Added by Andrew on January 21, 2009 at 7:30pm —
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So your computer is ready for a video card upgrade (see "Your Power Supply Is Important") and you're not sure which video card to get. If you know you want a nVidia card, your probably considering three cards. The GeForce GTX 260, the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, or the GeForce 280. To make it easier to understand, I'll rank the cards. The regular 260 is the weakest of the three, followed by the 260 Core 216, and the best of the three is the 280. That being said, an overclocked 260 Core 216 will ou…
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Added by Andrew on January 12, 2009 at 8:51am —
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The most important factor to consider when it comes to air cooling is air flow. Generally, you want front to back and bottom to top air flow. Your also going to want the most airflow possible, which means bigger or faster fans. Most systems will have one front fan, one side fan, and one rear fan. Additionally, some cases may have another side fan, more front fans, and even a top fan. Regardless of how many fans you have, you still need to make sure your air flow is unimpeded. The best way to obt…
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Added by Andrew on January 12, 2009 at 5:40am —
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If you tried out Windows 7, you probably didn't want to get rid of XP/Vista. But Windows 7 (like Vista) won't allow you to install two versions of Windows on one partition. The answer, in that case, is to resize your current partition, and creat a new one. This function is unavailable through the Windows 7 setup, which means your going to be using 3rd party software to do it. This is where the problem starts. After you've created your new partition and installed Windows 7, it will work perfectly…
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Added by Andrew on January 11, 2009 at 11:04am —
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Which operating system is the best? Windows, Mac, or Linux? The endless battle still rages on today and the answer will never be agreed upon. "All operating systems suck" - Chris Pirillo. I'd have to agree with that statement. Every OS has its major and minor flaws and no OS will ever be perfect. Each OS has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, Windows is the best OS for gaming, Linux is the best for servers, and Mac is the best for media editing. BUT I WANT THE BEST OF EVERYTHING!!! Well,…
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Added by Andrew on January 11, 2009 at 10:34am —
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Well, Microsoft is finally doing it. They realize vista is bad and are replacing it. Although not yet officially available, I am currently running the beta of Windows 7. Despite preceding thoughts about how it would perform, I was pleasantly surprised. Even though it is a beta, W7 was very compatible with software and I only encountered one major problem driver wise, that being Creative drivers for my Audigy SE caused a blue screen. However, I feel this is Creative's fault because both ATI and R…
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Added by Andrew on January 7, 2009 at 3:30pm —
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Its no secret that mp3 files are not 5.1 encoded. What does that mean for someone using a surround sound system? That means your only going to be using your front two speakers and your subwoofer. How do you get surround sound out of stereo music? The easiest way is to download and install Aud-x. I've only had luck with this program working while using Windows Media Player, so I'd recommend using that. Now, you just have to set Aud-x to surround sound and your music should now play through all yo…
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Added by Andrew on December 30, 2008 at 1:00pm —
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Your all pumped up to play some Call of Duty after a hard days work, and you go to turn on your computer and you get a black screen. Your monitor won't display an image and you can't get into your BIOS. How to you determine which part of your computer has failed? To be able to determine the solution, you first have to understand the problem. For example, a blank image doesn't mean that there is something wrong with your computer, you could be having monitor issues. The process of elimination is…
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Added by Andrew on December 29, 2008 at 7:30pm —
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So, you built your computer a year ago and its not as fast as you thought it was. You don't want to spend any money, but you need to increase your performance. Many people in similar situations turn to overclocking. What is overclocking? Well, overclocking is increasing the front side bus (FSB) of your motherboard. Which, as a result, increases the speed (gHz) that your CPU will run at. However, its not that simple. Increasing the FSB will increase the voltage the CPU needs to operate, but you c…
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Added by Andrew on December 29, 2008 at 11:30am —
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Getting tired of that old video card that can't handle the newest games very well? Ready to invest in a new video card(s) and boost your computer performance? Not so fast. If you built your computer a year or more ago, you may have purchased a power supply with 500 watts or less of power. And if you didn't spend a whole lot, you may have a power supply with less than 35 amps, too. So, OK what's the problem, I thought 500 watts is plenty. Wrong. Unfortunately if you're looking to upgrade to a hig…
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Added by Andrew on December 29, 2008 at 12:30am —
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A chain is only as strong as the weakest link. The components of a computer function as one, similar to the way all the organs of a organism function together as one. To obtain the best performance out of your system, you need to make sure that one component isn't slowing down all the other components. For example, a extreme gaming rig with a Core i7, 3-way SLI, and 4GB of RAM will be sluggish if it is running an IDE hard disk. When I upgraded from a 40GB IDE hard disk to a 320GB SATA hard disk,…
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Added by Andrew on December 29, 2008 at 12:30am —
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