PC Repair 101 – Should You Do It Yourself?

May 1st, 2009

pc-repair-101

When it comes time to do a little work to your computer, there are a few things you need to have handy. PC repair is very tricky and you don’t want to mess anything up accidentally. PC repair is not always done with the computer on, sometime you have to turn it off, open the case and get into the hardware.

You should have the following if you need to go inside the case:

• Phillips Head Screwdriver – non magnetic
• Flathead Screwdriver – non magnetic
• Needle nose pliers – for picking up dropped screws
• Anti-static wrist strap – static electricity discharge can fry electronic components
• Flashlight
• Can of compressed air.
• Clean area to work

Now, there are more specialized pieces of equipment; however, the above-mentioned items are what you need in a barebones type of way. Those items will get you through most things you may need to do. That is, if you know enough to go in there.

Before you open your case, always unplug the power cord from the back of the tower.

Now it has to be said – if you don’t know what the following acronyms mean, do not open your case and attempt to fix it yourself. Why? Because you lack the knowledge to safely do any work inside of your computer.

• CPU
• GPU
• RAM
• HDD
• AGP
• PCI

What you can do, however, is clean the dust off the fans of your system. This is done using the compressed air cans. You should also clean any filters you have on your system. Dust is one of the worst things you can have gather up in your computer because it restricts the flow of air. Also, dust can settle on your heat sink fans and cause them to be much less effective.

So, if you don’t know much about the inside of a computer, your safest bet is to unplug everything and take the tower, not the monitor (unless that’s the problem) to the nearest certified computer repair shop and have them fix it for you.

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How to Increase the Speed of Your Computer

May 1st, 2009

Not all of us are rich enough to buy a new computer every year but we want the fastest and best of everything. There is a way with little effort that you can keep even an older computer running like the day you first fired it up.

Things You’ll Want To Use

Here are some programs you’ll want to run on a weekly basis to help keep your computer fast and problem free:

• Antivirus Program
• Spyware removal program
• Windows Disk Clean Up
• Windows Update

The first two programs can be found free online and the second two are already available to you with Windows. They are all great tools to keep your computer in pretty good shape. Now, these alone will not do it, you need to help by policing yourself as well.

Background Applications

A background application is any program you see listed down there by your clock. If you see an icon there for something that means it’s currently running in the background taking up processing power and memory. Some programs are very much needed such as antivirus programs, however; having three different chat programs running is useless.

Just because you can have something running in the icon tray does not mean you need it there. Chat programs, mail notification icons, music players and other things like this, when they are down there only allow for the program to start a few seconds faster. Removing them from being in your start-up list will help speed up your computer in general. These programs will give you the option to stop them from starting with windows in their options sections.

Third Party Programs

There are programs designed to help speed up Windows by making tweaks and adjustments to your system you may not know of. There are plenty of free programs available online and all you need to do is search for computer speed up and you will find them.

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What To Do When You Need To Fix Windows XP

May 1st, 2009

Computers are not smart and they cannot fix themselves without human interaction. A computer basically carries out an absurd number of calculations a second and if anything is incorrect, it can mess up or stop functioning altogether.

Here are some things you can look for when you need to fix Windows XP.

Run the following on a weekly basis in a proactive manner:

• Windows Disk Clean Up
• Windows Defrag
• Anti Virus
• Spyware Removal Programs

When trouble does hit, and if you don’t really know a lot about computers, your best bet is to download a program designed to help speed up and repair general Windows problems. You can find a lot of the programs on free download websites. Run these a few times a week to help keep your computer running smoothly.

If your problem is stopping you from booting up your computer, put your Windows XP disc in your drive and let your system boot from the CD. When the menu comes up you have the option to repair your Windows installation. This process goes through all your system files to see if any are damaged, missing or just messed up in general. When it finds a problem, it will fix it.

Another thing is to pay attention to your error messages. For example, if you get an error in a nvixd.dll file, and you have a video card from nVidia, you can surmise the problem is with your video card or the driver. Just head to the manufacturer’s website to get updated drivers.

If you have tried everything you can think of and you are still unable to get your PC working, call up a geek friend. We all have them and they love to fix computer problems for their less tech inclined friends.

You last ditch attempt, and it does come to this at times, is to completely re-install Windows from scratch. Some people will say doing this at least once a year is a good way to clean up the garbage we all accumulate on our PC’s from constant use. Either way, if you are still stuck after all these things, you may want to seek professional assistance.

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Windows XP Tweaks To Boost Your System

May 1st, 2009

Windows XP has a lot of great features, which has made it one of Microsoft’s most popular operating systems ever. There are, however, a number of things you can still do in Windows XP to tweak it and get even more out of it.

Here are a few of the hidden tweaks in Windows XP you may not know about.

Speed Up Your Interface

Windows XP’s interface is a lot nicer looking than its predecessor and those visual effects take up some of your performance. Here’s how you can set your interface to the Windows Classic settings, which will boost your overall performance:

• Right click on My Computer and choose Properties
• Click on the Advanced Tab
• Click on the Settings button under Performance
• Click on Adjust for best performance
• Click Apply, OK and then Ok

Turn Off System Sounds

While the sounds in Windows may be nice, they take up resources to use. Here’s how to disable them.

• Go to the Control Panel and double click on Sounds and Audio Drivers
• Click on the Sounds Tab
• Save your current scheme
• In the drop down menu choose No Sounds
• Click Apply and then OK

Return To The Classic Start Menu

The new Start Menu is a bit heavy and clumsy but you have the option to return to the older Start Menu, which will free up system resources and it’s easier to organize.

• Right click on Start
• Choose Properties
• Choose Classic Start Menu and click Customize
• Click Sort to alphabetize the menu

There are a large number of other tweaks on the web as well as programs designed to make use of just about every possible setting you can change in Windows. You can find a lot of these programs online for free just by doing a search for them. No matter how you go about it, Windows XP tweaks are the way to get the most from your PC.

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Windows XP Advanced Tweaks

May 1st, 2009

Windows XP Advanced Tweaks

A little something before we delve into the advanced XP tweaks. These tips and tweaks are strictly for people who understand this passage:

“There are 10 types of people in the world; those who understand binary and those who don’t.”

If you don’t get it, you may want to just read this to get an idea of the various tweaks that can be done to XP. Not knowing what you are doing may cause you to corrupt your system. If you have knowledge of XP and want to perform the tweaks, you need to back up your registry first.

Back Up The Registry

Backing up the registry is a safe way to ensure your system can be restored if for any reason your tweaking has caused a problem. For safety reasons, if you don’t know how to back up the registry, it is wise to take your system to someone who does know.

The tweaks below are intended for people running on NTFS, most people are. However, if you are not, do not attempt the tweaks as it can cause serious damage to your registry.

Set CPU Priority

You can add a registry entry to your system to set the priority of the CPU to focus on the foreground application no matter what. This will increase the performance of the application you are running.

Open up notepad and copy and paste the following:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl]
“Win32PrioritySeparation”=dword:00000026

Now save the file as priority_sep.reg and then right click on the file and choose to add it to the registry.

End Tasks Faster & Speed Up Menu Display

These tweaks can increase the reaction time for your menus and close down running programs faster than normally. This can increase your performance and the responsiveness of Windows.

Open up notepad and copy and paste the following:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
“ForegroundLockTimeout”=dword:00000000
“HungAppTimeout”=”4000″
“MenuShowDelay”=”200″
“WaitToKillAppTimeout”=”5000″

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]
“WaitToKillServiceTimeout”=”5000″

Now save the file as app_menu_speed.reg and then right click on the file and choose to add it to the registry.

These advanced Windows XP tweaks will have your system running better in no time. Again, if you are not familiar with the registry, you can take your system to a computer repair shop to have them make the changes for you.

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Tips about Registry Repair

May 1st, 2009

Think of the registry in your computer as if it were your memory, not your computer’s memory (RAM) but the memory you have in your head. Every setting you change or program you install stores a little bit of information in the registry for use later on, just like your own memory.

When you computer boots up, it has no idea what’s stored in it and has to re-learn all of it again. The first place it checks is your registry to see what’s installed, what settings you have, which users are on the system and just about anything else you can think of. If your registry is damaged or incorrect, the computer will boot up with bad information and to a computer, that’s death.

In order to properly repair your registry, you need one of two things:

• A lot of training, years of it, in the workings of the Windows Operating Systems
• Free registry cleaning and repairing software you can find online

The easiest way of course is the registry cleaning software online. There are hundreds, if not thousands of programs created to repair your registry and guess what? A lot of them are free and really good at what they do. All you need to do is a search for free registry repair software and you’ll find plenty to get the job done.

There are programs you can pay for and they will offer some additional abilities but, in general, all you really need is a program that will do the following:

• Backup the registry
• Scan the registry
• Fix missing shortcut links, errors, unneeded entries, defrag the registry, compact the registry

There you have it; those are the main things you need from a registry repair program to keep your registry in good shape. You should run these programs at least once a week to keep the registry tidy and organized so your computer runs smoothly.

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Looking for a PC Doctor? Look No Further!

May 1st, 2009

At some point in your computer’s life it will need something fixed or repaired. The easiest way to do that is with a program designed to fix problems. There are plenty of places you can go in search of a PC doctor.

Here are some of the programs or websites available when you need a little fixing up.

Download.com – A One Stop Shop

This one website holds almost all of the programs you could ever need to fix up your computer. Just go to the site and enter in what you are looking for in their search box. It will pull up a list of programs available for download along with editor and customer reviews. Some of these programs are completely free while others are shareware. This means you can use them now but, eventually, you will need to pay for them to keep using them.

PC Doctor

PC Doctor is a program you can download online that claims to be able to fix a whole host of issues with your computer from removing junk files up to speeding up your internet connection. This is not a free program; you will need to purchase it in order to use it.

AdAware, SpyBot, Malwarebyte’s Malware Removal

These programs are all great and are designed to remove Spyware, adware, malware and any other type of sneaky program designed to give you headaches. These are all downloadable and free to use. You should have all three on your system and run them once a week.

System Mechanic

This is another great program which helps to keep your system free of problems with once click type maintenance as well as power tools for more advanced users. It also includes a program that runs in the background for tracking any changes to your registry. If it detects a change, it will ask if you want the change to be allowed or not. This is great for those programs that try to sneak in stuff onto your system without alerting you.

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Windows Repair Software – What To Look For

May 1st, 2009

Microsoft Windows, aside from being pretty great, is not free from errors or problems, as we all know. There are so many places in your OS where things could go wrong I doubt you could count that high if you tried. Trying to keep all those areas in great shape is hard to do unless you have a Windows repair software program on your system.

To say there are a lot of programs on the net for repairing and keeping a Windows OS running well would be like saying there are a few people surfing the net at this moment – big understatement. The question is what do you look for when getting some Windows repair software?

The first thing I always look for is the word free, there are a good number of free programs available you can use to keep your system running well. Some you may want to purchase to unlock updates, additional tools and the like but, in general, most work the same way and do, mostly the same things.

There are two main components to look for:

• One Click Maintenance or One Click Repair type options – These allow you to get a good cleaning with as little action on your part.
• Power Tools or Individual Tools – These programs allow slightly more advanced uses and the option of looking into specific parts of the system and making more targeted fixes and changes.

Now a lot of these programs will allow you to tweak some of Windows hidden settings and options, which are normally a pain to get to. Be careful with some of these, if you don’t know what they really do, you may want to just stay away from them and go with the basic options you know of in Windows.

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Registry Cleaner Software – Why You Need It

May 1st, 2009

The Windows Registry is basically a database of settings and options used by a Microsoft Windows Operating System. It holds information as well as settings for your hardware, operating system software, other software and settings for each user on your computer. It also holds some other information but you don’t really need to know all the details to understand the following:

Your registry is very, very important to your computer and how it runs. If there is a problem in the registry your computer may not run properly, programs will crash or your computer can fail to boot up properly. This is why it’s a good idea to run a registry cleaner software program from time to time.

These programs will scour your registry for any errors, un-needed entries or entries that are in the wrong place and correct them. Many registry cleaner software programs also have the ability to re-organize your registry so it is more compact and more efficient which will help your computer run faster and with fewer errors.

There are a ton of registry cleaner programs available on the net and you can get a lot of them for free. Most of these programs will allow you to backup your registry before you use them and, actually, if you use a program that does not make a backup before it changes things in there, stop using it and find a new one.

When your computer boots up it goes through the registry for all your settings, information and everything else needed to run your computer. These programs will clean up your registry, making it more efficient, faster, and easier for your computer to get information, run faster and fix errors.

Why do you want to use one of these programs? The answer is simple; the registry is a place when you can really mess things up quickly if you don’t know what you are doing in there. So, if you don’t know how to read the registry, stay out of it and let a registry cleaner software program do the work for you.

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How to Perform a Computer Clean Up

May 1st, 2009

Over time and through the normal day-to-day use of our computers, we tend to amass a bunch of stuff that, for the most part, we don’t need to keep. All these extra files, cookies, bookmarks and programs do is take up space and possibly some processing power away from your computer.

Here are a few items you should clean up and how to do it:

Internet Cache

Every place you go online is stored in your Internet browser cache so you can access it faster the next time you visit a site. This cache can get pretty big so you’ll want to empty it out from time to time. No matter the browser, there is a setting in the Tools section where you can tell the browser to empty the cache when you exit the application. Do that and your cache will stay very small and it’ll save you a lot of space.

Windows Disk Clean Up

This little application, which comes with Windows, is located in your Start Menu, Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Clean Up. This program will remove temporary files, browser cache files and other things you don’t really need on your computer saving you a good bit of space. If you’ve never run it, the first time may take a while but it’s worth it.

Third Party Applications

There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of programs on the net, which were made to help keep your computer nice and tidy. Many of these are free and all you need to do to get them is do an online search for computer clean up and you’ll find them.

One word of caution, these programs are designed not to delete anything important from your computer. Always be very careful when manually removing anything from your PC when doing a computer clean up. You may accidentally remove a file the system needs in order to function properly.

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