Best Buy $39.95 "Optimization" At Best a Waste of Money

DCFC writes "The Consumerist deconstructs the appalling 'optimization service' that Best Buy has been pushing on consumers in recent weeks. The retailer charges 40 bucks to give you a slower PC, and make bizarre claims that it makes it go 200% faster. 'We ran the 3DMark 2003 graphics benchmark on each laptop, comparing optimized and non-optimized settings. For two of our samples, the Gateway and Toshiba, performance changes were negligible. On the Asus laptop, however, optimized tests actually scored about 32% worse than the non-optimized setup. We have been unable to isolate the source of this performance change. On none of the three tested laptops did the optimized settings give a performance boost in our test.'"

Comments

System tuning...

[Nefarious Wheel]

Can you remember when system tuning was part of the sysadmin's job? A big part of it? Then you'll remember how often we got it wrong, before we rediscovered the science of minimum change + measurement of results. I guess good system tuners are so rare now that people pounce on anyone who claims the skill, and pushes an old trick of the trade out wrapped as high tech. Fail.

Re:System tuning...

[hairyfeet]

Well I offer my own version of "system tuning" here at my little shop and folks seem to like it enough that I can just get by on referrals now. Of course I found out what I consider the "true secret" to system tuning. The trick is thus: folks do NOT want faster, they want easier. So for $60 I give them a machine that autoupdates, automatically runs defrag and keeps up with the anti-virus, Auto-updating browser that removes ads automatically (Firefox). Install all the codecs, Flash, Java, etc. Basically I give them a toaster, they flip the switch and go.

And that I have found is the secret to nirvana for the average Joe or Sally. They don't want to know how it works, or why it does what it does, they just want to flip the switch and go to facebook, Youtube, check their webmail, etc without needing to know jack squat. Hell my GF is always bragging on me to her friends and acts like I'm a computer genius just because I gave her a computer set up this way. She has a limited user account set set up for when her daughter and son in law come to visit, it is set to autoupdate and clean itself while she is at work, all she has to do is log on and enjoy.

For home users I've been told my little system is as close to a "perfect computer" as they have ever had. Even the older P4 off lease office machines I sell end up with happy smiling customers because of my little trick. We geeks might like tearing into the guts of the OS and tweaking away, but the average Joe don't want to know about anything like that. Unfortunately Worst Buy is probably just fucking up the machine before handing it over. I have dealt with enough PCs that have been "fixed" by the Geek Squad to know I wouldn't wish those clowns on my worst enemy.

Re:Friends

[Warhawke]

Any pseudo-interest I once had in Best Buy quickly died after some years ago when my parents bought me a new computer from there. At least, it was supposed to be new. When I opened the CD drive, I found a ghost file of the previous owner's journal entry that detailed how she was going to try to burn her journal entries to CD in one last test before she returned it to Best Buy because the CD drive refused to burn. After 40 hours of "negotiating" with Best Buy reps over the fact that they sold me a refurbished OOB computer as a new one, they deemed the most appropriate solution was to knock $50 off the price and cancel the $300 warranty. They are nothing more than a consortium of crooks hellbent on raping the wallets of the ignorant. This surprises me about as much as gravity.