Why do we help our families?

[cowchris.livejournal.com]

My sister is great at what she does, provided her computer does what it should, when it should. When that fails, I get phone calls. It's the only time we ever talk, so I suppose that's a good thing. This weekend was no exception to that rule.

After debunking her idea that a "blue screen of death" can really hide behind the shadows of a black screen (video driver failure), I decided a Windows re-install would be her best option. She put in the recovery disc and let it roll until she had to choose between doing a backup or a format. My phone rings again. She decided to keep me on the phone until it worked again (*groan*).

It was worth it when she gave me this little nugget. I wish I could make this stuff up. "Oh my goodness, no, Chris, don't let it do this, it's putting a snake on my computer!"

Windows was installing ASP.NET.

Comments

[wxgeek.livejournal.com]

bahahaha

[jjjiii]

If the monitor's not receiving a signal, and Windows has crashed, the computer could very well be trying to display a BSOD, but all you'd see would be a black, dead screen.

Yeah, I know.

[cowchris.livejournal.com]

But we started in safe-mode to find that the video driver was indeed crashing, Windows was fine.

[doctoreon.livejournal.com]

My god mother's son, who I haven't spoken to in over a year, called and left a voicemail message on my phone this weekend. At first I thought, "Wow! I haven't heard from that guy in forever! I wonder what he's up to..." Then, I listened to the rest of the message. He needed help with his computer. I haven't called him back.

[donnaidh-sidhe.livejournal.com]

Snake? SNAAAAAKE!

[jecook]

*points to icon*

[toxico.livejournal.com]

*points to other icon*

[jecook]

Made of WIN.

Re: Did somebody say...

[azurelunatic]

*points to link*

[azurelunatic]

Better than a snake in the head?

Did somebody say...

[ptstech.livejournal.com]

snake in the head?

[soruk.livejournal.com]

It's obvious - you had to viper hard disc. ;)

[ptstech.livejournal.com]

*rim shot*

[snowmentality.livejournal.com]

"I am the Viper! I have come to vipe and vash your vindows!"

[kirolee.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the last time I had to do tech support for my mom was when she got a new computer because a cd had become stuck in the drive of her old computer. (She got a dell with vista, but at least listened to me when I told her to get it with at least 2GB of memory.)

I ended up getting $25, assorted groceries and her old computer, the only downside to that was it only has 128mb of memory, but its a 2.4ghz. (celeron) (and it needs a video card really bad imho)

Turns out one of the bad apples of all computer techs in the world told her it would be impossible to update. I found the parts that would have upgraded her system to is max capabilities in seconds and would have only cost $40. (2 512mb sticks of DDR SDram.)

Long comment short, sometimes doing family tech support can be nice.