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I was working with a user the other day and he was really upset that he was having so much connectivity problems with a laptop of his on which I had installed Linux the month before. He was telling me how disapointed with Linux he was and how he had read online that it didn't properly support the hardware. I told him to ignore most of the negative stuff on the Internet. It mostly came from ignorant and usually quite insincere users that just couldn't get over the fact that their favorite OS or company might not survive. On checking his computer I suggested that get a new network cable and that in the future he should consider the hardware first. (Hardware in my experience for end users after viri the common solution to problems with computers. Window(95-7), Macintosh and Linux, etc. included.)

I've passed this on to a couple of customers over the years mostly because its a little funny. First read while I was supporting Windows users years ago. An article I believe came from someone at Nasa explaining one of a number of possible reason for random computer failures. Ionizing radiation could knock out or flip a bit in memory of some running program and cause a critical error. A one off I know but if they are crazy because they've lost a days work, sometimes it helped.

Found a wiki:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening

"Digital damage: SEE

Single-event effects (SEE), mostly affecting only digital devices, were not studied extensively until relatively recently. When a high-energy particle travels through a semiconductor, it leaves an ionized track behind. This ionization may cause a highly localized effect similar to the transient dose one - a benign glitch in output, a less benign bit flip in memory or a register, or, especially in high-power transistors, a destructive latchup and burnout. Single event effects have importance for electronics in satellites, aircraft, and other both civilian and military aerospace applications. Sometimes in circuits not involving latches it is helpful to introduce RC time constant circuits, slowing down the circuit's reaction time beyond the duration of an SEE.

* Single-event upsets (SEU), or transient radiation effects in electronics, are state changes of memory or register bits caused by a single ion interacting with the chip. They do not cause lasting damage to the device, but may cause lasting problems to a system which cannot recover from such an error. In very sensitive devices, a single ion can cause a multiple-bit upset (MBU) in several adjacent memory cells. SEUs can become Single-event Functional Interrupts (SEFI) when they upset control circuits, such as state machines, placing the device into an undefined state, a test mode, or a halt, which would then need a reset or a power cycle to recover."

What I dislike about your article is that you piss and moan and generally sound like a reasonably over-educated but poorly thinking Windows fan. I don't want to hear about your high powered quad four blah! blah! blah! Or thumping on your chest about your thesis doesn't impress me at all!

I want to hear: there is an 8800 Nvidia graphics card from Asus (which one.) You are using the xxx Nvidia proprietary driver. The motherboard is a GA-965P-DQ6 (rev. 1.0). The power supply is a 350W icute. etc. etc.

My guesses why you may not done this. 1. Simple ignorance. 2. You were angry, not thinking and jotted off a quick complaint. 3. You know that if you give accurate journalistic quality information someone will write back and say that you are a complete idiot. You need to do this, this, this, very minor and it will work perfeclty.

My favorite number 3.

Windows users don't want results just to complain.