AST
AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.
Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with photo copies of the floppies.
Compaq
Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key"
because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.
Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand new computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked "what power switch?"
Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes. After troubleshooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes then rolled them into the typewriter to type the labels.
Dell
A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer told the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room.
Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.
Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so a Dell tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me a couple of friends," the customer replied. When told Egghead was a software store, the man said, "Oh, I thought you meant for me to find a couple of geeks."
Yet another Dell Customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.
A Dell Technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "bad and invalid". The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.
An exasperated caller to Dell Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell computer turned on. After insuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens. The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.
My friend Steve works at a tech support place and the funniest computer idiot story that he ever told was that of some guy calling them up to thank the company for putting a coffee cup holder in his computer. Confused, Steve asked what he was talking about and customer replied that every time he sat down in front of his computer, he turned it on, booted it up, pressed a button, and out slid a little tray from the machine that was perfect to set his coffee down on. Needless to say, Steve put the man on hold and laughed for a few minutes with his buddies before explaining the concept of a CD ROM.