Help for the heathens...?
 

My poor brother is a proud ( now cringing ) owner
of one of those put-together-by-windows-freaks super-PCs.
He has, needless to say, endless toil and suffering.
So, is there something like this great Macintosh forum
for users over on the side of the Evil Empire...?

I want to help and he will not bite the bullet and switch.

You cannot help. He must hit rock bottom first. The first step must be taken by him: he must recognize that he has a problem.
;)

At least here, a majority would tend to consider the OS your brother is using to be part of the problem and not of the solution. Making it slightly less painful is not helpful.

Like cwtnospam suggested, you'll have to wait until he sees the light and until then, be nice to him and let him know from time to time that your Mac just works, without being dogmatic about it.

I think that's the best you can do.

http://forums.anandtech.com/
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x

Anandtech can be helpful. I sometimes recommend Ars Technica as well, although not as much lately.

Mostly I either Google search, check the Microsoft KB, or go to a specific vendor site to get answers on Windows systems. It's a less interesting subculture to me in the various PC forums. :D

Maybe a place to start
 

<evil>
Well, I guess -- getaMac! -- the evil response would be to sit back and watch -- getaMac! -- him struggle with the awful thing. After a few more -- getaMac! -- weeks of pain, frustration, and agony -- getaMac! -- he might be a little more open to suggestion. It's amazing just how effective -- getaMac! -- a little torture can be! :rolleyes:
</evil>

But, I guess if he's refusing to turn to the Light, I guess all we can do is point him only deeper into the sewers! Try looking at ExtremeTech. That may have links to resources that may help.

<soapbox>
There are only two reasons for hyper-modding a PC:

1. To make your box go faster than the other guy's box.
2. To play video games and have faster frame rates than the other guy has.

Number two is usually much, much higher in percentage points than number one. (Depends on the age-group we're dealing with here.) Not exactly mission critical needs in my opinion. But if you are in to certain games that are only on the PC, well I guess that's where you need to go.

But you could try building Quake III ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/sou...32b-source.zip on your Mac and show it to him... (I haven't tried building it yet, I'm waiting for an open weekend)

I work in the High Powered Computing field. ("Supercomputing" to the common folk) ;) I get to play with some phenomenally powerful machines. Supercomputers are notoriously flighty beasts and require a lot of hand holding. Yet, we don't have anywhere near the problems with the big machines that we have with the PC's. I use a Mac to administer and monitor our systems. Heck, I'll even build software on the Mac to test it before I load it into the big machines!

Macs certainly aren't without their own problems. But I don't have to deal with issues on my Macs like I do with PCs. In fact, I'm amazed that even with all my experimenting, my Mac is still going strong with only one ever shutdown in two years (To replace a recalled battery), and only rebooting after the periodic system updates.

My advice to anyone looking to by a PC is to get a Mac! (Unless they need to run particular engineering software or a particular game that is PC-only).

</soapbox>

One word: "Linux"

If he's having immediately and recurrent problems, the OS isn't really the problem. Windows DOES run reliably on good hardware and in the absence of malware. I was just going to post a note about an NT server I decommissioned yesterday which had an uptime of just over three years.

The problem here is that he is facing problems caused by bad hardware and/or bad drivers, which is really hard to troubleshoot if you don't have a bunch of spare test hardware around. "Buy a Mac" is a fix only in the same sense that "Buy an HP" is a good solution.

W.A. 12 Step Program
 

With apologies to A.A.

1.) Admit that Windows is a buggy, virus prone OS with no future.
2.) Come to believe that a Mac is a power greater than Windows.
3.) Make a decision to try out the Mac, even if it is just the Mini.
4.) Make a searching and fearless technical inventory of your computing needs.
5.) Admit to others how Windows left you without hope toward any artistic/technical advancement.
6.) Surrender to the Macintosh way of performing tasks and seek to learn the OS as much as possible.
7.) Seek to learn the UNIX underpinnings for thorough understanding.
8.) Make a list of all persons you had boasted the merits of Windows.
9.) Make direct amends to such people wherever possible--short of buying them new hardware.
10.) Continue to remember what it was like under Windows and commit to never looking back. Move forward and try to keep up with Apple's R&D.
11.) Go to the next MacWorld convention in San Francisco.
12.) Having done the above, seek to make computing fun again by being creative and spending less time fixing things that are ruining your life on the computer.

Very clever, schneb. :)

Agreeing with Carlos, here. My two sons-in-law have put together their own PCs in a reasonable amount of time and with little or no problems showing up. Craig's recommended links are good ones; I've used them as well in troubleshooting PCs at one of the places I work. http://www.pcmech.com/build.htm also has a very active forum for PC builders that might be helpful.

Using Windows is it's own reward punishment.

Schneb,

The Forum may have a rule against double posting, but I think an exception should be allowed here. Your post deserves to be framed and put on permanent exhibit in the "Favourite jokes" thread.

;)

Thank you for all your responses,
both serious and seriously humorous.
As a very former Catholic, I know firsthand
the feeling of belonging to «the one true religion!»
BTW, his machine was put together
from that universe of pick-and-play parts
PCs are made from to be a Super Video Editing Monster.
One of the things that puzzles me, for example,
is that all these «Raid» things load up at boot-time
though there is no Raid array, just a couple of internal HDs.
But, wait! Sorry, I just asked a PC question! Oops.

But thank you, guys, I will give him all these links and maxims.
You are always very useful and funny. A pleasure to read.

And, finally, his real Hell started after installing Service Pack 2.

Wouldn't his copy of Windows come with SP2? Did he steal it?

Somewhere, Bill Gates is screaming out loud...

"help for the heathens" by my brother Hector = we found the solution to my PC problem; today I installed "Spy Bot Search & Destroy" spyware and deleted all the files it found; I backed up them. One of my editing programs started to malfunction and only when I got the files back the problem was fixed. This possibly has happened to others.
Wiley
(soon with a G5!!!)

If he's going through all that hell for a video editing workstation, than he is more fool than we can countenance! Even old editing pros (those who have worked on proprietry built $100,000 avid systems) know that FCP is the way forward...and guess what...it only comes on a Mac.

I know someone who has persisted and persisted with his PC/Pinnacle system through thick and thin. and this one was built by a shop that deals specifically in video systems. Granted you can build some awesome stuff cheap, and some of what I've seen of the various flavours of pinnacle is pretty ok....it's just like comparing Fords with Ferraris.

Sorry, but I do not think that is nice
and have never seen the like in this forum...!

Agreed. That was a little strong, blubbernaut.

hector, there's only so much help you can expect to receive here on troubleshooting Windows and PC problems. You started off by asking for forum recommendations and you've received a few. Why not take the issue to one of those now?

"all star Blubbernaut" = thanks for your reply... it was a nice way for me to enter on my 1st forum!!! 1st time I participate in a Forum with a real and frustrating problem and got you as my 1st replyer...

Better said to be "more concerned with the bottom-line then top-of-the-line".

When choosing hardware for something that will be used in a professional media application, such as video, you should always seek to buy the better hardware from a reputable company. You may save yourself $1k here or there, but in the long run, you lose $5k in productivity, and that reflects on your business. For professional print media, you can get away with using PC hardware. Even professional audio could be done on PC. But when you are talking video--unless Microsoft has something serious up their sleeve--the Mac is the ONLY way to fly.

Well, since this is a Mac forum..

Again, I want to thank all for their responses.
My brother has been using those PC forums you suggested
and has already found very useful information there.
As you say, Yellow, now we can close this thread
and he can continue in those PC-specific forums.

Thanks to all you user-friendly Mac users...!

Or

You can just ask me if you wish. I work with both pcs and macs and with windows/macosx/unix/linux enviroments. I am apple certified, HP/Compaq certified and work IT for a living.

I am sure whatever your question can be I can answer it or point you in the right direction. Only one problem with some of those PC forums though. lots of kids, lots of l33t speak, etc. Very few are really that good. I used to go to a PC forum a few years ago and tried to get some answers, but honestly I haven't really needed to go there in a long way.

This forum is one of the better ones on the internet, reguardless of hardware/OS pereference.

ooo, sorry I honestly didn't mean it to come across like that. I was more just following the style of humorous melodrama that this thread developed. Please accept my apologies, and don't let it taint your enjoyment of these fine forums.

PS: I must have been typing my post at the same time as you Wiley, so don't read it as a reply to your post. That would have been harsh! :)

No prob on the Schneb side, blubbernaut.

I go to www.winforums.org.

Hey, blubbernaut, do not fret,
as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Larry David
and many other comedians would perhaps agree,
when it comes to humour, we must push the envelope
or stagnate forever in the dull-droms.
And sometimes...
...but we must learn to laugh at ourselves.
And especially those using LosedowsXP...!

Whatever, this is a great forum.