You'll like this one..

[Kitten Kong]

A kid brings in his machine back in Jan.

Needed a new psu, and ssd fitting.

No problem, supply both, and alls well.

He gets back in touch with me about 10 days ago.

I've bought a new graphics card, and motherboard, can you swap them over, and give me a price.

Yes says I. It'll be £30 for the swap over, another £65 for reinstalling windows, and another £110 for windows 10.

Wow.. That's a lot of money. Why do I need windows 10?

Well, its because you have home built this machine, and there is no COA. I need to see it, to install windows, because you are installing a new motherboard, it wont have the code inside the bios.

Oh ok, can you order it for me, and i will bring everything round next week.

He comes Wednesday with his granddad, and drops it off.

Nice Geforce 1070ti graphics card, and a Rog Strix B360-G Gaming motherboard.Socket 1151

I just open up the case to start work.

The PSU I supplied last month doesnt have the 2x4pin power connectors for the gcard. (His old card didnt need additional power, so no reason to supply one which did have this.)

His current motherboard is a Asus A68HM-K a fecking AMD board!

His new board is DDR4, his current board is DDR3.

Why oh why don't clients simply say to us, I'm thinking of upgrading, what do you suggest, or will this fit with that..

Oh boy.. I can see tihs isnt going to go over to well.

 

[alexsmith2709]

Have fun explaining that! People usually learn the hard way especially when the hard way hurts the wallet.
I never order windows until i have the computer in my possession because i buy the ESD (can you even buy a box for windows anymore?) there is no need to order in advance. This limits the risk to me.

 

[Kitten Kong]

Well he's having the psu and graphics card fitted. Re the w10 licence, I'm going to return it. good old Amazon.

I won't use it for months, if at all, so will order it again if and when.

 

[alexsmith2709]

I buy my stuff from distributors. I can get windows and office keys instantly so always wait until i need them. I inform them that after i place the order for it they cannot cancel.

 

[nerd2u]

Just tell him this is the cost of trying to do it yourself.

You didn't tell him which items to buy and his mistakes/inexperience come at a price

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

 

[frase]

Haha, but I know what I am doing grandpa - lil spoilt git

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

The PSU I supplied last month doesnt have the 2x4pin power connectors for the gcard. (His old card didnt need additional power, so no reason to supply one which did have this.)

You just learned the reason

 

[fastremotehelp.com]

You just learned the reason

I so agree regarding the PS issue, that's on you. Everything else is on the kid. Charge him an hour consulting time, sit down and explain the issues involved in being your own computer general contractor, but be nice! Let the kid return the parts, and charge him for putting the parts and OS into his new shiny computer. This is how they learn, it's how you learned, and it's how I learned. This is a great chance to make a client for life.

 

[Porthos]

The PSU I supplied last month doesn't have the 2x4pin power connectors for the gcard. (His old card didn't need additional power, so no reason to supply one which did have this.)

I always ask(depending on the type of computer) what are their possible upgrade plans and supply a PSU that can allow the upgrades they might be dreaming about when funds allow.

No disrespect to you Nige, I learned the above (like you did) with experience. We have all been there at one time.

But of course, the user bit off more than he can chew(pay for) by trying to "DYI" Of course you can't read minds and intentions.(would be nice though)

 

[nerd2u]

Idk I disagree about the PSU I bring my car to my mechanic I expect replacement parts to be the same.

I don't want the sport part unless I tell him I want it.

If he replaced it with a similar unit based on current specs with no mention of upgrades that's on the customer.

PSUs can have significant price differences. He sold the customer what he needed at the time. The customers needs changed because the customer didn't plan for the future that's on the customer.

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

 

[Big Jim]

Had a kid come in that had bought a 1700x off his mate and fitted it himself but it wasn't working. He couldn't get the cooler to fit so used his old one, but also provided the new cooler and his old CPU. The board was an FX/am3 board, he had managed to bend pins on his new CPU. We got it working and he came back a few weeks later with a new board and ddr4 ram.
At least he kind of learnt from his mistake.

 

[thecomputerguy]

That's nothing, I had a kid who wanted to do some 'upgrades' using parts he supplied. I only offered to help because he was the son of a very very good client of mine, otherwise I would have turned it down.

I show up thinking it's a simple SSD upgrade or new video card. Nope, its a motherboard/ram/cpu swap.

I pull it apart and the first thing I see? He couldn't figure out how to mount his cooler to his motherboard so he duct taped the bottom plate to the chassis of the case... I take that off and remove his mangled cooler and somehow he's managed to bend the pins in an 1151 socket, which to be honest is pretty mind-blowing/impressive considering the 1151 socket is ZIF.

I left and told the client she needed to just pay me to supply parts and teach him how to build a system. She was fine with that and I ended up making some great money on it since I made my normal margin on anything I supply and a ton of labor getting paid for her son to screw it all together with my eyes on him.