One of the most frustrating things for me when I was the local "computer guy" is when someone paid money for a piece of useless or even harmful software, they didn't want to hear that it was useless or harmful. Usually this was with anti virus or all manner of "security" software. The machine comes in running very slowly. I identify that it was the four different anti-viruses they were running simultaneously causing the problem. I remove them and demonstrate what was causing the problem. They're happy, but two weeks later they return angry with the same problem, and I discover they reinstalled all those anti-virus programs. They paid good money for those anti-viruses, they convinced themselves that they "need" it, and they don't like to hear they wasted their money.
I had someone call me out to their computer running like a dog. Their friend had set it up for them apparently he knew computer stuff. This machine had three AV security suites running concurrently, a live background disk imaging software (Norton Ghost) running backing up everything the system did live to external disks, and a host of other pieces of unnecessary software running (driver updates utilities, registry cleaners etc). I removed everything except one of the AV suites and disabled the live disk imaging and instead just set a scheduled nightly incremental backup regime. His computer was running beautifully. Responsive and useful again. A week later he told me his computer was running like crap again, so I went out there and ALL THE STUFF I'd removed and disabled had been put back and turned on again. His friend had been to visit and saw what I'd done and "fixed" it. I turned it all off again and immediately the computer started running responsively. A few days later he called and said it was running slow again! I asked if his mate had been and played with his computer and he said yes, and I said well I can come and fix your computer again, but I'm just going to do the same thing and turn all that crap off. He elected to not get me out again. He had some emotional investment in seeing his mate as some kind of legend and he never really believed me that it was all the crap his mate swore by that was causing the issues.
Then tell them next time they have a problem to go somewhere else. Nothing more irritating than people who ask a professional for help and then ignore what they say. That is my life with at least one idiot.
I hated desktop computers. Always had problems. These days, I only use a cellphone for all things on the Internet. Computers are too expensive to replace. Cellphones seem to be better protected from bugs.
*Addressing Myth no 6* Back in the day, I was a computer maintenance person in our Air Force. Not any kind of software engineer, I was simply responsible for such things as replacing power supplies, HDD's CD drives, monitors, graphics cards and peripherals such as keyboards, mice, data tablets, trackballs, scanners and printers etc. We had a "fleet" of about 100 to 150 desktop workstations running Windows NT, and later XP. Among that fleet, we had some computers that were turned on every morning, and turned off every night, some that were turned on on Monday mornings, and would remain on all week, before being turned off on Friday nights, and the rest were left running 24/7. What we found was that generally, the computers which were left on 24/7 were by far the most reliable, and caused us the least maintenance issues, while the computers that were turned on and off every weekday were the least reliable, and caused us the most maintenance issues.
That sounds about right. Every computer I've ever owned, since the early 2000s, has failed due to a mechanical failure on boot and will likely ruin your day.
@@OutLanderUSNWould it be more due to the repeated small power surges, or would it be more due to the repeated changes of temperature? When electronics warms up or cools down differences are introduced between mechanically connected (e.g. by soldering) components in their thermal expansion (because not all the components warm up and cool down equally much, and because different materials expand and shrink by different amounts at certain change in temperature). Every time the temperature changes there's slight pull to some direction until the solder joint or something has adjusted into the new shape. Even though the travel of the bend is tiny each time, doing it repeatedly could break something mechanically. Related to this, I've seen videos of fixing old tech on TH-cam, and apparently, when a GameBoy cartridge fails, often there's a chip that has one or more legs at one end or corner of the chip come off the soldering. Someone said that the cartridges have been often left in the car where it gets repeatedly hot and cold. Even though the cartridges obviously would not _always_ have been left in the car, over the decades there would have been a lot of such instances that would cause the thermal expansion/shrinking cycles that things can start to break. (After resoldering the chip or at least the loose legs the cartridges would often work again.) So, that makes me suspect that repeated changes in temperature could be a non-insignificant factor in computers failing over time.
I couldn't listen past the "buy the extended warranty" bs. I have rarely had a piece of computer hardware break down in the 12-24 month window. Sold hundreds of computers over last 30 years, and if it lasts the first year (and some don't), its usually good for another 5 years at least (I avoid bottom tier parts and manufacturers). 2nd, mtbf is running time. Not shelf life. Moving parts wear out while running. The most common component to wear out is a hard drive, or fan (depending on humidity, dust, ambient temperature etc). While there is little difference in life between running and shelf life for a lot of component, there is a difference. The more important reasons are memory (many programs still leak), and energy use. I know it's only cents per day, but multiply that out and it adds up. 3rd - absolutely buy the more memory or the bigger hard drive, it's only 20-50 more and you will likely grow into it, and you probably won't ever upgrade it, because then it will cost you 200 to do, and 500-700 is a new computer with more everything.
Agreed. The only computer I had fail within a few years was a laptop for one of my kids and who knows how it was handled. My personal laptop is going on 5 years and still meeting my demands because it was a beast in it's time. I just turned in a work laptop that was 7 years old and functioning well, just time for better hardware.
I worked for a PC manufacturer that rhymes with Hell. A note, the "warranty" you get is generally 30 days to return for money back, after that you get parts & labor for up to a year. Sometimes the extended warranties are only parts and that means you will be required to troubleshoot the issue online with tech support and then they will send a part that you either have to install yourself or take to a shop to install. This can be an arduous process because the tech support are often wrong about the issue and it may take weeks or months to get to the root of the issue. Also, if you buy a 100% brand new computer and you qualify for a system replacement, you will get a refurbished computer in the exchange not a new computer. There are a lot of caveats to warranties and people who are shopping for computers need to research the manufacturer's warranty to know exactly what is covered and what they are expected to do in case their computer has an issue.
This is why I prefer building my own. Most hardware manufacturers offer at least 3 year warranties or more. This guy's over here telling people to opt out of getting a better system for a useless extended warranty? C'mon now. 🤦♂
Well, bought a Hell secondhand on ebay, working well, just had som software difficulty. Went to their website, tried troubleshooting and somehow I found myself on the chat with their support centre. They recognised my model as under service warranty, it says up to April 2026. They spent a couple hours with me trying to fix the problem. At the end they even called me and asked what my experience was. They were overly after a positive feedback. No scam, no money asked. It was weird. I got a first class service for a machine I bought for maybe quarter if the price. They didn't fully resolve my problem though, the limitation is likely in the third party software I used to run Windoze from the usb on the go. But wow, I was impressed by their approach!
I bought a hell laptop back in 2008 and it was the worst warranty experience by far. They replaced my working motherboard, graphics card and keyboard with refurbrished components. The motherboard didn't charge, the graphics card died within a month and the keyboard had keys that poped as soon as i typed on them. The original issue was some physics processing unit which they didn't realize until after they replaced my working components one by one during on 3 at your home repairs . Oh and the adapter they sent from the day i ordered it online was not recognized as genuine and the cpu was running underclocked.
Only point I don’t agree with 😂 I work for another computer company with warranties & they find so many reasons to weasel out of paying for the warranty it’s crazy. Like trying to fix something so minor that it didn’t even come in for like a cracked/chipped bezel, a burned connector/pin they will find ways to call it liquid damage even when it’s not or “not being able to duplicate the issue” I.e. not wanting to change parts blah blah lol. And half the time we do put refurbished SHIT boards into the unit that might work might not so many times I’ve put a board in only to find that the thing has no keyboard/trackpad response, boot loops, ssd won’t install on OS (soldered on smh), memory failure, or straight up just won’t power on! An if it does work who knows how long it’s refurbished crap….some warranty huh 💀
If your computer is a PC running a MS OS and _"everything was working fine Tuesday and Wednesday you wake up and your computer threw up on itself"_ it may have installed new Windows updates.
Over the course of 6 months, my w10 laptop slowly ground to a halt. Worse with every update until it was completely unusable. Now that laptop runs fedora linux. M$ can get fuqqed.
@@gethriel I get it, RH isn't exactly popular in FOSS circles and for good reason from what I've been told. Far as I can tell though, they just _give_ fedora dev money, supposedly no strings attached. Whether that's true or not is anybody's guess (humans and all), but I thought it rather a useful link when I first made the decision (after ubuntu flat out refused to boot on my laptop), since we were getting a RHEL HPC at work around that time (which I'd be looking after). Since then I've found it struck a good balance of stability and availability of latest software for me (hell, it enabled me to de-windowsify a new laptop in a pretty reasonable time frame!), plus not _having to_ learn all of linux in one go. For n00bs such as myself it's been an overall positive experience from almost every angle. As for the politics... I leave that to those who know enough to make a judgement. At this point I just want an OS that works and does what I tell it. One day, when I'm wearing my big boy trousers, maybe I'll become a btw bro. Until then, this one seems to suit what I do 🤔 Anyway, neurotic ramblings of a madman aside, what would your recommendation be for a starter distro?
I think you misunderstood me. I said that of the machines that I have dealt with that have died, most of them were between 12-24 months. I've had a lot of local clients for the last 16 years, and that's what I always seem to see
I have. Most electronics that have manufacture fault will die within the first few weeks. This is the 'burn-in' time that manufacturers used to do in house. After this, usually they will last for years (rubbish dirt cheap capacitors not included).
@@AskYourComputerGuy Given your clarification, I suspect you may be over-valuing extended warranties due to a misinterpretation of the statistics. Your sample set isn’t appropriate to determine the value of those extended warranties. Your sample set includes *only* hardware that failed. It tells you nothing about the number of units that *didn’t* fail during the extended warranty period. And if a device lasts long enough, it might simply be discarded when it does eventually fail. I don’t doubt that the capitalist trend towards “planned obsolescence” has lead to designs that only start to fail after the initial warranty. But I assure you that manufacturers aren’t generally selling extended warranties that cause them to lose profits.
@craigyoung8008 fair argument. I can only speak to my 30 years of experience. I would hope that the average viewer would not assume that I speak for all PC'S sold annually. I should have probably added a few disclaimers along the way, I won't argue that
Sadly, the United States does not have good consumer protection. In the U.S. Consumer protection is protecting the scammer corporations from the consumers they are ripping off.
My experience with electronics - including computers - is they usually either fail quickly, or they last a long time. I usually stay away from the extended warranty.
The economics of extended warranties is straight forward. *NO* business up sells anything with the intention of losing money - extend warranties included. If the product has a 20% failure rate during the extended warranty period, the warranty will be priced accordingly. And pricing will factor in things like: the investment opportunity of being paid a year+ in advance, the decrease in component costs, etc. There may be a margin where consumers can get some benefit where the vendor sacrifices a portion of future profits for certainty of an up sell now. But pricing will put all risk variables in the vendor / manufacturer’s favour. I’d also add that if you claim on the extended warranty, the manufacturer will provide whatever costs them the least to meet their obligations. Whereas if you weren’t limited by the warranty, you might have chosen a replacement that’s simultaneously an upgrade.
I've had computers all my life, and not one of them died within 12-24 months. I never get warranties on anything, it's a rip off. Of course I did stop buying after 2014, I still use a Windows 7 computer that has been going strong since about 2012. The newer ones may very well suffer from deeper levels of planned obsolescense. That along with my disdain for higher versions of windows keeps me buying used machines.
I'm a computer technician and i have a transparency policy towards my customers. i even encourage them to watch every step of the process of my fixes to let them know why i charge them money
28:32 pressing the power button often invokes windows to do a proper shutdown. So it really depends HOW you turn it off, if you yoink the power cord, or flip the switch on the back of the PSU, that's bad. If you hold the power button for 5 seconds and it powers off that's also bad (but also good if the computer is locked-up/frozen). Also HDDs immediately park the heads when they lose power, but there may have been data being written to it that it never completed. I used HDDs for external offline storage, and i always wait for the drive to spin down before pulling it out of the dock. Also HDDs keep spinning after a proper OS shutdown too.
Extended warranties are bad because companies that provide that often try to weasel out of actually fixing your stuff, waste time, make excuses that this particular thing that's actually wrong isn't covered and play semantical game with the language of the warranty so that they can justify not honoring it. All in all, it is often just very difficult to actually use the extended warranty. What is a better solution is to buy electronics using specific credit cards that automatically extend manufacturer's warranty for free by 1 year.
Or just build your own. Not only can you pick & choose your own parts but each part has at least 3 year warranties most of the time. Prebuilts often have cheap components that have a high failure rate.
There is that, and as I work for a MSP, and I can assure you, every time we send a machine to be repaired under warranty, they always say "We may need to wipe the contents of the hard disk." I'm sorry. For a physical issue with battery or power (not charging); laptop screen. They may need to wipe the hard disk? That makes no sense at all haha Next. Apple is the absolute worst. It is always an ordeal going to the Apple store for warranty type, or repair type issues. Especially the having to make an appointment with a "genius" haha A GENIUS! What a joke. That you then have to sit down 15 to 30 minutes past your appointment time just for the guy/gal to tell you that they can't figure out the issue on the floor after they were twiddling their thumbs on a break while they supposedly have an appointment. Also the whole iCloud Apple ID sign in crap is another hurdle. We had a client that had an employee pass away, but because the employee used their personal iCloud sign in for the business device, Apple would not let us reset the device even though the laptop was purchased by the owner of the company, provided a receipt, etc... They needed a death certificate in order to allow a reset. Absolute nightmare and a waste of time.
I think it depends on who provides the extended warranty. Many of them are sold by retail outlets and are basically insurance policies. I used to do repairs for 3 of the big 3rd party extended warranty companies in my area and they would reject around half of the repair claims. The poor clients were left trying to fight them and most didn't bother. I would never pay for an extended warranty after working for those guys.
Me every day 😂 not my fault it’s the greedy company man smh definitely be trying to weasel out of warranty repair/do requires for shit that doesn’t even Matter in the long run tbh. And I hate refurbished parts because half the time the part is so junk it doesn’t even make it through testing & I have to do the repair all over again 😂 so are they really saving money paying me to do the same job twice? 🤷🏾♂️
@@unnamed715 This isn't just about desktops. It extends to components as well and things like phones, laptops, raspberry pi, game consoles, steamdeck, etc. Like that fiasco of a warranty with Asus Ally or whatever it's name.
"Most computers are going to die within 12 to 24 months". What absolute rubbish. Extended warranties aren't worth the paper they're written on, and sorry but if the difference between 8 and 16 Gb of RAM and 1Tb vs 2Tb storage is $50-$100, spend that money on the bigger/better components because that price is way cheaper than buying and upgrading those components yourself, and again the extended warranty is rubbish at best and just dead money. Plus, of course, as we're talking about desktops, they're completely modular and so easy to repair by just replacing the faulty component(s). Even if you really know nothing about computers, most people will know someone capable of a simple repair like installing a new hard drive or power supply. Paying a repair shop to do it wouldn't be as expensive in many cases as the cost of that extended warranty you seem to like so much. Bad advice, sorry!
@@AskYourComputerGuy When your machine suffers from DOA and is 12 month old you got scammed. DOA is Dead On Arrival, wich means it is dead the moment you take it out of it's box. If that box is already 12-24 month old you bought an old machine. Which is underpinned by the fact you talk about hard drives, where all consumer machines use SSD's now. In electronics we talk about a thing called child mortality, meaning faulty devices will most likely die within a couple of month. When they survive childhood there lifespan is normal. As a repair bussiness you are most likely biased: from all the computers sold you only get the faulty ones. But those are only a very small percentage of all the pc's sold. From an economical and statistical point of view extended warranty's are of no use.
@@gartnl This is correct and matches my experience working finance and seeing the P&L for such warranties, they are 80+% profit. If it buys you peace of mind, I guess its worth it, from a strictly financial standpoint its a raw deal.
A couple of minor points: 1) It is harder to code a virus to get onto Linux than to get onto Windows. This doesn't mean they can't. There just are a few more hoops to jump through 2) OOOPS 3) GIMP works for editing pictures if you want to do it on your own machine 4) None of "my" computers have ever failed in the first 2 years and that is quite a lot of machines counting mine, those of my family and my work machines
Near every website has a Linux based host. Simply because you can set one up feature packed with no software cost; but time to install and configure. The only way to get better performance without sacrificing security is only worth it if your income from it supports paying a LOT for something hyper specialized. Most successful attacks are either on a person or something didn't get updated to patch a flaw that was made public with the publishing of the patch.
MTBF == is Mean Time BETWEEN Failures. It is a statistical measurement, to see HOW OFTEN something fails,,,, not HOW SOON. This value is also used for systems that are considered “fixable” or “repairable”. It is also failureS with ‘s’ plural You are thinking of its ’cousin’ MTTF Mean Time TO Failure used for NON-fixable systems It is failure no ‘s’ singular A lamp used as an indicator burns out (fails once) and is replaced. Incandescent bulbs are not ‘fixable’ How soon/fast the part failed The equipment the indicator is in fails (no indicator ) but is ‘fixed’ by replacing the lamp. How often the equipment fails
To #4, I didn't mean MY computers - I was talking about when I get a call from a client about a "dead" pc, that pc is usually 12-24 months old in my experience 👍
None of my computers ever failed. They ran for years until I retired them and replaced them with new hardware. Maybe I was lucky. But from my experiences most systems seem pretty hearty. Oh, yeah, I did have 2 hardware failures. But they were both due to close lightning strikes.
Hackers are out for more than "money and information", if they hack a private computer they are often out after a connection and CPU time to build a bot net for a large attack, they can also use hacked computers to transport and distribute illegal files.
Been building computers for 30 years, and I've never had a computer fail. Also, the majority of the parts I use in the computer already come with a 3 year warranty or more. I would say, if your computer failed that fast on avg, you are buy junk to begin with, and instead of buying a warranty, buy a real computer, with good parts, and that computer should last you a life time, till you are forced to buy a new faster computer.
Yep, if buying component on Scamazon, one cannot be surprised things fail before their expected time. Too much fakery on that platform, I am surprised when supposedly professionals recommend shopping from there. I am a lay person and always buy computer or similar items from either the producer themselves, like Kingston, or from a trusted independent website. Only once I got myself a secondhand laptop from a private ebay seller and it turned out to be an excellent purchase. But cheap new fake items from Scamazon! Hell no!
🫂 Absolutely 100%. The biggest reason I have had for buying new computers, is that Drivers are no longer available for Printers or some other device. 2nd reason is new features and faster speeds are enticing.
I've been building computers for over 20 years and the ones I build myself are by far the longest lasting. It depends on who you get your parts from. Several have lasted for 7 or more years, at this point. Some of my clients insist on parts from manufacturers I don't trust and I make sure to let them know but it's their computer. We go with it. Pre-builts are generally a nightmare of low quality parts, especially PSUs.
I don't disagree. I was referring to the clients I get calls from, not my personal computers. Seems like every time I get that call, the pc is between 12-24 months old 🤷♂️
He's saying that of the computers that do fail, they on average usually fail between 12-24months. This would gel with my experience also. 30 years industry experience. Building and repairing computers for home users and businesses. For my business customers, very few of them have computers fail because they get their hardware recommendations from me. Usually it will be home users who come to me with something they brought themselves without my input.
My thoughts on refurbished electronics has always been that they are likely higher quality because they found any issues, fixed them, and then checked everything again. This means the diagnostics was even more robust as it had another round of checks.
Besides cosmetic damage and a naffed battery, that's what I've found with all refurbs I've handled. The ones from office workers are more-or-less bulletproof, and will last until they're no longer supported OS-wise.
You can't generalize that to be 100% of all cases. It's surely true for some of them. But consider other possibilities: The first user found some rare issue like Bluetooth 5 wasn't working only the earlier codec. They discovered that 35% of their devices weren't making good connection in the USB port, and the tester plugged one thing in and saw it working. So did you, and only discovered a year later it's degraded. The sad truth is, do you think near minimum wage Geek Squad or the the disgruntled employee at Amazon, really did a full 5 hour check-test on the equipment? Do you REALLY? The fact is that refurbished is a gamble. If you're getting 35% off and know the tests to run yourself, and you just get an open box, then hoorah! If you're getting 10% off but only a 30 day warranty instead of 1 year, and you don't do a thorough test of every possible damned little thing like even the F9 key, then you're just rolling dice. Gambling and telling yourself some reason that rationalizes why you think your lucky streak will never fail.
About "I don't have anything a hacker would care about". You have a computer, it's already something valuable for a hacker. A computer can be used to run a bot to make a lot of things including bouncing to hack another computer, mining bitcoins, ddos a server or an organization...
I used to try and explain to my Dad this concept. He run and owned his own business as a recording studio. He once had a HDD physically fail, and it cost many thousands for a tech company to rebuilt the drive and save what they could off the drive. He soon learnt the hard way, a backup drive is cheap and changing of practice with data you need to keep
I pay for OneDrive's 1TB plan. Since I'm not expecting Microsoft to go bankrupt any time soon, that works for me. I probably should have a physical backup of my important work too though. Oops.
@@damianjblack Not probably. Buy 2, better 3 Backup Drives and save your stuff. If you never loosed your data- good for you but i really don't want you to learn it the hard way. MS could be hacked, loose your Data because of someone either deliberately messes Servers up, There could be a roll out of a faulty Update, anything. I personally would never give any company free access to all MY personal, important Data into the hands of any Company, good or evil Apple or Microsoft which they- whenever the Government asks them, would not hesitate to share.
"dated" is usually a word out of the mouths of stupid people. When it comes to interfaces, what those types would call dated, usually just means more functional where controls are accessible rather than hidden.
What is omitted though is free opensource apps are only legally to allowed to use for personal use. It is actually illegal to use free software for commercial use. You arent allowed to use Open Office for your business for free, Same with Malwarebytes. I worked for a large business and got introuble for using free software for our users
@@Beeti1 Anything open source, you get the code. It's yours to modify and use. The only thing is attributes to those who wrote the original code. All open source, hence the source is open to the public.
In my last IT department, they referred to your PEBCAK term as PICNIC: problem in chair, not in computer! Great run through and jolly good advice regarding security.
@@NicolasGirls At least as far as some of the topics, for sure. IE extended warranty. As someone who has worked finance extended warranties are almost pure profit for the corp.
@@joewelch4933 ya when he started talking about, ya go ahead and waste your $ on a Ext warranty., i knew that was wrong. same with car warranty , they're all bs. Tell me this, what % of peeps that pay out for these ext warranty actually ever USE/NEED them,? not hardly any, just like insurance is BS, most peeps pay insurance on their car home etc, and never ever use it, and just lost all that $ to these snakes in the grass.
The one thing that made my blood gain degrees was him saying to not turn off PCs. I work as part of an IT group for my organization, Everyday there are a few issues that originate because the user has not restarted their PCs in over 2 weeks. I think the current record is about 200days
21:00 I work IT for a car dealership. I have ordered several "renewed/refurbished" laptops/tablets that are working great. At the time of purchase, I order Assurion insurance/warranty for as long as they allow. That is usually 3-4 years. One battery or monitor replacement pays for that policy.
Your comments about so many computers dying between 12 and 24 months has me scratching my head! I've been working with them now for over 50 years and I very very rarely ever see new machines that fail that soon. Maybe 3 or 4 in the last 10 years if that many. I'm wondering what quality or kind of machines you're talking about. I currently have somewhere between 80 and 100 elderly clients and have had most of them for the last 6 to 11 years, and I don't think I've had 5 computers fail completely in that time. I built my current computer just about 11 years ago now and have never had it completely die yet. Planning to build a new tower next spring to eventually be able to run Windows 11 since my current rock solid but old Asus motherboard does not have a TPM module and my particular i5 processor is not supported for 11.
For clarification, not MY machines, the machines I get called to diagnose hardware problems on almost always seem to be between 12-24 months. Often enough where I routinely look up serial numbers to see about warranty extensions for my clients
@@AskYourComputerGuy I've never heard of hardware besides HDD dying in less than 24 months. They easily last 5 years or more. Do your clients live in a dust filled areas and have many dogs and cats because they only way a PC will die like that is over heating over a long period of time. So when you open their case do you have to blow out the whole thing? There must be pounds upon pounds of dirt dust and hair. The other thing is they might be using their machine as a battering ram. Maybe they place their coffee on it and it spills? Because that simply does not make sense any other way.
As a seasoned computer industry professional, one of the most annoying things is contacting product support for warranty service and inevitably arguing with them about something that I'm more knowledgable than them about.
Well, I had a clear hardware failure where the touch screen did register multiple fingers all the time, especially after prolonged use. According to Lenovo it was a software problem. Disagreed, got a worse laptop with sleep issues in return, and it turned out to be a driver issue none-the-less. So that taught me something. There goes years of hardware training.
Coupla things... Interesting fact for UK users: standard 1yr warranties were introduced to protect the manufacturers. Where there is no stated warranty, it can be argued that an item that has failed after 18/24/60 months had not lasted a 'reasonable amount of time' and the manufacturer could be forced to fix or replace the item. With regard to using the power button to shut down a PC, it should be noted that Windows defaults to shutting down the computer properly unless the button is held down for four seconds. It can be changed in a setting called 'choose what my computer does when I push the power button', though I couldn't give directions to find it with the current Windows Settings fustercluck we have to deal with.
I bought a Dell XPS laptop from the Dell Outlet for about $1000.00 less than the IDENTICAL brand new with the same spec's. When I got it, it had a boot problem = missing boot image, and I kept getting a BIOS boot screen to call home to a PXE server or something like that. - I went to Dell and downloaded a Dell USB imaging tool for my model to reload the operating system, and booted to the USB device that the tool imaged. - Windows 11 booted just like new within 10-15 minutes and I was up and running perfectly fine. I think the average person with no computer skills or doesn't have the resources that I have - would send it back to Dell right away. I think it was well worth the $1000 savings for about 1-2 hours of my time re-imaging the Dell XPS Laptop.
That's terrible for them delivering it to you like that. Still, good buy. Don't buy the new ones though, everybody hates them. Everybody has thin bezels, lightweight construction and they actually screwed up the keyboards big time.
HOME computer repair IS expensive. I remember the days when I would charge $30/hr at a 2-hour minimum to come to someone's home in order to take a look at a slow or freezing desktop or laptop. In those days machines were slow, a simple PUP/Malware scan could take hours and you could easily be spending 4 hours at a client's place on average. These days I charge more because long hauls no longer pay.
Don't forget the myth number 15- "knowing all previously explained myths does Not make you wanna sub to the awesome computer tech channel " Liked. Favourited. Respect!
Powerful doesnt prevent the hardware from being faulty or failing. Things fail. You may not need the warranty most times but when it does happen it is the cheaper purchase than repairing in most cases. I just had a client who had a $1000 laptop die in year two. No extended waranty. Motherboard fried. $1000 for a repair so they ended up just paying a for a new one instead.
@@seanbroccoli2698 there you go, expensive warranty, I rather buy a new laptop. In my work i have a more than 2 year old laptop still working perfectly. The same the rest of my teammates. Even my mother has like a 8 year old laptop working just fine. It failed some times but system failure, not hardware. It is a scam there is no way to justify it.
Thank for the video I have passed this onto my daughter to look at as she has just purchased a refurbished computer, so it will be interesting for her, I am now 78 and used and made my own computers for many years and never had a virus but I am very careful so there you go loved the video. Bob in the UK
I always buy renewed/refurbished machines. They are just as good, and cheaper. I bought my dad a nice laptop. Had a 2 TB SSD 32 GB RAM, and an i7 processor. 500 bucks. He has had it for 5 years and still uses it no problem.
Who you get it from matters a lot. The word "refurb" has different meanings to different sellers. With a refurb you want to already have a long 4 page checklist in place and go through everything. You thought you tested everything but then no, later you found out that the bluetooth doesn't work, or the wifi 5GHz works but not the 2.4GHz which you didn't test, or the F9 key which you never thought you'd use, was dead, or when the SSD is 90% full it dies because it was already 10% gone already, and so on. Bottom line here is it's a calculated gamble. You can position yourself to be like the casino and have the odds more in your favor. But you're still taking a risk unless you get the exact same length of warranty -- which usually you don't -- it's 30 days or tough schitt.
@@Äpple-pie-5k That is true sometimes too. If you do not know about what you are buying, then you may have a harder time finding a system. However, I am an I.T. Professional, and I bought the machine from a reputable recycling center that is near by. They also give a 90 day warranty, and 7 day return window. But yes. You are right about it looking like a good deal, and it ends up not being a good deal. That is why I encourage people to research the machine they are about to buy, look into a return/warranty period, and get a local technician to run diagnostics within that return or warranty period.
Bought a dell workstation with an i7 32 GB ram 512gb SSD (expandable storage bay as well) and an Nvidia quadro 4gb for 250 off of dells refurbished site and it has done me really well for the last couple years .I love it!
@@animeloveer97 Totally solid value. A shame the Windows navy of ships is going to Davey Jones' locker with their current business plan and treating users as "frogs in a pot boiling"-- it's their actual real internally published strategy.
I hate using my Mac for work, but one of the coolest features I've seen on it is the battery management. It will monitor how often it is plugged in and under-charge itself to better maintain the battery over time. I've left mine plugged in and it has slowly allowed itself to back away from max charge over the last couple of months. If I unplug it and go on battery power, it will charge back to 100% when I get back to the wall.
Here's a funny story about being ignorant about how computers work. A girlfriend called once and said, my internet isn't working. I said call your internet company. She said she did, but they wouldn't help her. So, I went over her house. Sat down, turned computer on and opened the browser. It was up. I said, there's nothing wrong with it. She said, just wait. A minute later, her computer totally shut down. She said, see? My internet isn't working! I said, that isn't your internet, that's your computer! She said, yeah, my internet. I spent the next hour trying to get her to understand the difference between the computer and the internet. Told her, the guy and the internet company was probably all confused. After explaining it to her, she just said, there you go again, speaking the kings English. Lol. It turned out, her power supply was full of dust, and was over heating. I opened it up (you should never open it unless you know what you're doing) and cleaned it out, and it worked perfectly.
@@hengineer Ugh, don't go there. My internet connection isn't working. No, you live in an urban neighborhood and your ISP gives you this crappy Wifi router, internet is doing fine with a cable, see. Which is why I always take an ethernet cable and USB ethernet adapter with me nowadays. And a Wifi analyzer app on my phone of course.
The tip at the end is spot on. Fortunately I no longer do desktop support, but I did for over a decade. It was always the same users getting infected and having problems.
About the power button. Ever since we switched from "at" to "atx" mainboards and power supplies back in the late 1990s, the power button has been soft, not hard. Pressing (and releasing) it sends a signal to the mainboard, which signals the operating system. You can configure what the operating system does then, whether shutdown, hibernate, or whatever. This should be the same as selecting the option from the start menu. If you hold it for a number of seconds, then it will do a forcible shutdown, which can definitely result in file system corruption and data loss. But even then, i doubt it would physically damage the drive. The drive should have enough residual power to park its heads.
@@AskYourComputerGuy Yeah, that press and hold is essentially force the psu to turn off. No one should do it unnecessarily. But to press normally in [desktop] windows, is [almost] the same as shutting down, saving us some clicks.
@@AskYourComputerGuy yeah press and hold should only be for when the computers is misbehaving and you can't get to the shutdown menu. Also with Windows 10 and on, for the benefit of your viewers, you really should do a "restart" (if your computer is misbehaving AND you can still get to the shutdown menu), because a "shutdown" in Windows 10/11 is not a full shutdown, memory isn't fully flushed and drivers aren't fully unloaded. It's what was called "fast shutdown" in Win8. The fast shutdown also facilitates the fast start up. You can disable fast startup, which will turn the shutdown into a proper full shutdown. Whereas a "restart" is a full shutdown of the operating system, followed by a start up. You can do a full shutdown (without a restart) but you have to do so via the recovery menu in settings.
I somewhat disagree with your idea that simply having a smaller perceived desktop market share means there is no value in targeting machines running Linux. Open and monitor an sshd port and just see how many bot attacks your system will log in a day!!! Its crazy. Linux, as it essentially hosts the web, cloud storage and services is and has been for decades the number one high value target. It happens just the same in the Linux world, its just different. Any system that is "UNIX like" will always be, at its foundation, more secure than Windows due to the way the system was first designed. It's simply considerably more difficult to gain elevated privileges, but not imposable, obviously. The user remains, as on any system the weakest link.
Refurbished computers are great bargain these days as for the last 8+ years CPU speed has grown VERY LITTLE. I still use my 12 year old PC to run modern 3D games. All that has been upgraded ONCE, is my graphics card. So DO NOT waste your money on new PCs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will have to say extended warranties. I purchased a gaming desktop two years ago and have had issues with it the GPU. I had it looked at three times and had to pay for the cost of shipping, around $200. Windows 11 was reinstalled every time, I could have done most of the work that they did. They did install a new GPU that lasted five months. Last week the GPU must have died, with green lines running through my monitor, after a while it turned black. I am very lucky because Costo was very understanding with my PC out of warranty, the offered me to return it and buy a new PC. You answered my question about extended warranties because I am going back to Costco to purchase their warranty
Turning the computer off with the power button, the same button that turns it on shuts the computer down the same way as clicking on start, power, shut down; it doesn't kill running processes like hitting the reset button or holding down the power button for 3+ seconds.
@@AskYourComputerGuy Most people wouldnt do that In my experience though. Majority would just hit the button. I often struggle instructing people to hold it when theres an issue that requires it because they just press it and by default it usually just goes to sleep with Laptops.
It's awesome that you included the primary problem people have with computer-usage: PEBCAK! ! ! Although much of PEBCAK is rooted in design paradigms of Sir William Gates III, Steve Ballmer, and friends, considering a computer to be a mere appliance and refusing to learn about what computers do, how they do what they do, and how to care for them are the foliage that makes PEBCAK such a prickly, thorny, and prolific issue.
Most of the points, absolutely on the button. But I have never had either a personal computer or laptop die in less than about 5 years. Batteries may wear out but that's replaceable. And I build computers for friends and as a hobby, done about 60/70 so far, mostly had only a few software or memory compatibility problems. Maybe one defective motherboard. Edit> And one bad stick of memory!
Must agree. I've been doing the same since Windows 3.11 days and I've had the odd RAM chip failure or HDD fault in early use but very uncommon. Incidentally, I had my first CPU fail in 40 years this month on a new Dell.
Been in the Digital Realm since Nineteen and Sixty Nine, and I have truly lost count of actual failed ‘hardware’. Discrete. RTL, TTL, IC, resistors, capacitors, wires, etc etc etc. I once tore my hair out for a WEEK, over a system that would load Windows OK, but fail to load Linux. FINALLY traced it (I sear, electron by electron, this will NOT beat me) to a faulty IDE cable. A manufacturing defect had one line throwing spurious “noise”, resulting in ‘Bad Data’ from the drive. Windows ignored it, and of course led to a slightly unstable system . Linux refused to accept it. Sealed my belief that “windows is crap” BSOD.
As a business owner, I bought a lot of 100 Renewed computers - they all lasted their 5-year depreciation period and were sold for half the purchase price to users who could still use them. I bought one of those sold after - it still works for my basic needs. That info was really valuable.
Switching Off your Computer when it is not in use is a Great Idea! Components die quicker when they have electricity flowing through them (Electron Migration). Additionally, anything that is Mechanical, like Hard Drives, Fans, etc, WILL die faster the more they are in use. Heat is also going to be more of a problem if the machine is never powered off.
Assuming your computer has sensible sleep/hibernate settings, there is not much difference. PSU's die faster when switched on and off at the mains due to inrush shock and heat expansion. Modern designs handle this better.
@@AskYourComputerGuy it's not only experience or exception. You might not experience it if you change computers every few years, but it's a hard given and can be calculated for most individual components. Electrolytic capacitors are the low hanging fruit in this case. They have a very well defined life span as a function of ripple current and temperature (every 10 degrees higher will wear them out a factor 2 faster, with the defined lifespan usually given at max temp and max ripple), but as JamesMcCloskey writes (and I write in my other comment), mechanical parts will be subject to wear, and even semiconductors can be affected though they will usually not fail first (unless 13th or 14th gen intel in which certain types slowly fry their core with bad voltage management).
@@gerydblackmore5484 the "in motion" myth, is because such a worn down computer will usually fail when booted cold after a power outage after years of continuous operation. In reality, it fails to boot because it was already fatally worn down and only running on the skin of its teeth because warmth will keep some parts working for a bit longer.
Very respectable point at the end. The biggest threat to your computer is you. The best antivirus is smart computing. You can pay through the nose for fancy security software, but if you're not careful about how you use/treat your device then you'll still have problems. A person who is cautious, doesn't blindly click unknown links, doesn't visit unknown/sketchy websites without an ad blocker (obviously, whitelist those you use all the time and want to support). This person can use their computer "naked". Essentially meaning nothing more than the security features built into their OS.
I would be cautious about extended warranties and buying used/renewed PC parts. The assumption is that retailers are going to play fair; that doesn't even happen in the movies. If you have to go to Best Buy to get them to do a malware scan, which you can do for free, and you willing to pay $125 for that, then by all means it's your money. Extended warranties make the assumption that whatever it is that went wrong with your computer is what they're going to fix. Just like with smart phones, you get an extended warranty and you find out that whatever it is wrong with your smart phone is not covered with the warranty and they want you to buy a new one. Used or renewed parts is a gamble because you're assuming that the seller wants to be fair when in fact all they want to do, like he said, it's clear the shelves. This is especially true if you're buying from eBay or even NewEgg or Amazon; sometimes you just don't know what you getting and once you get something that doesn't work right you're going to be pretty much stuck with it. Some of the TH-cam influencers have taken some of these vendors to task and they also caution about getting used/renewed parts. A hard drive with a one-year warranty is not too bad, but you don't know if that used hard drive still has malware on it. A used video card/GPU may have been used in crypto mining and run almost to its last breath and you have no guarantee that you are going to get a refund. It would've been better to state which parts are generally okay to buy used, but I would not buy used storage or GPU's. You have to look at your budget and see what you can afford. The general rule is that for some of these PC parts, your budget should allow you to buy the item twice. If you have to scrimp and save and sell your stuff at a yard sale just to buy a PC part, you probably need to relax a bit and let the feeling pass.
Not a fan of extended warranties either, refused one for even our smart tv. Just got the first month for free and made sure to cancel in the right time. That was for some additional features, like pixel break. But I took a leap and bought a second hand business class laptop from a private seller on ebay. The price was great. I was nervous about it, knowing the risks and I was ready to lose those money. But the machine is solid and works great. It is my learning bitch, for Linux. I cannot fault it, really.
If you buy the computer direct from the manufacturer, use their extended warranties. Cheaper, same or better coverage as factory warranty, and sometimes offer onsite warranties and next business day or 3 business day service. Meaning they come to you for warranty issues.
Like I noted in a general reply, an issue with many extended warranties is that the terms often allow the warranty company to refund whatever you paid for the policy, instead of fixing the problem. They can eject from the deal at any time and there is no recourse. Allstate did this to me. Now, places like Amazon and Walmart offer that warranty at time of purchase so it may look like a good idea. You are buying the one the store offers. Except that means nothing. They can turn their backs on you if they want and they owe you nothing. The retailer likewise owes nothing. They suggested that extended warranty for reasons, after all, including being paid to present it to you. But it's not their problem if the warranty walks away.
@@LatitudeSky I agree, retailer warranties are rarely worth the paper they are printed on. That's why if I want a decent warranty, with onsite support not return to base, I buy direct from the manufacturer. I buy HP's in that case. I have been recommending HP's for years for my customers, and recommend including the 3yr nbd onsite warranty (which they have very rarely had to invoke). Sometime you might miss out on good retailer deals but honestly if I was buying of a retailer I would find one with a HP that HP themselves can't match the price for, and would forgo the warranty. Another good option these days is Lenovo. I wouldn't bother with extended warranties for those.
Windows Activation: I had to re-purchase Windows after upgrading my motherboard/CPU/RAM because when I built the computer I bought the OEM license. When I repurchased it over the phone they said the new license is tied to my Microsoft account and can move between computers, so long as I only have it activated on one at a time; that's pretty cool.
❤Some of your myths are indeed myths, but extended warranties are like a bad gamble - like going to Vegas and playing a casino game with huge house odds against you - sure, you might win, but you lose FAR more often, WHY do you think the companies push the warranties SO HARD, because, they have a HUGE markup i.e. computers rarely fail other than physical abuse, such as spilling liquid into the system etc. which is usually not covered. ❤
Interesting take on the extended warranty... Thinking back on my hardware failures (desktop mobo, laptop mobo, monitor flickering, several HDD failed, SSD end of life)... The SSDs failed kinda early, giving me read errors 2-3 years after purchase. But the other components were at least 4-5 years old, and the monitors even 10 years old. The trouble with failed HDDs and SSDs, is that saving the data off a failing drive is way more stress and pain than its worth. Its the only component I look at its age, and stop saving important files to. It can still be used for temporary files, or as a game disk. But if the disk dies, there is nothing worth saving on.
@@AskYourComputerGuy I should have read the feed before commenting. But that is wild. Far too many channels I watch are promoting such a thing. They need to check their advice before saying Linux cannot be infected. I've been infected before, despite the heightened security.
So, videos like this are good for me. At 60 years old, my combined computer usage over the last 27 years is probably less than someone from a third world country. I got my first computer from my brother in 1997. He was all over it when home computers were something new. I really had no interest in them but act thankful for his generosity. The computer sat in my living room for the better part of 5 years until he gave me another one. I rarely use one at work where I am a truck mechanic for a public utility. Even today, I use my work computer to access repair information and truck parts. Otherwise my work computer just sits on my desk. Over the years my brother gave me a few more computers untilbaouple years ago he gave me a MacBook. It's a very nice laptop and I actually started playing around with it but haven't a clue how it works. Videos like this kind of point me in the right direction. For instance, I turn the thing off when I am not using it. Now I know that iit sn't necessary. It's things like that I need to know. Thanks for the info
@@sahhull For the last 17 years I have been doing little more than transfer case and axle repairs. Occasionally a manual transmission repair. You would be amazed at what these guys can destroy just to get to a pole in the middle of nowhere. But you are correct; we have some young bucks in our diagnostic shop that are absolutely amazing with a lap top. It’s a whole new world than when I started. We have 22 garages in the service area and at one time we all took care of trucks from bumper to bumper, and the work was more predictable. Valve jobs, re-sleeving cylinders, clutches, and hydraulic work. Each garage was tooled to do everything. Then about 18 years ago the company went through a re-structuring and closed several garages. The rest were assigned specific tasks- one garage does strictly hydraulic work. Another garage does drivability work, my garage does axles and transmission work.. and so on. That way the company only has to tool each garage for a specific task. The guys doing the drivability work are all young bucks that are good at what they do. No doubt, much smarter than me. In some ways it makes me wish I was about 30-40 years younger just to understand what the hell they are talking about with some of the trucks. But, then again I am retiring in about 3 years and it all won’t matter.
@@NonstickMilk Im a truck mechanic by trade but Im a senior test engineer with a masters degree in automotive engineering.. Ive been in the lubricating oil and fuel development field of the last 37 years. We also do independent engine testing. So I get to forensically strip, measure and rate brand new trucks, put them together and send them out on the road... After 200,000 to 500,000miles (depending on the test). We bring them back in, strip them down and have a look whats happened.I could retire now, but presuming the work is still there. I'll have to retire at 70... So Ive got 15 years left. I like the job, its interesting.
@@sahhull Wow. That does sound like an outstanding career. Also sounds like a lot of fun. You get to see things that most of us never get a chance to see. You’ve done really well for yourself and I can see why you wouldn’t retire if you didn’t need to. That’s awesome.
You forgot to mention that Windows license can also be tied to your Microsoft account, so if you buy a new computer, you can take your Windows with you, and use that license on a completely different machine without buying a new Windows key.
@@Äpple-pie-5k I bought a prebuild, logged in to my MS account and after few months I swapped every component except for the case. Motherboard was changed twice, CPU twice, RAM twice and GPU twice as well. License is normally tied either to your MS account, as I´m doing, or to your motherboard. So it doesn´t matter, if you have an OEM system, or you build your own from the ground up, you can link your Windows license to your Microsoft account regardless and therefor I use the very same Windows license form the beginning.
Hit and miss. Most of your myths werent myth just ignorant oversimplifications of something that is slightly true or was true at some point. Most of the responses were slightly less ignorant oversimplifications of how things mostly are based on better but not a full knowledge. Is it just me or are the both sides the same?
now that explains why when I was in school when I was a kid they would tell us to never press the power button to turn off the computer and use the menu to turn it off and got unhappy with us when we pressed power button to turn it off I never understood why until today because personally using my own computer. I'm turning it off on the power button a lot of times never had a problem over the years, but now it makes total sense that you explained it to us for those who didn't know that thanks for the information. I will no longer turn off my computers or anybody else's computers from the power button again
25:50 It also depends on the drive. If your boot drive (C:) is nearly full your PC will slow down, and windows may even WARN YOU about that and suggest you free up some space. If you have other drives it doesn't really matter if they are full, unless you keep games and/or software on those drives that you run often. USB flash drives (Ventoy) and NAS doesn't matter if they are full, since it isn't a main part of the operating system for your OS to constantly access.
you see most computers die within 24 months? Maybe I misunderstood. I did pay for a second year warranty as it was only $28 from Lenovo onsite warranty. Lenovo has the best prices on their warranty
I have computers that are 15+ years old and they still work fine for what I use them for. I have a quite new windows computer but that one is slooow, it wants to update to windows 11 but I don't know about that.. The old computers are running Linux, sometimes whit windows in a virtual machine.
Refurbished does not mean open box. If a customer just changed his mind it is literally called open box. Refurbished means it was broken and they fixed it. This repair requires training. If the amount of new devices failing is small, they will just chuck DOA devices into a landfill. For them to bother training staff to repair and rebox the broken items and sell as refurbished requires a massive amount of such items. Either due to a problem with the item, or simply due to sheer scale of sales.
Refurb sellers are almost never fixing anything. They buy devices by the pallet that were returned or pulled from the shelf for any number of reasons. They check them, trash the crap that doesn't work, and resell the stuff that works. They might blow out any dust and do a factory reset, maybe replace a cracked screen. Anything wrong with a circuit board is toast.
Probably true, especially compared to the local PC guy. Problem is when your tech support starts to include neighbors, remote family and in my case kayaking friends :P
I handled some of the maintenance for computers at our unit. I know that last point so well. I'm pleased that you said it! In the service deference is expected to people who outrank you. I'm just happy that it was their budget that was tapped and not ours, when inept users got new computers.
9:55 - Let's see if I can anticipate this answer. There is this thing called "thermal shock" - the physical effect of turning the computer on or off and having everything inside go from cold to hot and back again. This ages the equipment faster than just letting it come to temperature and operating.
Yeah, that's a bunch of bollocks right there. Almost all of your devices will age faster when they are hot. Fans definitely run out faster, PC collects more dust, and remember that the components like the CPU, GPU, SSD and therefore PSU use power depending on the use case, which means that they are having "thermal shocks" anywho.
As a business owner myself for 16 years, I too take offense to the fact this happens. And I know this because I've gone undercover (ala Linus) and gotten no less than 4 "possible issues", ranging from super cheap to ridiculous. I've always been honest with my clients, no exception. My reputation is paramount to me and the success of my business 👍
If you are running linux, you probably don't get viruses just because you're computer skilled and understand better, and recognize better the threads out there.
Disagree with one point- Turning computer off. As a electronics repairer, your Desktop power supply is running power through the caps which dry out from heat and power filtering and when you turn it off for 12-16 hours for the night, the cost and those parts simply arnt being burn out. Also the fans are spinning and eventually the sleeve dries and grinds. The M/B chips and and heat sinks are baked and paste dries out if on twice as quick. ANY part taking power and getting warm/hot as less life span than only running 12 hours instead of 24. NOW, if you only want 3 years and then buy another computer, then leave it on but you have to pay for the extra power even if only idling or less in hibernation. Also, while you are away, what if a virus enters and you could see it , but now asleep? Leaving a computer unattended connected to the internet can only be problematic as you system could be hacked all night with you asleep. Fire risk left on all night? I have always turned my computers off and NEVER had a PS fail or M/B fail. Caps dry out naturally, but certainly faster when power going through them and heat on all parts is the enemy of electronics lifetime..
About the power button... Most modern computers have the power button so that it first sends a signal to the operating system to initiate a power off sequence. If you hold it down a long time (usually 4 seconds) it does an immediate power off. The irst instance (momentary power button) works the same way as asking the computer to turn itself off, and is OK to do. Of course the BIOS must be setup to make this function properly, but most of the time it is.
Yep, found this out on an older Dell, but the damage was done to the old, and obsolete graphics card until I realized I could have just momentarily pressed the button and it'll shut down properly. Hind site, moving to Win 11 forced me to upgrade that card to start with as being obsolete (Ferni that Nvidia had deprecated recently so no support for DX 12 and WDDM. Now I run a 2017 based Dell Optiplex with a newer graphics card running 11 without issue.
For the power button: a short press on it acts just like you pressing the "shut down" button in the start menu. Your computer will go through the same steps, and will not do anything bad. It's holding down the button to force it off that can potentially be bad, and should only be used in an emergency.
Speaking of online crime and identity theft; some of the worst places to trust any of your personal information is with the government; employees and trustees of the government are rarely if ever held accountable for breaches of security and as a result are more likely to do stupid things with your information, like take your information home with them on a laptop; to visit sites on their government computer that they should not, and to put government computers online where the machines are not adequately protected.. Three letter agencies associated with security seem the worse; every few years I get notice from the government that some part of my information was involved in a breach of one sort or another; mostly from those agencies associated with security, and well, IRS and Social Security. With the rise of illegal immigration and woke ideologies in the government where DEI seems to be a mainstay, it's gotten worse in the past decade or so. DEI does not only mean based upon race or identity; some idiots in the government thought it was a good idea to hire and trust those that were in prisons for one reason or another - were trustworthy to work with citizen records for things like healthcare.. Yep, the worst caretaker of your personal information - is the government. If you are lucky, you'll only receive a notification of the breech.
Good explanations and wise advice. We have been using Linux systems since 2003 and Artix Linux since 2019. I have never installed an anti-virus and have never had a virus. Some PCs from 2010 still work flawlessly.
@@Okurka. Mine is powered by regulated herd of cats. PS FFS, Dude, I had literally a disco from my light bulbs(they are still operational) in some UK town I was living - that "disco" lasted for a month or so - I lost one HDD around that time as well. So, yeah - I don't regulate power supply, but those who do don't care about my HDDs.
@@ewfse364u35jh Flashing incandescent lights are already heated up when they flash so don't tend to break; cold incandescent lights that suddenly get a high electric current are the ones that tend to break. Literally.
I've read up on the user guide because I was curious about how to handle the battery, when I got my laptop. The company actually recommended to leave the battery connected whenever possible and to unplug it every 2-3 months to let the battery run below 10% before plugging it in again. So, if you're still unsure, read up on the battery in the user guide of the device you bought.
To write a virus for Linux is so much more difficult due to the much tighter file permission structure. Can't be installed without authentication, but it's still possible by installing an imposter package disguised as something else. But the security structure of Windows is still a joke after all these years.
One more reason is actually linux's heavy dependency on package managers eliminating one of the most common attack vectors of viruses. Another, is Linux users generally being less susceptible to malicious online downloads due to higher average technical expertise
Can't install as a system package without authentication. But can still install something to your home directory and run as your user. Plenty of damage it can get up to while running in a user account.
As for hard drive space, I had a user who complained her computer was very slow. When I connected to it I found the C drive was full. Luckily there was a D drive that was virtually empty. I moved many files from C to D and then re-directed many programs etc to start using the D drive. Fixed her problem.
I disagree. Deleting system32 sped up my pc, then spraying the motherboard with cold water stopped the overheating and kept the temperature down drastically.
I've had computers all my life, and not one of them died within 12-24 months. I never get warranties on anything, it's a rip off. Of course I did stop buying after 2014, I still use a Windows 7 computer that has been going strong since about 2012. The newer ones may very well suffer from deeper levels of planned obsolescense. That along with my disdain for higher versions of windows keeps me buying used machines.
Did you modify 7 with a modern AV, edit the hosts file, or do anything like that to try and keep it safe in the modern world, or do you just not connect it to the internet?
On most computers built within the last 10+ years, the power button does not immediately power off the computer. Instead, it causes Windows to start the same shutdown routine as if you click Start -> Power -> Shutdown. In fact, you can even go into Windows settings and set it to go into sleep or hibernation mode instead. Only the kill switch on the power supply will cut off all power immediately, but that switch is located in the back of the computer, which is hard to reach and doesn't exist on laptops.
I've worked on computers since the 80s as a teen, and this guy is full of sh*t. Out of all the PCs I've personally owned, I only had one pc die on me due to hardware failure that was not easily fixed by switching out a part. The only way that makes sense is if you are purchasing a group of them to install in an office, and that's because it's a numbers game. I've installed and maintained personal and business installation for both government and shops. Extended warranties are a waste of money. There are fewer and fewer moving parts in PCs these days. Save your money, and instead of getting an extended warranty, put it towards new parts because eventually you'll either want to upgrade a piece of your PC or will need to replace an SSD which you should already have a client cloud service to back up your crucial files so if one fails you are covered. Most parts, if they are going to fail, will do so almost immediately these days unless it's due to something like - poor air circulation.
Banks will never email you to request personal information, account numbers, or passwords, and they will also never call you for such information. So beware of fishing emails or fake phone calls.
I didn't know about the license. Everything else, i did. Well, i did know that if you reinstall windows using the tool that is in windows to do so, you don't have to. But thanks for telling that. The last one, i only say that, when it is actually true. If the repairs would be too much, you have to admit it would be true. But with the examples you tell, you are totally right. I can't remember how many people who believed that, when the only thing needed, was reinstall windows. One of them accepted it, and was surprised when i was done with their pc. Thanks for this awesome video
Modern adult sites are often less dangerous and less scummy than "regular" sites. Adult sites usually better police their ad networks, so malicious messages encouraging the user to download malware or to call a phone number for scam tech support are rare. In addition, their advertising is less intrusive: Visiting a regional newspaper site will often produce overlays that need to be closed just to read the article. However, the ads on adult sites are usually more straightforward, often just consisting of watching a 30-second video.
10:51 Fun fact, back in 2002 I bought several 200GB Maxtor harddrives. Yes, Maxtor. The infamous terribly bad harddrives everybody was talking about, being hardcore failing harddrives. Well, 7 out of 10 bought between 2002 and 2005 I still have and they still work (thank you Pluto for Sata backwards compatibility). WD however, I'm not specifically happy about. But others I know hate Maxtor or HGST and absolutely adore WD drives. Same for Lexar. Lexar wasn't all that good back in 2018 with their first line of nVme's, but fast forwards 2023/2024 they're one of the best to have in terms of durability. My Lexar 500gb nVme (I don't need more) drive is being punished every day and it's never failing on me (health status is 100% after 9 months of hardcore usage).
Yes, agreed. Just like it doesn't have background removal. Its not Photoshop for sure. But for most people, it's "enough". I use it to create my thumbnails for my videos, and it handles layers and layer manipulation beautifully. Not everyone needs the advanced features that Photoshop does provide 👍
I got a “refurbished” Lenovo ThinkPad from Amazon with 16 gigs RAM and a 1TB SSD with Win10 Professional - for less than $200. And it is doing GREAT!! The only “drawback” is that it will not accept Win11 - but I am looking into setting up a dual-boot to LINUX.
I'm still using Windows 7. Except for my backup desktop, and another laptop I have, those are windows 10, but my other laptop is windows 7. They are really just backups and I keep important files on a couple of external drives. The one windows 7 laptop is really bad, it's USB port has corrupted several flash drives when copying files, but for some reason it still connects to a better older version of our apartment complex wifi that doesn't have security restrictions when all my other devices, including the windows 7 desktop, cannot. It's a real puzzle to me.
@@UselessKnowbody If windows 7 was still supported and worked well, I would probably use it instead of 10 or 11. The settings menu and the old god mode folder are so nice, and so much better in 7 than 10 or 11.
Thanks for the information. I keep waiting for you to talk about the most important issue for all electronics, and you almost did. It is ELECTRICAL SURGES. You mentioned lightning, but that is just one type of surge and certainly the worse type, but even without lightning there are surges often that I believe are slowly causing damage to sensitive parts until that part eventually fails. I get six to seven years of life on average out of my laptops. I have a whole house surge protector, Siemens, wired into the breaker box and a Tripp Lite one that all my electronics are on. I can hear the Tripp LIte cycle many times in a week, indicating a surge has occurred in one of the protectors, and this with absolutely no storm activity within hundreds of miles. In addition to surges from the power company, it is also common to have small surges within the houses electrical system from high electrical draw appliances cycling on and off. Maybe you can test many of the surge protectors on the market and do a video of your results?
It's actually in the works. Trying to get my favorite brand of UPS to sponsor one of my videos. May just have to bite the bullet and spend some money, but you're 100% right about different types of power issues. Brown-outs cause way more damage than electrical storms IMO
As a retired person living on a fixed income I now buy reconditioned machines. My first one which has Windows I bought probably 10 years back and newer one just over a year as a program insisted on 10 or newer so went with 11 only cost 400 Canadian delivered.
My problem with extended warranties isn't the possible need for them, is whether or not you can collect on them. You need to check what they do and do not cover. You also need to know how much hassle/grief a particular company gives you when trying to make a claim. There are probably some good companies that don't try to claim that such and such video your warranty or that the problem is really being caused by something that isn't covered, and so on. So, the question isn't whether or not the warranty is worth because your computer might fail, but rather are you buying something that you'll be able to use. If collecting on a warranty is very difficult to almost impossible, then yeah there essentially a waste of money.
The bonus was awesome... It's the same reason moving to a new town for a fresh start doesn't solve the teenager rebellious problems... Baggage is what you take with you... to the new computer too. You just might copy the problem right into the new computer as you restore your irreplaceable memories. (Jeff Foxworthy's college computer hard drive)
27:13 ... about the power button. 1) On most PCs a short press on the power button simply triggers the shutdown process, same as from the Start Menu. 2) PCs when "off" are not truly off. There are some parts that have to be powered for when you press the power button to start them up... So the main supply is always on. Some people take a practice of turning off the AC power to their computers, either through the "baby sitter" switch on the back or by turning off a power bar. This can seriously shorten the lifetime of the internal power supply or power brick as huge spikes of current are drawn to charge up the internal capacitor banks during start-up. The repeated "inrush current" will eventually accumulate enough micro-damage in your power supply that it will fail. The best bet -- and the way these are designed -- is to use the soft power switch on your device and leave the AC power on all the time. This avoids repeated inrush and lightens the load on your power supply's AC inputs substantially. (BTW ... this also applies to audio equipment, routers, NAS boxes and on and on... best to use the soft power switch on the front, leaving the AC power always on.) There was a time when half of my "computer won't come on" calls were fried power supplies because people thought they were saving energy and turned the AC on and off.
Not all computer stores charge you based on the customers computer knowledge. We charged nothing until we found out what the actual problem was and knew how much work time and materials would be involved.
That's great business practice. Same here, I apply my diagnostic fee to the total bill. Some shops charge diagnostic, then repair cost, then pickup and delivery (both free for me). My reputation is everything to me and I get a ton of referral business because I'm honest first. Fair second.
@@AskYourComputerGuy Yes, we gave free diagnostics and once we knew what was wrong with the system we would call the customer and give them our estimate. If the customer declined the repair, it cost them nothing. We charged $56/hr for in store repairs. We charged $112/hr for at home service which did not include free diagnostics. The reason for the higher rate for in home repair was because our technician was only working on one customer vs. working on 8 at a time on a bench and it also covered travel expenses.
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
One of the most frustrating things for me when I was the local "computer guy" is when someone paid money for a piece of useless or even harmful software, they didn't want to hear that it was useless or harmful. Usually this was with anti virus or all manner of "security" software. The machine comes in running very slowly. I identify that it was the four different anti-viruses they were running simultaneously causing the problem. I remove them and demonstrate what was causing the problem. They're happy, but two weeks later they return angry with the same problem, and I discover they reinstalled all those anti-virus programs. They paid good money for those anti-viruses, they convinced themselves that they "need" it, and they don't like to hear they wasted their money.
1000% yes. I agree
I had someone call me out to their computer running like a dog. Their friend had set it up for them apparently he knew computer stuff. This machine had three AV security suites running concurrently, a live background disk imaging software (Norton Ghost) running backing up everything the system did live to external disks, and a host of other pieces of unnecessary software running (driver updates utilities, registry cleaners etc). I removed everything except one of the AV suites and disabled the live disk imaging and instead just set a scheduled nightly incremental backup regime. His computer was running beautifully. Responsive and useful again.
A week later he told me his computer was running like crap again, so I went out there and ALL THE STUFF I'd removed and disabled had been put back and turned on again. His friend had been to visit and saw what I'd done and "fixed" it. I turned it all off again and immediately the computer started running responsively. A few days later he called and said it was running slow again! I asked if his mate had been and played with his computer and he said yes, and I said well I can come and fix your computer again, but I'm just going to do the same thing and turn all that crap off. He elected to not get me out again.
He had some emotional investment in seeing his mate as some kind of legend and he never really believed me that it was all the crap his mate swore by that was causing the issues.
Then tell them next time they have a problem to go somewhere else. Nothing more irritating than people who ask a professional for help and then ignore what they say. That is my life with at least one idiot.
@@BurrPulch yeah I'm probably too polite, but they were a friend of a friend so I was trying to look after my friend more than anything.
I hated desktop computers. Always had problems. These days, I only use a cellphone for all things on the Internet. Computers are too expensive to replace. Cellphones seem to be better protected from bugs.
*Addressing Myth no 6*
Back in the day, I was a computer maintenance person in our Air Force. Not any kind of software engineer, I was simply responsible for such things as replacing power supplies, HDD's CD drives, monitors, graphics cards and peripherals such as keyboards, mice, data tablets, trackballs, scanners and printers etc. We had a "fleet" of about 100 to 150 desktop workstations running Windows NT, and later XP. Among that fleet, we had some computers that were turned on every morning, and turned off every night, some that were turned on on Monday mornings, and would remain on all week, before being turned off on Friday nights, and the rest were left running 24/7. What we found was that generally, the computers which were left on 24/7 were by far the most reliable, and caused us the least maintenance issues, while the computers that were turned on and off every weekday were the least reliable, and caused us the most maintenance issues.
That sounds about right. Every computer I've ever owned, since the early 2000s, has failed due to a mechanical failure on boot and will likely ruin your day.
Ironic isn't it? LOL - and thank you for your service, from one Zoomie to another 🫡
Makes sense. Electronics are more likely to break when they have that sudden surge of power applied.
@@OutLanderUSNWould it be more due to the repeated small power surges, or would it be more due to the repeated changes of temperature? When electronics warms up or cools down differences are introduced between mechanically connected (e.g. by soldering) components in their thermal expansion (because not all the components warm up and cool down equally much, and because different materials expand and shrink by different amounts at certain change in temperature). Every time the temperature changes there's slight pull to some direction until the solder joint or something has adjusted into the new shape. Even though the travel of the bend is tiny each time, doing it repeatedly could break something mechanically.
Related to this, I've seen videos of fixing old tech on TH-cam, and apparently, when a GameBoy cartridge fails, often there's a chip that has one or more legs at one end or corner of the chip come off the soldering. Someone said that the cartridges have been often left in the car where it gets repeatedly hot and cold. Even though the cartridges obviously would not _always_ have been left in the car, over the decades there would have been a lot of such instances that would cause the thermal expansion/shrinking cycles that things can start to break. (After resoldering the chip or at least the loose legs the cartridges would often work again.)
So, that makes me suspect that repeated changes in temperature could be a non-insignificant factor in computers failing over time.
Light bulbs often fail when turning on and off.
There’s a lesson in there ;)
Back when I was working with computers, your Number 15 was termed PICNIC. "Problem in Chair Not In Computer". Enjoyed this presentation!
PEBCAK - Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard
I couldn't listen past the "buy the extended warranty" bs. I have rarely had a piece of computer hardware break down in the 12-24 month window. Sold hundreds of computers over last 30 years, and if it lasts the first year (and some don't), its usually good for another 5 years at least (I avoid bottom tier parts and manufacturers).
2nd, mtbf is running time. Not shelf life. Moving parts wear out while running. The most common component to wear out is a hard drive, or fan (depending on humidity, dust, ambient temperature etc). While there is little difference in life between running and shelf life for a lot of component, there is a difference. The more important reasons are memory (many programs still leak), and energy use. I know it's only cents per day, but multiply that out and it adds up.
3rd - absolutely buy the more memory or the bigger hard drive, it's only 20-50 more and you will likely grow into it, and you probably won't ever upgrade it, because then it will cost you 200 to do, and 500-700 is a new computer with more everything.
Thanks for your comment 👍
I was going to say the same thing.
Agreed. The only computer I had fail within a few years was a laptop for one of my kids and who knows how it was handled. My personal laptop is going on 5 years and still meeting my demands because it was a beast in it's time. I just turned in a work laptop that was 7 years old and functioning well, just time for better hardware.
I worked for a PC manufacturer that rhymes with Hell. A note, the "warranty" you get is generally 30 days to return for money back, after that you get parts & labor for up to a year. Sometimes the extended warranties are only parts and that means you will be required to troubleshoot the issue online with tech support and then they will send a part that you either have to install yourself or take to a shop to install. This can be an arduous process because the tech support are often wrong about the issue and it may take weeks or months to get to the root of the issue. Also, if you buy a 100% brand new computer and you qualify for a system replacement, you will get a refurbished computer in the exchange not a new computer. There are a lot of caveats to warranties and people who are shopping for computers need to research the manufacturer's warranty to know exactly what is covered and what they are expected to do in case their computer has an issue.
This is why I prefer building my own. Most hardware manufacturers offer at least 3 year warranties or more. This guy's over here telling people to opt out of getting a better system for a useless extended warranty? C'mon now. 🤦♂
Well, bought a Hell secondhand on ebay, working well, just had som software difficulty. Went to their website, tried troubleshooting and somehow I found myself on the chat with their support centre. They recognised my model as under service warranty, it says up to April 2026. They spent a couple hours with me trying to fix the problem. At the end they even called me and asked what my experience was. They were overly after a positive feedback. No scam, no money asked. It was weird. I got a first class service for a machine I bought for maybe quarter if the price. They didn't fully resolve my problem though, the limitation is likely in the third party software I used to run Windoze from the usb on the go. But wow, I was impressed by their approach!
@@unnamed715 you build your own laptops?
I bought a hell laptop back in 2008 and it was the worst warranty experience by far. They replaced my working motherboard, graphics card and keyboard with refurbrished components. The motherboard didn't charge, the graphics card died within a month and the keyboard had keys that poped as soon as i typed on them. The original issue was some physics processing unit which they didn't realize until after they replaced my working components one by one during on 3 at your home repairs . Oh and the adapter they sent from the day i ordered it online was not recognized as genuine and the cpu was running underclocked.
Only point I don’t agree with 😂 I work for another computer company with warranties & they find so many reasons to weasel out of paying for the warranty it’s crazy. Like trying to fix something so minor that it didn’t even come in for like a cracked/chipped bezel, a burned connector/pin they will find ways to call it liquid damage even when it’s not or “not being able to duplicate the issue” I.e. not wanting to change parts blah blah lol. And half the time we do put refurbished SHIT boards into the unit that might work might not so many times I’ve put a board in only to find that the thing has no keyboard/trackpad response, boot loops, ssd won’t install on OS (soldered on smh), memory failure, or straight up just won’t power on! An if it does work who knows how long it’s refurbished crap….some warranty huh 💀
If your computer is a PC running a MS OS and _"everything was working fine Tuesday and Wednesday you wake up and your computer threw up on itself"_ it may have installed new Windows updates.
Over the course of 6 months, my w10 laptop slowly ground to a halt. Worse with every update until it was completely unusable. Now that laptop runs fedora linux. M$ can get fuqqed.
@@233kostaI wouldn't have chosen a red hat distro, but that's a personal preference.
@@gethriel I get it, RH isn't exactly popular in FOSS circles and for good reason from what I've been told.
Far as I can tell though, they just _give_ fedora dev money, supposedly no strings attached. Whether that's true or not is anybody's guess (humans and all), but I thought it rather a useful link when I first made the decision (after ubuntu flat out refused to boot on my laptop), since we were getting a RHEL HPC at work around that time (which I'd be looking after).
Since then I've found it struck a good balance of stability and availability of latest software for me (hell, it enabled me to de-windowsify a new laptop in a pretty reasonable time frame!), plus not _having to_ learn all of linux in one go. For n00bs such as myself it's been an overall positive experience from almost every angle.
As for the politics... I leave that to those who know enough to make a judgement. At this point I just want an OS that works and does what I tell it. One day, when I'm wearing my big boy trousers, maybe I'll become a btw bro. Until then, this one seems to suit what I do 🤔
Anyway, neurotic ramblings of a madman aside, what would your recommendation be for a starter distro?
You're probably right LOL
AMEN!
What are you guys doing with your computers? I've never had a pc that died between 12 to 24 months.
I think you misunderstood me. I said that of the machines that I have dealt with that have died, most of them were between 12-24 months. I've had a lot of local clients for the last 16 years, and that's what I always seem to see
I have. Most electronics that have manufacture fault will die within the first few weeks. This is the 'burn-in' time that manufacturers used to do in house. After this, usually they will last for years (rubbish dirt cheap capacitors not included).
@@AskYourComputerGuy
Given your clarification, I suspect you may be over-valuing extended warranties due to a misinterpretation of the statistics.
Your sample set isn’t appropriate to determine the value of those extended warranties.
Your sample set includes *only* hardware that failed.
It tells you nothing about the number of units that *didn’t* fail during the extended warranty period.
And if a device lasts long enough, it might simply be discarded when it does eventually fail.
I don’t doubt that the capitalist trend towards “planned obsolescence” has lead to designs that only start to fail after the initial warranty.
But I assure you that manufacturers aren’t generally selling extended warranties that cause them to lose profits.
@craigyoung8008 fair argument. I can only speak to my 30 years of experience. I would hope that the average viewer would not assume that I speak for all PC'S sold annually. I should have probably added a few disclaimers along the way, I won't argue that
Me neither. I always get at least 5 -10 years. Mine run 24/7 and still operate on Windows 7 or some old system until Windows quits supporting it.
Extended warranties are a scam. Consumer laws - in Australia at least cover this.
Maybe so. I've had good success in the US with my clients 👍
Sadly, the United States does not have good consumer protection. In the U.S. Consumer protection is protecting the scammer corporations from the consumers they are ripping off.
My experience with electronics - including computers - is they usually either fail quickly, or they last a long time. I usually stay away from the extended warranty.
The economics of extended warranties is straight forward.
*NO* business up sells anything with the intention of losing money - extend warranties included.
If the product has a 20% failure rate during the extended warranty period, the warranty will be priced accordingly.
And pricing will factor in things like: the investment opportunity of being paid a year+ in advance, the decrease in component costs, etc.
There may be a margin where consumers can get some benefit where the vendor sacrifices a portion of future profits for certainty of an up sell now.
But pricing will put all risk variables in the vendor / manufacturer’s favour.
I’d also add that if you claim on the extended warranty, the manufacturer will provide whatever costs them the least to meet their obligations.
Whereas if you weren’t limited by the warranty, you might have chosen a replacement that’s simultaneously an upgrade.
I've had computers all my life, and not one of them died within 12-24 months. I never get warranties on anything, it's a rip off. Of course I did stop buying after 2014, I still use a Windows 7 computer that has been going strong since about 2012. The newer ones may very well suffer from deeper levels of planned obsolescense. That along with my disdain for higher versions of windows keeps me buying used machines.
I'm a computer technician and i have a transparency policy towards my customers. i even encourage them to watch every step of the process of my fixes to let them know why i charge them money
28:32 pressing the power button often invokes windows to do a proper shutdown. So it really depends HOW you turn it off, if you yoink the power cord, or flip the switch on the back of the PSU, that's bad. If you hold the power button for 5 seconds and it powers off that's also bad (but also good if the computer is locked-up/frozen). Also HDDs immediately park the heads when they lose power, but there may have been data being written to it that it never completed. I used HDDs for external offline storage, and i always wait for the drive to spin down before pulling it out of the dock. Also HDDs keep spinning after a proper OS shutdown too.
Extended warranties are bad because companies that provide that often try to weasel out of actually fixing your stuff, waste time, make excuses that this particular thing that's actually wrong isn't covered and play semantical game with the language of the warranty so that they can justify not honoring it. All in all, it is often just very difficult to actually use the extended warranty.
What is a better solution is to buy electronics using specific credit cards that automatically extend manufacturer's warranty for free by 1 year.
Or just build your own. Not only can you pick & choose your own parts but each part has at least 3 year warranties most of the time. Prebuilts often have cheap components that have a high failure rate.
There is that, and as I work for a MSP, and I can assure you, every time we send a machine to be repaired under warranty, they always say "We may need to wipe the contents of the hard disk." I'm sorry. For a physical issue with battery or power (not charging); laptop screen. They may need to wipe the hard disk? That makes no sense at all haha
Next. Apple is the absolute worst. It is always an ordeal going to the Apple store for warranty type, or repair type issues. Especially the having to make an appointment with a "genius" haha A GENIUS! What a joke. That you then have to sit down 15 to 30 minutes past your appointment time just for the guy/gal to tell you that they can't figure out the issue on the floor after they were twiddling their thumbs on a break while they supposedly have an appointment.
Also the whole iCloud Apple ID sign in crap is another hurdle. We had a client that had an employee pass away, but because the employee used their personal iCloud sign in for the business device, Apple would not let us reset the device even though the laptop was purchased by the owner of the company, provided a receipt, etc... They needed a death certificate in order to allow a reset.
Absolute nightmare and a waste of time.
I think it depends on who provides the extended warranty. Many of them are sold by retail outlets and are basically insurance policies.
I used to do repairs for 3 of the big 3rd party extended warranty companies in my area and they would reject around half of the repair claims.
The poor clients were left trying to fight them and most didn't bother. I would never pay for an extended warranty after working for those guys.
Me every day 😂 not my fault it’s the greedy company man smh definitely be trying to weasel out of warranty repair/do requires for shit that doesn’t even Matter in the long run tbh. And I hate refurbished parts because half the time the part is so junk it doesn’t even make it through testing & I have to do the repair all over again 😂 so are they really saving money paying me to do the same job twice? 🤷🏾♂️
@@unnamed715 This isn't just about desktops. It extends to components as well and things like phones, laptops, raspberry pi, game consoles, steamdeck, etc. Like that fiasco of a warranty with Asus Ally or whatever it's name.
"Most computers are going to die within 12 to 24 months". What absolute rubbish. Extended warranties aren't worth the paper they're written on, and sorry but if the difference between 8 and 16 Gb of RAM and 1Tb vs 2Tb storage is $50-$100, spend that money on the bigger/better components because that price is way cheaper than buying and upgrading those components yourself, and again the extended warranty is rubbish at best and just dead money. Plus, of course, as we're talking about desktops, they're completely modular and so easy to repair by just replacing the faulty component(s). Even if you really know nothing about computers, most people will know someone capable of a simple repair like installing a new hard drive or power supply. Paying a repair shop to do it wouldn't be as expensive in many cases as the cost of that extended warranty you seem to like so much. Bad advice, sorry!
AMEN
I was referring to my personal client experience. When they call with a DOA machine, it's almost always 12-24 months old. Thank you for the comment :)
Most that die, will die within 12-24 months. The rest just become obsolete
@@AskYourComputerGuy When your machine suffers from DOA and is 12 month old you got scammed. DOA is Dead On Arrival, wich means it is dead the moment you take it out of it's box. If that box is already 12-24 month old you bought an old machine. Which is underpinned by the fact you talk about hard drives, where all consumer machines use SSD's now.
In electronics we talk about a thing called child mortality, meaning faulty devices will most likely die within a couple of month. When they survive childhood there lifespan is normal. As a repair bussiness you are most likely biased: from all the computers sold you only get the faulty ones. But those are only a very small percentage of all the pc's sold.
From an economical and statistical point of view extended warranty's are of no use.
@@gartnl This is correct and matches my experience working finance and seeing the P&L for such warranties, they are 80+% profit. If it buys you peace of mind, I guess its worth it, from a strictly financial standpoint its a raw deal.
A couple of minor points:
1) It is harder to code a virus to get onto Linux than to get onto Windows. This doesn't mean they can't. There just are a few more hoops to jump through
2) OOOPS
3) GIMP works for editing pictures if you want to do it on your own machine
4) None of "my" computers have ever failed in the first 2 years and that is quite a lot of machines counting mine, those of my family and my work machines
Near every website has a Linux based host. Simply because you can set one up feature packed with no software cost; but time to install and configure. The only way to get better performance without sacrificing security is only worth it if your income from it supports paying a LOT for something hyper specialized. Most successful attacks are either on a person or something didn't get updated to patch a flaw that was made public with the publishing of the patch.
MTBF == is Mean Time BETWEEN Failures. It is a statistical measurement, to see HOW OFTEN something fails,,,, not HOW SOON.
This value is also used for systems that are considered “fixable” or “repairable”.
It is also failureS with ‘s’ plural
You are thinking of its ’cousin’ MTTF Mean Time TO Failure used for NON-fixable systems
It is failure no ‘s’ singular
A lamp used as an indicator burns out (fails once) and is replaced. Incandescent bulbs are not ‘fixable’
How soon/fast the part failed
The equipment the indicator is in fails (no indicator ) but is ‘fixed’ by replacing the lamp.
How often the equipment fails
@@ernestgalvan9037 You are correct I will edit
To #4, I didn't mean MY computers - I was talking about when I get a call from a client about a "dead" pc, that pc is usually 12-24 months old in my experience 👍
None of my computers ever failed. They ran for years until I retired them and replaced them with new hardware. Maybe I was lucky. But from my experiences most systems seem pretty hearty. Oh, yeah, I did have 2 hardware failures. But they were both due to close lightning strikes.
Hackers are out for more than "money and information", if they hack a private computer they are often out after a connection and CPU time to build a bot net for a large attack, they can also use hacked computers to transport and distribute illegal files.
Been building computers for 30 years, and I've never had a computer fail. Also, the majority of the parts I use in the computer already come with a 3 year warranty or more.
I would say, if your computer failed that fast on avg, you are buy junk to begin with, and instead of buying a warranty, buy a real computer, with good parts, and that computer should last you a life time, till you are forced to buy a new faster computer.
Yep, if buying component on Scamazon, one cannot be surprised things fail before their expected time. Too much fakery on that platform, I am surprised when supposedly professionals recommend shopping from there. I am a lay person and always buy computer or similar items from either the producer themselves, like Kingston, or from a trusted independent website. Only once I got myself a secondhand laptop from a private ebay seller and it turned out to be an excellent purchase. But cheap new fake items from Scamazon! Hell no!
🫂 Absolutely 100%. The biggest reason I have had for buying new computers, is that Drivers are no longer available for Printers or some other device. 2nd reason is new features and faster speeds are enticing.
I've been building computers for over 20 years and the ones I build myself are by far the longest lasting. It depends on who you get your parts from. Several have lasted for 7 or more years, at this point. Some of my clients insist on parts from manufacturers I don't trust and I make sure to let them know but it's their computer. We go with it.
Pre-builts are generally a nightmare of low quality parts, especially PSUs.
I don't disagree. I was referring to the clients I get calls from, not my personal computers. Seems like every time I get that call, the pc is between 12-24 months old 🤷♂️
He's saying that of the computers that do fail, they on average usually fail between 12-24months. This would gel with my experience also. 30 years industry experience. Building and repairing computers for home users and businesses. For my business customers, very few of them have computers fail because they get their hardware recommendations from me. Usually it will be home users who come to me with something they brought themselves without my input.
My thoughts on refurbished electronics has always been that they are likely higher quality because they found any issues, fixed them, and then checked everything again. This means the diagnostics was even more robust as it had another round of checks.
Besides cosmetic damage and a naffed battery, that's what I've found with all refurbs I've handled. The ones from office workers are more-or-less bulletproof, and will last until they're no longer supported OS-wise.
You can't generalize that to be 100% of all cases. It's surely true for some of them.
But consider other possibilities: The first user found some rare issue like Bluetooth 5 wasn't working only the earlier codec. They discovered that 35% of their devices weren't making good connection in the USB port, and the tester plugged one thing in and saw it working. So did you, and only discovered a year later it's degraded.
The sad truth is, do you think near minimum wage Geek Squad or the the disgruntled employee at Amazon, really did a full 5 hour check-test on the equipment? Do you REALLY?
The fact is that refurbished is a gamble. If you're getting 35% off and know the tests to run yourself, and you just get an open box, then hoorah! If you're getting 10% off but only a 30 day warranty instead of 1 year, and you don't do a thorough test of every possible damned little thing like even the F9 key, then you're just rolling dice. Gambling and telling yourself some reason that rationalizes why you think your lucky streak will never fail.
About "I don't have anything a hacker would care about". You have a computer, it's already something valuable for a hacker. A computer can be used to run a bot to make a lot of things including bouncing to hack another computer, mining bitcoins, ddos a server or an organization...
Everybody should make backups. Otherwise, you are begging for disaster.
I used to try and explain to my Dad this concept. He run and owned his own business as a recording studio. He once had a HDD physically fail, and it cost many thousands for a tech company to rebuilt the drive and save what they could off the drive.
He soon learnt the hard way, a backup drive is cheap and changing of practice with data you need to keep
Agreed!
I pay for OneDrive's 1TB plan. Since I'm not expecting Microsoft to go bankrupt any time soon, that works for me. I probably should have a physical backup of my important work too though. Oops.
@@damianjblack Not probably. Buy 2, better 3 Backup Drives and save your stuff. If you never loosed your data- good for you but i really don't want you to learn it the hard way. MS could be hacked, loose your Data because of someone either deliberately messes Servers up, There could be a roll out of a faulty Update, anything. I personally would never give any company free access to all MY personal, important Data into the hands of any Company, good or evil Apple or Microsoft which they- whenever the Government asks them, would not hesitate to share.
There is a huge amount of open source software out there for free. The UI may look dated on many of them, however, the backend performs a great job.
Exactly!
That's true for some open source software, not all and I wouldn't even say most.
"dated" is usually a word out of the mouths of stupid people. When it comes to interfaces, what those types would call dated, usually just means more functional where controls are accessible rather than hidden.
What is omitted though is free opensource apps are only legally to allowed to use for personal use. It is actually illegal to use free software for commercial use. You arent allowed to use Open Office for your business for free, Same with Malwarebytes. I worked for a large business and got introuble for using free software for our users
@@Beeti1 Anything open source, you get the code. It's yours to modify and use. The only thing is attributes to those who wrote the original code. All open source, hence the source is open to the public.
In my last IT department, they referred to your PEBCAK term as PICNIC: problem in chair, not in computer! Great run through and jolly good advice regarding security.
Bonus Myth: Computer people on the internet do not always know what they're talking about.
Like this guy.
@@NicolasGirls At least as far as some of the topics, for sure. IE extended warranty. As someone who has worked finance extended warranties are almost pure profit for the corp.
@@joewelch4933 ya when he started talking about, ya go ahead and waste your $ on a Ext warranty., i knew that was wrong. same with car warranty , they're all bs. Tell me this, what % of peeps that pay out for these ext warranty actually ever USE/NEED them,? not hardly any, just like insurance is BS, most peeps pay insurance on their car home etc, and never ever use it, and just lost all that $ to these snakes in the grass.
The one thing that made my blood gain degrees was him saying to not turn off PCs.
I work as part of an IT group for my organization, Everyday there are a few issues that originate because the user has not restarted their PCs in over 2 weeks.
I think the current record is about 200days
@@joewelch4933 My opinion too, I never take extended warranties on any device.
21:00 I work IT for a car dealership. I have ordered several "renewed/refurbished" laptops/tablets that are working great. At the time of purchase, I order Assurion insurance/warranty for as long as they allow. That is usually 3-4 years. One battery or monitor replacement pays for that policy.
Your comments about so many computers dying between 12 and 24 months has me scratching my head! I've been working with them now for over 50 years and I very very rarely ever see new machines that fail that soon. Maybe 3 or 4 in the last 10 years if that many. I'm wondering what quality or kind of machines you're talking about. I currently have somewhere between 80 and 100 elderly clients and have had most of them for the last 6 to 11 years, and I don't think I've had 5 computers fail completely in that time. I built my current computer just about 11 years ago now and have never had it completely die yet. Planning to build a new tower next spring to eventually be able to run Windows 11 since my current rock solid but old Asus motherboard does not have a TPM module and my particular i5 processor is not supported for 11.
For clarification, not MY machines, the machines I get called to diagnose hardware problems on almost always seem to be between 12-24 months. Often enough where I routinely look up serial numbers to see about warranty extensions for my clients
@@AskYourComputerGuy I've never heard of hardware besides HDD dying in less than 24 months. They easily last 5 years or more. Do your clients live in a dust filled areas and have many dogs and cats because they only way a PC will die like that is over heating over a long period of time. So when you open their case do you have to blow out the whole thing? There must be pounds upon pounds of dirt dust and hair. The other thing is they might be using their machine as a battering ram. Maybe they place their coffee on it and it spills? Because that simply does not make sense any other way.
Exactly. Ive never known anyone to even use a warranty. It would take so long you would have replaced the part long before.
@@AskYourComputerGuy Yeah, as I said in another comment: between 1/2 years is the time they still think it is worth it to bother you.
1:17 😂 running slow ? Standard windows feature. Called planned obsolescence 😂
As a seasoned computer industry professional, one of the most annoying things is contacting product support for warranty service and inevitably arguing with them about something that I'm more knowledgable than them about.
Especially when they are following a script and you can’t explain that you have already done x, y, and z. They won’t listen.
Done it so many times...it's the worst
@@AskYourComputerGuy For sure. You feel like a cow being corralled through the gates.
Well, I had a clear hardware failure where the touch screen did register multiple fingers all the time, especially after prolonged use. According to Lenovo it was a software problem. Disagreed, got a worse laptop with sleep issues in return, and it turned out to be a driver issue none-the-less. So that taught me something. There goes years of hardware training.
Sir respect you bottom of my heart
From Pakistan
Thank you, and welcome to the community 👍
"90-95% of the computers I've touched die within 12-24 months" Great sales pitch
Yeah, maybe don't touch the RAM modules next time ;)
😂
Coupla things...
Interesting fact for UK users: standard 1yr warranties were introduced to protect the manufacturers. Where there is no stated warranty, it can be argued that an item that has failed after 18/24/60 months had not lasted a 'reasonable amount of time' and the manufacturer could be forced to fix or replace the item.
With regard to using the power button to shut down a PC, it should be noted that Windows defaults to shutting down the computer properly unless the button is held down for four seconds. It can be changed in a setting called 'choose what my computer does when I push the power button', though I couldn't give directions to find it with the current Windows Settings fustercluck we have to deal with.
I bought a Dell XPS laptop from the Dell Outlet for about $1000.00 less than the IDENTICAL brand new with the same spec's.
When I got it, it had a boot problem = missing boot image, and I kept getting a BIOS boot screen to call home to a PXE server or something like that.
- I went to Dell and downloaded a Dell USB imaging tool for my model to reload the operating system, and booted to the USB device that the tool imaged.
- Windows 11 booted just like new within 10-15 minutes and I was up and running perfectly fine.
I think the average person with no computer skills or doesn't have the resources that I have - would send it back to Dell right away.
I think it was well worth the $1000 savings for about 1-2 hours of my time re-imaging the Dell XPS Laptop.
Agreed
That's terrible for them delivering it to you like that. Still, good buy. Don't buy the new ones though, everybody hates them. Everybody has thin bezels, lightweight construction and they actually screwed up the keyboards big time.
HOME computer repair IS expensive. I remember the days when I would charge $30/hr at a 2-hour minimum to come to someone's home in order to take a look at a slow or freezing desktop or laptop. In those days machines were slow, a simple PUP/Malware scan could take hours and you could easily be spending 4 hours at a client's place on average. These days I charge more because long hauls no longer pay.
Agreed
Customer: What kind of fool do you take me for?
Swarmy Tech: First class.
✋🤣🤚
LOL
Ok, Mr. Rococo.
Don't forget the myth number 15- "knowing all previously explained myths does Not make you wanna sub to the awesome computer tech channel "
Liked. Favourited. Respect!
Thanks for the smile 👍
"computers die in 12 to 24 months" ... "so its better to pay warranty instead of more powerfull hardware"
omg, what a scam.
Powerful doesnt prevent the hardware from being faulty or failing. Things fail. You may not need the warranty most times but when it does happen it is the cheaper purchase than repairing in most cases. I just had a client who had a $1000 laptop die in year two. No extended waranty. Motherboard fried. $1000 for a repair so they ended up just paying a for a new one instead.
@@seanbroccoli2698 there you go, expensive warranty, I rather buy a new laptop.
In my work i have a more than 2 year old laptop still working perfectly.
The same the rest of my teammates.
Even my mother has like a 8 year old laptop working just fine.
It failed some times but system failure, not hardware.
It is a scam there is no way to justify it.
Thank for the video I have passed this onto my daughter to look at as she has just purchased a refurbished computer, so it will be interesting for her, I am now 78 and used and made my own computers for many years and never had a virus but I am very careful so there you go loved the video. Bob in the UK
Thanks, Bob!
I always buy renewed/refurbished machines. They are just as good, and cheaper. I bought my dad a nice laptop. Had a 2 TB SSD 32 GB RAM, and an i7 processor. 500 bucks. He has had it for 5 years and still uses it no problem.
Exactly!!!
Who you get it from matters a lot. The word "refurb" has different meanings to different sellers. With a refurb you want to already have a long 4 page checklist in place and go through everything. You thought you tested everything but then no, later you found out that the bluetooth doesn't work, or the wifi 5GHz works but not the 2.4GHz which you didn't test, or the F9 key which you never thought you'd use, was dead, or when the SSD is 90% full it dies because it was already 10% gone already, and so on.
Bottom line here is it's a calculated gamble. You can position yourself to be like the casino and have the odds more in your favor. But you're still taking a risk unless you get the exact same length of warranty -- which usually you don't -- it's 30 days or tough schitt.
@@Äpple-pie-5k That is true sometimes too. If you do not know about what you are buying, then you may have a harder time finding a system. However, I am an I.T. Professional, and I bought the machine from a reputable recycling center that is near by. They also give a 90 day warranty, and 7 day return window. But yes. You are right about it looking like a good deal, and it ends up not being a good deal. That is why I encourage people to research the machine they are about to buy, look into a return/warranty period, and get a local technician to run diagnostics within that return or warranty period.
Bought a dell workstation with an i7 32 GB ram 512gb SSD (expandable storage bay as well) and an Nvidia quadro 4gb for 250 off of dells refurbished site and it has done me really well for the last couple years .I love it!
@@animeloveer97 Totally solid value. A shame the Windows navy of ships is going to Davey Jones' locker with their current business plan and treating users as "frogs in a pot boiling"-- it's their actual real internally published strategy.
I hate using my Mac for work, but one of the coolest features I've seen on it is the battery management. It will monitor how often it is plugged in and under-charge itself to better maintain the battery over time. I've left mine plugged in and it has slowly allowed itself to back away from max charge over the last couple of months. If I unplug it and go on battery power, it will charge back to 100% when I get back to the wall.
Here's a funny story about being ignorant about how computers work. A girlfriend called once and said, my internet isn't working. I said call your internet company. She said she did, but they wouldn't help her. So, I went over her house. Sat down, turned computer on and opened the browser. It was up. I said, there's nothing wrong with it. She said, just wait. A minute later, her computer totally shut down. She said, see? My internet isn't working! I said, that isn't your internet, that's your computer! She said, yeah, my internet. I spent the next hour trying to get her to understand the difference between the computer and the internet. Told her, the guy and the internet company was probably all confused. After explaining it to her, she just said, there you go again, speaking the kings English. Lol. It turned out, her power supply was full of dust, and was over heating. I opened it up (you should never open it unless you know what you're doing) and cleaned it out, and it worked perfectly.
Must be the why fyes
@@hengineer Ugh, don't go there. My internet connection isn't working. No, you live in an urban neighborhood and your ISP gives you this crappy Wifi router, internet is doing fine with a cable, see. Which is why I always take an ethernet cable and USB ethernet adapter with me nowadays. And a Wifi analyzer app on my phone of course.
The tip at the end is spot on. Fortunately I no longer do desktop support, but I did for over a decade. It was always the same users getting infected and having problems.
About the power button. Ever since we switched from "at" to "atx" mainboards and power supplies back in the late 1990s, the power button has been soft, not hard. Pressing (and releasing) it sends a signal to the mainboard, which signals the operating system. You can configure what the operating system does then, whether shutdown, hibernate, or whatever. This should be the same as selecting the option from the start menu. If you hold it for a number of seconds, then it will do a forcible shutdown, which can definitely result in file system corruption and data loss. But even then, i doubt it would physically damage the drive. The drive should have enough residual power to park its heads.
I don't disagree, just have a lot of people that press and hold, which is never a good practice 👍
@@AskYourComputerGuy Yeah, that press and hold is essentially force the psu to turn off. No one should do it unnecessarily. But to press normally in [desktop] windows, is [almost] the same as shutting down, saving us some clicks.
@@AskYourComputerGuy yeah press and hold should only be for when the computers is misbehaving and you can't get to the shutdown menu.
Also with Windows 10 and on, for the benefit of your viewers, you really should do a "restart" (if your computer is misbehaving AND you can still get to the shutdown menu), because a "shutdown" in Windows 10/11 is not a full shutdown, memory isn't fully flushed and drivers aren't fully unloaded. It's what was called "fast shutdown" in Win8. The fast shutdown also facilitates the fast start up. You can disable fast startup, which will turn the shutdown into a proper full shutdown.
Whereas a "restart" is a full shutdown of the operating system, followed by a start up. You can do a full shutdown (without a restart) but you have to do so via the recovery menu in settings.
11:15 Don't take advantage of anyone you know personally who has computer skills. Pay him/her for their time, don't take them for granted.
I somewhat disagree with your idea that simply having a smaller perceived desktop market share means there is no value in targeting machines running Linux. Open and monitor an sshd port and just see how many bot attacks your system will log in a day!!! Its crazy. Linux, as it essentially hosts the web, cloud storage and services is and has been for decades the number one high value target.
It happens just the same in the Linux world, its just different. Any system that is "UNIX like" will always be, at its foundation, more secure than Windows due to the way the system was first designed. It's simply considerably more difficult to gain elevated privileges, but not imposable, obviously. The user remains, as on any system the weakest link.
Agreed, Linux servers are much more vulnerable since they run most of the planet. But as a home user, the risks are minimal
Refurbished computers are great bargain these days as for the last 8+ years CPU speed has grown VERY LITTLE. I still use my 12 year old PC to run modern 3D games. All that has been upgraded ONCE, is my graphics card. So DO NOT waste your money on new PCs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will have to say extended warranties. I purchased a gaming desktop two years ago and have had issues with it the GPU. I had it looked at three times and had to pay for the cost of shipping, around $200. Windows 11 was reinstalled every time, I could have done most of the work that they did. They did install a new GPU that lasted five months. Last week the GPU must have died, with green lines running through my monitor, after a while it turned black. I am very lucky because Costo was very understanding with my PC out of warranty, the offered me to return it and buy a new PC. You answered my question about extended warranties because I am going back to Costco to purchase their warranty
Excellent!
Turning the computer off with the power button, the same button that turns it on shuts the computer down the same way as clicking on start, power, shut down; it doesn't kill running processes like hitting the reset button or holding down the power button for 3+ seconds.
I was referring to people who "press and hold" until everything turns off, bit just pressing the button once quickly 👍
@@AskYourComputerGuy Most people wouldnt do that In my experience though. Majority would just hit the button. I often struggle instructing people to hold it when theres an issue that requires it because they just press it and by default it usually just goes to sleep with Laptops.
It's awesome that you included the primary problem people have with computer-usage: PEBCAK! ! ! Although much of PEBCAK is rooted in design paradigms of Sir William Gates III, Steve Ballmer, and friends, considering a computer to be a mere appliance and refusing to learn about what computers do, how they do what they do, and how to care for them are the foliage that makes PEBCAK such a prickly, thorny, and prolific issue.
😂👍
Most of the points, absolutely on the button. But I have never had either a personal computer or laptop die in less than about 5 years. Batteries may wear out but that's replaceable. And I build computers for friends and as a hobby, done about 60/70 so far, mostly had only a few software or memory compatibility problems. Maybe one defective motherboard.
Edit> And one bad stick of memory!
👍
Must agree. I've been doing the same since Windows 3.11 days and I've had the odd RAM chip failure or HDD fault in early use but very uncommon. Incidentally, I had my first CPU fail in 40 years this month on a new Dell.
Oh wow
You are truly blessed if you've never heard an HDD clicking
Been in the Digital Realm since Nineteen and Sixty Nine, and I have truly lost count of actual failed ‘hardware’.
Discrete. RTL, TTL, IC, resistors, capacitors, wires, etc etc etc.
I once tore my hair out for a WEEK, over a system that would load Windows OK, but fail to load Linux. FINALLY traced it (I sear, electron by electron, this will NOT beat me) to a faulty IDE cable.
A manufacturing defect had one line throwing spurious “noise”, resulting in ‘Bad Data’ from the drive.
Windows ignored it, and of course led to a slightly unstable system .
Linux refused to accept it.
Sealed my belief that “windows is crap”
BSOD.
As a business owner, I bought a lot of 100 Renewed computers - they all lasted their 5-year depreciation period and were sold for half the purchase price to users who could still use them. I bought one of those sold after - it still works for my basic needs. That info was really valuable.
Excellent
Switching Off your Computer when it is not in use is a Great Idea! Components die quicker when they have electricity flowing through them (Electron Migration). Additionally, anything that is Mechanical, like Hard Drives, Fans, etc, WILL die faster the more they are in use. Heat is also going to be more of a problem if the machine is never powered off.
Perhaps so, but not in my experience. Just like with anything else, there's always exceptions 🤷♂️
Assuming your computer has sensible sleep/hibernate settings, there is not much difference. PSU's die faster when switched on and off at the mains due to inrush shock and heat expansion. Modern designs handle this better.
generally things ;ast longer when they stay in motion, my pc is on 24/7 restarted every week its an i7 4th gen wrks fine. xx
@@AskYourComputerGuy it's not only experience or exception. You might not experience it if you change computers every few years, but it's a hard given and can be calculated for most individual components. Electrolytic capacitors are the low hanging fruit in this case. They have a very well defined life span as a function of ripple current and temperature (every 10 degrees higher will wear them out a factor 2 faster, with the defined lifespan usually given at max temp and max ripple), but as JamesMcCloskey writes (and I write in my other comment), mechanical parts will be subject to wear, and even semiconductors can be affected though they will usually not fail first (unless 13th or 14th gen intel in which certain types slowly fry their core with bad voltage management).
@@gerydblackmore5484 the "in motion" myth, is because such a worn down computer will usually fail when booted cold after a power outage after years of continuous operation. In reality, it fails to boot because it was already fatally worn down and only running on the skin of its teeth because warmth will keep some parts working for a bit longer.
Very respectable point at the end. The biggest threat to your computer is you. The best antivirus is smart computing. You can pay through the nose for fancy security software, but if you're not careful about how you use/treat your device then you'll still have problems. A person who is cautious, doesn't blindly click unknown links, doesn't visit unknown/sketchy websites without an ad blocker (obviously, whitelist those you use all the time and want to support). This person can use their computer "naked". Essentially meaning nothing more than the security features built into their OS.
Agreed!
I would be cautious about extended warranties and buying used/renewed PC parts. The assumption is that retailers are going to play fair; that doesn't even happen in the movies. If you have to go to Best Buy to get them to do a malware scan, which you can do for free, and you willing to pay $125 for that, then by all means it's your money.
Extended warranties make the assumption that whatever it is that went wrong with your computer is what they're going to fix. Just like with smart phones, you get an extended warranty and you find out that whatever it is wrong with your smart phone is not covered with the warranty and they want you to buy a new one.
Used or renewed parts is a gamble because you're assuming that the seller wants to be fair when in fact all they want to do, like he said, it's clear the shelves. This is especially true if you're buying from eBay or even NewEgg or Amazon; sometimes you just don't know what you getting and once you get something that doesn't work right you're going to be pretty much stuck with it.
Some of the TH-cam influencers have taken some of these vendors to task and they also caution about getting used/renewed parts. A hard drive with a one-year warranty is not too bad, but you don't know if that used hard drive still has malware on it. A used video card/GPU may have been used in crypto mining and run almost to its last breath and you have no guarantee that you are going to get a refund.
It would've been better to state which parts are generally okay to buy used, but I would not buy used storage or GPU's. You have to look at your budget and see what you can afford. The general rule is that for some of these PC parts, your budget should allow you to buy the item twice. If you have to scrimp and save and sell your stuff at a yard sale just to buy a PC part, you probably need to relax a bit and let the feeling pass.
Not a fan of extended warranties either, refused one for even our smart tv. Just got the first month for free and made sure to cancel in the right time. That was for some additional features, like pixel break. But I took a leap and bought a second hand business class laptop from a private seller on ebay. The price was great. I was nervous about it, knowing the risks and I was ready to lose those money. But the machine is solid and works great. It is my learning bitch, for Linux. I cannot fault it, really.
Fair points 👍
If you buy the computer direct from the manufacturer, use their extended warranties. Cheaper, same or better coverage as factory warranty, and sometimes offer onsite warranties and next business day or 3 business day service. Meaning they come to you for warranty issues.
Like I noted in a general reply, an issue with many extended warranties is that the terms often allow the warranty company to refund whatever you paid for the policy, instead of fixing the problem. They can eject from the deal at any time and there is no recourse. Allstate did this to me. Now, places like Amazon and Walmart offer that warranty at time of purchase so it may look like a good idea. You are buying the one the store offers. Except that means nothing. They can turn their backs on you if they want and they owe you nothing. The retailer likewise owes nothing. They suggested that extended warranty for reasons, after all, including being paid to present it to you. But it's not their problem if the warranty walks away.
@@LatitudeSky I agree, retailer warranties are rarely worth the paper they are printed on. That's why if I want a decent warranty, with onsite support not return to base, I buy direct from the manufacturer. I buy HP's in that case. I have been recommending HP's for years for my customers, and recommend including the 3yr nbd onsite warranty (which they have very rarely had to invoke). Sometime you might miss out on good retailer deals but honestly if I was buying of a retailer I would find one with a HP that HP themselves can't match the price for, and would forgo the warranty. Another good option these days is Lenovo. I wouldn't bother with extended warranties for those.
Windows Activation: I had to re-purchase Windows after upgrading my motherboard/CPU/RAM because when I built the computer I bought the OEM license. When I repurchased it over the phone they said the new license is tied to my Microsoft account and can move between computers, so long as I only have it activated on one at a time; that's pretty cool.
❤Some of your myths are indeed myths, but extended warranties are like a bad gamble - like going to Vegas and playing a casino game with huge house odds against you - sure, you might win, but you lose FAR more often, WHY do you think the companies push the warranties SO HARD, because, they have a HUGE markup i.e. computers rarely fail other than physical abuse, such as spilling liquid into the system etc. which is usually not covered. ❤
Thank you for your comment :)
Interesting take on the extended warranty...
Thinking back on my hardware failures (desktop mobo, laptop mobo, monitor flickering, several HDD failed, SSD end of life)... The SSDs failed kinda early, giving me read errors 2-3 years after purchase. But the other components were at least 4-5 years old, and the monitors even 10 years old.
The trouble with failed HDDs and SSDs, is that saving the data off a failing drive is way more stress and pain than its worth. Its the only component I look at its age, and stop saving important files to. It can still be used for temporary files, or as a game disk. But if the disk dies, there is nothing worth saving on.
What?!? There are actually people that think Linux cannot get a virus? There are tons of them out there for Linux.
Yep. And more than a handful commenting to that effect 🤷♂️
@@AskYourComputerGuy I should have read the feed before commenting. But that is wild. Far too many channels I watch are promoting such a thing. They need to check their advice before saying Linux cannot be infected. I've been infected before, despite the heightened security.
So, videos like this are good for me. At 60 years old, my combined computer usage over the last 27 years is probably less than someone from a third world country.
I got my first computer from my brother in 1997. He was all over it when home computers were something new. I really had no interest in them but act thankful for his generosity. The computer sat in my living room for the better part of 5 years until he gave me another one. I rarely use one at work where I am a truck mechanic for a public utility. Even today, I use my work computer to access repair information and truck parts. Otherwise my work computer just sits on my desk.
Over the years my brother gave me a few more computers untilbaouple years ago he gave me a MacBook. It's a very nice laptop and I actually started playing around with it but haven't a clue how it works. Videos like this kind of point me in the right direction. For instance, I turn the thing off when I am not using it. Now I know that iit sn't necessary. It's things like that I need to know. Thanks for the info
Thanks for sharing! 👍
What old janky trucks are you repairing?
The first thing I have to do is plug my work laptop into the truck and run the diagnostic system.
@@sahhull For the last 17 years I have been doing little more than transfer case and axle repairs. Occasionally a manual transmission repair. You would be amazed at what these guys can destroy just to get to a pole in the middle of nowhere. But you are correct; we have some young bucks in our diagnostic shop that are absolutely amazing with a lap top. It’s a whole new world than when I started.
We have 22 garages in the service area and at one time we all took care of trucks from bumper to bumper, and the work was more predictable. Valve jobs, re-sleeving cylinders, clutches, and hydraulic work. Each garage was tooled to do everything. Then about 18 years ago the company went through a re-structuring and closed several garages. The rest were assigned specific tasks- one garage does strictly hydraulic work. Another garage does drivability work, my garage does axles and transmission work.. and so on. That way the company only has to tool each garage for a specific task.
The guys doing the drivability work are all young bucks that are good at what they do. No doubt, much smarter than me. In some ways it makes me wish I was about 30-40 years younger just to understand what the hell they are talking about with some of the trucks. But, then again I am retiring in about 3 years and it all won’t matter.
@@NonstickMilk Im a truck mechanic by trade but Im a senior test engineer with a masters degree in automotive engineering.. Ive been in the lubricating oil and fuel development field of the last 37 years.
We also do independent engine testing.
So I get to forensically strip, measure and rate brand new trucks, put them together and send them out on the road... After 200,000 to 500,000miles (depending on the test). We bring them back in, strip them down and have a look whats happened.I could retire now, but presuming the work is still there. I'll have to retire at 70... So Ive got 15 years left.
I like the job, its interesting.
@@sahhull Wow. That does sound like an outstanding career. Also sounds like a lot of fun. You get to see things that most of us never get a chance to see. You’ve done really well for yourself and I can see why you wouldn’t retire if you didn’t need to. That’s awesome.
You forgot to mention that Windows license can also be tied to your Microsoft account, so if you buy a new computer, you can take your Windows with you, and use that license on a completely different machine without buying a new Windows key.
👍
not sure that applies to OEM licenses, but only purchased licenses? Feel free to provide more info on that.
@@Äpple-pie-5k I bought a prebuild, logged in to my MS account and after few months I swapped every component except for the case. Motherboard was changed twice, CPU twice, RAM twice and GPU twice as well. License is normally tied either to your MS account, as I´m doing, or to your motherboard. So it doesn´t matter, if you have an OEM system, or you build your own from the ground up, you can link your Windows license to your Microsoft account regardless and therefor I use the very same Windows license form the beginning.
Loved pebcat. My computer guy would say code 16, problem is 16" away from computer 😂
LOL hadn't heard that one
Hit and miss. Most of your myths werent myth just ignorant oversimplifications of something that is slightly true or was true at some point. Most of the responses were slightly less ignorant oversimplifications of how things mostly are based on better but not a full knowledge. Is it just me or are the both sides the same?
now that explains why when I was in school when I was a kid they would tell us to never press the power button to turn off the computer and use the menu to turn it off and got unhappy with us when we pressed power button to turn it off I never understood why until today because personally using my own computer. I'm turning it off on the power button a lot of times never had a problem over the years, but now it makes total sense that you explained it to us for those who didn't know that thanks for the information. I will no longer turn off my computers or anybody else's computers from the power button again
Nobody should reccommend apache openoffice. It's abandoned and has a great fork called libreoffice.
Which I also recommended 👍
25:50 It also depends on the drive. If your boot drive (C:) is nearly full your PC will slow down, and windows may even WARN YOU about that and suggest you free up some space. If you have other drives it doesn't really matter if they are full, unless you keep games and/or software on those drives that you run often. USB flash drives (Ventoy) and NAS doesn't matter if they are full, since it isn't a main part of the operating system for your OS to constantly access.
you see most computers die within 24 months? Maybe I misunderstood. I did pay for a second year warranty as it was only $28 from Lenovo onsite warranty. Lenovo has the best prices on their warranty
Lenovo is Chinese owned. It explains a lot. There was the time they had a spyware installed from new. China wants your data, that's for sure.
Nice!
I have computers that are 15+ years old and they still work fine for what I use them for. I have a quite new windows computer but that one is slooow, it wants to update to windows 11 but I don't know about that.. The old computers are running Linux, sometimes whit windows in a virtual machine.
Refurbished does not mean open box. If a customer just changed his mind it is literally called open box. Refurbished means it was broken and they fixed it.
This repair requires training. If the amount of new devices failing is small, they will just chuck DOA devices into a landfill. For them to bother training staff to repair and rebox the broken items and sell as refurbished requires a massive amount of such items. Either due to a problem with the item, or simply due to sheer scale of sales.
Refurb sellers are almost never fixing anything. They buy devices by the pallet that were returned or pulled from the shelf for any number of reasons. They check them, trash the crap that doesn't work, and resell the stuff that works. They might blow out any dust and do a factory reset, maybe replace a cracked screen. Anything wrong with a circuit board is toast.
@@reefhound to clarify, I was talking about original manufacturer refurbishing returns not a 3rd party dealer of some sort.
My granny always says that I'm her technical support because I know all about computers
Nice (and NOOOO, granny!) 😂😂😂
Probably true, especially compared to the local PC guy. Problem is when your tech support starts to include neighbors, remote family and in my case kayaking friends :P
I handled some of the maintenance for computers at our unit. I know that last point so well. I'm pleased that you said it! In the service deference is expected to people who outrank you. I'm just happy that it was their budget that was tapped and not ours, when inept users got new computers.
9:55 - Let's see if I can anticipate this answer. There is this thing called "thermal shock" - the physical effect of turning the computer on or off and having everything inside go from cold to hot and back again. This ages the equipment faster than just letting it come to temperature and operating.
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Yeah, that's a bunch of bollocks right there. Almost all of your devices will age faster when they are hot. Fans definitely run out faster, PC collects more dust, and remember that the components like the CPU, GPU, SSD and therefore PSU use power depending on the use case, which means that they are having "thermal shocks" anywho.
3:03 as a business owner, I take offense to that. Good businesses don’t take advantage of their customers, no matter what
As a business owner myself for 16 years, I too take offense to the fact this happens. And I know this because I've gone undercover (ala Linus) and gotten no less than 4 "possible issues", ranging from super cheap to ridiculous. I've always been honest with my clients, no exception. My reputation is paramount to me and the success of my business 👍
Going to a PC repair shop is like the stereotypical "airhead blonde" walking into a car repair shop and saying "my car doesn't work".
If you are running linux, you probably don't get viruses just because you're computer skilled and understand better, and recognize better the threads out there.
That's a very fair argument 👍
Disagree with one point- Turning computer off. As a electronics repairer, your Desktop power supply is running power through the caps which dry out from heat and power filtering and when you turn it off for 12-16 hours for the night, the cost and those parts simply arnt being burn out. Also the fans are spinning and eventually the sleeve dries and grinds. The M/B chips and and heat sinks are baked and paste dries out if on twice as quick. ANY part taking power and getting warm/hot as less life span than only running 12 hours instead of 24. NOW, if you only want 3 years and then buy another computer, then leave it on but you have to pay for the extra power even if only idling or less in hibernation. Also, while you are away, what if a virus enters and you could see it , but now asleep? Leaving a computer unattended connected to the internet can only be problematic as you system could be hacked all night with you asleep. Fire risk left on all night?
I have always turned my computers off and NEVER had a PS fail or M/B fail. Caps dry out naturally, but certainly faster when power going through them and heat on all parts is the enemy of electronics lifetime..
P.S. Love the last comment in this Video! "It's not the Computer, it's you!" Pebcak!!. After 40 years, I've seen crazy things!
Rock on!
About the power button... Most modern computers have the power button so that it first sends a signal to the operating system to initiate a power off sequence. If you hold it down a long time (usually 4 seconds) it does an immediate power off. The irst instance (momentary power button) works the same way as asking the computer to turn itself off, and is OK to do. Of course the BIOS must be setup to make this function properly, but most of the time it is.
Yep, found this out on an older Dell, but the damage was done to the old, and obsolete graphics card until I realized I could have just momentarily pressed the button and it'll shut down properly. Hind site, moving to Win 11 forced me to upgrade that card to start with as being obsolete (Ferni that Nvidia had deprecated recently so no support for DX 12 and WDDM. Now I run a 2017 based Dell Optiplex with a newer graphics card running 11 without issue.
I don't disagree...But I have clients who do the "press and hold" every single time - that's what I was referring to 👍
@@AskYourComputerGuy Then you should have mentioned that in your video.
For the power button: a short press on it acts just like you pressing the "shut down" button in the start menu. Your computer will go through the same steps, and will not do anything bad. It's holding down the button to force it off that can potentially be bad, and should only be used in an emergency.
Speaking of online crime and identity theft; some of the worst places to trust any of your personal information is with the government; employees and trustees of the government are rarely if ever held accountable for breaches of security and as a result are more likely to do stupid things with your information, like take your information home with them on a laptop; to visit sites on their government computer that they should not, and to put government computers online where the machines are not adequately protected.. Three letter agencies associated with security seem the worse; every few years I get notice from the government that some part of my information was involved in a breach of one sort or another; mostly from those agencies associated with security, and well, IRS and Social Security. With the rise of illegal immigration and woke ideologies in the government where DEI seems to be a mainstay, it's gotten worse in the past decade or so. DEI does not only mean based upon race or identity; some idiots in the government thought it was a good idea to hire and trust those that were in prisons for one reason or another - were trustworthy to work with citizen records for things like healthcare.. Yep, the worst caretaker of your personal information - is the government. If you are lucky, you'll only receive a notification of the breech.
Sadly, true.
Good explanations and wise advice.
We have been using Linux systems since 2003 and Artix Linux since 2019.
I have never installed an anti-virus and have never had a virus.
Some PCs from 2010 still work flawlessly.
Light bulbs fail most often when turning on or off.
There’s a lesson in that.
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Those light bulbs aren't powered by a regulated power-supply.
@@Okurka. Mine is powered by regulated herd of cats.
PS FFS, Dude, I had literally a disco from my light bulbs(they are still operational) in some UK town I was living - that "disco" lasted for a month or so - I lost one HDD around that time as well. So, yeah - I don't regulate power supply, but those who do don't care about my HDDs.
@@ewfse364u35jh Flashing incandescent lights are already heated up when they flash so don't tend to break; cold incandescent lights that suddenly get a high electric current are the ones that tend to break. Literally.
I've read up on the user guide because I was curious about how to handle the battery, when I got my laptop. The company actually recommended to leave the battery connected whenever possible and to unplug it every 2-3 months to let the battery run below 10% before plugging it in again. So, if you're still unsure, read up on the battery in the user guide of the device you bought.
Thx for sharing!
To write a virus for Linux is so much more difficult due to the much tighter file permission structure. Can't be installed without authentication, but it's still possible by installing an imposter package disguised as something else. But the security structure of Windows is still a joke after all these years.
Can't argue that 👍
One more reason is actually linux's heavy dependency on package managers eliminating one of the most common attack vectors of viruses. Another, is Linux users generally being less susceptible to malicious online downloads due to higher average technical expertise
Can't install as a system package without authentication. But can still install something to your home directory and run as your user. Plenty of damage it can get up to while running in a user account.
As for hard drive space, I had a user who complained her computer was very slow. When I connected to it I found the C drive was full. Luckily there was a D drive that was virtually empty. I moved many files from C to D and then re-directed many programs etc to start using the D drive. Fixed her problem.
Nice!
macs you can not upgrade anything you are stuck with what it is sold....
Yes...but even without upgrade capability, they're still off the shelf 5x better than any Windows PC
@@AskYourComputerGuy lol
@@AskYourComputerGuy if you're okay with being able to run nothing but Photoshop and Sims 😂
I disagree.
Deleting system32 sped up my pc, then spraying the motherboard with cold water stopped the overheating and kept the temperature down drastically.
I've had computers all my life, and not one of them died within 12-24 months. I never get warranties on anything, it's a rip off. Of course I did stop buying after 2014, I still use a Windows 7 computer that has been going strong since about 2012. The newer ones may very well suffer from deeper levels of planned obsolescense. That along with my disdain for higher versions of windows keeps me buying used machines.
Did you modify 7 with a modern AV, edit the hosts file, or do anything like that to try and keep it safe in the modern world, or do you just not connect it to the internet?
On most computers built within the last 10+ years, the power button does not immediately power off the computer. Instead, it causes Windows to start the same shutdown routine as if you click Start -> Power -> Shutdown. In fact, you can even go into Windows settings and set it to go into sleep or hibernation mode instead. Only the kill switch on the power supply will cut off all power immediately, but that switch is located in the back of the computer, which is hard to reach and doesn't exist on laptops.
Correct. My reference was to those who "press and hold" every time 👍
I've worked on computers since the 80s as a teen, and this guy is full of sh*t. Out of all the PCs I've personally owned, I only had one pc die on me due to hardware failure that was not easily fixed by switching out a part. The only way that makes sense is if you are purchasing a group of them to install in an office, and that's because it's a numbers game. I've installed and maintained personal and business installation for both government and shops.
Extended warranties are a waste of money. There are fewer and fewer moving parts in PCs these days. Save your money, and instead of getting an extended warranty, put it towards new parts because eventually you'll either want to upgrade a piece of your PC or will need to replace an SSD which you should already have a client cloud service to back up your crucial files so if one fails you are covered.
Most parts, if they are going to fail, will do so almost immediately these days unless it's due to something like - poor air circulation.
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Banks will never email you to request personal information, account numbers, or passwords, and they will also never call you for such information. So beware of fishing emails or fake phone calls.
I didn't know about the license. Everything else, i did. Well, i did know that if you reinstall windows using the tool that is in windows to do so, you don't have to. But thanks for telling that.
The last one, i only say that, when it is actually true. If the repairs would be too much, you have to admit it would be true. But with the examples you tell, you are totally right. I can't remember how many people who believed that, when the only thing needed, was reinstall windows. One of them accepted it, and was surprised when i was done with their pc.
Thanks for this awesome video
I appreciate that 👍
Myth number 69: surfing the many available porn sites will kill my computer and put me on the FBI watch list.
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😂😂😂
Modern adult sites are often less dangerous and less scummy than "regular" sites. Adult sites usually better police their ad networks, so malicious messages encouraging the user to download malware or to call a phone number for scam tech support are rare.
In addition, their advertising is less intrusive: Visiting a regional newspaper site will often produce overlays that need to be closed just to read the article. However, the ads on adult sites are usually more straightforward, often just consisting of watching a 30-second video.
10:51 Fun fact, back in 2002 I bought several 200GB Maxtor harddrives. Yes, Maxtor. The infamous terribly bad harddrives everybody was talking about, being hardcore failing harddrives.
Well, 7 out of 10 bought between 2002 and 2005 I still have and they still work (thank you Pluto for Sata backwards compatibility). WD however, I'm not specifically happy about. But others I know hate Maxtor or HGST and absolutely adore WD drives. Same for Lexar. Lexar wasn't all that good back in 2018 with their first line of nVme's, but fast forwards 2023/2024 they're one of the best to have in terms of durability. My Lexar 500gb nVme (I don't need more) drive is being punished every day and it's never failing on me (health status is 100% after 9 months of hardcore usage).
Photopea "clone" does not have Content Aware Fill ◑︿◐ so not a clone.
Yes, agreed. Just like it doesn't have background removal. Its not Photoshop for sure. But for most people, it's "enough". I use it to create my thumbnails for my videos, and it handles layers and layer manipulation beautifully. Not everyone needs the advanced features that Photoshop does provide 👍
I got a “refurbished” Lenovo ThinkPad from Amazon with 16 gigs RAM and a 1TB SSD with Win10 Professional - for less than $200. And it is doing GREAT!!
The only “drawback” is that it will not accept Win11 - but I am looking into setting up a dual-boot to LINUX.
The "general disgust" I have with the windows settings menu is not my fault. That settings menu in 10 and 11 is just awful.
Fair 😂
I'm still using Windows 7. Except for my backup desktop, and another laptop I have, those are windows 10, but my other laptop is windows 7. They are really just backups and I keep important files on a couple of external drives. The one windows 7 laptop is really bad, it's USB port has corrupted several flash drives when copying files, but for some reason it still connects to a better older version of our apartment complex wifi that doesn't have security restrictions when all my other devices, including the windows 7 desktop, cannot. It's a real puzzle to me.
@@UselessKnowbody If windows 7 was still supported and worked well, I would probably use it instead of 10 or 11. The settings menu and the old god mode folder are so nice, and so much better in 7 than 10 or 11.
Thanks for the information. I keep waiting for you to talk about the most important issue for all electronics, and you almost did. It is ELECTRICAL SURGES. You mentioned lightning, but that is just one type of surge and certainly the worse type, but even without lightning there are surges often that I believe are slowly causing damage to sensitive parts until that part eventually fails. I get six to seven years of life on average out of my laptops. I have a whole house surge protector, Siemens, wired into the breaker box and a Tripp Lite one that all my electronics are on. I can hear the Tripp LIte cycle many times in a week, indicating a surge has occurred in one of the protectors, and this with absolutely no storm activity within hundreds of miles. In addition to surges from the power company, it is also common to have small surges within the houses electrical system from high electrical draw appliances cycling on and off. Maybe you can test many of the surge protectors on the market and do a video of your results?
It's actually in the works. Trying to get my favorite brand of UPS to sponsor one of my videos. May just have to bite the bullet and spend some money, but you're 100% right about different types of power issues. Brown-outs cause way more damage than electrical storms IMO
@@AskYourComputerGuy Thanks for the reply and I will look forward to seeing the video in the future.
As a retired person living on a fixed income I now buy reconditioned machines. My first one which has Windows I bought probably 10 years back and newer one just over a year as a program insisted on 10 or newer so went with 11 only cost 400 Canadian delivered.
Nice!
My problem with extended warranties isn't the possible need for them, is whether or not you can collect on them. You need to check what they do and do not cover. You also need to know how much hassle/grief a particular company gives you when trying to make a claim. There are probably some good companies that don't try to claim that such and such video your warranty or that the problem is really being caused by something that isn't covered, and so on.
So, the question isn't whether or not the warranty is worth because your computer might fail, but rather are you buying something that you'll be able to use. If collecting on a warranty is very difficult to almost impossible, then yeah there essentially a waste of money.
The bonus was awesome... It's the same reason moving to a new town for a fresh start doesn't solve the teenager rebellious problems... Baggage is what you take with you... to the new computer too. You just might copy the problem right into the new computer as you restore your irreplaceable memories. (Jeff Foxworthy's college computer hard drive)
about the topic at 4:55. If you have a job, YOU have a Value, the bigger the company you in, the bigger the value you are.
As a FOSS developer, I can attest that freeware is generally higher qualty due to a team driven by passion as opposed to a paycheck
Hadn't thought of it that way, but I agree it makes sense! 👍
Many FOSS programs are bad (even big projects) compared to the paid products in their respective markets. Idk about the general part. Also LMMS sucks.
You should not keep an SSD pretty full because that will shorten its lifespan (in addition to being slower)
Agreed
27:13 ... about the power button.
1) On most PCs a short press on the power button simply triggers the shutdown process, same as from the Start Menu.
2) PCs when "off" are not truly off. There are some parts that have to be powered for when you press the power button to start them up... So the main supply is always on.
Some people take a practice of turning off the AC power to their computers, either through the "baby sitter" switch on the back or by turning off a power bar. This can seriously shorten the lifetime of the internal power supply or power brick as huge spikes of current are drawn to charge up the internal capacitor banks during start-up. The repeated "inrush current" will eventually accumulate enough micro-damage in your power supply that it will fail. The best bet -- and the way these are designed -- is to use the soft power switch on your device and leave the AC power on all the time. This avoids repeated inrush and lightens the load on your power supply's AC inputs substantially.
(BTW ... this also applies to audio equipment, routers, NAS boxes and on and on... best to use the soft power switch on the front, leaving the AC power always on.)
There was a time when half of my "computer won't come on" calls were fried power supplies because people thought they were saving energy and turned the AC on and off.
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Not all computer stores charge you based on the customers computer knowledge. We charged nothing until we found out what the actual problem was and knew how much work time and materials would be involved.
That's great business practice. Same here, I apply my diagnostic fee to the total bill. Some shops charge diagnostic, then repair cost, then pickup and delivery (both free for me). My reputation is everything to me and I get a ton of referral business because I'm honest first. Fair second.
@@AskYourComputerGuy Yes, we gave free diagnostics and once we knew what was wrong with the system we would call the customer and give them our estimate. If the customer declined the repair, it cost them nothing. We charged $56/hr for in store repairs.
We charged $112/hr for at home service which did not include free diagnostics. The reason for the higher rate for in home repair was because our technician was only working on one customer vs. working on 8 at a time on a bench and it also covered travel expenses.