[WIDOWMAKER99]

he brings in a computer he said he needs fixed .. it wont go online or let him play any games .. it has win XP pro on it
so i tell him bring it in i'll look @ it

its an dell XPS he says ...i open it up

well it's got a DUSTY OLD p 3 500 Cpu and only 128 meg of Pc 100 ECC ram
and a real old 6 gig Quantum drive and an 16 meg rage pro vid card

i told him burn it for fuel

looked up mem for it .. it's $114 per 256 meg dimm @memory -up .com

max ram from the dell specs is 768 meg

and he wants it to play new games

he had a copy of crysis in his truck!

[ReverendTed]

Back in high school, a buddy of mine with what I think was a Commodore 64 (or Tandy 1000, or some similar floppy-based machine) asked me if, even though it probably wouldn't be very fast, he could borrow my copy of Doom.
I almost didn't have the heart to tell him he couldn't even run Wolfenstein 3D.

[Q]

You should've taken his copy of Crysis and handed him a copy of Pong.

[WIDOWMAKER99]

it gets better today he gave me his other system .. it wont connect to the internet

he bought a new network card for it .. but there are no drivers for win 98 on the disk that came with his card

it's a real tek 8939 .. i think i can find drivers for it .. but ..WHY ?

it's a freaking K6 2 -500 with 256 meg of ram .. one chip is out of an apple..128 meg Pc- 100

the other two 64 meg chips are .. you guessed it PC 100 non are the same cas speed or manufacturer

an S3 8 meg AGP card

it's got win 98 SE on it ..what the fuck does he think he can do with it these days .. i dunno

he has the bios passworded and cant acess it

tempted to pour lighter fluid on it and say it burst into flames

[Iron Monkey]

Nay nay nay....toss a magnet in there, attach power, and WHAMMO! Instant EMP burst. Gone in 60ms!

Tell him to invest in modernity...tell him your CONSULTANT Recommends it That seems to work...which is why I'm a consultant..everyone listens to me (even if I met up with the IT staff, found out what they'd try to sell (and didn't succede), and passed it on to management. Works every time ).

[WIDOWMAKER99]

after 3 hrs of workin on it ........it is a lost cause

the CD rom drives do not read anything past 650 meg ..or even read (yes the drives are that old ..think win 95)

no chipset drivers were installed with the OS ... so... no usb support

no not even IDE support ..i give up and am charging him 65 bucks per machine just for looking them over

and no i'm not the I T guy @work this is some idiot who works there that asked me to fix his systems

if i choose to format it and reinstall everything i have no drivers to go by .. i can find them yes ..but WHY ?

why spend 18 hours working on a piece o crap with 128 meg of SD ram (pc 100 no less )

bottom line his original build is corrupt mixing SD ram modules always led to problems

told him 4 times buy ram ... or a new system ..why dont people listen ?

[Iron Monkey]

Because you don't have a consultant. Have him call me, you script what you want me to say (read: telling him exactly what you said), and I'll charge him $100 for the call ($5 for long-distance charges, $95 to the, "Buy Wid another case of beer" cause), and he'll buy a new PC. Works every time. Like I said, this is why I'm a consultant. No one listens to their IT/non-IT people.