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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.'"

8 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 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.

    3. 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
  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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
  5. 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.