 playing on one of our demo PC's (i7 6700 and GTX 980) and says "this look really nice but it still looks better on my PS4 with my 4K TV"

I was not amused.

Lol that's salty.

[Sauron]

A friend was having a problem installing virtual dj. Here are some extracts from the conversation.

 

Me: What os are you on?

Him: Windows 6 (turns out it was actually 7, no idea how you can mess that up)

...

(so I am now under the impression that the file won't open, since he stated it "wouldn't work")

Me: What kind of file did you download?

Him: huh?

Me: What extension does it have?

Him: What? I downloaded virtual dj

Me: YES, but does the file end with .something? What's that something?

Him: uuhh dunno, will check

...

(I painstakingly get him to explain what happens when he tried to open it - it's just a normal installer, however he can't read english well <dude's 13, and while at his age I was fluent in english I was fairly out of the norm here given the way it's thaught in schools> and just blindly clicked next and before he knew it he installed all sorts of crapware and not the program he wanted)

Me: Look, just send me a couple of pictures of what it says and I'll guide you through

Him: Ok

(sends me a pic and... lo and behold, none of what he said was actually happening, he just got an error message saying the installer didn't work properly)

[Alir]

Oh come on! I can think of better!

 

Yeah... well... I just came from Tumblr where EVERYONE IS SCREAMING LITERALLY ME IM CRYING LMAO

So you'll forgive me if I exaggerate once, twice or thrice.

 

But don't forgive me after thrice. That's the point where I need a psychiatrist (YEAH! I SPELT THAT RIGHT!).

 

I don't know if my father can be considered a non-techie, maybe middle ground... Anyway in 2009 he built a PC with high-end hardware (for the time), he was dang proud of his creation and it kept on going for two years tops.

I don't quite remember how it was assembled but: both hard disks died, I destroyed two USB ports by stepping through a leaning printer cable then the mother board died. He loaded the whole thing on the car and brought it to a friend to troubleshoot the issue (you built it, just DIY). He found water drops between the motherboard and the PC case, probably caused by a negative airflow. He ordered a new motherboard, but not before discovering the old one was still under warranty in the third year and found himself with two motherboards lol.

Then, icing on the cake, the GPU suffered a slow death until it fried once and for all. He even changed case to nail down cooling issues (you can bet there were).

At last he sold the whole thing, minus the GPU, and bought an iMac.

Six years later I had to play all my cards to convince him that building a PC is an actual thing and "you did it wrong bro".

 

How on earth did he get water drops in his case (without pouring water on it).

 

I'm pretty sure negative air pressure does not create water droplets. Can you clarify?

 

Also, isn't negative airflow something which can come in handy sometimes?

 

Yes I'm digging this up again

 

So it just happened again, on FAT32.  I moved some files from one folder into another on the same partition and it took like 3 seconds.  There was a progress bar and everything.  So does FAT32 have to do all these same things or is there another explanation?

 

I've always wondered why that was.

A few years ago, when I'd move a file from one location to another but on the same drive, it would re-copy it. Now it is instant. Can you explain why that is? Or link me to where the guy's original post is?

 

I'll give you an exapmple: A while back when one of my friends heard that I was planning on building a gaming rig, he proceeded to question me on what the best components were for gaming and where to buy them from etc. The next thing I hear he's got a brand new gaming rig with a 4790k and a 980ti, pretty much the best you could get at the time, and about the best you can get today as well. You can imagine my frustration. Anyway a few months on and he barely uses it, I think his most graphically intense game is "Need for Speed" *hits head on desk in frustration*

 

I feel you bro.

 

I spent over £1000 on this case. i7 4970K, MSI R9 390, 8GB RAM, 1TB WD Black HDD.

 

I play CS GO.

 

lol in my defence I only purchased the gpu shortly before my motherboard broke. Don't ask how or why it's a long and stupid story. I guess I could explain here. But maybe another time. Too tired. lol

 

I did try to play Far Cry 3, but it kept crashing. I suspected a motherboard fault.

 

This should probably go into the Dumb Tech Quotes thread, but I can't/am too lazy to find it. I'm sitting in study hall today because my the VoTech isn't open today, and one of my friends came up and asked me if I "fixed my motherboard" (I posted a Snapchat story when I was building my rig). I was confused until I realized what he was talking about, and told him that I built my computer. THEN, and this is where it gets good, he starts rambling on about how his dad's friend built him a motherboard because he works at some tech company, and that he has a special chip that makes it really fast. he said, and I quote, he "ripped apart a gaming computer and it's really beast". He also tried to tell me his power button is a laser or something like that. I just nodded and agreed with everything he said.

 

He's exactly the type of guy that would try to pull a lie like that off. I bet if I asked to see this amazing supercomputer, he'd make some excuse about why I couldn't see it. In fact, he told me that it was like top secret and the guy who "made" his motherboard told him he couldn't tell anyone or something like that.  

 

Reminds me of this guy I used to know in primary school. He was from South Africa and because of this, he felt he was privileged enough to make up BS about his home there and his possessions and everyone would believe him.

 

He said he had like 2 lambos. Limos, Ferrarris, Every kind of every car. An "Xbox 720", a PS4 (Remember this is back in like 2005/2006 so you can understand why bullshit bells were ringing in my head). He also had these insane TVs. And the whole Jazz. He had everything.

I asked him for evidence. Unfortunately however a thief broke into his house and stole everything. Really. Everything. I was very sad. It was a shame and yet suspicious he started the sentence with "I have" rather than "I had".

 

In his defence I think I was the only person who didn't believe him. Never understood why (!)

[dcb-z]

@tmcclelland455 @Fgtfv567 @Alir

I live in a small town out in the middle of nowhere. Most of the kids here have relatives who are frequently put in jail and they're usually surrounded by an environment where fighting to solve disputes is considered the best option (a lot of the fights are caused by petty things like bumping into someone a few times).

 

And yeah, the education kind of sucks. Most kids outright refuse to do their work and get peer approval for being rude and disrespectful to teachers or staff members. There's really only a handful of good students in each class, and if it weren't for the incredibly popular thing that is summer credit recovery, we'd have a very small graduating class each year. Failing classes is the norm here and it's pretty sad that these students are throwing away their education like this. My Pre-AP/AP English teacher always gets frustrated because students complain that having to take notes and write essays is "too much work" when it's really probably a light workload for an AP class. Our latest workload consisted of a full week to write a 2 page essay and today we took notes over a brief PowerPoint, but the students considered that to bee too much and many of them refused to take notes today.

[Alir]

And I was saying it's not called an ATA connector.

 

This shop is just pathetic as far as computer knowledge, that was just a small sample of how they confuse stuff all the time, like they are selling Q6600 for $50, then 10 years old C2D for $180 and i5 2nd gen laptops for $210, and then when you ask questions they tell you "that new generations renaming is just a marketing thing from Intel and those CPUs are basically all the same." Though that probably works on non-techies! lol

 

I don't think he was either.

 

 

Do they actually not know these things or is their target market pretty much of the level were they think of a MOLEX connector as a power supply connector for an IDE drive so they just call it ATA?

  Still shops will cater to whatever their market is, when someone comes along who is more knowledgeable than their normal customers you get nonsense such as "that new generations renaming is just a ..." probably from a shop assitant (saturday boy) who actually believes such crap

 

If you like PC World, read this!

 

I didn't expect this to be that long. Anyways, enjoy!

 

Sounds like PC World/Currys right there. If you don't know who they are, they're a huge company which sells computers, TVs and other electrical appliances. Long story short, it's mostly only idiots who shop there/ignorant people or people who know exactly what they're looking for. Had to say that out of respect for my Mother and Sister who forced me to buy a laptop from them.... It broke less than a year later. My sister had also bought that same laptop shortly after I bought mine. Hers also broke. After mine.

 

smh

 

When mine broke I wasted a lot of time not studying and instead calling their asses (Lenovo) asking for a refund. It took me AGES. I got a refund after 2 months. In their defence, they were hogging the laptop most of the time. After 1 month they did jack. I asked what was wrong. They said the motherboard was broken and they were waiting on a replacement part ie another motherboard. I'm pretty sure the laptop was discontinued anyways. So they weren't doing anything. There was nothing they could do. They just hoped I'd forget.

 

So yeah I got a refund eventually.

 

Same eventually happened with my sisters' laptop. {Her laptops' symptoms. Among other things, the laptop would show errors saying that the RAM is low and would get BSODs.}

It's worth noting they didn't listen to me at all. Both mine and my sisters' laptop were from PC World. I was begging them not to buy from them and they were like "pff what would you know? You're the youngest".

And who had to waste time to resolve thing when shit hit the fan? Yeah... me.

 

We didn't get a refund for hers. Hers broke within warranty. We had insurance (with PC World) on both laptops and were paying the insurance on a monthly basis but after mine broke, I called them and asked for them to cancel the plan so as to not waste money. They were like "sure". I explicitly told them not to cancel my sisters because we still needed it. They were like "yeah sure no problem".

 

They cancelled both our plans even though we still needed my sisters' insurance. My sister hadn't realised she was no longer getting charged for the insurance. She probably got an email confirmation of this as well and hadn't noticed.

 

Anyways, back to the laptop. Lenovo had it for like 1 month. I made clear at that point I wanted a refund. They told me the same thing was wrong with it and I knew they weren't gonna resolve crap. So I asked for it back. By this point because of their time wasting, the warranty had expired. They asked me for the serial # of the laptop as evidence it is ours. I was like I dunno, you're the one who has it jackass. You tell me and then I'll tell you. Please note, I didn't actually call him a jackass. Saying it here just makes me feel tough.

 

I knew this was going to happen which was why I had told Lenovo the warranty was expiring before sending. They were like. "No problem. Send it bro.". They extended it by a month out of "good will". They screwed us over by wasting time again. The customer service representative asked me the reference number of the call or the ID or something like that. I said I dunno, but you guys do. You have records of calls.

 

THIS DICK ASKED ME THE DATE I CALLED AND AT WHAT TIME. HOW THE FLYING TRUMP AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?!

 

Don't ask me how I eventually got the board back, but I did. Somehow.

 

I'd like to note first, last time when I got a refund I had to do a fine job of convincing the stupid employees at PC World because they really do fight you on this. At the very least though my laptop was in warranty.

 

My sisters' wasn't.

 

When Lenovo sent that laptop back, they accompanied it with a paper detailing what was wrong with it and emailed us a returns code which we were to give PC World.

Whoever opened the laptop when it was sent back didn't bother letting me know there was that paper inside. We did go to PC World once. We had told them that their shit service had led to this. We took the laptop to them before taking it to Lenovo in the first place.  The dumbass PC World employee said the laptop was perfectly fine. The problem was with Chrome using a lot of RAM (there was 2GB spare, there was an abundant supply of memory). 

 

Now, when we took the laptop to PC World after getting it back from Lenovo, they asked when this employee said this, we didn't know. They asked for records, we had none, we were given none because the guy said this on the spot in the store. We didn't leave it with them to have it examined by a PC World "expert" hence we had no records. They said they cannot take our word for this. Which is understandable from their point of view. I just hope their employees would stop speaking out their asses whenever they have held their lunch in for 1 minute too long.

 

Anyways, so they asked if we had an official paper which listed the diagnosis. My mum and sister were like "yeah we do". I was like "we what???". Thanks for not telling me. So we went home got the paper and never went back.

 

By this point my sister and mother had essentially lost hope and didn't really care about it anymore. That laptop became a kind of legend to them. Gee all I wasted was a few months of time and stressing myself out.

 

Worth noting that they bought from PC World because we used to have a good impression of them. But that was YEARS ago. Back during the Xbox 360 release. My Xbox cd drive was acting up. So they gave us an offer. They would replace it with an Xbox 360 for free and give us a 5 year warranty extension for free.

 

Sorry for the long rant. Went on longer than I had expected.

 

I wanted to get my laptop from Amazon where the customer service was pretty good. They were like "lol u know nothing". They were right. I didn't know of PC Specialist. Those guys are legends.

 

Lessons:

PC World are shit. Don't buy from them.

Lenovo are shit. Don't buy from them.

Amazon are alright. Consider buying from them.

PCSpecialist are great. Buy from them.

 

A PC Specialist employee led me step by step on updating my BIOS so that I could get more control over my laptop and install Windows 8.1 on an MBR as opposed to the standard GPT.

 

Guy comes in and looks at Just Cause 3 playing on one of our demo PC's (i7 6700 and GTX 980) and says "this look really nice but it still looks better on my PS4 with my 4K TV"

I was not amused.

 

He probably does play it on a 4k TV. At less than 1080p though and less than 60Hz.

The little uneducated demon was mocking you.

[BOT Edward]

Yes I'm digging this up again

 

So it just happened again, on FAT32.  I moved some files from one folder into another on the same partition and it took like 3 seconds.  There was a progress bar and everything.  So does FAT32 have to do all these same things or is there another explanation?

There's still a bunch of sectors that it is probably moving between, thus a very quick transfer but it will take a second to do so, still updating tables/etc.

So Depending on the size of the files I can understand

[vanished]

There's still a bunch of sectors that it is probably moving between, thus a very quick transfer but it will take a second to do so, still updating tables/etc.

So Depending on the size of the files I can understand

I can't; it was 56 files totaling 49.7 MB

[Haswell_rasperry_pi]

That's actually nice to know. I like hearing about good cops. With the insane number of stories of cops black mailing, bribing, raping, killing people. And even shooting dogs because they "got scared". Mailmen seem to do their job fine delivering letters, while getting barked at. So far, I'm pretty sure no mail man has felt the need to pull out a pistol and shoot a dog.

Anyways. Rant over.

I just hope more cops in schools are like that. Especially towards minorities.

Well the majority of cops do their duty correctly, thus quite unnoticed. Always keep that in mind when you see an officer. Well most mailmen these days don't even get out of their vehicle very much anymore, especially when I am at. Also they arent allowed to carry guns.

[Guest]

lol wtf? you sound like you're trying to explain this to a 12yo that has no clue what computer standards are, and BTW, look at the picture again, that's not a IDE connector now is it???

 

The picture is pretty clear, that's a molex connector, just google "ata to sata" and I can garranty you will not find a molex to sata power adapter in the results!

Yes, it's not an ATA connector, rather it is the power connector commonly used for ATA drives. 

 

I deal with too many 12 year olds, sorry about that.

 

Nope but it IS the type of (even if male instead of female)power connector used in IDE drives.  I rather think that's what he was alluding to he did not seem to be saying that was an IDE connector.

Correct.

[Bulgarian004130]

Lessons:

PC World are shit. Don't buy from them.

Lenovo are shit. Don't buy from them.

Amazon are alright. Consider buying from them.

PCSpecialist are great. Buy from them.

Lenovo are good, I have a ThinkPad Edge 15 from 2010, works despite being my property.

Yes, it doesn't work good, but it's just the Windows that's fked up.

Specs: i3-370M(got to 89°C once), 4gb ram(2gb stock) 500GB Toshiba sata2 drive(2 died, that's third one). It plays Flatout UC on ultra with 10-15fps(yes, bad, but it's running on the iGPU and it seems like 20-25)

[CobbleWalker]

This is the 1024th page, can we just take a step back and admire it?

[WkdPaul]

210 for a 2nd Gen I5 is not a bad price

I know, I was pointing more to the $180 for the C2D, especially when I bought the exact same model they sell but it was 2 years ago for $100 and I bought it from them! lol

[DigitalHermit]

source: http://www.memecenter.com/fun/5472503/what-a-load-of-peasantry

[Alir]

Lenovo are good

 

Your argument is invalid.

 

seriously though, every Lenovo laptop we have gotten has broken in less than a year. Only one survived the first year. It broke a month later.

 

Problems we have experienced with their laptops:

One had flimsy construction. The entire chassis just decided to die. Everything just fell apart. The laptop was around £500.

And the worst: Their motherboards break. 3 of our Lenovo motherboards broke. Just. Died. Stopped living. These laptops weren't cheap.

 

None of that is as bad as their customer service. It's like calling my long lost cousin-Nigerian prince in India.

And consider the only time we have purchased expensive laptops was with Lenovo £800-1000+. Other times we have purchased pretty cheap Acer laptops. One of them is still working. It was purchased 8 years ago.

 

The laptop I purchased from PC Specialist was £450. It is pretty solid in almost everyway. The chassis is called 'Lafite' (first version) The only bad points I can make is that the keyboard is pretty poorly laid out. And the touchpad is quite crap. Randomly presses itself while you're moving the cursor sometimes. This gets frustrating. The keyboard problem can be attributed to the fact that it is a macbook-air clone/rip off. I love the laptop quality but I absolutely hate macbooks now, since buying this laptop. I had thought they were nicely laid out. Was soo wrong.

PC Specialist customer service is top notch though!

 

I understand if you make a point about me just getting bad apples. However their service is abysmal. I would never buy from them ever again. It's not worth wasting 1+ months dealing with their 'customer service' aka scam.

[Alir]

--

source: http://www.memecenter.com/fun/5472503/what-a-load-of-peasantry

 

wtf is that

 

This baby tho

[Benji_w]

I have too many experiences from this site alone, I wouldn't be able to quote them all...

[deWaardt]

My little sister was complaining her iPhone touchscreen wasn't working properly, so she handed it over to me.

I took a single look at the screen, completely covered in smudge, dirt and fat.

It was like she dropped it into a frying pan and let the oil dry up on the screen.

I took some rubbing alcohol and made the screen shining clean....

Works fine again.

I can't understand how she let her screen get so dirty, I mean..... That was just gross.

[Guest]

My little sister was complaining her iPhone touchscreen wasn't working properly, so she handed it over to me.

I took a single look at the screen, completely covered in smudge, dirt and fat.

It was like she dropped it into a frying pan and let the oil dry up on the screen.

I took some rubbing alcohol and made the screen shining clean....

Works fine again.

I can't understand how she let her screen get so dirty, I mean..... That was just gross.

Appart from dropping the phone in something oily, I don't know what could have caused that, as sliding my phone in and out of my pocket keeps the screen pretty clean.

[DigitalHermit]

Appart from dropping the phone in something oily, I don't know what could have caused that, as sliding my phone in and out of my pocket keeps the screen pretty clean.

same for me... if only doing so doesn't f*ck up the screen protector so much...

[NeatSquidYT]

wtf is that

 

This baby tho

GTX 690 > 390 in terms of looks.

[dcb-z]

Appart from dropping the phone in something oily, I don't know what could have caused that, as sliding my phone in and out of my pocket keeps the screen pretty clean.

Mine never gets clean that way because I'm the kind of person who keeps their phone in a big Otterbox (I'm clumsy and drop my phone at my desk often). Every now and then I'll take it out of its case and wipe it down with some rubbing alcohol, though.

[matjojo]

Mine never gets clean that way because I'm the kind of person who keeps their phone in a big Otterbox (I'm clumsy and drop my phone at my desk often). Every now and then I'll take it out of its case and wipe it down with some rubbing alcohol, though.

 

shit those otterboxes are expensive, really, really $49 (almost did it other way round:)) for a fucking case, (iphone6+ I checked)that's sick.

 

anyway, when my screen is a bit fat I just clean it with some microfiber or just a normal piece of toilet paper, never had any problem with it.

[dcb-z]

shit those otterboxes are expensive, really, really $49 (almost did it other way round:)) for a fucking case, (iphone6+ I checked)that's sick.

 

anyway, when my screen is a bit fat I just clean it with some microfiber or just a normal piece of toilet paper, never had any problem with it.

I have a Commuter (Galaxy S4) and it was $40. It's a great case, though. I can't count how many times I've dropped my phone (including face-down drops) and the phone still looks like new.

[BOT Edward]

I can't; it was 56 files totaling 49.7 MB

 

Well assuming your USB uses NAND flash, the flash controller has to constantly update it's own file table (keeping track of all blocks), it also has to do some "Read disturb" maintenance and has to ensure that the ECC checksum is there.

 

I would say your USB has a less than quality flash controller, you will get average read speeds but write speeds will be shit. Writing to NAND flash you are removing and creating multiple pages on each block (which then in turn has to update ECC checksums to ensure data integrity).

It's the sheer number of files you moved around that caused it to be slow.

 

source: http://www.memecenter.com/fun/5472503/what-a-load-of-peasantry

 

I dont know what's worse, the bottom comment or grabbing the PCI connectors and risking killing the card via ESD...