The best way to helping yourself with hardware/software problems

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

If you just came to this forum there is a big chance that there is something wrong with your pc and you would likely have it solved. These guidelines will help you to do that in a productive way.

First of all, search this forum or Google for your problem or a similar one. Failing to do so will send out a message that you are lazy, and why do others need to spend their time if you won’t do so yourself. The helpers on this forum cannot be expected to answer the same question over and over again. This takes too much time and also will annoy those people seeing those questions again.

The Subject:

Try to make a sensible description, in the subject field, about your problem. Please do not use the words hurry or help quick as you will likely annoy other members that are already helping as quickly as possible. Headers like "help needed" will not give you many replies. Most people will simply not read those threads. If you use a good title people will be more likely to help you quicker.

The Message:

1. Write a complete report of the problem. What occurred? What error messages did you see? Did you hear anything? What were you doing just before it occurred? Did you do anything significant in the previous time? (Hardware update, bios update, program installations etc etc). The more pointers you give on the problem, the more likely there will be an accurate and quick response. Questions like "My computer just stopped responding on anything I do... What’s wrong?" will often be ignored since it can be virtually anything causing the problem.

2. Write down the things you already found out about this problem. Either the things you heard from friends, or what you’ve found searching forums or Google. Stating this will send out a message that you are eager to help yourself and willing to accept hints and possible solutions.

3. DO NOT WRITE IN CAPS!!!! This is understood as screaming, how would you react if someone was yelling in your face? It will make your posts very hard to read, and because of this you might get very little replies and/or people get angry with you.

4. Write down your complete hardware configuration. Problems might not be the cause of the piece of hardware where it seems to go wrong (like hardware incompatibility). This will help the other forum members track your problem quicker, without this vital information they can only guess or just not answer at all.

5. Finally: Do not demand help, write foul language or speak out how unsatisfied you may be with GOA, Mythic, or the products of a certain manufacturer.
This is a forum by and for users. We cannot help that you received a faulty product, or foobarred it yourself; all we can do is advise you on how to go about processing an RMA.

The Replies:

Okay, someone just spent his/her valuable time to help you. Remember that they’ve got nothing to gain by spending this time. They only do this because they are social and/or want to spread their knowledge. If you think that what your personal helper suggested wouldn’t resolve your problem don’t just reply "That can’t be it". If you really believe that that suggestion cannot help you state why you think that but at least try it, or reply a post why you could not try it (not enough funds or no supplies available, etc etc). You may never know if they know something you don’t.

If your problem got solved please leave a thank you message and say that your problem got fixed. Also it’s nice to know how you actually fixed it. This helps other people with the same problem and you will now spread your knowledge by doing this. Welcome to the "helpers" club