Sometimes I hate computers

[Racsoviale]

I just bought a good desktop from a friend, with dual-core and everything(this is a big step up for me since my laptop from Dell is only able to run simcity, starcraft and other games from that age) But after installing various games that I bought from Steam when my good laptop worked I thought it would be cool to try some of the games I had bought on awesome graphics( I cant wait to try civ 4 on good graphics and where it doesnt take forever to load a turn when I reach the industrial age).

After trying several times I couldnt open my dvd drive on my new pc, and I couldnt see why I shouldnt be able to. The drive responded(aka it made a noise when I tried to open it) I then googled what other people had experienced and after some searching it seemed that sometimes the dvd drive just get stuck. So after some handy brute force with a butterknife to remove the plastic shielding from the drive it worked.

So after fooling around with drivers and trying to update them and running various programs as administrator it all came down to forcibly opening the drive and remove the plastic shielding for the drive to open....sometimes I hate computers

what have you experienced where you felt really stupid afterwards because the solution was so simple compared to what you tried to do?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

There's an emergency eject button on most optical drives. Its very small and you need a needle to poke it. Looks like a little hole.

 

[B-29 Bomber]

My parents a few years back bought me and my sister computers for Christmas(we had gotten a financial windfall) from tiger direct. They came and were stacked on the front porch. I grabbed the top one. My sister got the bottom one. I took it greedily up stairs to my room. I had it all hooked up. It turned on fine. Then I tried to open the DVD drive. It didn't open. I was disappointed but I decided to wait until my parents came home from shopping to ask my dad for help as he's rather handy with computers. When he looked at it he determined that the drive was faulty. Again I was disappointed but not angry because I realized that this stuff does happen...

Then we got the second computer. The effing thing wouldn't turn on!


In the end I got the other computer my sister got because she left it behind when she moved out.

The moral of the story is to be patient, don't grab the first one you see!

 

[deanej]

Why didn't you just order a new drive?

 

[MobBoss]

There's an emergency eject button on most optical drives. Its very small and you need a needle to poke it. Looks like a little hole.

The end of a bent paperclip will do this much better than a needle and its probably easier to find one.

 

[Luckymoose]

Who uses DVD drives anymore? I haven't put a disc in my system in years.

 

[Zelig]

Who uses DVD drives anymore? I haven't put a disc in my system in years.

I doubt I'll have one in future desktops I build. On the off chance I need to use one I can just network the drive from an existing computer.

 

[MobBoss]

Who uses DVD drives anymore? I haven't put a disc in my system in years.

You dont burn stuff to DVDs to use?

 

[Zelig]

You dont burn stuff to DVDs to use?

Nope.

Everything in my house in wired at 1 gigabit, I've got ~100gb of external flash media and ~10tb of external HDD media, there isn't really anywhere 4gb dvds fit into the mix.

 

[emzie]

I installed a new video card, plugged everything back in, go to turn on the computer and the videocard seems dead. So I open up the side of the case and I can see the card's fan spinning so I know it's getting power. So I spend like an hour trouble shooting. And then I glance back at my monitor and notice I didn't plug it back in.

 

[mdwh]

I gladly drop DVDs from laptops and use an external when required - but I still use DVDs for doing some backups; for playing games, and watching videos. No, I have no interest in some DRM online system that I have to trust will always give me the rights to play it, and where I have no physical backup that I control. Plus it makes (re)installing Windows or other OSs easier. And it's not like not having the DVD drive in a desktop saves you any space.

 

[Zelig]

I gladly drop DVDs from laptops and use an external when required - but I still use DVDs for doing some backups; for playing games, and watching videos. No, I have no interest in some DRM online system that I have to trust will always give me the rights to play it, and where I have no physical backup that I control. Plus it makes (re)installing Windows or other OSs easier. And it's not like not having the DVD drive in a desktop saves you any space.

I just install windows from usb drives, takes less than 10 minutes to install Win7.

And not having a dvd drive in my desktop lets me fit another hard drive inside the case.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I just install windows from usb drives, takes less than 10 minutes to install Win7.

And not having a dvd drive in my desktop lets me fit another hard drive inside the case.

Why so many hard drives? A lot of HD porn or something? Even with all my stuff (nothing adult) I'm hardly taking up 500 GB.

 

[MobBoss]

Nope.

Everything in my house in wired at 1 gigabit, I've got ~100gb of external flash media and ~10tb of external HDD media, there isn't really anywhere 4gb dvds fit into the mix.

I was thinking like of music for your car stero or something...

 

[Zelig]

I was thinking like of music for your car stero or something...

My phone connects to my car stereo with bluetooth and then I can use my steering wheel controls for music playback from my phone.

It's pretty rad.

 

[Abaddon]

Why so many hard drives? A lot of HD porn or something? Even with all my stuff (nothing adult) I'm hardly taking up 500 GB.

Start downloading Blu Ray/HD films and you'll soon fly past that

(via legal methods of course!)

 

[Zelig]

Why so many hard drives? A lot of HD porn or something? Even with all my stuff (nothing adult) I'm hardly taking up 500 GB.

I have almost 500gb in legally obtained mma fights, that's not even starting on my tv or movie collections.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I don't really watch a lot of videos except for an easily guessed subject (and most of that's not HD). So I guess thats why.

 

[NBAfan]

I installed a new video card, plugged everything back in, go to turn on the computer and the videocard seems dead. So I open up the side of the case and I can see the card's fan spinning so I know it's getting power. So I spend like an hour trouble shooting. And then I glance back at my monitor and notice I didn't plug it back in.

I've done this.

 

[mdwh]

I guess the morale is that not everyone's needs are the same "Who uses DVD drives anymore?" is as much a question as "Who needs more three or more hard disks?" (And I'd imagine there are more of the former than the latter.)

(How many do you have, anyway? I have room in my desktop to fit 2 DVD drives, and 2 hard disks, which gives 1.5TB of space - and there's still loads of hard disk slots left over. Or do you have a small case?)