Archive for June, 2008

All About Your Computers BIOS

Friday, June 27th, 2008

All About Your Computer’s BIOS

Are you confused by the computer BIOS? The BIOS is a fundamental component of any PC and if you really want to get into the guys of a computer, it’s good through understanding what BIOS Is all about.

This article gives you a summary of what BIOS is and how you can play with the basic and advanced options in a typical BIOS configuration.

Definition

First up, let’s just define what the BIOS is. The BIOS stands for the Basic Input-Output System of a PC. It is stored on a BIOS chip on the motherboard and it is the interface between your operating system and the computer’s hardware. All the software actions you make, e.g. click a in Windows XP, are translated into machine instructions which pass through the BIOS and then subsequently to your monitor, graphics card and what not.

The BIOS is a crucial component of a PC If it fails, your PC isn’t going to boot up. I always skip a heartbeat if I see any funny behavior with a PC’s BIOS. Because it spells (almost certainly that is) doom for the computer. Make sure you’re very, very careful if you intend to fiddle around with the BIOS in anyway. Children, don’t do this at home without the supervision of a technie.

Basic Options

Let’s run through the basic options of a BIOS setup. Right after you power up the computer, there is usually a key you can hit (usually F8) which allows you to access the PC‘s BIOS.

In the basic menu in the BIOS, you should see settings for configuring hard drives and boot up options. You can specify which are your primary and secondary hard risk and which will boot up first. You can also specify if the floppy disk or CD Rom boot support before or after the hard disk.

Advanced Options

If you go in to the Advanced Options menu, you can delve into the advanced options for the BIOS configuration. If you’re into overclocking, you can specify a different CPU frequency than the default. But be very careful when you do this

Computer Upgrades New Motherboard Technology Means Increased Speed

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

Computer Upgrades: New Motherboard Technology Means Increased Speed

Are you a power user? By that, I mean someone who must have speed, whatever the cost. Perhaps you have to deal with monster sized files. Maybe you do video editing, or graphics work. Does your passion for a certain game consume you?

If any of this is true for you, then you may want to consider a motherboard upgrade. Recent speed enhancements make this “major surgery” attractive.

Here are the items you’ll be looking to gain: PCI Express slots, SATA II, an extra RAM slot; and for the gamers, SLI or Crossfire capability. Not to mention your new board could handle a dual core chip. All of this is available for under $150.

What kind of increase in speed could you expect? There are some astonishing numbers on this. Your old PCI slot could handle data at 133MB/s. The new PCI Express can deliver 2.5GB/s! Or consider SATA II for such tasks as connecting an external hard drive. That USB II port you’ve relied on has a throughput of 480MB/s. An SATA II gives you 3.0 GB/s!

For gamers, a two-GPU system is the doorway to an almost unbelievable level of realism. The two competing systems, SLI from NVIDIA, and Crossfire from ATX, require SLI or Crossfire ready motherboards. This has gamers everywhere swapping out boards.

Having a motherboard with a socket that accepts dual core chips, like the 775, or AM2, is a dream come true for video editing. Often editors find themselves needing to run more than one program at the same time. Dual core lets them multitask as if they had two machines in one case.

Michael Quarles is the author of the book “Building a PC for Beginners”. His website is http://www.monkeyseemonkeydobooks.com

Working With An Ink Jet Printer

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Working With An Ink Jet Printer

The home notebook has, over the days, become a actual fasten in homes across the world; an indispensable means with which to work, learn, store, communicate, and entertain ourselves. And along with the notebook comes a surplus of accoutrements planned to work in bike with this great recent convenience. One of which, of course, is the imitationer. What was once a large, colossal, and dear entry only found in work buildings is now found in every notebook-owning home in its streamlined, compact counterpart.

In some luggage, result the most appropriate and affordable imitationer can be just as time-consuming and puzzling as purchasing your notebook. But regularly, imitationer owners want from any kind of ink jet imitationer; the use of which sparks an assortment of private experiences. In an shot to influence if an ink jet imitationer is best for you, it is regularly beneficial to call leading the experiences of others.

First and leading, in order to understand the increasing popularity of the ink jet imitationer, it is necessaryed to understand how it factory. Overwhelmingly public in the notebook-with home, the ink jet imitationer


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