Question Problem with friend's PC.

[VirtualLarry]

TL;DR: Built a budget gaming rig for friend, using G4560, asst. mobo, 8GB DDR4, 260X. Black-screened after Windows login, never "booted" again.

Built a Core2 PC for a friends for his kids two years ago. He told me that he wanted something to play Roblox and Minecraft. I thought that was enough, and it was totally free.

But then he told me, that he wanted to play Fortnite with them, so I was like, "OK, sorry, you didn't tell me that originally, so give me back that PC, and I'll build you another one."

I took that one back, and built him one with a G4560 (Kaby Lake, 2C/4T, 3.5Ghz, was a budget gaming darling a few years back, so it's still a little bit out-of-date), 8GB DDR4, and a Radeon R7 260X 2GB GDDR5 card. (That was nearly two years ago.)

He told me that they used it, then they didn't, because it "stuttered" (he never wired it to his router, always using some cheap-o wifi dongle), and most recently, when I talked to him, he said that they hadn't used it in a while, but after they booted it, and logged in, he got a black screen, then it never booted again. He also mentioned something new to me, that the PC booted itself up several times, sitting in the corner. (Ghosts???)

I know some Dell OEM rigs do that, but I didn't think that my custom-built rig would, not sure what's going on there.

He had agreed to give me something for the updated PC, actually, he agreed that he would pay for the difference in parts cost between what I had given him in the first place ($150), and the second PC (~$400).

I wish that he were that reliable, but I would have just been happy to have gotten a token payment, as a thank-you.

I told him that he could bring the PC over to my place (I'm not making free PC repair house-calls for him), and I'd take a look at it.

I wonder, if maybe that they had it powered-off for too long, and either the spiders built webs in it, and shorted it out (happened to a CFL ITX rig I had sitting on the side of my desk for nearly a year, burned out the board), or maybe the CMOS battery is just shot.

Or, maybe PSU, RAM, GPU, mobo, or CPU, in that order.

I've offered him (recently) a free PC for his kids, I've offered him an "HP Power Gaming PC", with i5-7400 and GTX 1060 3GB card, 1TB HDD, that would probably perform well enough still these days, as well as a Ryzen R5 1600 for his kids, with RGB ring fans, and an entry-level GPU. I told him he would have to splash out for a "decent" GPU for that rig. (GTX 1660 and up.) I had my other R7 260X 2GB in there originally, but I replaced it with my 8GB RX 570 card that I have left.

That should be a solid rig too.

I get the strong sense that he just doesn't want to be hassled with PC builds and PC stuff, he works hard for himself and his kids at his job, and doesn't want ancillary tasks to distract him, I guess.

I built him his own PC a few years ago, like maybe 3-4 by now, that he did indeed pay me for, and AFAIK, is still running. I did the "refurb Dell Tower + GTX 1050" thing for him, stuffed it full of RAM, SSD, HDD, fresh Windows.

I'm kind of at a crossroads of what to do, here.

I've offered him a pair of arguably "nicer" PCs, but he didn't want them.

He mentions that the one that I gave him before was malfunctioning, and I've offered to look at it, but seeing as how he was supposed to at least give me a token something for it, I feel like I shouldn't fix it out-of-warranty for free too.

I also have a SFF HP or Dell or Lenovo, might be an M82 or M92 or something, I think it is a Lenovo, with a Haswell quad-core, and I put in a 500GB-class SSD, and a 3GB GTX 1050 LP card. That would probably work well for him, not take up a lot of space, and I want it out of my place too.

I also have a pair of RGB vertical stripe + rear LED ring fan cases with glass sides, one has an A200GE (OCed) and the other has a G3258 (OCed). I could drop a GPU into either of those as well, but I think that the A200GE could maybe play Fortnite @ 720P as-is.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I’ve been dealing with similar situations in sales for around 20 year.
This guy is likely a good person and maybe even a good friend.
He is not a good customer, some people are just a pain in the ass regarding expectations. These people are soul sucking.
Your relationship with him changed once a product was involved, going forward everything involving that machine he is now the client/customer. Everything else he’s just a guy or friend or dude.
Going forward I’d advise you guide him on purchases and if you want to stay involved offer to add memory or a video card or whatever to any off the shelf system he buys.
Be easier for you and him overall.
Situations like you described suck and I’ve found it easier to end the pain as soon as possible.

I have become pretty good at dealing with situations like this feel free to PM me and I’ll give you my phone number. Easier to talk about stuff and I recommend role playing it with me for practice if needed.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thank you, Mr. Meat sir, that is kind of you, maybe I'll do that.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Thank you, Mr. Meat sir, that is kind of you, maybe I'll do that.

Point being you did him a favor and it appears he hasn’t kept his end of the deal & he is complaining in what appears to be a passive/aggressive way.
Good luck and feel free to reach out

 

[VirtualLarry]

I just prepped that Lenovo, it's a M82, with an i5-3470, 4x2GB DDR3 (8GB total), and a LP MSI (?) (Maybe Gigabyte?), GTX 1050 3GB. Good for 4K Netflix, at least. Should make an OK gaming PC, better than the G4560 and R7 260X, certainly.

Edit: I just texted him, and let him know that he can pick this PC up when he drops the other one off, for me to look at. I should probably throw in a non-sucky Wifi adapter too, just in case he insists on using this PC on wifi for gaming. (Got a bunch of those Comfast adapters, I "reviewed" in the Networking forum, paid under $10 ea., for them, no big deal. But they are USB2.0, with a decent little antenna on them, and BT for headsets or console wireless controllers.)

Edit: OK, I got the Comfast wifi adapter working, posting from it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I also have a pair of RGB vertical stripe + rear LED ring fan cases with glass sides, one has an A200GE (OCed) and the other has a G3258 (OCed). I could drop a GPU into either of those as well, but I think that the A200GE could maybe play Fortnite @ 720P as-is.

Well, I grabbed the G3258 / H81 OC rig, swapped in an i5-4670K, OCed to 4.2Ghz, dropped in 2x8GB DDR3-1866 (only supported to DDR3-1600 by the H81 chipset, unfortunately, but it seems stable), and planning on swapping in a GTX 1660 ti 'Gaming X' card, that is current in my main PC as a secondary GPU mining.

I would ask my friend to pay for the GPU, and possibly the CPU ($69), so basically $380, and I would give him the rest. It should prove to be a reasonably-solid gaming rig, certainly better than what he current has, by a couple of generations. (I think his is a Sandy Bridge quad.)