Help us, help you

More and more questions with very little information are getting posted in these forums. Unfortunately, these are very difficult questions to answer without having to ask a lot of questions, when much of the information can be included in the original question.


Search first
You might be surprised by how common your problem or query is. Please at least take the time to look and see if your problem has been addressed before, before you ask again. If you do find a thread, and still have questions afterwards, please include a link to the thread you read.

- Examples:
- Bittorrent slow speeds
- port forwarding
- free antivirus


Help us help you

In order to give you an accurate answer, we need all the information you can give us e.g. what make computer is it, what model, what operating system are you using, the name of the program running, etc.

- e.g. I have a Dell Optiplex GX280 running Windows XP Service Pack 2.

If you built or upgraded the machine yourself, please tell us what the part model is (e.g, it might be a Riva TNT2 if you're having a graphical problem). This will allow us to be able to look in the right places for information, ask better questions if we need more information, or perhaps someone has even had the same problem with the same stuff and can advise you.

This applies just as much if you're asking about a program, e.g. tell us what the problem is, what the program is, what version you're using, what operating system its running on, etc.

- e.g. I am having trouble opening PDF documents in Firefox 1.5. I have Acrobat Reader 7 installed.

If you're talking about something on the screen, be as descriptive as you can. "There is a thing in the thing" is of no use to us. If its a dot, say its a dot. If its a circle, say circle. If you don't know what it is, say what it looks like.


Report any errors you get

If you have gotten an error message, please make a note of it and include it in the question. These errors are a very useful way to track down what the problem is.

Tip: If you're using Windows and the error comes up in one of the standard "Ok"-style message boxes, you can press CTRL+C when the box is foremost on the screen, and it will copy all the text in the box. You can then paste this into the question.


An example of a good post

I am getting the following error when I try to log onto my computer: "The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted." Does anyone know what this means, and how to fix it? I am running Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Prevention is the best cure

Most of the common problem we see here (virii, spyware, etc) can be easily sorted by just taking care of your computer.

First of all, get a virus scanner. Keep it up to date - preferably get one that will automatically update in the background.

- Recommended:
- avast!
- AVG
- Anti-Vir

Second, get a couple of spyware scanners. Unlike virus scanners, it is advisable to get and maintain more than one of these programs. Unfortunatly, few of these applications automatically update, so you will have to be a little more vigilant with this.

- Recommended:
- Windows Defender
- SpyBot
- AdAware

Using a firewall will help to make it difficult for programs to connect to your computer - out to another computer from yours - without you knowing about it and being able to stop it. The downside of this is that you will have to authorise programs you want to connect, but most of the time you can tell the program to remember it.

- Recommended:
- Kerio
- SyGate
- ZoneAlarm

Next, make sure that your operating system is up to date. Most popular OSes these days come with automatic patching utilities, or at least a web page that you can get the latest updates from. Keeping your system up to date will help to close various holes that malware exploits, so even if you do get infected it will be unable to harm you.

- Windows Update website | Using Microsoft Update
- Updating OS X
- Maintain and Administer your Ubuntu System

Now, I ask that people don't use this thread to ask questions. Create a new thread if you want to do that.
Instead, people should add advice to this that they reckon wil help get you a better response when asking a question here on the boards Computer section.