About Technology

How to Buy a Motherboard

by Jason

The motherboard, or mainboard, is what everything connects to. If the CPU is the brains, then this is the heart and soul of the computer. Everything - from the processor to the hard drive, and even the power supply is going to attach to it. So, purchasing the right motherboard is essential.

Here are some buying tips that will help you choose the right board for you:

* Make sure the Socket Type (or processor Interface type) matches that of your chosen CPU. Remember, the Dual and Quad Core Intel CPUs use Socket 775.
* Make sure the Front Side Bus speed matches or exceeds your processors Front Side Bus. This will vary from 500Mhz up to 1333MHz (or higher).
* Take note of the RAM type (DDR, DDR2, DDR3, Dual Channel, etc...) and its speed. Typically, you'll see Ram advertised as DDR2 Dual-Channel 800MH, just make sure the RAM you have matches your motherboards spec.
* Check how much RAM it supports! One of the most frustrating things is buying a motherboard that supports the fastest RAM, but only 2GB of it.
* Take note if it has AGP or PCI-Express (PCIe) slots. AGP is an older, outdated standard. If the motherboard you're thinking of buying doesn't have any PCIe slots, reconsider your purchase.
* If it has PCI-Express, take note of the number of "x16" slots available - if you want to set up an SLI system you'll need at least PCIe x16 slots (you'll also need to make sure the motherboard is SLI compatible).
* Does it have IDE, SATA, or both? Hard Drives generally come with a SATA connector, so you'll want to make sure your motherboard supports this. If you're getting a modern motherboard, make sure it supports SATA-II (also called SATA-300, or SATA 3.0Gb/s).
* Make note of the form factor - ATX, Mini-ATX, Micro-ATX? This will help you select a case later on, especially if you plan on making a small computer.

With these tips in hand, you'll be well on your way to building your very own computer.

About the Author
Building a computer is easy, but building a gaming computer takes research. Our Build a Gaming Computer guide has all the info you need to build your own rig from the ground up.

No Comment | Posted in » cpu, mainboard, motherboard, PCI-Express, processors, ram, SLI, socket    

Outlook 2007 – Time to Understand The Real Performance Issues

by: Dennis Hill

The Top-Line:

The cycle of requiring faster processors and oodles of memory continues with Microsoft Office Professional 2007. Reports of Outlook 2007 exhibiting moderate to severe performance issues have been confirmed when working with large PST and OST files. PST files contain the email messages, contacts, calendar and tasks in previous versions of Outlook, so people who upgrade will retain this legacy in new implementations and inherit the performance problem.

Microsoft has made a patch available to validated users, which vastly improves speed. Nevertheless, minimum hardware configurations for users planning to implement Vista and Office 2007 should contain no less than 2GB of memory. Search for Microsoft Knowledge Base article 932086 from your favorite search engine or on the Microsoft webpage.

The Mid-Line:

As we blogged in January following the demonstration and public release of Vista and Office 2007, performance issues would be broad and severe. Most business computer users had completed migrations to 1GB of memory in 2006 on desktop and laptop systems, but as we noted then, demonstrators at nationwide Microsoft conferences experienced video skipping and other performance glitches using duo-core processors and as much as 3GB of memory.

The essential concern is this – Microsoft software developers have the best equipment, latest processors, and most memory on which to develop their operating systems and applications. While the days of efficient programming have long disappeared on the PC front, end-users who are less equipped experience a see-saw effect between Microsoft and hardware manufacturers (principally Intel Corp and AMD). The see-saw causes one to push the other while consumers are squeezed between them to purchase upgrades.

Even in the early days of raster graphics on mainframe and minicomputers, program coding had to be efficient since memory was a premium and most systems were time-shared among many users. The 32-bit VAX from Digital Equipment Corporation could support hundreds of users in memory as small as 16MB (yes, megabytes, not gigabytes). By comparison today’s microcomputers are thousands of times more powerful, but application software and operating systems are not designed to maximize hardware efficiency. Thus, as new software is introduced like Vista and Office 2007, users are forced to upgrade their hardware – eventually, if not immediately.

Problematically, business users today employ less than 40% of the features found in most application suites, like Microsoft Office. Even fewer dive into operating system features. As in decades past, productivity is found in the entry and retrieval of information for decision-making, but the early adopter obsesses on having the latest and greatest technical gizmo or program on the market regardless.

The Bottom-Line:

Some companies, like Sun Microsystems, offer competing operating systems to the Microsoft Windows environment, as well as alternatives to office application suites. The time may have arrived for companies to consider whether the cost sunk into operating system, application software and hardware upgrades truly offers a measurable return-on-investment, and if keeping up with the Jones is a sound business strategy year-after-year.

source:searchwarp.com

No Comment | Posted in » application, Office 2007, Outlook 2007, processors    

How To Prevent Your Computer From Slowdowns

by: Subhash Kumar

Prevention of your computer from slowdowns effects the performance of your computer, because if your computer working with proper speed, it definitely increases your efficiency and working speed. These are the guidelines given below which will help to maintain your computers speed:

•Fragmented hard drive is the biggest bottlenecks of all. Disk fragmentation can significantly slow down your machine. A common cause of disk fragmentation is a disk that is too full. You should keep 20 percent to 25 percent of your hard disk space free to minimize file fragmentation and to improve the defragmenter’s ability to defrag the disk. Thus, if a disk is too full, move some files off the drive and restart the defragmenter. Once you defrag (defragment) your hard drive, you may notice an immediate and significant increase in system performance.

•Ensure antivirus software is installed, automatically checking for updates, and automatically scanning all incoming files. If there is a virus associated with a new file it will automatically be repaired or quarantined. New viruses come out daily. Because of this, the anti-virus software needs to be configured to automatically updates it's self.

•When Windows boots up, one of the first things it does is check the Fonts folder and then load all of the fonts present so that they will be accessible from whatever applications you are running. The problem is that all of those fonts eat up resources, and they slow down your system, especially on boot up. To over come this problem open my computer, then double-click the Control Panel icon, and then the Fonts folder. The system will display a list of all of the fonts currently installed on your computer. Double-click any font to see examples of it. If it looks like something you will never use, select and then delete it.

•One often-ignored culprit of system slowdown is the machine’s BIOS settings. Slowdowns may occur if the BIOS settings do not match the optimal machine configuration. Often you can improve machine performance by researching your motherboard’s optimal BIOS settings, which may not be the same as the factory defaults.

There is no centralized database of optimal BIOS settings, but you can employ a search engine such as Google or AllTheWeb and use your motherboard name and BIOS as keywords to find the correct settings.

•Read the terms and conditions before signing up for or downloading anything for free on the Internet. Free downloads like Kazaa (music), games, toolbars, and coupons often come with adware or spyware. The terms and conditions of downloads explain adware will be installed on the persons machine in exchange for the free software, music, pizza or whatever. Of course, few people read these terms and conditions.

•Multitasking was a boon for which we had been waiting for years. Suddenly, we could actually set the computer to a task and that task could continue while we did something else, such as work on a document or browse another Web site. Microprocessors, even today's more powerful ones, can only do so much before they begin to bog down. If you have multiple applications open, especially if they are each working on tasks, overall speed will suffer; the multiple tasks will indeed get processed, but that processing will take place more slowly than if any one of the activities were the only one taking place.

•Modern processors generate a lot of heat. That’s why all processors require some sort of cooling element, typically a fan of some type. When the processor temperature goes over spec, the system can slow down or run erratically.

•Install a hardware firewall to keep hackers out. Hackers have automated tools that are looking for any PC connected to the Internet without a firewall. If you are connected to the Internet but don't have a firewall, hackers (criminals) will be in your PC. Beyond stealing your information they can install programs that can damage or slow your PC down. A hardware firewall to protect all the PCs on the local area network provides the best protection. Recommended hardware firewalls are Linksys, Netgear, and D-link.

•Your computer is a complex system comprising many pieces of hardware and software, all of which must work well together for optimum results. Eliminating the bottlenecks that result in system slowdowns is one major step in that process.

If you follow the above prevention, definitely your computer running better. We suggest doing these things yourself or schedule a computer professional to proactively perform and ensure these preventive maintenance steps are in place and working on a monthly basis. This will prevent computer slowdowns.

About the Author:

and Subhash Kumar SEO Manager For more details on Computer Slowdowns visit our http://www.halfvalue.comhttp://www.halfvalue.co.uk websites.

No Comment | Posted in » BIOS, boots up, Multitasking, processors, slowdowns