Enter the Dark Side!?

[hulkaros]

Let me explain some stuff before I begin: I am a PC/Mac tech person and I have some experiences that I would like to share with you all... Until Ed or Admin will feel that this thing gets out of control, I will keep posting one experience each and everyday from the Dark Side (aka Wintel/amd world...) with details on the subject. I will not post lies or imaginative things! This would be easy to figure out because I will try to give as much as humanly possible, details on the experiences so if one thinks that he/she knows about PCs then it will be easy to figure out if I'm telling lies...

Of course questions, remarks, etc. are welcome!

So, for 04/11/2002 here is one such experience:

The systems...
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2 boxes with the same following characteristics: Athlon XP 1700+, 256/266 DDR, Plextor 40/12/40 (in 1 of the two boxes), Pioneer DVD-ROM, ECS mainboards, GeForce 4MX 440 w/TV out, Midi towers, floppies, Sounb Blaster Live! 5.1, 350 Watt power supplies, PS/2 MS keyboards + mice, Maxtor HDs 40 GB/7200/ATA100, 10/100 network with crossover cable, 80pin cables for both IDE channels, Windows 2000 Pro, AudioCatalyst 2.1, Ahead Nero 5.5.9.14, EasyCD Creator 5.3.2 Platinum, Creative apps, PowerDVD 3, 30.xx nVidia drivers, Win2k SP2, other system drivers...

The problem...
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Everything works just fine on one PC! On the other PC the problem is a mind crashing experience! If NOT everyday, while recording CDs with Nero and/or EasyCDthe PC stops recognising the blank CDs!!!

The solution...
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After switching EVERYTHING on both PCs, reformatting/reinstalling everything, updating BIOS, OS, !!!everything!!! no solution was found! Or almost no solution! By shutting down and restarting the PC every now and then, EVERYTHING works just fine! This of course BEFORE the problem's appearance because when it does a shutdown/restart doesn't solve the problem!

I know: It sounds strange, isn't it? And this is JUST one piece of the puzzle that PCs are!

Welcome to the Dark Side! Part 1 of ?

[senne]

Hehe, great idea!

[fryke]

I'll just add my own here, too, if I may.

I've bought an external CD-RW for my TiBook/500 once upon a time. It was a 4x4x16. Firewire. Atapi inside, of course. I then bought it an 'upgrade'. An 8x8x16 burner. Installed it, worked fine. Only: Apple System Profiler showed it as an USB device. And my Microsoft IntelliMouse suddenly was a Firewire device. I thought, huh? It worked fine, no flaws besides the strange ASP thing. I replaced it with a Yamaha 16x10x40 later on and put the 8x burner inside my PC. Wouldn't work. Ever. No chance. I thought that, well, it DID run in my Mac and it DID come with PC drivers only, so it MUST run in a PC. I gave it to a friend. It wouldn't run. Ever. He gave it to another. And then it came back to me. Out of curiosity, I tried it again in the firewire case on my Mac. Meanwhile, I had updated to Mac OS X 10.1.4 - and the burner wasn't only working (it worked as well as before), but the strange ASP mixup was resolved. Anyone care to say there is no third party hardware support on Macintosh?

[serpicolugnut]

Yeah, I can go on ad nauseum about all the little "quirks" I've had to deal with on PCs over the years too. The only problem is, I can list just as many strange problems that occur on Macs.

Case in point...

As you can see by my setup below, I have a G4/800DP and a TiBook800. I routinely turn on filesharing on the G4/800 and use it as a makeshift server, since it has the largest HD. Well, a week ago, all of a sudden, everytime I open a browser on the G4/800DP, no matter which browser it is, it takes about 5 minutes for the splash screen to disappear and the app to become responsive. Since I've been a Mac user a LOOOONG time, and remembered that this would sometimes happen under OS 9 because an active app would come to expect a network connection that might not be there anymore, I tried reconnecting the computers. No dice. I then tried to delete all the preferences that were related to the networking extensions. No dice again. I examined the console log to see what was happening, and still couldn't get an idea of why it would take the browsers 5 minutes to become operational. I posted queries to Apple's boards, Macintouch, etc. I found one other person experiencing a similar problem, but he couldn't figure out how to remedy it either.

Eventually I had to break down, back everything up , and reinstall Jaguar. Being a web designer, I just couldn't handle a 5 min. startup time for my browsers everytime I checked something in them.

The Mac definitely has the ease of use advantage, but you are fooling yourself if you think that the PC has the market cornered on "weird" things that should work but don't.

I'm really afraid that this forum is quickly becoming the "temple" of Mac OS religous fanaticism. Think different people - don't be blinded by your ideology! There's good & bad on both platforms!

[toast]

You're having a great idea, hulk. I hope I could join you on this one and post my own experiences, but my PC experience is very limited whereas my Mac experience is in comparison very wide. I only use PCs at work to type some text and to browse the Web, while my Mac is full of stuff I use on a daily basis.

[ApeintheShell]

I don't really have the specs with me but i used to work for a retail chain in the mall in denver which no longer exists. They enlisted me to set-up windows 98 as a kiosk for them. Read the instructions 8 times and 8 times i had to reinstall it. Finally i gave up and they returned the pc.
Currently mom has a PowerSpec PC in her office. She has windows xp home installed and a month ago she bought a microtech scanner. Installed photoshop and scanner driver's and all seemed to be in working order. It refused to scan so we sent it back to the company. Fast forward to yesterday. My mother tells me if i want to use the scanner i have to plug it in, and turn it on before i start the computer. So much for plug n play. I checked all the connections and turned it on and off on and off..etc. I have about 800 sheets of drawings to scan and this didn't help. So i tell my bro and he gets on there and it works fine. He says i just don't know how to operate Windows. "laugh" Are the instructions for pc's and peripherials helpful or just there to waste people's time so they can call tech support?

[Tigger]

Well, I think this is a good place to share my experiences with my new PC:

First thing:
I wanted to attach my harddisk as primary master and my DVD as secondary master. the stupid bios couldn't find the DVD. jumpers all in the right place. Trial and error finally ended up in DVD on secondary slave, cause it just won't work as master. Okay.

Now, installing the OS, Windows XP Home:
Just hangs at some point, and I only see a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left.

So I put in the Windows XP pro CD of my brother, and this one had no problems and I could format the harddisk. after that was done, even XP home installed without problems.
Never thought installing could be such a hassle...

Since then, I had no problem at all (Well, except I am used to the Mac OS X finder ). But I have to see how it behaves in the long run...

[hulkaros]

Experience from the Dark Side... For 05/11/2002:

The systems...
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P4/2GHz, Intel 845 mainboard, 512/266DDR, Sound Blaster Live 5.1, Yamaha CD-RW 20x10x40, DVD Pioneer, power supply 350 Watt, GeForce 2MX/400 w/TV out, Midi Tower, floppy, IBM DeskStar HD 60GB/ATA66/7200rpm formatted in NTFS, 80pin IDE cables, noname PS2 keyboard+mouse, Windows 2000 Pro, Ahead Nero 5.5.9.14, MS Office 2000+SR1, Creative apps, PowerDVD 3, 30.xx nVidia drivers, Win2k SP2, Fifa 2001, Age Of Empires 2, other system drivers...

The problem...
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Everything worked more than fine for 5-6 months... Then the system it wouldn't just pass the boot screen of Windows 2000 now is starting up! After 2 or 3 minutes gives a BSOD and then freezes.

The solution...
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Tried EVERYTHING: Safe Boot, Console, Last Succesful Boot, changing ALL the hardware (with fresh new of course), Repair process with and without repair disk, Repair via console, reinstalling on a different location but... No solution! Fresh reinstall with formatting in NTFS and everything is back on track with the same hardware! So far so good

Welcome to the Dark Side! Part 2 of ?

Also, keep in mind that I started this thread after checking with Ed first and I didn't started it to provoke anyone on this very forum... This is not a Mac VS PC thread so I hope that people will not treat it as one! And yes, I know that Macs have their share of problems too and such cases can be found in other sections of www.macosx.com forums or ANY other Mac forums out there but in my opinion Mac related problems are more easier to understand in order to solve them (at least 90% of the cases) but that's another case study!?