Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

CD Drive Is Upside Down

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
Collapse
 
  • Page of 2
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
Previous 1 2 template Next
  • #1

    CD Drive Is Upside Down

    Mr. Dave(not his real name) calls tech support with a very odd computer question.
    "I just tried to put a CD in the CD door and the CD drive is installed upside down! Can you help?"

    Me: "That's not something you see every day. What model of computer is it?"

    Dave: "Well... let's see..." *I can just imagine him craning his neck UPSIDE DOWN right about now* "It's a Compaq suck2000."

    Long pause.

    Dave: "I think the whole CPU* is upside down."

    Unfortunately, the whole system was such a tangle of wires that I recommended the fellow to get some assistance in unplugging and reorienting the box.

    *Yes, I hate it when people call their computer case the CPU. Don't you?
    Tags: None
  • #2
    I thought that was what it is called?? I'm talking about the whole thing, inside and the case.
    Woman are like guns, if you don't treat us right, we'll blow up in your face!

    Pain is your bodies way of telling you that you're still alive.

    I am also known as Liquid Skin and Silkekitten.

    Comment

    • #3
      Quoth Crazyredhead View Post
      I thought that was what it is called?? I'm talking about the whole thing, inside and the case.
      No, it's called "The Computer", since that's what it is. The keyboard, monitor, mouse, printer, and all the other crap people think of when they hear the term "Computer" are all accessories that plug into the computer. If you want to get fancy, you could also call it a "Tower", since that's the most common style for consumer computers, and a "Rig" or "System" is used to describe the tower as well as all the peripherals.
      Last edited by JustADude; 06-12-2007, 02:45 AM.
      ...WHY DO YOU TEMPT WHAT LITTLE FAITH IN HUMANITY I HAVE!?! -- Kalga
      And I want a pony for Christmas but neither of us is getting what we want OK! What you are asking is impossible. -- Wicked Lexi

      Comment

      • #4
        I sometimes call it 'the box' or 'the main box'. The CPU is actually a single chip (or two chips, if you have a very fancy dual-CPU system), that was clipped to the motherboard and then topped with a fan during assembly.

        I buy my machines in bits. My box is:

        A case (the exterior of the box, usually with power supply and lights included)
        A power supply (bought with the case) (comes with the big fans)
        A motherboard (if you ever open the case, the motherboard is the big board that stands vertically in your case) (or horizontally, if you have a lying-on-the-long-side case)
        A CPU (clipped to the motherboard)
        A CPU fan (clipped to the CPU, or to the motherboard, depending on design)
        RAM (several chips, also clipped to the motherboard)
        Hard drive and DVD drive, attached to the motherboard with a cable, to the power supply with more cables, and screwed into mountings in the case.

        And some daughterboards, also known as cards: these are smaller boards that plug in at 90o to the motherboard.
        A video card (usually comes with another fan these days)
        A sound card
        An ethernet card (if the motherboard didn't have it built in)

        There are also cables that attach to the motherboard from the case, to make the switches and lights work. And sometimes the video and sound cards need power from the power supply, so they get cabled to it too.

        And all of that is going on inside 'the box', before you even look at keyboards and mice and monitors. Fun, huh?
        Seshat's self-help guide:
        1. Would you rather be right, or get the result you want?
        2. If you're consistently getting results you don't want, change what you do.
        3. Deal with the situation you have now, however it occurred.
        4. Accept the consequences of your decisions.

        "All I want is a pretty girl, a decent meal, and the right to shoot lightning at fools." - Anders, Dragon Age.

        Comment

        • #5
          Quoth Seshat View Post
          or two chips, if you have a very fancy dual-CPU system
          Or, if it's very clever, it will have two in one... Unfortunatley, telling people that you have a "Centrino Duo 1.8GHz" (and yes, I know Centrino also refers to the chipset) isn't near as impressive as "Pentium 4 3.8GHz".

          Or sometimes it can be lots of chips in a big brick - a la the Slot 1 SECC cartridge Intel experimented with in the late '90s. I still have a Pentium II MMX 400MHz around here somewhere, someplete with hologram sticker, and I'm still looking for a 1GHz Pentium III in Slot 1. Very hard to come by.

          Ahh. Tech jargon.
          I think, therefore I am. But I am micromanaged, therefore I am not.

          Comment

          • #6
            Nonono, you've got it wrong!

            That big box thar is the modem, a cuz I iz usin' that to get on them thar intarwebs!

            Seriously? Work in phone tech support for an ISP. Better yet, a dial-up ISP. The users use just about every term possible for the computer except one that makes sense such as 'computer', 'tower' or even 'CPU'.

            Here's some of the best:

            Hard Disk
            Modem
            Fan
            Power Box
            Disk Drive
            The Intel
            The Windows
            The Celeron 4.66 GHz... (Yadda yadda yadda, reading off whatever happens to be on the front under their eyes... including the windows license sticker)
            The Desktop
            The Power Button
            The MacIntel (VERY confused user here)

            That's just what I can remember. I'm sure someone currently working in the field has lots more to contribute.
            Check out my webcomic!

            Comment

            • #7
              The sad thing is you will pay more for that P3 then you would if you went out and bought a new Core 2 Duo.
              Jim: Fact: Bears eat beets. Bears. Beets. Battlestar Gallactica.
              Dwight: Bears don't eat bee... Hey! What are you doing?
              The Office

              Comment

              • #8
                Quoth Seshat View Post
                I sometimes call it 'the box' or 'the main box'.
                From my CDW calendar: (Picture of a guy standing in a cardboard box) "Upon receiving an empty shipping carton from a client, Rick realized his habit of calling a computer a "box" had finally caught up to him."

                I usually refer to it as a tower. For the more ditzy of my callers, I refer to it as the box that all the cables plug into.
                SC: “Yeah, Bob’s Company. I'm Bob. It's my company.” - GK
                SuperHotelWorker made my Avi!!

                Comment

                • #9
                  This thread reminds me of the time I had a lady call in when I was working in customer service at Gateway who said her computer wouldn't turn on. She just got the computer . . . so I pulled up her order . . . and saw that she hadn't recieved the actual tower (backordered), and only the monitor was delivered to her.

                  "Ma'am, you're computer is still on the way. What you have at home is just your monitor."

                  "I thought that was my computer, why won't it show a picture?"

                  "Because you need the computer tower, keyboard, mouse, and speakers to get it to show a picture first, Ma'am."

                  "OOoooooo, okay, thank you!" click

                  I laughed about that one for quite some time . . . how can someone think their monitor is the entire computer?!

                  Phoenix
                  "I'm spending a year dead for tax reasons" - Douglas Adams
                  "If the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off . . . " - unknown

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Quoth Phoenix79 View Post
                    I laughed about that one for quite some time . . . how can someone think their monitor is the entire computer?!

                    Phoenix
                    One word - Imac
                    The only words you said that I understood were "His", "Phone" and "Ya'll". The other 2 paragraphs worth was about as intelligible as a drunken Teletubby barkin' come on's at a Hooter's waitress.

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      Quoth Phoenix79 View Post
                      I laughed about that one for quite some time . . . how can someone think their monitor is the entire computer?!
                      Ask my wife, although I'm not sure she'd answer you.

                      Back when she was just starting to use the computer, the thing locked up on her for no apparent reason, as they sometimes do, especially in the Win 9x days. She called me on my cell, freaking out.

                      Her: "Oh my god! I broke your computer! I'm so sorry!"

                      Me: "Calm down, I'm sure you didn't break it. What's going on?"

                      Her: "The thing just froze! I'm pressing keys, and moving the mouse, and nothing's happening!"

                      Me: "It's OK, it just locked up. Those things happen sometimes. Just press the reset button. It's right above the power button."

                      Her: "I don't see it!"

                      Me: "The power button is the big button at the bottom. The reset button is the little button right above it."

                      Her: "What do you mean right above it? I only see the one button!"

                      (slight pause)

                      Me: "Are you looking on the monitor?"

                      Her, in a relieved, yet annoyed and embarrassed tone: "Yes. OK, I see it now. OK, it's starting back up. It looks like it's OK now."
                      Last edited by MadMike; 06-28-2007, 01:35 AM. Reason: Splitting the Media Center posts into a new thread
                      Sometimes life is altered.
                      Break from the ropes your hands are tied.
                      Uneasy with confrontation.
                      Won't turn out right. Can't turn out right

                      Comment

                      • #12
                        Quoth Banrion View Post
                        One word - Imac
                        or, for some others, VT100 Dec Terminals.
                        Bears are bad. If an animal is going to be mean it should look so, like sharks and alligators. - Mark Healey

                        Comment

                        • #13
                          Quoth Great Unknown View Post
                          *Yes, I hate it when people call their computer case the CPU. Don't you?
                          What they say ----- What they mean
                          Computer-------------Monitor
                          Computer-------------Keyboard (I haven't seen that since my C=64)
                          Computer-------------Printer (yes, I've seen it)
                          Motherboard---------Computer
                          Processor-------------Computer
                          Video Card------------Computer
                          Modem-----------------Computer
                          CPU---------------------Computer
                          Power Supply---------Computer
                          Clicker------------------Mouse
                          Modem-----------------Router (OK, I can see how this one can be confuded with the average (l)user
                          Quote Dalesys:
                          ... as in "Ifn thet dawg comes at me, Ima gonna shutz ma panz!"

                          Comment

                          • #14
                            Last year, we had to yank a misbehaving computer from an office, and there wasn't anyone to tell at the time. We left a note for the person in charge of that area, and figured there wouldn't be any problems.

                            A while later, she calls and asks if we took a modem. Um... no. There was a lot of extraneous parts that we took, that she said we should, but there wasn't a modem. After a while of going back and forth, I finally realized she was talking about the tower.

                            It was the first time I've ever heard of a computer being called a modem.
                            SC: “Yeah, Bob’s Company. I'm Bob. It's my company.” - GK
                            SuperHotelWorker made my Avi!!

                            Comment

                            • #15
                              Quoth Banrion View Post
                              One word - Imac

                              Hey hey hey!

                              They were stupid before we got here! If it wasn't for us they'd just find other ways of being confused. Like trying to fax by holding a piece of paper to their monitor so it can 'scan' it.
                              Check out my webcomic!

                              Comment

                              Previous 1 2 template Next
                              Working...
                              X