One thing that we will all notice that once our computer slows down, our immediate conclusion would be to upgrade our memory. When we say upgrading, we are referring to placing additional memory chips with higher or same capacity or trading our old chips in lieu of higher ram memory modules. This is normally the case for both desktops and laptops.
But while this can indeed help, it is only temporary. Remember, the whole central processing unit operates on various computer components such as the processor (usually Intel, Celeron or AMD). These too have a bearing. What distinguishes them from the other is really price and performance. If you are wise, you will easily note that the best processor is really the genuine Intel chips.
Speed is important in computing. Computers are known to speed up your work and that is one aspect to why we see most people upgrading everyday. Computers automate certain procedures such as data encoding and document preparations and using a computer that is slowed down somewhat can become irritating for people or users with such high expectations.
The normal advice you will be given by technicians is to upgrade certain parts of your computer. It will all start from the memory chips, hard drive and eventually the main processor.
However it would be wise to note at this point, why not upgrade your PC as a whole? Do some costing and find out which is the best alternative. If it just a matter of a couple of bucks, why not buy a new PC instead?
Written by PC Freak on May 13th, 2008 with no comments.
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Slow computer getting you down? Wish you could speed up your system so that games won’t crawl by like a slide show permanently set to slow? Well look no further! I shall share five easy steps that you can take to improve your system’s speed! Most of them are free of charge, and all of them should have some effect on your system. So without further ado, we begin with:
1. Remove spyware and adware from your system. Have you noticed recently that ads seem to pop up whenever you go to a Web page? Or that Internet speeds are about that of diseased livestock? Your system’s probably chock full of spyware. What to do? Well, thankfully there are several things you can do. First, download either Spybot-S&D or Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware, and run it. This should remove most if not all of the spyware and adware on your system. Neither of these are particularly robust, however, so we move on to:
2. Remove viruses from your system. Get yourself a decent virus scanner program. Big names include MacAfee, Symantec, or Norton. By the way it should be mentioned that virus scanners like the Big Three tend to be huge. Big, beefy programs that can chew up RAM faster than Dudley Dursley chewed up Harry’s birthday cake. If this is a problem for you, take a look at avast! avast! is a free virus scanner that can be downloaded, but be careful. Phishing sites love to pretend to be “free virus scanner software” and so you have to be careful. Yes, avast! is a respected name and is not a virus, but only if you actually download it and not some trojan.
3. Defragment your hard drive with the disk defragmentation tool, usually located in Start / Programs / Accessories / System Tools. This useful little program will improve performance by compacting your data so that your programs aren’t all located in tiny little bits. Some people might argue this point, saying that defragmentation doesn’t actually improve anything, but look at it this way: it never hurts at worst, and at best has a chance of improving your runtime! So where’s the loss?
4. Remove dust. Buy some cans of compressed air (yes I’m aware of the irony of purchasing a can of air. No, I do not wish to purchase any bridges today). Using this compressed air, blow the dust out of your system. That dust does your CPU no favors and a thick, liberal coating of dust tends to collect when you leave your computer running in a dirty room. Oh and by the way, after you’ve blown all that dust into the air, it’ll settle. All over your carpet. So you might wanna vacuum later. Just an idea.
5. Clean your registry. CCleaner is a good registry fixer that’ll fix all those broken things in your registry. By the way, don’t go mucking about in the registry without backing it up first. If you do not do this, then I cannot be legally responsible for any time rifts, space distortions, or world wars caused by unexpected changes made by CCleaner. That said, properly done, a registry change often helps in improving performance. Also check your startup programs: there are programs that are set to start as soon as Windoze boots, and this can cause Windoze to start up slower. Removing a few (AIM is a good one) might improve your startup process. You might keep your hair a bit longer, too.
One final bit of advice. Oftentimes I’ll see on PC-building Web sites people wondering why their computer is “running so slowly even though they have the best gear.” The word of advice? Check your PSU (Power Supply Unit). How far do you suppose you’d get if your car’s gas tank had a maximum capacity of 2 gallons of gas? Would you want such a car? Well, your “awesome gear” won’t get too far on a puny PSU either. If your computer’s operating much slower than you’d expect from your hardware, consider replacing your PSU with one that can actually handle your power-hungriest parts (usually your CPU and GPU). Calculators for what wattage of PSU you might need are all over the Web. Just to be safe it might be better to go 50 watts or so above the recommended, just in case you decide to add something else later.
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Written by Jason on May 5th, 2008 with no comments.
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When you get to see the internal parts of your CPU, you are most likely so see a lot of chips, modules and diodes which will surely let you go crazy wondering how anyone in his right mind was able to make all of these pieces operate fluently on the motherboard where they are installed.
Ideally, non-electronic people could care less but if you happen to want to take up computer engineering, these are things that are interconnected which will also make you think a lot. There are the usual and positive and negative connections which have to be soldered properly into the right slot and whenever any of them are installed in them, it is likely that the whole motherboard in use will malfunction.
The motherboard is the life of the computer. If a computer’s motherboard fails to operate, the other computer paraphernalia such as the video cards, sound cards, hard disks and memory modules are sure to become dead. These other components can be replaced easily at any time whenever one of them malfunctions but if they main board of the computer is the one with the problem, it is close to saying you need a whole new computer since it is the heart and soul of the computer.
Lastly, the motherboard is the least expected part that is expected to malfunction. Normally, other parts can have problems along the way. But as far as durability is concerned, rest assured that the motherboard is not among the immediate ones expected to malfunction and needed to be replaced.
Written by PC Freak on April 30th, 2008 with no comments.
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Today, most of us are looking for the newly inducted computers that operate efficiently and according to the demands of most programs we run. Graphics designing computers need higher memory and processors to be able to withstand the various commands that are needed to be able to produce the high memory eating drawing and layouts we use with the usual graphics and images software like Adobe and Ulead.
Add to the fray the slowly increasing number of people who have taken up video editing as well and you can just wonder how much power they will require for their computer to be able to take up these facts. It remains that along with the vast upgrades of computer hardware lies a purpose and this is aimed at the demand to satisfy the purpose of computer relying people that are growing in numbers by the day.
This issue is not only towards the graphics designers and video editors of today. Programmers and even the simplest users require high memory modules and dual capable processors to make sure that their computer does not hang. If the processes are not given attention, then you will find that most of them will become be a cause for your computer to slow down. And this is something any computer owner and user really hate.
To date, we have seen computer upgrades in at least a year or two. Rather than succumb to what your enthusiasm allows you to decide on, be practical. Sometimes we upgrade due to our craving for being in with the times. Upgrade for a specific reason and that is at times when you really need to so you can work effectively.
Written by PC Freak on April 25th, 2008 with no comments.
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A great explaination of why you probably can’t use 4GB of RAM on your PC, even if Vista SP1 says you are.
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All the different ways of getting those new updates out to your users.
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More software, safer, cheaper, ubiquitous, no Jobs.
Post from: ITsVISTA
ITsVISTA Web Links: April 9th
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Written by Joe on April 9th, 2008 with no comments.
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It’s possible to have Vista and chow down on your XP cake, too, if you apply a free — for now — virtual machine.
If you’re stuck with a Vista PC, but you really prefer using XP, I’ll show you how to set up XP as a virtual machine on Vista, plus some tricks you can use to get the most out of this setup.
Why you should give virtual machines a free try
It’s unarguable: Windows XP operates more quickly than Vista (a fact that PC World recently demonstrated even with the new Service Pack 1 installed on Vista). Additionally, no one who’s independent of Microsoft’s payroll suggests that device drivers are just as easily available for Vista as they are for XP, or that Vista supports as many software applications that people own. (more…)
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Written by Jason on March 27th, 2008 with no comments.
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Windows Easy Transfer Companion enables you to automatically transfer your most important programs from your Windows XP-based PC to your new Windows Vista-based PC. The software will move more than 100 of the most popular programs, as well as many others that you may have installed. You have complete control over selecting which programs to transfer, so only the programs you care about will move. The software will alert you if some programs may not be able to transfer, or may not transfer with high confidence. Most security software is not able to transfer due to technical reasons.
Easy Transfer Companion is designed to be used in addition to Windows Easy Transfer which is part of Windows Vista and automatically transfers your data and settings. (more…)
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Written by Jason on March 20th, 2008 with no comments.
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If you get a brand new PC with Vista, the chances are that you will also have a new screen. That screen will most likely be a flat TFT screen with a huge resolution like 1440 x 900. You should always use TFT screens at their “native resolution” but some people then find that the writing is too small to read comfortably. DO NOT be tempted to change the screen resolution like you use to do with the old CRT screens. This may make the writing bigger, but it will be fuzzier.
You can make the writing and icons bigger whilst keeping the crispness by using the following procedure: (more…)
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Written by Jason on March 18th, 2008 with no comments.
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If you think that the first service pack for Windows Vista has managed to fix what was broken with the latest Windows client, think again. The same problems that were initially associated with the gold version of Vista have survived and moved on as the legacy of SP1. At the end of its first year of availability on the market, Vista had passed the 100 million sold license milestone, and according to Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer, present at MIX08 the past week, the platform is the second most popular Windows operating system in the world, despite its long line of problems.
“I’m not saying that there aren’t things that customers choose to comment on. Come on, the number one issue we’ve had customers have issues on were application compatibility and driver compatibility. (more…)
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Written by Jason on March 17th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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How much do you know about your PC? Yes, I know Windows tells you about the hardware and you can see what programs you have on the All Programs list, but that’s just scratching the surface. What, for instance, is the make and version of your PC’s BIOS, what peripherals are attached, how much of your memory is in use, when was your PC first switched on and how many times have you booted it up, what is the make, model number and size of your hard drive, and just how many programs are still on your PC that you’ve forgotten about? (more…)
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Written by Jason on March 11th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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