Did you see that?

Egon · Mar 25, 2005

Sound's very similar to what we experienced a few weeks ago.

Life was good!! Then!!

Our son is determined to bring his old challenged contented father into the age of electronics and all other things new. He replaced his computer and sent us his old one. Our daughter and boy friend transferred information from old to new. Life was still good as I still had no involment.

Then comes two weeks of frustration. Within moments I crashed the system and hard drive, had to purchase a new upgraded hard drive and new monitor, and switched to high speed internet. Still all is not as it should be. I'm tempted to revert to a nice 10 pound sledge and resolve the problem. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

The high speed is nice. It seems I now can crash the system much faster. Such is life.

Think we now have 7700 Gigabytes memory ?? 256 Ram something or else , 32 bit something else, 56 or therabouts of something and an old fellow that's totally confused. Seems there are faults and defaults that have no relationship to geology.

When my son mentions Bits I think of Forstner or metal drilling items, Routers - we were supposed to get one but couldnt see the need as I had two already- wrong answere, storage and I think of where to place things in my large shop, bytes - well my Dentist thinks I have a mean bite when he's checking my teeth. There is definetly a communication gap!! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Thought of Gatorboy many times wishing he was sitting at the keyboard. No, not the one on which we hang our car keys but this plastic thing in front of the monitor.

Egon /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Bird · Mar 25, 2005

Egon, sounds as if you're almost, but probably not entirely, as computer challenged as I am. One of the cooling fans in my computer recently, and suddenly, got noisy. I unplugged all the cables, hoping I could remember where to plug them back in later, and took the computer to the biggest electronics store in the area. The technician plugged it in, ran fine, with no noise. So back to the house and plug everything together and just marveled at the fact that it worked. But I soon learned that the fan ran quietly when I first turned on the computer, then after 3 to 5 minutes, it got noisy. So, unplug everything again and back to the big electronics store. This time I got a different "technician", probably older than me, and probably knows less about computers than I do, and that's unbelievable for someone working in such a position! He couldn't figure out how to open the case, so I showed him. I'd also told him which fan was noisy. He couldn't figure out how to get to it, so I finally figured it out and showed him how to get it out. Then he took the old fan and went looking for a new one; came back with one similar but with a different kind of plug on the end of the wires for $10.99 plus tax. Then he tells me there's too much dust around the shroud for them to work on it, but that they have an air compressor out back if I want to take it back there and blow it out for $20. I told him I had a compressor at home, and I brought it home disassembled, cleaned it up, put it back together (with the old fan of course; didn't buy the new one because it would not plug into power where the old one did), and got it working again. So now I get smart, right? I'll call my computer manufacturer and order an OEM fan from them and put it in myself. Naturally, I got a lady whose accent I could barely understand, and she couldn't understand my Texan. But she finally decided that they had that fan in stock for $40 plus $8 shipping and handling. I told her to forget it, I'd buy another brand of computer first. So she put me on hold, came back to say I could have it for $33.50, including shipping and handling. Still too high, I thought, but I told her I would take it. Then she starts trying to sell me memory upgrades and everything else she could think of, while I'm trying to give her my name and address to ship the fan. She finally gives up on selling me anything else, but there was no way she could ever understand my name and address, even with me speaking slowly, one letter at a time. Eventually, I told her to just forget the whole thing unless she had someone there who spoke and understood English. So she put another lady on the phone and I gave her my name, address, phone number, e-mail address, and credit card information. That was on 3/9/05 and she told me the fan would arrive on 3/16/05, gave me an order number and told me I could check status on their website. Problem solved . . . I thought. On 3/16/05, I checked the status and it showed the order was cancelled on 3/15/05; no explanation at all. So . . ., I took the old fan out again and went to another electronics store and lo and behold, they had a fan exactly like the old one, except for the brand name, right plug and all for $9.99 plus tax. It's silent, works great, moves more air than the old one, and all's well with my computer once again. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif Needless to say, there is one computer manufacturer, and one local electronics store that are highly unlikely to ever do business with me again. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

wroughtn_harv · Mar 26, 2005

I introduced my father to the puter in 1997. My aunt said a couple of weeks later she came into the house there was the puter in little pieces scattered around the room. His explanation was that he wanted to figure out how it worked.

He's much more the puter nerd than I am. In fact when I got my last puter I was still behind him on the technology front. I'm ahead now but that shouldn't last out the year.

And this is the guy who got through the eighth grade because he was cute, and sixteen. Teacher liked him. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif He turned seventy nine last Sunday.

wroughtn_harv · Mar 26, 2005

It seems business wants things set up where any idiot can sell or work on the product. Silly us, we complain because they seem to only be able to hire idiots.

jinman · Mar 26, 2005

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( This time I got a different "technician", probably older than me, and probably knows less about computers than I do, and that's unbelievable for someone working in such a position! )</font>

Maybe the guy couldn't handle the stress of his last job as a Wal*Mart greeter, so he took a computer repair job. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

There's two sides to your fan story, Bird. One side sucks and the other side blows, literally. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif Sorry. . . I couldn't resist. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif