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Computer Stupidities

How many of the admins even know how to use computers?
How many of the people here have heard of Computer Stupidities?
Here are some of the best stories:

Originally posted by Person 1
[I work at a bank.]

My immediate boss, no matter how many times I explain it to him, insists on calling the CPU tower of a PC "the hard drive." Although it caused some confusion to begin with, I generally know what he means and ignore it, and the job gets done. But this came to a head a while ago when we had some extra work coming in, and we needed 20 new PCs, which my boss dutifully ordered.

When the shipment came in, it was in a suspiciously small box. Of course my boss had put in a call asking for "20 new hard drives," and of course that's what we'd been sent.

The funniest part was listening to one side of a telephone conversation in which he angrily complained that he'd wanted "HARD DRIVES, not this box of useless junk!"


Originally posted by Person 2
One of my favorite stories is from back in the 90s. A guy bought a 16-bit sound card for his computer, but for whatever reason decided he only needed an 8-bit sound card. Instead of taking it back and exchanging it, he figured all he needed to do was get a pair of scissors and physically cut the sound card in half.


Originally posted by Person 3
A friend of mine had managed to order a new AMD CPU and a motherboard from another friend of ours that owned a computer store that, at the time, did not sell AMD, but was willing to get it in to help out my friend.

My friend picked up the gear and brought it around to my place, and we built the system together. Upon finishing it, we ran some test programs on it, and everything was fine. My friend then decided to check out the system properties. Windows XP told him that he had an AMD Athlon 1700+. Now, he knew he had bought a 2.4 gig CPU, and the 1700 was not fast enough, so, while I was out of the room, he went into the BIOS and changed the Front Side Bus to try to get it from 1700+ to 2.4 gig. Within a few moments, the PC died a horrible death.

[Friend who owns store gets replacement and writes on computer in big leters, "Do Not Change FSB!!!"]

So, after explaining to the friend, that Windows picks up the AMD as a 1700+ but it is still a 2.4 gig processor, and that the original PC was running optimally, we went back to my place and started installing the replacement gear. Everything was fine, and my friend was happy with the way everything ran but was convinced it still loaded programs quicker when he changed the FSB on the old PC that he fried. But he'd been told not to change the FSB, and so he didn't. He took the PC home.

The next weekend he told me he had changed the FSB again and fried another CPU and motherboard.

C:\WINDOWS>

Originally posted by Someone


Tech Support: "Please click on the 'start' button."
Customer: "What 'start' button?"
Tech Support: "In the lower left hand corner there is a button that says 'start'."
Customer: "There is no button."
Tech Support: "You are using Windows NT?"
Customer: "Yes. The button is on the right hand side, and there is a little green light next to it. You want me to push that?"
Tech Support: "No sir, that's the power button. Is there a gray bar across the bottom of the screen with buttons on it?"
Customer: "There is no gray bar. It is white, and it opens, and there are buttons inside."
Tech Support: "No. Sir, on the TV part of the monitor is there a gray bar that you can point at with the mouse, using the cursor that is on the screen."
Customer: "There are some dials. There is one that has a picture of a sun on it, but I don't have any idea what those are for."


Originally posted by lol
Customer: "Does this monitor come with the latest version of the Internet?"


Originally posted by xD
I work in an office supply store that sells computers and computer components. One day, one woman came into the store and told me her monitor wasn't working.

Customer: "I can't see color."
Store Worker: "Did you check the connection from the monitor to the computer?"
Customer: "Yeah. Maybe I just need a new ink cartridge."
Store Worker: "Uh...what do you mean?"
Customer: "Maybe my monitor's out of ink."
Store Worker: "... No."
Customer: "Oh. Well, maybe my printer has something to do with it. It's a Lexmark."


So much copy/paste, but so funny. #fim{XD}
Layout by algorithshark.
I'm busy IRL. I'll come back someday, but until then, I'm taking a break.
OK, how about this:
Originally posted by Derp
Customer: "I think I've broken my computer! There's a message across the screen that says: 'It is now safe to turn off your PC.' WHAT SHOULD I DO?!?!"


Originally posted by Herpderp
Her: (shrieking) "WHAT ARE YOU DOING???"
Me: "I'm checking my email--"
Her: "It looks like you're breaking into the computer!!"
Me: "No really -- I'm checking my mail."
Her: "But that's not HOTMAIL!!"
Me: "I don't use hotmail. I use--"
Her: "But EVERYONE uses HOTMAIL!!"
Me: "No, my account goes through UTM. My email account ends with--"
Her: "But that's not what MYYY UTM looks like!!" (apparently referring to the UTM web page)
Me: "Yes, I'm telnetting. It's another way of accessing--"
Her: "I think you better shut that off. You're breaking into the computer."
Me: "But I--"
Her: "Turn it off. I don't believe that 'checking mail' story."


Originally posted by Herp
When in college, I had to make a fake advertisement for a class. I had a GIF that I downloaded that I wanted to put into it, so I sat down at the only Mac that was connected to the scanner in the school's computer lab. For some reason, it couldn't open the file, and the program crashed repeatedly. I got a lab technician to come over, and I explained the problem. She asked what I did to it and got angry with me. So I went to the Mac next to the one I was on and opened the picture in the same program. She told me in no uncertain terms that I was responsible for ruining the computer.

Me: "I scanned these pictures in, then tried to open this GIF I downloaded."
Her: "What? You can't do that! That type of a file is for Windows machines only! It isn't supported on Macs."
Me: "No, it is a standard graphic file. It can be opened on either machine."
Her: "No it can't! You might have to pay to fix this."
Me: "If it can't open on a Mac, how did I get it to open on this Mac right here? See?"
Her: "Don't do that! You're gonna break that one also."
To protect her computer from evil me, she leaned over and flipped the power switch off.


Originally posted by Derpity Derp Derp
Customer: "I installed Windows 98 on my computer, and it doesn't work."
Tech Support: "Ok, what happens when you turn on your computer?"
Customer: "Boy, are you listening? I said it doesn't work."
Tech Support: "Well, what happens when you TRY to turn it on?"
Customer: "Look, I'm not a computer person. Talk regular English, not this computer talk, ok?"
Tech Support: "Ok, let's assume your computer is turned off, and you just sat down in front of it, and want to use it. What do you do?"
Customer: "Don't talk like I'm stupid, boy. I turn it on."
Tech Support: "And then what happens?"
Customer: "What do you mean?"
Tech Support: "Does anything appear on your monitor? I mean, the TV part."
Customer: "The same thing I saw last time I tried."
Tech Support: "And that is what?"
Customer: "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
Tech Support: "Yes, sir. What is on your screen?"
Customer: "A bunch of little pictures."
Tech Support: "Ok, in the upper left corner, do you see 'My Computer'."
Customer: "No, all I see is that little red circle thing with the chunk out of it."
Tech Support: "You mean an apple?"
Customer: "I guess it kind of looks like an apple."
Then it took me fifteen minutes to convince him that he had a Mac. Even after showing him "About this Macintosh." I spent another fifteen minutes trying to convince him that Windows 98 wouldn't work on his Mac. He said it should work because Windows 98 is for PCs, and he had a PowerPC. I think he's still trying to get it to read that CD, because I never could convince him.

Originally posted by Unknown
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who think there are two kinds of people in this world, and those who don't.


Originally posted by somebody
Student: "Can I check my email here?"
Lab Attendant: "Did you sign up for a student account?"
Student: "Yes."
Lab Attendant: "Ok, just sit at one of the terminals and enter your login name and password."
Student: (blank look) "Login name? What's that?"
Lab Attendant: "It's the name the system assigned you."
Student: (another blank look)
Lab Attendant: (sigh) "The one on the piece of paper we gave you that says, 'Do not lose this information.'"
Student: "I threw that away. It wasn't important, was it?"

Originally posted by somebody else
A friend of mine called me up in the afternoon, complaining that his Windows 95 won't start. After half an hour of futile attempts to correct the problem via the phone, I came over to his house. The first thing I did was boot from a bootable disk and do a DIR C:. I saw nothing except directories in C:, no command.com, no io.sys, etc. As it turned out, my friend decided to get "top notch" performance out of his computer, so he started removing all excessive "junk." Unfortunately for him, he considered all files in the root dir of C: useless and erased them all.

Having no other better solution, I reinstalled Windows 95. Afterward, I told him not to erase any files from the root directory of C:. I went back home. Twenty minutes later I received a call from him complaining that Windows 95 broke again. Despite my warnings, he cleaned up all the files in C:\ again.



Originally posted by Uncle Phil
I work in the IT department of a local hospital. One night at 3am, I got a call that one of the PCs in reception had been shut down, and they couldn't switch it back on. I described how to power it up over the phone, but it was no use. So I drove in, walked up to the PC, and pressed the little gray button on the front.

Originally posted by someone else

Customer: "I just received an Onyx yesterday, and I tried to set it up today and it doesn't work."
Tech Support: "It just doesn't boot up?"
Customer: "It doesn't even turn on. I see nothing on the screen, and the fan doesn't even turn on in the back of the system."
Tech Support: "Is the monitor functioning? Is there a little green light in the lower right corner of the monitor?"
Customer: "Yes, there is."
Tech Support: "Ok, is the computer plugged in?"
Customer: (irritated) "Look, I think I know how to set up a system. I'm a college graduate, you know."
Tech Support: "Ok, let me finish typing up this report, and I'll send it off. You will get a reply within one business day."
Customer: (exasperated) "Thank you. Geez, I mean I paid a huge amount of money for this computer. The least you people can do it make sure it works before sending it to me!

Windowless ride, feeling alive
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