If you want a quiet desktop computer that doesn't use much power, it is now possible and worthwhile installing a Pentium M notebook processor in a desktop motherboard. From a performance point of view, it is not worth using the much slower Pentium 4-M and Celeron M notebook processors in a desktop computer, so, if you want to use a mobile processor in a desktop PC, it is advisable to make sure that you get the right model.

The desktop Pentium 4 560 processor has a clock speed of 3.4GHz and uses 115W of power and therefore requires plenty of cooling from a heatsink and fan unit fitted over the processor itself and from one or more fans working in the case to expel the hot air. By comparison, the current (January 2006) Pentium M mobile notebook processors have slower clock speeds and use much less power (e.g., the Pentium M 770 has a clock speed of 2.13GHz and uses only 27W of power). Indeed, the Pentium M processors use so little power that they can be used with passive heatsinks that don't use a fan.

However, because the Pentium M is one of Intel's most advanced range of processors, they are relatively expensive. In January 2006, the Pentium M 770 was priced at £298 compared to £146 for a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 640 desktop processor.

You can buy dedicated motherboards for these processors, or you can buy an adapter that allows you to use them with particular desktop motherboards.

The motherboards, like the processors themselves, are usually expensive. An example is the MSI 915GM Speedster-FA4 Pentium M / Celeron M motherboard, which was priced at £125 in January 2006. Not all of the retail boxed processors appear to be sold with a heatsink and fan cooling unit.

Some motherboard manufacturers include a cooling unit with the motherboard.

Intel: Laptop Products - http://www.intel.com/products/laptop/index.htm

The motherboard will come with a user manual that specifies the kind of DDR RAM that can be installed on it.

Desktop motherboards that enable the use of the laptop processors made by AMD are not currently available.

Asus provides the CT-479 adapter, priced at £33 in January 2006, that can be used to install these mobile processors in a handful of its standard desktop motherboards, including the P4P800, the P4GPL-X, and the P2GD1 models, which cost between £45 and £60 in January 2006.

The installation of the processor in its motherboard socket, or the socket in the adapter, is simple. There is a screw lock on the socket that is locked when the head of screw is pointing towards the images of a lock on the socket, and unlocked when pointing in the opposite direction. You unlock the screw with a flathead screwdriver, insert the processor so that the gold triangle on the processor lines up with the white triangle on the socket, and then turn the screw back into the lock position.

Mobile dual-core processors for laptops are now also being made available for desktop PCs:

AOpen Releases Core Duo To The Desktop -

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/...review-1612.html

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processors -

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/core2duo/index.htm

Reminder: A standard ATX motherboard does not make use of riser card

It might not be stated in the written specification of a computer's components that the motherboard makes use of a riser card. That is why you must know the make and model of the motherboard so that you can check that it is a standard board. A standard ATX motherboard does not make use of riser card.

The safest way to upgrade RAM: Use the UK and US Crucial Memory Advisors

Paul Mullen, the highly-respected computer guru of the Helpfile at ComputerShopper.co.uk - "I have recently been buying my memory only from Crucial Technology. I would rather pay the extra cost than waste time trying to track down the obscure program faults that bad memory can cause."

The memory requirements of the versions of Windows Vista

Most of the versions of Windows Vista require more RAM memory to run optimally on a computer that doesn't use memory-hungry applications than Windows XP. A video-editing application is an example of memory-intensive software. Only Windows Vista Home Basic has a recommended minimum amount of memory of 512MB, which is the same amount recommended for Windows XP. Windows Vista Home Premium, the most popular version, and Windows Vista Ultimate require a recommended minimum of 1GB (1024MB) of memory, which is twice the amount of minimum memory recommended to run Windows XP. For more information on computer memory, read the RAM pages of this site.

UK - Crucial Memory Advisor - UK

USA - Crucial Memory Advisor - USA

For example, if your computer has an Asus motherboard, open the menu, scroll down to ASUS, and click GO. If, say, you have a Dell computer, scroll down to DELL, and do likewise. You will be taken to the relevant information on Crucial's website.

If you don't know the make and model of the motherboard installed in your computer, here is a good free utility - Belarc Advisor - that creates an analysis of the hardware and software on a personal computer. Look under FREE DOWNLOAD - http://www.belarc.com/. Another utility that also provides detailed information on the memory itself is CPU-Z.

Beware! - the "Recovery Disk" back-up system

No matter which version of Windows a computer is using, there are times when something has to be fixed and during the repair or reinstallation of just a driver, or file, Windows can require that its CD is accessed. A Recovery Disk is not the Windows CD and it can't be used as such. If a computer only has a Recovery Disk, you have to run it and go through its entire recovery procedure in order to fix problems. This is an inferior option, even if the data files on the computer are not deleted, an can be accessed after the recovery process. However, in many cases, the data files are destroyed because the recovery process returns the computer to the state it was in when it left the factory. In any case, the recovery procedure will be a much longer process than just inserting the Windows CD in the computer's CD/DVD drive in order to restore drivers, corrupt files, etc.

Therefore, it would be more economical in the long run to ask any company that adopts a policy of using rescue disks for software recovery not to supply an operating system with the computer, and to reduce the purchase price accordingly. You can then buy your own copy of Windows.

If you buy a copy of Windows XP Home or Professional Edition with an OEM licence that requires you to purchase a qualifying item of computer hardware with it, the cost will be less than half the price of a retail copy. The only difference between the two licences is that with an OEM licence the purchaser has to provide his or her own technical support. Microsoft provides the technical support for a copy of Windows with a retail licence. An OEM licence allows its owner to dowload all of the patches and security updates, and qualifies for access to programs such as Microsoft's Windows Defender.

In June 2005, I bought an OEM copy of Windows XP Home Edition (the full version) for only £58 with a 40GB Samsung SpinPoint hard disk drive (£30). The full retail version of Windows XP Home Edition costs around £150.

OEM copies of Windows Vista

It looks as if you can now buy cheap OEM licences (US: license) for Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, and Business Editions, for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions without buying a qualifying component of PC hardware. OEM Windows XP is also available without having to buy a qualifying item of PC hardware.

Komplett.co.uk search for "windows vista oem" -

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/search.asp?q=windows%20vista%20oem

How long this situation exists remains to be seen, because I have read that Microsoft no longer supports OEM licenses for consumers (private PC builders), only licensed OEM PC manufacturers.

Motherboards customised for reduced functionality - and other considerations

If a computer manufacturer has made any changes to a PC's motherboard and the BIOS to make the PC as little prone to user interference as possible, it may not be possible to make use of updated BIOS files or device drivers and board settings that work on the uncustomised version.

For instance, clock-multiplier and other jumpers might be hard wired so that they cannot be altered, and the BIOS may be reduced to display only the most basic settings.

In short, these PCs look like dead-end machines that should only be considered if you have discovered otherwise from detailed research, or do not intend to upgrade your purchase.

As an experiment, choose a model of PC from the website, find out what hardware it contains (especially the motherboard), and then see if it is possible to download specific BIOS and device driver upgrades. If not, purchase your PC where you can obtain everything you require.

Furthermore, beware of cheap, or out-of-date sound and video chips integrated onto motherboards.

Integrated video chips usually use system RAM memory to feed the images to the monitor's screen. Video add-on cards made by proprietary manufacturers, such as ATI, use their own RAM memory, thereby leaving all of the system RAM to run the operating system and application programs.

Proper video cards and sound cards - printed circuit boards in their own right that are fixed at right angles to standard motherboards via ISA, PCI, or AGP slots - would not only provide better video and sound performance, they could also make upgrading the motherboard cheaper if you have no intention of upgrading the expansion cards. There is more about this topic further on in the article.

Note that some motherboards with integrated video and sound chips might not possess a slot for an AGP or PCI Express video card, because the video chip is built into the motherboard. So, if you want to add a video/graphics card, and that is the case, it will have to be a PCI card. As a standard, PCI has already superseded by the AGP and PCI Express standards. Indeed, the AGP standard will soon be replaced by the PCI Express standard.

Also remember that if motherboards with video (graphics) cards built into them use system RAM, this has a negative affect on performance if an AGP video chip is used , because the RAM cannot be used by the system and the graphics chip at the same time, so the processing will be delayed compared to when a dedicated graphics card with its own RAM is used. - This is bad for watching DVD movies, or for playing the latest games, or for anything that relies on an uninterrupted flow of data, such as recording CDs or DVDs. However, if a PCI Express video chip that makes use of system RAM is used on the motherboard, there is not much loss of performance.

Remember that not all motherboards with inbuilt video chips make use of system RAM; some older motherboards also have the video RAM incorporated into the motherboard. However, the latest video chips require so much RAM that the latest integrated motherboards all have to use system RAM, because that much RAM cannot be built into the motherboard. Although the latest high-end video cards have 128 or 256MB of RAM, most of the integrated chips use a maximum of 64 or 128MB of system RAM, the settings for which are in the BIOS.

Note that with the new PCI Express motherboard bus there is little or no loss in performance if an integrated video chip that shares system RAM is used. Indeed, because of this, inexpensive video cards that use only system RAM instead of their own RAM are now available. An example of such a PCI Express video card is the Palit GeForce 6200 TurboCache.

emachines

A good example of PCs that have integrated video and sound are emachines. They usually have low-powered power supplies (PSUs). I have come across cases where even upgrading the RAM causes all kinds of system errors because the upgrade has overloaded the power supply.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to find out what some of hardware specifications are of emachines.

For example, no information is provided on the power supply of the emachines listed on the company's oen site. -

http://www.emachines.com/

Until recently, emachine PCs have had underpowered, non-standard power supplies that are just adequate enough to run the installed hardware, therefore making upgrading them problematic if the new hardware item(s) drawns more power than the replaced item(s). If you had to upgrade the power supply, you would have to buy one of the same non-standard type. However, I have read that recent emachines use standard ATX power supplies, albeit that also just provide enough power to run the installed hardware, which would make upgrading the power supply a simple matter.

Here is a site that provides replacement emachine power supplies:

emachines replacement power supplies -

http://affordablesurplus.com/ps-selector-emachines.asp

Before you buy an emachine, look for the crucial devices that are not included, or which are only vaguely specified. For example, if the make and model is not provided, it could be a cheap device that you might have to replace soon after the warranty period has expired.

emachines look like very good value on paper, often coming with a 56K winmodem, which is driven by software (inferior to a hardware modem driven by electronics).

On the emachines site only desktop PCs with monitors and base units without monitors are listed, so, if you want a monitor included, make sure that you buy a model that comes with a monitor. emachimes used to sell laptops, but that is no longer the case (in July 2006).

I would be very wary of purchasing an emachines PC myself unless I knew more about the motherboard in particular, and also about the other components, such as the case and its power supply.

Here is the reply someone posted on a computer forum about my query regarding the power supplies in emachines a few years ago:

"Yes, eMachines come with the weakest power supply units installed. In fact, they use similar power supplies as the HP micro-atx/mini-atx platforms and are rated for what is installed and they have no reserves at all to drive any additional loads! I'm talking about anywhere from 75-watts to 150-watts power rating on a SFX-S or a SFX-L type power supply. If you intend on replacing the PSU, then I recommend getting your replacement from PC Power & Cooling Inc. They carry a 180-watt version of the SFX-S or SFX-L PSUs. It is called the Turbo Cool 180 SFX-S or the Turbo Cool 180 SFX-L power supplies. They are the best replacement that you could purchase as a replacement PSU."

Therefore, in the above case, a standard ATX power supply cannot be used unless you upgrade the whole case.

If I could not find out exactly what a PC's components are, I wouldn't even consider buying it.

Moreover, depending on the model, the motherboard of an emachine may not have a free PCI slot or AGP/PCI Express slot for a video card, and even if there is a slot for a video card, the low-powered power supply wouldn't allow the installation of the kind of high-end card that is required for detailed graphics editing and playing the latest PC games.

The motherboard may not be able to run faster processors than the one installed, the RAM installed might occupy all of the available DIMM slots, thereby making it impossible to increase the amount of RAM without installing a new motherboard, and it might not be possible to install a standard ATX motherboard, because the case might not be a standard ATX case.

You should also find out if the software provided is supplied on CDs, or if it is merely preloaded and you are supplied with a Recovery Disk that recovers the software from a master image or a hidden partition on the hard disk drive.

Look at the Software and Warranty pages on this site for the pitfalls to do with both.

Personally, I think that emachines desktop PCs are designed as disposable products not meant to be upgraded, so do your research before you make a purchase that you might live to regret. If you only require only what such a PC provides, then emachines are good value.

You certainly wouldn't purchase an emachines PC for gaming or heavy-duty computing, since it usually uses graphics and sound chips built into the motherboard, therefore it would certainly be a much better option to purchase all the components individually, and assemble them into a PC yourself. You would have a superior system that would cost less in the long run, because you would have a PCI Express video card and a PCI sound card that could be reused if you upgraded the motherboard. You would also buy a superior case with a superior power supply.

Technical support and devicedriver and BIOS updates are provided under Customer Care on the emachines site. Although the company no longer makes them, support is still being provided for laptops.

Click Build a PC to read an article on this site that deals with all of the ramifications of building your own computer, which, I believe, is a better option for someone who doesn't want to buy an prebuilt PC than buying an emachine.

Google searches: Motherboard/mainboard research

If you want to research a particular motherboard, you should first visit its manufacturer's website. To find it, enter the make and model in the Google search box at the top of this page (with its Web radio button enabled). This will bring up plenty of sites, listed on one or more pages, that offer price and specification information and reviews.

For information on this motherboard, for instance, enter "MSI RS480M2-IL".

You can, of course, also subscribe to computer forums or to the relevant newsgroups for information purposes and post problems for the other subscribers to help you solve.

Intel Pentium 4 and Pentium D processors

Intel Pentium 4 processors are listed as being Socket 423 or Socket 478 or Socket LGA775 processors. The latter socket is the latest type.

Intel's Pentium D processors are dual-core processors that have two processor cores housed in a single unit. However, note that Intel's Celeron D processors are single-core processors.

Visit the Processors and pages on this site for more information on the latest Intel and AMD processors.

The previous versions of Windows that qualify to upgrade to Windows Vista

With regard to Windows Vista, only Windows 2000 and Windows XP qualify to use the Upgrade versions of Vista for the home user.

You should read the page called Upgrade Paths from Previous Versions, for example, because it contains information such as the fact thet Windows XP Professional can only be upgraded using the Upgrade version to Vista Ultimate or Vista Business.

If you plan to purchase a computer now, it will now almost certainly come with Windows XP Home Edition or Professional Edition or a version of Windows Vista preinstalled. Unless you have the corporate versions of these versions of Windows, they require Product Activation or they stop working after a specified period, therefore, there is much less piracy involved with them. Especially since it is not possible to download updates for a computer running a version of Windows XP/Vista if an illegal copy is being used.

The latest Windows called Windows Vista was released in several versions on January 30, 2007. It is said to be more secure than Windows XP currently is.

Visit the Using Windows Vista section on this site for more information on the new operating system from Microsoft.

Visit the Software, Windows XP Support, and Recovering Windows XP pages of this site for more information on Windows XP.

Motherboard cables

There are two kinds of ATA IDE ribbon cable, a 40-conductor cable that can be used for drives up to and including ATA 33 drives, and a 80-conductor cable that can be used with any ATA drive, but must be used with ATA 66/100/133 drives running in the ATA 66 mode or higher.

However, if you are running an ATA 66/100/133 drive in ATA33 mode, because the motherboard only supports that mode, you can use a 40-conductor cable.

The latter is a higher quality cable that improves transmission quality and error control. Note that you have to fit blue or red connector to the motherboard, the master drive to the connector at the other end of the cable (usually black), and a slave drive to the connector in the middle of the cable (usually grey).

Go to http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCable80-c.html to read an article on the differences between the two types of ribbon cable.

Note that round (non-ribbon) IDE cables are now available in a number of garish colours. Click Build a PC to see some images of these on this site.

Integrated motherboards

Unfortunately, upgrading the whole motherboard is often the only way to catch up with new advances in software, chip, and peripheral component technology.

If you have an integrated motherboard that provides sound and video, you would either have to buy another integrated motherboard - usually an inferior and often a more expensive choice - or you would have to buy a conventional motherboard, plus new video and sound cards.

If your computing needs do not involve anything more complex than running office applications and accessing the Internet, an integrated motherboard is the ideal solution for your needs. Since the motherboard will provide the sound and video capabilities, merely replace the motherboard, install a compatible processor in it, add the kind of RAM the board supports, and you have a new system.

Note that a jumperless motherboard has a BIOS setup program that has settings which are used to configure the processor, as well as the other hardware, such as the hard disk drive and the RAM.

Whether a motherboard uses jumpers or DIP switches or the BIOS to configure a processor will be indicated in the motherboard's manual, which should also provide all of the relevant details and settings. The settings for processors issued after the publication of the manual (and BIOS file updates) can usually be found on the motherboard manufacturer's website.

Click here! to go to images of and information on jumpers and DIP switches.

Always read the motherboard manual thoroughly before you make any changes to the BIOS or the jumper settings.

It is easy to misread diagrams, so double-check the settings, having made sure that you know which settings all of the other jumpers on the motherboard configure. Doing this greatly reduces the chances of configuring the wrong ones. You can look up any points you are having difficulty with by buying a suitable book, or, even better, by subscribing to newsgroups, or by using the Google search box at the top of this page to look for the information on the Internet.

You should also note that the user manuals that come with hardware, especially motherboards, are often badly produced, can be misleading, and/or are lacking in vital information. This is where access to a motherboard's newsgroup is invaluable.

For instance, the FIC newsgroup provided me with several pieces of information that was not included in the user manual for a VA-503+ motherboard. The manual states that the core voltage range is from 2.0 volts to 3.2 volts in increments of 0.1 of a volt, but, as someone on the FIC newsgroup proved, the board is capable of being set as high as 3.5 volts.

The manual also gives the impression that EDO RAM installed in the SIMM slots can only run at the default setting of 66MHz, meaning that it should not be used when the bus frequency is set to 100MHz for processors of 350MHz and higher. The truth, as made plain in the newsgroup, is that the settings given for SDRAM of the PC100 and non-PC100 varieties, installed in the board's DIMM slots, also apply to EDO RAM installed in the SIMM slots.

This in effect means that on this particular motherboard 66 MHz EDO RAM can be run at its default speed of 66MHz while the bus frequency is set to 100MHz. On most motherboards, the system RAM and the motherboard bus run at the same speed. If this is the case, and the bus is set to 100MHz, special PC100 RAM should be used to guarantee system stability. This is what I thought was the case after I had read the manual for the VA-503+ board very carefully. Happily, several postings in the newsgroup supplied me with the correct information, and I was aware that I had the option of continuing to use my existing EDO RAM with the bus set to 100MHz, whereas had I relied on the manual, I would have purchased 100MHz SDRAM when upgrading to a K6-2 or K6-3 processor.

Moral of the story - never rely on one source of information!

Always peruse as many sources of information as possible before you consider yourself sufficiently informed on a subject - especially if the source has a vested interest in keeping technical support costs low.

Diagnostic programs

You can buy or download free diagnostic software that runs diagnostic tests on the components that make up a computer, including the motherboard.

You should not use diagnostic software that is older then the components being tested, because component technology is constantly changing, and the software has to be designed and programmed to test it. Therefore, old diagnostic software is likely to produce false results when run to test new computer components.

For example, I ran an old version of PC Check diagnostic software (released in 1996) on a motherboard that came out in 1999, and it falsely gave a Failed result when it tested the CMOS RAM - the memory used by the BIOS setup program - and the system clock. And it reported that there was no Level 2 cache on the board when it had 512KB.

Click here! to go directly to links to free diagnostic utilities on the first of the four Links page on this site.

Motherboards with built-in diagnostics and debugging

Motherboards are starting to appear that provide built-in diagnostic and debugging capabilities. This is usually as a display of codes that can be quickly read and decoded to diagnose problems.

The codes are either displayed numerically on the motherboard itself, or at the back of the case on a special bracket that is provided with the motherboard. The meaning of the diagnostic codes for both kinds of display are provided in the motherboard's user manual.

Asus provides what it calls an LCD Poster on some of its motherboards. It displays actual boot error messages on an LCD panel above its ports panel instead of the codes that other debug panels display. An example of such a motherboard is the Socket 939 Asus Crosshair board for AMD processors.

Motherboards that have a processor soldered into the processor's socket

Some motherboards that are sold with a processor (or installed in a brand-name computer), can have the processor soldered into the processor socket. If this is the case, the motherboard is not meant to be upgraded with a faster processor. This is one of the good reasons that you are advised to check the full specifications of a computer before you buy it.

An example of such a motherboard is the ECS K7SOM+ Socket A board, which has a 1200MHz (1.2GHz) AMD Duron processor soldered to it.

You can download a user manual for this board from http://www.ecsusa.com or http://www.ecs.com.tw/.

Many useful links are found if you use the Google search box at the top of this page to search for k7som+.

A twin (dual-user) motherboard

The Jetway PT800TWIN Socket 478 Intel Pentium 4 motherboard can be set up with other components and extension leads of up to 100 metres in length so that it can effectively be used as two separate computers.

There are twin PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, but either one AGP and one PCI video card, or a dual-head video card, has to be used, because the board only had one AGP slot. For some reason, ATI graphics chips aren't supported, so only two standard PCI and AGP cards or a dual-head card that use nVidia graphics chips have to be used.

There is only one Pentium 4 socket. Software called MagicTwin has to be installed after you install the motherboard as you would a standard board. There is no FireWire port, but serial ATA hard disk drives are supported.

It costs no more than a standard board (£63 in the UK in March 2004), but you will have to buy two licences for Windows, because its End User License Agreement (EULA) only allows one user, and you may have to do so for the other software.

Enter the word jetway in the Google box at the top of this page to find the company's site.

Why it is a good idea to avoid "all-in-one" computers

The problem with anything that is "all-in-one" is that if a major part fails, the whole thing can become useless.

For example, a combination TV/VCR. If the TV goes, the VCR is useless. A combination Printer/Scanner/Fax? If the printer fails, the whole machine fails.

What about an all-in-one desktop computer?

It doesn't matter if it's an iMac or a PC. With the possible exception of a notebook/laptop computer, any kind of all-in-one device is a bad idea.

Several manufacturers are bringing out highly integrated desktop models that are not constructed of replaceable modules in the way that a traditional PC is. If something goes wrong, you are unlikely to be able to sort the matter out yourself unless you have received the specific training that is required. These PCs usually come with their electronics housed in very slim tower or desktop (horizontal) cases, and are as upgradable as a notebook computer. - That is, are hardly upgradable at all, and even then the parts will be non-standard, and therefore far more expensive than standard desktop computer parts.

Even if the monitor fails, the whole computer must be taken for repairs or replacement. If the CPU overheats, the whole computer (including the monitor) must be taken or sent in for repair or replacement. Or, if it has an on-site warranty, a technician has to come and do the repairs at the site of the computer, very probably at a time that requires planning and hassles to meet.

With a traditional desktop computer that is made up of modules (separate motherboard, video card, sound card, modem, etc.) if a component fails, all you have to do is diagnose the fault, and, either replace that component yourself, or have it done under a warranty, which could be an on-site or return-to-base warranty.

I do not include a computer that has a motherboard with inbuilt sound and video chips - also known as an integrated motherboard - as an all-in-one machine, because as long as the integrated motherboard is able to fit in a standard ATX case, it is easily replaced if the video or sound chips break down.

Note that integrated motherboards can have several other devices built into them, such as a modem, an SCSI controller, and a network interface card (NIC).

A PC with an integrated motherboard is not an all-in-one machine if the motherboard can easily be replaced. An all-in-one desktop computer will have a component architecture like a notebook computer that only specially trained technicians can service, because only they know how to fault-find and unravel the components in order to repair them. This kind of all-in-one computer is becoming increasingly prevalent, so don't just assume that your new PC will be of the modular variety that you can work on yourself, because it might not be. Always obtain the component specification for a PC and understand what the warranty terms mean before you buy it. Only then will you be able to have a good idea of what the consequences will be if it succumbs to hardware or software failure.

Click the Warranty and Software links to read information concerning these topics on this site.

Where you have to avoid purchasing a PC with an integrated motherboard is when it is housed in a proprietary make of PC which has a non-standard case, because you will either have to replace the case and the motherboard, or buy a replacement motherboard from the PC's manufacturer.

Therefore, before you buy it, make sure that the case and motherboard are standard ATX components if the PC comes with an integrated motherboard. E-Machines (emachines), for example, all have integrated motherboards and very low-powered power supply units. That is why they are so cheap.

But portable computers are by nature all-in-one devices. The whole computer has to be sent back to the manufacturer or dealer for repairs. You might be able to obtain an on-site warranty for a portable machine, but the technicians qualified to repair them are rare, so you will probably have to arrange an appointment that is unlikely to be immediate.

Certainly an extended warranty for a notebook computer will be expensive, and the price of an on-site one-year warranty will be built into the price of the machine. But most dealers or manufacturers will require that a portable computer is returned to them for repairs. However, portable computers are somewhat easier to return than a desktop PC. It is also well known that portables tend to suffer from software problems rather than hardware failures, so, if you have experience of sorting out software problems, owning a portable computer is less likely to a source of frustration and bother than an all-in-one Apple Mac or PC.

The main problem with regard to portable computers is the inability to upgrade them. Even if you can add devices such as PC cards or extra RAM, these are always more expensive than their desktop counterparts. Unfortunately, the whole machine has to be replaced if you want a faster or more capable model.

If you want to find out about the technical details of portable computers, the article called How Laptops Work, is a good place to start.

Motherboard and power supply unit (PSU) problems and their solutions

Click here! to go to a page which deals with the following motherboard and power-supply related problems and their solutions:

1. - How can I replace the motherboard in my PC without having to reinstall Windows XP?

2. - Which motherboard should I buy to replace my computer's faulty motherboard?

3. - Which Intel Core 2 Duo motherboard [mainboard] do I need to upgrade my PC?

4. - My PC's power supply fried the motherboard and now a new motherboard won't work with components known to be good

5. - Choosing a motherboard/processor combination can be difficult

6. - Why is my computer running slow after I replaced a flat BIOS battery on the motherboard?

7. - Is an extra 4-pin power supply connector required for AMD Athlon XP and Intel Pentium 4 motherboards (mainboards)?

8. - How carefully is it necessary to consider the power demand made on the motherboard (mainboard) by the fan used to cool the processor?

9. - I upgraded from Windows 98 to Windows XP and now my computer has a USB and sound conflict

10. - I built a computer by following all of the instructions properly but it won't boot

11. - An AMD Athlon XP processor with an Intel Pentium 4 power supply unit

12. - Why does my computer keep resetting itself?

13. - My OEM copy of Windows XP can't be reactivated after I replaced the motherboard (mainboard) in my computer

14. - How to troubleshoot and fix shutdown or restart (reboot) problems that may or may not be caused by a faulty motherboard (mainboard) or power supply unit

15. - My computer has failed to start up, its power LED, case and processor fans, and the reset button don't work. Is this caused by a motherboard failure?

16. - Is this a retailer rip-off? - The SLI motherboard and the two SLI graphics cards I bought for it turned out not to be SLI compliant

Click here! to go to a page which deals with the above-mentioned motherboard and power supply problems and their solutions.

Most people's computing needs do not require the latest computers or hardware components

As computing power keeps rising, we are under constant assault by the computer companies pushing numerous offers of bigger, better, faster computers, operating systems, hard disk drives, video cards, etc.

Remember Intel's Pentium 1 processor? Its speed did not exceed 233 MHz. In those days, whoever had a 120MHz processor with 16 MB of RAM could do almost everything. But what is the situation now? Buy a Pentium 4 system with a 3GHz processor, and after only a month or two, for the same amount of money, a 3.5GHz model is available. Many users automatically conclude that their computer is obsolete, and upgrade it.

But the reality of the situation is that the latest computer works no faster than yours, because there are hardly any applications that require a 1.0GHz processor, never mind a 2.0GHz one.

This is how the vicious circle of upgrading is fed. - The manufacturers have to keep producing new generations of hardware and software in order to keep the public buying their products. A new generation of games appears that requires more processing power. A new generation of video cards appears that is capable of playing the new games. A new generation of processors appears. A new version of Windows appears that is purposefully made so that it cannot run on anything but the latest hardware (Windows XP). More RAM is required to run the new version of Windows, and it is more graphic intensive, and so requires a faster graphics card. A new generation of games that only work on the new version of Windows and that require more processing power appears, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

A few years ago, when you played a game, the graphics and sound were not much by today's standards, but at least they gave you a special feeling when you played them. Today, all of the games are about graphics, and frames per second, but nothing much else. It is true that there are some excellent games that put a high-end video card to good use, but why upgrade to a GeForce FX card when your GeForce2 card is not yet fully stretched?

The faster the hardware becomes, the more carelessly is the software programmed. Probably on purpose to slow the game to an acceptable speed on such awesomely fast hardware. And the more bloated the software becomes the bigger the hard disk drives have to be to accommodate it.

For example, compare two operating systems - Windows XP and SuSE Linux. Both will use about 1.4 GB of hard disk space for a full installation, but while Windows XP needs that space just for itself, Linux needs that space for a swap partition, some programs, and some free space. Install Windows XP on a computer with a 500MHz processor, and 64 MB of RAM. It will barely be able to run. Multitasking (running several programs at once) will be out of the question because it will take so long. Install Linux on the same computer. It will function better - certainly much better than Windows XP. Install Windows XP and Linux on a computer running an AMD Athlon 700MHz processor, and 128 MB RAM. Windows XP will work well, and Linux will function slightly faster That proves that Linux is not as hardware-dependent as Windows XP.

The point I am trying to make here is this. Why spend a fortune on a computer, computer components, or software just because they are assumed to be superior when in reality the upgrade makes little or no difference, and might even be a retrograde step?

Why do you need Windows XP, a 2.2GHz processor, a 64MB GeForce video card, 512MB of RAM, and a 100GB hard disk drive, when all you do is access the Internet, chat on IRC, write material that can be store on a floppy disk, and send a few e-mails? - Windows 98, an 'old' AMD K6-2 500MHz processor, first out in 1999, an 8MB ATI Rage Pro video card, 64MB of RAM, and a 10GB hard disk drive will allow you to do all of that very comfortably. The difference in the prices of the high-end and so-called low-end components in this case doesn't bear thinking about.

Obviously, for most users, the smartest policy to adopt is to stop ourselves from treading the mill that the computer and component manufacturers are constantly recreating under our feet, and instead make use of what we've already got to its full potential. Let the people who need to boast of having the latest and greatest gear keep the manufacturers in business, while we more intelligent people only buy our hardware and software when the new stuff automatically makes the perfectly usable old stuff half the price or less.

For example, since a 1GHz processor runs even the newest games properly, why purchase a much more expensive 2GHz processor? - And if you want the latest and greatest, why buy a more expensive Intel Pentium 4 processor when a less expensive Athlon in the same class will do almost as well - and in some cases will outperform the Pentium 4?

The uninterruptible power supply unit (UPS)

Note that if your electricity supply is irregular or subject to storm interference, etc., you should invest in an Uninterruptible Power Supply unit (UPS) that you plug the whole system into. The UPS is connected to the wall socket. It has batteries that it keeps fully charged, and when there is a power failure it automatically keeps the power supply to the computer running until either a person shuts it down, or the software it runs shuts the system down automatically.

Most UPS use a USB connection to connect to and control a computer to which they are connected.

UPS units vary in price depending on the use. A unit for a single PC will be cheaper than one designed to cover a network. They are available from most of the large vendors of computer components.

Battery technology is improving all the time. The latest UPS is lighter, smaller, and cheaper than its predecessors. For as little as £30/$50, you can buy an amazingly small, entry-level UPS that has a built-in power surge suppressor. It provides enough battery power to give you the time to shut the system down properly in the event of a power failure.

The more expensive UPS run software that comes with the unit, which monitors the system and shuts it down properly, saving unsaved data first so that nothing is lost, or puts it into hibernation so that it can be resurrected without losing data. For mission-critical systems, the software an UPS runs is therefore as important as the UPS unit itself.

UPS can even come with generous insurance policies that pay for the replacement of any equipment that is damaged by electrical problems that the UPS has failed to filter. The longer the run time, the higher the surge ratings, and the greater the insurance protection, the more the UPS unit will cost.

Note that as long as the UPS has the plugs for it, you can plug in any device into the unit that you want to protect against power-supply problems. A connections for a dial-up modem (RJ-11) and Ethernet network connection (RJ-45) can be provided.

As well as power surges, an UPS can also provide protection against dips in the mains voltage, which are known as brownouts. If the mains voltage gets too low, the PC will crash, so the UPS attempts to rectify the voltage by adding power. The way in which an UPS compensates for a drop in power depends on whether it is a standby UPS or a line-interactive UPS. A line-interactive UPS tolerates much lower voltages than a standby UPS, which means that it switches to battery power less often than a standby UPS, thereby prolonging its battery life.

APC - http://www.apc.com/ - make excellent units that can come with excellent software. Even the cheapest APC UPS shut the system down or put it into hibernation automatically.

In July 2007, Computer Shopper gave the APC Back-UPS ES 700VA standby UPS a five-star Best Buy award. Priced at only £67 in July 2007, it has four UPS sockets for devices, including protection for a phone line and hanset, but it has no Ethernet network protection.It also provides four surge-only sockets. It is rated at 700VA and has a maximum output of 405W, which is sufficient to protect a PC of medium specification. It provides Windows shutdown and file save and connects to the PC via a USB connection.

Using the Google search box at the top of this page (with its Web radio button enabled) will provide plenty of information on this subject.

How to select the correct UPS

1. - Make a list of all of the equipment that you want the UPS to protect.

2. - For each device, multiply the voltage by the amperage - normally provided on the rating plate. This is the VA rating. Some equipment may show the power consumption in Watts (W), so to convert the wattage to VA, multiply it by 1.43.

3. - Add up the total VA rating for all of the equipment.

4. - Take into account any additional VA rating you may need for future expansion, and add it to the actual VA rating.

5. - Choose the UPS that has a VA rating greater than the figure calculated in Step 4.

6. - Make sure that the selected model provides sufficient run time during a power failure. Note that the run time is normally quoted at half load - half of the equipment is drawing power at the time of a power failure. Higher levels of loading will give a correspondingly shorter run time. To be on the safe side, select a higher capacity UPS if you have a heavy loading - run all of the protected devices at the same time.

It is good practice to add together the number of Watts drawn by your computer (its processor, and graphics card, its monitor and any other component that you connect to the UPS), and then add 40% of the total to it as a comfort zone.

For reviews on UPS units, go to http://www.pcpro.co.uk/shopper. Under the Product Reviews heading there are these sub-headings: Latest Reviews, Reviews Archives, Labs, and Hotlist. Each of them has a Browse for Products option that has a Search by Category option. Look or search for UPS. You can also search three other PC magazines for reviews.

Visit the following technical article on UPS, and, if necessary, use Google search box at the top of this page (with its Web radion button enabled) to conduct a search for more information on this subject. -

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question28.htm

See this page of the article called How Power Supplies Work to view a table showing the range of the power requirements (in watts) of the main components in a personal computer. -

http://www.howstuffworks.com/power-supply3.htm

Uninterruptible Power Supplies To The Rescue -

"Most of us spend a lot of time selecting system components. The processor, motherboard, memory, graphics card and the hard drive are scrutinized carefully. Coolers and power supplies have also become almost as important. Users want the best bang for their buck, while some primarily want performance. But as soon as a system is being used for 24/7 applications for the digital home or small business, another component becomes very important: steady power supply..." -

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/uninterruptible-power-supply,review-2392.html

Some good tips

You will probably be pleasantly surprised by how the performance of an old system can be increased significantly by doing nothing other than installing a new hard disk drive and adding more RAM to it.

For some reason known only to itself, the motherboard on my AMD K6-2 550MHz computer died, so I took one of the two IDE ATA 100 hard disk drives out of it (a slave drive), having first used XXCopy to clone the system to one of its partitions. I then installed the drive in an old system that has a Cyrix PR166+ (pre MMX) processor, and 32MB of 66MHz EDO RAM.

Having overcome a lot of hassles in getting the cloned Windows 98 SE, which was configured to the other system, to recognise and install the alternative hardware, I was pleasantly surprised by how fast the system was working.

The new hard drive had to work in the same mode as the old one, because PIO mode 4 is the highest mode that the SiS chipset on the motherboard allowed, but it somehow loaded Windows 98 and opened and closed programs much faster than the old PIO mode 4 hard drive did. This probably had to do with the new drive's superior seek times, revs per minute, and much bigger data cache. And then when I added a module of 64MB of 66MHz SDRAM to its single DIMM slot, and used Cacheman to optimise the Windows' caches, the system worked almost as fast as the failed system, which had 128MB of PC100 SDRAM and a K6-2 550MHz processor.

The moral of this story - before you invest in a newer system, first try upgrading the hard disk drive and the RAM on your existing one.

Per megabyte, drives and RAM are cheaper than they have ever been. You can also find some great bargains on eBay - and other auction sites - should you require an upgrade or replacement component. eBay has sites all over the world, all of which can be accessed via its American site. But you can register with any eBay site and then bid and sell on any other eBay site - world-wide.

If you want to build your own PC, visit the Build page of this site, or Tom's Hardware. The images in the articles on Tom's site are good, but the installation instructions tend to be sparse.

If you want to view video clips of the hardware installations, visit http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/.

There is also a mass of setup and hardware information to be found in the Windows 9x Help files, which is accessed from the Start menu. Information such as how to install and troubleshoot a modem, etc.

Windows from version 95 up provides hardware trouble-shooter utilities that are accessed via the Help menu. Just search for say modem, and you will find the Modem Troubleshooter.

Moreover, most Windows 9x installation CDs have part or all of the Windows Resource Kit, usually in a folder called reskit. (Remember never to purchase a PC unless it comes with the Windows installation CD) This contains much more system information than the Help files. You can install it by running its setup.exe file. Some OEM Windows installation CDs might not provide the kit, because OEM versions are supported by the original equipment manufacturer, not Microsoft, and to cut costs the manufacturer might not include the kit. There are also many useful system tools on most Windows 9x installation CDs.

It would be a good idea to use the Find (enter *.txt ) utility to search for the text files that Windows loads during its installation. There are several text files with a .txt extension, such as Display.txt, Config.txt, Hardware.txt, and Support.txt. You can then transfer them to My Documents, or a create a special folder for them.

Motherboard articles, news, and reviews

How to replace the motherboard in a PC running Windows XP

Read the Q&A called How can I replace the motherboard in my PC without having to reinstall Windows XP? to find out what the considerations are and how to do it.

Computer Shopper (UK)

Motherboard reviews:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/shopper/archiveproductsearch/12/Motherboards

Anandtech.com - motherboard, cases, and cooling reviews

Motherboards: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/

Cases/Cooling: http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/

TechSpot.com

Motherboard and Cooling Reviews:

http://www.techspot.com/reviews.shtml#mobo

RECENT ARTICLES ON MOTHERBOARDS

Click here! to go to the list of links to recent articles on motherboards on Page 1 of this section of this site.

Motherboard-monitoring software

If the computer's motherboard manufacturer doesn't provide monitoring software with the motherboard or free from its site, there are shareware alternatives such as Hmonitor from http://www.hmonitor.net/.

Hmonitor (for Windows XP/2000/2003/Vista) provides motherboard and processor temperatures for two processors (for use on a motherboard that can support two processors), the temperatures of three hard disk drives, the processor temperatures for two processors, reports the system voltages, and can report the fan speed, graphics processing unit (GPU) and video RAM temperatures, and the voltages of the system's AGP video card.

"Hardware sensors monitor is another program nobody should be without. This program is one of the best hardware sensor programs that allows you to check the temperature of any component on your computer with a sensor. It also has alarms that can be set when the temperature goes too high and even has built in software cooling."

February 6 2005. - Motherboard Monitor is no longer supported, but it still works on most systems, and is still available (free) from many download sites. Locate it by entering "motherboard monitor", as is in the Google search box provided at the top of this page.

This site provides links to other sites that provide motherboard monitoring software:

http://www.passmark.com/products/temperature.htm

SpeedFan - freeware - http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

"SpeedFan is a freeware program that monitors fan speeds, temperatures and voltages in computers with hardware monitoring chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T. info for those hard disks that support this feature and show hard disk temperatures too, if supported. SpeedFan can even change the FSB on some motherboards (but this should be considered a bonus feature). At the lowest level, SpeedFan is hardware monitoring software, but its main feature is that it can control the speed of the fans (depending on the capabilities of your sensor chip and your hardware) according to the temperatures inside your pc, thus reducing noise and power consumption."

Hardware case fan controls

If your computer runs two or more case fans to keep it cool, they can produce quite a bit of noise. The slower the fans run, the less noise they produce. If your fans don't have speed-control dials on them, it is possible to purchase a fan controller that can slow them down.

Fan Control Pro made by Akasa is a good example of a fan controller. The unit has fan control dials that can control four fans and it plugs into a spare 5 1/4" drive bay. You have to connect the fans to the unit, which also provides thermal monitoring, instead of to the motherboard, or power supply unit. You should also use the hardware-monitoring software that is provided by your motherboard's manufacturer. By reducing the speed of the fans carefully and watching the temperatures, you can maintain adequate cooling with the fans running as slowly and as silently as possible.

Google searches

You can make use of the Google search box provided at the top of this page (with its Web radio button enabled) to locate other hardware fan controllers. I tried using fan + controllers + uk as the search term and it brought up many interesting-looking links.

MOTHERBOARD SITES

Manufacturers of the best motherboards (mainboards)

Asus - http://www.asus.com/

MSI - http://www.msicomputer.com/

Gigabyte - http://www.gigabyte.com/

ECS - EliteGroup Computer Systems - http://www.ecsusa.com and http://www.ecs.com.tw/

Chaintech - http://www.chaintech.com/

To find other motherboard manufacturers, such as Tyan, Albatron, and Asrock, enter the name or search phrase in the Google search box at the top of this page (with its Web radio button enabled).

Other useful motherboard sites

Motherboard HomeWorld - Excellent source of motherboard and PC information - a 'motherboard search engine' and much more. - http://www.motherboards.org/

To find information on motherboard-related subjects on the web, enter the make and/or model of a motherboard in the Google search box at the top of this page, or enter a general search term within double quotation marks, such as "atx motherboard" + review, or "atx mainboard" + article, etc.

Go to Page 1

Go to Page 2