Tech support. How may I help you?

I was going to write something witty about religion today, since its eastern and all. I was even halfway done with something where I mock each and everyone who is even the slightest bit religious. But the past days it seems that everyone I know have a computer that broke, so today I will write about computers. Sort of.


First it's my friends sister, we can call her Julie. Her computer broke down a couple of days ago. Actually, it broke a long time ago, but since its a really old computer it took it about 6 months to realize it didnt work anymore. Usually you will know that something is wrong when you have to turn it on and off for 30 minutes every morning before it finally boots up. And when it finally starts up it sounds like someone laying on their deathbed dying from lung cancer. When your computer does this, it shouldnt come as a surprise when it just wont start one morning.

Now I'm no computer geek or anything, but I know some stuff about them. I know that when you have hardware failure on your computer its nothing that can be "fixed", you will have to replace the damaged part. Especially when it's your motherboard that is broken. It's not like when a program stops working and you can just reinstall it. Try to explain this to someone that dont know anything at all about computers, and are not even willing to buy new parts for their computer, and see how far that'll get you.

I got a text from Julie saying she was desperate, because she has been without internet for 3 days now. I can understand this. Then she says her brother is coming by later and she hope he can fix it. To which i reply, you can't just "fix it", you need to buy a new motherboard, atleast. But they don't want to listen, so I just leave it be. When she is desperate enough to see the truth and have been without her internet for a week or so, she will buy that motherboard.

Ten minutes later I get another text message saying, "Great... now the hamster died too!"

Then we have my dad. He dont know anything about computers either, but atleast he's trying. Trying and failing but nevertheless trying. He figured his computer was a bit alow, so he decided to go and buy more RAM for it in hope it would speed it up. This is a great idea, because he didnt have alot of RAM to begin with. Only thing is that because he dont know shit about computers, he just went and bought new RAM memory for it, without checking if it was compatible with his computer. So He calls me and ask me to come and look at it.

When I arrive at my dads house I ask him what his done and whats wrong. He then tells me that he bought the wrong RAM to begin with, he had bought DDR2 memories when his computer only supports DDR1, but he went back with them and got the right ones. This is all good. So I start up his computer and it goes. Beeep    Beeep    Beeep...

So I ask him again exactly what he did.

Dad: Well I came home with those other RAM memories, I put them in the computer and it wouldnt start.
Me: Wait what? You did what?
Dad: I put the RAM memories in the computer and it wouldn't start?
Me: You know you're not supposed to do that.
Dad: Well I figured as much when the computer didnt start.
Me: No, I mean you're not even supposed to be able to put in the wrong memory, they just won't fit.
Dad: Oh yeah, I thought it felt a bit odd that I had to push so hard to get them there.
Me: ....

So, I'm doing the usual stuff. Unplugging everything that isn't really needed to start up the computer. I reset his BIOS, I try his old RAM, I do everything. And then I tell him that he's gonna need to buy a new motherboard. Told him to write down the serial number on his old motherboard and take that to the store, so he get a new one that would work with his processor and all. This was two days ago.

Today he called me up again, saying the motherboard is in place but the computer still wont work. And I tell him when you put in a new motherboard like that you usually have to verify with microsoft that you have a legit version of windows. And that usually you will come to a screen that asks you to call them and verify your operating system. Don't ask me what he did when that screeen came up, because he sure didnt call to get his windows verified. Now all he gets is the boot screen asking him if he wants to start in fail safe mode. And now he asks me if I can fix it. Lucky me, my sisters boyfriend had offer to take his harddrive home and backup all information on it, format the damn thing and install a new version of windows for him.

Next time anyone asks me about their computer, I'm just gonna say I havent got a clue. I don't know anything about computers.