Bentusi
Jan 10, 2005, @ 01:08 AM
A thread was needed where we could swap stories about computer stupidity, the only rule being it has to be something you personally experianced.
I'll start with 3 Stories:
Story 1) Why I Hate Gateway:
My first two computers were gateways, and they were both shit. They were incredibly unstable, frequently crashing, and kept breaking CD-ROMs. Not to mention the customer support at Gateway is horrendous.
So, I end up going on a vacation for a week. When I come home the computer wont start, no boot no nothing. Well this isn't too surprising, so I take it over to their store (after wasting 5 hours of my life on tech support confirming the computer is broken GAH), where I will have to wait A MONTH until they look at it.
The Diagnosis: Total Catastrophic Failure. I gave up and bought a dell.
Story 2) When Anti-Virus goes bad.
I was installing a Black Ice firewall on my sisters computer (which I had built) for this story. Now, Black Ice has a feature that monitors the programs running on your computer and will inform you when it detects a non-registered program running. I had installed it and it was compileing a directory of the programs on the computer, when the computer crashed (hey it was my 1st attempt, who said it would be perfect). So I boot it up again and get into windows, I assume that the installation wasn't finished and so I have to install everything again. Boy was I wrong.
Low and behold, there before me is a popup telling me AIM.exe is attempting to run, should I let it? AIM.exe was a startup app on her computer. I quickly get 5 more for the other startup apps. By this point i'm getting slightly anxious, because apparently the anti-virus didn't log anything. My worst fears were realized when I got a cascade of windows saying that RUN32.dll was attempting to run, should I let it?
For those of you who can't guess it, RUN32.dll was the program generating the queries I was getting. So what happended was I ended up in a continuous loop which would reach in the hundreds of thousands before I was forced to restart. I battled the damn thing for about 2 hours. I tried to go in and delete critical files.. guess what: "Delete.exe is attempting to run, should I allow it??", and no, pressing yes did not work.
I ended up having to figure out how to get into safe mode without a manuel and killing it from there, by the end I was just happy I didn't have to format it.
Story 3) Well, I guess the voltage DOES matter.
So, I'm building my 2nd computer, which was supposed to be mine. I've put everything in correctly, so I attempt to power it up. It doesn't boot. So I routinely check everything again, yes everything is plugged in, no I haven't left of any jumpers, yes the jumpers are on there right.. etc. So then I try and boot again.
It doesn't. By now I'm getting frustrated because I AM computer literate and know everything is set up right. But I check over everything again and try and boot. Doesn't work. By now I feel like throwing this thing out my window, but I end up flicking the power on and of for a while. Then I get the BRILLIANT (or so it seemed at the time) of changing the voltage! I try it and it boots for about 3 seconds, then crashes. By now I'm seriously pissed off, but I try AGAIN.
It gets to the boot sequence and then I hear some cracking sounds (not good), then smoke begins pouring out of my computer (definately not good). I quickly yank out the power cord and take it to where it WONT burn down the house (after setting off the fire alarm).
The Bentusi Diagnosis: I had a crap mobo to begin with, flipping the voltage probably made it worse and fried it more, and my 2nd attempt set the damn thing on fire, yes.. it was burning. Amazingly enough all my other cards and proc survived.
The Ironic part? My new mobo has a handy orange light on it to tell you when the power is on, and my 1st boot sequence I had it mounted but the side casing's open so I could see inside.
It booted perfectly, but the orange light gave me a heart attack because I thought I had set it on fire again :lol:
I'll start with 3 Stories:
Story 1) Why I Hate Gateway:
My first two computers were gateways, and they were both shit. They were incredibly unstable, frequently crashing, and kept breaking CD-ROMs. Not to mention the customer support at Gateway is horrendous.
So, I end up going on a vacation for a week. When I come home the computer wont start, no boot no nothing. Well this isn't too surprising, so I take it over to their store (after wasting 5 hours of my life on tech support confirming the computer is broken GAH), where I will have to wait A MONTH until they look at it.
The Diagnosis: Total Catastrophic Failure. I gave up and bought a dell.
Story 2) When Anti-Virus goes bad.
I was installing a Black Ice firewall on my sisters computer (which I had built) for this story. Now, Black Ice has a feature that monitors the programs running on your computer and will inform you when it detects a non-registered program running. I had installed it and it was compileing a directory of the programs on the computer, when the computer crashed (hey it was my 1st attempt, who said it would be perfect). So I boot it up again and get into windows, I assume that the installation wasn't finished and so I have to install everything again. Boy was I wrong.
Low and behold, there before me is a popup telling me AIM.exe is attempting to run, should I let it? AIM.exe was a startup app on her computer. I quickly get 5 more for the other startup apps. By this point i'm getting slightly anxious, because apparently the anti-virus didn't log anything. My worst fears were realized when I got a cascade of windows saying that RUN32.dll was attempting to run, should I let it?
For those of you who can't guess it, RUN32.dll was the program generating the queries I was getting. So what happended was I ended up in a continuous loop which would reach in the hundreds of thousands before I was forced to restart. I battled the damn thing for about 2 hours. I tried to go in and delete critical files.. guess what: "Delete.exe is attempting to run, should I allow it??", and no, pressing yes did not work.
I ended up having to figure out how to get into safe mode without a manuel and killing it from there, by the end I was just happy I didn't have to format it.
Story 3) Well, I guess the voltage DOES matter.
So, I'm building my 2nd computer, which was supposed to be mine. I've put everything in correctly, so I attempt to power it up. It doesn't boot. So I routinely check everything again, yes everything is plugged in, no I haven't left of any jumpers, yes the jumpers are on there right.. etc. So then I try and boot again.
It doesn't. By now I'm getting frustrated because I AM computer literate and know everything is set up right. But I check over everything again and try and boot. Doesn't work. By now I feel like throwing this thing out my window, but I end up flicking the power on and of for a while. Then I get the BRILLIANT (or so it seemed at the time) of changing the voltage! I try it and it boots for about 3 seconds, then crashes. By now I'm seriously pissed off, but I try AGAIN.
It gets to the boot sequence and then I hear some cracking sounds (not good), then smoke begins pouring out of my computer (definately not good). I quickly yank out the power cord and take it to where it WONT burn down the house (after setting off the fire alarm).
The Bentusi Diagnosis: I had a crap mobo to begin with, flipping the voltage probably made it worse and fried it more, and my 2nd attempt set the damn thing on fire, yes.. it was burning. Amazingly enough all my other cards and proc survived.
The Ironic part? My new mobo has a handy orange light on it to tell you when the power is on, and my 1st boot sequence I had it mounted but the side casing's open so I could see inside.
It booted perfectly, but the orange light gave me a heart attack because I thought I had set it on fire again :lol: