My stupidest customer yet.

[zeruty]

I just thought this was hilarious...
I work at a local computer store.... and this idiot came into the store today complaining that the cpu(athlon xp), motherboard, and ram he purchased did not work.

cw1=one of my co-workers, involved in the conversation
cw2=other co-worker in the conversation
idiot=the idiotic customer

idiot said he turned on the machine, it worked at first but it stopped working but he left it turned on
cw1 looked at the stuff, asked the guy if he put the heatsink/fan onto the cpu
the guy said no
cw1 said "well you have to, you would burn up the cpu otherwise"
cw2 chipped in "yeah, your cpu wouldnt survive that"
the idiot said "no, the cpu would be fine for 3 to 4 hours without a heatsink, thats basic knowledge"
I said "no, it's absolutely not possible for an athlon to last that long, it would burn up almost instantly"
the guy asked cw1 "how long have you been working here?"
cw1 said "about nine months"
the guy said "well you need to add about 10 years more experience to that and you will know what you are talking about"
I started to explain how we know for a fact it wont last longer than a few seconds, but cw2 told me "just screw it, he's an idiot, its not worth it"


anyways.... we all got a kick out of that guy's stupidity, and it goes without saying.... we didn't let him exchange his cpu

 

[deftron]

HaHA..

At least he didn't pour water on it like somebody here did

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Did the guy hear you call him an idiot? Cool story though.

nik

 

[gopunk]

what a turd

maybe his 10 years of exp. is what made him think it was 3-4 hours... old cpus and crap.

 

[zeruty]

ffm, I don't think he heard us use the word but I think he probably could tell what we thought from the inflection in our voices heh.

perhaps gopunk... but any intelligent person would at least give consideration to the advice of someone who actually works in the industry.... if his experience is that old, he should be smart enough to learn from someone with more recent experience.
Other than that.... he might just have been too ashamed to admit he was wrong... I don't know but it's still hilarious

 

[toant103]

some dude came into the store and said his cpu burned out. He put thermal compound on the 4 black round spacer instead of the core.

read this from somewhere

 

[zeruty]

Haha...
There was this lady on thursday who removed the thermal compound from her heatsink before she attached it to the cpu socket, because she was concerned the thermal interface material would damage the cpu and void her warranty.

 

[tops2]

lol
these r funny stories to us, but to "normal" people who don't know their way around the computer, its impossible for them. some lady told me once she bought toner at compusa, but she didn't know how to change the toner, so she paid compusa like $40 to change it
what a rip!

 

[Viper GTS]

When I had a Cyrix PR166 I had no clue how to install thermal compound. I was just told I needed it.

I emptied an entire tube of Radio Shack grease onto the top of that poor CPU. When I clamped the HS on it came oozing out the sides.

Inexperience can make people do some st00pid stuff.

Viper GTS

 

[Siddhartha]

What cpus were available 10 years ago? Maybe 286 or 386s could run hours without a heatsink.

 

[Ciber]

when i was like 7 years old i decided to find out for myself whether electricity flowed thru a light bulb socket when the switch was off.................my findings? it does, i could not feel my left arm for like 6 hours LOL...and my index finger was still a little numb and ached alittle the next morning. just letting you guys know in case you're wondering the same thing ....

i think that's the stupidest thing i've ever done in my life

 

[Ameesh]

show him that Toms hardware video i love watching it fry athlons withe cool techno music in the background.

 

[zeruty]

I don't know who said it, but I like the quote "It's better to be quiet and appear a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt" That guy should have done that.
If he had just ran it without a heatsink/fan he would have just looked stupid... but because he had to argue with our knowledge of the subject, he removed all doubt.

I was in the process of suggesting he check out tomshardware's video when cw2 told me to just forget it....


Oh yeah, I also helped this couple today... who while I was typing up their order in the computers, they were gossiping with each other... about this person was this person's dom(dominant AKA master), this person was the sub(submissive AKA slave), talking about matriarch's of houses, and other various other S&M subjects... and it appeared they were swingers, etc. The guy was talking about these other two guys who kept hitting on him and the wife suggested that it would fun and I think they were talking about who would make the best dom out of the group
Ok... I know there are people that do this kind of thing... but these two people... it just kinda freaked me out

 

[Kadarin]

If you have internet access in the store, it's a simple matter to get the straight poop from the source:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/23986.pdf

Caution: Never start the processor unless the heatsink is properly and firmly
attached. THERMAL FAILURE WILL RESULT?THE PROCESSOR WILL BE
PERMANENTLY DAMAGED.

Then again, this guy probably wasn't interested in anything AMD would have to say on the subject.

 

[veryape]

I don't know about where you work, but at alot of places, if you display your stupidity by not knowing you need to put a heatsink on new processors, as long as you are not a hotheaded idiot jerk, they will actually replace it for you free of charge the first time telling you it won't happen again though. All this guy did was make his chances of getting a replacement zero. What an ass. Hope it all works out for him, his new Athlon without a heatsink, that is. I hope he tries it again.

 

[hans007]

there are a ton of old CPUs that could run for hours without a heatsink. My friend and I used to run his p75, with the gold heatspreader in emergency situations with no heatsinks. if you didnt give it anything too tough to do like quake 1 it'd run fine. most 486 and lower machines, could easily do it. CPUs have just gotten too hot recently because of competition and physical barriers.

 

[dude]

Dude, 10 years? Even 386's and 486's required at least a heatsink or they'd get pretty damn hot. I've seen a few 200-233 MMX's that stopped working because of no heatsink. I never seen a PII or K7 (Slot 1 & A) go because of the cartridge/heat spacer (still considered a heatsink) saved them. As for anything PIII or newer, without at least a heatsink, it's toast.

 

[fr]

Didn't he make any attempt to raise hell thinking he was right? I mean, you basically told him he was screwed.

 

[CloroxCowboy]

Your customer was highly ignorant in his knowledge. That is not a reason to mock someone. If you work at a store for the general public perhaps you would have been better served to get the owner/manager and then attempt to help the customer. I go back over 10 years and what he was saying was true many years ago.

To increase sales and goodwill within the community the proper step could have been to offer a processor and HSF at cost. This would have made the person not feel belittled and at the same time brough back more business to the company. Also it is very easy to document what you were saying. I simple trip to AMD.com and a printout of a few pages would have HELPED the customer.
:Q

 

[djheater]

I used to run a AMD 450 without a HS/Fif I was just screwing around and testing stuff. Never for very long though and it never hurt.

If this guy has been in the idustry or hobby for ten years then he would be (like the rest of us) rabidly reading all the current info and probably actually a member here. All current info says do not even attempt to run an Athlon wihtout a HS/F. since this guy wasn't aware of it his implied qualifications are certainly suspect.

Come on, from the moment these chips came out people have been saying how hot they are... why would anyone who knew wtf they were doing run it w/out a sink on? To make matters worse would anyone who truly knew wtf they were talking about take it to a computer store anyway?

 

[djheater]

Hey anybody got a link to the Tom's video? I've never seen it.....

 

[vegetation]

386 didn't need any heatsink at all. Early 486's didn't have a heatsink either, but when the clock doubled Intel's came out I believe they came with them. All Cyrix/AMD 486s needed the heatsink and fan since they ran much hotter.

 

[Geekbabe]

stupid people... pay my bills,along with making me wanna rip my hair out sometimes

 

[Digobick]

<< Hey anybody got a link to the Tom's video? I've never seen it..... >>

Tom's AMD Video

 

[Mikelh]

<< Your customer was highly ignorant in his knowledge. That is not a reason to mock someone. If you work at a store for the general public perhaps you would have been better served to get the owner/manager and then attempt to help the customer. I go back over 10 years and what he was saying was true many years ago.

To increase sales and goodwill within the community the proper step could have been to offer a processor and HSF at cost. This would have made the person not feel belittled and at the same time brough back more business to the company. Also it is very easy to document what you were saying. I simple trip to AMD.com and a printout of a few pages would have HELPED the customer.
:Q >>



I couldn't say more! Thank you for bringing this matter to an intelligent perspective.

Michael