I'm so sick of PC/Windows crap, I could scream

[LiveMusic]

I swear, I am jinxed. Every PC I touch, it goes to crap. I have two laptops and both have driven me crazy. I go to my girlfriends, her PC drives me crazy with bizarre stuff, even after the hard drive totally failed and we had her tech guy put in a new one and reinstalled Windows 98. It still is doing some totally unexplainable stuff. She called me a few days ago from her mom's house, trying to download and install Adobe Acrobat. After a half hour of me holding her hand via phone, I gave up with the seemingly simple task, something I do almost daily. I go to my friends house and work on his state of the art Gateway and it's so bizarre, I give up and he has to call technicians. And I am not a rookie. I've been computing for 18 years! Every one of my computers has been a PC/Windows machine. Why WOULDN'T I want to try an Apple or Mac? And is there a difference between the two? I truly do not know. Here's what I need to do with a computer: - HTML programming - internet surfing - email - occasional spreadsheet or word processing - burning CDs - music: all things to do with music. I am not into recording on computer but I want to get into that. And anything that would help a live gig. Anything a computer will do regarding music, I'd like to get into it. - budget for hardware and software would be $3-$5,000. BTW, I think I need a laptop, since I move around quite a bit. I'm so sick of PC/Windows crap, I am seriously considering abandoning it in favor of Apple or Mac. Why shouldn't I? If Apple of Macs are better, maybe I could get my best of these two laptops to serve as a second computer for backup for apps that must be PC or Windows. My current take on it is that PC/Windows machine suck bigtime. I have no idea if Apple of PC is better. But my computing experience is only getting worse and I have no idea why. I am a heavy user... if anyone gives a computer a workout in a year's time, it's me.

[not Cereal]

hear hear. pc's stink. macs are not problem free either though. the pc i am on now does really bizarre stuff - example: the longer you cruise the net the weirder the machine gets. histories dissapear, pull down menus dont work, back button grays out, machine gets 'choppy'. who knows. my mac works very well, but i keep a backup system handy. also, i have a separate partition with its own OS on it for OTHER users. that system gets messed up every few months (??) system errors, type 3 errors, type 2 and type 1. i dunno. my personal system does not do this. just some thoughts

[Hippie]

Duke, When in doubt, reload the whole damn thing. Reloading is about an every 8-12 month duty for me. I've come to believe the occasional reload is just 'part of the deal' when running Windows and doing audio, etc. Matt

[Dylan]

You need to use a real operating system. I have never been able to get Windows 98 to behave properly for more than a few months at a time, but Windows 2000 and XP are a completely different ball game. I run Win 2k at work and XP at home for music. Neither of them have ever locked up on me. When an application does crash, which is rare, it never brings down the entire system. All of the Windows 9x OS's are full of memory leeks and have both 16-bit and 32-bit code running, where the NT-based OS's like Windows NT, 2k, and XP are fully 32-bit. Give XP or 2k a shot before ditching your PC hardware unless you want to fork out several thousands of dollars on an platform that I still feel is inferior when it comes to reliability.

[GeToChKn]

I agree. Now i've been a PC person for years and haven't had a lot of Mac experience, but Dylan certainly is right. Windows 2000 is way different that Windows 98 in terms of stability and performance. My Nuendo machine has been running for over a week without rebooting and that includes enabling the internet to jump on and do e-mail, etc. I also have Word, Adobe In-Design, Flash 5.0, and a few other apps that are important to my 'other' work. I know there are a zillion 'optimizing' documents to tweak ever last drop out of your machine, but on mine I haven't done anything. I installed Windows 2000, service pack 2 and then drivers, etc and my audio apps and it runs great! This is just my $0.11 (i'm canadian, so $0.02 isn't worth what is should be here!) http://www.idonthaveoneyetbecausethealbumisntdonebecauseihavetowork2otherjobstosupportmyself.com

[videoeditor1]

Duke, A bunch of PC problems can be linked to a less than pristine supply of power. Do you have any of those system on UPS'es? Are any of the (excluding laptops) power supplies underpowerd for the components in the machines? Do you get brownouts, spikes frequently in your neck of the woods? From my experience, I have found there are [b]no[/b] gremlins in computers - macs or PCs....I've sen PC's crash because of a short in the keyboard cable ...I've seen machines lock up because of a difference in ground potential between one machine and another in another building, both machines being connected by ethernet (copper). Installed a fiber connection between them...POOF! That problem (6 weeks) was history. PC's crash a "lot". Memory, naughty programs, crappy dirvers (especially video) power, less frequently - bad motherboards and/or CPU's.....It's only easier on the Mac platform because the people that write the code are in bed with the people that bulid the boxes. Which is more reliable? A MAC (any) or a Sun Ultra SPARC/ Sun Enterprise 10000? Later [ 01-06-2002: Message edited by: NYC Drew ]

[deanmass]

I agree with most of what has been said regarding the differences between the 9x Windows OS's and the NT/2K/XP based versions. I have found 2K to be reasonably stable, and XP looks pretty good as well, though I have not used it for any music related things yet. Mac's are good as well, but in my experience, nasty problems are harder to isolate, requiring a re-load of the OS, ala' Windows 95/98/ME. I am a sys admin for a school district, and I have just about 700 PC's and just under 200 mac's under my 'umbrella', and they ALL have problems on occasion. With a 3-5K budget, you can go ape on windows hardware, and get some damn fine MAC stuff too. I'd say build your own PC or have one built (try [url=http://www.mwave.com]www.mwave.com[/url] to build or Tom's hardware for tests on components). I'd choose a motherboard that supports faster speeds, but buy a slower processor if you run low on funds (much of the costs are in the fastest CPU's, by like 300% in some cases) which you can purchase in a few months and pop in for far less. Make sure your case has a great power supply, possible a redundant one, and make sure you do not pinch any cabling inside when you are installing cards and such. All in all, I think the platform has less to do with problems than the version of OS. I also think the guy who mentioned power problems could be correct. Instead of a UPS, though, look at the APS brand Line conditioners. These will regulate the outgoing power to a constant, stable level. These small power fluctuations can lead to lock-ups and generally flaky little problems. I have also seen bad ram, mis-matched ram (one blessed chip from the factory and one from the dollar store) or cheesy network cards be the culprits. The $19 dollar NIC's are not as good as the higher dollar 3com and intel cards, and some of the ram I have seen for sale is total garbage. One other thing to consider is a program like GHOST or Go-Back. Ghost allows you to take a system snapshot, allowing you to quickly 're-load' the entire system as it was from the original install. You can keep the master copy on a 2nd hard drive or CDROM (if it will fit), boot from floppy, and wait a 1/2 hour of so, and the PC will be totally re-loaded. Go Back is a cheap program that creates a small dedicated partition storing system settings at pre-determined intervals (1 day, 7 days, etc) and allows you to recover your system to that point in time. In any event, I don't think switching platforms is the key. Both are good and workable. You just may need to be more specific in your choices of brands/OS and general hardware. Good luck! :eek: :D

[deanmass]

BTW, I forgot.... [url=http://www.tomshardware.com]www.tomshardware.com[/url] One of the best sites for component level reviews and testing for PC parts and upgrades.

[rold]

[quote]Originally posted by GeToChKn: [b].[/b][/quote] Sorry to side-step the question here, but I'm having a problem pronouncing your handle. How do you pronounce it? Is it ghetto-chicken? Or Get to Chicken? Or....? Sorry, I'm just having a hard time with that one.. :p Thanks, Harold

[Dan South]

Duke, For reference, Apple is the company that makes Macintosh computers (Macs). So if someone says, that they have a Mac or that they have an Apple, it means the same thing. New Mac models will be announced TOMORROW (7 January). Basically, Apple's product line is as follows (although this may change tomorrow). G4 - This is similar to a desktop PC. It's the most powerful Mac. Monitors are sold separately. This is the type of Mac used in most studios. Prices (with monitor) range from $2100 to $6000 US. Titanium G4 - This is a laptop version of the G4. It's powerful, and it has a VERY wide screen. Ti G4's are used for many mobile music applications. Prices range from $2300 to $3700 US. iMac - This is a smaller, "all-in-one" Mac designed for light duty tasks like surfing the internet, listening to music, watching DVD's, running word processors and spreadsheets, etc. You can do music on an iMac, but you won't have as much horsepower at your disposal. But iMacs ARE less expensive and are attactive to many people for that reason. Prices: $800 to $1200. iBook - This is the laptop version of the iMac. Prices: low teens. You can run almost every type of music program on a Mac - sequencers, hard disk recorders (DAW's), samplers, soft synths, editors, etc. But you can't run some specific programs, like Acid or Gigasampler. On the other hand, you can't run Digital Performer, Pro-52, and some other programs on a PC, so the software selection is about even. (PC's have many more Freeware programs available.) Macs are easy to use. The idea behind the Mac is that a computer should do what it's supposed to do with a minimum of fuss, like a car or a washing machine. If you had to change drivers for a load of whites and then change them back for a load of bright colors, you'd curse your washing machine. Why should computers give you these kinds of hassles? By and large, Macs don't. You turn them on, and they work. You install new programs, and everything works fine right away. No tweaking needed. If you've used Windows 95 or 98, you'll be familiar with how the Mac works, because they were attempts to make PC's work like a Mac. Macs have a Desktop, which is like My Computer. On that desktop are one or more drives, just like the drives in My Computer. The drives can be organized into Folders. Macs have a Trash can, which is like Windows' Recycle Bin. There's a little Apple icon in the upper left hand corner that corresponds to the Start menu. Instead of a task bar at the bottom of the screen, a pulldown menu in the upper right hand corner displays all running programs. Why are they so similar? I could tell you, but Microsoft would sue me. ;) What kind of prgrams would you want to run on your computer? Is there a store nearby (Circuit City?) where a salesperson can spend some time to show you how Macs work? You can become very comfortable on a Mac in five to ten minutes. If you have any more specific questions, feel free to post them. [ 01-06-2002: Message edited by: Dan South ]

[lovesinger]

deanmass, thanks for the tip on Go Back. Sounds like almost a simple cheap RAID emulator. I'll check out.

[TyPie]

I agree with what's been said re: Windows 98 OS vs newer versions. I went with Win ME six months ago. The difference is scary! Win 98 would hang EVERY SINGLE TIME on shut down--- this is a fairly common and well-documented problem with Win98. I felt so confident with the upgrade, that I went ahead and upgraded my Ram and CPU. Not a single problem.

[deanmass]

Respectfully , Dan South, I disagree with 'everything works' on the Mac. You can still run into extensions problems and other bugs and glitches on the Mac side, but I would agree that the potential for problems is less with the apple platform, especially if you built the system with only DAW products in mind. If someone has a strong vendor nearby ( for Apple) or a great local users group, that could tilt the decision to move to the mac platform heavily. I seem to recall the original post here being from someone in Loisiana, and Shreve Systems is down there. I used to buy from them many moons ago when I was running macs (OS 6.x and 7.x and Master Tracks Pro!). They might be a good local source of Mac advice. [url=http://www.shrevesystems.com]www.shrevesystems.com[/url] Having spent a lot of time being sucked into mac vs. PC debates at work, I decided a long time ago that whatever system does what you want and makes you productive is the one to use. I think it is feasible to do music on either box. If we all could only afford both! :p I'd take a loaded G4 laptop and a multi processor PC tower...!

[Brian T]

You guys do realize that certain people are "electron friendly" and certain people are not, right? I think it's part bio-chemical, part bio-magnetic, part bio-electrical with a decent dash of personal habits thrown in. Some people intuit the way a computer (or other device) wants to be dealt with (likely akin to the way it's designer did) and certain people, by nature, just piss computers off by the rythym and style of their useage habits, and/or their physiology. Don't laugh, it's true. Electrons have always loved me, since I was a kid. The feeling is mutual. They seem so enjoy doing my bidding and I really appreciate it. As a result, I've done things electronics, and more specifically, with a PC that might have been thought unlikely. I was shocked when I posted where I had gone with a PC DAW using IDE, only to be called a liar by sceptics on the net, mostly Mac guys or PC SCSI zealots. Then again, other things, like visual art, that baffle me can come totally naturally to another person. Don't ask me to explain it. Macs, however, don't really like me as well. I'm waaaaay hyper. A speed freak as far as the GUI. I disable everything on a PC as far as window animation and the like. I speed the menu draw time to the max in TweakUI. I get a rythym going that's very comfortable for me and often have the computer pretty stressed out, but there's a sixth sense of when "enough is enough" and I lighten up. The stuff just works well for me. The non-multitasking nature of Macs to date (before OSX) has made for an unhappy marriage when I've attempted it. I tend to crowd them and crash them more than a PC. We just have a different rythym. For others, the Mac fits perfectly. Do I have an actual point? Yes. If PCs don't like person "A", it's concievable that a Mac really would be a better match. Or not. It depends on what the problem was to begin with, useage habits or physiology. Some people can break nearly anything. BTW, no offense to the original poster intended here. Stephen St. Croix has told me he can break any electronic device by simply walking in the room. I know other, similar stories. That's the bio side of the equation. Nothing much to do there. OTOH, maybe dude should try a Mac and see if it fits better. It just might. FWIW, this is beyond OS technical issues. Like he said, he has trouble with multiple PCs. Try a Mac, IMO. Regards, Brian T

[Duhduh]

OK. I see a couple red flags here. First of all, a machine you build yourself will ALWAYS run better. Make it a point to get name brand EVERYTHING. Spend the extra cash, it will pay off later. Hippie was right. I usually wipe and reinstall WIN 98/Me about twice a year. It does wonders!! ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS use anti-virus software if your connected to the net. I just built a brand new P-4 and within 3 weeks of owning it I installed Norton to find 107 infected files. My machine was doing all kinds of wacky shit!! Crashes, random reboots, missing stuff, etc... Now, I dont by any means mean this as a flame, but I'm really suprised to hear that you've been computing for 18 years and consider a Gateway to be state-of-the-art. Granted, they are one of the best pre-fab pc's, but come on. I have some hardcore hacker/programmer/network engineer friends and they're answer to 90% of pc problems is user error. I have come to agree with this. A machine with problems is most likely because of the way you are using it. Computers are fickle, touchy, cranky little bitches! One last thing. Along with re-installing Windows every 6 months, you should also periodically check for the latest updated drivers for ALL your hardware and check Windows Update. Most likely I havent pointed out anything that you dont already know, so I apologize if I've come off as condescending. To quote Scott Jones, "I came here with only the best intentions." :D :p :)

[Dan South]

[quote]Originally posted by Duhduh: [b] Hippie was right. I usually wipe and reinstall WIN 98/Me about twice a year. It does wonders!! [/b][/quote] This is amazing! Do you guys actually have to DO this? Wipe out and re-install EVERYTHING every six months? My Mac from 1991 still runs beautifuly. For that matter, my four-year-old Win 95 Dell laptop still runs fine, and I've NEVER re-installed the O/S. Do you guys drop a new engine in your Chevy every six months. Wow! What determination! :D

[Anderton]

<> No, you just do Windows....don't wipe the hard drive clean or anything. All your programs, preferences, plug-ins, etc. remain in place. I've had to do this on the Mac a few times myself...it's the same deal as "clean install." Personally, the question is not which computer is better, but which is less worse, as I've had problems with both. I think one reason some people have problems with PCs is that there are so many more programs available for it that it's easy to find ones with badly-written deinstalls and such that screw things up for you. As noted in another post, my W98SE system is working like a champ, and I truly believe it has a LOT to do with the motherboard -- for starters, no embedded sound functions!! And it's not quite true you can't run Acid on a Mac. Acid is a pretty undemanding program and will run under just about any type of PC emulator (although you're limited to the stereo outs). Ditto Wavelab. Gigasampler is tougher, but HALion will import Giga libraries with varying degrees of success (generally quite well, but there are some caveats, like if a file is compressed, or spans more than one CD), and that runs as a VST instrument on the Mac. I use both Windows and Mac...if one's down, I can always use the other :)

[Duhduh]

[quote]Originally posted by Anderton: [b] I think one reason some people have problems with PCs is that there are so many more programs available for it that it's easy to find ones with badly-written deinstalls and such that screw things up for you. [/b][/quote] YES YES YES!!!!! Thats part of what I meant with user-error. [quote]Originally posted by Anderton: [b] As noted in another post, my W98SE system is working like a champ, and I truly believe it has a LOT to do with the motherboard -- for starters, no embedded sound functions!! [/b][/quote] Again, like what I said about building your own machine so that you can hand select the hardware. You see, ANYONE can manufacture hardware/software for PC's. Thats not the case with Macs. You just have to pay attention to what your getting. And the thing about reinstalling Windows is directly related to installing a ton of software. Thats totally what does it. And I DID mean completely wiping and starting from scratch...Drivers, plug-ins, etc. Just installing Windows over Windows wont really do crap. Thats my story and Im sticking to it. [ 01-07-2002: Message edited by: Duhduh ]

[RobT]

A couple of comments. Are you guys actually reinstalling Windows every 6-12 mos? I can't believe it. What brand boxes are you running so I make sure I don't buy one or build one!!! I think some common rules would be: 1) Do not run audio programs with motherboards with embedded audio functions. There are exceptions but in general this causes too darn many headaches. Get a machine with a dedicated Audio Board. 2) Keep your drivers up to date. 3) Do not run games and audio programs on the same machine. They do not cohabitate well. As with #1 there are exceptions but in general this causes too darn many headaches. 4) If you are doing audio make sure you have 2 or more hard drives. Make one drive is dedicated to JUST audio functions. 5) Make sure your BIOS is up to date. What a difference a year makes. 6) Make sure your virtual memory is large enough. Most times people don't even set this parameter. It will do wonders for your system if set properly. 7) Keep your anti virus software up to date. What's anti virus you say? Turn in your keyboard and turn your monitor off. You are not fit to compute! If you ever connect to the internet you'll need it. 8) Do not run TSR (terminate and stay resident programs) while doing audio functions. Turn off WinAmp, DeskExecute and all the other unnecessary toolbar programs down there where the date and time display is. If you don't need 'em now dont' use 'em now. I have a home network with 1 Windows 98 SE, 1 Windows NT 4 service pack 5 and 1 Linux kernel 2.0. I have never had to reinstall WinNT or Linux or Windows 98 SE. I have never had to reboot Linux. The WinNT box gets rebooted once or twice a month. The Win 98 SE box gets rebooted once a week. The Linux box has been running 2.5 years continuously. One power outage in that time. RobT 'Cranky and cantakerous as they may be the microprocessor is here to stay'.

[WFTurner]

Just moved from an AMD 586-133 with 16meg (stacks of virtual 4-Tracks) to a Celeron 1.2 Ghz with 128 mb ram running Windows ME. Right now I'm a happy Windows camper. ;)

[Duhduh]

[quote]Originally posted by WFTurner: [b]Just moved from an AMD 586-133 with 16meg (stacks of virtual 4-Tracks) to a Celeron 1.2 Ghz with 128 mb ram running Windows ME. Right now I'm a happy Windows camper. ;) [/b][/quote] Wow. Downgraded, huh?

[videoeditor1]

[quote]Originally posted by typi: [b]I agree with what's been said re: Windows 98 OS vs newer versions. I went with Win ME six months ago. The difference is scary! Win 98 would hang EVERY SINGLE TIME on shut down--- this is a fairly common and well-documented problem with Win98. I felt so confident with the upgrade, that I went ahead and upgraded my Ram and CPU. Not a single problem.[/b][/quote] Typi, This issue was addressed by microsoft 21-26 months ago. The fix is all over their site, it's about 462k in size, and it fixes the "hanging/shutdown" issue like it's nobody's business. In addition, a Win98/ME machine will almost always "hang" on shutdown if an IRQ is not assigned to the video card controller (in the BIOS settings). If your (any) Win98/ME machine hangs on shutdown, but after a cold boot/reboot...scandisk does [b]NOT[/b] run, the shutdown sequence was for the most part ok... FYI, Microsoft has HUNDREDS of support [b] [url=http://support.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.aspx]forums[/url] [/b]. OS related issues can almost always be resolved...give it a twirl... NYC Drew

[Hippie]

In addition to 'Go Back' software, Nero's CD burning-room (v.5) software has a utility that allows for a multiple CDR's full system back-up. While it can be a pain to babysit the burning of several CDR volumes (12 in my case) for a full back-up, it is a good piece-of-mind having a full back-up sitting there. Matt

[Magpel]

Mr. Anderton, are you talking about what I've heard referred to as a "dirty install" of Windows? Have you found that this improves performance, and particularly that it addresses problems associated with multiple installs and unistalls of potentially suspect software? If your answer is yes, how does one do this? I speak as a user of a PC DAW that has been relatively trouble free for over two years, though my Cakewalk/Delta 1010 have had some issues lately.

[jsull]

This might help. [url=http://homepage.mac.com/deadtroll2/.Movies/ossucks56k.html]Every OS Sucks[/url]

[strat0124]

[quote]Originally posted by Dan South: [b] This is amazing! Do you guys actually have to DO this? Wipe out and re-install EVERYTHING every six months? My Mac from 1991 still runs beautifuly. For that matter, my four-year-old Win 95 Dell laptop still runs fine, and I've NEVER re-installed the O/S. Do you guys drop a new engine in your Chevy every six months. Wow! What determination! :D [/b][/quote] All I do is archive data, cleandisk, scandisk, and defrag.....had absolutely no problems in the year and a half.

[Chipotle]

I work on Mac's every day and their instability and limited ability to multitask is truly disappointing. Given the fact that every motherboard/cpu combo is made or assembled by the same manufacturer who also makes the operating system, you would expect that they would run totally solid. I haven't used OSX, though. On the other hand, you have Windows NT/2000 and probably XP which are extremely efficient and extremely reliable even though it's an "open architecture" hardware environment. Mac OS has too many freezes, slow downs, and memory errors. Of all the OS's I've used, Win2000 is undeniably the best.

[jnorman]

hmmm - have any of you ever heard of fdisk and format? i go through lots of computers, and the first thing i do with any of them is format the HDD and do a clean install of the OS. then i load ONLY the software i NEED. the trick is to keep the build on your computer clean. probably 95% of all computer problems for home users stem from two things - way too much crap software installed by the original vendor, and trying to play video games. games are totally notorious in terms of trying to make proprietary use of your audio and video subsystems, and can wreak havoc on even the best computers. if you must play games, install only one or two games at a time, and unistall every other game. if you do run games, you can expect weird things to happen on your computer - stuff like, after shutting down a game, your audio doesnt work anymore, or after installing a game, your browser wont load, etc. i do not allow my kids to run games on any of my computers anymore. i spend way too much time trying to fix their machines because of the games they put on there - its just one thing after another. extraneous software wastes hdd space, tends to run unnecessary "quickload" executables in the background (how many icons are in your system tray)? when you do a cntl/alt/del and look at your task manager, how many things show up there? windows only needs explorer and systray to operate - everything else there is non-essential. i run win98 on two of my laptops at home, and neither one EVER crashes - and they both stay on 24/7. i run NT4 on my server, and it never crashes. for audio work, it is pretty much a given that you should have a second hdd you can boot to that is dedicated to audio only.