Top 5 computer problems

If you have a PC, then you have most likely suffered from computer problems. Most people have accepted that there PC will eventually crash due to a virus or some massive error. However this is a myth. Your PC is built to last more than a decade. However you must keep well tuned for it to make its third birthday. Nevertheless, most people would rather buy a shiny new PC rather than spend an hour trying to fix computer problems on there 2 year lap top or desktop. After another two year after their purchase lack of maintenance will cause their new PC to lose its performance speed. Whats next you guess, $3000 Windows Vista Ready PC. This is known as the consumer vicious cycle.

Why have does your computer have problems?

Well, the biggest problem that your computer has is its owner. More than 80% of computer problems stem from neglecting to perform simple maintenance task such as cleaning your registry, emptying your cache files and updating software regularly. If these task a perform diligently. You would be reading this article from a five year old machine running on Windows 98 operating system. So, lets take a look at the top five computer problems and how to avoid them.

1. Computer's performance has slowed.

This is the number one complaint from most users. There are several reason why this has occurred. However, most can attributed to lack of maintenance. Fragmented data, corrupted registry, spyware, and load of unnecessary programs and services running can all eat away at your PC speed and performance. Manage your programs and cleaning your registry would easily award you a 30% gain in performance speed. Check out The 4 ways to speed up my computer 

2. Lockup, freezes, and blue screens of death.

This is a another common computer problem. However, this particular issue is a bit more serious; therefore, it needs a few diagnostic steps. In most cases this problems are caused by spyware. To avoid this problem update your anti-spyware program daily. Having the most up to date signatures will help you avoid having a serious spyware problem. However, if you have concluded that your PC is spyware free. You should update your hardware drivers. The computer cannot communicate with various hardware components without an up to date driver. When it cannot find a driver, the CPU locks up. Also, increasing your virtual memory can also help to avoid freezes. Virtual Memory will allow to you get more use out your computer's RAM. Check the resource box for more info on the subject.

3. The computer spontaneously reboots or turn itself off.

This computer problem can be usually attributed to a hardware issue. Usually its the power supply is dying or in most cases a dirty or defective cooling fan. The computer trying to cool itself by automatically switching off. So, if you feel a bit of extra heat coming out the computer. Clean the fan and make sure it running properly. If your fan is functional, check your power supply. Also, you will be surprised how many people fail to make sure the cables are attached tightly. This be the cause of this particular computer problem

4. Strange noises and vibrations.

This is almost totally a hardware issue. You computer is made up of thousands of parts. Its not unheard of that one of them can become unhinged. Overheating can cause expansion of wires and melt some sensitive. High pitch noises such as squealing or whining sounds can be cause electronic components. Whatever the reason, you conduct a small investigation. Remove the case and run the computer to discover the origin of the computer problem. If its not a simple matter such as a loose wire or fan issue, it may be time to call a computer tech.

5. Your home page, default search engine, or web browser has changed itself.

This is also known as "high-jacking". Spyware has been installed on your computer via social networking or from email link. This action has allowed spyware to install a java script into your web browser. The spyware then sends a message to your browser to change your user settings. For example change your home page to another web page.

As you have discovered from reading the article, the most common computer problems can be handle quite easily by simple maintenance of your PC. Next time you are suffering from computer problems, take a few minutes to run some diagnostic test before rushing out to computer technical center claiming your PC is broken. What all you need to do was just make sure it was plugged in. 

Safari

I have been blogging for over a month and in the past few posts it has been my personal experiences. So, i thought of giving my visitors a techie perhaps an useful info that could help 'em a lil bit. While i was searching for some interesting topic to post on my page, a bulb glowed in my mind that why don't i introduce the Apple's browser SAFARI for WINDOWS to my webistors.

I have already said about this browser to my friend but it was under BETA stage. If i had asked him to install and use it, it would have crashed quite a number of times and would have given him the chance to damage me. I don't want that to happen and waited for my time. And here comes my time. APPLE SAFARI stable version has been released.

What really made me to use this browser is that its aesthetics, looking simple and sleek layout in aluminum color. The fonts looks soothing. And about its performance, apple claims that it is 2x faster than IE and Firefox and i don't know how far those stats are true. But compared to IE, it is faster and stands a good competition for Firefox too. Speed is also good when compared to untweaked Firefox. Moreover, it consumes less memory compared to Firefox and slightly higher than IE. Safari takes less time to start when compared to Firefox.

So, I hope this browser might earn a name for itself as other Apple products did. So, why are you waiting for ? Give Apple Safari a try and post in your comments.

Download Safari

Speeding up your computer - Part 1

Well, this has been a great problem for every one of us who use their PC for many hours and complain to their buddies that their computer has slowed down and need to upgrade theirs.

There is no need to get into upgrade kinda stuff unless if you wished to go for a hardware hungry OS like Vista. If you are using Windows XP as your OS, then here are few tips to make it yield a optimum performance continuously.

Speed Start up:

After a few days of buying a PC, after you install some of the softwares which you use, your PC seems to take a lot more time to start than before. The reason for this is these newly installed softwares set themselves to start automatically on system start up and the loading of these programs consumes quite some time thereby increasing the start up time.

So forcing these kind of programs from running automatically during system start up is the only solution for this problem. How could be this done? Read on.....

• Click the START button of your taskbar and click on RUN. [ Shortcut: WINDOWS key + R button ]
  
• Type 'msconfig' [ without quotes ] and press enter
• In the newly opened window, search for the START UP tab and click it
• Under start up tab, you will see a lot of things with check boxes. The ticked or selected checkboxes contain those programs which are set to run on system start up. DESELECT those programs which you donot wish to run automatically and click APPLY and then OK
• Restart your system
  

P.S : This start up menu contains the drivers and other essential programs which are necessary to run your system. If you have no knowledge on what a program is meant for then please do not mess with it.


Delete Temporary Files :

Temporary files are those which gets clustered in your system when you visit a webpage or you click on 'Open' on downloading something from the internet. As days pass by, these temporary files occupy hundreds of MB's of spaces or GB's at times which will degrade your system performance. So to keep your system for optimum performance and to protect your privacy you need to delete these temporary files.

How can this be done?

Well for this, you need to download a software named C Cleaner, formerly known as Crap Cleaner and whats more advantage is that it is FREE.

To download this software, Click here

What you have to do is to download, install and run this software. At the first page of the software click 'Run CCleaner' and there you go your system is free from crap.

Other features of this software are

Registry Cleaner - Delete unwanted registry keys of softwares from the system memory

Start up Manager - Disable unwanted programs from running on system start up. This seems to be a better option than the previously mentioned method.

Uninstall Manager - Uninstall programs that are no longer required or not installed properly. Add or Remove programs from control panel takes a hell of a time to load the installed softwares and this software has them preloaded and you need not to wait.

This software is compatible with Vista too and hence Vista users can also use this software to free up system space.

Other optimization techniques will be posted later. So keep checking.