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Protecting Your PC From Excessive Heat
Overheating is your computer’s biggest enemy; too much heat can fry its delicate circuitry and chips and send you shopping for a brand new system. Just as you need to keep your car engine cool to prevent damage, you must do the same for the delicate mechanisms beneath the hood of your PC. Its fast spinning hard drives and quick microprocessors packed inside cramped quarters can lead to dangerous overheating and potential equipment damage. In fact, some high-performance hard disks can produce an astonishing amount of heat. If this heat is not safely dissipated, it can cause serious performance problems or even damage the hard disk. Because today’s high-performance computers generate a great deal of heat - as much as 175 watts for the typical full-sized desktop - computers come with built-in protections against overheating such as fans and heatsinks. We’ll take a look at these protections and then follow up with some easy-to-implement steps you can take to give your computer additional protection against heat damage.
Major Causes of Overheating
Among the primary causes of computer overheating are the PC’s components themselves, poorly ventilated environment, direct sunlight and dust. Dust build-up can insulate components, compromise their ability to cool off, and cause them to burn up. Unfortunately, in addition to cooling your PC, your computer’s internal cooling fans also manage to suck a fair amount of the dust that has settled into the immediate environment. A big pile of dust of can also attract moisture, causing a deadly combination of liquid and filth that can corrode the metal parts inside your computer. If you keep your PC in a climate-controlled environment, you don’t have much to worry about. All you need to do is conduct a thorough annual dusting and cleaning to protect your PC against dust buildup. If you’re in a heavily trafficked area such as an office, workshop or living room, it pays to dust and clean every few months. It’s best to keep the computer up off the floor so dust and dirt from the floor or carpet isn’t pulled in. This is especially critical if you have pets with hair, fur or feathers in the area.
Internal Cooling Systems - Fans and Heatsinks
Currently, most CPU cooling systems include fans and a heatsink. Additionally, your computer’s internal power supply provides primary ventilation by flushing warm air out of the cramped computer case. Computer cases and equipment enclosures often use a single fan or group of fans to exhaust hot air. A cooling fan’s performance is defined by its physical size, type of support bearings, fan speed, and propeller blade design performance and a overall CFM (cubic feet per minute) rating. The higher the CFM the better the airflow, which results in better heat convection. A heatsink is a device that is attached to a processor chip to keep it from overheating by absorbing its heat and dissipating it into the air. In Intel computers, the heatsink is located either on top of the processor or on the side. When you buy a computer or a separate microprocessor, the heatsink comes with it. Most heatsinks are aluminum and have "fins" that extend from the base. Heatsinks comprised of copper-based alloys provide improved thermal conductivity, but are more expensive.
The Cooling Properties of Power Supplies
A typical computer power supply has a fan which blows air out of the back of the power supply, drawing air through the case and over the power supply's internal components. In some cases, a second fan is added to the front of the case to provide additional ventilation. The power supply fan and the additional fans, if any, must operate smoothly. Excessive dust will result in sluggish fan blades and decreased airflow. A fan, which makes grinding, clicking or thumping noises is on its last legs, and its cooling abilities have been compromised. Once a fan is diagnosed with noticeably decreased airflow, it's time to replace it.
Common Sense Cooling Tips
Protecting your computer and peripherals from excessive heat requires just a little common sense. Here are a few easy steps to follow to ensure proper cooling:
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Do not expose your PC to direct sunlight. If your computer sits near a window, exposing it to direct sunlight, then move it.
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Keep your PC away from heating systems. If your computer is next to a radiator or a heating vent, move it! Don’t keep a space heater under your desk right next to your PC! Also, if your computer is next to a stove, microwave, TV or stereo, move it away from these heat producing appliances.
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Keep your PC in an air-conditioned environment.
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Maintain adequate ventilation. If your PC is crowded between your desk and the wall, there’s no room for proper air circulation. Depriving your computer of air will cause it to overheat! Move your PC away from any confined space - make sure it has a foot of open space in all directions to maintain proper air circulation.
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Don’t pile papers on top of your computer or monitor; they can cover up vents and cause overheating.
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Use compressed air canisters to remove dust and other heat-causing debris.
Visit www.windowsupdate.com Regularly
This is a big one. Also very fast and simple. The “patches” that are made available on a weekly basis not only provide protection for your PC, they are also designed to improve performance. We recommend at least twice per month.
Did You Know Windows XP Has An On-Screen Keyboard?
Another XP secret revealed. You may need it if you can’t get to your keyboard. Start, All Programs, Accessories, Accessibility, On-Screen Keyboard. Another way: Open My Computer and browse to C:/Windows/System32 then double-click osk.exe. The keyboard operates with simple point-and-click commands.
Speed Up Your XP User Interface
Today’s PCs often come to you with many graphical bells and whistles, and while
they’re cute, they rob your system of fundamental power. Faster is better.
Here’s our recommendation: Go to the Display control panel, click the Appearance
tab and hit the Effects button. Uncheck the first two options, as well as
“Show shadows under menus.” Use minimal graphics and go faster.
Defrag*Defrag*Defrag
A “must” for busy PC users, made simple. Here’s how: Regular defragmentation
can improve your machine’s hard drive performance by massive amounts.
To begin defragging, right-click your hard drive in My Computer, select Properties,
go to the Tools tab, then click defrag. Do this religiously every day/week (depending
on use) or so and you’ll enjoy smooth sailing.
Simple Guide to Burning CDs
There are two types of recordable CD Media CD-R (CD-Recordable) and CD-RW (CD-Rewritable. While prerecorded CDs are pressed from a mold, recordable compact discs are actually burned with a laser, which is why the process of recording to CDs is known as burning. CD-R disks can only be recorded once. Once you create a CD using a CD-R disc you cannot add, delete or modify. CD-RWs can be erased and rewritten to, but you cannot add information without erasing the contents first.
The Basics of Burning
If you have a new PC with Windows XP burning CDs is incredibly easy. It’s simply a matter of performing “save as” or “drag and drop” file operations like you would save files to a floppy or the hard drive. Using Windows XP, when you first insert a blank CD into your CD recorder drive, XP opens a dialog box asking you if you want to open a writable CD folder. With the folder open, you can drag and drop files and/or directories into it. Windows XP makes a copy of these files in a special staging area until it is time to burn the CD, and displays a list of the contents waiting to be recorded.
For further information, just read your user manual or access your PC’s help section for step-by-step instructions. If you’re working with a Mac or an older computer Windows 95/98/2000/ME you'll have to use special CD burning software. Once you have CD burning software, creating your own CDs is an easy process, although the technology involved is quite complex. Simply follow the manufacturer’s instructions and observe the following tips.
First decide what you want to burn and what kind of disc you want to use. Since CD-R discs can only be recorded once, we recommend you use them for making music CDs, sharing videos and large files, and archiving your files. A CD-R disc can be played in most CD-ROM drives as well as most home and car audio players. You can erase and record CD-RW discs up to 1,000 times. This makes them great for backing up files that you continually update or want to change. A CD-RW disc can be played in CD-RW drives and multi-read drives, but aren’t readily readable beyond your PC. Standard CD-ROM drives and many home and car audio players cannot read them.
1. Check your hard disk for errors and defragment it regularly. This will help your drive send data to the CD burner at the required rate and avoid buffer underruns.
2. Free up enough hard drive space for the files you want to burn to CD. Generally, you’re going to have to copy the files to your hard drive before burning.
3. It’s a good idea to shut down all programs but the ones you need to finish your task.
4. If you discover you’re having problems burning discs without getting errors, try recording at a speed that’s slower than what your drive and media are certified for. This won’t radically slow down the burning operation.
5. After you finish burning your CD, it’s a great idea to use a label kit to design and organize your library.
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