But if you work on the problem yourself, you will be able to solve the problem within hours (even if you don't know where to start).

Hoping for forum help means that you have already spent days.

Which is faster - hours or days?

Forums are best when you get into troubles that are not well covered by Google, i.e. when you need "personal" support from experienced people who can suggest how you can adapt to a sepcific problem or how you can redefine a problem into something with a known answer. Forums are not good for gettting the help that is already covered by a Google search. Especially since the Google links comes back within a fraction of a second of your request, while a forum answer requires that someone somewhere around the world happens to be awake and read your post - and happens to have the knowledge - and happens to have the time to prepare an answer - and happens to think it meaningful to spend that time preparing an answer.

Personal help on forums are a limited commodity best spent on problems that really do require that kind of help. That is the times when a forum will save you time, or help give a better end result.