Troubleshooting Computer Problems
December 31, 2008 by Steven Magill · Comments
Troubleshooting computer problems can be time consuming if you don’t follow a plan. You need to have some idea of what you are troubleshooting for if you have any hope of discovering what the problem is!
Computer failure comes in many shapes and sizes. There are the fairly easy ones and there are the very difficult ones. Learning to know which type it is likely to be will save you time and make troubleshooting problems a whole lot easier.
The most serious of problems are probably those concerning hardware. When you hear the ominous repeating click sound of a hard disk in the throes of death, it’s too late to panic; the damage has already been done.
Power supply units can often be the cause of problems in computers. You don’t need a lot of experience to conclude that your power supply is no longer supplying power. Even if it is still supplying power, it may be underpowered and causing problems because of that.
Computers create heat. That’s why they have a cooling fan as part of the assembly. Should the fan fail, or if it is inadequate because the manufacturer doesn’t care, or if the under ventilation is inadequately provided for, you will experience all kinds of problems.
When a computer overheats it will often suddenly shut down. It does this to protect itself from over heating any more. However, it doesn’t tell you that there is a problem beforehand, and that it has to shut down. It just does it. If your computer is doing this regularly, it could be an overheating problem.
Troubleshooting these kind of computer problems will require you to make an educated guess at what kind of problem it is likely to be. Pursuing that line of thinking will lead you on to other related components, and eventually you should be able to track down the real problem. For example, a problem with the sound card will exhibit itself through a sound problem and a video card problem will make itself obvious through the monitor.
Don’t forget to check all the cabling and plugs first! Many a technician has been embarrassed after spending time checking everything only to finally notice a loose connection. Check the most obvious first when troubleshooting computer problems, if only to eliminate them as the source of the problem.
Sometimes troubleshooting your computer problems will lead you to a software cause. Perhaps there is a software conflict. This would likely show up soon after you installed a new program. In fact, if your problem is noticed immediately after installing a program, then that is the likely cause.
Try uninstalling the program. If that fixes the problem then you need to find out why before re-installing the program. Make sure all the software drivers are up to date before trying any more software installs.
Troubleshooting computer problems is usually never easy. It takes time and the simple plan of doing one thing at a time and checking to see what the effect is. If you do several things and suddenly everything is fine again, you’ll never know what the cause was.
Always make one change, check, and if it doesn’t work to improve matters, make another change, and so on. Being methodical will make troubleshooting computer problems a lot easier.
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What to Do When You Spill Your Drink on Your Computer
Many of us eat and drink at our computers knowing we shouldn’t and sometimes we have an accidental spill. In most cases, it can be fixed with a quick cleanup. I’ve repaired a lot of laptops with liquid spills. This is a fixable condition most of the time. It’s really important to start the liquid spill clean-up ASAP (before corrosion or internal damage happens)! Liquid spills can cause these types of laptop damage:
• A short circuit from the liquid (problem can be resolved when the liquid dries)
• A short circuit due to dried liquid residue
• Corrosion (especially with acidic soft drinks like Coca Cola)
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• Electronic components damaged by above mentioned short circuits
How to Fix the Problem: After the liquid spill occurs, immediately turn off your laptop, flip the laptop upside down and leave it that way (to drain the liquid) for at least 20 to 30 minutes. After that time you need to remove any attached leads such as the power unit and battery and let the laptop dry overnight.
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How to Remove Any Remaining Liquid: Remove the keyboard assembly (or have someone do it for you if you can’t) and do some additional cleaning. It helps to use cotton swabs and distilled water to remove any remaining contamination. If you find any corrosive residue (due to your spilled Coke) gently wipe those areas with a cotton swab dampened with WD-40. Dry the area so only a light film of WD-40 remains. While you have the keyboard removed, use a bright light and magnifying lens to further check out the areas where you spilled the liquid.
In the past, it seemed a computer was destroyed after spilling a drink on it but now we know it can be repaired with a little quick action. You are better off though just not drinking anything while working on your computer that way you can avoid the mess and cleanup.
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Guide to Online Backups: Online Backup Software
Why Use a Remote Backup Solution? It’s scalable, economical, recoverable, automatic, off-site. Traditional methods of data backup consist of tapes, CDs and DVDs, ZIP drives and floppies. All of these methods have significant drawbacks. Backups are typically not automatic and even more importantly, someone has to physically move the media, for the data backup, off campus where it must be stored in a safe place. Fortunately, Internet technology has now allowed a far superior technique of backing up: online backup. Online Backup sometimes also referred to as remote backup, has noteworthy advantages over other computer data backup techniques.
Digital assets such as financial records, photos, documents and email are not only important, but irreplaceable. Why risk losing costly data to hard drive failures or virus attacks? Protect your computers with an affordable and reliable solution and know that your information is safe!
Items to look for in an Online Backup Service:
Encryption and Compression – Make sure your information is protected even when it’s “backed up.”
FREE Unlimited Support – Why pay for support when you shouldn’t have to?
Easy to Use – Automatic; Set it and Forget it! – Find a service that runs automatically with little to no administration.
Affordable - Consider the old cliche “You get what you pay for.” Around $6 to $10 a month should find you a solid online backup service.
Continuous Data Backup – Constant backup of all your data throughout the day.
Just think how much work and effort is stored on your system. A hard drive failure or virus infection could wipe out years of information and irreplaceable digital items! Online Backup is an easy to use solution for just pennies a day.
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Wireless Routers – What Types Are Out There?
December 26, 2008 by Mark Spreschau · Comments
There are several classes of hardware for your computer that you may buy and purchasing a Wireless Router for your Internet connection is no different. There are quite a number of types of wireless routers on the market today.
These include the D-Link Xtreme N Gigabit Router, the Linksys Dual-Band Wireless Router, the SMC SMCWGBR14 wireless router, and the Belkin N1 Vision wireless router to name just a few. When you are purchasing a wireless router, you need to be specific on exactly what you’re using it for so that you get the right type of router for the job.
There are folks who only want to connect one or two computers to a network source, so they will usually not 
require a very powerful router compared to people who need to set up a whole network of computers. This knowledge saves you significant amount of time and money on the Wireless Router, the one you do decide to purchase.
There is a range of places where you can get the wireless router you’re looking for. For example, there are all of the Internet web sites that sell routers online plus there are physical stores that you could visit for finding the equipment you’re searching for.
Because there are many types Wireless Routers on the market, there are also many web sites that have reviews of these routers and the way they work and what folks have thought of them who have actually used them or are still are using them.
These reviews are important because there is always a lemon in a product that you want to buy and you want to make sure that you not only get the correct router for the job but one that is reliable and is going to do exactly what you want it to do without any kind of problems involved.
download fame dvd You also want to purchase a Wireless Router from a respectable dealer who will also include some sort of support for you if you do run into problems. If you buy from this type of dealer, you can be assured that you will have a good product due to the fact that not many businesses will offer support if they know things will be going wrong all of the time because that costs them a lot of money.
However, in case they do offer support, then they are really confident that you, the buyer, is going to have minimal trouble. It’s a fact that most people only use this support system for installation and configuration of their routers.
Before you buy a wireless network, do make sure you check out excellent free reports on how to setup a (http://www.wirelessnetworksetup.info/) wireless network, with information and tips about network adapters, Bluetooth, modems, network software and (http://www.wirelessnetworksetup.info/wireless-network-adapters.php) wireless network adapters.
Protect Your Computer with a Firewall
A firewall should be installed on your computer given the rise in numbers of computer hackers, scammers and viruses around the Internet. Defense from malicious data harming your computer is provided by a firewall. Dangerous attacks to your computer can negatively impact you but these can be avoided with firewall protection.
You first need to determine what kind of firewall you need for your computer as there are many available including some from major corporations such as Microsoft. A computer that came installed with the Microsoft XP or Vista operating system is likely to have a firewall already set up and ready to use. Check that it’s turned on and working properly. Purchase your own software if you don’t have one of these newer operating systems. The XP version hasn’t had great reviews so you may still want to buy a separate firewall software if you have Microsoft XP.
You can either visit a store that sells computer software or download a firewall product through the Internet – the most popular products available are Norton, AVG and McAfee. Prices vary depending on sophistication of the software, but there are also plenty of low cost versions available, even from the big name companies. You need to consider a few things prior to installing your firewall. These programs can block certain functions that you need so you need to configure it to allow those programs such as file and printer sharing. Settings can be configured during installation or at a later date using the documentation provided.
Firewalls tend to stop you from going to certain parts of the Internet as well. You should be aware how you connect to your computer as this may happen if you use a local area network or a router. When you have your firewall in place, secured networks in particular are difficult to access. A PC linked to a company network may require specific settings configuration to allow you to connect a firewall to them and the company’s IT department should be able to advise you with this.
Optimize Your PC With the Latest PC Drivers
Computers have several essential components, there’s the hardware and the operating system of course, but there are also small pieces of software called drivers. Drivers are small software applications which allows the hardware to communicate with the rest of the computer. Each piece of hardware in your PC needs a driver to communicate with your PC to function correctly. An example is your video card driver that is able to adjust the fans on the video card when the temperature increases above a certain point to keep your video card running in optimal condition.
Computer drivers are, therefore, absolutely essential for all your devices. It’s essential also to understand how to keep your computer’s drivers up-to-date. You can quickly see if you have outdated or even 
corrupted drivers on your PC by going to the device manager panel on your PC’s properties menu. Devices with red or yellow icons next to them indicate outdated or corrupt drivers. Outdated drivers can reduce your computer’s performance potential and may even cause serious problems.
Another essential concept is different types of drivers your PC may use. Some pieces of hardware in your computer may use Windows drivers, a default set of drivers which were installed when your operating system was installed. Other pieces of hardware, such as your video card and sound card, may use their own set of drivers. Whether you’re using Windows drivers or specific hardware drivers, it’s important to ensure they’re up-to-date, both to optimize your PC and to prevent crashes and other problems.
One of the most important reasons to keep your drivers up-to-date is simply that computer component manufacturing companies, particularly those which make video cards, release new and improved versions of drivers which improve the way the hardware operates. Updating the drivers for your video or sound card often improve the performance of the card and your entire computer, and may even provide you with some new features for the hardware.
Additionally, keeping your drivers up-to-date will help prevent crashes because old and outdated drivers are more likely to become corrupt. When this happens the associated hardware may stop performing correctly and this can often cause your computer to crash while carrying out certain operations.
Finally, if your computer is simply performing sluggishly, or there’s something wrong and your efforts to determine the source of the problem haven’t yet paid off, checking for new versions of the drivers your computer uses can often provide a solution.
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Data Loss Disasters – Fake Flash Drives
December 17, 2008 by Mike White · Comments
Flash memory storage media has become the most popular form of portable storage in the world today notably because of the ease of use and flexibility of USB devices and helped along by both the reliability of USB flash memory and of course the ever increasing amount of data that these devices can now hold, which is a plus point for many users.
This doesn’t explain the huge number of failures noted in recent months, in fact the whole of the data recovery industry seem to be focusing a lot of attention in the USB Memory Stick Recovery sector, but why should good old trustworthy Flash Memory require such devoted attention?
USB storage devices are also dropping in cost all of the time. They are growing in popularity at such a rate that the number of devices shipped in 2007 was double that shipped in 2006. By the end of 2008, annual sales are estimated to be in the region of 300 million shipped units.
With such large numbers of devices actually being shipped and purchased by consumers and increase in the number of failures is in reality inevitable, however the actual level of failure is a cause of concern and is reported to be running far higher than is acceptable.
electric apricot divx So why is it that a storage media famed for its reliability fail in such high numbers? Well in about 98% of cases it is not the Flash memory that fails, in fact, following a failure it is not uncommon that the NAND memory chip within the USB device is found to be in perfect working order.
Part of the problem lies with the consumer to some extent as the demand for ever cheaper products leads to the need for lean and more efficient or cheaper manufacturing requirements. A lot of failed devices are said to originate in the far east and are marketed as generic memory devices. In addition, there is also a large increase in the number of fake devices in the market place.
These fake devices often take advantage of the consumer by reporting much higher storage capacity than is actually available which is very misleading right from the beginning. Another problem here as well is the cost, yes they are cheaper but what are you actually getting for your money? The manufacturing process can only go so far and that only leaves one option, cheaper and substandard components!
The best advice that anyone can give you here is to buy branded devices if the cost is affordable (which it generally is). And also ask your self this question, is the risk of losing all my data really worth the risk of saving a relatively small amount of money?
Mike White is a technology enthusiast with a keen interest in business computing, Data Recovery, Raid Data Recovery consumer electronics and design and technology news and events.
The Motherboard Explained
December 15, 2008 by Herbert Reich · Comments
download 10 000 bc free If you talk about computers, you end up talking about motherboards. Just what is a motherboard? What does “Advanced TCA” mean? What do various motherboards do for your computer? Here are some of the answers to those questions to help you learn more about computers in general and make the best choices when you buy your next one. At its simplest, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board used in many different complex electronic systems, of which personal computers are only one. Motherboards may be called the system board or mainboard, as well. In Apple computers, this part is referred to as the logic board.
However, most of the motherboards made for computers today are made for IBM-compatible computers, since they make up about ninety percent of computer sales around the world. Motherboards provide the electrical connections that other components use to communicate with one another, just like a backplane. However, they also host many subsystems and devices, as well as the computer’s CPU. The average desktop computer has the main memory, processor, graphics and sound cards, and other important components placed on the motherboard. Some components, like peripheral devices and external storage, as well as some sound and graphics cards, are plugged into the motherboard, rather than being integrated into it.
One important part of motherboards is the chipset used to support the microprocessor, which provides the interfaces that support the buses, CPU, and external components. This chipset helps determine what the motherboard is capable of doing. A modern motherboard will include a minimum of a slot or socket to install 
the processor into, slots for memory installation, a chipset that acts as an interface between the main memory, front side bus, and peripheral buses, a clock generator, nonvolatile memory chips, firmware, expansion slots and power connectors. However, many motherboards include a lot more than this, since there are many more demands being made on them all the time.
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All worthwhile, motherboards include connectors for ordinary input devices like USB and PS/2 connectors, parallel connectors, or FireWire connectors. While early computers used only minimal peripheral support, modern computers use a lot of plug in devices, resulting in more connectors and different types of connectors. Heatsinks and fan mounting points are also included, since modern computers produce a quantity of heat that is detrimental to their functioning. It’s important to keep electronics cool at all times, so that they’ll function at their best capacity.
There are several motherboard specifications that depend on the applications they are used for. The ATX format is the most common for computers, with smaller versions of the standard also being produced. Other devices may use other standards, including Advanced TCA or ATCA, which is the new standard for telecom applications. It combines the features offered by proprietary architectures and the Compact PCI standard with high packing density, as well as serviceability, availability and reliability. Phones, PDAs and other electronic devices may have their own unique motherboards.
If you’re in the market for powerful Advanced TCA motherboards, make sure you buy from a respected Advanced TCA manufacturer.
Solving the Data Storage Nightmare
We all have data storage nightmare stories to tell. Oftentimes, it’s students who are victims because of the many files they need to keep handy for their school work. Sometimes businessmen encounter these problems too and find themselves scrambling for compression methods that temporarily increase their disk space. Whoever you are, you are not immune to files getting bigger and bigger and space getting smaller and smaller.
Websites that offer online storage is definitely heaven sent for purposes such as these. One of the many things they offer is flexibility. They give you the option of accessing your files wherever you are, whenever you want. This is extremely important for businessmen who often find themselves working inside a plane on their way to meet with clients half way around the world.
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These services also give you much needed disk space for important documents that you just have to keep. I’m sure that most of us have experienced that annoying little situation when our trusty thumb drives just ran out of space to save the files that we need to have. Having services that give additional disk space for up to 15 Gigabytes is definitely a great help for you and for your projects.
There’s only one drawback of using data transfer systems such as online storage sites. Files can usually handle only a certain amount of uploads and downloads before they get corrupted. A file type is not necessarily the most secure when it comes to transfers over the internet and this could spell disaster for you and for you documents.
Archives help shield your files from corruption caused by excessive transferring. If a certain file type is uploaded and downloaded too many times, putting it in archive form first is a great way to prevent corruption to the original file type. A word document will retain its properties once the archiving software returns it to its normal state.
So what are you waiting for? There are many websites out there that offer zipping and unzipping services for free and you should use them to your benefit. You’ll never know. An ounce of prevention is always better than a pound of cure.
