I have a little foundation for this:
I’ve seen a lineup of hundreds of identical PCs all get the exact same OS image, and inevitably you’ll get one or two that are significantly slower than the rest.
Its my belief that sometimes there’s some sort of deeply embedded hardware flaw that makes some computers suck and there’s no amount of tweaks or reinstalling an OS that will fix it.
some computers suck and there’s no amount of tweaks or reinstalling an OS that will fix it.
And somehow I’ve owned every single one of them.
yeah it’s called a defective or out of spec component. those are the ones that fail typically.
Or in spec when the spec is very broad.
See also “silicon lottery” in the world of overclocking.
Or in spec when the spec is very broad.
See also “silicon lottery” in the world of overclocking.
I have a really weird story related to this:
I was doing IT for an esports event, with 10 identical PCs on stage. Identical hardware, identical images, everything. One of them had much worse FPS than the rest. Okay, weird. Probably the player did something weird with their config.
- New SSD with fresh image: same.
- Switch SSDs with the next PC over: FPS still low, but fine on the other PC now using the SSD from the problem PC.
- Switch entire PC with spare: still low FPS on the spare
- Switch literally everything, including monitor and every single cable: still no improvement. Somehow this spot is cursed.
- Move the PC out from under the table and put it on a chair one metre to the side: FPS issues magically fixed.
My best guess is there was some kind of electrical interference manifesting in that one particular location. Never seen anything like it before or since…
My bet is on some of the systems having SSDs and some of them having spinning disks. They need separate images from hardware native installations. This results in exactly this scenario. Also not everything labeled ssd contains ssd. Dell used to slip sshds into they systems even in the pricy segment.
I have a little more foundation for that.
I think you’re right.
That intuition is correct. Hardware isn’t a magical exactly perfect thing every time. Everything has “flaws” and so you set tolerance levels and do your best.
CPUs and GPUs and RAM and drives all have specs they are aiming for, like a CPU manufacturer may want the next chips on the assembly line to be >4ghz, they crank out 1,000 of them and benchmark them. Some hit 4, some do 3.9, some may be 4.1 even. As long as it’s above spec it gets labeled the 4ghz Ultra or whatever brand. But the chips that run fine, but are slower, say 3.5ghz, then they just slap the 3.5ghz Mideange Label on those and sell for %20 less. The ones coming out at 3ghz get the Low End Label and are half the price.
That way they sell them all and everyone is happy (mostly).
Also that pesky law of thermodynamics ruins our fun and hardware gets worse over time too. Depends on the defects and lots of variables, but maybe one case didn’t cool as well so the CPU gets hotter and it had a defect that degraded it’s speed a bit so now that 4ghz Ultra is actually running at 3ghz, but that happened after the user bought it, so it is just “a slow machine” as you said.
It’s very real and you aren’t crazy for feeling like or even proving that some really are slower than others.
Just search for “cpu binning”, anything that slips through the cracks of that process are exactly this.
Modern computers struggle to do tasks they did even faster 45 years ago because modern people don’t know how to do anything except use 3 trillion lines of code that were written by other people.
Nonsense! Your idea is extremely well-founded!
modern computers are optimized to sell you shit and steal your data, not be efficient
I think it has more to do with expanded computing resources allowing for devs to skip optimizing their code since it is no longer absolutely necessary to get something useable.
Combine that with multiple apps by unrelated devs all taking more than their fair share of system resources. And library developers building towers of abstractions to get as far as possible from that icky hardware!
Some people have an aura around them that computers disrespect, its why we have repeat idiots that log faults and we send a tech down and get them to do it again and it works. In the presence of IT support they tend to behave
I heard that being called computer mana.
If you don’t have enough, you’ll encounter all kinds of errors that’ll disappear as soon as someone with a higher amount of mana approaches
That explains why all my coworker’s computer problems would go away when I walked by.
it’s because most errors are software state issues and those kinda people never ever power cycle regardless of what they claim
source: 7 years of phone tech support
That’s because they think logging off or turning the monitor off/on is the same as reatarting, or, in the case of laptops / rackmount KVMs closing the lid and reopening
I did IT for 10 years. fuck.
“Have you tried restarting?”
“yes”
Uptime: fucking millennia.
I used to be nice and not remotely restart their machine without telling them. Used to be.
Channeling the BOFH.
Waiting 8 seconds after turning off a device, before turning it back on. Any electronics, really.
Turning the TV on off? Wait 8 seconds.
Blender not working? Unplug, 8 seconds, replug.
Replacing batteries? 8 seconds.10 seconds is too long, 5 seconds isn’t enough sometimes. 8 seconds is perfect.
The manual for the computer I’m using right now says to wait 8 seconds before turning it back on.
What’s frustrating is the occasional device that literally needs 30 seconds to drain its caps and you go back and forth with tech support claiming that you turned it off for a minute when it was really only eight seconds.
This is not wholly without a true foundation. Capacities can store charge for some time and e.g. keep data in ram (I think this is only true of older types of memory now though?)
What’s frustrating is the occasional device that literally needs 30 seconds to drain its caps and you go back and forth with tech support claiming that you turned it off for a minute when it was really only eight seconds.
The RNG detects me at my PC or console, and proceeds to dole out shit rolls.
Hello fellow X-COM player.
Blaster bomb at two places: Miss!
My first gaming PC I built in 2004 is still the fastest computer that has ever been.
I feel like too fast or too slow computers are bad at making pseudorandom numbers look random (usually because same numbers repeat too much)
You very well may already know this, but in case you don’t, us humans aren’t generally good at picturing true random. We tend to assume an even distribution is random where with true random, finding long strings of repeating numbers is expected to happen.
It’s not without foundation, but I feel like I have a magical power to make computers work. Someone will be having a problem and when I walk over it starts working. And then when I walk away it happens again.
And I think this power is hereditary because one of my kids appears to have it.
Maybe it’s time. E.g. waiting for IT to walk over or remote in, or doing something slower because the user is explaining what they’re doing.
I find that waiting for the click to have a result makes some problems not appear, vs. the user double/right clicking something 6 times because they don’t want to wait. Me waiting for the OS to finish loading everything, vs. the user clicking something 6 times while services or even UI elements are still loading.
I think that some gadgets have a dark soul and just hate their owners. A lot of time I will take something back to a shop because it just won’t turn on, open, rotate, heat up or whatever they are supposed to do. The person at the shop tries the cursed thing once and just like that it works perfectly and I feel like an idiot. Then, back home, it will work for a couple of times and then stop again.
And it happens also with myself in the role of the “fixer”. A colleague will show me an app that does not work, a laptop that won’t boot or a printer they can’t connect to and it all works if I try it.
I have that too, that drives people insane.
Someone will be having a problem
Some people are bogon emitters. They radiate fundamental particles of cluelessness.
when I walk over it starts working
Some people are bogon absorbers.
I do feel dumber and less capable after spending time with certain people…
No, they’re not clueless. They show me exactly what they did before and it just… works. Local apps, websites, networking issues just disappear.
I call that “Threat of Administration”. Works way too often.
According to legend aving a theoretical physicist close enough can break any well designed equiment nearby. In the same way a good engineer can make the same equipment work by proximity only.
I sometimes call it my “healing hands” when a user swears up and down that they did everything I told them to but the problem persists. Until I demonstrate it personally and voilá, the problem is gone.
If I hold a keyboard button down harder it will work faster.
Only with turbo button.
Voodoo 3 3000 was the best GPU to this day
I cried when thecwire mesh for alice in American mcgee poked through the texture
Some people - even technologically literate ones - just want computers and operating systems to work straight out of the box with no building or tinkering and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Part of me would quite like to fuck around installing Linux and creating a home NAS.
I used to tinker for hours on our family pc back in the 90s and 00s trying to optimise it/make it work.
But now? The other, bigger part simply cant be arsed. Windows 11 just works. It does what I need it to do.
The bigger Linux distros have all “just worked” for the better part of two decades
Not for me haha.
I’m happy on Ubuntu, but I’ve had my share of weird bugs and ux issues. And they do a pretty good job.
If I was on Ubuntu and never configured anything or installed any software, I’d have a slightly better track record.
Do they come pre-installed on machines ready to be used out of the box?
hardware, which gets delivered to you with all drivers preinstalled for an “out-of-the-box” Linux experience.
That’s awesome, this would make me use Linux.
But it also has some extra features like surveillance I don’t want it to do
that kind of thinking will get you burned at the stake before the temple of the holy Linux, his son self-hosting, and the spirit, FOSS.
Every-day pedestrian computer tasks should be easy to complete with the keyboard only. Mice were bad enough as a crutch for lazy users, but now it’s a crutch for lazy developers.
Let me pick on Mozilla for a second. In many of Firefox’s menus, they have alt keys. You know, an underlined letter in a word that you can select by holding the alt key and pressing that letter. In FF, many of these letters are capitalized. So now you have to press shift+alt+whatever letter. Criminally bad design.
Let’s add to this that keyboard, mouse, and touchpad are interfaces to the same system and so should have access to the same behaviors so you don’t need all three of them to be productive. Looking at you MacOS.
I really think Command Line Interface and keyboard shortcuts should be more mainstream. It’s just such a powerful and efficient way to navigate your system.
Depending on where you are, keyboard access may be legally required (for digital accessibility).
Printers must be treated with intimidation for them to behave, because they smell fear and only respect violent hierarchy.
I keep a hammer on hand when I need to print something for this reason.
🎶Back up in your ass with the resurrection🎶
It’s not just printers. Laptops recognise people who are willing and able to crack them open. I’ve had multiple family members claim their problems disappeared the instant I gave their device a stern look.
IT person here. I concure.
On bad imposter syndrome days I dont feel like a professional, I feel like the computer whisperer. Gets ticket for problem, decides to stretch my legs snd walk over, issue is fixed before I arrive, like magic (its not, but I didnt see the problem so I cant make any notes other than a wizard fixed it).
similar job, my phrase I always used was
“I’ve been known to intimidate some electronics in my day”
I miss the mystique of Cray and silicon graphics.
Its funny how a few people have interpreted ‘belief’ here as in a value, like “I believe in free speech.” I assume it was meant to “thing I think is factually true” because “without any foundation” makes more sense there.
Yeah, but I’m still liking the answers, though. Maybe I should’ve worded it differently.
Nah, two questions for the price of one. Just always interesting to see the different ways things get interpreted.
