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

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the hooray-for-corporate-scams dept.

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.'"

24 of 504 comments (clear)

  1. Friends by Khris · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Friends don't let friends take their computers to Best Buy!

    1. Re:Friends by twentynine · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Be fair. You can get a pretty decent deal sometimes. Just don't get any add-on services.

    2. Re:Friends by selven · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's one word you could remove from that sentence and have it remain grammatically, orthographically and factually correct...

    3. Re:Friends by yurtinus · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...especially if they don't want to be tech support for the rest of the friendship ;)

      Which certainly won't last long with friendly advice like that!

      --
      +1 Disagree
    4. Re:Friends by longhairedgnome · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Who buys movies?

      --
      GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T
    5. Re:Friends by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      I like it! Did you know you can also do that with dresses? Wear it to a party! As long as you don't get food or jizz on it just return it and say you accidentally bought the wrong size or that it doesn't match your panties or whatever.

    6. Re:Friends by Warhawke · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    7. Re:Friends by Ouchie · · Score: 5, Funny

      I like it! Did you know you can also do that with dresses? Wear it to a party! As long as you don't get food or jizz on it just return it and say you accidentally bought the wrong size or that it doesn't match your panties or whatever.

      Yeah, I use the, "it don't match my panties," excuse every time I return a dress for my wife. The clerks never ask further questions.

      --
      "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most." ~Ozzy Osborne
    8. Re:Friends by Awptimus+Prime · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So you go to Best Buy,

      and rip them off...

      That way we can make sure to encourage the retail chains in the US to remain as shitty as possible?

      I don't shop at Best Buy, but I disagree with the practice of wasting other people's time and money, which is what this is. It is much wiser to go to Microcenter and get a $10 SATA or IDE enclosure and just keep your old drive in it as a spare or to give to a friend who needs one. All my old 100-120GB drives from the turn of the millenium are happily housed in such units and come in handy when someone needs temp storage or truck around some data.

      Doing it this way, the retail establishment has no reason to jack up prices further, keeps employees employed, and Startech or whoever made the enclosure got a sale for a manufacturing a decent enough product.

      There is a thousand ways to royally screw over companies using warranty and return policies, they don't take much thought to discover and abuse, but I don't think doing so is the path to any form of enlightenment.

    9. Re:Friends by GIL_Dude · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I guess some big-wheel producers or their companies could be said to buy movies. The rest of us just license them for non-public presentation in our homes or some such nonsense (I fast forward that part when possible; it isn't always a no button press area even though it is a no skip section for some reason). Of course there are many folks these days who acquire their license through less than legal means. I personally have a wall of DVD's that are all legally licensed. But I'd agree with you that pretty much no normal person "buys movies" since the several million dollars for them are out of our price range.

      I guess if you said "who buys round plastic shiny discs that ship with a limited viewing license for a movie" I would hold up my hand and say "me".

    10. Re:Friends by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Funny

      How am I supposed to touch stuff before I buy it from Amazon?

      My favorite is setting the home page of all the computers to MonoPrice cables.

  2. System tuning... by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
    1. Re:System tuning... by nine-times · · Score: 4, Informative

      Can you remember when system tuning was part of the sysadmin's job?

      Yeah, back when computers were so slow that they really needed tuning.

      Now? Let's be honest, your computer will probably run best if you just don't screw around with it. You want your Windows system "tuned"? Reformat the drive, reinstall Windows, install the latest version of all appropriate drivers, run Windows update, and then install *only* the applications that you're going to use. That's about as "tuned" as most people need.

      If you want to tune it further, try changing your performance settings to "Optimize for best performance" or whatever the equivalent is in Windows 7. It'll look a bit worse, but it may improve performance a little. Yes, you might also be able to disable some services and squeeze out a couple extra cycles, but how much does it matter these days? You're much more likely to break something than to effect significant performance improvements.

    2. Re:System tuning... by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's exactly it. I've read stories about how good the Geek Squad USED TO BE. And, I've read more stories about what they are now. All they have is an almost completely automated boot CD with which they activate a half dozen antivirus and some system testing tools. A couple of cleanup tools. It takes ages to run the full suite of tools, which is why people bring their computer in on Monday, and it's still not done on Friday. Googling for MRI-5.1 might be informative. You might even find an ISO to explore.

      MRI has basically good tools on it, I won't badmouth the CD - it's worth having in your toolkit. But, tools can't make a craftsman out of a novice.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    3. Re:System tuning... by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    4. Re:System tuning... by IKnwThePiecesFt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So as a former Geek Squad agent I have to chime in. First, I do believe the service is overpriced. Second, I don't speak for the whole company, just my store.

      That being said, the "optimization" service that we sold consisted of 1) Applying any available Windows updates, including service packs in the case of sales immediately following the release of a new one. 2) Uninstall of any trialware that comes preloaded that is of no real value (I.E. most of the shit preloaded on Toshibas, HPs, etc)
      3) Tweaking of MSConfig to disable any excess run-at-startup items that are for legitimate software but that shouldn't run at startup (Nero, Roxio, Adobe Reader, etc)
      Finally the agent would ensure that automatic updates are enabled etc.

      While yeah, you may say that this service is overpriced (I would tend to agree) it's not as much bullshit as everyone is imagining.

      Again, as you might imagine with a corporation as large as Best Buy, consistency is not exactly 100% (My agent number was in the 18,000s, and that was assigned to me two years ago) so YMMV.

  3. I'll optimize your new PC for free. by ProppaT · · Score: 4, Informative

    1) Download: http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/
    2) Install
    3) Run program.

    Hell, I'll even give you free PC optimization months down the road after your PC looses it's new PC smell!

    1) Download: http://www.ccleaner.com/
    2) Install
    3) Run program.

    You're welcome.

    --
    Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
    1. Re:I'll optimize your new PC for free. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'll give an optimization, but not free (due to time). I'll take the new PC and:

      1: Image off the original partitions so I make sure I have all drivers. These go on two copies of burned media, as well as a USB flash drive.

      2: Pull a live CD, dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (or whatever the disk is.) This makes sure that any defects on outer tracks get reassigned if they might be a bit faulty.

      3: Install the included version of Windows clean.

      4: Install Microsoft Security Essentialls from a USB flash drive.

      5: Activate the machine if needed. Then image the activated machine so it can be restored to a known good imaged state that is activated.

      6: Update everything via Windows Update and add service packs if needed.

      7: Install ccleaner, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, Firefox/Adblock or Chrome/Adblock, and SpywareBlaster.

      8: Install user software that is licensed (Office, Acrobat, etc.)

      9: Make an image of the complete system.

      Now the machine is ready to be handed over to a customer with high recommendations of doing backups to an external drive or Mozy. The advantage of this system is that the customer, should he or she trash the HDD, a complete image restore is just a boot of a recovery CD away.

  4. My favourite bit.. by schon · · Score: 4, Funny

    When she asked if she could install anti-virus software herself instead of paying Geek Squad to do it, she was told installing software yourself, "negates the vendor's warranty."

    Heh. I *love* that part!

    Now, whenever someone tells me that Linux can't work on the desktop because "off-the-shelf" Windows software doesn't work on it, I can tell them that you can't do it on Windows without voiding the warranty!

  5. Re:Anonymouse Coward by yurtinus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Never attribute to malice what could be ascribed to incompetence.

    --
    +1 Disagree
  6. 3dMark??? by seeker_1us · · Score: 4, Informative

    WTF? That test determines 3d gaming performance. While I do not doubt that the best buy "service" is junk, 3dmark would by no means be a valid metric.

  7. Best Buy salesmen by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Buying ANYTHING at Best Buy these days is a chore.

    "No I don't want your optimization plan."
    "No I don't want an extended warranty."
    "No I don't want any accessories."
    "No I don't want the super awesome $50 Monster Cables with gold tips."
    "No I don't want your PlatinumShield super-dupper service plan."

    What's bad is when you get a salesman who wants to argue with you. "But you need our service plan!!" Sometimes I just want to throttle these guys. If there was another place I could get computer parts and electronics locally (for times when waiting three or four days for Newegg isn't an option) I would never set foot inside their doors. A few weeks ago I had pushy BB salesmen try to sell me a warranty plan on a $20 card reader, for crying out loud.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  8. Thanks to the broken US justice system by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Funny

    Some lawyer will file a class action suit against Best Buy for this practice.

    Best Buy will ignore it until the moment it looks like they will really go to court, then Best Buy will settle.

    The settlement will be for $48 million. The lawyers will get $45 million, and the other $3 million will be in the form of "certificates" awarded to the plaintiffs good for 1 free "optimization" on a computer purchase at Best Buy within the next 12 months.

    That's how it works.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  9. Staples by deathtopaulw · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am a Staples easytech idiot and we basically have the same service for $10 cheaper called a pc tune-up. We run a norton toolkit scan, meaning "find out if we can push a virus removal service (129.99)," and nothing more than a basic "windows cleanup." This is usually a 29.99 service although it just so happens to be free right now. All the big box stores are a scam, preying on the lack of basic public knowledge like any local car mechanic.

    Sadly I happen to be preaching to the choir. We will continue to have customers pouring in with the most mind-numbingly simple problems that we charge $150 to fix in the end. It's this fact that actually makes it a difficult job for me.