Basic PC Troubleshooting

Stubborn OS - Downgrade it!

Bart — Sat, 23 May 2009 08:19:07 +0000

It has happened with Vista and is seemingly also being built into Windows 7, the ability to downgrade should the user deem it too stubborn or complicated to use. The beta-testing of Win 7 is already underway and it seemingly looks nice yet Microsoft is again taking no chances by building into the OS a downgrade feature should it suffer a catastrophic failure. Operating system’s are normally better as time goes by and as with Vista, time was not on it’s side that people simply refused to bite into their many advantages (if that’s what they called them).
Downgrading would be nice if it was built-into the OS such as the facility Windows had but don’t count on it as being a walk in the park for it isn’t. You have to have a licensed installer and a boot disk or CD that would allow you to boot from an alternate OS (Vista would not allow you to do so from within Vista so you have to boot from a bootable XP CD to do so). Once you boot-up, you then have the option to kick the newer OS out and re-install the good old XP that worked fine (can’t figure out what Microsoft is thinking by releasing Vista which would surely be millions of dollars of lost investment).
One precaution, when doing a downgrade, unplug the network cable for an unprotected computer system would last less than a few minutes before you get infected by malware and viruses. After installing SP2, XP should have all the necessary security patches to make updating through the internet of all your other software a breeze.

Microsoft Makes it Known - Windows 7 In the Works

Bart — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:56:52 +0000

Microsoft is again trying to mend its ways and maybe has learned a thing or two about the failure of Vista to re-take the world by storm as a new and improved version of XP. It failed miserably and before you know it, people who got their new pc’s pre-installed with Vista were downgrading back to XP. Vista was designed to be more secure than XP, it was, the only problem, it was too secure, asking questions at each and every way of previously already automated tasks nobody cared about them anymore.
XP was in it’s death throes and even the well aimed cries of the many supporters who begged the Redmond software giant to let it go and let it be. Their answer, Windows 7, the beta has already been released and is already in the wild undergoing live testing all over the globe. Will it take the place of XP as the next premiere Operating system? Nobody knows for they have guessed wrong with XP and then with Vista so what’s stopping them from making the same mistake again?

Slow PC - Too many Files ?!?!?

editor — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:33:07 +0000

Hard drivesare quite reliable, so reliable today that they have gotten cheaper and better, lasting longer than their predecessors. Along with the many innovations, they have also grown in terms of data density or the amount of data that can be stored within the same footprint. Having a Pentium 4 that you bought a couple of years back might still be working right but as you may have noticed, it may have gotten a tad bit too slow.
Previously smoothly running applications have started to bog down enough for you to down a cup of tea or coffee plus a doughnut or two before it loads might be the result of too much information in your hard drive.
Adding a second hard drive and relocating all the MP3’s and video you have crammed into your older drive can boost speeds but if you love new software and other applications, you might just be out of luck and have a need fro a new PC rather than a drive. You might also consider using the new drive as your boot drive for the older one would surely be prone to fail sometime soon. Re-install all applications and transfer vital files and documents to the old drive(which is now your secondary drive) so you have a clean slate to work with.

Updating and running your anti-virus

editor — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:27:53 +0000

Many people underestimate the importance of updating their anti-virus definitions and usually end up getting infected by some random trojan or worm when it could ave been perfectly preventable by a simple update of definitions.

Anti-virus programs are very simple to update - some even do the updating for you. But if that’s not the case, you can always update at least twice a week manually, of you feel that updating everyday is too much of a hassle. You should also do a full scan of your computer at least twice a month to make sure that everything’s free from any lurking viruses. Also remember to do a full scan of any portable hard disks or flash drives that you’re plugging into your desktop computer or laptop.

XP to get Extended Life?

Bart — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 08:43:49 +0000

XP support services is set to go offline this mid-year to the disdain of many PC users all over the globe. With moves and petitions to bolster a move to get that deadline extended, they have fallen on deaf ears. While the market may become deprived of the said support systems, XP is still going to ship with new HP laptops till 2010 according to industry insiders who have negotiated with Microsoft for the said service extension. this comes as a blow to the software giant who has been hoping for similar progress with their Vista Operating system but with no bites.
Some who have availed of the new software have opted to revert to the older XP due to dismal performance in terms of speed and other security issues. Microsoft on the other hand is fast-tracking the development of their next Operating System that are seen to be the next not take over the predominantly XP PC market. How people would accept the new OS when it is released can be anybody’s guess for even if the company does come out with a better OS peopel may opt to stay with their older system bullying them into re0instating support or lose their share of the market which their XP OS dominates to this day.

Windows XP users bane: Slow boot up

editor — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:23:06 +0000

Wanting to have a faster Windows XP boot up is something most PC users want, but seems they can’t have. With the advent of trojans and its dastardly ilk, it’s making the OS boot up even slower. What can you do?

According to the experts the best way to go about this is to find the source:

Legitimate programs usually put an icon in the SysTray, next to the clock on the Windows Taskbar. Right-clicking an icon will often let you tell the program not to load. However, Microsoft provides msconfig, a good utility for controlling how Windows starts up. To run it, click Start, select Run, type msconfig in the box and click OK. The Startup tab on the far right lists the programs being loaded, but it’s worth looking through the other tabs. Microsoft has a trouble-shooting guide to using it: search Google for Q310560.

More info here.

Junk Files Kill

Bart — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:52:20 +0000

Image Source: screenshots-archive.com

Junk files are simply files that are left behind by a program. When you open a certain program, it needs to create files for you to be able to use them and access them in a much faster time. But the problem is the fact that not every program or application written has the capability of collecting their “trashes” when you close them. Thats why a,lot of their junks are accumulated inside the hard drive. This will eventually build up to a massive amount of junk files. Naturally, having them just littering inside the hard drive will slow down the whole computer system because the memory will be working much harder. Eventually, if you do not take these files, it can cause your system to crash. Now that would be much harder to fix and with all your important data lost.

Crazy Monitor

Bart — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:02:38 +0000

Image Source:static.flickr.com

While it may be time consuming to open up the CPU of your computer, most of the problems that you encounter with your PC doesn’t require you to open the CPU case. Hardware problems can be taken care of just
as easily as it may sound. Like when your monitor is flickering uncontrollably. Turning up the refresh rate just wouldn’t do it. And setting is only limited to 60Hz. This problem may cause you headaches and pain. The problem really greatly depends on the limitations of the specific monitor and the graphic card installed. You will be able to increase the refresh rate according to your comfort preference. In most Windows OS, like Windows 98, 2000 and Me. you change the setting by right clicking the windows desktop, click Properties, click Settings and then select the Advanced tab. Under the Adapter tab, you will see refresh rate settings. Ideally, click on 75Hz, but if you prefer a higher setting then do so. But you should note that setting the rate too high may destroy your monitor.

Rollback Rx

Bart — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:32:34 +0000

Image Source:i122.photobucket.com

When you are looking for a perfect PC restoration solution that fixes your computer problems fast without losing data, Rollback Rx might just be the one you need. It requires little amount of hard disk space since it works on the sector level, which means its under the existing operating space. Its a great tool even if your operating system crashes and refuses to boot up. Rollback Rx will still run smoothly and perform a pc restore and get your system up. Rollback Rx uses the concept of snapshots by taking “shots” of your system configuration. Even if your data size is large or small, its easy to restore to a particular snapshot. No buffer memory, means its not slowing down your pc. So performance is not compromised. You may never need an expert to restore your pc again. The facility of program settings in Rollback Rx allows you to decide when snapshots can be taken. It can be scheduled. The Rollback Rx Enterprise edition allow for large companies to maintain their pcs and manage them through their server, via the internet. This makes it an effective file recovery solution.

AVG AntiVirus Review

Bart — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:38:11 +0000

If you’re a Windows user, chances are you also run an antivirus software from startup. Windows is, after all, known for its security vulnerabilities, particularly in terms of malware.

One of our favorite virus scanners is AVG. Not only is it free, but it also has various features that make it better than many others out there.

First, it’s a small download. You don’t have to wait hours just for the installation file to finish. It’s also very quick to install. You don’t have to wait 30 minutes before installation is thru. It just takes a couple of minutes. Then, it’s not as bloated as other antivirus software. AVG’s software footprint is just about 20 Megs in your RAM. You also get daily updates and daily scheduled scans.

Not bad for a free product!

Best thing I like about AVG is that it is pretty fast. It’s not a resource hog and it doens’t take forever to load to memory everytime I start up the PC.