Computer Hell? Read This.

[lamdac0re]

PART 1

Hello Everyone,

My day-to-day life involves me in working on and maintaining various different PC's and Laptops, and given the help I've received thus far from people here, I thought I would attempt to give something back to the community here.

I have also attached the original document I wrote for this, for future reference.

Also, might be a good idea for the more knowledgeable computer users to add to this, to help others out?

I know there is already a thread called “Because I Love Computers", and some of the information here, may already be contained in that thread. My intention is not to repeat existing information or tread on anyone’s toes.

FULL DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with any hardware or software manufacturers, developers, publishers or websites. Any software mentioned here is purely based on my own experiences. Any damage caused to machines using any of these tools or methods is entirely at your own risk. If you are unsure about ANYTHING feel free to ask me or another experienced computer user. Any software used, must be obtained legally and with permission. I am not taking credit for any software mentioned in this thread. All software mentioned belongs to their owners and publishers.

Information on here primarily relates to Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8 Operating Systems.

Jargon Buster:

Operating System:

The software used to interact and control the computer, for example, Windows 8.

File:

A piece of information or data, such as a Photo, Song, Document,

Folder:

Where collections of files are kept.

Application:

Software designed to allow you to carry out a particular task, such as MS Paint, iTunes or Internet Explorer.

Driver:

A piece of Software, which allows the Operating System to communicate with a piece of hardware or peripheral, for example, a Keyboard or Mouse (peripheral) or Graphics Card (Hardware).

End User:

You or anyone who uses a computer system.

Hard Drive:

Where all of the information (files, folders, applications) is stored / saved. Permanent storage unless deleted. Either Mechanical (Physical Moving Parts) or Solid State (Flash Based Storage).

Memory: (also known as RAM – Random Access Memory)

Temporary location where files, folders and applications are stored when in use.

CPU / Processor:

Central Processing Unit. This is the brains of the computer. Carries out and executes any instructions the Operating System sends. Speed is usually measure in Gigahertz (GHZ) and most have more than 1 core (more than 1 brain).

Graphics Card / GPU:

Processes all the graphical and video information. Some computer systems have DEDICATED Graphics Cards (separate component) or INTEGRATED Graphics Cards (The Processor / CPU processes graphical and video information)

Optical Drive (DVD / CD / Blu-Ray):

Reads data from Optical Media such as DVD’s, CD’s and Blu-Ray discs. Can also write data / information to Optical Media. Also known as ‘Burning’ (Known as ‘Burning’ as the laser inside the drive etches the data onto the disk with a concentrate beam of heat).

Flash Drive: Usually has USB connection. Allows easy transportation of files and folders to different computers.

Motherboard: Where all the physical components connect to one another inside the computer.

Data Sizes: Usually relates to Hard Drive or Flash Drive Storage Capacity.

1 Terabyte (TB / tb) = 1024 Gigabytes (GB/gb)
1 Gigabyte (GB / gb) = 1024 Megabytes (MB / mb)
1 Megabyte (MB / mb) = 1024 Kilobytes (KB / kb)
1 Kilobyte (KB/kb) = 1024 Bytes (B / b)

Attachments:

[lamdac0re]

PART 2

A Brief PC / Laptop Buying Guide

When buying a PC or a Laptop, you need to think about what you’re doing with it before purchasing, as it can be a very expensive purchase. Don’t let salespeople talk you into buying something that you’re never going to use properly. It can be very easy to get caught up in listening to someone waffle on with all their techno-jargon about Giga-hertz, HDMI, RAM, Hard Drive, Storage, Apps, etc, then suddenly find yourself walking out the store not knowing what you’ve just bought, and needing the ‘computer guy’ or family friend ‘who knows about these things’ to come and explain it all to you. Do research first, ask these people for advice before buying.

If you can, take someone with you.

Take your time thinking about what you actually need your computer for and what you’re going to do with it.
If all you’re doing is browsing the internet, watching videos and listening to music, then you’re not going to need something that has a DEDICATED Graphics Card. If, on the other hand, that you’re going to be using the computer for Photograph editing or playing the latest games, then you’ll need a machine that has a DEDICATED Graphics Card.

For day to day use for internet browsing, music + video playback and composing documents, then any laptop or desktop PC between £300 and £550 will be absolutely fine.

Anything below that, you might find it a bit sluggish (by comparison) in about year, and anything above that, you might find that you’re not using it to its full potential and going to waste.

[lamdac0re]

PART 3

General Maintenance

Hardware:

As computers use electricity to operate, they generate heat, in order to release heat, there are fans and air vents located at various places around the machine, where cold air can be sucked in, and where hot air can be expelled. These vents can gather dust and general dirt around them. Take the nozzle of a hoover to these about once a month to keep them as clear as possible. If you’re feeling brave enough, and have a desktop PC, you can remove the side panel from your computer, (MAKE SURE ITS UNPLUGGED!!) Use the nozzle CAREFULLY and hoover any dust from inside your machine.

Avoid putting the nozzle too close to any wires, cables or the motherboard.

See here for some dirty computers:
www.techrepublic.com/photos/dirty-computers-revenge-of-the-dust-bunnies/6064

I WOULD NOT SUGGEST DISMANTLING YOUR LAPTOP UNLESS CONFIDENT YOU CAN PUT BACK TOGETHER.

To clean your monitor / screen, you can use a lint free cloth (similar to cloths you get for cleaning glasses / spectacles with) Starting from the top, wipe horizontally across the monitor, moving down after reaching the other side. I would not suggest using a duster, as these can leave behind little bits of yellow fluff and are a nightmare to remove.
You can then use an alcohol based wipe or smear-free glass polish apply gently with a non-abrasive cloth to polish.

Believe it or not, but the keyboard is probably the most dirtiest and unhygienic part of your computer you’ll ever touch. Don’t believe me? Grab both side of your keyboard with your hands, hold it above your head, look up at it, and shake the keyboard. How much fluff and dirt fell out? Quite a lot? I thought so.

To clean your keyboard, ensure that your pc is either locked or switched off. If you can, get an air duster from your local computer store, attach the straw-like nozzle extension, and aim between the keys. This should force most of it out. Once this is done, get some anti-baterical cleaner, apply a small amount to a jay-cloth, and wipe across your keyboard.

If you’re using a laptop, you can apply another small amount of the cleaner mentioned above, and wipe down the rest of the keyboard surround, as well as the trackpad.

BE VERY CAREFUL AND DON’T LET ANY LIQUID SEEP DOWN BETWEEN THE KEYS AS THIS COULD CAUSE DAMAGE.

You can repeat the process above on your mouse as well.

[lamdac0re]

PART 4

Software:

Over time, when you use your computer, it will slowly get filled with programs and data.
Although this may not directly affect the performance of your computer, it may affect future usage.

One handy tool is CCleaner, available for free from www.piriform.com.

CCleaner is a very powerful maintenance utility, allowing you remove programs, clean junk out from your computer, clean the registry and also allow you to control what starts up when Windows starts.

A general rule of thumb for start-up programs, is keep your anti-virus program on start-up, and your mouse touch pad driver on start-up (usually marked as Synaptic Touch Pad) .

Everything else, generally just slows the start-up procedure down. Obviously, if you have critical applications that you need straightaway, keep them on start-up too. As mentioned, this is just a general guide.

Also, from time to time, you may need to defragment your hard drive. You can either use Windows own defragment tool, or use a third party application. This should really only be done every six months or so, but that depends entirely on how many times your delete and add files to your computer. In order to defragment your hard using the Windows defragment tool, follow the below instructions:

Click Start > Click Administrative Tools > Disk Defrag

Then click “Analyse” > Then click on “ Run” the time that this takes to complete, depends entirely on the size of your hard drive.

It is not recommended you use your computer whilst this is operation is in progress.

Running CCleaner once every two weeks and disk defrag ever few months, should keep everything ticking over quite nicely.

Just remember when installing programs to untick any boxes that want to start the software with start-up. Also untick any boxes that try to install additional software at the same time, such as toolbars for your internet browsers, as the can lead to viruses on your computer.

[lamdac0re]

PART 5

Anti-Virus

Many people have different opinions on what anti-virus software to use to protect your computer.
Usually when buying a computer brand new from a high-street retailer, it will come bundled with Anti-Virus software, that’s free for 30 days or a nominal trial period.
Whilst these are quite good, they generally are quite expensive for an annual subscription and tend to use a lot of your systems power and resources, therefore leaving you to believe that your computer is “ running slow”.

An option would be, use the bundled anti-virus software for the trial run, then remove it, sometimes these require a special uninstall tool, these are easy to obtain, by searching for it online. Norton and McAfee for instance require their own uninstall tool to completely remove it from your system.

A few free anti-virus solutions are AVG Free, AVAST, and Microsoft’s own Security Essentials, my own personal preference is Security Essentials, but try a couple of them, and find out which one you prefer.

It is important that you allow the anti-virus software to carry out its scheduled scan, which you can set from within the program, additionally, it is important to let your anti-virus software update itself when required. Usually, both of the above are done non-intrusively and will only alert you if there’s a problem or issue.

One very useful piece of software is Spybot – Search and Destroy. This can be used alongside your anti-virus software without any issues.
This scans, detects and removes any spyware on your computer, which can lead to viruses and other malicious software being on your machine.
You can obtain this from www.filehippo.com and using the search box at the top of this webpage to find it.

Another line of defence to use on your computer is Malwarebytes, this doesn’t need to be ran constantly your system, and is a very powerful malware removal tool.
Again, this can be obtained from www.filehippo.com.
I would suggest installing this and running a scan once a month, just to ensure that nothing has managed to get past your anti-virus and Spybot.

Your last line of defence should always be your firewall, there is a good firewall built into Windows, which can be accessed by clicking on Start, then Control Panel.

The above may seem like the world is out to get you, it’s not, but the internet is pretty unregulated, and all it takes is clicking on that one link that could cause you problems.

[lamdac0re]

PART 6

Conclusion

That’s pretty much it for computer usage and general maintenance, remember that if you’re ever stuck, there’s probably someone who has encountered the issue you’re facing, so never be afraid to ask for help or assistance.

The computer is never going to bite you.

I’ll leave you with a few handy tips and some useful websites.
Never enter your credit card details on a website unless you completely trust it.

Make your passwords as complex as you can remember.

If you have multiple people using your computer, create different accounts for them, so they can’t delete your data.

If you have a problem with your computer, and have to take it to a repair shop, get quotes from different places.

Remember to back-up your data regularly, either using cloud storage such as SkyDrive, Dropbox, iCloud etc or by using a flash drive or external hard disk drive.

If you can, use surge protected power extension blocks for your pc, monitor and laptop charger, this could save your technology if there is sharp increase in power.


Some useful websites:

www.microsoft.com

www.filehippo.com

www.google.com

www.grisoft.com

www.piriform.com

www.howtogeek.com

www.adobe.com

www.apple.com

[andy01424]

nice post ,,,,but will add on bit on cleaning when you unplug PC hit power button and discharge any stored power,also before going near inside touch the metal chassis,basic grounds any static electricity in your body,static arc grounding will kill components....dust kills PC's and Laptops,basic becomes a thermal blanket,our house generates a lot of dust and i can fill a matchbox with dust
Tip for cleaning fan edges use a cotton bud wetted on your tongue and gently brush against fan blade

Also operating systems :
Most basic are 32 bit they use a max of 4gb of ram[3gb is recommended]......if you want to add ram make sure ram chip is same CL rating or they will clash
64 bit Windows do you need it...if your going to use editing software ie video ,cad etc then you will use the 64 bit side,64 bit windows splits in to 2 parts 64 bit..labled in folder as, Program Files [for 64bit]32 bit will be in Program File x 86,any 32bit programmes ie games etc are auto installed into the 32bit side....memory size is basic 4gb upwards.......

Your Laptop bites the Dust:
Take the HD out and use it as a back up drive and go on ebay and buy an external case for it ...to identify which you have ie sata pata or ide is pretty simple......... look at the connection IDE has a row of pins Pata/Sata drives have 2 connections power and input/output slide on connections...the cases start from around £3 plus P&P
now good bit any info ie documents you have saved pics etc are recoverable or you can format it clean ,but on laptops windows is stored in a locked partition so you will see some of allocated shown as used,drive is still fully usable as a back up drive

have a knackered HD ask for it back if taken to a shop,unscrew main cover and hit the disc with a hammer a few times any data that can be recovered using special software etc wont be able to ,any credit or paypal info could still be recoverable if you dont,it is stored on there

[alvoram]

yes brilliant advice lamd, but I would debate the "DEDICATED" graphics part nowadays, there was a time when that was the case, but these days even people simply browsing the web use a lot of gfx power watching HD videos, playing internet games, etc. Not only that, but some modern GPU's are able to share their processing power with your core CPU for other tasks. Another thing to consider is that usually onboard graphics takes it's RAM from your main system RAM, so for example, if you're buying a system with 2 GB of RAM, it could be that you are only actually able to use 1.5GB of RAM, as your onboard graphics is using the rest. Graphics is the bottle neck in a high percentage of systems out there, and even a very cheap dedicated card can make all the difference IMO.

Of course there are always the motherboards with really good onboard graphics, and dedicated ram for those graphics, but these are the rare exception.

I am aware that this debate is as much a matter of opinion as it is fact though, so each to their own.

[nevermore]

thanks for this.