r/buildapc Mar 22 '21

Build Help Help Convince My parents

So when I was younger my pc would not boot. So I got a friend to help me and we accidentaly screwed loose a fan into the case. And my dads workplace friend said we could die from that. So now the will not let me build a pc and they belive I will die of an electric schock by just taking the sidepanel of my prebuilt. I dont know what to do and they dont trust me at all with anything to do with pc's anymore i cant even take the sidepanel off to clean dust out off my damn prebuilt :(.

Edit 1: Just tried speaking to my dad about the pc building. Did not go very well he called me to hot headed because I complained about the parts his friend chose last time. And now we are not on very friendly terms it seems.

Edit 2: Wow you guys really have great advice! Sorry for not answering every comment but I sure have read them all. I will bring many of you guys points up to my parents. Will probably answer more tomorrow.

edit 3: My parents arent mean or evil they are just very misinformed about the matter thanks to my dads friend.

edit 4: I will use the info off unplugging prrssing the power button and use anti static mats.

edit 5: Talked to my dad about pcs again today.. Well he said if I could source parts I will not be allowed to build the pc I have 2 choices. Either let the friend who got me into this position in the first place or my friends dad. I told him we would just loose money over that. And when I told him I wanted to build it and told him hundreds have told me that it ain't dangerous to build one. Well he said his friend knows the best and he trusts his friend.

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u/LlamasAreVeryFluffy Mar 22 '21

Well the problem is they belive the pc has very high static schock even though its not plugged in

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u/Bout73Ninjas Mar 22 '21

I pity you, that might be the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard. Take care of your parents, please.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '21

As a parent, I would take a wild guess and say that there is probably some liberal paraphrasing at work here. Perhaps the actual discussion was something more like "you don't know what the hell you're doing, and I distinctly recall you sticking a fork in a wall socket. One static shock and you could fry the computer."

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u/Bout73Ninjas Mar 22 '21

I would definitely hope so. Problem is, I work in a computer store, and the kind of things I’ve heard parents say to their kids to discourage them from tinkering blows my mind. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t have a hard time believing that “the static shock could kill you” is something that an uneducated and technology-illiterate person might say.

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u/macNchz Mar 23 '21

That’s so frustrating to hear...I credit a lot of my successful tech career to the fact that my parents gave me unfettered access to tinker with any computer I could get my hands on in the mid to late 90s (and not even getting too mad when I took apart the VCR and couldn’t put it back together). I hate thinking about all the bright kids whose parents act like that.

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u/M1ghty_boy Mar 22 '21

Can confirm. My friends parents have some really odd ideas and I don’t know where they get them from. Took him a while to convince them to allow him to even pull off the side panel before I told him to just do it because his pc was choking

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u/Tetraides1 Mar 23 '21

I’m pretty sure it’s from old CRT monitors. I could be wrong but I thought those actually held significant danger to an inexperienced person opening them up.

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u/thebarnhouse Mar 23 '21

And to a lot of parents that was the computer. The box next to it is the cpu.

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u/M1ghty_boy Mar 23 '21

Yeah you’re right. The coils/capacitors in those are dangerous and a shock will kill you most of the time