COMPUTER TIPS AND TUTORIALS

the following advises are based on many years of experience. They are provided as a free service to our customers and visitors. However, Computer Warehouse is not responsible for any damage as a result of following any of these guides.

If you are building a new system we highly recommend going with a CPU and the motherboard that is of current technology such as, the AMD Athlon 64 or the Intel Pentium 4 (LGA775), in order to maintain an upgrade path. Once you know what form factor you are going to use you must make sure that the motherboard you are going to use supports the bus speed of your processor or higher. For instance, if you were buying an Intel Pentium 4 processor with a 533MHz bus it doesn’t make sense to buy a motherboard that only supports a max bus speed of 400MHz.

The reliability of motherboard as measured by return rates is roughly correlated with the price you pay. As a rule of thumb: the higher the price the better the reliability. We suspect that the manufacturers who have higher profit margins do more extensive testing and quality control before shipping. Therefore, we suggest that you buy a motherboard of the highest price your budget can afford. It is not easy to replace a motherboard, even for professional technicians. Besides, if the motherboard is bad, your whole system is likely to be in jeopardy.

On the other hand, motherboards do not have any moving, consumable parts. If they go bad, most often they do so within a month. If you can take your chances and are willing to learn how to replace a motherboard, the less expensive motherboards are just fine for budget minded buyers.

Buy current but proven technology. Purchasing yesterday’s technology can mean greater difficulty or limitation in future upgrades. For example, it doesn’t make sense to buy a Socket 478 motherboard anymore, since Intel stopped making Socket 478 processors when they reached the 2.4GHz speed. Socket 478 processors are now starting to become rare and their performance is lacking compare to newer Socket LGA 775 versions.

WARNING: Changing a motherboard from one type to another with different BIOS/chipset usually requires reinstallation of your operating system, particularly under Windows 9x. This happens because Windows 9x is designed to be “smart” enough to recognize some hardware; however, once it is set you can’t change it easily. This can be an upgrade nightmare if you are not prepared for it. Be prepared to do a full operating system install/re-install when you change a motherboard!

Regarding chipsets: The chipset is what makes your motherboard work. Different chipsets support different things, and have different integrated features. Chipset companies are usually very competitive, especially third party ones such as nVIDIA, VIA and SiS. In general the newer a chipset is for a given series of processors, the better the performance will be. However, the first few motherboards with a brand new chipset are more likely to have problems then motherboards produced later on. Often these sorts of problems are cleared up through patches, bios updates, and other fixes but it can be disappointing to get the latest, hottest new motherboard on the market and then find out it doesn’t like part x due to a bios problem after you install the board. The saying goes: “If you stay on bleeding edge, then you are likely to bleed.” The best thing to do is to research the motherboard you are interested in at the manufacturer’s website and at popular review website. It usually isn’t a good sign if the motherboard manufacturer does not have at least one bios update available. Also, motherboard manufacturers learn from the mistakes of their rivals and from their own previous mistakes. The third or fourth motherboard that hits the market using a new chipset is less likely to have problems than the first one to hit the market.

To integrate or not to integrate? Integration is a current industry trend. It saves cost and space to integrate as many components onto the motherboard as possible such as video, audio, modem, and network card. Integrated motherboards tend to have limitations on future upgrade ability and expandability. It is not recommended for power users. It may however serve first time and budget-minded buyers and as a second machine as well. The reliability of integrated motherboards have improved significantly in recent years, although the chances for something to go wrong on an integrated motherboard is still higher than a non-integrated one.

Convenience factor: If you are familiar with or have a large installation base with one brand/model of motherboard, staying with the same brand may help you minimize the number of manuals to keep. If nothing else, you want to keep your motherboard manual for as long as possible in the event of a problem with the manufacturer. Motherboard manufacturers now usually offer downloadable versions of their manuals online in order to assists their customers and to provide a way to correct errata. However, some manufacturers have been known to change the features on a motherboard without changing motherboard model. This creates problems later on if you have to download a manual, as the motherboard you have may be different than the revised one that manual is meant for.

If volume matters to you, guess who is by far the number one motherboard manufacturer in sales? Intel. Their volume comes mainly from OEM channels! Asus and Gigabytes/MSI are in second and third places.

1.Remove "Logoff" from the start menu >>

>> You might want to remove the "logoff" buton from the start menu if u never use it.this involves a registry tweak .go to the start menu , click "run" and type in "regedit". this will take u to the registry editor .Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\Explorer.Right click in the right pane and create a new DWORD value .Name this value "StartMenuLogoff".Give it a value of "1" and restart your computer .'Logoff' will no longer be visible in the start menu.

2.Bypass The Rcycle Bin When Deleting Files >>

>> Right-click on the recycle bin and choose 'properties'.In the 'Global' tab, check the box that says"Do not move files to the recycle bin ..."That's it.No more taking out the garbage!

3. The 'Copy To..' And 'Move To..' context options >>

>> To add the 'Copy To..' and 'Move To..' context menu options, create the follwing registry keys: HKEY_CLASSES-ROOT\AllFilesyatemObjects\shellex\contextMenuHandl ers\ Copy To HKEY_CLASSES-ROOT\AllFilesyatemObjects\shellex\contextMenuHandl ers\ Move To
For 'Copy To', set the value to "{C2FBB630-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}", and for 'Move To', set the value to
"{C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}" .Henceforth, when you right-click on a file or folder, above the 'Send To' options,you'll see two new options-"Copy To Folder" and"Move To Folder".
Using this, you can copy or move files or directories to other folders.

4. REmoving the short cut sign >>

>> Shortcut icons have a small curved arrow in the lower-left corner. To remove this arrow:
1. Start the Registry Editor.
2. Locate the keys
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\piffile.
3. Delete the value IsShortcut under both these keys.
4. Close the Registry Editor and restart
Windows.

5. Speed up your modem >>>

>> Even if your modem is working well, the baud rate of your COM port might not allow you to reach top-speeds. To improve the port's speed:
1. Click Start > Settings > Control Panel >
System.
2. Under the Device Manager tab, click the '+' sign next to Ports (COM & LPT).
3. Select the port your modem uses (usually COM2), click Properties, and on the Port Settings tab set the Bits per second to 115200 bps.

6 . Adding items to send to >>

>> Send To is an option available when you right click any file in Windows. You can use this feature not only for copying or moving files, but also for quickly opening files with programs they are not associated with it. For example, you could create a shortcut to Notepad and send any ASCII text file (like .HTM files) to Notepad.
1. Browse to the \Windows\SendTo folder using Windows Explorer.
2. Right-click an empty space on the window and select New > Shortcut.
3. In the Create Shortcut window, use the Browse button to select the program or the directory for the shortcut.
4. Click Next and Finish to create the shortcut.

7. Automatic logon >>

>> If Windows asks you for a user name and password every time it is started, you can have it log on automatically:
1. Open the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Winlogon and add the following String values:
AutoAdminLogon
DefaultPassword
DefaultUserName
2. Double-click on each of them to enter their respective data. Set the value of AutoAdminLogon to 1. Enter your user name and password in the DefaultUserName and DefaultPassword items respectively.

8 .Short cut of Shutdown - Restart >>

>> It is possible to shutdown or restart Windows immediately, without waiting for a confirmation.
1. Right-click on the Desktop and click New > Shortcut.
2. In the Command line box, type 'C:\Windows\rundll.exe user.exe,ExitWindows'.
3. Click Next, name the shortcut Shutdown Windows and click Finish.
Similarly, to create a shortcut to restart, type 'C:\Windows\rundll.exe user.exe,ExitWindowsExec' for the Command line.

9. When keyboard lights aren't enough, hear the sound of locking

>> Sure your keyboard has small lights (LEDs) to indicate if your CAPS, NUM and SCROLL lock keys are on or off. When you're busy typing you might accidentally hit one of these locks which might force you to retype.

Here's how to make your computer beep whenever any of the lock keys change state:

* Go to the Control Panel

* Double click Accessibility Options

* Turn on the ToggleKeys checkbox

* Click OK

10. Renaming Desktop Icons

>> You can easily rename various Desktop (System Icons).

Click Start, Run and enter REGEDIT. Navigate to the following Registry brach:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\CLSID

The Desktop Icons are located in the sub keys as follows:

My Network Places: {208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
My Computer: {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
My Documents: {450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}
Recycle Bin:{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
Default IE Icon: {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}

Double click the Default value in the above keys and enter the text you desire. Right click on the Desktop and select Refresh to see the changes.

To undo the changes, just right click on the Default value and select Delete. Refresh the Desktop to see that things are back to normal.

11. Remotely shutdown a computer

>> Probably the most useful trick of is being able to shut down the computers on a network.For this
create a new shortcut using right-click -> New -> Shortcut and type 'shutdown.exe -i'. Open the newly created shortcut and there you have it. You can shutdown a computer on your network or even schedule a shutdown.
Choose 'Add' and type the IP address or name of a computer on your network.

12. Change Start Menu display speed

>> I didn't bought a brand new Pentium 4 and 1 GB of RAM just to wait until Start Menu shows the menu I hover.
Open the Registry Editor by typing 'regedit' at Run (Start -> Run). Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop and change MenuShowDelay to a smaller value, 50 for example.

13. Customize Internet Explorer title bar

>> You may wonder... this can't be very useful. Well, you can use it to personalize computers if you are a local computer manufacturer, or personalize all the browser in your company with your company's name or your own name.Open Group Policy utility either by selecting it from Administrative Tools or using Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc. In the right side of the window navigate to User Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Internet Explorer Maintenance -> Browser User Interface and double click the 'Browser Title' item in that list. Check 'Customize Title Bars' and input the title you wish.

14. Closing Error Reporting (Win XP)

>> Error reporting, what is it and why does Microsoft want you to have it on? Basically whenever your computer crashes Win XP makes a little report of what went wrong and then sends it to Microsoft so they can improve the Windows Operating System. Generally it sounds like a nice idea, but do you really want to be sending reports about your computer to Microsoft? I personally don't and they allow you to shut off this feature. Here's how you do it:

1. Open your control panel
2. Click on Performance and Maintenance
3. Then click on System
4. Go to the Advance Tab
5. Click on the Error Reporting button at the bottom
6. Select Disable Error Reporting
7. Click the "But notify me when a critical error occurs"
8. Click Ok Twice.

You can leave out step 7, but I like my operating system to tell me when its had a major error, mainly because I can look up the cause of the error and hopefully find a solution to it on the net or at Microsoft. There you have it, error reporting to Microsoft is off and you don't have to worry about sending a report to Bill Gates.

Hope these tricks helps u in some way .

Finally, just wait til the process is done and you will have successfully burned an image to a cd.

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