PC HELL- The Next Installment (LONGer than the last one)

stanton · Jun 20, 2001

This is a follow-up episode of an ongoing saga of long time Mac user attempting to get indocrinated into the sacred world of the PC. This has been a sadistic sort of fun as well as quite educational.

After my last thread, I was thoroghly (and probably correctly) chided by forum members for letting the computer company put cheap parts into my box. My logic was to build a "value" box. It was an experiment...that failed miserably. The value turned into absolute hell the moment I tried to load new system software. FOUR DAYS later, I still did not have system software on the f& %#$g PC! Ron Reznick can attest to my lack of exaggeration. I tried every freaking idea we could think of, including putting in both new hard and CD-ROM drives. On Sunday night, the contest was "called on account of darkness". Machine-1, Stanton-O.

Monday morning, a very determined photographer called up the computer company. They acted as if they had never taken back bad parts before. They gave me this 15% restocking BS, to which I replied; they were taking those cheap s^#t parts back (actually, the only cheap part was the Amptron all-in-one motherboard and cpu cooling fan. and replacing them with quality products and no, I wasn't paying any restocking fees! After all the time and exasperation I was ready to accept the conclusions of the first part of my experiment and spend some more money to go to upgraded parts, as long as the opportunity presented itself.

We replaced the processor and motherboard with a 1.1gig AMD Thunderbird processor (upgraded from the 900), an ASUS A7V133 motherboard. In addition I added a Fujitsu 20 gig ATA100 drive, Sony 52xCD-ROM and an (older SCSI) HP CD-R (W?), a Soundblaster Live Value card and 512mb of RAM. No one can accuse me of having a "crippled" machine now .

So, I leave the computer store thinking my problems are over. Right? WRONG!!! I get home and attempt to to load system software again. NO HARD DRIVE RECOGNIZED!!! I won't waste the bandwidth going over the gory AND LONG details. It was not fun. At 10:30 that night, my friend Bob was kind enough to let me come over to figure out the problem. Somehow, together we (he) figured out how to get the system up and running.

If you're wondering what was wrong, the PROFESSIONAL technician plugged the drive into the ATA/100 Promise/Raid controller without setting the jumper properly or setting the bios properly. Imagine this newbie (I don't even rank amateur status on PC's yet) trying to figure out what was wrong. So, the computer went into a search loop, not finding anything. When I reached ASUS tech support this morning the explained the problem and answer. This so-called PROFESSIONAL technican's small mistake caused another several hours of grief and misery. You'd have thought he'd be more careful checking his setup before sending a computer home with a customer. I finally left my friend's house at 3am- but the computer was actually working and actually had system software on it.

For the most part, the application software installation went well, with the exception of my extreme fatigue caused me to leave some update disks at home that I had downloaded. For the most part, installing general software was very similar to Mac installations, with the exception of drive naming conventions.

Now I can see that the PC has made some significant strides in trying to provide a plug-and-play environment. But it wasn't so plug-and-play when I tried to set up my HP LaserJet6mp printer which is on our ethernet hub. Though ideally, I would like my PC to interact with out Mac network, right now I'll settle for just getting the printer to print over ethernet. I expected the Mac/PC interaction to be a bit more complicated, requiring additional software, but I didn't expect setting up the printer to be such a chore. At this moment, I cannot print with it. My only savior is that I would be able to print from my Epson 1280 via USB if needed.

Partial Conclusion: I admit that the first scenario with the old parts made my frustration level a bit raw, but I can be rational about it in my personal evaluation. I can see the "flexibility" in the PC that some of you speak of, but it comes at the expense of ease of use, or at the very least, ease of setup. The PC is very complicated and not terribly intuitive. Errors are communicated in "Technese", which I found sometimes difficult to understand. Though I am not intimidated by it, looking at the bios settings made my head hurt. You HAVE to know what you're doing if you're messing with the bios. This is all stuff that is foreign to a Mac user. As I said, one could make a case for the flexibility of the PC, but IMHO, much of that flexibility for the average user is overkill.

One last observation- It felt very odd to be working with an OS that felt like a separate entity from the hardware. I never worked with an OS before that actually felt like IT was a a money making entity. Macs just come with the software. No license keys, and/or updates that won't work with some "limited" license of operating software. Working with Macs seems so much more integrated and cohesive in feel and operation. I admit that years of working with Macs may have biased me slightly. I truly AM keeping an open mind about this and will call it as I see it.But honestly, if I were this same new user on a Mac, I wouldn't have had to fight so hard to get up and running as have this week with my first PC.

Hopefully, my hellish stories are over and I can quitely join the ranks of happy PC users. I hope to get my printer on line soon and even learn to operate a mixed Mac/PC network. Stay tuned....

Again, I want to thank my friend Ron Reznick who helped save my sanity, and for the great amount of time he unselfishly donated. I owe him lunch (and a whole bunch more). I wish I knew half of what he knows. Thanks Ron.

Sincerely,
Stanton

Ron Reznick · Jun 20, 2001

You're welcome, Stanton. I'll look forward to my lunch :^)

Ron

Silken · Jun 21, 2001

As a long time PC user and one who has built and worked on (with MUCH help from my PC-Guru dad) many PCs I have a few recommendations to anyone new to PCs:

DO NOT BUILD YOUR OWN MACHINE. Pay someone with a lot of experience and, more importantly, many spare pieces at their disposal. In theory, all pieces (memory chips, drives, etc.) should work with all other pieces from any company. HOWEVER, this rarely happens in practice.

If you do chose to do it your self, or if you plan to upgrade or add new devices, DO ONE PIECE AT A TIME. For example, if you want to replace your modem, remove the existing one (physically), then turn on the computer and let it realize that there is no modem. Then remove the old modem's software and drivers. At that point you can proceed to put the new one in. Also, get one new device working before installing the next.

DO NOT PLAY WITH THE BIOS. Don't even go in there unless someone very knowledgeable (or an instruction manual) has instructed you to check or change a setting.

UPGRADE YOUR DRIVERS. Hardware often comes with outdated drivers that will not work with one (or several) of the other components in your computer. Most companies have updated drivers on their websites or check http://www.driverguide.com or some similar site. This will solve a lot of problems.

NOT ALL MEMORY CHIPS ARE COMPATIBLE. If you add more memory and you start getting conflicts, the blue screen of death, or more frequent error menus/crashes your new chip may not work with the old ones.

While programs that load at startup and run all the time can be some neat add-ons, they will greatly slow things down. Keep the computer as clean as you can.

Well, those are a few from a long list...

-C

jcwphoto · Jun 21, 2001

Cory said:
UPGRADE YOUR DRIVERS. Hardware often comes with outdated drivers
that will not work with one (or several) of the other components in
your computer. Most companies have updated drivers on their
websites or check http://www.driverguide.com or some similar site. This
will solve a lot of problems.

Make sure you download the updated driver(s) before you decide to remove your modem and delete all its software.

I consider myself lucky, because I've built two computers on my own from scratch, and they went almost without a hitch. The first computer, I wasted about 6 or 7 hours because I was using an old 56k modem from a previous computer, and the drivers that Windows decided to install for this old modem would only run at 33k on the new machine. It took a while for me to realize that the default driver being used by Windows was meant for another device, so I had to download the new driver.

But Cory makes a very good point. Do one thing at a time, install one piece at a time, make sure it's working before you move on to the next piece.

j

stanton · Jun 22, 2001

Cory,

I DID have a professional company build the box. I did not do it myself. However they were not thorogh in making sure that it was functioning properly. You probably hadn't followed the original thread on my project, but the first thing I told them when I walked through the door was that I was new to PC and that I had no clue as to what I should buy. I informed them that the machine was secondary to my Mac network, but it would be used PRIMARILY for graphics and digital imaging.

What the sales guy should have said to me on the intial consulation is, "Don't be stupid, for $100 more you can have a really nice motherboard and cards that will make your machine so much faster and more stable" which is essentially what Eugene and Ron said to me after the purchase (and before the meltdown). What they sold me on is features. Just as a comparison, when you go to buy a Mac, you don't worry about the quality of components, the build, etc. You just buy the box and everything just works.

The mistake I made on the first go-around (and to an extent second) was that I had a "legacy drive" from the computer my uncle donated to me, with Win98 already installed. It worked fine UNTIL I tried to install software. After 4 days of testing everything and even purchasing new drives, I gave up and took the box back to be rebuilt with better quality parts.

The company was kind of jerky about the return. They weren't happy at all. But you know they did something that was kind of "interesting". When they built the box, they hooked it up with THEIR hard drive and brought me back into the shop to show me that it was working. They never did attempt to hook up my drive until they were about to close up the box. THEY DID NOT TEST THE BOX WITH MY DRIVE IN IT!!! I assumed they hooked it up properly. They did not hook it up to the correct port and/or set the bios properly. They sent a box out with a newbie PC user who assumed they did their job properly.

My point of this whole story is to illustrate the challenge of selecting and setting up a PC. A new PC user can get screwed at several levels. If you go down to your local best buy or CompUSA, the chances of the salesperson knowing what you need for your digital imaging business is slim and none. NONE of the people I spoke with knew if any of the video cards in their machines could be calibrated. They could not advise me on which Microsoft OS was proper for my use. The custom computer shop didn't do much better either. I ultimately got a better machine, but the only thing that saved me was a couple of really good friends and the fact that I'm not intimdated by the technology and not afraid to poke my head into the box.

One last "surprise" that I should have known, but had never heard anyone really speak of is the cost (in time and $) of the OS and ancillary software upgrades. I own a full copy of Win98SE that I purchased with Virtual PC for my Mac. I never dreamed that I couldn't use this software on my computer, but guess what? It wouldn't accept it. It was labeled "for new computers only". Isn't that what I have???? Licensing operating software to work ONLY with a specific program or machine??? Whassup with that???? $200 for Win2K??!!! And then you have to get specific versions of applications to work with the specific OS? This is a totally foreign concept to a Mac guy. Sure, when a major Mac OS upgrade comes out you might have to get an update, but it is almost always backwards compatible, so you don't need to have legacy copies of the same software hanging about.

Well, off to do battle with the wireless keyboard that didn't work yesterday. Its been fun and educational... Hope I get to do some actual computing soon . I'd love to finally run some images through the PC.

Regards,
Stanton

Cory said:
As a long time PC user and one who has built and worked on (with
MUCH help from my PC-Guru dad) many PCs I have a few
recommendations to anyone new to PCs:

DO NOT BUILD YOUR OWN MACHINE. Pay someone with a lot of
experience and, more importantly, many spare pieces at their
disposal. In theory, all pieces (memory chips, drives, etc.)
should work with all other pieces from any company. HOWEVER, this
rarely happens in practice.

If you do chose to do it your self, or if you plan to upgrade or
add new devices, DO ONE PIECE AT A TIME. For example, if you want
to replace your modem, remove the existing one (physically), then
turn on the computer and let it realize that there is no modem.
Then remove the old modem's software and drivers. At that point
you can proceed to put the new one in. Also, get one new device
working before installing the next.

DO NOT PLAY WITH THE BIOS. Don't even go in there unless someone
very knowledgeable (or an instruction manual) has instructed you to
check or change a setting.

UPGRADE YOUR DRIVERS. Hardware often comes with outdated drivers
that will not work with one (or several) of the other components in
your computer. Most companies have updated drivers on their
websites or check http://www.driverguide.com or some similar site. This
will solve a lot of problems.

NOT ALL MEMORY CHIPS ARE COMPATIBLE. If you add more memory and
you start getting conflicts, the blue screen of death, or more
frequent error menus/crashes your new chip may not work with the
old ones.

While programs that load at startup and run all the time can be
some neat add-ons, they will greatly slow things down. Keep the
computer as clean as you can.

Well, those are a few from a long list...

-C

Joe · Jun 22, 2001

Stanton said:
If you're wondering what was wrong, the PROFESSIONAL technician
plugged the drive into the ATA/100 Promise/Raid controller without
setting the jumper properly or setting the bios properly. Imagine
this newbie (I don't even rank amateur status on PC's yet) trying
to figure out what was wrong. So, the computer went into a search
loop, not finding anything. When I reached ASUS tech support this
morning the explained the problem and answer. This so-called
PROFESSIONAL technican's small mistake caused another several hours
of grief and misery. You'd have thought he'd be more careful
checking his setup before sending a computer home with a customer.
I finally left my friend's house at 3am- but the computer was
actually working and actually had system software on it.

All I can tell you is that I have fixed more computers that were fixed by other "PROFESSIONAL technicians" than I can count. You have to remember that most of these people are are just young kids getting paid minimum wage, with not a lot of experience. With that said never take anything for granted, always check yourself, you lose less hair that way.

Joe

Joe · Jun 22, 2001

Stanton said:
One last "surprise" that I should have known, but had never heard
anyone really speak of is the cost (in time and $) of the OS and
ancillary software upgrades. I own a full copy of Win98SE that I
purchased with Virtual PC for my Mac. I never dreamed that I
couldn't use this software on my computer, but guess what? It
wouldn't accept it. It was labeled "for new computers only". Isn't
that what I have???? Licensing operating software to work ONLY
with a specific program or machine??? Whassup with that???? $200
for Win2K??!!! And then you have to get specific versions of
applications to work with the specific OS? This is a totally
foreign concept to a Mac guy. Sure, when a major Mac OS upgrade
comes out you might have to get an update, but it is almost always
backwards compatible, so you don't need to have legacy copies of
the same software hanging about.

Stanton, this is the difference between "Full install and upgrade", there are tricks to make it work, it's not pretty but it works.

Full install assumes that the computer has no OS installed, so it refuses to install over an older OS.

Upgrade must have an older OS to install over.

to install full version over an existing version use this comand

setup NTLDR

This Bypasses an existing Operating System detection. This is good if you have a full-version of Windows 98 but need to reinstall or want to upgrade over Win 95.

Mark Etheredge · Jun 22, 2001

Your frustration is understandable, but as you are using this experience to compare Macs with PCs, please bear in mind the following:

Only an edgy, do-it-yourself PC guru would take upon himself the task of selecting a motherboard, type of cooling fan, etc. It's definitely not something for an amateur to do. Someone who has dealt exclusively with Apple should understand the value of a reputable manufacturer and a 'complete' system with well-integrated components and pre-installed software. Companies like Dell and Gateway, for example, and many, many others. You can find cheaper PCs from lesser known manufacturers, but right now, PCs are dirt cheap anyway.

The shop where you purchased your PC sounds utterly contemptible. No legitimate shop would assemble a PC and send it out the door without doing a complete burn-in, where all components are tested thoroughly.

Unfortunately, your views regarding the virtues of PCs and Macs are skewed considerably by the manner in which you selected and purchased your first PC.

Please don't take this as criticism, but as advice from a PC support specialist who would never purchase from a local shop unless I were EXTREMELY confident in their abilities.

Trent Mulkern · Jun 22, 2001

Well your PC purchase experience was certainly unfortunate, but may be more typical of some of the poorer local and on-line vendors of such products. Like all camera vendors are not created equal such is the state of many electronic equipment vendors. Regretfully, many of these low cost vendors train their techs to perform a b c. Throw in d and e, and you have out distanced their level of knowledge and experience. Even on-line PC parts vendor's technicians can be poor using a tiered level of support as your specific problem is not in their book or problem data base when you call. Such is the state of our new technology age.

Hopefully you will take this as a positive learning experience. My first build your own experience last year was more positive but not without a few nights swearing a lot. My only saving grace was having been under the hood of past pre-built purchases where each trip was a learning experience. Nor does that make me an expert/professional by any means. It just means it is less daunting each time.

Hopefully you will be up an running soon.

Regards,
Trent

Stanton said:
This is a follow-up episode of an ongoing saga of long time Mac
user attempting to get indocrinated into the sacred world of the
PC. This has been a sadistic sort of fun as well as quite
educational.

After my last thread, I was thoroghly (and probably correctly)
chided by forum members for letting the computer company put cheap
parts into my box. My logic was to build a "value" box. It was an
experiment...that failed miserably. The value turned into absolute
hell the moment I tried to load new system software. FOUR DAYS
later, I still did not have system software on the f& %#$g PC! Ron
Reznick can attest to my lack of exaggeration. I tried every
freaking idea we could think of, including putting in both new hard
and CD-ROM drives. On Sunday night, the contest was "called on
account of darkness". Machine-1, Stanton-O.

Monday morning, a very determined photographer called up the
computer company. They acted as if they had never taken back bad
parts before. They gave me this 15% restocking BS, to which I
replied; they were taking those cheap s^#t parts back (actually,
the only cheap part was the Amptron all-in-one motherboard and cpu
cooling fan. and replacing them with quality products and no, I
wasn't paying any restocking fees! After all the time and
exasperation I was ready to accept the conclusions of the first
part of my experiment and spend some more money to go to upgraded
parts, as long as the opportunity presented itself.

We replaced the processor and motherboard with a 1.1gig AMD
Thunderbird processor (upgraded from the 900), an ASUS A7V133
motherboard. In addition I added a Fujitsu 20 gig ATA100 drive,
Sony 52xCD-ROM and an (older SCSI) HP CD-R (W?), a Soundblaster
Live Value card and 512mb of RAM. No one can accuse me of having a
"crippled" machine now .

So, I leave the computer store thinking my problems are over.
Right? WRONG!!! I get home and attempt to to load system software
again. NO HARD DRIVE RECOGNIZED!!! I won't waste the bandwidth
going over the gory AND LONG details. It was not fun. At 10:30 that
night, my friend Bob was kind enough to let me come over to figure
out the problem. Somehow, together we (he) figured out how to get
the system up and running.

If you're wondering what was wrong, the PROFESSIONAL technician
plugged the drive into the ATA/100 Promise/Raid controller without
setting the jumper properly or setting the bios properly. Imagine
this newbie (I don't even rank amateur status on PC's yet) trying
to figure out what was wrong. So, the computer went into a search
loop, not finding anything. When I reached ASUS tech support this
morning the explained the problem and answer. This so-called
PROFESSIONAL technican's small mistake caused another several hours
of grief and misery. You'd have thought he'd be more careful
checking his setup before sending a computer home with a customer.
I finally left my friend's house at 3am- but the computer was
actually working and actually had system software on it.

For the most part, the application software installation went well,
with the exception of my extreme fatigue caused me to leave some
update disks at home that I had downloaded. For the most part,
installing general software was very similar to Mac installations,
with the exception of drive naming conventions.

Now I can see that the PC has made some significant strides in
trying to provide a plug-and-play environment. But it wasn't so
plug-and-play when I tried to set up my HP LaserJet6mp printer
which is on our ethernet hub. Though ideally, I would like my PC to
interact with out Mac network, right now I'll settle for just
getting the printer to print over ethernet. I expected the Mac/PC
interaction to be a bit more complicated, requiring additional
software, but I didn't expect setting up the printer to be such a
chore. At this moment, I cannot print with it. My only savior is
that I would be able to print from my Epson 1280 via USB if needed.

Partial Conclusion: I admit that the first scenario with the old
parts made my frustration level a bit raw, but I can be rational
about it in my personal evaluation. I can see the "flexibility" in
the PC that some of you speak of, but it comes at the expense of
ease of use, or at the very least, ease of setup. The PC is very
complicated and not terribly intuitive. Errors are communicated in
"Technese", which I found sometimes difficult to understand.
Though I am not intimidated by it, looking at the bios settings
made my head hurt. You HAVE to know what you're doing if you're
messing with the bios. This is all stuff that is foreign to a Mac
user. As I said, one could make a case for the flexibility of the
PC, but IMHO, much of that flexibility for the average user is
overkill.

One last observation- It felt very odd to be working with an OS
that felt like a separate entity from the hardware. I never worked
with an OS before that actually felt like IT was a a money making
entity. Macs just come with the software. No license keys, and/or
updates that won't work with some "limited" license of operating
software. Working with Macs seems so much more integrated and
cohesive in feel and operation. I admit that years of working with
Macs may have biased me slightly. I truly AM keeping an open mind
about this and will call it as I see it.But honestly, if I were
this same new user on a Mac, I wouldn't have had to fight so hard
to get up and running as have this week with my first PC.

Hopefully, my hellish stories are over and I can quitely join the
ranks of happy PC users. I hope to get my printer on line soon and
even learn to operate a mixed Mac/PC network. Stay tuned....

Again, I want to thank my friend Ron Reznick who helped save my
sanity, and for the great amount of time he unselfishly donated. I
owe him lunch (and a whole bunch more). I wish I knew half of
what he knows. Thanks Ron.

Sincerely,
Stanton

DarrenH · Jun 22, 2001

Hello Stanton,

You do seem to be genuinely interested in learning about PCs, and not just about spewing annoying pro-Mac vitriol all over newsgroups like some people do (imagining that this will somehow help the Apple stock value?).

The problems you have had with a PC are extremely non-representative.

Most Mac users chide PC users because it is apparently a platform for know-nothings. Therefore PCs, as defined by stereotype, are actually very easy to set up and use. Thousands are purchased and used every week. You have decided to go "under the hood" right away, however, without the benefit of the background knowledge which becomes second nature to anyone who swaps out video cards or hard drives on a relatively routine basis. For someone who has had little initiation, though, it can be as easy as building a microwave oven from spare parts.

Like Macs, the problems arise when you mix-and-match equipment in the box...which unfortunately is the only way to get quality (this is true for everything in life). I've always found that, after a day or two of heartache and headache, the PC is a "set and forget" device, needing very little care and feeding. I hope you reach that state soon.

D

Stanton said:
This is a follow-up episode of an ongoing saga of long time Mac
user attempting to get indocrinated into the sacred world of the
PC. This has been a sadistic sort of fun as well as quite
educational.

After my last thread, I was thoroghly (and probably correctly)
chided by forum members for letting the computer company put cheap
parts into my box. My logic was to build a "value" box. It was an
experiment...that failed miserably. The value turned into absolute
hell the moment I tried to load new system software. FOUR DAYS
later, I still did not have system software on the f& %#$g PC! Ron
Reznick can attest to my lack of exaggeration. I tried every
freaking idea we could think of, including putting in both new hard
and CD-ROM drives. On Sunday night, the contest was "called on
account of darkness". Machine-1, Stanton-O.

Monday morning, a very determined photographer called up the
computer company. They acted as if they had never taken back bad
parts before. They gave me this 15% restocking BS, to which I
replied; they were taking those cheap s^#t parts back (actually,
the only cheap part was the Amptron all-in-one motherboard and cpu
cooling fan. and replacing them with quality products and no, I
wasn't paying any restocking fees! After all the time and
exasperation I was ready to accept the conclusions of the first
part of my experiment and spend some more money to go to upgraded
parts, as long as the opportunity presented itself.

We replaced the processor and motherboard with a 1.1gig AMD
Thunderbird processor (upgraded from the 900), an ASUS A7V133
motherboard. In addition I added a Fujitsu 20 gig ATA100 drive,
Sony 52xCD-ROM and an (older SCSI) HP CD-R (W?), a Soundblaster
Live Value card and 512mb of RAM. No one can accuse me of having a
"crippled" machine now .

So, I leave the computer store thinking my problems are over.
Right? WRONG!!! I get home and attempt to to load system software
again. NO HARD DRIVE RECOGNIZED!!! I won't waste the bandwidth
going over the gory AND LONG details. It was not fun. At 10:30 that
night, my friend Bob was kind enough to let me come over to figure
out the problem. Somehow, together we (he) figured out how to get
the system up and running.

If you're wondering what was wrong, the PROFESSIONAL technician
plugged the drive into the ATA/100 Promise/Raid controller without
setting the jumper properly or setting the bios properly. Imagine
this newbie (I don't even rank amateur status on PC's yet) trying
to figure out what was wrong. So, the computer went into a search
loop, not finding anything. When I reached ASUS tech support this
morning the explained the problem and answer. This so-called
PROFESSIONAL technican's small mistake caused another several hours
of grief and misery. You'd have thought he'd be more careful
checking his setup before sending a computer home with a customer.
I finally left my friend's house at 3am- but the computer was
actually working and actually had system software on it.

For the most part, the application software installation went well,
with the exception of my extreme fatigue caused me to leave some
update disks at home that I had downloaded. For the most part,
installing general software was very similar to Mac installations,
with the exception of drive naming conventions.

Now I can see that the PC has made some significant strides in
trying to provide a plug-and-play environment. But it wasn't so
plug-and-play when I tried to set up my HP LaserJet6mp printer
which is on our ethernet hub. Though ideally, I would like my PC to
interact with out Mac network, right now I'll settle for just
getting the printer to print over ethernet. I expected the Mac/PC
interaction to be a bit more complicated, requiring additional
software, but I didn't expect setting up the printer to be such a
chore. At this moment, I cannot print with it. My only savior is
that I would be able to print from my Epson 1280 via USB if needed.

Partial Conclusion: I admit that the first scenario with the old
parts made my frustration level a bit raw, but I can be rational
about it in my personal evaluation. I can see the "flexibility" in
the PC that some of you speak of, but it comes at the expense of
ease of use, or at the very least, ease of setup. The PC is very
complicated and not terribly intuitive. Errors are communicated in
"Technese", which I found sometimes difficult to understand.
Though I am not intimidated by it, looking at the bios settings
made my head hurt. You HAVE to know what you're doing if you're
messing with the bios. This is all stuff that is foreign to a Mac
user. As I said, one could make a case for the flexibility of the
PC, but IMHO, much of that flexibility for the average user is
overkill.

One last observation- It felt very odd to be working with an OS
that felt like a separate entity from the hardware. I never worked
with an OS before that actually felt like IT was a a money making
entity. Macs just come with the software. No license keys, and/or
updates that won't work with some "limited" license of operating
software. Working with Macs seems so much more integrated and
cohesive in feel and operation. I admit that years of working with
Macs may have biased me slightly. I truly AM keeping an open mind
about this and will call it as I see it.But honestly, if I were
this same new user on a Mac, I wouldn't have had to fight so hard
to get up and running as have this week with my first PC.

Hopefully, my hellish stories are over and I can quitely join the
ranks of happy PC users. I hope to get my printer on line soon and
even learn to operate a mixed Mac/PC network. Stay tuned....

Again, I want to thank my friend Ron Reznick who helped save my
sanity, and for the great amount of time he unselfishly donated. I
owe him lunch (and a whole bunch more). I wish I knew half of
what he knows. Thanks Ron.

Sincerely,
Stanton

DarrenH · Jun 22, 2001

Hi Stanton,

I think that was your mistake...NEVER let the salesperson know you know nothing. Would you do that with your car? Suddenly the mechanic will find all sorts of "problems".

As in anything, research is the way.....

Stanton said:
I DID have a professional company build the box. I did not do it
myself. However they were not thorogh in making sure that it was
functioning properly. You probably hadn't followed the original
thread on my project, but the first thing I told them when I walked
through the door was that I was new to PC and that I had no clue as
to what I should buy. I informed them that the machine was
secondary to my Mac network, but it would be used PRIMARILY for
graphics and digital imaging.

What the sales guy should have said to me on the intial
consulation is, "Don't be stupid, for $100 more you can have a
really nice motherboard and cards that will make your machine so
much faster and more stable" which is essentially what Eugene and
Ron said to me after the purchase (and before the meltdown). What
they sold me on is features. Just as a comparison, when you go to
buy a Mac, you don't worry about the quality of components, the
build, etc. You just buy the box and everything just works.

The mistake I made on the first go-around (and to an extent second)
was that I had a "legacy drive" from the computer my uncle donated
to me, with Win98 already installed. It worked fine UNTIL I tried
to install software. After 4 days of testing everything and even
purchasing new drives, I gave up and took the box back to be
rebuilt with better quality parts.

The company was kind of jerky about the return. They weren't happy
at all. But you know they did something that was kind of
"interesting". When they built the box, they hooked it up with
THEIR hard drive and brought me back into the shop to show me that
it was working. They never did attempt to hook up my drive until
they were about to close up the box. THEY DID NOT TEST THE BOX WITH
MY DRIVE IN IT!!! I assumed they hooked it up properly. They did
not hook it up to the correct port and/or set the bios properly.
They sent a box out with a newbie PC user who assumed they did
their job properly.

My point of this whole story is to illustrate the challenge of
selecting and setting up a PC. A new PC user can get screwed at
several levels. If you go down to your local best buy or CompUSA,
the chances of the salesperson knowing what you need for your
digital imaging business is slim and none. NONE of the people I
spoke with knew if any of the video cards in their machines could
be calibrated. They could not advise me on which Microsoft OS was
proper for my use. The custom computer shop didn't do much better
either. I ultimately got a better machine, but the only thing that
saved me was a couple of really good friends and the fact that I'm
not intimdated by the technology and not afraid to poke my head
into the box.

One last "surprise" that I should have known, but had never heard
anyone really speak of is the cost (in time and $) of the OS and
ancillary software upgrades. I own a full copy of Win98SE that I
purchased with Virtual PC for my Mac. I never dreamed that I
couldn't use this software on my computer, but guess what? It
wouldn't accept it. It was labeled "for new computers only". Isn't
that what I have???? Licensing operating software to work ONLY
with a specific program or machine??? Whassup with that???? $200
for Win2K??!!! And then you have to get specific versions of
applications to work with the specific OS? This is a totally
foreign concept to a Mac guy. Sure, when a major Mac OS upgrade
comes out you might have to get an update, but it is almost always
backwards compatible, so you don't need to have legacy copies of
the same software hanging about.

Well, off to do battle with the wireless keyboard that didn't work
yesterday. Its been fun and educational... Hope I get to do some
actual computing soon . I'd love to finally run some images
through the PC.

Regards,
Stanton

Cory said:

As a long time PC user and one who has built and worked on (with
MUCH help from my PC-Guru dad) many PCs I have a few
recommendations to anyone new to PCs:

DO NOT BUILD YOUR OWN MACHINE. Pay someone with a lot of
experience and, more importantly, many spare pieces at their
disposal. In theory, all pieces (memory chips, drives, etc.)
should work with all other pieces from any company. HOWEVER, this
rarely happens in practice.

If you do chose to do it your self, or if you plan to upgrade or
add new devices, DO ONE PIECE AT A TIME. For example, if you want
to replace your modem, remove the existing one (physically), then
turn on the computer and let it realize that there is no modem.
Then remove the old modem's software and drivers. At that point
you can proceed to put the new one in. Also, get one new device
working before installing the next.

DO NOT PLAY WITH THE BIOS. Don't even go in there unless someone
very knowledgeable (or an instruction manual) has instructed you to
check or change a setting.

UPGRADE YOUR DRIVERS. Hardware often comes with outdated drivers
that will not work with one (or several) of the other components in
your computer. Most companies have updated drivers on their
websites or check http://www.driverguide.com or some similar site. This
will solve a lot of problems.

NOT ALL MEMORY CHIPS ARE COMPATIBLE. If you add more memory and
you start getting conflicts, the blue screen of death, or more
frequent error menus/crashes your new chip may not work with the
old ones.

While programs that load at startup and run all the time can be
some neat add-ons, they will greatly slow things down. Keep the
computer as clean as you can.

Well, those are a few from a long list...

-C

Click to expand...

stanton · Jun 22, 2001

Thanks for the support, guys. Its up and running without any other major problems. I hope I didn't screw something up at the end of the day when I unplugged my USB card reader. It gave me an error message/warning that said I improperly unplugged the device. There was no card in the reader, so I didn't corrupt that. Could I have corrupted the driver or any other system software?

The other thing that leaves me scratching my head is the hookup to our company's HP Laserjet 6MP. All of our Macs and the printer are plugged directly into an ethernet hub. I've got both postscript and PCL drivers installed and the PC sees the HPLJ, but it won't print. Not only that, if I "capture" the printer (whatever that means) I knock all the Macs off the printer. The ultimate challenge is going to be getting the PC and Macs working on a mixed platform environment.

Does anyone know how to get both the Macs and PC to print to the HPLJ6mp via ethernet. Once I get past this hurdle everything should be just ducky.

Thanks,
Stanton

Darren said:
The problems you have had with a PC are extremely non-representative.
Most Mac users chide PC users because it is apparently a platform
for know-nothings. Therefore PCs, as defined by stereotype, are
actually very easy to set up and use. Thousands are purchased and
used every week. You have decided to go "under the hood" right
away, however, without the benefit of the background knowledge
which becomes second nature to anyone who swaps out video cards or
hard drives on a relatively routine basis. For someone who has had
little initiation, though, it can be as easy as building a
microwave oven from spare parts.

Like Macs, the problems arise when you mix-and-match equipment in
the box...which unfortunately is the only way to get quality (this
is true for everything in life). I've always found that, after a
day or two of heartache and headache, the PC is a "set and forget"
device, needing very little care and feeding. I hope you reach
that state soon.

D

Stanton said:

This is a follow-up episode of an ongoing saga of long time Mac
user attempting to get indocrinated into the sacred world of the
PC. This has been a sadistic sort of fun as well as quite
educational.

After my last thread, I was thoroghly (and probably correctly)
chided by forum members for letting the computer company put cheap
parts into my box. My logic was to build a "value" box. It was an
experiment...that failed miserably. The value turned into absolute
hell the moment I tried to load new system software. FOUR DAYS
later, I still did not have system software on the f& %#$g PC! Ron
Reznick can attest to my lack of exaggeration. I tried every
freaking idea we could think of, including putting in both new hard
and CD-ROM drives. On Sunday night, the contest was "called on
account of darkness". Machine-1, Stanton-O.

Monday morning, a very determined photographer called up the
computer company. They acted as if they had never taken back bad
parts before. They gave me this 15% restocking BS, to which I
replied; they were taking those cheap s^#t parts back (actually,
the only cheap part was the Amptron all-in-one motherboard and cpu
cooling fan. and replacing them with quality products and no, I
wasn't paying any restocking fees! After all the time and
exasperation I was ready to accept the conclusions of the first
part of my experiment and spend some more money to go to upgraded
parts, as long as the opportunity presented itself.

We replaced the processor and motherboard with a 1.1gig AMD
Thunderbird processor (upgraded from the 900), an ASUS A7V133
motherboard. In addition I added a Fujitsu 20 gig ATA100 drive,
Sony 52xCD-ROM and an (older SCSI) HP CD-R (W?), a Soundblaster
Live Value card and 512mb of RAM. No one can accuse me of having a
"crippled" machine now .

So, I leave the computer store thinking my problems are over.
Right? WRONG!!! I get home and attempt to to load system software
again. NO HARD DRIVE RECOGNIZED!!! I won't waste the bandwidth
going over the gory AND LONG details. It was not fun. At 10:30 that
night, my friend Bob was kind enough to let me come over to figure
out the problem. Somehow, together we (he) figured out how to get
the system up and running.

If you're wondering what was wrong, the PROFESSIONAL technician
plugged the drive into the ATA/100 Promise/Raid controller without
setting the jumper properly or setting the bios properly. Imagine
this newbie (I don't even rank amateur status on PC's yet) trying
to figure out what was wrong. So, the computer went into a search
loop, not finding anything. When I reached ASUS tech support this
morning the explained the problem and answer. This so-called
PROFESSIONAL technican's small mistake caused another several hours
of grief and misery. You'd have thought he'd be more careful
checking his setup before sending a computer home with a customer.
I finally left my friend's house at 3am- but the computer was
actually working and actually had system software on it.

For the most part, the application software installation went well,
with the exception of my extreme fatigue caused me to leave some
update disks at home that I had downloaded. For the most part,
installing general software was very similar to Mac installations,
with the exception of drive naming conventions.

Now I can see that the PC has made some significant strides in
trying to provide a plug-and-play environment. But it wasn't so
plug-and-play when I tried to set up my HP LaserJet6mp printer
which is on our ethernet hub. Though ideally, I would like my PC to
interact with out Mac network, right now I'll settle for just
getting the printer to print over ethernet. I expected the Mac/PC
interaction to be a bit more complicated, requiring additional
software, but I didn't expect setting up the printer to be such a
chore. At this moment, I cannot print with it. My only savior is
that I would be able to print from my Epson 1280 via USB if needed.

Partial Conclusion: I admit that the first scenario with the old
parts made my frustration level a bit raw, but I can be rational
about it in my personal evaluation. I can see the "flexibility" in
the PC that some of you speak of, but it comes at the expense of
ease of use, or at the very least, ease of setup. The PC is very
complicated and not terribly intuitive. Errors are communicated in
"Technese", which I found sometimes difficult to understand.
Though I am not intimidated by it, looking at the bios settings
made my head hurt. You HAVE to know what you're doing if you're
messing with the bios. This is all stuff that is foreign to a Mac
user. As I said, one could make a case for the flexibility of the
PC, but IMHO, much of that flexibility for the average user is
overkill.

One last observation- It felt very odd to be working with an OS
that felt like a separate entity from the hardware. I never worked
with an OS before that actually felt like IT was a a money making
entity. Macs just come with the software. No license keys, and/or
updates that won't work with some "limited" license of operating
software. Working with Macs seems so much more integrated and
cohesive in feel and operation. I admit that years of working with
Macs may have biased me slightly. I truly AM keeping an open mind
about this and will call it as I see it.But honestly, if I were
this same new user on a Mac, I wouldn't have had to fight so hard
to get up and running as have this week with my first PC.

Hopefully, my hellish stories are over and I can quitely join the
ranks of happy PC users. I hope to get my printer on line soon and
even learn to operate a mixed Mac/PC network. Stay tuned....

Again, I want to thank my friend Ron Reznick who helped save my
sanity, and for the great amount of time he unselfishly donated. I
owe him lunch (and a whole bunch more). I wish I knew half of
what he knows. Thanks Ron.

Sincerely,
Stanton

Click to expand...

Trent Mulkern · Jun 22, 2001

Stanton said:
Thanks for the support, guys. Its up and running without any other
major problems. I hope I didn't screw something up at the end of
the day when I unplugged my USB card reader. It gave me an error
message/warning that said I improperly unplugged the device. There
was no card in the reader, so I didn't corrupt that. Could I have
corrupted the driver or any other system software?

There should be a small icon on the bottom right of your tray with a green arrow that when you pass your mouse over it says 'eject or uplug hardware'. Just double click that and select the device you want to disconnect, before you actually pull the plug. It just unloads the driver. You shouldn't have corrupted anyhting.

stanton said:
The other thing that leaves me scratching my head is the hookup to
our company's HP Laserjet 6MP. All of our Macs and the printer are
plugged directly into an ethernet hub. I've got both postscript and
PCL drivers installed and the PC sees the HPLJ, but it won't print.
Not only that, if I "capture" the printer (whatever that means) I
knock all the Macs off the printer. The ultimate challenge is going
to be getting the PC and Macs working on a mixed platform
environment.

Does anyone know how to get both the Macs and PC to print to the
HPLJ6mp via ethernet. Once I get past this hurdle everything should
be just ducky.

Can't help here, no Macs. I have a small local LAN set up here at home. All the PCs have to be set up in the same working group and alll devices/drives have to be 'shared' (right click on the device) in order to access. I have to be in administrator mode to do this.

Regards,
Trent

stanton said:
Thanks,
Stanton

Darren said:

The problems you have had with a PC are extremely non-representative.
Most Mac users chide PC users because it is apparently a platform
for know-nothings. Therefore PCs, as defined by stereotype, are
actually very easy to set up and use. Thousands are purchased and
used every week. You have decided to go "under the hood" right
away, however, without the benefit of the background knowledge
which becomes second nature to anyone who swaps out video cards or
hard drives on a relatively routine basis. For someone who has had
little initiation, though, it can be as easy as building a
microwave oven from spare parts.

Like Macs, the problems arise when you mix-and-match equipment in
the box...which unfortunately is the only way to get quality (this
is true for everything in life). I've always found that, after a
day or two of heartache and headache, the PC is a "set and forget"
device, needing very little care and feeding. I hope you reach
that state soon.

D

Stanton said:

This is a follow-up episode of an ongoing saga of long time Mac
user attempting to get indocrinated into the sacred world of the
PC. This has been a sadistic sort of fun as well as quite
educational.

After my last thread, I was thoroghly (and probably correctly)
chided by forum members for letting the computer company put cheap
parts into my box. My logic was to build a "value" box. It was an
experiment...that failed miserably. The value turned into absolute
hell the moment I tried to load new system software. FOUR DAYS
later, I still did not have system software on the f& %#$g PC! Ron
Reznick can attest to my lack of exaggeration. I tried every
freaking idea we could think of, including putting in both new hard
and CD-ROM drives. On Sunday night, the contest was "called on
account of darkness". Machine-1, Stanton-O.

Monday morning, a very determined photographer called up the
computer company. They acted as if they had never taken back bad
parts before. They gave me this 15% restocking BS, to which I
replied; they were taking those cheap s^#t parts back (actually,
the only cheap part was the Amptron all-in-one motherboard and cpu
cooling fan. and replacing them with quality products and no, I
wasn't paying any restocking fees! After all the time and
exasperation I was ready to accept the conclusions of the first
part of my experiment and spend some more money to go to upgraded
parts, as long as the opportunity presented itself.

We replaced the processor and motherboard with a 1.1gig AMD
Thunderbird processor (upgraded from the 900), an ASUS A7V133
motherboard. In addition I added a Fujitsu 20 gig ATA100 drive,
Sony 52xCD-ROM and an (older SCSI) HP CD-R (W?), a Soundblaster
Live Value card and 512mb of RAM. No one can accuse me of having a
"crippled" machine now .

So, I leave the computer store thinking my problems are over.
Right? WRONG!!! I get home and attempt to to load system software
again. NO HARD DRIVE RECOGNIZED!!! I won't waste the bandwidth
going over the gory AND LONG details. It was not fun. At 10:30 that
night, my friend Bob was kind enough to let me come over to figure
out the problem. Somehow, together we (he) figured out how to get
the system up and running.

If you're wondering what was wrong, the PROFESSIONAL technician
plugged the drive into the ATA/100 Promise/Raid controller without
setting the jumper properly or setting the bios properly. Imagine
this newbie (I don't even rank amateur status on PC's yet) trying
to figure out what was wrong. So, the computer went into a search
loop, not finding anything. When I reached ASUS tech support this
morning the explained the problem and answer. This so-called
PROFESSIONAL technican's small mistake caused another several hours
of grief and misery. You'd have thought he'd be more careful
checking his setup before sending a computer home with a customer.
I finally left my friend's house at 3am- but the computer was
actually working and actually had system software on it.

For the most part, the application software installation went well,
with the exception of my extreme fatigue caused me to leave some
update disks at home that I had downloaded. For the most part,
installing general software was very similar to Mac installations,
with the exception of drive naming conventions.

Now I can see that the PC has made some significant strides in
trying to provide a plug-and-play environment. But it wasn't so
plug-and-play when I tried to set up my HP LaserJet6mp printer
which is on our ethernet hub. Though ideally, I would like my PC to
interact with out Mac network, right now I'll settle for just
getting the printer to print over ethernet. I expected the Mac/PC
interaction to be a bit more complicated, requiring additional
software, but I didn't expect setting up the printer to be such a
chore. At this moment, I cannot print with it. My only savior is
that I would be able to print from my Epson 1280 via USB if needed.

Partial Conclusion: I admit that the first scenario with the old
parts made my frustration level a bit raw, but I can be rational
about it in my personal evaluation. I can see the "flexibility" in
the PC that some of you speak of, but it comes at the expense of
ease of use, or at the very least, ease of setup. The PC is very
complicated and not terribly intuitive. Errors are communicated in
"Technese", which I found sometimes difficult to understand.
Though I am not intimidated by it, looking at the bios settings
made my head hurt. You HAVE to know what you're doing if you're
messing with the bios. This is all stuff that is foreign to a Mac
user. As I said, one could make a case for the flexibility of the
PC, but IMHO, much of that flexibility for the average user is
overkill.

One last observation- It felt very odd to be working with an OS
that felt like a separate entity from the hardware. I never worked
with an OS before that actually felt like IT was a a money making
entity. Macs just come with the software. No license keys, and/or
updates that won't work with some "limited" license of operating
software. Working with Macs seems so much more integrated and
cohesive in feel and operation. I admit that years of working with
Macs may have biased me slightly. I truly AM keeping an open mind
about this and will call it as I see it.But honestly, if I were
this same new user on a Mac, I wouldn't have had to fight so hard
to get up and running as have this week with my first PC.

Hopefully, my hellish stories are over and I can quitely join the
ranks of happy PC users. I hope to get my printer on line soon and
even learn to operate a mixed Mac/PC network. Stay tuned....

Again, I want to thank my friend Ron Reznick who helped save my
sanity, and for the great amount of time he unselfishly donated. I
owe him lunch (and a whole bunch more). I wish I knew half of
what he knows. Thanks Ron.

Sincerely,
Stanton

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Eugene Powers · Jun 23, 2001

It might sound stupid but...
Did you install printer driver on your local machine (pc you build)
If not, click on Start-Settings-Printers-Add new printers
Follow instructions
Then asked if printer is local or on network, select Network.

I don't know if you need to install driver from original disk or from Win98 disk but your goal is to install the driver.
There could be other problems but let's not think about them for now.
Hope this helps.

Eugene

Stanton said:
The other thing that leaves me scratching my head is the hookup to
our company's HP Laserjet 6MP. All of our Macs and the printer are
plugged directly into an ethernet hub. I've got both postscript and
PCL drivers installed and the PC sees the HPLJ, but it won't print.
Not only that, if I "capture" the printer (whatever that means) I
knock all the Macs off the printer. The ultimate challenge is going
to be getting the PC and Macs working on a mixed platform
environment.

Does anyone know how to get both the Macs and PC to print to the
HPLJ6mp via ethernet. Once I get past this hurdle everything should
be just ducky.

Thanks,
Stanton

Darren said:

The problems you have had with a PC are extremely non-representative.
Most Mac users chide PC users because it is apparently a platform
for know-nothings. Therefore PCs, as defined by stereotype, are
actually very easy to set up and use. Thousands are purchased and
used every week. You have decided to go "under the hood" right
away, however, without the benefit of the background knowledge
which becomes second nature to anyone who swaps out video cards or
hard drives on a relatively routine basis. For someone who has had
little initiation, though, it can be as easy as building a
microwave oven from spare parts.

Like Macs, the problems arise when you mix-and-match equipment in
the box...which unfortunately is the only way to get quality (this
is true for everything in life). I've always found that, after a
day or two of heartache and headache, the PC is a "set and forget"
device, needing very little care and feeding. I hope you reach
that state soon.

D

Stanton said:

This is a follow-up episode of an ongoing saga of long time Mac
user attempting to get indocrinated into the sacred world of the
PC. This has been a sadistic sort of fun as well as quite
educational.

After my last thread, I was thoroghly (and probably correctly)
chided by forum members for letting the computer company put cheap
parts into my box. My logic was to build a "value" box. It was an
experiment...that failed miserably. The value turned into absolute
hell the moment I tried to load new system software. FOUR DAYS
later, I still did not have system software on the f& %#$g PC! Ron
Reznick can attest to my lack of exaggeration. I tried every
freaking idea we could think of, including putting in both new hard
and CD-ROM drives. On Sunday night, the contest was "called on
account of darkness". Machine-1, Stanton-O.

Monday morning, a very determined photographer called up the
computer company. They acted as if they had never taken back bad
parts before. They gave me this 15% restocking BS, to which I
replied; they were taking those cheap s^#t parts back (actually,
the only cheap part was the Amptron all-in-one motherboard and cpu
cooling fan. and replacing them with quality products and no, I
wasn't paying any restocking fees! After all the time and
exasperation I was ready to accept the conclusions of the first
part of my experiment and spend some more money to go to upgraded
parts, as long as the opportunity presented itself.

We replaced the processor and motherboard with a 1.1gig AMD
Thunderbird processor (upgraded from the 900), an ASUS A7V133
motherboard. In addition I added a Fujitsu 20 gig ATA100 drive,
Sony 52xCD-ROM and an (older SCSI) HP CD-R (W?), a Soundblaster
Live Value card and 512mb of RAM. No one can accuse me of having a
"crippled" machine now .

So, I leave the computer store thinking my problems are over.
Right? WRONG!!! I get home and attempt to to load system software
again. NO HARD DRIVE RECOGNIZED!!! I won't waste the bandwidth
going over the gory AND LONG details. It was not fun. At 10:30 that
night, my friend Bob was kind enough to let me come over to figure
out the problem. Somehow, together we (he) figured out how to get
the system up and running.

If you're wondering what was wrong, the PROFESSIONAL technician
plugged the drive into the ATA/100 Promise/Raid controller without
setting the jumper properly or setting the bios properly. Imagine
this newbie (I don't even rank amateur status on PC's yet) trying
to figure out what was wrong. So, the computer went into a search
loop, not finding anything. When I reached ASUS tech support this
morning the explained the problem and answer. This so-called
PROFESSIONAL technican's small mistake caused another several hours
of grief and misery. You'd have thought he'd be more careful
checking his setup before sending a computer home with a customer.
I finally left my friend's house at 3am- but the computer was
actually working and actually had system software on it.

For the most part, the application software installation went well,
with the exception of my extreme fatigue caused me to leave some
update disks at home that I had downloaded. For the most part,
installing general software was very similar to Mac installations,
with the exception of drive naming conventions.

Now I can see that the PC has made some significant strides in
trying to provide a plug-and-play environment. But it wasn't so
plug-and-play when I tried to set up my HP LaserJet6mp printer
which is on our ethernet hub. Though ideally, I would like my PC to
interact with out Mac network, right now I'll settle for just
getting the printer to print over ethernet. I expected the Mac/PC
interaction to be a bit more complicated, requiring additional
software, but I didn't expect setting up the printer to be such a
chore. At this moment, I cannot print with it. My only savior is
that I would be able to print from my Epson 1280 via USB if needed.

Partial Conclusion: I admit that the first scenario with the old
parts made my frustration level a bit raw, but I can be rational
about it in my personal evaluation. I can see the "flexibility" in
the PC that some of you speak of, but it comes at the expense of
ease of use, or at the very least, ease of setup. The PC is very
complicated and not terribly intuitive. Errors are communicated in
"Technese", which I found sometimes difficult to understand.
Though I am not intimidated by it, looking at the bios settings
made my head hurt. You HAVE to know what you're doing if you're
messing with the bios. This is all stuff that is foreign to a Mac
user. As I said, one could make a case for the flexibility of the
PC, but IMHO, much of that flexibility for the average user is
overkill.

One last observation- It felt very odd to be working with an OS
that felt like a separate entity from the hardware. I never worked
with an OS before that actually felt like IT was a a money making
entity. Macs just come with the software. No license keys, and/or
updates that won't work with some "limited" license of operating
software. Working with Macs seems so much more integrated and
cohesive in feel and operation. I admit that years of working with
Macs may have biased me slightly. I truly AM keeping an open mind
about this and will call it as I see it.But honestly, if I were
this same new user on a Mac, I wouldn't have had to fight so hard
to get up and running as have this week with my first PC.

Hopefully, my hellish stories are over and I can quitely join the
ranks of happy PC users. I hope to get my printer on line soon and
even learn to operate a mixed Mac/PC network. Stay tuned....

Again, I want to thank my friend Ron Reznick who helped save my
sanity, and for the great amount of time he unselfishly donated. I
owe him lunch (and a whole bunch more). I wish I knew half of
what he knows. Thanks Ron.

Sincerely,
Stanton

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Jim Dawson · Jun 23, 2001

Stanton,

Glad you finally found success.

The OS IS a separate entity from the hardware. Thats why with a PC you have a choice of several OS's. I doubt that you have that choice with a Mac. If there was no choice on a PC, you wouldn't need license keys, it would just be there.

Jim

stanton said:
One last observation- It felt very odd to be working with an OS
that felt like a separate entity from the hardware. I never worked
with an OS before that actually felt like IT was a a money making
entity. Macs just come with the software. No license keys, and/or
updates that won't work with some "limited" license of operating
software. Working with Macs seems so much more integrated and
cohesive in feel and operation. I admit that years of working with
Macs may have biased me slightly. I truly AM keeping an open mind
about this and will call it as I see it.But honestly, if I were
this same new user on a Mac, I wouldn't have had to fight so hard
to get up and running as have this week with my first PC.

gene · Jun 23, 2001

Cory said:
As a long time PC user and one who has built and worked on (with
MUCH help from my PC-Guru dad) many PCs I have a few
recommendations to anyone new to PCs:

DO NOT BUILD YOUR OWN MACHINE. Pay someone with a lot of
experience and, more importantly, many spare pieces at their
disposal. In theory, all pieces (memory chips, drives, etc.)
should work with all other pieces from any company. HOWEVER, this
rarely happens in practice.

I myself have been building many a machine. I even give support for a few. Can't skimp on main components, like motherboard, memory, ect.

http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/neonexpres/latest.html

I myself like Abit, Asus, AOpen motherboards. There are a few others. Amtron isn't one of them.

Silken said:
If you do chose to do it your self, or if you plan to upgrade or
add new devices, DO ONE PIECE AT A TIME. For example, if you want
to replace your modem, remove the existing one (physically), then
turn on the computer and let it realize that there is no modem.
Then remove the old modem's software and drivers. At that point
you can proceed to put the new one in. Also, get one new device
working before installing the next.

If I want to add something, I always download the latest drivers. And as far as motherboards, download/install the latest bios revision (lately I've updated the bios off the harddrive after booting to a dos prompt - but only up to Win98).

When I remove a device,
1. I first boot to safemode, delete all instances of the hardware.
2. Then I shutdown the computer, followed by physically removing the device.
3. I then reboot.
4. I then shut down again.
5. Install new device.
6. Boot machine, install drivers when requested.

Actually, I usually skip step #3 and #4.

Silken said:
DO NOT PLAY WITH THE BIOS. Don't even go in there unless someone
very knowledgeable (or an instruction manual) has instructed you to
check or change a setting.

If you do screwup your bios settings, there should be a default setting option in the bios to bring back to running condition. Kindsa like a restore disk. Won't be optimized, and sometimes it will disable some of your harddrives, as well as other things.

Silken said:
UPGRADE YOUR DRIVERS. Hardware often comes with outdated drivers
that will not work with one (or several) of the other components in
your computer. Most companies have updated drivers on their
websites or check http://www.driverguide.com or some similar site. This
will solve a lot of problems.

NOT ALL MEMORY CHIPS ARE COMPATIBLE. If you add more memory and
you start getting conflicts, the blue screen of death, or more
frequent error menus/crashes your new chip may not work with the
old ones.

If you want good reliable memory, go to http://www.crucial.com - they are actually Micron.

Silken said:
While programs that load at startup and run all the time can be
some neat add-ons, they will greatly slow things down. Keep the
computer as clean as you can.

Running a 1+ Ghz chip, you probably won't notice many background apps... ;-)

Silken said:
Well, those are a few from a long list...

-C

stanton · Jun 23, 2001

Eugene,

As per your suggestion I went right to Win2K. Both PCL and Postcript drivers are installed and the printer is recognized. In fact, I know it is recognized because when I went to "capture" it, it knocked all the Macs out of the loop.

My next step in the learning process is to try to figure out how to make the Macs and PC talk to each other. I'll want to pass digital images across the network and perhaps down the road share Filemaker Pro data base. I was thinking about purchasing Dave for the Mac side, but I'd have to buy a copy for every Mac. So, I'm now thinking along the lines of PC/MacLan. Anyone know of this program?

Thanks,
Stanton

Eugene Powers said:
Eugene

Stanton said:

Thanks for the support, guys. Its up and running without any other
major problems. I hope I didn't screw something up at the end of
the day when I unplugged my USB card reader. It gave me an error
message/warning that said I improperly unplugged the device. There
was no card in the reader, so I didn't corrupt that. Could I have
corrupted the driver or any other system software?

The other thing that leaves me scratching my head is the hookup to
our company's HP Laserjet 6MP. All of our Macs and the printer are
plugged directly into an ethernet hub. I've got both postscript and
PCL drivers installed and the PC sees the HPLJ, but it won't print.
Not only that, if I "capture" the printer (whatever that means) I
knock all the Macs off the printer. The ultimate challenge is going
to be getting the PC and Macs working on a mixed platform
environment.

Does anyone know how to get both the Macs and PC to print to the
HPLJ6mp via ethernet. Once I get past this hurdle everything should
be just ducky.

Thanks,
Stanton

Click to expand...

stanton · Jun 23, 2001

Please note: My response is not to start or perpetuate yet another platform war, to derive and share genuine knowledge. To give credit to our little group, the support I've received from many of you gave me the courage, knowledge and ability to venture into expert territory as a virtual PC newbie and overcome a very steep learning curve. Thank you. However, as some of my preconceptions have changed, I have also become more entrenched in other previously held ideas. Read on if you care to.

Jim Dawson said:
Glad you finally found success.

The OS IS a separate entity from the hardware. Thats why with a PC
you have a choice of several OS's. I doubt that you have that
choice with a Mac. If there was no choice on a PC, you wouldn't
need license keys, it would just be there.
Jim

In the Mac world there is little need for choice of OS, at least in a new machine. All the power of the Mac is built into EVERY Mac OS. I've never seen a license key for a Mac OS, never had a full install disk rejected because it wasn't licensed for a particular machine and never had an update rejected because of any licensing issue.

Just today I read in Maximum PC magazine how one PC buyer discovered that he needed to reinstall the OS after a month of ownership. He claims that the key was not provided with the PC and after the company refused to provide him with a key, had to buy an new copy of Windows for $170. IMO, this is ludicrous and would never occur with a Mac.

Additionally, unlike PC's, Macs tend to resist obsolescense both in hardware and software, yet generally allow for OS upgrades that work even in significantly older machines. One might make a case that the PC is so inexpensive compared to the Mac that for the same money you could buy one PC today and another down the road. While this is true on the surface, I take note of all the money my friend Bob has spent along the way to upgrade software as he moved through the various Windows iterations.

Now that I've been working with this stuff for a couple weeks, I'm kind of intrigued by the whole thing. I've been reading the PC magazines and paying attention to all the peripherals and wizardry that is PC. I can see how this could become an additictive hobby...

But that leads me to another observation. I have seen a number of people who are so into the machinery that they don't pay attention to the WORK that the machines are built to accomplish (not unlike photographers that are so into the camera that they fail to focus on their images). My friend Bob has more money invested in software than I do in my car (not to mention the hardware) and uses but a fraction of it. The machine becomes the end, rather than the means to the end. That is not typical at all in the Mac world. Mac users buy the box, set it up and use it to do whatever tasks they set out to do. Some people have neither the technical saavy nor desire to mess with systems, bios, etc.

Comments?

Regards,
Stanton

Trent Mulkern · Jun 23, 2001

Stanton said:
Jim Dawson said:

Glad you finally found success.

The OS IS a separate entity from the hardware. Thats why with a PC
you have a choice of several OS's. I doubt that you have that
choice with a Mac. If there was no choice on a PC, you wouldn't
need license keys, it would just be there.
Jim

Click to expand...

In the Mac world there is little need for choice of OS, at least in
a new machine. All the power of the Mac is built into EVERY Mac OS.
I've never seen a license key for a Mac OS, never had a full
install disk rejected because it wasn't licensed for a particular
machine and never had an update rejected because of any licensing
issue.

Software piracy is a big deal in the PC world. Some software packages such as Autocad will only allow you to install on one machine as determined through a special floppy disk. Others are restricted to the number of full installs allowed. Exceed this number and you may be out of luck.

stanton said:
Just today I read in Maximum PC magazine how one PC buyer
discovered that he needed to reinstall the OS after a month of
ownership. He claims that the key was not provided with the PC and
after the company refused to provide him with a key, had to buy an
new copy of Windows for $170. IMO, this is ludicrous and would
never occur with a Mac.

This can sometimes be common when buying prebuilt, preloaded PCs and either not getting the original software in the shrink wrap, or forgetting to inventory the pieces parts when you receive the PC. This probably happens less these days but there are probably still vendors out there that bare watching. When you buy low-ball you have to know what you are getting. Another case of buyer beware always.

stanton said:
Additionally, unlike PC's, Macs tend to resist obsolescense both in
hardware and software, yet generally allow for OS upgrades that
work even in significantly older machines. One might make a case
that the PC is so inexpensive compared to the Mac that for the same
money you could buy one PC today and another down the road. While
this is true on the surface, I take note of all the money my friend
Bob has spent along the way to upgrade software as he moved through
the various Windows iterations.

Just like digital cameras, the revenue stream is in the annual or sooner upgrades or better yet brand new software packages that do something a little different. My only reason for ever upgrading is to maintain compatibility with my customer base or for some new capability that makes my work easier and more efficient - sound familiar. I think you will find most upgardes come in the form of hardware add-ons, driver updates, and OS updates to combat viruses of late. When I first started using PCs, my expenditures were pretty heavy each year ($1000.00). The last 5-7 years, however, have been more moderate per year ($200.00) and more often to support digital photography.

stanton said:
Now that I've been working with this stuff for a couple weeks, I'm
kind of intrigued by the whole thing. I've been reading the PC
magazines and paying attention to all the peripherals and wizardry
that is PC. I can see how this could become an additictive hobby...

Can be just like digital photography.

stanton said:
But that leads me to another observation. I have seen a number of
people who are so into the machinery that they don't pay attention
to the WORK that the machines are built to accomplish (not unlike
photographers that are so into the camera that they fail to focus
on their images). My friend Bob has more money invested in software
than I do in my car (not to mention the hardware) and uses but a
fraction of it. The machine becomes the end, rather than the means
to the end. That is not typical at all in the Mac world. Mac users
buy the box, set it up and use it to do whatever tasks they set out
to do. Some people have neither the technical saavy nor desire to
mess with systems, bios, etc.

True. When I grew up being able to lay down rubber in all four gears while cruising down main street was the thing, or how many layers of hand rubbed lacquer on the car's finish. The more things change the more they stay the same - just different technology/things of debatable importance.

stanton said:
Comments?

Regards,
Stanton

Mike Fitzgerald · Jun 26, 2001

Stanton said:
Just today I read in Maximum PC magazine how one PC buyer
discovered that he needed to reinstall the OS after a month of
ownership. He claims that the key was not provided with the PC and
after the company refused to provide him with a key, had to buy an
new copy of Windows for $170. IMO, this is ludicrous and would
never occur with a Mac.

Unfortunately, there are still instances of this, although it happens much more often with apps than with Windows. Assuming that the system was a new one, and that Windows had been officially advertised as part of the deal, the slightest hint to the supplier that Microsoft's piracy squad would be approached should have resolved the situation instantly. They take a very dim view of 'hard disk loading'. Even if Windows had been promised only off-the-record (and the purchaser really should have known better in this day and age than to accept that arrangement), threat of the same action should have elicited a more realistically priced legitimate OS.
M

PC HELL- The Next Installment (LONGer than the last one)

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