Figrin D'an
Feb 19th, 2004, 12:15:06 AM
... (or why Best Buy computer support sucks donkey bottom).
This kind of thing really angers me. Read on, and you'll understand why.
A little more than a week ago, a friend of the family talked to me briefly, mentioning that he was having trouble with his computer. He said that he had just gotten DSL, and while that was working well, his computer seemed to running a lot slower than normal. I told him that I would be willing to take a look at it.
I didn't hear from again until two days ago, at which point he called and told me that his machine was now crashing on boot, and giving him a blue screen error shortly after his desktop would load. I told him to boot the machine again, and give to tell me the exact error code Windows was spitting out at him. He did, I wrote it down, and told him I could stop by some evening during the week to see if I could fix it for him. He said that would be fine, and to call him the next evening. After getting off the phone with him, I looked at the error code, and quickly realized it was a registry error, but that it was correctable by running scanregw (he's running Windows ME).
I called him the following evening to see if he would be around. He informed me at that point that he decided to take his machine into Best Buy (where he bought it) and have them look at, since they told him they would diagnose his problem for free. He proceeded to tell me that the Best Buy tech told him, after booting the system once and hardly glancing at the blue screen, that his hard drive was toast. Upon hearing this, he questioned how the tech knew that. The tech told him "Well, that's what I suspect it is, but we'll need to run some tests to find out for sure. It'll cost $30 for the tests, and we can do it about an hour." At this point, my friend was rather annoyed, as they initially told him that the diagnosis would be free. But, he agreed, then decided to look around at other computer hardware while he waited. An hour and half passed, and they hadn't touched his box yet. They hadn't even moved it... it still sat off to the side of the tech support counter. So, he decided to leave, knowing they would call him later when it was done. 10 minutes later, on his way home, his wife called him on his cell phone to tell him that Best Buy called, saying that his computer was done. Frustrated as this point, he turned around and drove back to the store. It appeared to him that his box still hadn't been moved from it's original location. At this point, he had a conversation with the "tech" that went something like this: (note: his hard drive is only a 20GB drive)
Friend: "You called and said my computer was done."
Tech: "Yup, your hard drive is fried, like I though."
Friend: "How can you tell?"
Tech; "Well, we ran some tests that told us your hard drive wasn't spinning. And, when we opened up the case, we couldn't hear the motor in the drive running. So, it's pretty much junk."
Friend: "So I need a new hard drive? And how much will that cost me?"
Tech: "Well, we can put a drive just like it in your machine for $90. Then, to transfer your information over to the new drive, will be another $50."
Friend: "That seems expensive. I saw you have a 120GB drive on sale for a lot less money than that. Why can't I just buy that one and put it in?"
Tech: "Oh, your machine can't handle that drive. It's too big."
Friend: 'Uh... okay."
Tech: "You could use some more RAM too. That would be another $70. You know, we have some new machines on sale that would be a lot faster than this thing, and wouldn't be much more expensive than what it'll cost to repair this one."
Friend: "Yeah... I think about it. Can I have my machine back, please?"
Tech: "You don't want to fix it, or buy a new system?"
Friend: "Uh... no. I think I can deal with this on my own. Bye."
He brought his machine home, hooked it back up, and called me.
After relating all of this to me, I told him, "That tech at Best Buy is full of crap. Give me one hour, and I'll have your system up and running again, without having to buy any new hardware."
So, earlier this evening, I sat down at his machine, and did the following:
- Booted into Safe Mode, ran scanregw, and fixed his registry problems.
- Cleaned up his taskbar and freed up lots of system resources.
- Installed and ran Ad-Aware, removing 350 pieces of spyware.
- Installed and configured ZoneAlarm.
- Installed and configured Mozilla Firefox.
- Ran Windows Update.
- Showed him how to defrag his hard drive.
- Sorted through his installed programs, and made a list of stuff he should remove.
- Recommended he add another 128Mb of RAM.
His machine now runs, in his words, "the best it has in 6 months."
As a final recommendation, I told him to go back to Best Buy, bark at the store manager and get his $30 back.
Here's the lesson for the non-computer savvy: There's a better than average chance that, when you take your machine into a major retail store for repairs, they are flat out lying to you in order to make a sale. Get a computer-geek friend to look at your system first.
This kind of thing really angers me. Read on, and you'll understand why.
A little more than a week ago, a friend of the family talked to me briefly, mentioning that he was having trouble with his computer. He said that he had just gotten DSL, and while that was working well, his computer seemed to running a lot slower than normal. I told him that I would be willing to take a look at it.
I didn't hear from again until two days ago, at which point he called and told me that his machine was now crashing on boot, and giving him a blue screen error shortly after his desktop would load. I told him to boot the machine again, and give to tell me the exact error code Windows was spitting out at him. He did, I wrote it down, and told him I could stop by some evening during the week to see if I could fix it for him. He said that would be fine, and to call him the next evening. After getting off the phone with him, I looked at the error code, and quickly realized it was a registry error, but that it was correctable by running scanregw (he's running Windows ME).
I called him the following evening to see if he would be around. He informed me at that point that he decided to take his machine into Best Buy (where he bought it) and have them look at, since they told him they would diagnose his problem for free. He proceeded to tell me that the Best Buy tech told him, after booting the system once and hardly glancing at the blue screen, that his hard drive was toast. Upon hearing this, he questioned how the tech knew that. The tech told him "Well, that's what I suspect it is, but we'll need to run some tests to find out for sure. It'll cost $30 for the tests, and we can do it about an hour." At this point, my friend was rather annoyed, as they initially told him that the diagnosis would be free. But, he agreed, then decided to look around at other computer hardware while he waited. An hour and half passed, and they hadn't touched his box yet. They hadn't even moved it... it still sat off to the side of the tech support counter. So, he decided to leave, knowing they would call him later when it was done. 10 minutes later, on his way home, his wife called him on his cell phone to tell him that Best Buy called, saying that his computer was done. Frustrated as this point, he turned around and drove back to the store. It appeared to him that his box still hadn't been moved from it's original location. At this point, he had a conversation with the "tech" that went something like this: (note: his hard drive is only a 20GB drive)
Friend: "You called and said my computer was done."
Tech: "Yup, your hard drive is fried, like I though."
Friend: "How can you tell?"
Tech; "Well, we ran some tests that told us your hard drive wasn't spinning. And, when we opened up the case, we couldn't hear the motor in the drive running. So, it's pretty much junk."
Friend: "So I need a new hard drive? And how much will that cost me?"
Tech: "Well, we can put a drive just like it in your machine for $90. Then, to transfer your information over to the new drive, will be another $50."
Friend: "That seems expensive. I saw you have a 120GB drive on sale for a lot less money than that. Why can't I just buy that one and put it in?"
Tech: "Oh, your machine can't handle that drive. It's too big."
Friend: 'Uh... okay."
Tech: "You could use some more RAM too. That would be another $70. You know, we have some new machines on sale that would be a lot faster than this thing, and wouldn't be much more expensive than what it'll cost to repair this one."
Friend: "Yeah... I think about it. Can I have my machine back, please?"
Tech: "You don't want to fix it, or buy a new system?"
Friend: "Uh... no. I think I can deal with this on my own. Bye."
He brought his machine home, hooked it back up, and called me.
After relating all of this to me, I told him, "That tech at Best Buy is full of crap. Give me one hour, and I'll have your system up and running again, without having to buy any new hardware."
So, earlier this evening, I sat down at his machine, and did the following:
- Booted into Safe Mode, ran scanregw, and fixed his registry problems.
- Cleaned up his taskbar and freed up lots of system resources.
- Installed and ran Ad-Aware, removing 350 pieces of spyware.
- Installed and configured ZoneAlarm.
- Installed and configured Mozilla Firefox.
- Ran Windows Update.
- Showed him how to defrag his hard drive.
- Sorted through his installed programs, and made a list of stuff he should remove.
- Recommended he add another 128Mb of RAM.
His machine now runs, in his words, "the best it has in 6 months."
As a final recommendation, I told him to go back to Best Buy, bark at the store manager and get his $30 back.
Here's the lesson for the non-computer savvy: There's a better than average chance that, when you take your machine into a major retail store for repairs, they are flat out lying to you in order to make a sale. Get a computer-geek friend to look at your system first.