Great Technology Piss-Offs.

[Venetia]

I don't mean a contest in which you see how far you can urinate, I mean posting stuff about a time in which you were so irked with technology or the maker of the technology you possess that you wish to throw said piece out into the rain then take a steaming dump on it.


Here's mine.

Alright, so God blew up my computer with a lightning bolt, that was annoying. I replaced the power supply and it turns out the motherboard had died. Great. So I replace the motherboard.

Few days ago, my GeForce 8800 GTX decides to crap out during BioShock. YIPPEE HOORAY.

Okay, so we got an RMA through eVGA and I just got the replacement video card. The outer box was fine, the box was in mint condition, and the plastic container holding the piece was perfect. So I sent Mr. UPS-man on his way and took the card inside to install it.

As I'm about to screw the replacement video card in I notice something strange: a dent in the plexiglas. I look at it further, and it looks as if some total DIP$#!T dropped my card to the floor and then still packaged it. The corner was dented and there was a crack formed from it.

So I call up eVGA to ask what to do and now I have to send my REPLACEMENT back to get a REPLACEMENT, all the FREAKING while I have to wait, AND pay for a completely new instance of shipping, since eVGA doesn't pay for shipping on RMA's.

I've had this computer for about 9 months but have been waiting for it to get back up to the capacity it once enjoyed for about 2 now, all because of a stupid errant lightning bolt. This is not a cheap computer--it has all the finest pieces of technology from 9 months ago, and it took quite a dip into our savings to get it, so you can see why I'm a little pissy over it.

The 8800 GTX is one of the best video cards out there and I've had it for a while and it's a damn fine card, but HOLY CRAPAMOLI all I want to do is break it into tiny pieces with a hammer, swallow the pieces, get my stomach vaccuumed, then watch the pieces of it burn slowly in the remnants of my stomach acid.


So to make this a community effort, post your technical annoyances :')

 

[Ninjitsu]

Awsm, you play Bioshock!

And lol, "swallow the pieces, get my stomach vaccuumed, then watch the pieces of it burn slowly in the remnants of my stomach acid."

Nice

Sorry if I'm detracting from your post; ill put up my techy experiences later.

 

[Dopples]

When my old computer couldn't play the original Doom without crashing. I'm pretty sure that guarantees an automatic fail

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

Every time I hop on this, my private comp, I feel like smashing it with a hammer.

Many programs simply don't work, or don't even exist anymore. MSPaint is gone. GONE! I can't use certain extensions I have the files for with certain programs. I can't even use updates of windows. Only 1 browser works. Only IRC threw mIRC, no other type of IRC works or alternative chat outside of e-mail/posting (AIM let's say). It screws up almost everything, and I'm somehow out of virtual memory and flash memory and actual ram at random. I can't delete anything, so I have to save over older files.

All because explorer.exe shitted out on me.

 

[PeteD2S]

My PC is perfectly fine, but sometimes it decides to play retarded with me, blocking randomly, the graphics at the games suddenly get screwed (like pink palm trees at battlefield), crash completly (random blue screens of death for no reason). Sometimes it takes like 5-10 minutes to load Windows! Also random breaks (5 minutes spikes) during games, which results on my death most of the times. It got me so annoyed once, I broke the keyboard drawer of my old desk. Not only my stuff decides to mock me. Steam decided to register my brand new copy of Orange Box to my banned steam account, having me wait a week to play team fortress. And what's with Kaspersky and GameGuard? Jesus, it is so annoying when I forget to disable Kaspersky protection before playing some online game that uses GameGuard anti-cheat (like Gunbound), and in the middle of a match, this annoying screech the russians decided to use as a threat detection alert sound, because these two kiddies conflict with each other. Result, reboot system because gameguard corrupted.
It's these things that make me which I was rich so I could blast stupid PC's and get an easy replacement.

 

[Despain]

Ages ago, in Pokemon Blue. I remember playing it in the dining room of my old house, fighting my way through Mount Moon. I arrived in Cerulean City....only for the game to shut off without warning. I hadn't saved since before fighting Brock.

That was my first encounter with batteries that run out.

 

[Tassadar]

When opening Windows Media Player, I have 25% chance of getting a blue screen of death. Makes me want to smash my computer in tiny bits, but alas, that would be the easy way. I just start up Media Player as soon as my comp has finished booting, then hope my comp doesn't crash. After that, I just don't close the darn thing, because I also have a chance of roughly 25% I get another blue screen of death...

 

[Venetia]

@Sixty:
It sounds like your installation of Windows is corrupted. I've heard of an error that occurs when Win XP tries to install Internet Explorer 7 without your permission and doesn't reboot, a DLL file somehow gets deleted and then certain programs begin to crash randomly, whenever that DLL is accessed (but cannot be accessed, since it's gone). Also there are viruses that can cause similar errors.
I'd recommend burning all your personal data to CD or upload it somewhere, then fully wipe your hard drive and reinstall Windows. Also use Firefox instead :')

@ Pete:
It sounds like your videocard has died/has started dying. Imperfections in color, blue screens of death, and game lag, can all be caused by a hiccuping/defunct videocard. See if the maker of your videocard carries a warranty (if it's Radeon it's made by eVGA which means it has a lifetime warranty), then try and get a replacement.

A lot of motherboards have on-board video, so when your video card shorts the lag/errors are caused when the video input defaults to your on-board video, then has hangups when directing back to the card after it becomes functional again. That's one way you'll get the probs you're experiencing, anyway. It's a good place to start. But it really sounds like a videocard issue.

@ Tassadar:
This is an ugly site but its information is golden:
http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html
Maybe it'll help with your WMP probs; I was having some probs with it, myself, a while back.

 

[PeteD2S]

GeForce 7600GT. It has a year, but even in the early weeks I had this messed up colors problem. The breaks during games came later. The color problem is "easily" solved by alt+tabbing to windows and back to the game. I am not sure about the warranty time, must check the box (wherever it is).

Thanks Venetia ^^

 

[Venetia]

You're covered under lifetime warranty with GeForce (eVGA manufactures them).

http://evga.com/support/lifetime/

Check this site out for warranty information to be sure you're covered. If you create a profile you can get an "advanced" RMA so that they ship the new piece to you, you test it, and send the old one back, instead of sending the old one back first.

They have great customer service too, if you call 1-888-880-EVGA.

 

[rpgfan_2007]

When opening Windows Media Player, I have 25% chance of getting a blue screen of death. Makes me want to smash my computer in tiny bits, but alas, that would be the easy way. I just start up Media Player as soon as my comp has finished booting, then hope my comp doesn't crash. After that, I just don't close the darn thing, because I also have a chance of roughly 25% I get another blue screen of death...

That would drive me crazy too. 25% chance. Why don't you try and get that fixed?

First of all, are you sure it's your Media Player?

Turn it on / off 10 x without running WMP. A Blue Screen can be any # of things.

Second of all, any questions to Windows problems can be asked here:

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx

Click on the Windows XP forum ,and ask your question, or do a search. Other people might have had the same problem as you and had their problem solved.

Good luck.

 

[Kojo]

Probably the number one thing that irks me is Self Righteous Mac users. Especially when you are working on something and they lean over, and say "It's 'cause you're using Windows.." That is my biggest technical problem I have faced.

 

[rpgfan_2007]

For me, it'd have to be Microsoft Vista. I'm generally unhappy with Microsoft's decision to put in so many changes to Vista to introduce so many incompatibilities. And we're forced to make that switch because XP will no longer be supported or even sold in the near future.

So Microsoft the company, and their monopoly pisses me off because they can do what they want with impunity, and there's nothing we consumers can do about it.

 

[Venetia]

Probably the number one thing that irks me is Self Righteous Mac users. Especially when you are working on something and they lean over, and say "It's 'cause you're using Windows.."

There's this guy at my work that does that all the time =_=. Whenever there's a server hangup, he says it's "a PC problem". Whenever Flash crashes, he says it's "Windows". He always says, "It'd never happen on a Mac!"

>_< Even when I b!tch him out about how much Macs suck he'll still turn around and harsh on un-Mac-PC's the second he gets a chance, I want to deck him so much about it.

http://www.mac-sucks.com/switch_why.php
^^^ Funny & informative

@RPGfan: I agree, I'm not switching to Vista until Radeon quits making drivers for XP. Even then I might just try to run on outdated drivers for a while. Vista's exactly the same as XP, it's just prettier and takes more RAM to run I could be using for gaming, and has more blocks set up to deter me from using the operating system the way I want. I'd go Linux if it wasn't such a pain in the ass to make every program I use compatible with it.

 

[Ratty524]

"The Sound Card of Crap"

'Twas a boy with a computer
Oh, so happy.
He loved his calculating box
He, and his pappy.

'Tis a usual morning
Listening to playing sound.
Then the speakers played scratches
On the desk did he pound.

His sound card be crappy
A horrid piece of junk
It angers he so madly
The poor, poor punk.

Yeah, my sound card has a trouble lasting for a few hours. It tends to lose power (which it shows when the speakers start making buzzing sounds) and after a few moments all sound is turn off entirely, and the only way I get it back up is by turning off my computer and turning it back on. It makes me a bit frustrated.

@Venetia: Macintosh is a cult.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

@Sixty:
It sounds like your installation of Windows is corrupted. I've heard of an error that occurs when Win XP tries to install Internet Explorer 7 without your permission and doesn't reboot, a DLL file somehow gets deleted and then certain programs begin to crash randomly, whenever that DLL is accessed (but cannot be accessed, since it's gone). Also there are viruses that can cause similar errors.
I'd recommend burning all your personal data to CD or upload it somewhere, then fully wipe your hard drive and reinstall Windows. Also use Firefox instead :')

I do use firefox, but it was an error from downloading IE7...
I needed it to test out a certain program that for whatever reason is only accessible with IE. I had removed all IE from my comp a half year earlier, so had to install IE7 fresh...
Whenever I mentioned that people would assume I meant iexplorer not explorer.exe bummed out.

And I can't wipe my hard drive. I have absolutely no disks for this thing, got it as a gift. I had to scrummage for the wire connections, a mouse, and keyboard.
I shoulda just asked for a kick in the shins, the annoyance wouldn't subsided by now ':|

 

[Kojo]

@ Sixty Have you tried downloading opera or firefox onto another computer, throwing it a flash drive or a CD and then installing it from there?

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

It's explorer.exe (windows explorer) that's giving me the problem. My internet browsing is fine and for the most part isn't impeded on. It's just about every other thing that dies X_X

 

[Tassadar]

Thanks Venetia, the problem is fixed now. Tried to open and close WMP about 20 times, and still no blue screen.

@Rpgfan_2007 I'm 100% sure, because it only happens when I either open WMP or close it.

 

[gunga1]

My DS, it's been breaking and self-repairing since I got it:
At first, the rigth hand button on the back was not working, I didn't care until I got Metroid Prime: Hunters, sucks to play multiplayer with friends in left-hand mode if you're rigth handed. After a while it magically started working, but then just stopped again. And that's not all of it!! A while ago one of the hinges ripped itself of the console, with no extra pressure applied or anything, when I was closing the thing, just a knack and now the screen is held on with just one hinge, and my thumb when playing... I'd send it for repairs but I've lost the receipt... Plus I coudn't play then.

Aaaand then my video card, GeForce 7600GS, is quite the annyance: Firstly, it refuces to take advantage off the already primitive AGP bus it sits in, thus making it run at vanilla-PCI speeds... Antique, eh? BUT, that's not all of it: When playing my most recent addiction, Civilization IV, it likes to freeze for a few minutes in the main menu, just leaving me with the african singing and a still picture of earth. And at times it doesn't leave at that, but jumps to the desktop with 640x480 reso and like 32 colors stating that "Displpay adapter is not working properly" or something. This crap happens with HL2 also... But I think this has something to do with my crappy case, it's retail comp I just showed the card into.
EDIT: As my vid card just did the crash thingy, I resorted to the "Windows LIVE Help Center"-thingy, wich, as you can see, landed on this thread. Guess what it told me to do: Option 1: Install the most current drivers.. Done it already. Option 2: Manually decrease hardware acceleration AKA make your 100€ video card just sit there and make your computer become incapable of playing Doom. The first one.

What a great way to come back to the community, ranting about techology :P