When you know more than the it guy about computers....

[kaiju_wars]

5 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

@djdwosk97

 

I can guarantee that modern Dell's use F2 as well. We recently got in some Optiplex 7040's that use F2, as well as a bunch of E3000 series laptops that all use F2 as well.

 

I've actually never encountered a Dell within the last 10 years that uses something else.

 

I'm still convinced the OP was simply unaware that F2 was the option, and was confusing the F12 boot menu.

Tis what it sounds like to me.

[79wjd]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

I'm still convinced the OP was simply unaware that F2 was the option, and was confusing the F12 boot menu.

You boot into the bios...... Right? Right!?!? Riiiight?!?!?!?

[dalekphalm]

3 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

You boot into the bios...... Right? Right!?!? Riiiight?!?!?!?

Your post is confusing.

 

For Dell computers:

The Boot Menu (F12) launches a menu of boot options: What drives (or other resources, like USB drives or Network Boot) to boot from. It usually also has an option to launch the BIOS.

 

Or you can just hit F2 to go straight into the BIOS.

 

So if you're saying something else, you need to clarify.

[NumLock21]

New Dell still uses F2 to enter the bios and F12 for Boot menu.

HP is F10 for bios, F9 for Recovery

Lenovo with the Blue enter key, gives you a pause menu to select bios, boot menu, and other features.

There was this Dell workstation I've encounter, where the side panel isn't closed the fans will ramp up to the max. Once the covers are closed, the fan quiets down. It had a thermal trigger switch on the side of the case.

 

 

[vorticalbox]

On ‎31‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 1:31 AM, SamStrecker said:

I just hit del, f2, and f12 all at once

 

On ‎31‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 1:31 AM, djdwosk97 said:

you and me both.

I just run my face across the f keys.

[Dabombinable]

14 hours ago, JayKay3000 said:

Its the same reason I learned IT.

 

The last time I got had by a computer shop was when my external hdd broke. lol, external hard drives hardly break - they're hard drives nothing special unless you literally throw the hard drive into the ground, but then it may get damaged in or out of the case. Although I've had a uni buddy knock my pc off my table while the hdds were doing stuff and powered on and the data was fine (it was an accident). I did replace the drives a few months later to be sure though.

 

Anyway, this shop charged me loads of money, new hard drive, new case, time for copying and backing up the data. Apparently the data was hard to get. Get lost, the hard drive was perfectly fine!

 

Some time later I had another external hard drive 'break' - I took it out of its glued in box and plugged the drive into my pc. Lo and behold the drive was fine and so was my data. All that happened was the controller for the case broke. It was probably the exact same thing as the other time so a new cheap case. Like 20 minutes work. Maybe a day or so in the shop for parts.

 

That was about the last time I ever went to a pc shop and last time I ever bothered with external hard drives (USB type) - The nas has been pretty solid for years.

The caddy of some external HDD's (Seagate's in particular) have the HDD partitioned & formatted/encrypted in a way that makes it pretty much impossible to directly read the data off the HDD without the shell's USB to SATA adapter.  I found that out the hard way with my (no longer manufactured) 2TB Seagate Expansion Desk-I had to remove the drive from it as it was consistently hitting 58^oC whenever I used it (all 7200RPM 3.5" HDD used as external drives should have active cooling or at least a shell that allows for some airflow)


Edit: That's under Linux as well as Windows BTW, and I've had Linux allow me to recover data off a HDD with a heavily damaged platter while Windows wouldn't even recognise it.


Edit2: As for clueless IT guys, I did tell one when getting my Grandmother's old laptop that despite having DDR2, it would only boot with at most 2GB of RAM-as stated in the manual....20 minutes later they thought that the laptop was dead.

[79wjd]

13 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Your post is confusing.

 

So if you're saying something else, you need to clarify.

/s

[EricX2]

On 3/30/2017 at 5:19 PM, ♠FlamieMeister♠ said:

You know what his solution was to stop the fans from being so loud? (Btw the fans were set to max speed in bios) He wanted the replace the entire computer to fix it. He's supposed to know this shit. Like really. And apparently he's supposed to be an expert. He tried to use f2 to boot up the bios on a Dell pc. You know, the company that has been supplying us with pcs for the last 12 years?

To be fair, they probably just wanted to troubleshoot back in their office and then use it as a spare later when someone else had issues.

 

F2 is the BIOS on most older Dells, F12 is the boot menu which lets you go into the BIOS as well. I personally haven't used a "New" dell in about 6 years so it's a good chance they have changed that which he should have known but still F2 is a fairly common key for BIOS. That's what I use to get into it on my ASUS board. DEL works as well.

 

Also, when people call someone an expert they are usually basing it relative to their skills so they may be an expert to a person who doesn't know a USB port from a PS2 port.

[Misanthrope]

I've found myself in this position very often. Due to some reasons beyond the scope of this conversation I only have a college 2 years degree so I almost never even made it to interviews for IT help desk positions (this is even after I got some verifiable experience in help desk situations and junior positions by the way, they just toss away applicants without University degrees) but now I have more specific experience with databases, reporting and such and since those positions require a more specific toolset or something then HR really can't make as much of a fuss about me.

 

The help desk guys end up having varied reactions when I talk to them: I try to be pragmatically when I need something from them as I hate wasting my time so I am more likely to ask "Hey my computer doesn't has the intel video driver and I need it to enable my external monitor to expand desktop from my laptop, can you help me out please?" instead of "My monitor doesn't works" which is what 90% of people around the office asks.

 

Some of the help desk guys have ended up befriending me and even asking me for a bit of advise, my take on an issue, etc. So it's basically just ok because I never intrude on their duties and just let them do their thing. I try to just make an asset of myself so people know that although my position deals with A, I still can give some input on B and C as well and most of my bosses appreciate that. 

[themctipers]

On ‎3‎/‎30‎/‎2017 at 8:27 PM, djdwosk97 said:

just gonna throw this out there, my dell laptop from 2010 uses f2 to get into the bios. 

my ivy bridge laptop uses F2

my i5 750 system uses F2

I think mine uses F2 F12 and DEL

[dalekphalm]

3 hours ago, EricX2 said:

To be fair, they probably just wanted to troubleshoot back in their office and then use it as a spare later when someone else had issues.

 

F2 is the BIOS on most older Dells, F12 is the boot menu which lets you go into the BIOS as well. I personally haven't used a "New" dell in about 6 years so it's a good chance they have changed that which he should have known but still F2 is a fairly common key for BIOS. That's what I use to get into it on my ASUS board. DEL works as well.

 

Also, when people call someone an expert they are usually basing it relative to their skills so they may be an expert to a person who doesn't know a USB port from a PS2 port.

I can verify that business class Dell computers still use F2 to enter BIOS, and F12 to enter Boot Menu. At work we've bought multiple generations of both laptops and desktops (including one Consumer grade laptop) over the last 6+ years and every single one of them uses F2 for BIOS and F12 for Boot Menu.

[NumLock21]

5 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I can verify that business class Dell computers still use F2 to enter BIOS, and F12 to enter Boot Menu. At work we've bought multiple generations of both laptops and desktops (including one Consumer grade laptop) over the last 6+ years and every single one of them uses F2 for BIOS and F12 for Boot Menu.

Dell still uses F2 to enter the bios, even on brand new desktops and laptops. Why would they change it, when it's their default bios key for all these years.

[Scitesh]

On 3/31/2017 at 8:27 PM, Chaoix said:

Is the computer old? I have worked in IT at a University and sometimes you use excuses like this to justify replacing hardware before it fails to bosses that know nothing about IT. Also if you work for uneducated bosses, you usually have a line you don't cross in your work so you aren't constantly expected to be a miracle worker keeping all of the systems you maintain on life support because someone is too cheap to replace them.

I am in college IT team(yup the college is too cheap to get actual pros??) 

 

Also we are trying to upgrade all the lab pcs to Skylake i5s and rx 480/gtx 1060 machines (so far all the cards bought have been rx 480s)

So we are waiting for any machine to fail. Here are some of the stupidest reasons so far

1)over heating, coz low 60s is too much

2)a random USB port didn't work

3)ethernet issues (k, this one is not that small) 

4)fan noise

5)Random malware (that we put thr, smallest one so fat:pokemon uranium) 

 

Don't ask how  a ETRX, freshman got in the IT team

[Chaoix]

9 hours ago, Scitesh said:

Don't ask how  a ETRX, freshman got in the IT team

I got hired in as a Freshman too. Cheap labor for the college.

[Silentprototipe]

I shed a tear from reading that, such incompetence makes me cry on the inside 

[Scitesh]

 

4 hours ago, Chaoix said:

I got hired in as a Freshman too. Cheap labor for the college.

Not even paid, just given a bit more rope w.r.t attendance also the CSI (it/coding) is more or less a CS team with a few exceptions from It and just 2 guys from tronics 

[Phate.exe]

On 3/30/2017 at 8:31 PM, SamStrecker said:

I just hit del, f2, and f12 all at once

Yup, I just spam delete, F1, F2, and F12 over and over again until it either hits BIOS or starts booting the OS.

[Chaoix]

10 minutes ago, Scitesh said:

 

Not even paid, just given a bit more rope w.r.t attendance also the CSI (it/coding) is more or less a CS team with a few exceptions from It and just 2 guys from tronics 

 

[♠FlamieMeister♠]

Remember my first post? Yeah, that same guy is back, and yet again is screwing up his job.

 

What happened this time? Well, kids were getting off topic and not working and playing csgo and half life and games like that in class. So he's assigned to block these games and keep them from running. Its an easy job to do, we have a nifty program here that blocks programs and can create a whitelist of programs. Somehow, HE IMPROVES THE PERFORMANCE OF THE GAMES AND ALLOWS MORE GAMES TO RUN THAN BEFORE AND AT HIGHER FRAME RATES.

How? He told me that "DirectX files can be programmed to stop games", and as a result he put all DirectX files and MSVCP files into the system 32, and thought they'd automatically block the games from running. No they didn't. Honestly idk why we haven't had this guy fired he's an idiot.

[DocSwag]

Post it in experiences with non techies!

[♠FlamieMeister♠]

1 hour ago, DocSwag said:

Post it in experiences with non techies!

He's the IT guy, the guy who is supposed to be good at fixing PC's and problems with the net.

[DocSwag]

5 hours ago, ♠FlamieMeister♠ said:

He's the IT guy, the guy who is supposed to be good at fixing PC's and problems with the net.

But he's still a non techie, so it counts  

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

How do you know in clear detail what he did?

[samcool55]

Post it in https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/

[♠FlamieMeister♠]

On 4/17/2017 at 3:18 PM, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

How do you know in clear detail what he did?

Cause I watchef the guy do it to make sure he didn't f up my laptop