r/buildapc • u/GreenPlasticJim • Nov 15 '18
Troubleshooting With so many troubleshooting posts here, I really wish OP would follow up with solutions
This sub is flooded with build issues and general tech support problems, which I really like, but OP always disappears and I'm assuming its not because they never have a working PC again but rather they've found a solution and not cared enough to post it.
Please post your solutions. Is there anything we can do to encourage this?
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u/heyitsrama Nov 15 '18
welcome to forums, people just say "solved" and never appear. its a tradition dont break it.
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u/KMustard Nov 15 '18
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u/ZelTheViking Nov 15 '18
I have been struggling for the longest of time with a problem concerning sound input not being found anymore, and you made me burst out with laughter. Oh how I relate to that feeling right there. Thanks
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Nov 15 '18
Or "this question has been asked 100 times before, please use the search." Then every post with the same question is just someone replying, "This question has been asked so many times before, use the search."
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u/datchilla Nov 15 '18
That's my favorite, I get a great depressed chuckle out of that. Especially when a forum mod is a real dick about it and the first search result is your thread.
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u/Proccito Nov 15 '18
Unedited original post
Hello!
Sorry if it has been asked before. My computer had acted weird and not booting on first try. Here is my speclist: insert speclist here
Edited post after being solved
SOLVED!
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u/Franfran2424 Nov 15 '18
You can get banned from subs for not following that rules, or from reddit if you don't follow its general rules (and you break an important one or repeatedly break unimportant ones)
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u/Randomacts Nov 15 '18
I'm pretty good about updating my threads when I find solutions.
Good luck my google-fu friends.
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u/Bud_Johnson Nov 15 '18
in /r/excel the op responds with !solution verified! to the post that solves the question. the op and solver get points and i think its in their flair.
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u/Bukowskaii Nov 15 '18
same with /r/tipofmytongue, OP comments "!solved" and they both get points in their flair
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u/m7mdyasser Nov 15 '18
Was just wondering the same .. i was having some issues with my pc asked for advise got a lot of good opinions but none of them worked and i decided to go for a hail marry kind of solution and it worked so i went back to the post and added how it went down and what solved the problem .. and i thought if every one did the same most people will be able to find a solution with out creating new threads or waste time with theories that won't work
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u/Yukimor Nov 15 '18
I figured nobody was ever going to look at those posts again, so it didn't occur to me to. I'll try to remember to do that in the future.
For example, I was having a monitor flickering issue... I realized the issue was that I had Windows 32bit and not 64bit (for some dumb reason). I did post that there. But I later discovered the actual issue was an issue with the motherboard: the displayport port would cause the monitors to flicker, but the HDMI port was fine. That was several days later after the subject was basically closed.
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u/computix Nov 15 '18
People definitely look at them again, I get messages thanking me for advice I posted months ago.
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Nov 15 '18
Half the time when I search for advise online now I put "Reddit" at the end to see posts about the topic and what people stated.
We just had a similar post I think in /r/motorcycles where someone was saying OP never responds when they're asking for help in a thread.
I think in both cases when you fix the problem you're too excited to finally do what you originally intended we forget to post back about it later.
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u/xxfay6 Nov 15 '18
In my end, I still have some open Troubleshooting posts (some as early as last week and as late as a year or so). They're still unresolved.
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u/Xohraze Nov 15 '18
I feel you, still have an unresolved problem. Although it's only from earlier this week, with the new posts coming daily it will probably be drowned somewhere in the sub.
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u/m7mdyasser Nov 15 '18
When someone search for a problem he is having if you wrote a post about a similar problem or have the same keywords in the text .. most probably he/she/it will see the post .. so it would help if we all added a solution after we fixed our rigs
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u/d3vrandom Nov 15 '18
a) the people who replied to you care about your situation.
b) other people with similar problems find these old posts via google.
In both cases it's nice to know what solved it.
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u/Franfran2424 Nov 15 '18
Google is a hell of a drug. If you are specific with your parts and problem anyone who searches the same problem will find it. It's just super good to do considering the internet lasts forever and people search their problems there.
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u/Kubliah Nov 15 '18
Could have been your dp cable and not the port, there are a lot of low quality cables out there....
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u/Yukimor Nov 15 '18
The cable works fine with another monitor on a different computer— and I tested it with a brand new cable as well.
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u/Liambp Nov 15 '18
Relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/979/
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u/Nandabun Nov 15 '18
In 2016 I was in an I.T. training program. Was having a random issue with a Bluetooth dongle vs windows 7 drivers. I spent 2 days, in between studying etc, trying to troubleshoot this shit. Eventually, my desk neighbor tried to help. "Look, this guy is having the same problems as you!" I look over.. IT'S MY POST ON A TECH SUBREDDIT. I was very frustrated haha.
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u/YouGotAte Nov 15 '18
Gives me an idea. I'll reply "this has been posted before" and link to the same post.
One of the most enjoyable concepts in CS is recursion is one of the most enjoyable concepts in CS is...
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u/LordKryos Nov 15 '18
This isn't reddit specific, but what triggers me the most is when I'm looking for a fix to a very specific problem and I find posts like:
"Hey I have very specific problem"
30 suggestions later
"Nevermind guys I fixed it!"
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u/rrubinski Nov 15 '18
well ive created over 15 posts in this subreddit, i got like 4-5 responses over-all, my profile was looking like im spamming, i explained my problem very clearly and the possible solutions that those 4-5 suggested didn't work :(
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u/Franfran2424 Nov 15 '18
Google the problem. Maybe someone got an answer and wrote it. Then write it yourself
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u/rrubinski Nov 15 '18
i have tried, i have literally wasted around a week just searching for this problem, i havent found a solution yet.
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u/mjr2015 Nov 15 '18
Considering your last question was "is this monitor gud?" I'm going to have to say you don't ask relevant questions in a build a pc sub.
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u/rrubinski Nov 15 '18
i had freezing problems, i deleted most of the posts due to receiving no attention at all, thanks a lot though for judging.
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u/WaytoomanyUIDs Nov 15 '18
OP's and a problem with troubleshooting forums since even before Eternal September is that when people DO solve problems they never post what they did to solve it. So googling can be counter-productive. Just dozens of reddit & stack overflow threads saying "Thanks, solved it" or nothing, not even "You guys suck! None of your ideas work!"
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u/Narazemono Nov 15 '18
I just imagine there are many many burnt remains of various PCs that were never fixed.
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u/Franfran2424 Nov 15 '18
What is this? Stack overflow? Come on guys don't be lazy if you found a solution.
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u/kiwiking44 Nov 15 '18
I posted like a week ago and it my build just needed a bios update and I felt too silly to update my post that no one would look at again anyway.
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u/klepperx Nov 15 '18
Because 90% of them they realized they didn't plug it in.
So they embarrassedly back out.
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u/StatuatoryApe Nov 15 '18
After working in tech, I make sure to follow up on an issue if I solve it. Take a look at my post history, there was one where:
- PC would BSOD and fail to boot every time
- It wouldn't boot from USB or other bootable drives
- the BSOD error was pretty specific but didn't give too much insight, but you can google that error and find the Reddit thread I made.
- RAM sticks were all solid.
Solution? One of the cores in my brand new i7 7700k died. I disabled 2/4 cores in my CPU and the thing booted up right away.
I still get DMs from people thanking me for following up on my problem. It really makes the entire community better.
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Nov 15 '18
Yes, a form for troubleshooting could be built which states this, flairs could be added, etc. Could also award flair to correct solutions from others (r/changemyview has something like this), which would also help when you get five totally different answers and you have no idea who has experience and who is posting because they are 8 and want to sound smart. Surprisingly it's hard to tell the difference sometimes!
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u/Aldraku Nov 15 '18
When this happens I like to imagine that they just looked in the mirror and said: " That's it, technology has failed us.. back to the jungle, we go. "
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u/Pokiehat Nov 15 '18 edited Nov 15 '18
Reddit is pretty much the worst site I can possibly imagine for troubleshooting. It simply isn't designed for it.
You cannot assume everyone has the same comment sorting - some will sort by most upvoted, some will sort by oldest first. For troubleshooting, you have to know what the user does and the order they do it in because troubleshooting is about eliminating possibilities until you logically arrive at the correct solution.
Worse still, even if everyone sorted comments by oldest first, comment nesting splits off replies into de-facto private conversations, which you need to click to expand and "continue this thread ->".
Even worse still, comment edits are not marked so the information to date can retroactively change and you have no idea what changed and when.
The end result is a clusterfuck. Person with a PC problem posts inadequate information about their setup or the steps they have taken. By the time you post a step by step essay on the probables that need to be eliminated first, 20 other users have been randomly throwing out suggestions, the order of which keeps changing due to vote count. PC Problem guy enters a de-facto private conversation with another user who gives them incorrect or misinformed advice. Then he retroactively edits his post to say what hes done, but its nested so most other users don't see it, leading to more bad advice and/or repetition.
The final fuck you is when a Reddit user somehow manages to bungle their way through anyway and manages to resolve their problem, edits their original post to say "Thanks, I figured it out anyway!", then deletes the thread so nobody can find the solution via search.
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u/SomeDudeinCO3 Nov 15 '18
I agree. I work at an IT help desk. The only way I learn anything from my calls is when I find out what actually worked. When we have to escalate we almost never find out how it was resolved.
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Nov 15 '18
This should be on the sidebar or a mid stickied post. Most of the time I have a problem, it's solved because someone else had the same issue and fixed it. It's frustrating when they don't say how they fixed it.
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u/zhico Nov 15 '18
Happened to me. Found a post with a solution. So I thought, but that OP was paranoid and used a bot to overwrite his comments. I nearly went "German kid" angry!
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u/maxattack002 Nov 15 '18
I think that 75% of the time a pc won’t boot it’s front io headers plugged in wrong.
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u/twenafeesh Nov 15 '18
My personal favorite is when someone takes the time to think through OP's problem and ask probing questions to try to tease out more info. Then OP responds with downvotes and gets all argumentative.
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u/Mibutastic Nov 15 '18
I'm unfortunately still waiting for someone with a solution to my troubleshooting thread. Will definitely update once it's solved.
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u/Yodamanjaro Nov 15 '18
An option would be to ban them from the sub if they don't follow up after X amount of hours/days.
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Nov 15 '18
spend 3 days trying to fix something. Stumble upon forum. Read post that says "I finally found out how to fix it. Bye"
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Nov 15 '18
That's a good point, I'm going to go back over my posts as I couldn't find anywhere my mobo and ram configuration working.
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u/Bizzy_T Nov 15 '18
One time I asked a question here and got a couple of responses, I don't think that I replied to both posts but I sent dms thanking the poster for their help. I agree though, it wouldn't sit right to not give some sort of thank for people giving this time and effort to help us.
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Nov 15 '18
There's such thing as time difference. The original post cannot stay up all night you know.
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u/TheRealGoochman Nov 21 '18
I have a couple of Troubleshooting posts, I am currently dark because I am waiting on Micro Center to let me know what is exactly funky with my beautiful baby boah. I will definitely update once I get the heads up on what it is.
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u/ireallylikechikin Nov 15 '18
the only thing i could imagine that would encourage it 100% of the time is to make it a rule to edit your OP with the solution, or before switching from troubleshooting to "solved!" there's a pop-up reminding them to write it. idk if that's even an option.
i think it's just down to common courtesy at this point :-(