It's helpful thanks, that make the positive change..

I think when someone asks a question though usually they don't know the answer. Circular reasoning leads me to think that if they were technical to provide all the info that you listed they could be technical enough to trouble shoot their own problem or figure it out themselves.

I really believe just a cut down version of Motherboard Model is enough in most cases, and we don't necessarily need to know about specifics. A lot of info we can deducted just by the motherboard model, we can figure out the chipset we can figure out what ram it takes, and generally what compatibility issues it has and expansions or upgrades that are possible.

The problem usually is that people don't even know what they are doing.

Warlord wrote:

It's helpful thanks, that make the positive change.. […]
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It's helpful thanks, that make the positive change..

I think when someone asks a question though usually they don't know the answer. Circular reasoning leads me to think that if they were technical to provide all the info that you listed they could be technical enough to trouble shoot their own problem or figure it out themselves.

I really believe just a cut down version of Motherboard Model is enough in most cases, and we don't necessarily need to know about specifics. A lot of info we can deducted just by the motherboard model, we can figure out the chipset we can figure out what ram it takes, and generally what compatibility issues it has and expansions or upgrades that are possible.

The problem usually is that people don't even know what they are doing.

Good feedback! Thank you. I agree that it may be a little more information than is always required. I do partially feel that it should provoke a bit of research on the part of the seeker of help, and that it would be beneficial for them.

Motherboard revision could be removed, although I can think of instances from 486 platforms up until Core 2 Duo where that is directly relevant to compatibility, component mismatches, etc. In some cases, it can even mean causing significant damage to the motherboard or a card. For that reason, I'd rather keep it in.

Agree with both of you I'm afraid.

Yes, the asked information is all too frequently relevant, but no, it's not likely your average user would know how to fill out the template. Here at Vogons the average technical level is quite a bit higher than most other internet forums. I'm a long-time moderator of the hardware pages at a large Dutch-language one famed for good technical knowledge and our users are no Vogons 😉 Problem is that templates by definition are aimed at the least knowledgable; those who already know a lot also know how to provide information needed for a good answer, it's the people who don't who need the template - and then the old rule comes into play: the more you ask, the less accurate the information gets. Someone struggling with the idea of naming the components in a PC (of any age) goes blank when you require something like motherboard revision (even if it's silkscreened in big, clear letters on the board, right under the board model...) or BIOS version (even if the board boots fine and the version is displayed clearly every time, both in the top and in the string at the bottom of the screen).
What for an experienced tinkerer is just two basic data points for someone less experienced turns into the effort of having to understand the question, then having to figure out the information might in general be found, followed by how it looks in their specific situation (not all boards have the info silkscreened so nicely..) and if you're lucky then double-checking to see if the found value makes sense. And then to repeat that effort maybe 20 times to fill out the template. Just getting the info on the motherboard would cost someone like that much more time and stress than you or me doing the whole template (as we know this shit by heart having consciously configured it all).

Call me a cynical old bugger, but I don't think there's a magic fix here:
- no template (current situation) means too many topics with too little info meaning those who want to help have to spend a lot of effort teasing out the relevant information.
- a minimal template has a decent chance of being at least partly correctly filled out, but more likely than not does not supply enough information to make cause and so solution, so you still need to spend time & effort getting the relevant stuff.
- an extensive template stands a good chance of getting all the relevant information in one go, but not a hope in hell that the template will actually be used, or if enforced will be completely and correctly filled out. Plus these things have a tendency to creep - today this list should suffice, but tomorrow someone notices that sound card revision, or posision on IDE/SCSI cable is relevant...

Much as I agree with the necessity of the things asked here to get a good picture of a system and what is going on in it, I'm afraid I'd have to side with Warlord and say that any template needs to be much shorter to stand a chance of being sensibly used. Just the device names would at least give us a ballpark to work with.

That said, there are two questions missing that is are least as important as any specs:
- Steps to reproduce. We should explicitly ask the topic starter to describe step by step everything he does between turning his computer on and seeing the problem he faces.
- Exact error message(s). If any errors occur, include - verbatim - the error message(s).

Pics will often definitely help!

Personally I wouldn't want such a form to be mandatory, but I do like the idea behind it 😀
If some essential bit of info is not provided, I'll just ask. If someone doesn't understand then I'll try and explain what bit of info I need.

Often if someone asks a question without giving any basic information about the system the person is trying to troubleshoot, mentioning the basic info we need in order to be able to help him just once is often enough to give them a nudge in the right direction.

To me it's not just telling unknowledgeable people what they are missing, but to help them learn how to deal with these issues themselves. Part of this is that people actually want to understand how stuff works.

Many people here basically started from scratch. When I started I didn't even dare to open up my PC and 10 years later I'm not afraid to handle hardware components as I know exactly what I'm doing (or I would hope so 🤣).

In the end these older rigs need an approach that is basically universal to a certain degree. Some people asking questions here will get the retro bug and start delving into the matter which may result in they themselves becoming the knowledgeable source of information they once came here to seek and ask for help. This is part of what keeps Vogons going. It's about spitting out everything we know so that others can build on that and teach all of us, a common vat of knowledge. Other sites tend to get riddled with people who tend to be more vs each other instead of with each other and such sites are somewhat doomed to stay behind the competition, provided the competition is more about sharing information instead of monopolizing it.