Computer Stupidities: Post them here

[BuildItYourself]

We've all encountered them once or twice, post them here.

Once I was troubleshooting for a relative who's computer would not boot. "Couldn't it be the monitor?" they insisted.

A friend still believes that if you put a CD already burned in a computer with a virus, the virus will go on the CD.

She also believes that if the printer or any part of the computer gets broken, it will go "through the wires" and damage everything else.

[mireland]

I once had a user who liked to store her files in the Recycle Bin..well after I did routine mx on her pc(which included emptying out the recycle bin) the user learned a harsh lesson in the world of computing..

[Hearie]

just today some lady walked out of the shop mad because I wouldn't install Nortons 2004 for free(I told her it would be 22.50 for the min 1/2 hour charge). She insisted it would just take a few minutes, I replied that it was easy and that she may want to do it herself. That's when she said her "computer expert" friend had already tried for an hour or so. When I said "If it takes me an hour the charge will be 45.00" she told me she was gonna send it back to Dell and walked out all huffy.

Usually i get kinda snappy with customers like these but this lady was so ridiculas that it was easy to see the humor in it. I even offered to help her carry the box back out to her car and she declined.

I can't possibly begin to recall all the ridiculas idea's/demands I run into.

[Lord AnthraX]

I work in fairly rich town where people believe money is not option. So in cases where we say "the computer will need to be rebuilt" meaning reformat and reinstall, for 150$ the customer's usually reply, "oh no that's ok, I'll just go buy a new one." And they do, a brand spanking new, crappy dell. Next week, they come back again with the same problems and we give the same answer, and they finally understand that buying a new computer doesn't solve anything. Just funny watching all these people waste money (not to them) on a new computer every few months.
Lord AnthraX

[crossedup]

I just love fixing the same ones over and over. College kids in particular.

Clean it up or reinstall, they go off to school. D/L all the stuff they can get thier mouce pointers on. End of year, about first of June or so, back come the machines again, same thing.

Or the " My computer wont start" or "is very slow"

You remove bunches of ad/spy/mal ware plus a few viri and trojans to boot. Next day you get a call " so and so program on the internet wont workright anymore". I mean, darn, yesterday the computer wouldnt even turn on, cut me a little slack, all your other stuff is still there. Makes you understand why reformatting is sometimes best. Quicker AND easier.

One lady complained after I redid her computer that the picture and the mouse cursurs were differant, she didnt think I knew what i was doing. She was going to take it somwhere else, could she have her $ back.

I said "SURE, i have your sytem backed up, would you like me to burn the files to CD's so you can take it somewhere else and they can see what was originally on it?"

Imagine what that cost her somewhere else, a 7 CD Ghost backup. Just to browse it would be a pain. If they charged by the hour they made 10x what I charged. I hate to be mean but...

[gtaylor]

I once had a user who liked to store her files in the Recycle Bin..well after I did routine mx on her pc(which included emptying out the recycle bin) the user learned a harsh lesson in the world of computing..

Had a similar thing where, unknown to me, a user stored e-mail in his deleted items folder in Outlook. I still don't understand why, but after a few configuration changes in Exchange, he came to me the following day asking where all his e-mail was. I had a look and had to admit that I didn't know what he was talking about, there was stuff in his inbox, sent items etc. He then showed me the deleted items, which was empty, and asked where the messages he stored there were. I couldn't really believe it, so I took a while to explain proper archiving of important messages, and restored his messages from a backup, and told him to archive them properly or he would lose them for good. Bleedin' fools.

On another tack, I keep getting users say "such and such isn't working". The problem is that it either is working, but they're trying to use it in a way it wasn't designed to work in, or they keep telling me is it because I did x or y? No it isn't, they are unrelated Mr/Mrs User. But they still insist that it is the problem.

[ukulele]

A lady calls me last week and asks me if I could hook up a wireless router for her. I told her sure but I would have to charge for the time. I get to her house and she has a Linksys BESFR41 router already hooked up to her DSL connection feeding her computer. I asked her why she bought a wireless router for a single desktop when she already had a faster router hooked up. She told me her friends all said they had one and loved them, and besides it was on sale.

[Terminator]

During support work in Birmingham I got a call 'something's wrong with my computer..it keep beeping at me' SIGH...I trundle along and when I get there he had watered his keyboard instead of his plant

Mega dash for the power switch. Whole office was in an uproar when I stood there with his dripping keyboard....doh....Maybe he had plant growth in it and thought his machine would go faster..lol

T

[fishybawb]

I got a call about a problem a customer was having when trying to use their Internet connection. The guy said he'd been alarmed by a "horrible noise", and had made a dash for the power plug to turn it off. He was quite proud of the fact that he might have saved his hardware by his quick thinking, until I informed him that a modem's supposed to sound like that

[Tony2005]

http://rinkworks.com/stupid/

loads on that site

[BuildItYourself]

you beat me to posting it. Oh well.

[rraehal]

I have a user here at work that has been employee her for three months. He called and explained he was not receiving e-mail. I sent a test and got an auto reply that he was over his mail size limit. He had gathered 500MB -yes megabytes - of email in three months.

Try to explain to him how to delete mail - impossible. Everything was important and had to be saved. This included spam messages.

[Tony2005]

well one day a few years ago in Tesco there was a printer on sale 1/2 price (£35). so i got one. after a few weeks of heavy using the ink ran out and the quality went downhill and i know how clever the people at tesco are so i took the printer back and said "its stopped printing" so in the end they replaced which ment full ink and good quality.

any way i repeated this 2 more times untill one day when my dad decided to take it back. the assistant instead of replacing it asked if we wanted our full money back (the sale had ended by now). the assitant said the printer was £70 so my dad said "oh yeah thats about right"

so im £35 up and all the printed material i needed

[Tony2005]

i got another one, last year at college i was sat working with one of my peers (not to bright), the computers we had all had identical mice so out of sheer bordem i switched me mouse for his (i didnt unplug then just swtiched them so i controled his mouse and he controlled mine)

he had no idea why the pointer didnt move, i said the the college techs where accessing his computer, i played this joke on him for a good half hour, opeing files, paint freaking him out, then the lecture came round

i fooled her aswell, everyone completely fell for it untill i told them

every one had a big laugh including the lecture

[intimidator]

http://sct.staghosting.com/