Recurring Twits

[Comp_geek]

Working at a place that sells and repairs computers (among many other things) I get to see a lot of people bring in their computers to be fixed (read: remove viruses, spyware, adware, etc.). We do have a few new customers each month, but then we also have the "dedicated customers" who bring in their computer monthly for us to rid of their latest "Hot Internet Girls will do you if you install this program."

I hereby dedicate this thread to the ones, the only, recurring twits. Be they customers or (as is mostly in my case) family/friends.


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My aunt is a steady source of income for me, every 3 months she brings me her computer to rid it of the latest spyware online. I don't know HOW she and my cousins find it but they do. It's the nasty kind too where you gotta follow like 20 steps. Luckily I've started charging

[Acolyte]

Yeah, we've got the people who don't mind shelling out $75 every month for us to run AVG, AdAware and CCleaner on their computers. And they always act really surprised when we tell them to stop visiting so many porn sites to reduce their spyware crap.

We've also got this guy who, without fail, will break a part in his computer every few months. First, he killed his modem by trying to ram a network cable into it. Then he rammed his new RAM into submission. Then he tried to jam a floppy cable into an IDE hard drive. And, worst of all, he killed a GeForce 7800 by putting in the power cable wrong. That one physically hurt me-$400 down the drain.
What's worse is, he refuses to let us do it, and keeps coming in!

[NightWolf]

he killed a GeForce 7800 by putting in the power cable wrong.

NOOOO, that card could have done so much more for so many other people......



I hate it when I see people with either:

A.) A machine better than mine, and know they will never ever have a need for all the bells and whistles.

B.) Someone who killed a good part in their computer because of their idiocy in either tinkering with it or carelessly installing something else near it.


Sigh....I still want to see a social services for computers.

"Sir, I'm sorry, but you've abused this computer for the last time! It's going to a good home where it will be well utilized and loved."

[SengaKitty]

Sigh....I still want to see a social services for computers.

"Sir, I'm sorry, but you've abused this computer for the last time! It's going to a good home where it will be well utilized and loved."

I totally agree. Example: My class has opened up a student support task force (don't ask, its the name my instructor gave us..... I dont even know why) with 6 students who will work on computers people bring us for free..... My boyfriend and I (partners in repair as well as crime :grin got a computer in that was, get this, TWO INCHES (no exaggeration here) thick in dust, over fan vents, over the motherboard, every component, and even had a rather thick layer UNDER the ZIF CPU on the socket itself, with a dust bunny in the center of the socket.... I almost cried as it was a newer computer, but you couldn't tell it.................. I didn't want to give it back. It took 3 people 4 hours to clean it and put it back together with only about four 5 minute breaks.

[Phone Jockey]

I had one guy the other night call & get me 4 x in a row over a 20 minute period. He wanted to know if his check had cleared each time. EACH TIME. It wasn't yet midnight & he didn't understand that nothing new would happen until AFTER midnight re: his check. Luckily, I leave at midnight & hopefully he didn't call to bother anyone else.

[Acolyte]

and even had a rather thick layer UNDER the ZIF CPU on the socket itself,

How the HELL do you get dirt there?!

[Comp_geek]

How the HELL do you get dirt there?!

It takes a special type of stupid. I had a computer a lady brought in once. I opened it up in front of her and the dust was caked on. A piece fell off and broke on the table so there was dust everywhere. It smelled like cigarettes too. Disgusting. Oh and this was a month after she had brought it in for a cleaning...I was thinking "What the hell lady? Do you use it outside in sandstorms?"

[NightWolf]

It amazes me just how much dust some of the computers come into our office with. It's really a sad state. We've had to take so many of them outside just to blow them out they were soooo bad.

[HawaiianShirts]

I'm glad I'm not the only one with dust horror stories.

I saw a Gateway a few months ago that had more dust inside than computer parts. Forget dust bunnies--this thing had dust elephants. Little bits of dried ramen and dried crumbs from various foods were meshed in with the dog hair, and all of it embedded in thick clumps of dust. Canned air would have done nothing. We took it out back and used the air comressor in the car stereo installation bay to clean it out. And the owner wondered why his computer was overheating.

I shudder to think of the state his keyboard might be in. If it's anything like the tower, I'd consider it a miracle if half of the keys still worked properly.

I don't see many recurring twits. We try to educate them. But I have several recurring phone calls. More than once I've been accused of lying in telling the customer that the computers come with Windows XP (they confuse Windows with Office, of which there is only a 60-day trial). One guy last week just didn't get it and called me four times with the same accusation. And, no, I don't think he could have been senile at 22.

The ones that annoy me the most are those who make the same mistakes with a new computer that they did with the old. I can only hope to become immune to them before they cause me brain damage. These are the people who tell me they need a new computer because the old one got infected with viruses and they'd rather buy new than have it fixed. Then they tell me they're not going to bother getting security software (not just not get it from us but not get it at all) because it's too expensive and "too much hassle." Or those who come in for their third laptop in five years, replacing the old when a hard drive crashes instead of just getting the service contract that repairs crashed hard drives.

I like to learn from my mistakes so I don't make them more than once.

[Dreamstalker]

Besides my infamous twit, I've had:

--numerous people who didn't need my help because they had a friend who was really good with computers...we all know what comes of that.

--a classmate who wanted to install OfficeXP on a PII. How he even got WinXP on that thing was a miracle. Luckily, he was nice when I explained that to do that, he would need a newer computer (he needed a new one anyway).

--Jordan, every once in awhile. Last week, he tried to install Linux, would not listen to my directions (or RTFFAQ) and farked up everything that one can (how you can get a standard window manager to die horribly upon install is a mystery), and instead of trying to figure out what went wrong to fix it, he went back to XP because it was easy Before that, he killed his CPU by using, instead of the expected thermal paste, scented candle wax and a piece of denim to make a ghetto phase-change pad. Let's see, a syringe of TIM is $5, new chip $200+...reason given for not buying real TIM was he couldn't afford it. he was told by dozens of people before he did this that it was a very, very bad idea.

[iridios]

At my last job, the computers often accumulated so much dust that it would start collecting on the outside of air vents, or any other opening in the case. We just started calling them "Bearded Ladies".

And the scary part? My last job was IT for a hospital!! Who would think that much dust is floating around in a hospital.

[Acolyte]

--a classmate who wanted to install OfficeXP on a PII. How he even got WinXP on that thing was a miracle. Luckily, he was nice when I explained that to do that, he would need a newer computer (he needed a new one anyway).

Well, in all technicallity, XP CAN run on a P233. In the same method that...I dunno, Paintbrush can create studio-quality animation.
Veeerrryyy slowly and painfully.

Anyways. One of the helpdesk guys has gotten the worst sort of recurring customer. He hooked him up with internet and, for the past two weeks, has gotten a call almost every day from him. He has NO concept of the internet-MSN is his homepage, and his 'usage' consists of him clicking links on said page. He'll call up every day and ramble on for 15 minutes about absolute crap-the internet wants me to pay more, the internet is wrong, the internet is too small, how do I make it bigger, ect, ect...
He left a 5-minute voicemail, too, along the same lines.
I'm SO glad I moved down to the service dept.

[protege]

Has anyone had to deal with someone who couldn't remove their computer's case? Not too long ago, I was helping my brother (who knows very little about the internals) install a new CD burner. As he was unbolting the case, I had to stop him before he unbolted the power supply (this particular case had the power supply bolted to the rear panel for some reason)....and it fell onto the motherboard Now *that* would have sucked--good thing I stopped him

[Acolyte]

I've got worse-the people up here have issues getting inside their Dells.
(Which, if you didn't know, slide open when you push a two very clearly labeled tabs on the top and bottom)

Although I accidentally knocked a metal fan onto my video card when I packed up my computer to get shipped to my new house. Since I won't see it until August now, I hope it's still good...

[Twotall]

A co-worker of mine recently got one of the worst stories!

Just yesterday, he had a customer on the phone, her cable services were not functioning. So he starts running he through the genreal troubleshooting, starting with having her check the wiring to see if anything has been dislocated/loosened/cut/abducted by aliens. He tells her:

Tech: "OK, so we've checked the TV. Now, can you see the wall outlet?"
Woman: "No, I don't know where it is".
Tech: "It's the black box on your wall where the TV is plugged in."
Woman: "No, I don't know where it is."
Tech: "OK, can you see where the cable is plugged into your TV? Just follow this, and you will get to the outlet"
Woman: "How do I do that?"

The poor guy just wandered over to my desk, with a stunned expression on his face and asked for help on how to dumb that down... I couldn't give him any.