killzone Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 I know there have been threads about dealing with other peoples incompetence as technology professionals. But I was on the receiving end today. So lets all have an lol. So Today I booted up my brand new gateway pos at work, logged in, everything was fine. I then proceeded to go into the back and retrieve some boxes (of documents) came back and hmmm my Monitor and my peripherals aren't responding is dark. I try unplugging / replugging in cables, rebooting, ect. ect. ect. Nothing works. Not only that but I cant access the self test or any of the monitors menu functions. I think the monitors borked or the mobo isn't working properly. So I call the very IT dept. I worked for, for 4 years, and have to ask them to come and do anything further becasue im not authorized to do it and if I open the case I void the warranty , even though I worked for them previously. 2 hours later one of the IT guys comes down, and Needless to say I'm embarrassed becasue known him for 5 years and worked with him several times. I tell him what I've tried and whats wrong. He is like ok. ....And all he did was plug the monitor back in, boot it up, and everything works fine. WTF . How much of a n00b do i feel like. He just looked at me and was like ...rtfm>? I still have no idea wtf went wrong with the monitor / or mobo to make it behave in such a way. ROFL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 ye, that's fun. Didn't they ask you "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" and "Are you absolutely sure it's plugged in?". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killzone Posted April 11, 2007 Author Share Posted April 11, 2007 yep, and I had,......sometimes I swear tech develops a malicios personality adn just waits for an opportunity to embarass me. lol Maybe it was in cahoots with the evil server. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooper Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 My parents bought a CAF (Cheap As Fuck) 'multimedia' PC a while back, which included one of those bays for a gazillion types of memory cards. Each slot would be assigned a drive letter in Windows and it would effectively operate like a CD drive. As always I keep all machines on 24/7 and just tell my parents to always turn the monitor off to save power. Then one night there's a power outage. After a while the power comes back and I turn on the various machines. After a day or so my parents notice that some of the drive letters are missing. I investigate and can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong. Everything's running fine, all the drivers are a-ok... I cave in and dial the helpdesk for this PC. I explain the problem and he says "No problem sir. Just switch off the computer using the switch on the power supply, then press the on-off switch about 15 times". I'm like "Syeah, right. Like that's gonna fix anything", but obediently do as he says, making sure to keep this fucker on the line so I can yell at him when it comes back up and is still not working. After doing this, telling him that in all my years of IT experience I've never, EVER heard such a load of CRAP, and boot up the machine again... and lo and behold, all the drive letters have returned. Turns out this was a known issue. When you improperly shut down the machine some circuits on the board for that bay retain some electric charge, causing them to fail initialisation, and retain their charge. By pressing the on-off switch you briefly connect to the circuit, allowing the charge to dissipate... Or something. It was the STUPIDEST thing I ever heard, but it did work... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Kitchen Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 all the time at work i have users ask me to take a look at their machines because "some error is coming up when i..." (and of course i don't bother asking if they actually READ the error, why would they?) about 50% of the time i stand behind them as they do whatever it is that supposedly causes the machine to barf and it works perfectly. then i give them a good long stare and in the voice you would use with a 6 year old and mock them with a remark about imaginary errors. well, only with the users i'm really cool with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 [snip every thing] I have encountered this befor. It seems that 15 times power on/off is some kind of BIOS features of evil dell/packard bell/<insert name of package PC 'manurfactuere> to reset the BIOS with out having to actually access the BIOS setup or clear the cmos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deveant Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 hehe, ive been called in a few times, with ppls saying that there Computer was working last night, they got here today and its not longer working, though when they turned it on there sure that the Computer went bang!, So have a look, check under the desk, yup, new cleaner started the night b4, unplugged the Computer to connect the vacume, and didnt plug it in again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
underground5 Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 It really surprises me sometimes how much the average user really knows about computers, just yesterday i had to teach everybody in my reading class how to use a thumbdrive and then after that i had to teach them how to access their ftp accounts from home and this one kid was laughing a littel bit every time i said ftp, and later i asked him why and ftp also stands for "FuckThePolice". And when i used to have a tutor i can't tell you how many times i've had to show her how to delete e-mails, one day she was complaing cause she "lost all her work" and i asked her where she saved it and she just looked at me funny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nanob0t Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 It really surprises me sometimes how much the average user really knows about computers, just yesterday i had to teach everybody in my reading class how to use a thumbdrive and then after that i had to teach them how to access their ftp accounts from home and this one kid was laughing a littel bit every time i said ftp, and later i asked him why and ftp also stands for "FuckThePolice". And when i used to have a tutor i can't tell you how many times i've had to show her how to delete e-mails, one day she was complaing cause she "lost all her work" and i asked her where she saved it and she just looked at me funny. LMAO, that's funny. I had a similar situation. This was long ago though. I plugged in my mic and nothing was recieving. After ~ 30 minutes, I got mad and called Dell support. I got put on hold for 15 minutes, gave information for 15 minutes, then the lady said, "Do you see your task bar? Click on the little speaker and bring that window up. Is the little box marked 'Mute' under the Microphone section checked?" Then I almost bashed my head on my desk for being such a fool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kickarse Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 Hi I'm Nick Burns... Oh I know what's wrong you have AOL on your PC. ..... I have never called Tech Support unless it's something where I need a part replaced... but... One time our department got restructured at the University of Mass where we now had oversight over a couple other departments. And they had this girl who was their "tech". Anyways, one day she calls me up and goes "I can't get my sound to work!", confused as to why she just didn't figure it out herself I tell her "did you check to make sure there's power to the speakers?" She says "Yes". I tell her to crawl under the desk and check the cable to make sure it's in the right place, she says "yes" again. Confused even more, I figure there must be another sound card and she must be plugging it into the onboard, I asked her to look for another place with a green headphone jack. Sure enough, as soon as she did her Sarah McLachlan CD started playing loud enough to hear it over the phone... Stupid Pseudo IT's, Tech's are teh Pwn3r... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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