Cooling Fans Explained
Written on 19 May 2009 by Conrad
Ever wonder why those small fans inside your computers continue to run even after years of use, thanks the bearing less motor for that which is actually derived from hard drive technology that uses precision motors to spin the fan without any contact points. If you’re technically inclined and are familiar with brush less motors, they’re the same principle with bearing less motors that spins the fans of our computers. They rely not on mechanical bearings but a sleeve bearing that has less friction compared to mechanical bearings that wear out in time. They will break down eventually for they do burn out or some part can fail, but overall, they are capable of serving us for many years. Continue »
Of Heat sinks and Temperature
Written on 19 April 2009 by Conrad
Cooling fans cannot work alone, for before they can blow away the heat produced by the microprocessor, it has to be dissipated and in that game, area is the key. Ever wonder why the heat sink of your processor has fins, area, it increases the surface area at which the cold air can be blown off from thus efficiently cooling your system. The more fins, the more area the heat has to dissipate out of and the better for the fan. Other more expensive after-market cooling systems use heat pipes(pure copper tubes filled with gasses that helps draw heat away from critical parts), exotic heat transfer materials and powerful fans to effectively cool the computer system. Continue »
Aftermarket Cooling Systems
Written on 19 March 2009 by Conrad
Many people see those fancy computer cooling fans in some geek’s computer and shrug them off as mere accessories yet beneath all the fancy looks and anodized aluminum fins are actually a lot of technology to cool off those hot, very hot computer processors. Left without proper cooling, a microprocessor whatever the manufacturer it may come from will fail due to heat stress. Though they are designed to take the heat, they can only do so for a limited time, which is what a cooling fan intends to do. There is however a simple yet irritating fact associated with too much cooling fans, noise. The hum or buzz yu hear with several fans running is quite a nuisance yet after sometime you’ll get used to it. Continue »
Speeding up your boot (part 2)
Written on 8 February 2009 by SherillThere are many ways you can speed up your booting. One simple way is to have your boot drive be a small dedicated drive that only houses Windows, while everything else can be installed in a separate hard disk or partition (just choose a different destination drive during installation of any program). This way, you also don’t need to backup everything in case of a reformat, as your personal files are stored separately from your system files.
You should also unplug any USB drives as they also contribute to slower startups.
Another way is to use MSCONFIG. Simply type msconfig into the “Run” option on your Start Menu, go to the Startup tab, and uncheck all the other unessential programs that Windows loads on startup, which makes your computer boot slower. To know which is important and which is not, look at the Command section to see which program the startup item is related to.
Heat, your PC’s worst Nightmare
Written on 11 January 2009 by Conrad
Heat is the enemy of any computer system or any other electronic device for too much can burn out specific parts rendering them useless and possibly catastrophically to fail and give you a puff of smoke that smells. There may be too much dust that has accumulated within your computer’s casing that it is causing excessive heating wreaking havoc to an otherwise healthy computer system. Get your vacuum and open the casing, removing most of the ones you can to allow reach into all nooks and crannies. Use a special metallic brush that dissipates static electricity or use a wrist strap to prevent damage from static. Use the steel brush to remove stubborn dirt while keeping the vacuum at a safe distance from the motherboard (you may just suck some small part like a vital jumper or worse).
Continue »
Speed that Windows XP boot now!
Written on 11 December 2008 by sayuri
Ever wanted to speed up the booting of your Windows XP OS? Well, look no further as we have just one of the way to do so.
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.
私のモニターが死んだ。
Written on 26 November 2008 by Conrad
イメージ提供: images.google.com.ph
大変、モニターが死んじゃった。 パニックする前に以下を調べてください。
一番初めにあなたが知る必要があるのはあなたのPCの電源があるかどうかです。システムケースのLEDは点灯していますか。電源供給のファンは動いていますか。
壁のコンセントから電気が供給されていますか。 他の電気製品を接続してみてください。 もし電源が入るようでしたら、電気は供給されています。
過電圧保護を使っていますか。もしそうだったら、これをバイパスしてください。 主要電源に接続してください。
PCの電源コードを調べてください。
ほとんどPCはケースの裏にオン、オフスイッチがあります。 オンであることを確認してください。
これら全てのステップは貴方のPCシステム内の電源を調べるためです。 これら全部を調べてもまだ直らないようでしたら、電源管理またはAPMと呼ばれるウィンドウのアプリケーションを調べてください。少しリサーチをして、設定を変更してみてください。設定が間違っているのかもしれません。
Junk Files Explained
Written on 25 November 2008 by Conrad
Image Source:techmixer.com
Usually, people opt more, to buy a new and faster personal computer. They will always think that their computers are already old and too slow. Where in fact, the only problem they had was a large amount of junk files littered across the entire hard drive. Only to find out that after just around 6 months, their computer is already beginning to show signs of speed problems. Buying a new PC will not solve your problem. Junk files are just ordinary files that are left by the program. This is on e major cause of a PC slowing down. And you need not buy an expensive new machine. You can use off the shelf pc system cleaners and junk file removers. You can try out Auslogics BoostSpeed. This has a feature which cleans the entire system and remove the junk files that can eventually crash your PC system.
USB port on the keyboard
Written on 6 October 2008 by Conrad
Image Source: images.google.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 USB port on your keyboard sometime detect or not detect a certain device plugged in. Its true that the USB port place on the keyborad is very convenient fot he user, but this advantage compromises the reliability of the devices plugged in. Basically, the reason why it is inconsistent is because of power shortage. That’s because USB ports not just connects any device to the PC, but it also is the source of power of the plugged in device. It is responsible for delivering electricity to the gadget. Usually, USB ports are self powered and doesnt need extra supply from the CPU to run devices. But some USB ports have no power on their own, specifically a keyboard. Some USB devices require less power to run, those are the things that will most likely run on the USB, but others need a bigger electricity supply thats why it will not run in the port. The only thing to do is to connect this power hungry USB devices to the self powered ports usuall installed in the CPU or at its back portion.
My monitor is Dead!
Written on 29 September 2008 by Conrad
Image Source: images.google.com.ph
Oh my gosh! I see dead monitors! Check these things before you panic.
The first thing to you need to know is whether you have power available to your PC. Are the LED lights on the system case lit and is the power supply fan blowing?
Is there power from your main socket wall? Plug another appliance into it. If it turns on, then you have power there.
Are you using surge protector? Try bypassing this. Try to plug it in the main.
Check on the PC’s power cable.
Most PCs have an On/Off switch at the back of the case. Make sure it is turned on.
All of these steps are to check for Power within your PC sysytem. If somehow these doesnt work, try checking on a certain Windows application called Advanced Power Management or APM. Try to research and tweak a bit. Maybe its because of a nisconfigured setting all along.
