r/pcmasterrace • u/Zestyclose-Salad-290 Core Ultra 7 265k | RTX 5090 • Apr 18 '26
Hardware This lady wondered why her gaming laptop overheats while gaming.
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u/Tritec_enjoyer96 Apr 18 '26
The repair guy had the “ are you fucking serious?” Look when he peeled it off lol
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u/baby_blobby Q6600 7900GT Apr 18 '26
I’m wondering if she brought the laptop powered on. If I had someone come to me with a problem like that I would give it a once over and then turn it on. I assume that the technician knew but waited to state the obvious.
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Apr 18 '26
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u/No_Problem20 Apr 18 '26
If you fix it in 5 secs, you still bill an hour. It wouldn't make sense to pad it out to take more time.
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u/alnoise RX 7800 XT - R7 5800X - 32GB DDR4 Apr 18 '26
This is a free fix and a future customer forever.
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u/InterRail Apr 18 '26
This looks like a personal kiosk in China. These people do not bill if something takes a few seconds. I got a phone screen protector installed for free from one of these kiosks and the owner just said thank you for coming. Given she is just standing there they probably laughed it off and the couple went about their day. Life operates differently when you're out of the west.
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u/panlakes Ascending Peasant Apr 18 '26
I worked at a computer repair store and it was a flat cost per repair for most things, one price advertised and one price used. But in this case we wouldn’t have charged the customer and considered it a complimentary consultation since it was done in seconds.
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u/cw88888 Apr 18 '26
Easiest job ever for him though. Getting money for peeling of a sticker is win win for him
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u/Duck_on_Qwack Apr 18 '26
He tells this story to people and nobody believes that he isn't exaggerating
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u/Commercial_Ad_2832 Apr 18 '26
Someone at work told me their new prebuilt pc would work for like 20 mins then shut down, quicker if he was gaming. I was going through everything I could think of he could check on the PC. I asked him to open it up whilst I was on video call and it was completely crammed with the packaging foam still 😂
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u/Cyserg Desktop I7-37770K Laptop I7-5600 Apr 18 '26
That man never read a manual in his life
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u/Hour_Welcome_987 Apr 18 '26
Or possibly anything, ever.
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u/Cyserg Desktop I7-37770K Laptop I7-5600 Apr 18 '26
If I recall correctly, secret shopper is my source, those warnings are on the case too...
This, fine sir, makes me believe you are, indeed,correct!
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u/myyrc Apr 18 '26
All PCs with packaging I've seen had multiple warnings in the packaging and on the case. Some even on the psu, so it's impossible to turn it on without peeling the sticker off.
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u/Sand__Panda Apr 19 '26
It has been over 10 years since I bought my PC, and I can say they totally had the stickers on it. I have to remove them to even plug the cord in, to push the on button, even to access the USB panel. Big bright yellow stickers telling me to REMOVE ALL SHIPPING PACKAGING WITHIN TOWER.
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u/Jazzlike_Climate4189 Apr 18 '26
Return the computer, he’s too dumb to own one.
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u/JesusShaves_ Apr 18 '26
So many people have no concept of how the physical world works.
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u/FishStixxxxxxx Apr 18 '26
I was trying to explain to my coworker that the plastic case she put on her laptop’s underside was what was causing it to over heat. She kept telling me that wasn’t what was causing it.
I’m like, why did you even ask me about it if you were gonna be obtuse when I suggested what the issue was.
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u/SocialDeviance Apr 18 '26
Because you made her sound stupid for having the case, by no fault of your own, just by pointing it. People have fragile egos.
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u/Main-Company-5946 Apr 18 '26
Shit irritates me so bad. If you constantly reject new information then yeah you’re gonna wind up being stupid. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy
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Apr 18 '26
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u/JesusShaves_ Apr 18 '26
Or sharp objects.
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u/Ok_Mammoth5292 Apr 18 '26
Or gaming laptops
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u/Creepy-Inspector-515 Apr 18 '26
And my axe
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u/ThatDirtyApe Apr 18 '26
And my bow
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u/ygy2020 Apr 18 '26
Some years ago in my city some foreign student burned their whole house because they tried to cook pasta without water. Literally they just throw spaghetti in a pan and turn on the fire.
The firefighter was not amused at all.
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u/AWildEnglishman Apr 18 '26
Or that guy on a stream that was playing with a lighter, accidentally started a fire, put the fire in the trash, put the trash bag on top of a pile of cardboard, and then tried to put it out with glass of water.
Whole building burned down while chat yelled at him with with TTS.
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u/Fullmetal689 Laptop Apr 18 '26
It's not that they don't have physical concept of the world. People normally don't even know there are fans inside laptops and those who do mostly think the vents on the side are the intake ( I have literally met multiple people who counts the number of vents on the side and say they have that many fans on their laptop)
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u/3d_blunder Apr 18 '26
The number of people that don't think wireless ELECTRICAL devices have batteries is appalling.
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u/GfrzD Apr 18 '26
We all have to learn someway. I learnt from using my laptop on my bed and the blanket blocking the vents.
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u/Mylaptopisburningme Apr 18 '26
Long ago I had an old laptop I was playing The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind with my laptop on my lap while laying in bed. Right after I exited the game and Digg had gone downhill I signed up to Reddit. My normal username I had used since the 80s was taken and had to think of a username.
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u/slow4low Apr 18 '26
Exactly. You don't know what you don't know, just be willing to learn.
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u/MoocowR Apr 18 '26
Exactly. You don't know what you don't know, just be willing to learn.
So many people have no concept of how the physical world works.
The point of the comment is that most people have accumulated enough experiences to have a basic understanding of how things work without needing to be explicitly told/taught that putting a sticker on a vent could cause problems. You don't even need to understand what it does, just the fact that it's there in the first place should activate some neurons.
The conclusion that blocking vents is a bad idea, is something any adult should be able to come too themselves. Some people do truly have zero concept for how anything works and zero ability to self troubleshoot.
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u/Choleric-Leo 5800X3D, RTX3070, 4X8GB 3200CL16 Apr 18 '26
Practical play leads to practical learning.
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u/utzutzutzpro Apr 18 '26
Some humans are capable of making basic deductions without requiring to take a bite out of a pile of shit to know it is shit.
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u/FlamingWeasel http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198056187630 Apr 18 '26
Right? Like, you don't stop for a second to consider why there's a vent there? You don't bother checking into that before covering it?
And then when you have problems with overheating you don't think for a second that covering those funky holes where the air was blowing around could have something to do with it?
I don't wanna be mean to people, but like, come on. She's not even a child. You don't have to understand every aspect of how a laptop functions to have some critical thinking here.
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u/stRiNg-kiNg Apr 18 '26
I wouldn't say I learned, but I learned a lesson by playing with the laptop on my lap for long periods. Roasted my balls and caused pain similar to torsion for weeks
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u/RedParaglider Apr 18 '26
Calling them laptops was the worst idea ever. More like nut cooking computers.
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u/Kichigai Ryzen 7 9700X/32GB / Intel Arc B580 12GB Apr 18 '26
Penny Arcade coined the phrase “penis panini.”
But you're right, and that's why Apple specifically calls them “notebooks” and never “laptops.”
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u/tfhfate Apr 18 '26
A lot of people don't know how computers work, I wouldn't be surprise that younger generations that grew up with smartphones and tablets never realize that laptops and desktops have active cooling systems
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u/Skoziik R7 9800X3D | 32GB DDR5 | RX 7900XTX Apr 18 '26
I get it that not everyone wants to know how everything works.
But how can some people be ignorant about everything? I mean i also ignore some things in life but not the laws of physics.
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u/Trusted_Entity Apr 18 '26
If you think you know how stupid people are, you are still overestimating people. I work in apartment and property maintenance and I’m astounded by the depths of stupidity. Customer service is a nightmare job too
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u/Swift_Scythe Apr 18 '26
Its kay she will just use it directly on the blanket or bed without a hard surface underneath anyway.
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u/GoodkallA Apr 18 '26
Well it is a LAP top.
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u/Chuck_217 Apr 18 '26
You have a gap between your legs for air flow. Well, most people do, anyways.
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u/sBerriest Apr 18 '26
My laptops vents are right where my legs would go if it was in my lap. I need to balance it with one leg in the middle lol
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u/msanangelo PC | ASRock X670E Pro RS, R9 7900X, 64GB DDR5, RX 7900 XTX Apr 18 '26
stickers on part of the laptop you'd hardly ever see. genius. xD
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u/TheGTFormula PC Master Race | i7 13700k | RTX 4080 Super | 32GB DDR4 Apr 18 '26
You think you've seen everything, then someone more dumb than you can impossibly imagine surprises you...
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Apr 18 '26
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u/HouseOf42 Apr 18 '26
Tell people that a majority of the planet does NOT have an internal monologue, they get angry.
There are people walking around without ever having a thought in their heads.
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u/NR-Tamim Apr 18 '26
Yeah I was surprised to learn that many people don't have an internal monologue, so one day I brought this up to two of my closest friends and one of them had a hard time gasping what we were even talking about lol... that friend just says and does stuff without thinking all his life, even though he's like one of the smartest students I know and is probably going to have a top tier government job in a few years..
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u/Goldenrah 7600 | Sapphire Pure 7700 XT | 32GB RAM Apr 18 '26
Your friend probably just has a different way of thinking outside a inner monologue. Instead of having to reason within himself, the ideas pop out visually, or the information is so internalized that instead of having to think about it, they just do, like what many professional athletes describe as the flow state.
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u/Antique_Mud_1433 Apr 18 '26
No internal monologue doesn't mean no thoughts.
It just means they don't talk to themselves inside their head.
They can still think "I wonder how this works" but they don't have a voice saying that in their head.
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u/Dat_Innocent_Guy RTX 5080 16GB | 9800x3D | 32GB 6000MT | 4K 240Hz OLED Apr 18 '26
I have an internal monologue but i also occasionally have thoughts without having to describe them using the voice in my head. You don't need one for living or even intelligent processes.
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u/First-Junket124 Apr 18 '26
Which is one of those concepts I literally can't wrap my head around and I'm sure the opposite thinks the same of people like me.
How can you not have a voice in your head that can say stuff internally? Like how do you think? How does it even work?
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u/Charon711 Apr 18 '26
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
—George Carlin
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u/Rent_A_Cloud Apr 18 '26
Of the 8 billion people on this rock 4 billion are below average intelligence...
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u/Angry_argie i7 12700 | RX 7900 GRE | 16Gb DDR4 @3600Mhz Apr 18 '26
I'd say ignorant more than dumb. Had she learned the function of the "holes" before wrapping the computer, she would likely not have made that mistake. But yeah there may be some dumbness involved when people don't notice certain stuff and wonder about its function, like the parts of a machine.
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u/Botucal i7 14700k | 32GB DDR4-3600 | RX9070 XT Apr 18 '26
There have been cases of people removing the air intake cover of their smart car (it was round on early models) instead of opening the fuel filler cap and literally pumping gas into the engine.
Human stupidity knows no bounds.
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u/Spid3rpark Apr 18 '26
She seemed to be taking it as a learning experience. This is the way.
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u/lakija Apr 18 '26
You’re the nicest person here. If you aren’t sure about something, and you don’t want to make a mistake, it’s responsible to go to a professional and ask. Instead people are calling her stupid.
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u/Chubbypand4 Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
She blocked it with her cute stickers covers, like the one top of her laptop. Who needs air flow when you're laptop is cute?
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u/tofubutgood Apr 18 '26
It was really cute, good thing they came off in one smooth piece
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u/Successful-Title5403 Apr 18 '26
But why did the sticker set she purchased came with ones to put underneat...
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u/zeug666 No gods or kings, only man. Apr 18 '26
Some unibody laptops, like some Macbooks, don't have vents on the bottom, so stickers/wraps/covers can go all around on those.
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u/Black_Star_Mechanic Apr 18 '26
Fun fact. MacBooks cool by dispersing the heat across the surface are of the frame. Stickers over the entire frame don’t help it cool
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u/the_gooch_smoocher 5600X | GTX970 Apr 18 '26
This is the useless red circle in comment form.
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u/Razael89 Apr 18 '26
Back when i was a kid , my dad and i got annoyed about the dust inside our pc, so our solution was to block all entrances of the pc with foam glued to the case.
One day as i was playing Warcraft 3 the pc shutdown and didnt turn on afterwards. We took it to the local PC shop and the guy opened the case and i could feel just how much he wanted to laugh his ass off but he was like "sir , the fans aren't just for decoration, they are meant to keep the components cool".
We basically melted the rams and the motherboard. If social media was a thing back then im pretty sure id become a meme.
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u/runbrap Apr 18 '26
Positive airflow case is better for dust right? Or is it other way around.
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u/lughrevenge23 Apr 18 '26
when i was a kid my laptop overheat so often to the point the paint near the touch pad is burned, idk what cause it, years later i realise my habit of using my laptop on top the bed is the cause
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u/ghost-xiii Apr 18 '26
"Bipolar"
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u/BlitzNeko It seems to run on some form of electricity Apr 18 '26
Glad I wasn’t the only one that noticed
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u/SuperBlickyMan Apr 18 '26
I’m pisses me off more that she didn’t even try to figure out what’s wrong. Like she’s didn’t bother to check it physically before hiring someone to fix it.
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u/Nek0ni Apr 18 '26
good for the repair guy then. Feeding of their laziness
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u/newbrevity 11700k, RTX4070ti_SUPER, 32gb_3600_CL16 Apr 18 '26
This. As a service technician, a large part of my income comes from the ignorance of others.
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u/MySonlsAlsoNamedBort Apr 18 '26
I'm in IT and the only reason I have a job is because people are dumb. I'd argue most of the tasks I perform can just be googled.
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u/itssomeidiot i7-920|GTX-670|24gb DDR3-1366|1tb-7200RPM-HDD Apr 18 '26
I was super surprised how people aged under 20 and over 50 can't even google correctly.
I found that IT is just 70% googling the right way.
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u/IgnoringHisAge Apr 18 '26
Oh the mechanics I’ve talked to…”weird thumping noise in turns in trunk. Check and advise.” It’s…a golf ball. You’ve got a golf ball rolling around in plain sight in your trunk.
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u/Noxious89123 5900X | RTX5080 | 32GB B-Die | CH8 Dark Hero Apr 18 '26
I remember seeing one on "Just rolled into the shop" where a lady said her blinker wouldn't stay on....
She had a little bottle of hand sanitiser dangling from the control stalk, which was pulling it downwards and turning it off....
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u/MyAwesomeName Apr 18 '26
Some people are just afraid of messing with things they don’t understand. I have plenty of friends who just never consider troubleshooting their own computers and they ask me to help. They’re always willing to pay but I decline and tell them I’ll teach them how to do it for free and they’re always afraid of doing it themselves.
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u/f4Ith-35 Apr 18 '26
Probably because its expensive and if they do fuck something up its a lot of money down the drain.
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u/olbaze Fedora KDE | Ryzen 7 5700X | RX 7600 Apr 18 '26
At a previous job, I had clients who literally came to me saying "Get this done, I don't care how it happens". Basically, you pay for the professional to do the thinking for you.
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u/Jhyxe AMD 5800X 32GB 2080 Ti Apr 18 '26
Who actually cares to skin the bottom of a laptop... You know... The part you'll NEVER SEE.
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u/dc469 Apr 18 '26
I got A+ certified in high school, I remember the CompTIA VP came to give a lecture and one of the things he said to us was that part of our job was to stop this. This was back with crt monitors and he was like (in a sorta mocking but not intentionally insulting girly voice, we didn't have any girls in the class) "these little old ladies are going to be 'oh that beige is so ugly, I know we will put some cute little fabric over it to cover it up' and your job is to tell them why that's a bad idea".
But like, this is why a well rounded education is important. People need stem knowledge to not make mistakes like this video, and people need arts and humanities knowledge to gestures at world and current affairs ...avoid that.
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u/shortstack_goblin Apr 18 '26
Hahaha well man, good on her learning something new.
I know a lot about computers, but I don't know a thing about fixing a car.
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u/Chuck_217 Apr 18 '26
Surely you must know not to cover the exhaust pipe
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u/Dick_Nation There's nothing to see here. Apr 18 '26
This may be the very first electronic device she's ever owned with a fan. She looks pretty young - probably owns a phone and maybe a tablet, and virtually every single one of those is sealed and passively cools due to its form factor. The idea of an actively running fan along with intake and exhaust ports might be completely foreign to a young person.
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u/Leows Apr 18 '26
I was about to say the exact same thing.
I don't own a car, never have, and I don't drive, nor do I know anything about them.
Yet, if there's a spot where air is coming out of it, it's safe to assume it's for a reason and not to block it.
Some people just lack common sense and critical thinking entirely.
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u/Bacon-muffin Apr 18 '26
So many people don't understand that computers exhaust lots of heat and need to be maintained like anything else. Go into any office and check the pcs for dust, good chance theres like decade old pcs that have never once been dusted in there.
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u/Kakariki73 Ascending Peasant Apr 18 '26
Back in the days of having big CRT televisions in the living room people tended to place a piece of decorative cloth on top because it looked cute, heck in some cases a vase with flowers with water.
Crazy times 🤯
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u/Shahed1987 Apr 18 '26
As stupid as it is, I could understand if it was to have something cute or nice to look at. People often don't have a clue how things work
But underneath the laptop? Why even bother?
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u/dmeister_k Apr 18 '26
She's the reason why the Power Rangers shout what color they are.
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u/Sylandri84 Apr 18 '26
look, to be very fair, some people just don’t know how a computer works. it’s not stupidity, it’s simply being uninformed.
then again, I repair phones and the amount of times people have come to ask me to repair their screens and I’ve just pulled their protective glass off … is staggering. they’ve literally forgotten they have a protector on their device. 🫠
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u/Luder714 AMD FX 6300 6 core, R9, 280, 8gig, 1.5Tb drive Apr 18 '26
No one is curious anymore. So many times a trivial question comes up in conversation, like when watching a movie, etc. So many people, especially young people, will hear a question and have no interest in finding out the answer, even when they have the answer literally in their hands.
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u/ZuckDeBalzac Apr 18 '26
I once acquired a pc case that didn't come with a side panel so I fashioned one out of cardboard. Wasn't blocking any vents or anything but that thing insulated SO well it turned into a space heater quickly.
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u/StealthUnit0 Apr 18 '26
I remember I once sent my old laptop to a repair center when it was having some issues working. From what I remember there were some components inside that were changed as part of the repair. Some time later, my laptop had some issues where it kept randomly shutting down on its own (due to overheating). At that time I was learning to repair my computer myself so I decided to open it. It turns out, the new components the repair center had placed in my laptop still had their plastic packaging on them. I was appalled at how those repair centers can rip people off.
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u/Sanquinity i5-13500k - RX 9070 - 32GB @ 3600mHz Apr 18 '26
"Meh, these holes are ugly. I'll just cover them up with some stickers! Pretty now!"
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u/blackdragon6547 Apr 18 '26
Tbf some laptops are passively cooled. This is a gaming laptop though so more a lack of knowledge than anything.
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u/keyable Apr 19 '26
Sometimes I don't want to believe that people in the 21st century can be so stupid.
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u/imightbetired PC Master Race Apr 18 '26
Lol, something similar happened to me with a client, he complained that the fans are making too much noise when working from home...and at the office it was mostly silent. Turns out that he was working from his bed, and blocking everything because of the blanket he was setting his laptop on...he even mentioned that he would wrap the laptop on the sides when holding in his lap, because he didn't like the noise and heat. I had to put a lot of questions before getting the right answers...since the temps were fine at the office.