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    #76
    Very comprehensive post. Great going. I didn't have time to read every single post but I have a few things to add as I have been doing computer hardware and software since 1986.
    It started out during college and I needed help on the computer and this kid who thinks he knew it all wouldn't help me. Thus I swear to be better and learn every thing I could about computers. So here I am, on the side job and I have yet to see any problem that I could not solve.
    Here are some tips that I use myself and never gotten my computer hacked nor infected by any virus.

    1) If your computer crash regularly and you have had it for at least one year and you are the kind of person that enjoy the fresh air with the windows open. Do this first with your computer OFF and unplugged. Take the side panel off and a soft paint brush and brush some dust off, take a vacuum cleaner and take those dust out. Then use compressed air or air can, pray the computer out then vacuum again. When spraying the fans, make sure you jam the fans with a screwdriver to avoid it from super spinning and ruin the bearings. The CPU fan and front fan of your case is the most important. Air flow is the most important thing in your hardware setup if you want stability and longevity. Cable management is also very important as bad cable management can impede air flow. Most brand name computers now days gear toward a quiet PC thus they only put one big fan to keep the air flowing. Thus keep it clean is important from frequent crashing.

    2) If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7. Never ever, ever, ever clean your registry. Messing with the registry can hurt your computer more than help. The way that Windows are designed now days, they don't run all the registry entries just those that you program to boot at first start. Thus the bog down is never the registry. The OS maintain itself in this regard. The only exception would be a virus or malware that gets into your registry, in this case, it's hard to clean as it mimic system files and when you remove the registry keys, you actually also remove system file functions rendering your computer malfunction also. The way to combat this is full system, especially the OS backup. The restore functions is not very useful some times as when you get a virus, it gets backup into your restore file as well. So once you clean your computer, the restore files can restore that same virus. Thus full system backup before the virus and if you get infected wipe the computer and do a full system restore.

    3) Windows Vista and 7 is programmed to maintain itself. You can test this by leaving your computer on overnight and the next morning your computer runs a little better b/c it auto defrag at night and clean itself some times. So the only clean up you need to do is to delete your download or unwanted files.

    4) System speed: Now days most computer has at least 4GB of RAM. If you have this amount RAM, I usually shut down the virtual memory so the system just use exclusively hardware RAM. Virtual memory is from the hard drive thus make the system slower and less responsive when opening the programs. Minimize installation of any software that you don't need. This will minimize the boot up time. Whenever I install a new hardware, I never use the disc for drivers, I go to the manufacturer's website and download the lastest drivers and software. If the software is not essential to the hardware function, I don't even install it as I let Windows software use it. When in doubt, don't click and install any thing you don't know, then you minimize the infection and speed reduction.

    5) Antivirus: This is some thing that a lot of home users make lots of mistake in. You don't know how many people come to me with the so call I got a virus or spy ware on my computer and I cannot do this or that. My system is very slow compare to before. First thing I always ask is what antivirus software do you use? The answers that I almost always get is Norton or McAffee and I paid $60 or more for it. This is where I will tell you FREE is better. Antivir, Avast, and AVG are some of the best antivirus. I use Firefox with adblocker plus. Use a browser that less people use will minimize your chance of getting malware b/c they less likely design some thing to mess up the minority of the users. Also, who use their real names on the internet now days. No one. They sell your information no matter what they say. Trust no one.

    6) Passwords: Change it regularly and use upper and lower cases, use both letters and numbers and other weird characters if you can. If you think that your email has been hacked to send out their advertisement, first thing you do is check your sent box to see if you sent out a whole bunch of emails to every one in your address book. If this happens, change your password right away. You will find that changing your password will most of the time solve this problem.

    I have much information but if you guys pick a topic that you want me to help on, I could do it. There's so much to learn and yet little room to put it on. So post your problems and interest, and I'll write more.
    I have a quad core i7 920 running at 4Ghz, 24 GB of RAM as I do lots of video editing and real games rendering, 24TB or hard drive space as I don't use DVD any more. When I watch a movie I watch full blown HD only. I have a sound card that I mod myself with high quality Oamps for high quality sound. One more thing, do not let the salesman tell you that this computer is better b/c of the digital sound. Keep in mind that the human ears cannot hear digital sounds. We can only hear analog sound. That is why they call the amps digital decoders. They decoder digital signals to analog sounds. You will find that most of the salesman cannot explain their statement if you ask further. And for god sake, do not spend a fortune on video cards as most video stuffs are 2D and the newer games and console base so you don't need a $600 video card. The only advantage that PC games has over consoles now days are the higher resolution. Bigger monitors aren't always better b/c the cheap big monitor max resolution is 1920X1080. It's hard to pay less for a higher resolution monitor. I clean out my computer every month as I use water cooling on my processor and the radiator gets clogged with dirt fast.
    Last edited by Bad_dude; 02-20-2012, 03:35 PM.

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      #77
      Originally posted by Bad_dude View Post


      2) If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7. Never ever, ever, ever clean your registry. Messing with the registry can hurt your computer more than help. The way that Windows are designed now days, they don't run all the registry entries just those that you program to boot at first start. Thus the bog down is never the registry. The OS maintain itself in this regard. The only exception would be a virus or malware that gets into your registry, in this case, it's hard to clean as it mimic system files and when you remove the registry keys, you actually also remove system file functions rendering your computer malfunction also. The way to combat this is full system, especially the OS backup. The restore functions is not very useful some times as when you get a virus, it gets backup into your restore file as well. So once you clean your computer, the restore files can restore that same virus. Thus full system backup before the virus and if you get infected wipe the computer and do a full system restore.

      3) Windows Vista and 7 is programmed to maintain itself. You can test this by leaving your computer on overnight and the next morning your computer runs a little better b/c it auto defrag at night and clean itself some times. So the only clean up you need to do is to delete your download or unwanted files.
      for real? maybe thats why mine randomly crashes. I run Auslogic's registry cleaner like once a a week.

      Comment


        #78
        Originally posted by Leung View Post
        for real? maybe thats why mine randomly crashes. I run Auslogic's registry cleaner like once a a week.
        Registry cleaners are a bit like snake oil, they don't actually do anything besides remove dead links which your computer already ignores.
        Fix your Computer!

        Originally posted by MikeW
        D, I'm a fanciful motherfucker. My ish is clean, quick, plush, mature and sophisticated.

        ┌─┐
        ┴─┴
        ಠ_ರೃ

        Comment


          #79
          I run registry cleaner when i remember and I have never had a problem.

          Comment


            #80
            Originally posted by Ralphie View Post
            I run registry cleaner when i remember and I have never had a problem.
            It could be b/c you have not use any of the program that the registry cleaner removed. I have seen it happens often. Windows firewall and defender some times rendered inactive and could not start when cleaning the registry.

            Comment


              #81
              Originally posted by Masamune View Post
              Registry cleaners are a bit like snake oil, they don't actually do anything besides remove dead links which your computer already ignores.
              well it turned out to be a bad power supply.

              Comment


                #82
                Ah-HA! It's always the power supply! But not lupus, it's never lupus.
                Fix your Computer!

                Originally posted by MikeW
                D, I'm a fanciful motherfucker. My ish is clean, quick, plush, mature and sophisticated.

                ┌─┐
                ┴─┴
                ಠ_ರೃ

                Comment

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