Tech Troupe

Since writing the first article, about the computer monitor not coming on with the computer, I have come to the realization that the problem with RAM is not ALWAYS the solution (although in my experience it is about 90% of the time). The problems associated with the monitor not coming on could be numerous, so I’ll just go over a couple of them here.

First, it could be your video card. If you have a video card AND on-board graphics the try switching to your onboard graphics to see if your monitor will come on. The problem may be the video is NOT going through your card at all! Simply switch your video cable to the on-board socket (VGA or DVI). Another thing to try is to simply remove your video card and then boot up the computer. The on-board video should be the default video output when your third-party card is removed. If that solves the problem then you know something is most likely wrong with your video card.

(Note: Be sure to check your BIOS settings to make sure that the computer is trying to “see” the AGP, PCI or PCI-Express slot for video output and it’s NOT set to on-board video ONLY)

If you don’t have a video card, or you know that the video card is working properly then there are some more things you can try, like checking your hard drive. Yes, a bad hard drive can wreak havoc on a computer system, especially if it’s “shorting out”. The easiest way to check is to simply remove the hard drive and boot up the computer. The monitor should still come on to give your the “operating system not found” screen. Of course if you now see this screen then the monitor came on and there’s something wrong with your hard drive. I suggest getting a new one, IMMEDIATELY!

Now that you know that a bad hard drive can ruin a system, you should imply that other cards and adapters can as well. If you unplugged the hard drive and still have nothing, then you should begin to take out other non-essential items such as sound cards and USB cards and SATA cards, basically all PCI cards! You can even unplug your CD or DVD drives and floppy drives in order to strip it down the bare essentials; power supply, motherboard and video card. If you have your computer stripped down to those three things (or two, if your don’t have a video card) and the monitor still won’t come on then there’s only one thing left to try, a new power supply.

If you can get your hands on a friends power supply then you can check it yourself, otherwise you may need to bring it in to a computer repair shop and have it tested. Most shops have a small tool that they use to see if a PSU is good or not. If you find out that the power supply is, in fact, good then you know what the problem is, right? Yes, find yourself a new motherboard. If your computer is a few years old then this might be a good opportunity to upgrade with a new motherboard, processor and RAM, especially if you have a board with a socket that is no longer being made or hard to find.

Choosing the right laptop can confusing since there are many, many choices out there. It helps to try narrowing your search to a few basic elements; screen size, cpu and RAM and then finally price.

Laptop screens come in a wide variety of screen sizes ranging from 11″ all the way to 19″. Find out what you want to use the laptop for before deciding on the screen size. If you want to watch movies and play games then you would want a bigger screen. Be careful, though, because a larger screen means a heavier laptop. If you plan on hauling the laptop around to many different places (i.e. school) then you may want to factor in the weight that a large screen brings. On the other hand, a smaller screen will provide ease of portability but not a great entertainment tool. If you’re not sure what screen size you want then stick to somewhere in the middle (i.e. 15″ – 17″).

Once you’ve narrowed down the screen size you’ll want to make sure you have the power capabilities that you want. The CPU and RAM provide the computing power inside of a laptop and will determine the overall speed of the notebook. As I’m writing this, a dual core processor should be the minimum as well as 1GB of RAM. The Pentium dual-core and Intel’s Core Duo are somewhat out-dated processors. Try to stick with Intel’s Core2 Duo or AMD’s X2 Series CPUs. And as stated before, 1GB (gigabyte) of RAM should be the minimum amount of memory. The more RAM you can get the better!

Once you have narrowed down those features, the rest is up to your pocketbook. I would say 99% of the time, you get what you pay for. There is one exception to this rule for buying laptops; Acer brand laptops tend to run cheaper than most but still retain relatively high quality. When was the last time you saw an advertisement for Acer? You haven’t? That’s because they do very little advertising and let word-of-mouth do the selling, while you reap the benifits of their cheaper prices. Be wary of other brands you haven’t heard of, though. Getting replacement parts or service from other off-brands may be near impossible. Do some reasearch before you buy an off-brand laptop (other than Acer, of course).

I have been asked by many, many people “Can you make my computer faster?”. My answer is always an astounding “Yes! But you might not be able to afford it”.

Before you go buying things to make it faster make sure to try these basics.

1. Delete all unnecessary files and folders. I reccommend using ccleaner for all your cleaning needs as it deletes temp files, cookies and history. You can always use the registry cleaner function too as it deletes unncessary registry entries.

2. Check for system errors.

Instructions on how to check for errors: Double-click My Computer, right-click a local hard drive “C:”, then left-click on properties, click the tools tab and under error-checking click “Check Now”. Make sure to check “Automatically fix file system errors” then click “Start”.  Now next time you reboot your computer it will check and fix any errors you may have.

3.  Defrag your hard drive. I’m still amazed that people still don’t know how to use Windows defrag program even though it has been a part of Windows since Windows 95!

Instructions on how to defrag your computer: Double-click My Computer, right-click a local hard drive (usually “C:” is fine), then left-click on properties, click the tools tab and finally click the defragment now button. The program should open and then all you need to do is highlight one of the hard drives and click “Defragment” to begin.

If you have NEVER done any of these steps before then your computer should be much faster now. If you have already done these things then you may want to consider some more drastic changes such as adding RAM or upgrading your motherboard and processor.

The best computer backup program is still Norton Ghost. I still use Norton Ghost 2003 for all my backing up and disk imaging. Basically Norton Ghost can backup your entire hard drive to an image file, kind of like taking a snapshot of your system. You can put that image file on a DVD/R or another hard drive (internal or external) for safe keeping.

If you ever run into trouble, like your hard drive crashing or OS failure, you can simply run the handy Ghost diskette or CD and copy your backed up image file onto a new hard drive. It doesn’t take that long, and when you’re done you have a working operating system and all your files are back again (at least the ones that were there when you created the image file)!!

Norton Ghost can also be used for data recovery from a bad hard drive. Simply go into the options menu and check to ignore errors while imaging. The result might not be all the data you need to run the operating system, but it should give you at least some readable data.

It’s always a good idea to get your own domain name (and be solely in charge of it) instead of using “free” hosts names (i.e. geocities). The Internet has become a large marketplace that offers potential gains with every website that comes along. Why not become part of it, instead of helping others gain from it (i.e. geocities)

Search engine traffic is the best website traffic you can get. Using your own domain will help you achieve high rankings in search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Using a “free” host name is usually frowned upon by search engines, therefore eliminating any possibility of potential gains.

It’s real easy getting your own domain name these days. Due to competition, the price has dropped considerably since the days of $70 names. Some good places to go are namecheap.com and godaddy.com. They provide the best bang for your buck, so to speak. Be careful about searching for names at Network Solutions because they “hold” whatever domain name you search for so you can only register it with them. It’s an unseemly practice since they charge 3 times as much as others do for domain registration.

Once you have your domain name then you need to get hosting somewhere. I personally use 1 and 1 for hosting of this blog, and would recommend it to anyone. They are cheap and easy to use.

If you are using 1 and 1 for hosting and have any questions, feel free to ask via comments or email me at ryan—at—techtroupe.com (replace —at— with @ (used to prevent spam))

So, your computer doesn’t work anymore? Got a bad motherboard? Fried the processor? Looking to upgrade? You don’t need to go out and buy a whole new computer. If you can build your own, or you know of someone that can build one for you, you can save a bunch of money.

Everything depends on how old your current computer is and which parts are still usable. If your computer case can hold an ATX or microATX motherboard then you will be able to use the same case, just replace the parts inside. I am currently using an old eMachines case to hold my Pentium4 processor and motherboard. I’m also using the DVD burner from my old computer. The only things I needed to buy was the processor, motherboard, RAM and power supply. At the time I bought everything it only cost me about $230.

Pricing everything currently online you should be able to get a real nice computer (processor, RAM , motherboard, power supply and DVD burner) for under $400. That’s, of course, assuming you don’t go wild on an expensive motherboard or quad-core processor. For most people who aren’t gamers you should be able to keep it well under $400.

The only thing left is the operating system; XP or Vista? If you already have a copy of XP then go ahead and stay with that, it’s much better than Vista, in my opinion. If you have to buy an operating system then go ahead and get Vista because XP support is going to end sometime next year.

Although buying your own copy of Windows Vista will cost more now, it will save you in the future when you decide to upgrade again. Any brand name computer that you buy from the store including Dell, HP, eMachines, Sony, etc… will have Vista loaded on it but YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TRANSFER THE OPERATING SYSTEM TO A NEW COMPUTER. So, when THAT computer goes bad you’re stuck without an operating system again.

My suggestion is to do some research and price out everything that you need/want and compare that to brand name computers. Remember that when building your own you get to choose what brand of components go into your computer (i.e. Seagate hard drive, Kingston RAM, Gigabyte motherboard, and so on) If the pricing is comparable between the two then I would suggest building your own. You have more control over everything, including replacing parts easier.

Most people tend to buy printers based solely on price. Unfortunately buying a printer like that will cost you a LOT MORE in the long run due to inflated ink prices.

What I suggest to my clients is to work backwards and find cheap ink cartridges, then find the printer that they go in. For example, I recently purchased a Brother DCP-350c printer because their ink is only about $7 per cartridge and they have separate cartridges for each color (red, yellow, blue). If you’re like most people you’ll tend to run out of one color before the other two, then left without the ability to print in that color.

I got my Brother printer for about $90 online and I absolutely love it. It prints, scans, copies and prints photos beautifully. It was well worth the extra money up front. So, next time you’re in the market for a new printer try working “backwards” by finding the cheapest ink first. You can then thank me later.

I have has experience with many different laptops over the years. There are two brands that are far and above the others in terms of quality; Toshiba and Sony.

Toshiba has long been a leader of quality when it comes to electronics and their laptops are no different. They’re not going to “wow” you with looks but it’s what inside that counts, right? They are smartly built with an emphasis on today’s technology, unlike Dell whose sole emphasis is keeping the price down

Sony is another brand that screams quality. The Sony VAIO notebooks are some of the best in the business. Unlike Toshiba, Sony’s laptops look great and will definately turn heads (of course that’s not always a good thing).

 If I had to choose between the two I would go with Toshiba because I have no need for flash and looks, just speed, power and reliability.

Laptops I would NEVER buy because of the vast amount of problems in the past include: Dell, Compaq/HP and Gateway brands. All three laptop makers seem to sacrifice quality for lower cost during mass production. I have encountered many, many problems with these laptops over the years and I will avoid them unconditionally.

I am writing this blog entry because I just got done installing Windows XP on my IBM Thinkpad a21m laptop which has no CD drive. Why does it have no CD drive? Because it did not come with one and I don’t feel like shelling out $20 – $50 for a used one off eBay.

Actually, I bought two Thinkpad a21m laptops off of eBay locked with the supervisor password, and the guy didn’t remember it. I did get them cheap but I had to read the 24rf08 eeprom in order to retrieve the password, which I did sucessfully. Luckily I only had to read one because the other was exactly the same.

On to the business at hand. No matter which version you try you will NEED a laptop hard drive adapter (2.5″ to 3.5″ IDE adapter). You can find these cheap on eBay, just look around for while in order to find the cheapest.

This is a picture of the one I have.

You will also need a working desktop computer with a working CD ROM and a working Windows XP installation disk.

The first way I suggest to try is also the easiest (lucky you!).

Hook up your laptop hard drive as a slave drive to your desktop using the adapter (pictured above).

Boot into Windows on your desktop and make sure it can see your laptop hard drive. It’s probably best to format your laptop hard drive before you do anything. It shouldn’t matter which file system to use; FAT32 or NTFS.

Next, insert your XP installation CD and close any windows that pop up. Go to your Start menu and select Run to open the Run prompt.

Now enter:

D:\I386\winnt32 /syspart:E: /tempdrive:E: /makelocalsource /noreboot

Make note that D: = my CD drive and E: = my laptop hard drive. You may need to change these if your system is setup differently.

Let’s break it down. D:\I386\winnt32 starts the XP installer from the CD drive. The /syspart:E: switch tells the installation to make E: drive the system drive.  The /tempdrive:E: switch directs the temporary files to the drive specified by the switch.  The /makelocalsource switch tells XP to copy all the source files to the drive so you don’t need the CD anymore. And finally the /noreboot switch tells the system to not reboot after the files have been copied.

Once that is completed then you can take the laptop hard drive and put it back into your laptop. When you boot it up Windows XP should begin installing automatically!! See? Quick and painless!! Unless it doesn’t work, then you need to move on to the next section.

Try #2, next easiest way to install XP with no CD drive.

This is assuming you have a floppy drive on the laptop, if you do not then proceed to Try #3.

Take your laptop hard drive and make it a slave drive on your desktop, again.

Format it, again. This time you need to format it in FAT32.

Now simply copy the i386 folder from your XP installation disk to your laptop hard drive.

Put the hard drive back into the laptop. Boot the laptop up using a floppy boot disk (Windows 98 preferably). Bootdisk.com has them downloadable for free. If the boot disk doesn’t contain smartdrv.exe then you need to download it here and put it on your floppy (you’ll thank me later).

Once booted with the floppy enter “smartdrv.exe” (without the quotes) at the A: prompt to load smart drive (makes files copy way, way faster). Now enter “sys C:” to make the partition bootable. Now change into the i386 folder and type “winnt” to begin XP installation. That’s it!

For those DOS illiterate type “C:” at the A: prompt to get to the hard drive, then type “cd i386″ to get into the i386 folder. If done correctly the prompt should read “C:\i386>” then just type “winnt” to start XP.

If all goes well then Windows should completely install itself. If not, then there’s one more thing to try.

Try #3: The hardest way to install XP with no CD drive.

Maybe not the hardest but sure is the most time consuming. You will need a Windows 98 or Windows 98SE installation disk. Windows Me might work too, I’m not sure. If you simply can’t find one anywhere then check with your local computer shop as they almost certainly have a copy and may give you one for a dollar or two.

Put your laptop hard drive back into the dekstop computer as a primary drive and disconnect all other hard drives!

Boot up to the Windows 98 disk and load it, completely. You don’t need to install drivers or anything just hit cancel when asked to do so. Just make sure you can get to the desktop.

Once 98 is loaded then put the hard drive back to a slave drive and boot up to XP on your dekstop. Again copy the i386 folder to your laptop hard drive then put it back into the laptop.

Now boot into Windows 98 on your laptop and navigate to the i386 folder. Find winnt32.exe (not winnt.exe) and run it. XP should begin to install.

When asked to install to the Windows folder just say yes! Windows 98 is not needed anymore at this point so you can allow XP to copy over anything it wants.

Conclusion

I have tried all three steps myself at one point or another with complete success …… eventually. Some laptops are cooperative, some are not.

CD ROMs and DVD drives are overrated in my opinion. Once XP is set up you can install anything you need from a CD through your desktop via the network. Simply share the CD drive from your desktop and it should be accessible to the laptop via your local network. I have installed everything from MS Office to printer drivers through the networked CD. Everthing else you can get off the internet. I have absolutely no need for any kind of optical drive and I won’t be bullied into buying one. There, I said it.

P.S. For the record I do not like installing XP over the network because something alsways seems to go wrong. If you want to try to install over a network then there are plenty of other sites trying to explain to you how to do that. I just don’t like it.

eBay can be magical place if you want it to be. For most people eBay can be overwhelming when searching for deals.

I was recently in the market for a laptop that I was going to buy for a friend. She didn’t want to spend over $200. As of right now there are 19,000+ laptops under that category on eBay. Of those, there are 10,000+ under $200!! No way was I going to search through all 10,000 laptops in order to find one that I liked. Odds are that the ones that are in my price range now are going to spike in the last 30 minutes of the auction anyway.

So, here are some things I tried in order to find a deal on eBay.

First, I set my standards based on the price I was willing to pay. I figure for $200 I should be able to get a low Pentium 4 or a high Pentium III with everything, except the battery (buying a laptop on eBay with a good battery is extremely rare).

Once I set my standard, I began to search for misspelled auctions; i.e. labtop -laptop, “note book” -notebook, lap top -laptop and so on. I didn’t find anything worth while this time.

Next, I tried searching auctions that are close to ending so that I might try to snipe one at the last second. Again, no luck.

Finally, I tried searching the Buy it Now’s, starting at the most recently listed. There were some pretty good deals but none that really felt was worth it. I decided to take a break for a few hours and try again later that night. I later searched again and found a Pentium III, 1Ghz with 256mb RAM, DVD player, 40Gb hard drive and a bad battery for $99. This was well within my price range and it was listed only 2 hours prior, so I bought it.

The laptop I bought turned out to be a great deal as everything worked well. I later bought a battery for $50 to complete the laptop for my friend. It’s a nice Pentium III laptop for about $150, not too bad!

The moral of this story is to think outside the box and be patient. There are some people who are willing to sacrifice more money because they need it NOW! Items get listed all the time on eBay, if you don’t see what you want then be patient and wait it out until a good deal becomes available.