People who pretend they know loads about computers :@

[Mariani]

This thread was an interesting read. It made me feel like I went a long way as far as computer knowledge goes.

Anyway, some many years ago I decided to have a low budget gaming PC (very low budget indeed), an opportunity that came when our house's only PC went bust thanks to it's power supply.
Mother got a tech guy here, and left me to deal with the bloke.
I asked him to ditch the IDE HDD (!), put an almighty 9400gt 1GB in and replace the rest, keeping the run-of-the-mill case.

After seeing the bill, my mother went on complaining about how I could have bought a brand new computer for that money.
Sigh.

 

[garih]

People think you need to be a genius to build pc(which flatters me ) but it's really not hard at all. Legos for adults is what i call it.

we need a thumbs up button on this forum again, or a like button, or something.

 

[Goldskis45]

we need a thumbs up button on this forum again, or a like button, or something.

I second this motion.

 

[Resident]

I met someone last week. He tried to tell me that he'd gotten "all the qualifications there is to do with computers". At that point I was skeptical but he could have meant he knew enough not to need to go further with his education. It was the next thing he said, to which my reaction of bursting out laughing, almost to the point of tears upset him slightly.

He said his daily PC had FOUR cpus and was cooled by a liquid nitrogen loop. :yelrotflmao:

 

[yassarikhan786]

My friend met someone at his place of work (Curry's), and they got to talking about their rigs. The guy stated that he has his CPU overclocked to 9GHz, lol.

 

[garih]

My friend met someone at his place of work (Curry's), and they got to talking about their rigs. The guy stated that he has his CPU overclocked to 9GHz, lol.

must of addded up his cores lol

 

[demonking]

^^^ lol - i hate the jerks at PCWorld/Currys/Dixons etc.

the technicians think they know everything...

my bro wanted a nice laptop - i told him to get a sony viao F23 i7.... so off he trots to PCWorld. the assistant tried to sell him something else, and was charging a fortune for it. plus started offering him insurance before he had even seen the laptop. he got irate, and stormed out of there.

thank god for that. i bought it for him online and saved him £800 (phenominal) that he would have wasted at Pee-in-the-Sea World. lol

...and many years ago, i went to the same shop (before i bought it all online) desperate for some thermal paste..... the head tech there said, "you dont need that - it's a load of rubbish!"... i almost reported him to his head office

this has made me laugh my ass off. i work in the distribution sector for knowhow (not proud but it pays the bills) and even my boss calls me the geek. seriously never ever use the stores had an episode this week where a guy sold a lady a gas cooker, the guy turns up to install it and there is no gas to the property, the womans response, "oh the man at the store said you would sort that out"

 

[lAnimal]

BEST. THREAD. EVER.
I've read every every post so far and I'm glad I haven't had to deal with some of these levels of stupidity. I just usually get the whole "console is better than pc thing", I also stay out of shops like Curry's or PC World for the same reasons as most here, just a rip-off

 

[Meladath]

I remember ages ago, when I was very young, back in the Athlon 64 days (or maybe even before that... my childhood computer memory isn't the best), I barely knew anything about computers, but I still experienced this.

I went to Wolverhampton computer faire (you brits might know about this) looking to upgrade my GPU (My dad at that point, was the PC guy really, I was just an interested child). I think I had an Nvidia MX440 at the time, either that or an 8500GT. (Hey, I was young, I can't remember when I had all my old hardware! I still have them in boxes though)

There was this guy there trying to convince me that the new amazing dual core CPU's (I think he was talking about first gen athlon 64 X2? not sure) were twice as fast as the current CPU's we had. And of course, he did the classic, multiply the GHz by the core count for its total speed. Even back then with my incredibly limited knowledge I knew it was total BS and hilariously wrong.


Another good one I remember is going into PC world shortly before I started college as my parents were buying a netbook when they were originally thought of. My PC knowledge was much much better at this but still not the best. I saw a guy with an AMD shirt on so I thought it would be a good idea to talk to him about the knew upcoming 6 core AMD CPU's! (Was the phenom II X6 1055 if I remember correctly, first commercial 6 core CPU?)

At that point I was very hyped since I was running a Phenom II 965 and thought that the promising of multi threaded applications were on the horizon (boy how wrong I was). So yeah, to cut a long story short, I asked him and he didnt even know they existed, he said he only knew about quad core CPU's and then tried to advise me into buying one! Was quite funny.

 

[MetroBaz]

My brother recently entered a Maplin store *SHUDDER* for a Corsair K60, they ended up talking about gaming and the guy said "I don't have much experience with mechanical keyboards but rubber domes are generally better"... He also told him that an overclocked Q6600 (which the sales rep proudly announced he had at home) outperforms an i3 and even an i5 in most computing/gaming situations.
My brother is new to PC building (though since 2002 he's always had a fairly current off-the-shelf rig or something I've put together) and even he had a giggle at the guy.

 

[maniac]

My brother recently entered a Maplin store *SHUDDER* for a Corsair K60, they ended up talking about gaming and the guy said "I don't have much experience with mechanical keyboards but rubber domes are generally better"... He also told him that an overclocked Q6600 (which the sales rep proudly announced he had at home) outperforms an i3 and even an i5 in most computing/gaming situations.
My brother is new to PC building (though since 2002 he's always had a fairly current off-the-shelf rig or something I've put together) and even he had a giggle at the guy.

Haha, a Q6600 was a beast back in its days, but cannot be compared to current i5's, not even remotely... Even I have a first gen i7 and know its crap compared to a 4770k or a 4790k. Rubber domes are not generally better. period. Some can prefer them to mechanical, but not in general, just no.

 

[remember300]

Not all of us at maplin are like that if ya can find out the guys name ill happily let the branch know that he does not know what his talking about and needs to be trained. unfortunately in all stores not just Maplin there are people that know people that think they know and people that don't know or want to know, i make it my goal to try and understand what i can others think they are gods gift and feel they can lie, i cant stand that.

I work there and often send people away for some of the stock we have does not meet the requirements. I do try my hardest to get what performance i can for as little without compromising quality, performance and reliability.

Did he get what he wanted in the end, after im hoping he did even if not in that store?

 

[Wraith]

I generally find the guys at our Maplins extremely well informed on current tech, unlike the PCWorld monkeys, who when you talk chips & dies they think dungeons & dragons with their lunch. :lol:

 

[barnsley]

My experience with Maplins is by far the most positive high street tech experience. The guys at my local branch know their stuff.

 

[remember300]

I generally find the guys at our Maplins extremely well informed on current tech, unlike the PCWorld monkeys, who when you talk chips & dies they think dungeons & dragons with their lunch. :lol:

Haha well im glad that some are good lol.
Im so glad Pc world here closed down people would come to us for advice then go to Pc world correct them but sadly then buy the item there not in maplin lol.

And i know that happened as one of the guys from Pc world came round and was moaning we were educating their customers and the commision was not as good ... Kinda said it all i only buy from their site if im buying anything from them, like my KB was the cheapest anywhere and free post who could argue that ... lol

 

[scorchedbee]

My local Maplin is spot on. Had a great chat while buying my corsair af140s around airflow for dual gpu systems and then went on to deliding and getting my 4670k temps down.

Got a good deal on a 240gb ssd somebody had returned as the drive didn't have enough ghz. Oh how we chuckled!

Though I did get my razer black widow keyboard from pcworld for £39 as it was priced wrong. I kindly pointed out they can either withdraw it all from sale as eans matched or honour the price, I wasn't too fussed, the manager pointed out it must be discontinued as mechanical ones are being phased out so the price is correct. So I bought two!

 

[remember300]

ah yeah that kinda customer we get too often ... lol
and whats that about mech keyboards being discontinued???
unless he just meant that line?

I had a funny one yesterday while buying my paint for my pc, i have a little industrial estate thingy with a curries and hobby craft and halfords plus a few others anyways, i digress after getting my bits i thought id go see some bits in curries not to buy but to have a look, i like playing with the TV's setting to get the colours to actually pop or try too even when using their source players ... but anyway i was by the radios playing with a samsung one which was like a little dvd stereo pretty cool i have no need but an excuse to try out skrillex in store and i had to of their customers come over to me and said that the staff member they were dealing with did not know how to link anything to that player and here i was bluetoothing to it ... so i showed them what to do and they chuckled.

I also explained how some units with NFC could be linked to and a few other little bits and they asked if i worked there, i said the commission if they still got it would be nice but i'm just a general person who likes techy stuff.

I then went to look at those curved tvs .... still not sold on that idea either lol
but the ones with a not so sharp curve in 4k don't have such a small sweet spot, Like some of the more severe angled ones.

Has anyone here had to educate anyone in a place they don't work or even the staff??

 

[barnsley]

Has anyone here had to educate anyone in a place they don't work or even the staff??

Yeah, I've done it with PC companies (including a certain Etailer who people hold in high regard around here), a couple of PC repair shops , PC World and the Apple store.

 

[remember300]

Yeah, I've done it with PC companies (including a certain Etailer who people hold in high regard around here), a couple of PC repair shops , PC World and the Apple store.

Ahaha you could do what they do in TBBT lol and poke fun at those in the genius bar lol.

I've never willingly gone into an apple store... And PC repair shops are something else i avoid there is only 1 i trust in all of chelmsford lol the guys in there are enthusiasts too which i guess is a good sign.

 

[barnsley]

Ahaha you could do what they do in TBBT lol and poke fun at those in the genius bar lol.

I've never willingly gone into an apple store... And PC repair shops are something else i avoid there is only 1 i trust in all of chelmsford lol the guys in there are enthusiasts too which i guess is a good sign.

one pc shop was run by someone who's last experience with a PC seemed to be from back in the DOS days. PC world's 'genius' didn't know what a PCIE slot was. I had to explain to him what one was. He nearly sold someone a pc which had no support for the GPU he was also buying.

The Apple store thing was probably just the guy trying to get my friend to buy a more expensive Macbook then they needed but they got schooled anyway :^).