These are not for those who have a weak heart.

I live in Finland (as some of you might know) and we have a lot of Asian exchange students and other Asians living in our city. They are mostly studying computer sciences and some are studying mathematics, but most of them are doing something to do with programming.

I've traditionally bought my PC hardware as used (GPUs, processors, memory etc.) and I'm selling my used hardware to others. The stories I'm going to now tell to you are both real.

_Pixabay!

Motherboard memory support story

Sound scary enough?

I was selling my GTX 750 on facebook and one asian dude contacted me. He was studying in the same university as I was so we agreed to meet in the university cafe. I could see he was studying computer sciences, so I was happy I could sell the hardware to someone who appreciates it.

We met, he didn't ask any questions but just bought the GPU and gave me the money.

However.. this was the point the terror started at.

I got a message from him on Facebook, asking what kind of memory the GPU had. It was GDDR5, I'm not sure if it had 1 GB or 2 GB of GDDR5 but I remember the fact it was GDDR5.

He seemed really sad about it.

"My motherboard doesn't support DDR5"

What?

...

WHAT?

"I know, it's GDDR5 for the GPU and the motherboard support is about RAM, which is usually DDR3"

"Yes, this supports DDR3, not DDR5"

"Yes. It's not DDR5, it's GDDR5 and your motherboard supports it."

"..."

"Do you understand or should I try to explain more clearly?"

"... I understand"

I'm quite sure he never understood.

The good thing in this is that I wasn't anymore afraid they will move all jobs to Asia as a stereotypical Asian is described as someone super intelligent and super skillful.

I'm hoping the computer sciences studies are not going to waste.

_Pixabay!

The GPU and PSU

I know, the last story was related to a GPU, but this is too.

Today I saw an Asian guy (again from Asia) asking for a GPU. I had a extra GTX 770 and I thought I could sell it to him. I contacted him and we were haggling, as he didn't seem to have much money to spend on this.

We found an agreement and when I asked if he has a PSU which can provide power to the GPU, sharing a photo of the power connectors on GPU (6 + 8 pins), he stated that he doesn't have them. I promised to sell him my PSU with a extra 10€, which he agreed on.

Once again.. we made the trade.

He was unsure if the GPU will fit his PC, as he said it's old. I told him my PC is 8 years old and even my previous PC could handle PCI-E cards, so he was happy with it. I got my money, he got his goods.

Once again.. this was the point when everything went wrong.

"Hello, it doesn't fit my PC."

I got a photo of my card and his old card. His old GPU was an AGP card...

We've had PCI-E since 2003 and he's using an AGP only motherboard. His PC is actually really really ancient. I'm guessing he doesn't play a lot of games.

I explained to him that he needs to upgrade more than just the GPU to get this work. He said he'll try to figure out how to make this work, even though I promised to give him the money back if he gives me the PSU and GPU back.

After a while, he stated that he can keep the GPU because he found some kind of external card on ebay which makes PCI-E to work on his motherboard. It's fine by me, but he stated that the PSU doesn't work, as he had the PSU on the floor with power cable attached and he didn't get it to work. The fan wasn't moving.

I tried to explain to him that the PSU doesn't really work that way, but he was still upset about that.

Now it seems I'll have to meet him again tomorrow and give him back his 10€ for the PSU which he claims doesn't work.
It worked with me when I removed it from my PC, but who knows.. maybe he lost a really cheap modular 600W PSU just because he didn't know what he was doing.

_Pixabay!

Disclaimer

I have nothing against Asian people and I don't think they all suck with computers.

However, we've been scared during our studies that the Asians are smarter and more efficient than we are, so we should work harder, so I'm taking 100% pleasure out of this.