Experiences with non-techies

[2001jaden]

Alrighty fellas, here's a story fresh off the prints.

 

So, a couple of my friends are not techy people... at all. One of them accidently deleted his wifi-adapter drivers on his laptop a couple years back, and I thought that was hilarious, but today takes the cake.

 

A couple days ago, one of them threw me a text saying "Hey, my computer keeps blue-screening because of a controller."

I thought it was weird, a peripheral shouldn't make you're computer blue screen like that, so responded with "The controller? Or something to do with it"

Got a reply back "The drivers", at this point I was confused. But at the time I was abroad so couldn't exactly do much.

 

I come back today sign into skype and see I've got like 50 new alerts from the guy trying desperately to figure out what was wrong. He had uninstalled the drivers for the controller because it kept blue screening him, but ever since doing that it blue screened every time he plugged in his keyboard or mouse. At this point I was at a loss, perhaps his motherboard was dying or some shit, so I replied back, "What kind of controller is this shit?!" only to get a response in the form of a picture... He uninstalled the drivers for his motherboard's usb controllers... I cannot describe the amount of respect I have for that man. Something that painfully terrible must have been extremely difficult to do, and to be completely honest I have no idea how he managed to not only delete the usb controller drivers, I honestly didn't think such a thing was possible until today.

two hours, and one updated list of motherboard drivers later his computer is working again.

 

Never again shall I simply assume when someone says "Controller" they're talking about a peripheral, from now on I'm just going to assume they managed to do the impossible and delete something far... far more important. Still not even sure how he managed it.

 

EDIT:: OH, I also now realize the importance of a ps2 keyboard... word's cannot describe the difficulty presented when attempting to install drivers without the use of a traditional keyboard/mouse...

will not buy a motherboard unless it has a ps2 connector, very handy for diagnosing issues

[deWaardt]

will not buy a motherboard unless it has a ps2 connector, very handy for diagnosing issues

And I'm that guy who has a dozen of keyboards lying around.... All USB.

And that caused me quite some fun when my stupid self decided to turn off "legacy USB support" in the BIOS because this was a known fix to USB bus issues when hackintoshing..

[mbryant]

OMG YOU GUYS! I was looking for a used laptop and look what I found! 

[vanished]

OMG YOU GUYS! I was looking for a used laptop and look what I found! 

I highly doubt it actually has an HDMI port, especially since he didn't mention it, but felt the need to bring up things like "usb ports", "working battery" and "trackpad".

And the offer of a fresh vista install with free openoffice!  How could you resist?

[mbryant]

I highly doubt it actually has an HDMI port, especially since he didn't mention it, but felt the need to bring up things like "usb ports", "working battery" and "trackpad".

And the offer of a fresh vista install with free openoffice!  How could you resist?

I just saw "fast core 2 duo" and "fresh install of Vista" and said " I know where this needs to be shared". Who even has a copy of vista? I almost want to offer him like $30 for it just because

[mbryant]

And another... Not sure if this counts as "nontechie experience" but $300???? 

[Bhav]

I have a copy of OEM Vista Ultimate 64 bit ... but thats because Microsoft nuked my previous naughty hacked version of Windows XP (I was only 17 then and my family were nuts for pirated crap). So as soon as I could I bought Vista.

 

And that maybe brings me to a great point for this thread - My father would always say 'Why pay for music / software when you can copy it for free?' ... erm, because thats illegal?

 

And after Vista, Windows 7 Pro was only £70, Windows 8  £40, Windows 10 free.

[Bhav]

Not sure if Amazon count as non techies ... but they just tried to tempt me with a 10400 Mah power bank on 'todays deals' for £13.49. After buying it, there was a section of suggestions inspired by my purchase, with a same brand, size and shape 13400 Mah power bank for £16.99 normal price.

 

Great offer Amazon! ... I cancelled it and ordered the higher capacity one for £3.50 more, plus a pack of more USB cables to bring it up to £20 for free shipping.

 

So dumb are these prices:

 

Normal price £15.99, offer price £13.49 for 10400 Mah:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00VSLE5WO?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_

 

£16.99 foir 13400 Mah:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B014K97UO0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

[TGROBBO]

I HAVE 1TB OF RAM!!!!!

[deWaardt]

I still regularly come around people telling me that they have a 12ghz CPU.

If I ask how so, they say "yea it's a quad core, so 4*3ghz = 12ghz CPU"

...

I've given up to tell them they're wrong.

[soup]

And I'm that guy who has a dozen of keyboards lying around.... All USB.

 

 Maybe take a walk down to your local computer shop and get, an ever so cheap (~£4.00[how easy it is to type on is hardly a consideration as it will only be used to enter the BIOS/UEFI or load an O/S to enable USB support]) PS/2 keyboard .  If miles from anywhere maybe use Amazon.nl or any computer shop that will do mail order .

 

Or even cheaper (NOTE I have no experience of these and hence do not know how 'good' they are).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0021JPYMW?keywords=USB%20to%20PS%2F%26%2334%3B%20adaptor&qid=1453722324&ref_=sr_1_9&sr=8-9

[LukeTim]

yeah , he is definitly selling it a bit hard , but 4GB is not bad for the average user. What concerned me more was : "workstation" and ddr2 6400

A lot of people tend to use workstation to mean a basic business PC to do your work on. Word processing, excel etc. They don't realize what it actually means.

[comicsansms]

This (not really non techie, just techies exaggerating):

 

-snip-

Most of the workstations at work have Core2 Duo E7400 and 4GB of Ram and they are MORE than fine.

 

4GB of ram is more than enough for a standard user.

[brolaugh_]

I still regularly come around people telling me that they have a 12ghz CPU.

If I ask how so, they say "yea it's a quad core, so 4*3ghz = 12ghz CPU"

...

I've given up to tell them they're wrong.

so true it hurts me so much..

[Limecat86]

When I was 12/13 years old I tried to delete windows 95 while it was running.. :wacko:

Shortly after that I learned about formatting harddrives, and how to reinstall windows.

 

It was my first PC ever. Pentium 100Mhz 64MB RAM and a 800MB harddrive...

[DebatED Nothing]

It was my first PC ever. Pentium 100Mhz 64MB RAM and a 800MB harddrive...

My first PC had more RAM than you had HDD storage  

[Pony080905]

My friends mom once told him to shut the door or he wil let the wifi out

[steezemageeze]

Dunno how non-techie this really is, but my dad wouldn't let me take the time to cable manage my build because he didn't think it was worth it. I ended up kinda sorta managing it later, but I need to actually take the PSU out and do it right eventually. Actually there was a lot of stuff he was worried about when we were building, like he wouldn't let me take my GPU out so I could get my front panel connectors in. He wouldn't let me put the standoffs in ahead of time so I wouldn't forget (although that ended up being a good thing, Rosewill didn't put in enough of them and I had to figure out which ones were actually important). I think he was just worried about how much money I had just spent and was nervous about me breaking something, even though I assured him I knew what I was doing.

[Bhav]

I still regularly come around people telling me that they have a 12ghz CPU.

If I ask how so, they say "yea it's a quad core, so 4*3ghz = 12ghz CPU"

...

I've given up to tell them they're wrong.

 

 

This happens too many times, I remember around a decade or more ago, there were people on some phone forum going nuts over 8 core (dual xeon) Apple workstations for 5 figures of cash, and yes, one person that bought it was like 'its 16 Ghz because 2 Ghz x 8, you cant get that on any PC'.

 

I just wanted to smash my keyboard into my screen wished it would come out on his end and break his face.

[WkdPaul]

*snip*

 

RECAP of my post; Friend thinks his GT610 is better than my HD7770 because the GT610 has 2GB of VRAM ... also thinks it's better than the used HD7870 I bought because they are the "same" price (GT610 was bought new and HD7870 was bought used ... didn't understood that logic ...)

 

So I don't know if I should stop answering his text messages or not, his questions and assumptions make me facepalm every damn time, but then I have funny stories to post in here! lol

 

 

So this weekend he started asking me about MAC address and how to change a MAC address in Windows, then in Linux, all odd questions coming from him since he's not that knowledgeable with tech...

 

I finally ask him why he's so interested in MAC addresses, his answer made me facedesk ... he found used IP phones that are the same they use at his workplace, so got in his head to use one of those IP phones to have free phone calls ... *sigh* I stop replying after that, there really was nothing I could say, I was just speechless!

[soup]

It was my first PC ever. Pentium 100Mhz 64MB RAM and a 800MB harddrive...

You was spoiled.

First PC I used did not have a hard drive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET

I also used one of these, more a learning tool for assembler than a PC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromemco_Z-2 wow, a whopping 4MHz

 

The  first PC I actually owned was 386 based (386-486-Pentium ) 4 meg of ram and a 40meg hard rive

[Fgtfv567]

A lot of people tend to use workstation to mean a basic business PC to do your work on. Word processing, excel etc. They don't realize what it actually means.

The people who just do Word, Excel, whatever are just the peasant Avg Joes and desk secretaries. You could give them a G3258 and an SSD, and they could be content for years to come. A good workstation could cost more than a whole month's of their salary. And they don't even need it, they don't need to edit video or photos. Their day job does not involve heavy editing for a video-producing company or being a Youtuber. 

 

I highly doubt it actually has an HDMI port, especially since he didn't mention it, but felt the need to bring up things like "usb ports", "working battery" and "trackpad".

And the offer of a fresh vista install with free openoffice!  How could you resist?

Someone hire him for as a marketing executive!

 

This happens too many times, I remember around a decade or more ago, there were people on some phone forum going nuts over 8 core (dual xeon) Apple workstations for 5 figures of cash, and yes, one person that bought it was like 'its 16 Ghz because 2 Ghz x 8, you cant get that on any PC'.

 

I just wanted to smash my keyboard into my screen wished it would come out on his end and break his face.

Oh no, no, they're right. You can't get that on any other PC. Because you can get something BETTER. AND FOR LESS MONEY.

[Bhav]

Like a £1000 extreme Intel CPU and Titan X, as much as a waste of money they are are still better price / performance than an Apple workstation.

[vanished]

The people who just do Word, Excel, whatever are just the peasant Avg Joes and desk secretaries. You could give them a G3258 and an SSD, and they could be content for years to come. 

 

Not even an SSD - most people don't realize what a huge difference it makes and so will never pester IT for months to get one  :rolleyes:

[Bhav]

No, avg joes and secretaries need the highest end 16 cores Apple workstation for web browsing.

I mean, think about it ... 16 x 3 ... No no, over clock that shit, 16 x 4 = SIXTY FOUR FREAKIMG GIGAWIGGLES FOR WATCHING PORN, I MEAN, FACEBOOK.