Tech Support idiots

[humbert]

I only call tech support when I've exhausted all other avenues. Here's an example. I just got my laptop. I immediately removed the HDD that came with it and installed a new SSD I bought. When I tried to boot from a USB flashdrive to install Windows, it wouldn't boot no matter what I did - not even after disabling secure boot. Here's an excerp of my call to their "technicians"

Me: I replaced the HDD and installed a new one, so I'm trying to boot from flashdrive to install Windows. It refuses to boot despite disabling secure boot. What's happening?
The tech: Sir, what operating system are you running?

After packing up the laptop to return it thinking it had a problem, it occurred to me to take another look at UEFI and secure boot on Wiki. I found out that, by default, anything that is not in GPT will not be seen by the BOIS, let alone will not boot. This could be fixed by enabling CSM (compatibility for "legacy devices"). I did that and, sure enough, it worked. This is nowhere in the docs and the "techs" are clueless to its existence! 6 hours of suffering for nothing!

Here's another one: my new Epson printer has 2 card readers that cannot be disabled. They appear in Windows and the BIOS, even when there's no media in them. I called their technicians and explained that you couldn't make the drive letters go away AND that even the BIOS sees them as drives. Their response? "This is a Windows problem, call Microsoft"!

[scarface]

Concerning usb boot issues, it should be a reflex to go to the bios.
I've had a similar problem lately.
http://www.nomaher.com/forum/index.php?topic=1169.msg15029#msg15029
You can also test your usb key with vmware, I gave this tip to harkaz, in the old days:
http://www.nomaher.com/forum/index.php?topic=1170.msg9411#msg9411

[humbert]

If tech support doesn't have a scripted answer to your question, you can forget about it. They're basically just a human version of a FAQ.

Tech support exists precisely to troubleshoot problems that are nowhere in the documentation - at least in theory. It has degenerated into nothing more than a human reading the same manual you have, or someone reading the FAQ. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. Despite this, my post was simply to point out how clueless these people are when it comes to their jobs - you saw that the answers they gave are simply ludicrous. "I don't know" would have been much more acceptable.

As for your card readers, Humbert, run diskmgmt.msc, right-click on drive -> Change drive letters and paths -> Remove. You can hide the drives that way, and unhide when necessary.

What you said is pretty much a workaround, but despite that let me ask you this. Suppose I turned the printer on and saw drive G (the card reader). I do as you say. Now I turn the printer off and insert a flashdrive, which should now correspond to G. Will it move over to H or stay as G? Another thing. Next time I turn the printer on, do I have to repeat the procedure?

[humbert]

Next time you go out for drinks, invite me

In fairness to the tech support people, let me say that about 10% of the time I DO run into someone who knows what they're talking about. With this laptop, for example, after the frustration with their phone support, I wrote an email to Asus' headquarters in Taiwan. The man who responded told exactly how to solve the problem. Of course by the time he wrote me back I already found the solution.

[Vasudev]

Is it a gaming laptop?

[humbert]

Yes it is! It comes with an i7-4710HQ processor @2.5 Ghz, nVidia GT-8610 graphics processor and 16GB RAM. It was on sale for $989, no tax, no freight and a year to pay. I immediately grabbed it and put an SSD in it. It's a rocket and boots up in under 5 seconds.

[Vasudev]

isn't the gpu nv gt 860m with 2gb ddr5. Well for $990 its a best buy and you can't play intensive games(BF4 or AC unity) as gpu is a bottleneck.
CPU is very good and gpu is good enough for photoshops, movie edits @HD and very very very lite gaming.

[humbert]

isn't the gpu nv gt 860m with 2gb ddr5. Well for $990 its a best buy and you can't play intensive games(BF4 or AC unity) as gpu is a bottleneck.
CPU is very good and gpu is good enough for photoshops, movie edits @HD and very very very lite gaming.

I just looked it up. It's an Intel Core i7 4710HQ (2.50GHz), and the video is NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M 2GB. It came with 16 GB of ram. I replaced the 1 TB HDD with a 256 GB SSD and installed Maher's Windows 8.1 on it. I also bought a USB enclosure and used the HDD for backup. Naturally I wiped the garbage-infested OS that came with it.

"Gamer's laptop" is simply an expression used to sell it. Logic alone tells you that when it comes to real gaming, there is no replacement for the desktop.

[Vasudev]

gtx 860m>>>gt 860m.
You can play bf4 at high settings on that gpu.

[Daniil]

gtx 860m>>>gt 860m.
You can play bf4 at high settings on that gpu.

Insofar as.
I bought an ArmA2 (Collection Edition, as a gift for me for New Year  ), and at "ultra" it works slow on FX-8350 with 32 GB DDR3 and dual GTX770. I think any laptop, even with top GPU, can't be a gaming station.