PC Troubleshooting Guide

Fire Up that Firewall (Windows Vista – Part 2)

“Microsoft and the Windows team have done something a little different with the Vista firewall. They have separated the firewall in to two different interfaces. The default interface is the basic one. At first glance, it looks identical to the Windows XP SP2 firewall. This basic interface is ON by default and loads basic settings for normal user protection. In most cases, this basic setting should work fine. Then they added an Advanced interface for the more security savvy individuals. This Advanced interface gives a greater flexibility over the firewalls settings.”

Don’t get too discouraged by rumors, read the facts first and you might just find out how untrue what they are saying about Windows Vista Firewall. You are going to find it useful after all.

Fire Up that Firewall (Windows Vista – Part 1)

Windows Vista owners have often said that the Windows Vista Firewall….. is a dud. Yes, they say that Windows Vista firewall is usless. It may be just the Vista users having tantrums or it may true, nevertheless, this can have a tremendous effect on Window’s credibility on future products so here are the facts from http://www.toejumper.net/
“No third party software can lay claim to the fact that the Windows Firewall starts its protection once the computer is turned on. Is that important you ask? Absolutely. If a capable malware program could turn itself on at the same time that the computer starts to boot, common sense would dictate the danger of this. Now, knowing the fact that the Vista firewall ‘does’ start at boot, we need to confidently know that it is going to protect from boot.”

Hard Drive not Found

This is a very serious situation for it may be an indicator that the hard drive has crashed and without properly scheduled back-up, you may have just lost all your data. This normally sends you into fits of rage but without a proper back-up strategy to keep you safe from such incidents, you will feel utmost loss due to all the spreadsheets, documents, music files and other data that may have been stored on your hard drive. One of the easiest ways to back-up information is to use the facility provided in your Windows setup that saves files onto other media such as tape drives or optical drives. Read the rest…

Hot Computer – System Shutdown

This may have resulted from the computer’s self-monitoring hardware and software, detecting an abnormally high-temperature situation that can damage the system resulting in a system’s shutdown. It may also be time to get the innards of your computer dusted out for too much dust reduces the efficiency of fans and heat sinks, dust being a very good insulator. The cooling system of the computer normally requires ample heat sinks to properly dissipate heat, clogged with dust, it can result in an over-temperature situation which modern motherboards are designed to protect itself from. Read the rest…

CD/DVD Drive Ate your Disk?

Many have experienced the situation, an optical drive that eats your media unwilling to spit it out. may it be an important document archive you need for work of your expensive operating system installer, you have to get it out, how? Most techies know that these optical drives come with a mechanical fail safe to allow ejection of the drive should the tray become stuck inside or a mechanical belt become broken (older drives). The motor on the ejection tray can also get stuck due to a paperclip or sheet of paper your toddler stuck in the drive when you weren’t looking. Read the rest…

System Won’t ShutDown

This may be an indicator that a hidden application may have hung up, preventing the shutdown code from executing. This can result in a non-shutdown scenario so press, CTRL-ALT-DEL to get at the task manager to see which erring application has stopped responding so you could shut it down manually. Should you fail to find it or the system may have stopped responding all together, you may have to do a reboot through the reset button on your front panel but allow the system to restart and complete the diagnostic phase. After the system has restored proper boot-up, then you can shut down and leave it be. If the condition recurs, then something else may be wrong, say a hard drive that is about to fail or a weak BIOS battery may be resetting the bios settings while you are using it so get it checked to be sure. Read the rest…

Running Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup

When you want to keep your PC running smoothly and fast, regular maintenance is needed. It’s a bit ironic though, that many people overlook two basic tasks that both help your computer speed up is data processing, as well as cleaning up and utilizing hard disk space – Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup.

Both are found in Start > Program Files > Accessories > System Tools. Disk Cleanup usually takes about 15-30 minutes, depending on the files it has to clean up, while Disk Defragmenter takes much longer. Still, it’s recommended that you run both tasks at least once a month, so that your CPU speed will be kept at an optimum, and you maximize your hard disk space by removing any clutter and organizing your files.

Warning Too Hot Too Long – Fryin Board

High end motherboards come with temperature sensors that is set to a specific temperature that warns the user that the processor is overheating, even shutting down the system to prevent heat damage to the processor. The system uses smart fan technology that varies the speed of the fans according to the cooling needs of the computer but in tropical climates, an overclocked system may prove to be too hot to handle so addition of additional fans may be needed to prevent such instances.
Read the rest…

Boosting the booting speed of your Windows XP

Windows XP boot slowing your productivity down? Time to un-slow it then and read the advice from one of the experts below:

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.

Whats Your Windows Version?

Image Source: wellesley.edu

Whenever you upgrade or simply troubleshooting your personal computer, you should always know what version your Windows OS is using. This is important because of so many compatibility issues with drivers and hardwares. You can also cross reference with the support group so you can precisely fix what the problem is without having too much of a hassle. To get the version, you need to turn on your computer and watch out for the Welcome screen. Take note of the version. It may display any of the following, Windows 98, ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. Click the Start menu, click Control Panel, then click System. In the General tab, you should be able to find the version of the current operating system. Then write it down a piece of paper so you can refer to it when you fix on some conflicts in the PC.