Worst PC Problem

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caveatipss

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I thought it would be funny to ask everyone here to tell their raziest/funniest story that illustrates the problems PCs have. I will start: I once had a desktop Shuttle PC literally catch fire while playing Half Life 2. LMAO
 
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Maybe not the funniest, but a couple years ago I was trying to install OS X 10.2 on my Wallstreet PowerBook G3. It installed just fine, but I could not get the computer to recognize the floppy drive. I tried all I could think of, repairing permissions, disk repair..etc. I reinstalled the OS about 6 or 7 times... still no dice.
Then just like magic on the last reinstall, it just started to work. To this day I have no idea why or what it was that made it suddenly become recognized. I guess that's computers for you...they sometimes seem to have a mind and agenda all their own :black:
 
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This is not so funny but tells it all. :)

When I first got my iMac, I have decided to measure the time it takes to boot and compare with the PC(XP Pro installed). Both were equipped with 1 GB of RAM and 2.1 GHz. Here is the result.
iMac - 32 Seconds
PC - 220 Seconds
 

dtravis7


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novicew said:
This is not so funny but tells it all. :)

When I first got my iMac, I have decided to measure the time it takes to boot and compare with the PC(XP Pro installed). Both were equipped with 1 GB of RAM and 2.1 GHz. Here is the result.
iMac - 32 Seconds
PC - 220 Seconds

What are the PC's Specs? My Amd 64 system with 1GB Ram boots in 10-12 seconds. That is very slow. Sounds like it's all infested with Spyware.
 
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Hmm. My PC is 32bit though.

I have 3HDDs (850GB) attached to it where as the iMac has only 250GB HD. But I don't think that makes such a difference. I think the biggest contributers to long boot up time are AntiVirus software, ZoneAlarm and 5 other Apps. start during start-up.
 
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caveatipss

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novicew said:
This is not so funny but tells it all. :)

When I first got my iMac, I have decided to measure the time it takes to boot and compare with the PC(XP Pro installed). Both were equipped with 1 GB of RAM and 2.1 GHz. Here is the result.
iMac - 32 Seconds
PC - 220 Seconds

haha classic
 
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The first two computers I ever built had problems right off the bat, so I took them in to get fixed and ended up with a repair bill for $498. At the time I had just graduated high school and $500 was about how much I made in an entire year; I got a job specifically to buy the parts for my own computer and worked hard for 6 months to get it (built one for me and one for my dad as a gift).

I vowed never ever to take my computers to a computer repair store again and so I learned computer hardware inside and out. It wasn't funny then but it's sure funny now; I actually just found that receipt the other day while moving. It still makes me cringe! I chipped the core on my Duron processor and fried the motherboard on my Athlon system with static. I am now a PC master, can build and repair anything under the sun, and own a Mac. Go figure :p
 

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kaidomac said:
The first two computers I ever built had problems right off the bat, so I took them in to get fixed and ended up with a repair bill for $498. At the time I had just graduated high school and $500 was about how much I made in an entire year; I got a job specifically to buy the parts for my own computer and worked hard for 6 months to get it (built one for me and one for my dad as a gift).

I vowed never ever to take my computers to a computer repair store again and so I learned computer hardware inside and out. It wasn't funny then but it's sure funny now; I actually just found that receipt the other day while moving. It still makes me cringe! I chipped the core on my Duron processor and fried the motherboard on my Athlon system with static. I am now a PC master, can build and repair anything under the sun, and own a Mac. Go figure :p


Yeah, that is how I started also and turned into a computer tech for a living but run Macs as my main machines also!
 
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I was quite suprised at the boot times of my Mac running Panther and 1 year old laptop running XP MCE2005:

Laptop (AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 512mb ram) = 85 sec
Mac (iMac G3 DV 400MHz, 640mb ram) = 86 sec

This from pressing the power button to being usable. The laptop does have a 4200rpm hard drive (as opposed to 7200rpm in iMac) and 128mb less ram, but it shouldn't make much of a difference.
 
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wicker_man said:
I was quite suprised at the boot times of my Mac running Panther and 1 year old laptop running XP MCE2005:

Laptop (AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 512mb ram) = 85 sec
Mac (iMac G3 DV 400MHz, 640mb ram) = 86 sec

This from pressing the power button to being usable. The laptop does have a 4200rpm hard drive (as opposed to 7200rpm in iMac) and 128mb less ram, but it shouldn't make much of a difference.

My 1993 RiscPC boots to a usable desktop in just under 4 seconds, mind you the OS is in ROM. ;)

Funny how we seem to be going backwards in some respects.

Amen-Moses
 
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L

Left Face Down

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Since about last September, well that's when the first major problems started, it seems Windows has waged some unholy war on me. Lets see here...


HP Laptop:
2 HDD died (original and then replacement 7 months after replacement)
Mutliple heating problems (fans replaced 3+ times)
Finally my laptop wouldn't boot off a CD, nor boot into Windows so it was replaced by Best Buy...


Sony Vaio Desktop:
HDD died
Not exactly sure why, but seems to have some sort of memory problem even though the memory passes Memtest86 easy. Just runs slower than all **** out of the blue.


Sony Vaio Desktop (parents):
Some one hacked this one, so atleast it makes sense. However, there was an error which kept popping up even after a reformat. I ran Anti-Spyware and Anti-Virus in safe mode which cured the problem, even though the A/V and A/S found NOTHING.


9 year old custom comp:
"Primary Master Hard Disk Fail"
I took out the HDD and threw it in my Vaio as a secondary drive, works perfectly fine. I have no clue why in the **** this computer wouldn't work.


5 year old comp friend gave me:
After a week my friend gives it to me it starts beeping. The mother board is dying...




Ok... so my laptop didn't even last 2 years, my desktop is 5 years old and my parents desktop is 3. Continueing on...


Sony Vaio Laptop (2 weeks old):
Over the last week it has been booting up slower and slower, often pointing to a dying HDD. Over night it goes from taking maybe 50 seconds to boot, which was way longer that the prior week, to 7 minutes. ***?



Just for the record, out of my computers the only ones who ever took more than 50 seconds to boot was the 9 year old computer and this old 95' computer I have which takes near 20 minutes to boot now a days. Poor thing hasn't been turned on in years though.
 
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MJGUK

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Oh my.....

Worst PC Problem?
Not sure about that, there have been so many :)
I've never really had any big problems with hardware so I guess the greatest problem I've ever had in that department was when a northbridge chip fan started giving me problems about 6 months ago. It was a seriously heavy duty machine and I was using it quite a lot at the time, but the fan was making the most horrid noise. So I ended up putting a comb up against it, if I recall correctly. Strange I know, but It just about limited the noise until I replaced it :)

Software.....I really can't say, there have been so many issues over the years. I mean I started using PCs when I was about 9 and quite heavily too. I also taught myself 95% of what I know about computers per se, so I made my share of mistakes along the way. Formatting of my PCs was a regular occurance :) But it was all fun and teaching yourself, if you have the time is a great way of learning.
 

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I agree, there are so many BAD problems in my years of being a Computer Tech, it's hard to remember them all. The worst overall lately is users who run IE on their XP box and are not carefull and also have an out of date AntiVirus. These users expect me to fix it no matter how bad and not loose one of their files either! 99% of the time I can but sometimes it a pain.

One idiot had a HP with the D: Partition which has the Diag files and OS ReInstall Files. They figured it would be a safe place to hide some Porn and zapped the OS Reinstall files and tools. Amazing. And of course HP does not give the user a Restore CD, it's all on that D: Partition.
 
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Badger

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Worst pc problem... Several years ago I was working as a mac tech in a school district. Since I was non-union I worked only under contract and only on macs. Then one day a mid-level administrator tried to help her neighbor's son open a problem floppy disk. She used her admin machine and it dumped a virus into the main server. Within hours all the PCs in the high school were down while the macs were untouched. All totaled there were over 400 machines knocked out. I got a special contract and laughed all the way to the bank.
 

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