USEFUL HINTS & TIPSTo Help Keep Your PC Running Smoooothly
If you answered, "Call Restart Computer," bless you...and if the problems are really severe, that's the right
answer. However, there are things you can do to help your machine run faster, run more smoothly, and cause fewer
headaches. Read on...
Imagine trying to read a book if portions of each page were randomly distributed around your home. Going from room to
room looking for page scraps, and then trying to put them in the correct order... It would take a lot longer to read
that book, and you'd enjoy it a lot less. This is exactly what happens to your hard drive over time; bits and pieces of
your files become distributed around the disk, and it causes the PC to run slower and slower as it tries to find all the
pieces and reconstruct them into something logical. This is called "fragmentation." The solution (as you probably
guessed) is "defragmentation."
Luckily, Windows has a built-in Degragmenter; it's not perfect, but it works. It can take anywhere from minutes to hours
to run the Defragmenter, depending on (a) the extent of fragmentation, (b) the size of your hard drive, (c) the amount of
RAM your PC has, and (d) the speed of your CPU (a/k/a "microprocessor"). Hence, don't plan on doing this during a coffee
break. Before running the defragmenter, you'll need to ensure that there are no "unattached" file fragments lurking on
your hard drive; to clean up the drive in preparation for defragmentation, we'll use another Windows untility called
"ScanDisk." Each version of Windows requires slightly different keystrokes, so select yours from the following list:
Now that you've eliminated the detritus on your hard drive, you're finally ready to run the Defragmenter.
Again, each version of Windows requires slightly different keystrokes, so select yours from the following list:
It's a good idea to defragment your hard drive monthly. Mark it on your calendar.
In almost every case, you'll get the biggest "bang for your (PC) buck" by adding more RAM.
Also known as "Battery Backup." Power lines are noisy -- they present you with voltage surges (very hard on
your expensive equipment), voltage sags (ie, "brownouts"), and all matter of noise from motors, fluorescent
lighting, etc. etc. Then there are those dark times when your power simply goes out; sometimes for just a few seconds or
minutes, other times for hours. Surges can be fatal to your equipment, and power outages can destroy your
valuable unsaved data (and sometimes your hard drive itself).
Get yourself a UPS and rest easy; it'll
protect you from surges, and will keep your PC and monitor running for several minutes in the event of a
power outage (long enough for you to decide power's not coming right back and shut down your PC in an
orderly manner...preserving all your data).
Windows 95, 98 and Me are notorious for accumulating garbage; the longer they run, the more garbage they accumulate
both in RAM and on the "temporary storage" areas of your hard drive. The more garbage that's accumulated, the slower
and less stable the PC becomes; the less stable it is, the more likely it is to crash (eg, the "blue screen of death").
Whenever you start or restart your PC, the RAM and temporary disk files are cleaned up "good as new."
How many times have you heard this? If it's not yet religion with you, the obvious answer is "not enough." Chances are,
you're storing your files on your hard drive. Being complex electromechanical devices, hard drives will eventually
fail. Yes, the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) is very long...but it's not infinite, and it's the "mean," not a working minimum.
What would you do if your drive died tomorrow? If you'd been faithfully backing up your files, you'd (1) curse the wretched thing,
(2) call RESTART COMPUTER to replace the drive and reinstall your operating system, and (3) breathe a sigh of relief
because all your valuable files were right there waiting for you on a CD or ZIP. If you hadn't backed up your files, forget about
#3 above...your files are gone! If they're just your favorite recipes, maybe you can dig around and find the old scraps of paper
you copied them from; if those were your business records, you're in trouble. And at that very moment, you'd become a convert --
you're never going to let this happen again.
There are at least three very simple ways to back up all your files:
Santa Fe, NM 984-2646 www.awrr.com/restart
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Highlight your hard drive (usually C:).
Nothing slows down
a PC more than having too little RAM...and most PCs have too little RAM. Unless you have exotic or obsolete
RAM, it'll be surprisingly inexpensive (read: "cheap"). Add at least 128MB...more if you can afford it.
If you're handy, order it from Crucial Technology (www.crucial.com) and install it
yourself; it's quite simple. If you're not comfortable doing this, we can order and install it for you.
It's the kindest thing you'll ever do for your machine.
If you're running 95, 98 or Me, don't leave your machine on overnight and consider restarting it every 4-6 hours (depending on how
hard you're using it). If you're running Windows Me (or even 95 or 98), consider replacing it with Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP
Professional, or even Windows XP Home. Windows 2000 and XP are much more stable operating systems, accumulate virtually
no garbage while running, and almost never crash. If you must leave your PC running for long periods of time,
you absolutely must upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP.
CD-R (Writable CD-ROM) -- the least expensive way to preserve up to 800MB worth of files.
A good CR-RW drive can be had for less than $100, and blank CD-R (write once) disks go for about 25 cents each,
the CD-RW (re-writable) disks for about $1. The drives may be internal or external.
It's so easy to back your files up in this way, you'll wonder why you waited.
ZIP disk -- they're about the size of a floppy, but hold up to 750MB of data (the disks come
in 100, 250 and 750MB sizes, as do the drives themselves; the larger drives can read the smaller disks, but not vice-versa).
The drives may be internal or external, and are similar in cost to CD-RW drives; ZIP disks cost a bit more, but are more flexible.
To make life really easy, there are programs available which will do the task of backup automatically. Just tell the program which
files or folders you want backed up, and how often to do it; then, sit back and relax.