Computer Abuse, what ticks u off?

in my relatively small circle of friends, i can honestly say that i'm the only onw who knows anything about computers. however, some of them think they do, which can lead to some funny conversations. here are the gems:

1. (back in 2002 when we all got The Sims) Friend: my mom made me uninstall sims
Me: what for?
Friend: Mom says it infected our computer.
Me (looking at the pc): this isn't the sims thats causing the problem. it's adware. do you click on popups all the time?
Friend: ya, whats wrong with that?

2. Me: mom, dont renew norton. its not worth the 70 bucks. avg free is just as good
Mom: whats avg? ive never heard of it.
Me: its another antivirus app. its just as good as norton and free.
Mom: we're going to keep paying for norton. they have a reliabe reputation.
Me: *sigh*

3. Friend: my pc isn't working.
Me: ok. what's wrong?
Friend: battlefield 2 isn't running.
Me (after looking at the pc for exactly 45 seconds): your dell dimension 8300 can't support it.
Friend: why not?
Me: the geforce fx 5200 and single core p4 aren't fast enough.
Friend: but it's a dell. dells are the best computers you can get, aren't they?

4. my friend's mom not being able to understand that their computer engineer cousin (who knows about as much about computers as some of the bb workers mentioned here) to hook up a new monitor. worse yet, he charges them like $40 an hour and purposely says there's a "driver error" when he hasn't even hooked up the cable. $120 for plugging in a monitor. if that's not exploiting i dont know what is.

I could go on and on, but it's time for h4l0w33n f00lz!!1
 
That reminds me of another pet peve of mine.

When video card manufacturers pimp their lowest low end cards as "high end" solutions.

There is nothing wrong with budget graphics per se... but when the manufacturer uses all the adjectives and packaging that should be reserved for the higher end cards... it gives consumers the complete wrong impression.

Not to mention the stores that have about 3 back generations of low end shit still being stocked... and pricing these old cards as much as the latest budget stuff.

It is always hard to explain to people why their new 9200, or 5200, in that snazzy box with all those pretty graphics and buzz words on it plays all the latest games like complete shit. Alot of people really have no idea... and if you really didn't know the technology... seriously... the box and literature for these budget cards gives the complete wrong idea.

Big box stores still sell these budget cards... these budget cards that were budget 3 generations ago... and if you didn't know what you were doing, it would be very easy to be roped into buying one. In these cases, the consumer would even be *lucky* just to make it out of the store with a budget card from this generation...
 
GMoney42392 said:
1. (back in 2002 when we all got The Sims) Friend: my mom made me uninstall sims
Me: what for?
Friend: Mom says it infected our computer.
Me (looking at the pc): this isn't the sims thats causing the problem. it's adware. do you click on popups all the time?
Friend: ya, whats wrong with that?
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Oh man! That one drives me NUTS. And no matter what you tell the person, they wont believe you. My aunt made my cousin uninstall CS:S and Steam because she thought it was infecting her computer. ARGH! She wouldnt listen to a word I say either.
 
one HUGE pet peeve for me is when people won't touch a computer company with a ten foot pole just because they haven't seen commercials on tv, even though i can find dozens of people saying good about them. for example, we were trying to buy my bro a medium grade gaming laptop this summer. i recommended systems from abs and the like after over a week of research and lappy config pages. i also figured i'd add a dell, just for the hell of it. the rents immediately center on the dell despite the fact it is the most expensive by about $100 and has worse parts than the nice abs lappy that cost almost $150 more. when i called them on this, they said, and i quote, "it's a dell. that means that, no matter what components go in it, it will be better then anything else." :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:. i was promptly checked into the hospital from laughing myself unconcious. the abs was not only cheaper, but had an extra gig of ram, a faster proc, larger hard drive, and better graphics. unless dell now uses some kind of voodoo magic that i (and the rest of the computer indistry) wasn't aware of, there is no explanation for this kind of gross overstatement. if they weren't my rents and therefore payin my bills, they would have been laughed at and bitch slapped.

Another one was when another friend f mine was braggin about his alienware laptop. he said it had sli, whoch isn't unusual for a $4k laptop these days. i told him that, then he went on to say it had TWO FRIGGIN PROCS AND LIQUID COOLING. i asked him if he meant dual core and heatpipes, but he said no, he had two physical procs and plumbing in his laptop, citing that, since it's over 2" thick, it has the room for a liquid cooling system running to two processors. honestly, the ignorance of some people makes me want to cry.
 
GMoney42392 said:
i asked him if he meant dual core and heatpipes, but he said no, he had two physical procs and plumbing in his laptop, citing that, since it's over 2" thick, it has the room for a liquid cooling system running to two processors. honestly, the ignorance of some people makes me want to cry.
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iirc, Iwill had a dual p3 laptop back in the day... i dont think it ever got released... might be mistaken though...

just an interesting tidbit :)
 
GMoney42392 said:
Another one was when another friend f mine was braggin about his alienware laptop. he said it had sli, whoch isn't unusual for a $4k laptop these days. i told him that, then he went on to say it had TWO FRIGGIN PROCS AND LIQUID COOLING. i asked him if he meant dual core and heatpipes, but he said no, he had two physical procs and plumbing in his laptop, citing that, since it's over 2" thick, it has the room for a liquid cooling system running to two processors. honestly, the ignorance of some people makes me want to cry.
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I find it funny that you are making fun of your friend here, like you knew all along he was wrong, yet in this thread:

http://www.michigangamers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1070

You are asking us at MiG if such a thing exists. Who's ignorant?
 
An IT department that issues your department pcs with 256MB of ram, and an IT build of software, antivirus, monitoring software, and support software. After just starting the PC it idles at 240MB or memory used. Outlook or IE will put you into the paging file!

Managers that order a new 19" LCD because their perfectly functioning 19" CRT is old and can go at any moment. What a way of saving the company money. :(
 
GMoney42392 said:
4. my friend's mom not being able to understand that their computer engineer cousin (who knows about as much about computers as some of the bb workers mentioned here) to hook up a new monitor.
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There is some misconception that computer engineers (and computer science) majors and degree holders are expected to know consumer computer hardware in and out. The material covered is nothing like putting together a computer or troublshooting.
 
Yea.. My sisters fiance has his masters in computer science. He got All A's every single semester of college, deans list every one as well.. Has never built a computer, and doesnt know a single thing about it (besides putting in a hard drive, I think). I told him I'd show him sometime, and he was pretty much uninterested. He is a programming and mathematical genius though.
 
mdameron said:
Mother fuckers that just pull out there thumb drives instead of stopping them first!!!
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:confused: :( what's wrong with that. A thumb drive is supposed to be removable ???











.wtf.... :rolleyes:
 
Murtrude said:
people who type REALLY loud
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yah...that's freaking annoying...

another is when someone at my school has the nerve to argue that a computer can't play games as well as a Xbox 360 or PS3......I felt like throwing-up...then I told them the price of a highend gaming machine and quad sli and they shut the hell up....lol... :cool:

********SORRY FOR DOUBLE POST********
 
I hate people who bring their computers into best buy because the computer is filled with spyware when all best buy does is run spybot/adaware and then charges them for it.
 
ZXN said:
I hate people who bring their computers into best buy because the computer is filled with spyware when all best buy does is run spybot/adaware and then charges them for it.
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I charge people for that too... maybe BB charges too much, but what the hell is wrong with that? Theyre offering a service and people are paying for it. Seems like buisness as usual to me.
 
lithium726 said:
I charge people for that too... maybe BB charges too much, but what the hell is wrong with that? Theyre offering a service and people are paying for it. Seems like buisness as usual to me.
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I have to agree. I charge them for it also.

I have worked on many a computer that all it needed was a good cleaning and charged them for it. I am not a charity service, they pay for my knowledge and skills. Now I might educate them after that to show them how to prevent it in the future, but if they come back they will get charged again.
 
i have seen so much that i don't get annoyed anymore i just expect it...

ever since sp2 i have been pulling thumbdrives out without ejecting them first.. and my wireless usb nic in my laptop.. it doesn't cause any problems

my monitor at work (that i am looking at right now) is covered with fingerprints.. and since it was like it when i got here, and i can't find windex it stays that way..

also i touch people's lcd monitors to show them stuff.. at work.. not if it is their personal computer..

SamuraiInBlack said:
20. People who don't do updates on their antivirus and then wonder why they still get them in droves. And then when I tell them an update is all they need, and I demonstrate it, and problem solved, they still blame the antivirus for not having incredible voodoo magic capabilities of updating itself every hour on the hour. Because as we all know, Solitaire has more priority than life itself.
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Nod32.. it seems like every day when i get home from work there is a balloon popped out from my system tray saying that nod32 was successfully updated.. sometimes it updates several times a day..

i eat in front of my computer all the time..

i made a 2nd user on my computer last year with limited access for when people were over.. i let them use that so they wouldn't mess up my settings..

no one ever defrags their hard drives.. oh well..

HOCP4ME said:
3. People who insist that, after I change something on their computer, everything works differently.
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i get that one all the time at work.. there are certain people that claim i mess up their computer up when i use it...
 
synergyo1 said:
There is some misconception that computer engineers (and computer science) majors and degree holders are expected to know consumer computer hardware in and out. The material covered is nothing like putting together a computer or troublshooting.
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CS majors use dells... ewww.. whatever.. as long as it works for them..

here is one that maybe no one put and it annoys me..

when someone's computer runs like crap, and they don't complain or notice..

yeah, i am basically desktop support wher ei work.. and i will use someone's computer and be like.. why didn't you tell me it runs like crap? they jsut didn't know..
 
scottatwittenberg said:
i get that one all the time at work.. there are certain people that claim i mess up their computer up when i use it...
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That's because you touch their monitor and drop food in their keyboard!
 
Wow, where do I start?


People who barely know anything about computers try to be the "do it all, know it all" kind of person.
ex: There is this dumbass where I work who knows bare minimum about computers let alone building one, he has never built a computer before. He thinks he is a guru just because he has his A+ Core (which I know he failed twice...). A client brings in brand new parts to be built up into a PC and he goes ahead and takes the box of parts and decides to just rip everything open. Here is the sign of a completely inexperienced noob: take EVERYTHING out of their boxes and place everything out on the table and try to work a big bulky case around the mobo, a $500 video card, etc. He even had the bare videocard standing on top of the bare motherboard. Not to going into detail but it ended up with me catching the hard drive that got knocked off the workbench by him moving the case around right in front of his boss. So he just tells him to get off the compy and tells me to finish it.

Others (yes some are mentioned already :D)
- Working on PCs that have about half an inch of tar/tobacco caked on it and wrench of ciggarete smoke.
- When people smoke around computers/servers/any electrical.
- People who move scroll bars around WHEN THEY HAVE SCROLL WHEELS. I know how they use a computer has nothing to do with me but still, its just so terrible to see a good scroll wheel go to waste.
- When people call me and ask why they can't get onto the internet and I tell them I'm in the middle of maintenance and then they call me 5 mins later asking why their e-mail won't send.
- People who say anti-virus or spyware utilities are crap because they don't work and then I find out that they haven't scanned their system for 2,875 days and haven't updated for 1,500 days.
- Yes, said alot as well, "Hey I want to get onto MySpace and see if I have any new messages from my emo friends lawl".
- Monitor touching.
- People who clean LCDs with powerful window cleaners and complain: "oh my god the picture is just terrible" and I tell them before not to clean LCDs with that stuff.
- When people think that just because they know me I can fix their computer for free or that I magically have millions of PC parts laying around my room that they can have.
- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16855150079 > DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A BLOODY iPOD TO YOU?
 
Kaiga said:
Others (yes some are mentioned already :D)
- Working on PCs that have about half an inch of tar/tobacco caked on it and wrench of ciggarete smoke.
- When people smoke around computers/servers/any electrical.
- People who move scroll bars around WHEN THEY HAVE SCROLL WHEELS. I know how they use a computer has nothing to do with me but still, its just so terrible to see a good scroll wheel go to waste.
- When people call me and ask why they can't get onto the internet and I tell them I'm in the middle of maintenance and then they call me 5 mins later asking why their e-mail won't send.
- People who say anti-virus or spyware utilities are crap because they don't work and then I find out that they haven't scanned their system for 2,875 days and haven't updated for 1,500 days.
- Yes, said alot as well, "Hey I want to get onto MySpace and see if I have any new messages from my emo friends lawl".
- Monitor touching.
- People who clean LCDs with powerful window cleaners and complain: "oh my god the picture is just terrible" and I tell them before not to clean LCDs with that stuff.
- When people think that just because they know me I can fix their computer for free or that I magically have millions of PC parts laying around my room that they can have.
- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16855150079 > DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A BLOODY iPOD TO YOU?
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I think you've nailed it on the head there :)

I just hate the people who think they know so much about computers, and that we (workers in a computer store) have no idea, even though some of us live and breathe computers (in a non-geeky way, of course ;) ) Not to mention the people who want something for nothing, thinking we make all the money in the world JUST because we work with PCs...

Is there a way to educate the general public against doing everything that has been said? Because I would love to know.

EDIT: How could I forget? People putting their ink cartridges in the wrong place in the head, or not putting them in properly at all. Now thats a good one for all the ages.
 
lol. Speaking of people who think they know too much.. I remember when I was a little kid, the "cool" thing used to be to tell people that you could hack the power companies and have them turn off the power to the school..

Yea.. I heard a lot of people saying that kinda shit when we were little. lol.

Or "you could hack the school and shut everything down, YEA". wow..
 
Astrogiblet said:
lol. Speaking of people who think they know too much.. I remember when I was a little kid, the "cool" thing used to be to tell people that you could hack the power companies and have them turn off the power to the school..

Yea.. I heard a lot of people saying that kinda shit when we were little. lol.

Or "you could hack the school and shut everything down, YEA". wow..
Click to expand...

i knew a kid who said he could do that. no one believed him until he shut us down in the middle of a math test. everyone was like "omfg he wasn't bluffing. we could cancel every test this year wit this!!!11!11!11!!11!!!!!1" after two or three more times, the teachers cought on, caught him, and expelled him. good times tho :D.

i agree with people calling every mp3 player in existence an ipod. my friend with the tech-deficient mom did this all the time before i pulled up one of them on the egg and asked him "do you see the word 'ipod' anywhere???" he got the hint.

one im surprised no one has mentioned yet: people who don't understand that it's potentially bad for a computer to run 24/7 for an extended period of time. a few months back, i tried to oc my socket 478 p4 2.6 to 3ghz on stock everything except for an arctic cooling freezer 4 pro. after that, i was guna b gone for a few days, so i disabled all my passwords so my bro could use it and to avoid a 5-hour arguement. when i get back, i find my pc completely melted down. the ram is shot, the cpu is hanging by a thread, and i have no idea how the vidcard got thru this. i ask him wtf happened and he said "i was playing cod2 and it stopped" i asked him how long did he play cod he said "only an hour" i later find out that HE LEFT IT ON FOR OVER A WEEK STRAIGHT WITHOUT TURNING IT OFF ONCE. if thats not hardware abuse, i dont know what is.
 
GMoney42392 said:
one im surprised no one has mentioned yet: people who don't understand that it's potentially bad for a computer to run 24/7 for an extended period of time. a few months back, i tried to oc my socket 478 p4 2.6 to 3ghz on stock everything except for an arctic cooling freezer 4 pro. after that, i was guna b gone for a few days, so i disabled all my passwords so my bro could use it and to avoid a 5-hour arguement. when i get back, i find my pc completely melted down. the ram is shot, the cpu is hanging by a thread, and i have no idea how the vidcard got thru this. i ask him wtf happened and he said "i was playing cod2 and it stopped" i asked him how long did he play cod he said "only an hour" i later find out that HE LEFT IT ON FOR OVER A WEEK STRAIGHT WITHOUT TURNING IT OFF ONCE. if thats not hardware abuse, i dont know what is.
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umm, leaving PCs on is not neccessarily bad for them. ever heard of a server or a server farm? in our house, my wife and I have two file servers that run 24/7 and our desktop PCs run 24/7. They've run 24/7 with the distinct exceptions of a few sporadic power outages and the 10 days when we moved from Alabama to Nevada.

If you have a problem with your desktop PC over heating like that, then YOU need to learn a thing or two about proper cooling.
 
GMoney42392 said:
if thats not hardware abuse, i dont know what is.
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Its not. Its designed to be run 24/7. What is hardware abuse is your overclock (especially with inproper cooling), and is probably what killed it.
 
i'd love to cool it well, but i got my case before i understood the concept of airflow, which was 3 years ago. either way, gaming hard on an oced system for days on end, unless its watercooled or aircooled extremely well, will cause strain. always has, always will.

svet - yes i have heard of servers. they have parts that are designed for low heat output so they can stay on 24/7. p4s are made fun of for their high heat output. im sure ur capable of putting a and b together.
 
I have about 5 computers running in my house 24/7 for long ass periods of time.. Months on end, no problems.
 
Astrogiblet said:
lol. Speaking of people who think they know too much.. I remember when I was a little kid, the "cool" thing used to be to tell people that you could hack the power companies and have them turn off the power to the school..

Yea.. I heard a lot of people saying that kinda shit when we were little. lol.

Or "you could hack the school and shut everything down, YEA". wow..
Click to expand...

Well, if you know where the server equipment is, any idiot can turn it all off, lol. :D
 
ok, i'll admit it: my pc is an unstable pos. end of story. continue with the forum already. sheesh :rolleyes:.
 
My biggest pet-peeve is keyboards. Silly, yes, but I can't stand to see some newbie talked into buying a 50-100 dollar KB because he doesn't know what hes doing and some uber-1337 geekzor (read: fucking noob) makes it look like its the most important thing to have.

The G15 pisses me off. The Saitek pisses me off. The DeCK KBs piss me off. Its far to much money for so little. Keyboards are analog, its on or off, "gold plated connectors" don't make your game better. A little LCD screen doesn't make your game better. If you're gonna drop a good amount of cash on an input device, drop it into your mouse and your mousepad. The mouse is NOT analog and better quality does actually make a better mouse (usually), and people who run without a mousepad just annoy me. I used to think my desk was a good surface too...until I used an actual mousepad and relized what a dumbshit I was being.

Ugh.
 
CHAoS_NiNJA said:
Keyboards are analog, its on or off, "gold plated connectors" don't make your game better.
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i'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you know that keyboards are not analog. they are very much digitial. also, i'm going to assume that you know that very often the difference between a cheap keyboard and an expensive one has to do with the embedded microcontroller that interprets keypresses and translates those to signals that the PC can understand and process.

ever had a keyboard that got pissed off when you pressed more than three keys at a time? then, you have experiene with a cheap keyboard. not all keyboards do that (depending on their wiring and microcontroller), so having a good keyboard can be important.
 
HOCP4ME said:
4. People who insist that, after I change something on their computer, every problem is my fault.
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OH

MY

GOD

Tell me about it. This is the principle reason I decided a LONG time ago never to get into the PC repair business.
 
CHAoS_NiNJA said:
The G15 pisses me off. The Saitek pisses me off. The DeCK KBs piss me off. Its far to much money for so little. Keyboards are analog, its on or off, "gold plated connectors" don't make your game better. A little LCD screen doesn't make your game better. If you're gonna drop a good amount of cash on an input device, drop it into your mouse and your mousepad. The mouse is NOT analog and better quality does actually make a better mouse (usually), and people who run without a mousepad just annoy me. I used to think my desk was a good surface too...until I used an actual mousepad and relized what a dumbshit I was being.
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Uh, Chaos, my friend. You are so backwards!

The gold plated mechanical switches are for longevity. Where a standard keyboard generally lasts 15-20 million keystrokes, gold plated ones are usually guaranteed for at least 50 million keystrokes. So sure you pay twice the price, but you get over 3 times the usage out of it. There are also a lot of "expensive" keyboards with crazy features. Like the Razer keyboard. It has built in memory for customizeable key's and macros that can be stored in the keyboard itself. I'm assuming this is so if you go to another computer, your macros and button combo's are still saved. If I recall correctly, your one of the guys that messes with their controls in FPS's and makes them all weird right? Well that would be perfect for you. This keyboard also has an expansion slot for a web cam, a light to light up the keys, and all sorts of other things.

And the LCD is good for a lot of things. Specifically displaying temperatures that you would normally have to alt-tab out of a game to get, displaying network activity when your gaming, etc. Its quite useful.

A good mouse or mousepad doesnt have to be nearly as expensive. I payed $25 for my mouse pad, its 17 x 11 inches, its textured for ultimate precision, and its durable. My mouse? A G5 I payed $50 for. Thats not even very expensive. And its arguably the best gaming mouse made.
 
What really pisses me off is when people don't keep a joystick plugged into joystick port #2 on their Commodore C-64 computers. Everytime they power it on or off they run the risk of static electricity frying the exposed #2 joystick port and the left half of the keyboard because the power switch is right next to the #2 joystick port and thier finger touches the pins in the port when there is nothing plugged into it.
 
Wal-mart electronics department people that try and sell computers. I know they're just doing their job and all, but if a person comes and asks them a technical question they don't know, they should just say so instead of recommending more RAM.

Also, the preppy sale people at Best Buy that come up to me and ask if I need any help while I'm looking at networking gear or something. I just want to say back "No thank you, I believe I can tell you much more about your products than you can tell me." But I usually smile and say "No thankyou, just browsing around." Once in a while I'll ask a question to test out the new guy =)
 
im gonna have to aggree with most people here on the touching of the monitor... grrrr

another thing that kinda bugs me.. not really a big deal... but when people call "installing" downloading... i dunno why it bothers me just does :D

and my dad... he double clicks EVERYTHING

and last... when your parents or gf's parents know that you have a pretty good knowledge of computers... they will tell people who say they have problems with their computer... and then volunteer your to help them... or "can you take a look at it"... most of the time i take a look at it.. and think in my head... "your computer is 7 years old.. its worth about $8"... only once have i made out of "looking at" someones computer... i had to format someones computer... got paid $100 for 20-30 minutes of work... but then i had to format another persons computer w/ win ME (ughh) it took like 2 hours.... i got a whole $10!!!! WOW!!!!!

and last... people that try to explain the problem they have with there computer and you just stop listening cause you dont even know what they hell they are talking about... i will usually play dumb so that i dont have to fix it for them :rolleyes:
 
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