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Upgrade Your PC to the Ultimate Machine

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Upgrade Your PC to the Ultimate Machine

FAITHE WEMPEN

© 2002 by Premier Press, a division of Course Technology. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written permission from Premier Press, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

The Premier Press logo and related trade dress are trademarks of Premier Press, Inc. and may not be used without written permission. Publisher: Stacy L. Hiquet Marketing Manager: Heather Buzzingham Managing Editor: Heather Talbot Project Editor: Cathleen D. Snyder Technical Reviewer: Michelle Jones Copyeditor: Jenny Davidson Interior Layout: Marian Hartsough Associates Cover Design: Mike Tanamachi Indexer: Sherry Massey Proofreader: Kim V. Benbow Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, and Hotmail are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Important: Premier Press cannot provide software support. Please contact the appropriate software manufacturer’s technical support line or Web site for assistance. Premier Press and the author have attempted throughout this book to distinguish proprietary trademarks from descriptive terms by following the capitalization style used by the manufacturer. Information contained in this book has been obtained by Premier Press from sources believed to be reliable. However, because of the possibility of human or mechanical error by our sources, Premier Press, or others, the Publisher does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of any information and is not responsible for any errors or omissions or the results obtained from use of such information. Readers should be particularly aware of the fact that the Internet is an ever-changing entity. Some facts may have changed since this book went to press. ISBN: 1-931841-61-6 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002111220 Printed in the United States of America 02 03 04 05 BH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Premier Press, a division of Course Technology 2645 Erie Avenue, Suite 41 Cincinnati, Ohio 45208

To Margaret

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A big thank you to the Premier Press team for their excellent editorial, production, and manufacturing efforts, especially Publisher Stacy Hiquet, Project Editor Cathleen Snyder, Copyeditor Jenny Davidson, and Technical Editor Michelle Jones. Thanks also to Mike Tanamachi, who created the drawings in the book and designed the cover, and Marian Hartsough, who designed the interior. On the personal side, thanks to my wonderful partner Margaret for keeping everything running and not grumbling at me for spending 12 hours a day writing in my office. Next summer will be different, I promise. Yeah, that’s what all workaholics say.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR FAITHE WEMPEN, M.A. is an A+ certified PC technician and the wearer of many different hats. She has written more than 50 books on computer hardware and software, and her work has appeared frequently in Microsoft Office Solutions magazine and at TechProGuild (www.techproguild.com) and CertCities (www.certcities.com). Faithe also owns and operates a computer consulting and training business, is an Associate Faculty member in the School of Engineering and Technology at Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis (www.iupui.edu), and owns Sycamore Knoll Bed and Breakfast in Noblesville, Indiana (www.sycamoreknoll.com). She is also on the A+ Certification program advisory team at Training, Inc. and is a founding member of the Center for Applied Spirituality in Indianapolis (www.casindy.org).

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CONTENTS AT A GLANCE Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii FRIDAY AFTERNOON Preparing for an Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 FRIDAY EVENING Improving Video Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 NIGHT OWL 1 Upgrading to a Better Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 SATURDAY MORNING Improving Sound Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 SATURDAY AFTERNOON Adding More Hard Disk Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 SATURDAY EVENING CD and Other Removable Disk Drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 NIGHT OWL 2 Upgrading the Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

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SUNDAY MORNING Improving Internet Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 SUNDAY AFTERNOON Memory and CPU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 SUNDAY EVENING A New Motherboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 NIGHT OWL 3 Replacing a Motherboard Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 APPENDIX A Buying Parts Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 APPENDIX B Getting Hardware Information Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

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CONTENTS Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii FRIDAY AFTERNOON Preparing for an Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 What Makes One Computer Better Than Another? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Video Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Monitor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Sound Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Hard Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 CD-ROM and Removable Drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 CPU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Motherboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Outlining Your Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Internet Surfing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Business Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Game Playing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Desktop Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Graphics Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Video Broadcasting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Video Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

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Watching DVD Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Music Composition and Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Why Not Have It All? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Upgrade Planning Worksheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The New versus Upgrade Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Do You Want a Brand New Computer? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Should You Build Your Own from Parts? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Should You Upgrade Your Existing PC? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Hardware Shopping Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Brand Name or Generic Parts? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Choosing the Brand and Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Take a Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Basic Hardware Skills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Safety Precautions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Environmentally-Friendly Disposal of Old Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Removing the PC Cover. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Identifying the Internal Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Accessing the BIOS Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Basic Windows Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Working with Files and Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Working with the Control Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Adding and Removing Programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Working with the Device Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Moving On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

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Upgrade Your PC to the Ultimate Machine In a Weekend

FRIDAY EVENING Improving Video Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Understanding the Video Subsystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Is Your Existing Hardware Enough?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Finding Out What You Already Have . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Updating the Video Card Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Installing a Monitor Driver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Adjusting the Windows Display Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Adjusting the Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Looking at Motherboards with Video in Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Understanding Expansion Buses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Understanding Built-In Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Selecting a Video Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Choosing a Bus Type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Selecting Video RAM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Evaluating the RAMDAC Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Deciding on a Video Chipset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Evaluating Your 3D Acceleration Support Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Deciding on Extra Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Selecting a Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Types of Monitors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Measurements of Monitor Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Brands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Take a Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Installing a Video Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Removing the Old Video Card and Installing the New One . . . . . . 59 Installing a Windows Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Troubleshooting Video Card Installation Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Installing and Testing a Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Disposing of the Old Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Troubleshooting Windows and Application-Specific Video Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Contents

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Exploring Video Input Add-Ons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Scanners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Still Digital Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Webcams and Digital Camcorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Moving On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

NIGHT OWL 1 Upgrading to a Better Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 What Makes One Printer Better Than Another? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Choosing Printer Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Dot Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Inkjet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Hybrids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Speed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Print Quality and Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Printer Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Printer Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Paper Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Making the Most of Your Current Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Slow Printing Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Inkjet Color Quality Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Inaccurate Color Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Paper Jams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Moving On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

SATURDAY MORNING Improving Sound Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Is Your Existing Hardware Enough?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Identifying Your Current Sound Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Understanding the Capabilities of Your Current Sound Card . . . . . 94

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Getting Updated Sound Card Drivers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Troubleshooting a No-Sound Situation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Troubleshooting a Non-Working or Crackling Microphone . . . . . . 98 Looking at Motherboards with Sound in Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 So Far, So Good . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Shopping for Sound Cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 General Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 MIDI Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Digital Audio Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 I/O Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 3D Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Other Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Evaluating Speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Amplification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Number of Speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Other Speaker Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Take a Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Installing a Sound Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Installing Windows Sound Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Installing Speakers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Adjusting Speaker Configuration in Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Moving On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

SATURDAY AFTERNOON Adding More Hard Disk Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Is Your Existing Hardware Enough? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Wringing More Space out of Your Old Hard Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Checking for Unused Drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Cleaning Up Your Old Hard Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Converting to FAT32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Using DriveSpace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Some Techie Details about Hard Disks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Understanding How Disks Store Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Contents

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Understanding How Disk Space Is Organized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 How the Motherboard BIOS Deal with the Hard Drive . . . . . . . . 130 Selecting a Hard Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 IDE versus SCSI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Maximum Data Transfer Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Other Performance Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Take a Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Planning Your Data Transfer Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Manual File Copying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Backup Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Ghosting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Installation of Both Drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Preparing an IDE Drive for Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Setting IDE Slave/Master Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 IDE Ribbon Cables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Planning Drive Positioning for Best Performance . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Installing a Drive in the System Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Mounting the Drive in the Bay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Connecting the Drive to the Motherboard or the Expansion Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Connecting the Power Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Configuring the Drive in the BIOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Understanding Partitions and Formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Logical Drives and Partitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 High-Level Formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Partitioning and Formatting Hard Drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Partitioning and Formatting in MS-DOS or Windows 9x . . . . . . . 153 Partitioning and Formatting during Windows 2000 or XP Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Partitioning and Formatting from Windows 2000/XP Disk Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Testing the New Drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 Transferring Data to the New Drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

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Troubleshooting Hard Drive Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Dead Drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 BIOS Doesn’t See the Drive (IDE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 BIOS Sees the Drive but Windows Doesn’t. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Windows Sees the Drive but Can’t Read It. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Not Bootable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Data Errors Reading or Writing to the Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Sector Not Found Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Loss of Partition Information or Accidental Formatting . . . . . . . 170 Wrong File System for the Operating System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Non-Healthy Disks in Disk Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Moving On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

SATURDAY EVENING CD and Other Removable Disk Drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Drive Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Is Your Existing Hardware Enough? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Selecting a CD-ROM Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 How CD-ROMs Store Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 CLV versus CAV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 Access Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Multi-Read Technology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Other CD-ROM Performance Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Selecting a CD-RW Drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 What’s the Difference between CD-R and CD-RW? . . . . . . . . . . 181 Understanding the CD-R Recording Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Understanding the CD-RW Recording Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 BURN-Proof Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Read-Write Speed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Selecting a DVD Drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 How DVD Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

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Other DVD Performance Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Selecting an MPEG-2 Decoder Card. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Selecting a Writeable DVD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Selecting Other Removable Storage Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 Take a Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Installing an Internal IDE Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Safety Precautions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Preparing the Drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Planning Drive Positioning for Best Performance . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Installing a Drive in the System Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Connecting the Drive to the Motherboard or Expansion Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Connecting the Power Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Connecting the Audio Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Securing the Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Configuring the New Drive in the BIOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Installing an External Disk Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Testing the New Drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Troubleshooting Drive Install Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 The BIOS Doesn’t See the Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 There Is No CD-R or CD-RW Capability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 The DVD Drive Won’t Play DVD Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 The Drive Can’t Read from a Blank Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 The Disk Won’t Eject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 Moving On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

NIGHT OWL 2 Upgrading the Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 A Crash Course in Electrical Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Power Supply Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Understanding Power Supply Form Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 Evaluating Power Supply Wattage Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Recognizing the Symptoms of a Faulty Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Testing a Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

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Shopping for a New Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 Replacing a Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Moving On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

SUNDAY MORNING Improving Internet Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Is Your Existing Hardware Enough? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 How Internet Service Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Methods of Connecting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Dial-Up versus Full-Time Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Modem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 DSL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 One-Way Satellite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Two-Way Satellite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 ISDN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 Summarizing the Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 What’s Available in Your Area?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Selecting a Broadband Connection Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 How Broadband is Sold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Price. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Other Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Selecting a Modem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Take a Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Installing Broadband Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Installing DSL Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Installing Cable Internet Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Routing Cable or DSL to Multiple PCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Installing Satellite Internet Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Installing a Modem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Installing an Internal Modem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 Installing an External Modem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

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Setting Up a Modem in Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Testing a Modem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Resolving Resource Conflicts with Modems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Enabling and Disabling COM Ports in the BIOS. . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Creating a Dial-Up Networking Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Running a Wizard to Create a Dial-Up Networking Connection . . 237 Installing Dial-Up Networking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Setting Up Internet Connection Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Installing ICS in Windows 98 Second Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Installing ICS in Windows Me. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Sharing an Internet Connection in Windows 2000 . . . . . . . . . . 243 Sharing an Internet Connection in Windows XP . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Setting Up an E-Mail Account. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Troubleshooting Internet Connection Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 No Broadband Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Web Service but No E-Mail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 E-Mail Service but No Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Dial-Up Won’t Connect or Won’t Stay Connected. . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Moving On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

SUNDAY AFTERNOON Memory and CPU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Is Your Existing Hardware Enough? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Do You Really Want to Do This Upgrade? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Barriers to Upgrading RAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 Barriers to Upgrading the CPU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Understanding RAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 How RAM Stores Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 How RAM Is Packaged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 Parity and Non-Parity RAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 RAM Speeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Refresh Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260 What the Specs Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

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Selecting RAM for Your Motherboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 Understanding CPUs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 How CPUs Communicate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 CPU and External Data Bus Speeds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 Looking at CPU Packaging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 CPU Core Voltages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 CPU Caches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 CPU Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 CPU Cooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 Online Resources for Motherboard Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 Take a Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 Adding Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 Safety Precautions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 Removing Old Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 Installing New Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 Testing the New Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Troubleshooting Memory Installation Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . 280 Replacing a CPU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280 Safety Precautions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 Replacing a PGA CPU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 Replacing an SEC CPU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 Testing the New CPU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Troubleshooting CPU Installation Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Moving On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

SUNDAY EVENING A New Motherboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288 How a Motherboard Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 Understanding Buses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 Understanding Chipsets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 Choosing a New Motherboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 AT or ATX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

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Expansion Slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 Memory Slots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 CPU Slot or Socket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Built-In Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 I/O Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 Drive Connectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 Take a Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 What’s in the Box?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 Preparing the Work Area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 Removing the Old Motherboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Setting Up the New Motherboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Preparing the Case for the New Motherboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Connecting the Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 Connecting Wires for Case Buttons/Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Installing a Few Essential Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Performing the Initial Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 No Fan, No Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Fan but No Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 Connecting the I/O Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 Connecting the Drives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Testing It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306 Moving On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

NIGHT OWL 3 Replacing a Motherboard Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 Symptoms of a Failing Motherboard Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308 Locating the Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Buying Batteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 Replacing the Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 Moving On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Appendix A Buying Parts Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

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Appendix B Getting Hardware Information Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 General Technology Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 Hardware Manufacturer Directories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 Individual Manufacturers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 Consumer Reviews and Opinions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

INTRODUCTION You’ve probably said to yourself for months or maybe even years, “I’ve got to do something with that old computer.” Maybe you’ve run out of hard disk space or that snazzy new game you just bought doesn’t run properly. Or maybe you just want a faster Internet connection or a larger monitor. Whatever your complaint, you’ve come to the right place. Upgrade Your PC to the Ultimate Machine In a Weekend gives you a crash course in PC upgrades. It explains how the pieces fit together, how you can tell which piece will give you the most satisfaction given the tasks you want to perform, and how to buy and install parts. I won’t try to make you an all-around expert or confuse you with a lot of technical terms, but you’ll have enough information to get that old PC running in top shape.

In a Weekend? As you flip through the Table of Contents, the first thing that probably strikes you is that this book has a huge scope. It covers a lot of material in a single weekend! It teaches you how to do all kinds of upgrades, from a simple circuit board replacement to a major overhaul. It starts with morning sessions each day and takes you well into each evening. How will you have the time and energy to get through it all? Well, the short answer is: You don’t have to. Each session describes a particular type of upgrade, and hardly anyone needs all of the different upgrades discussed in this book. You will probably skip several sessions just because you have no interest in that particular upgrade. That will give you plenty of time to have a real life between sessions and still complete the course in a weekend. But there’s no law that says you have to finish in a weekend. You can read these sessions in any order you like and spread them out over multiple weekends, weekdays, or whatever.

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Why Upgrade? You’ve probably heard the old saying, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” That adage holds true for your computer, too. Suppose, for example, that you have a state-of-the-art computer system except for the video card, which is five years old. Your system won’t perform very well, even though every part but one is topnotch. The video card—the weak link—will hold it back. The theory behind upgrading, then, is that if you can identify and replace your system’s weakest link, all of the other components can work to their full potential. Upgrading works best when you have an unbalanced system—that is, when some parts are better than others. If the entire system is old and weak, you might not have any noticeable performance bottlenecks—the entire system might just be anemic. In a case like that, you’re better off buying a whole new system. A computer might not seem unbalanced until you try to perform some new task on it. For example, if you have recently started playing the latest 3D games on your PC, you might suddenly realize that you don’t have enough memory or a good enough video card. It was never a problem before because you never tried anything that exceeded the performance of the old components. Upgrading can also involve adding brand-new components that provide new capabilities, such as a scanner or digital camera. These new toys can bring old life to a dull computer setup! I’ll talk about these new gadgets as I go along, too.

How to Use This Book This book is divided into eight major sessions. (It’s okay to skip sessions that don’t interest you.) Beginners should complete them in the order in which they appear to build skills, because the book starts out with some of the easy upgrades and progresses to the harder ones. But if you feel comfortable working with computer hardware, feel free to tackle things in any order. The eight major sessions are ➤ Friday Afternoon: Preparing for an Upgrade. Don’t skip this one! It helps you determine what upgrades you need and explains the safety precautions and basic skills you need to perform the upgrades described in detail in later chapters. ➤ Friday Evening: Improving Video Performance. Read this session if you think you might want a video card upgrade or a new monitor. This upgrade can help 3D games play more smoothly, improve graphic and

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video editing, and make the PC more pleasant to use in general. This chapter also talks about scanners, digital cameras, and Webcams. ➤ Saturday Morning: Improving Sound Performance. This session is for anyone who would like a better sound card or speakers. If you play audio CDs on your PC, record your own music with MIDI instruments, or do anything else involving sound, you’ll want to go through this session. ➤ Saturday Afternoon: Adding More Hard Disk Space. If you’re running out of hard disk space, this chapter will explain how to select and install a replacement or extra hard disk and how to transfer your old files to the new drive. ➤ Saturday Evening: CD and Other Removable Disk Drives. This session explains how to select and install a variety of extra drives, including CDROM, CD-RW, DVD, Zip, tape backup, and so on. ➤ Sunday Morning: Improving Internet Speed. If you’re not happy with the speed of your dial-up modem, you’re not alone. Many people these days are enjoying much faster Internet connections. Read this chapter if you’re interested in a faster Internet experience. ➤ Sunday Afternoon: Memory and CPU. Overall PC sluggishness is often a result of too little memory and/or a slow CPU (Central Processing Unit). In this session, you’ll find out how to select and install compatible memory and CPU upgrades for your system. ➤ Sunday Evening: A New Motherboard. It’s intrepid upgraders only for this session! Find out how to remove the motherboard—the big circuit board into which everything else connects—and replace it with a newer model.

Besides these major sessions, there are three bonus sessions for you night owls. Each of these covers an optional upgrade that you might consider in specific circumstances. They are ➤ Night Owl 1: Upgrading to a Better Printer. There’s not much skill involved in installing a new printer—you just plug it in. But you need plenty of knowledge to choose the best printer within your budget! This session explains the factors that make one printer better than another and discusses which printer types work best for various activities. ➤ Night Owl 2: Upgrading the Power Supply. Power supply problems can sometimes occur after you install new drives in a system due to the extra load drawn by the new drives. This session explains the symptoms of a failing or overloaded power supply and shows you how to select and install a new one.

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➤ Night Owl 3: Replacing a Motherboard Battery. Most motherboards have a little battery that keeps the computer’s date/time clock accurate. When it starts to run down, the clock loses time. In this session you’ll find out how to locate and change that battery.

You don’t really have to do these Night Owl sessions in the middle of the night, of course! Read them any time they fit into your schedule.

Conventions Several special elements in this book will help you along the way. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

Tips offer insider information about a technology, company, or technique. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

NOTE

Notes provide background information and insight into why things work the way they do.

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CAUTION

Cautions warn you of possible hazards and point out pitfalls that typically plague beginners. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

F R I DAY A F T E R N O O N

Preparing for an Upgrade ➤ What Makes One Computer Better Than Another? ➤ Outlining Your Priorities ➤ Upgrade Planning Worksheet ➤ The New versus Upgrade Decision ➤ Basic Hardware Skills ➤ Accessing the BIOS Setup ➤ Basic Windows Skills

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ave you ever wondered why one computer at your local electronics superstore is $500 and the one next to it is $2,000? They both look the same from the outside. The secret is in the innards—the circuit boards, chips, drives, and add-ons that make a PC perform.

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What Makes One Computer Better Than Another? Before you can think about what you need to upgrade, you need to learn a little about the components that make up your PC. Throughout this weekend, you’ll read about many different computer components and how each can present a barrier to peak performance. The following sections give a brief summary of each of these components.

Video Card The video card is the interface between your PC and your monitor. It interprets the PC’s instructions and sends codes that tell the monitor which pixels (dots) to light up with which colors. If you have an old, slow video card, your screen might not refresh quickly. For example, in a drawing program you might experience a delay between drawing a line and seeing it appear on the screen. And, if you like to play graphics-intensive games, they might not run very well on your old video card; the video or sound might have starts and stops or appear garbled or choppy. A video card is a type of expansion board—a small circuit board that plugs into the motherboard (the large circuit board in the PC) at a 90-degree angle and adds a capability that is not built into the motherboard itself. However, video support is built into the motherboard on some PCs, so you might not need a separate video card. If you want to upgrade the video support on such a system, you must first disable the built-in video support on the motherboard. I’ll get into that in tonight’s session, “Improving Video Performance.”

FRIDAY AFTERNOON Preparing for an Upgrade

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Monitor The monitor shows you what’s going on. Monitors vary in screen size, clarity, and refresh rate. A monitor with a high refresh rate can help prevent eyestrain. Tonight’s session discusses video card and monitor selection and installation.

Sound Card The sound card is an expansion board that enables you to hear sound through speakers (typically sold separately). If you don’t have a sound card, you miss out on the sound effects associated with most games and also on the audible warnings your computer issues from time to time. If you want to record music from digital instruments (such as an electronic keyboard) or plug in multiple sets of speakers for surround sound, you will want a high-end sound card. The Saturday Morning session, “Improving Sound Performance,” covers sound cards. Some motherboards have built-in sound support, in which case you don’t need a separate sound card. The ports for the sound card mount to the back of the PC’s case, and from the outside it will appear that there is a sound card. But inside, instead of a circuit board, cables run from those ports to the motherboard. As with built-in video, you must disable built-in sound before installing a real sound card if you want to upgrade sound capability.

Hard Drive The hard drive is where you store most of your files. If you run out of space, you have to delete something before you can install new software. Physically, a hard drive is a stack of metal platters coated with magnetic particles, sealed in a metal box and mounted inside your PC’s case in a drive bay. Adding another hard drive is like building a room addition—it gives you more space. The speed at which hard drives can store and retrieve data varies; therefore, it pays to do a little research before purchasing one. Hard drives are covered in the Saturday Afternoon session, “Adding More Hard Disk Space.”

CD-ROM and Removable Drives Most programs come on CD these days, so a CD-ROM drive is almost a necessity. Some CD-ROM drives have extra features, such as the ability to play DVD movies or write to blank CD-Rs or CD-RWs. You’ll learn about the types of CD drives available in the Saturday Evening session, “CD and Other Removable Disk Drives.”

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CPU The CPU (Central Processing Unit), also called the processor, is the numbercrunching brain of the PC. It is the single biggest determinant of a PC’s performance abilities. Processors are described in two ways—by their class and their speed. Classes of Intel CPUs include Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium 4, and so on. AMD is the other major manufacturer; they make Athlon CPUs. Speeds are measured in megahertz (MHz). Upgrading the CPU can be tricky, because it fits into the motherboard and most motherboards have a narrow range of CPUs they will accept. CPUs are covered in detail in the Sunday Afternoon session, “Memory and CPU.”

Memory Memory provides the workspace in which your computer operates. The more memory you have, the more (and bigger) programs you can run simultaneously. If you don’t have enough memory, your programs might run slowly or not at all. Next to the CPU, the amount of memory a PC has is the most important determinant of its performance. Installing memory is easy, but shopping for memory can be difficult because there are so many different types and most motherboards can accept only one or two types. You’ll find out more about memory in Sunday Afternoon’s session.

Motherboard The motherboard is the big circuit board that everything else plugs into inside the case. The motherboard determines which CPU you can use, the type and amount of memory you can have, the types of expansion cards you can plug in, and more. If you don’t have the right kind of motherboard to support the upgrades you want, you might have to get a whole new PC or replace the motherboard. Replacing the motherboard is a major task and not for the faint of heart. I’ll show you how to do it in the Sunday Evening session, “A New Motherboard.”

Outlining Your Priorities One philosophy of computing is that there are no good or bad computers— only computers that are appropriate or inappropriate for the task at hand. In a sense, that adage is true. For example, a tiny, simple computer on the first Apollo mission did nothing but calculate trajectory. That computer was not nearly as powerful as the one sitting on your desk today, even if it’s an old


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clunker. But was it a bad computer? Nope—it was a great computer if you happened to need to calculate trajectory. So, the first question for you in today’s session is: “What do you want to do that your old computer can’t handle very well?” The following sections aren’t here to give you quick answers or help you make snap decisions; you’ll arrive at the right answers as you work through the session. These are simply guidelines to get you started in the right direction.

Internet Surfing If you’re an Internet enthusiast, you won’t want to hobble along with a 56K modem—not when there are so many appealing broadband alternatives that can increase your surfing speed by ten times or more. Consider an Internet connection upgrade if any of the following apply to you. ➤ You spend more than an hour a day online. ➤ You often download large files (more than 1 megabyte), such as digital music or applications. ➤ You connect and disconnect from the Internet several times a day. ➤ You want Web pages to load faster.

The initial cost of the equipment for broadband (that is, high-speed) Internet connectivity ranges from free (for services that lease you the equipment) to $800 or more (for two-way satellite). I’ll discuss costs and benefits in the Sunday Morning session, “Improving Internet Speed.”

Business Applications If you bring work home or run a business from home, you’ll need business applications to run well on your PC. Fortunately, most business applications have relatively modest system requirements compared to some other classes of applications, such as games and video-editing programs. If all you need is to hammer out word-processing documents and build the occasional spreadsheet, you might not need an upgrade at all. However, when you’re working with large data files, older PCs tend to bog down. You can sort, query, and chart large databases, such as in Microsoft Access, much quicker on a PC with a fast CPU and a lot of memory. Extremely large Excel worksheets are the same way. If you’re a power user of business applications and you find yourself waiting for pagination, sorting, and other actions to finish, con-

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sider adding more memory and possibly replacing the CPU and motherboard as well (depending on just how old and slow your system is). But first review the section “The New versus Upgrade Decision” later in this chapter to decide whether it would be better to buy a whole new computer.

Game Playing Game playing might seem like kids’ stuff, but the system requirements for the latest games are pretty rigorous. Games tax a PC’s capabilities in the most areas. To be a good gaming machine, a PC must have a fast CPU, lots of memory, a good video card, a good sound card, a CD-ROM or DVD drive, and decent speakers. Building a top-notch gaming machine can be an expensive proposition if you’re upgrading; if your PC is more than a couple of years old, it might be more economical to buy a whole new PC than to outlay the cash for retail versions of the high-end video card, sound card, and so on that you need for an upgrade. On the other hand, if you have an almost-new PC that’s just lagging behind in one or two areas, an upgrade for gaming can make a lot of sense.

Desktop Publishing Desktop publishing is a general term describing any application that combines text and graphics in a single document file. It can be as simple as creating a onesheet “Lost Dog” flyer in your word processor or as complex as laying out an entire book in a professional page-layout program. Desktop publishing requires a lot of memory because the application needs to hold the entire page (or many pages) in the memory at once. If you don’t have enough memory, the desktop publishing program will begin to bog down as your data file gets larger, especially when you repaginate or move from page to page. Adding more memory to the PC will usually take care of this problem.

Graphics Editing Any time you’re working intensively with graphics, your computer needs memory — and lots of it. Graphics take up a lot of space in memory, and if you don’t have enough memory in your PC, Windows uses virtual memory. Virtual memory simulates additional memory by using part of the hard disk, but hard disks are so much slower than regular memory that it bogs down the system’s performance.


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You also need a good video card. As you’ll learn in the Friday Evening session, video cards have 2D and 3D modes. For simple, flat photograph editing, a card that’s optimized for 2D is fine, but for sophisticated 3D modeling programs, you will want a 3D graphics accelerator. A graphics accelerator is simply a circuit board that is optimized for 3D programs. It is usually a video card, although you can buy add-on graphics accelerator cards that work as a team with your video card. You’ll learn more about video cards in the Friday Evening session.

Video Broadcasting If you chat with friends and relatives on the Internet, you might be interested in having a Webcam—a digital video camera that attaches to your PC and allows the people you are chatting with (in certain chat programs) to see you. You will need to buy a Webcam, of course, but you might also need to add a USB port expansion board to your computer if it doesn’t have a USB port. If you are using Windows 95, you will also need a Windows update because only Windows 98 and higher support USB.

Video Editing You’ll need plenty of memory for editing stored video clips, but more importantly you will need a way of getting your videos into the computer. You can import movies from a regular camcorder or VCR into your PC, but you need a special digital converter to do so. If you have a digital camcorder or video from some other all-digital source, you can import them directly into the PC. However, the most popular connector for linking today’s digital camcorders to PCs, called IEE 1394 or FireWire, does not come standard on most PCs, so you must buy an interface board into which it can to plug. I’ll talk more about camcorders and digital cameras at the end of the Friday Evening session.

Watching DVD Movies If you want to watch DVD movies on your PC, you need two things — a DVD drive and MPEG-2 decoding. MPEG-2 is the standard used for storing movie files on disc. Because video takes up so much space, it is compressed for storage; an MPEG-2 decoder decompresses it so it can be viewed. An MPEG-2 decoder can be an add-on board in your PC, built into your main video card, or a software-only utility. I’ll explain MPEG-2 and other considerations in more detail in the Saturday Evening session.

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Music Composition and Editing Digital musical instruments hook up to a PC through a MIDI (Multi-Instrument Digital Interface) port. Most sound cards have a MIDI port on them, but a PC that has built-in sound support may not have one. Casual musicians just playing around with music recording can get by with a basic sound card, but serious or professional musical artists will want a top-of-the-line sound card designed for MIDI use. The instrument itself is important too, as is good-quality music composition software. I will discuss these features in the Saturday Morning session.

Why Not Have It All? Ideally, you wouldn’t have to pick-and-choose your priorities when upgrading, right? The ultimate PC would be one that’s suitable for any task you throw at it—game playing, digital recording, business applications, the works. There are a couple of practical problems with that, however. ➤ Wasted capability. Even though you might think you need high-end capabilities for every part of the PC, you will probably end up maxing out only one or two of the PC’s components. Everything else will go to waste. For example, a game-player might spend the extra money for a huge hard drive but find that because his games run mostly from CDs, the hard drive never comes anywhere close to being filled. Or a pop music fan might spend an extra $200 for a CD-RW burner that writes at top speed and then end up making only one or two CDs a month. ➤ Cost of parts. To get an all-around ultimate PC, you will probably need to buy it new. Buying upgrade parts through retail stores is one of the most expensive ways to build a PC. The more parts you have to buy, the more it will cost you. In contrast, big-name PC manufacturers buy their parts wholesale, so a top-of-the-line new PC might actually cost less than the parts needed to upgrade your current PC to that level.

Therefore, it’s important to plan your upgrade goals carefully at the outset, to avoid spending too much on unnecessary items or over-upgrading—that is, spending more money upgrading an old computer than it would cost to buy a new one.

Upgrade Planning Worksheet Use the following worksheet to help summarize your thoughts so far.


1.

The top three activities I use my computer the most for are

2.

I wish that my current PC performed better at (list as many things as apply):

3.

I wish that I could add these new capabilities to my PC:

4.

The most I can possibly spend on this upgrade is $__________

5.

I would prefer to spend no more than $__________

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The New versus Upgrade Decision By now you should have a general idea of your goals. Don’t worry if you don’t understand all of the technical details behind each of the upgrades; I’ll discuss all of that in later sessions. The next thing to decide is how you will achieve those goals. There are three options—buy a new PC, build your own PC, or upgrade your old PC. Even though this book is called Upgrade Your PC to the Ultimate Machine In a Weekend, upgrading is not the best solution for everyone. In some cases it is neither cost-effective nor practical. Take a look at the pros and cons of each option.

Do You Want a Brand New Computer? A new computer might seem like a big expense, but it also comes with a lot of benefits, including ➤ The most recent version of Windows. Some software and hardware require a certain Windows version. For example, hardware that requires a USB connection cannot run on Windows 95; it needs 98 or higher. Expect to pay $100 or more for a copy of Windows if you buy it separately. ➤ No bottlenecks. If you upgrade one part of an old PC, you have an old PC with one new part, and some other part will probably need to be replaced soon. With a new computer, all the parts are the same age.

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➤ Free software. Most new computers come bundled with a software assortment, including games, utilities, and either Microsoft Office or Microsoft Works Suite. ➤ Warranty. New computers come with at least a one-year warranty. New parts bought separately have their own warranties but when an individually warranted part breaks, you have to narrow down the problem to that part, ship it off to the company (at your own expense), and install the replacement. With a whole-system warranty, you can take an ailing computer to an authorized repair center and have them figure it out.

Should You Build Your Own from Parts? If you’re handy with a screwdriver and not afraid to do some troubleshooting, you can build your own PC out of parts. This will be more expensive than buying a new pre-built computer, but you will get exactly the PC you want. You can build the ultimate PC in every aspect that’s important to you. Some advantages include ➤ Top-quality parts. When you buy a pre-built PC, the manufacturer has usually used some mid-range or inexpensive parts to keep the price down. When you build a PC yourself, you can use high-end parts throughout— the best motherboard, the best case, the best power supply, and so on. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

A company called PC Power and Cooling has been well known in the PC industry for many years for making some of the best PC cases and power supplies. Check them out on the Web at http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

➤ Familiarity. If you build it, you can fix it. You know where everything connects; there is no scratching your head wondering, “What does that thing do?” ➤ Pay for only what you want. Pre-built systems might come with components you don’t need. When you build a PC yourself, you can invest your money in the parts that are most important for the tasks you want to perform.

Should You Upgrade Your Existing PC? The final option, and the one explored throughout most of this book, is to upgrade an existing computer by adding or replacing parts. This can be the most cost-effective solution when your current PC is lacking in only one or two areas.


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Advantages of upgrading include ➤ Lower short-term cost. Why replace the entire PC if only one item is broken or inadequate? You can save hundreds of dollars in the short term by buying only what you need. ➤ Extended PC life. The longer you can put off buying a whole new PC, the more PC you will get for your money. Upgrading one or two items in an old PC can make living with it more pleasant for another year or so. ➤ Addition of new features. You can add the latest capabilities to an existing PC fairly economically, such as a CD-RW drive, DVD, or high-speed Internet access. Buying a whole new PC just to have one of these new features is overkill.

Hardware Shopping Tips No matter what you shop for, the process is the same. You decide what you want the item to accomplish, what extra frills you want, and whether you want a brand name or generic unit, and then you try to find the best price. The information in the rest of this book will help you identify the features to shop for, but for now let’s talk about some of the non-item-specific aspects of shopping for computer components.

Brand Name or Generic Parts? Name-brand parts cost more than generics but offer some or all of these benefits. ➤ Higher quality. Name-brand parts are usually (but not always) made from better-quality materials. For example, a name-brand computer case might be made of a higher-grade, thicker metal than a generic one. Depending on the component, the quality difference may be small or great from one brand to another. ➤ Fewer defective units. In general, name-brand parts are manufactured under stricter quality control, resulting in a smaller percentage of returns due to defects. Generic parts are apt to come from unregulated foreign factories. ➤ Customer support. A name-brand company usually provides more service after the sale, such as a toll-free number that you can call with questions. Generics usually do not provide these services.

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➤ Warranty. Even if a generic part comes with a warranty, you might find it hard to contact the company and to honor the warranty. Large namebrand companies have well-established systems for honoring warranties.

Are all those factors worth paying for? Usually. Every time I buy cheap generic parts, I end up regretting it and telling myself not to be such a penny-pincher the next time. Ultimately, the decision is up to you. Perhaps your budget won’t allow you to go with name-brand parts, but if you have the extra money you can save yourself some headaches by buying quality parts. A quick scan through a computer magazine can give you an idea of the successful brand names, and I’ll try to drop some in the upcoming chapters.

Choosing the Brand and Model If you have decided to go with the cheapest products, you can skip this section because the only pertinent quality is price. (I urge you to reconsider, though.) The rest of you, however, are looking for the best component for your money. The strategy I use to pick a component is to ask the following questions. 1. What is the overall best brand and model available today, regardless of price? What makes it the best? 2. Which features of the best model are unimportant to me? 3. Which alternative models offer the features I care about without the ones I don’t need? 4. Of the alternative models, which can I afford? If my answer to question 4 is “none of them,” I go back to question 2 and try to reduce the list of features I care about until I find a product I can afford. To tackle question 1, you’ll need to educate yourself about the market for the component. Some ways to do that include reading magazine articles, requesting literature from the manufacturers, searching on the Web, and asking friends what they recommend.

Take a Break How’s it going so far? By now you should have an idea of the types of upgrades that interest you and the strategies for shopping for those parts. In the remainder of this session, I’ll explain some of the basic procedures for installing and removing computer components. These skills will serve you well no matter what type of upgrade you decide you need.


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Basic Hardware Skills There are many upgrades you can make to a PC, but there are actually only a few basic skills required for all of them. Rather than repeat those same skills in the upcoming sessions, I’ll explain them here once and then refer back to them.

Safety Precautions Safety is about more than just pricking your finger on an exposed wire. There are three components to PC safety—protecting yourself, protecting the equipment, and protecting the environment.

Protecting Yourself Electricity is the main thing to watch out for when working on PCs. PCs run on standard 110-volt AC power, which is probably not enough to kill you but more than enough to deliver a nasty shock. To avoid getting shocked, take the following precautions. ➤ Unplug the PC before you add or remove components. ➤ Do not wear an antistatic wrist strap while operating, adjusting, or examining a PC that is plugged into an outlet. ➤ Never remove the cover from the monitor or touch anything inside it. There is a large capacitor inside the monitor that stores thousands of volts. If you drop something inside the air vents on the top of a monitor, take it to a repair shop. It’s not worth the risk.

NOTE

The only parts of the computer that are capable of causing major electrical shock are rather inaccessible (the inside of the power supply or the monitor, for example), so it is not a huge danger to work with a PC while it’s plugged in.The main reason that people advise you to unplug a PC before you work on it is to make certain that it’s powered off. Adding or removing components with the power on can cause damage to the PC.

In addition, use care when working inside a PC. Just use your common sense— don’t wear dangly jewelry that can get caught on the little pieces on a circuit board and be careful not to cut yourself on sharp metal edges.

Avoiding Equipment Damage It’s much easier to hurt the PC than it is to hurt yourself. Computer equipment is extremely sensitive to ESD (Electrostatic Discharge)—that is, static electricity.

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Just walking into a room wearing nylon socks can generate 1,000 volts or so; the average circuit board can be ruined by less than one-tenth of that. Most of the time people don’t even realize that they are harming computer components with ESD; the components just stop working and people are clueless as to why. One way to avoid ESD damage is to keep yourself grounded as you work on a PC. The best way is to wear an antistatic wrist strap, available from your local Radio Shack or other electronics store (see Figure 1.1). You attach the alligatorclip end to a grounded metal object and put the Velcro end around your wrist. If you don’t have an antistatic strap, you can avoid ESD by grounding yourself frequently to keep electrical charges from building up in your body. To do so, touch a grounded metal object frequently as you work. If the PC is plugged in, its metal frame is grounded, so you can touch it. However, it’s not a good idea to work on a PC while it’s plugged in because of the danger of minor electrical shock. Use this method only when nothing else is available. Another way to avoid ESD is to keep loose circuit boards in their protective plastic bags whenever they are not being installed or removed. These plastic bags look like smoky clear plastic, but they are specially coated to channel any static from the inside to the outside. It is important never to set a circuit board on top of the outside of a bag—that’s where all the static is. The following tips will also help you avoid equipment damage. ➤ Keep components away from magnets, including the magnetized tips of screwdrivers, the magnets in speakers, and the magnets in some telephone handsets. Use only unmagnetized tools.

Figure 1.1 An antistatic wrist strap


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➤ Plug all equipment into a surge suppressor power strip, instead of directly into the wall outlet. ➤ Keep components dust-free by blowing them off with canned air. Do not get them wet. If you do accidentally get them wet, let them dry completely before using them. If liquid is necessary for cleaning a part, use denatured alcohol. ➤ Avoid temperature extremes when storing or using computer components.

Environmentally-Friendly Disposal of Old Parts PCs can not only hurt you directly, they can also hurt the environment. Several parts inside a PC require special disposal procedures. ➤ Batteries. A motherboard has a very small battery; a notebook PC has a big one. These batteries can contain lead, lithium, nickel-cadmium, or mercury, all of which can seep into groundwater in a landfill. ➤ Toner cartridges. These cartridges from laser printers can contain traces of leftover toner, which can cause lung problems if inhaled. Depending on the model, you might be able to sell your old cartridges to a company that remanufactures them. ➤ Monitors. These big plastic shells take up a lot of space in a landfill, and they also contain phosphorous, mercury, and lead coatings on the back of the monitor glass. ➤ Circuit boards. These contain small amounts of lead in the soldering. ➤ Cleaning chemicals. Some cleaning solvents used for PCs can pollute groundwater and soil.

If your community has a hazardous waste disposal facility, take these materials there. Check the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Web site at http://www.epa.gov if you do not know where to go.

Removing the PC Cover Some people claim that getting the cover off is the hardest part of working with a PC, and for some PCs, they’re right! Some covers are notoriously hard to get off, and even harder to get back on again. It’s not brain surgery—just quirky little grooves to line up.

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Figure 1.2 Remove the screws and then slide the cover back and off.

Most older PCs have Phillips screws you must remove to loosen the cover. They are usually around the edges of the back of the PC. Once you remove the screws, you slide the cover back and lift it off (see Figure 1.2). Newer cases have a single thumbscrew or no screws at all. They typically have a side panel that pops out rather than a full cover around all sides. Because new cases come out all the time with different designs, the best way to determine how to remove your PC’s cover is to check the manual that came with it. In some cases, for example, you must pop off the bezel on the front of the PC first, and then lift up a side panel. There’s no end to the variations.

Identifying the Internal Components Once you get the cover off, you can check out the PC’s internal organs. This is a good exercise to go through now because it’ll help you become familiar with the components that will be discussed in later sessions.

Motherboard The motherboard is the big circuit board into which everything else connects. It is usually green or amber in color and has many cables and chips plugged into


Memory

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Expansion slots

Figure 1.3 The motherboard is the central point for all other circuit boards and cables. Keyboard and mouse connectors

CPU

it. Figure 1.3 shows a typical motherboard. You won’t be able to see yours quite as clearly because of everything plugged into it, but you’ll get the general idea.

Expansion Boards An expansion board is a circuit board that fits into the motherboard and expands its capabilities. Typical expansion boards include video cards, sound cards, modems, and extra drive controllers. Expansion boards have a strip along one edge with metal tabs on it. These tabs, when pushed down inside a slot on the motherboard, make a connection and allow the circuit board to interface with the rest of the system. Figure 1.4 shows a typical expansion board. You might have noticed in Figure 1.3 that the motherboard has several different shapes and sizes of expansion slots. On most modern systems, there are three: AGP (small and brown, used only for video cards), PCI (small and white, used for everything else), and ISA (large and black, for backward compatibility with older devices only). Take a good look at your motherboard and determine which types of slots it has because when you buy upgrade components later this weekend, you will need to know which kind to get.

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Figure 1.4 An expansion board plugs into the motherboard to extend its capabilities.

You can tell what purpose a particular expansion board serves by looking at the connector(s) on it. Here’s a quick identification guide to the ports on expansion boards. You don’t have to understand anything about these port types right now; however, later in the book I might ask you to find your video card, for example, and you can refer back to this guide. 15 holes arranged in three rows of five

Video card

Nine pins arranged in rows of five and four

Serial port

25 pins arranged in rows of 13 and 12

Serial port

25 holes arranged in rows of 13 and 12

Parallel port

Two phone jacks

Modem

Single wider-than-normal phone jack

Ethernet network card

Three round single holes and a 15-hole connector arranged in rows of eight and seven

Sound card

More than 25 holes or pins on a single connector

SCSI card


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Drives Drives are the mechanical boxes that read and write to disks for storing data. Some drives use removable disks, such as floppies; others use non-removable disks. A non-removable disk is also called a hard disk because of the hard metal platters that are permanently encased inside the metal box that also contains the drive unit. Figure 1.5 shows a hard disk.

NOTE

Because a hard disk and its drive are inseparable, the terms hard disk and hard drive have come to be synonymous.

A drive with outside access fits into an external drive bay. External in this case does not mean outside of the PC; it merely means that disks can be inserted and removed without taking apart the computer. A drive that does not use removable disks fits into an internal drive bay, which has no external access. Figure 1.6 shows some drive bays in a PC. The bottom bays in Figure 1.6 are internal because there is no hole in the front of the PC for them (although you can’t see that very well in the picture). There are two sizes of drive bays—the larger size for CD-ROM and the smaller size for floppies and hard disks. The number of available internal and external drive bays of each size will be significant in later chapters when you think about adding drives to your system.

Figure 1.5 A hard disk

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Figure 1.6 Internal and external drive bays in a PC

Ribbon Cables Now trace the wide flat cable that runs from one of the drives to the motherboard. This is a ribbon cable. There are probably several ribbon cables inside your PC. Figure 1.7 shows how a ribbon cable attaches to a motherboard. It attaches to the drive with the same type of connector. There are two types of drive interfaces built into a typical motherboard—a floppy interface for floppy drives and an IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) interface for hard disks, CD-ROMs, and other drive types. The floppy interface uses a slightly narrower ribbon cable (34 pins rather than 40). Each ribbon cable can handle up to two drives, so the motherboard can support a total of six drives natively—two floppy and four others. IDE is not the only drive interface for hard disks and CD-ROMs, but it is the most popular. The other major player is SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface), which I will cover in the Saturday Afternoon session along with more details about IDE. What’s important to notice right now is the number of drives you have installed and how many of them are floppy drives connected to the floppy interface on the motherboard. The remaining ones are IDE. If you already have four IDE devices, you will need an expansion board that contains more IDE connectors if you plan to add more drives. I’ll discuss this concept more in the Saturday Afternoon and Evening sessions.


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Figure 1.7 A ribbon cable connects the motherboard and a drive.

Jumpers The motherboard and some circuit boards have little caps (usually black) that fit over pairs of metal pins sticking up on the board. These are jumpers; they are used to make tiny changes in the flow of electricity through the circuit board and thereby change certain settings. When the jumper is “jumped” (that is, when the cap covers both pins), a circuit is completed that sets a certain value. When the cap is removed, the setting reverts to its original state, setting a different value. One common use for jumpers on a motherboard is to specify the speed of the CPU installed. More recent motherboards have been moving toward jumperless Plug-and-Play operation, which enables the motherboard to determine its own settings. Therefore, a motherboard you buy today might have only one or two jumpers on it, while a motherboard that’s five years old might have 20 jumpers or more. Some jumpers consist of a pair of pins; the cap is either on or off those pins. If the cap is only on one of the pins, it’s the same as if it is on neither. Other jumpers consist of three pins. With such a setup, three settings are possible— no jumper at all, a jumper between the first and second pins, or a jumper between the second and third pins. Figure 1.8 shows two examples of jumpers. The best way to determine the function of a particular jumper is to refer to the manual that came with the PC or motherboard. If you don’t have that, you can sometimes figure out a jumper’s purpose by looking at the lettering on the motherboard itself.

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Figure 1.8 Jumpers on motherboards

IDE drives also have jumpers on them but that’s a big topic unto itself, so I’ll save that for Saturday Afternoon’s discussion.

Accessing the BIOS Setup The motherboard acts as a big traffic controller between all of the other components, so it needs to be fairly smart. The brains of the motherboard are contained in a set of controller chips called, appropriately enough, the chipset. The chipset dictates what type of CPU the motherboard can accept, what kind of memory it can use, how fast it can shuttle data from place to place, and hundreds of other settings. The motherboard contains a small program called the BIOS (Basic Input Output System) that works with the chipset to start the PC when you press the power button. It identifies and checks all the hardware and then passes off control to the operating system. Some of the settings that the BIOS uses for startup are customizable. To adjust these settings, you enter a setup program called BIOS Setup as the computer is starting. You might have noticed a message on the screen at startup saying something like “Press F2 for Setup.” If you press the key quickly enough, you will enter BIOS Setup. From there, you can make changes to dozens of hardware-level settings. Figure 1.9 shows the main screen of a typical BIOS Setup program. There are many different BIOS Setup program versions, and they all work a little differently. However, instructions are almost always displayed prominently on the screen, so you can figure it out pretty easily. For example, you’ll notice in


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Figure 1.9 BIOS Setup

Figure 1.9 that the info bar along the bottom tells you to use the arrow keys to move and press Enter to select something, and the bar at the right provides instructions for the currently highlighted selection. Later chapters discuss specific BIOS Setup settings in detail, but as a preview, some of the settings you can adjust in the BIOS Setup might include ➤ Number and type of floppy drives installed ➤ Number, type, and configuration of IDE drives installed (hard drive, CD-ROM, and so on) ➤ System date and time ➤ Security password ➤ Power-savings settings (for example, to turn the monitor and hard drives off after a certain period of inactivity) ➤ Active/inactive status of features built into the motherboard, such as on-board sound or video

When you are finished making changes to the BIOS Setup, choose the Exit command and save your changes. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

In most BIOS Setup programs, you can press F10 as a shortcut to the Exit command. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

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Basic Windows Skills This book assumes that you do not have a lot of knowledge about computer hardware, but that you have at least a passing familiarity with your installed version of Microsoft Windows. To perform some of the upgrades, you need to have mastered a core set of skills. The following sections outline the things that the rest of the book will assume you already know. If you need more help with these skills, check out the Help system in Windows or explore one of the Windows In a Weekend books also published by Premier Press.

Working with Files and Folders Most hardware components these days are Plug-and-Play, which means you don’t have to install any software to make it work. However, there are all kinds of special situations in which you will need to be able to find, copy, and move files in Windows. For example, you might need to browse a CD-ROM to locate a needed driver and then copy it to your hard disk, or you might need to locate a driver that you’ve downloaded and misplaced. Before you continue to this evening’s session, make sure know how to do the following tasks. ➤ View the contents of a disk. Open My Computer from the desktop or Windows Explorer from the Start menu. To open a disk or folder, doubleclick on it. Figure 1.10 shows Windows Explorer in Windows XP. ➤ Rename a file or folder. To rename something, right-click on it and choose Rename or select it and press F2. Then type the new name. ➤ Move and copy files from one folder to another. To move or copy files, you can use drag-and-drop or the Cut, Copy, and Paste commands on the Edit menu. When using drag-and-drop, hold down the Ctrl key to copy. (Move is the default when you are going between folders on the same drive.) ➤ Move and copy files between disks. Just like between folders, you can drag and drop or use Cut, Copy, and Paste. When you are using dragand-drop, hold down the Shift key to move. (Copy is the default when you are going between disks.) ➤ Find a file using the Find (or Search) feature in Windows. Windows 95 and 98 call this feature Find; later versions call it Search. Whatever you call it, make sure you can find a file by name, date modified, size, and any other criteria by which you think you might ever search.


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Figure 1.10 Windows Explorer is a useful interface for file management.

➤ Delete a file and retrieve a deleted file from the Recycle Bin. To delete a file, select it and press Delete or right-click on it and choose Delete. You can also drag it to the Recycle Bin. To restore the file, right-click on it in the Recycle Bin and choose Restore.

Working with the Control Panel The Control Panel is your one-stop shop for Windows settings. Here you can install and remove software; run Wizards for configuring new hardware (if Windows doesn’t detect it automatically for some reason); adjust video, keyboard, mouse, network, and modem settings; and much more. I’ll show you how use the Control Panel extensively in upcoming sessions, so familiarize yourself with it now if you aren’t already comfortable with it. Following are some of the Control Panel applets (that is, mini applications) that you might need to use when installing your upgrades. Figure 1.11 shows the Control Panel in Windows XP. Some of the applets have slightly different names in different Windows versions. ➤ Add Hardware. Use this applet to force a Wizard to help detect new hardware if Windows does not see it automatically with Plug-and-Play. ➤ Add or Remove Programs. Use this applet to install or remove the software that comes with a device.

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Figure 1.11 The Control Panel and applets in Windows XP

➤ Display. Use this applet to adjust your video card settings after a video card or monitor upgrade (or any time). ➤ Game Controllers. Use this applet to calibrate and configure joysticks, flight yokes, and other gaming hardware. ➤ Keyboard. Use this applet to adjust the repeat rate and other settings for a new keyboard. ➤ Mouse. Use this applet to adjust the pointer size, appearance, and movement of the mouse pointer after you install a new mouse. ➤ Network Connections. Use this applet to add the drivers for networking hardware and install network communication protocols. ➤ Phone and Modem Options. Use this applet to test and configure modems. ➤ Printers and Faxes. Use this applet to run the Add Printer Wizard and configure the properties for installed printers. ➤ Scanners and Cameras. Use this applet to access installed Plug-and-Play scanners and digital cameras. (This applet is available in Windows Me and XP only.) ➤ System. Use this applet to access the Device Manager—a comprehensive list of the installed hardware that you can use for troubleshooting and configuration. You can also use this applet to adjust system settings, such as cache usage and video acceleration.


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Take some time to familiarize yourself with the Control Panel and browse some of the applets. I’ll discuss many of them in more detail later.

Adding and Removing Programs Some devices are partially Plug-and-Play, but they require you to run a Setup program to complete their installation or set up some extra software. Most of the time running a Setup program is as easy as double-clicking a file and then following the onscreen instructions. If the Setup program comes on a CD-ROM with an AutoRun capability, it’s even easier because the Setup program starts automatically when you insert the CD. You should also know how to remove software using the Add or Remove Programs utility in the Windows Control Panel. Occasionally, an installation encounters problems and you need to remove the bad installation before you can rerun the Setup program. You might also need to remove a program associated with a device if you get rid of the device. For example, if you are getting a new scanner, you will want to remove all of the old scanner software before you install the new stuff. In Windows 9x/Me, the icon is called Add/Remove Programs, and it opens the dialog box shown in Figure 1.12. Click on the Install button on the Install/Uninstall tab to start a Setup program. Or click on an already installed program in the list in the lower half of the dialog box, and then click on the Add/Remove button to remove the program or change its installation.

Figure 1.12 In Windows 9x/Me, you can add and remove programs from the same place—the Install/Uninstall tab.

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The Add/Remove Programs icon in Windows 2000/XP opens the dialog box shown in Figure 1.13. There are different screens in these Windows versions for adding versus removing or changing programs. The screen shown in Figure 1.13 is for changing or removing a program. To add a program, click on the Add New Programs icon to run a Wizard.

Working with the Device Manager The Device Manager is probably the single most important Windows utility for troubleshooting issues with new and upgraded hardware. It lists all of the hardware in your system by category, and you can view the properties of each device by double-clicking on it on this list. In the Device Manager, you can see whether there are any resource conflicts between devices, manually set the resource allocations for devices, and run the Update Driver Wizard for a piece of hardware. Getting to the Device Manager is slightly different in the various Windows versions. In Windows 9x/Me, there is a Device Manager tab in the System Properties dialog box (accessed by double-clicking on the System applet in the Control Panel), as shown in Figure 1.14. In Windows 2000/XP, you open the System Properties dialog box, click on the Hardware Tab, and then click on the Device Manager button to display the dialog box shown in Figure 1.15.

Figure 1.13 In Windows 2000 and XP, the window for changing and removing installed programs is different from the window for adding a program.


Figure 1.14 The Device Manager in Windows Me

Figure 1.15 The Device Manager in Windows XP

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Figure 1.16 Device properties shown on the Device Manager

Once the Device Manager is open, click on the plus sign next to a category to open it, and then double-click on a device to view its Properties dialog box. You can tell whether Windows recognizes a device and is able to find its drivers by the Device Status on the General tab, shown in Figure 1.16. I will discuss the properties for different device types later in the book.

Moving On Now that you’ve examined your upgrade priorities, reviewed the Windows prerequisites for this weekend, learned about some basic safety considerations, and poked around inside your PC a bit, you’re ready to move on. The rest of the sessions in this book focus on specific categories of upgrades, and you’ll build on the basics you’ve learned in this session. Take a break now and get some supper, and then return to the book for your Friday Evening session.

F R I DAY

EVENING

Improving Video Performance ➤ Understanding the Video Subsystem ➤ Looking at Motherboards with Video in Mind ➤ Installing a Video Card ➤ Installing and Testing a Monitor ➤ Troubleshooting Windows and Application-Specific Video Problems ➤ Exploring Video Input Add-Ons

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he video display is the primary way in which the computer communicates with you, so it’s essential that the display be clear, readable, and free from the flicker that causes eyestrain. Some people will even want to spring for the higher-priced equipment that provides maximum gaming or digital imaging and video performance. In this chapter, you’ll find out what features make one video card and monitor better than another and how to upgrade your current equipment.

T

What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? Nearly all PCs sold today come with a video card or built-in video that is adequate for the average person’s needs. If you are just surfing the Internet and doing a little word processing, you don’t need a video card upgrade. You won’t notice a big difference, so spend your money on something else. However, a video-card upgrade can be a great benefit if you find yourself spending lots of time doing any of the following computing activities. ➤ Playing games. People who play the latest shoot-em-up computer games may find that their games run more smoothly and possibly in a higher performance mode with a high-quality video card. ➤ Watching DVD movies. Doing this requires a DVD drive, of course (which is discussed in the Saturday Evening session, “CD and Other Removable Disk Drives”), and also MPEG decoding capability. This MPEG decoder can be a separate expansion board or built into the video card. ➤ 3D modeling. If you work with graphics creation/editing programs that involve 3D modeling (that is, creating drawings with 3D perspective), having a better video card will mean less waiting for the program to perform certain functions on your drawing, such as shading and texturing. ➤ Photography editing. If you work with a program that does high-detail photography editing, such as Photoshop, a better video card will mean less waiting for the screen to redraw itself after an editing operation.

FRIDAY EVENING Improving Video Performance

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➤ Video editing. If you transfer digital video from a camera to your PC, a high-quality video card will make that video appear less choppy when you play it back. A video-card upgrade will also improve the performance of your video editing software by reducing the time you have to wait for operations to complete.

Almost everyone would enjoy having a larger monitor. It makes DVD movies more fun to watch, games more fun to play, photographs easier to manipulate, and so on. However, screen size is far from the only factor to consider when choosing a replacement monitor, as you will learn in this chapter.

Understanding the Video Subsystem A subsystem in a PC is a group of components that work together to handle a certain part of the computer’s operations. The video subsystem consists of three parts. ➤ Video card ➤ Monitor ➤ Motherboard

The first two are obvious—of course the video card and monitor are important parts of the video subsystem. But the motherboard? It’s important too, because it contains the expansion slot in which the video card will be installed. If it doesn’t have a slot that matches the video card you are trying to install, it’s a squarepeg-round-hole situation. See the “Looking at Motherboards with Video in Mind” section later in the chapter for more details.

Is Your Existing Hardware Enough? If you are considering buying a new video card or monitor, your old one is probably deficient in some way. But before you rush out and buy new hardware, here are a few things you can try to get better performance out of your existing video card and monitor.

Finding Out What You Already Have Check in the Device Manager to see what video card Windows thinks you have. (Refer back to the Friday Afternoon session for an explanation of the Device Manager.) You can also look in Display Properties in the Control Panel for this information, as shown in Figure 2.1.

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Figure 2.1 The Display Properties in Windows reports your video card and monitor on the Settings tab.

If Windows reports the video card as Standard VGA, this means that it was unable to detect the video card. In this case, your display will be limited to 640×480 and 16 colors, which is pretty lousy—no wonder you are unhappy with your display if this pertains to you! If you have a video driver disk that came with the PC, run its Setup program. If not, try downloading a driver from the video card manufacturer’s Web site.

Updating the Video Card Driver Armed with the information about your video card, visit the manufacturer’s Web site and download the latest driver for it. A new driver can make a world of difference, especially if your old driver was not made for the exact version of Windows that you now have installed. The drivers might come in a ready-to-run setup file (which you just double-click and follow the prompts) or they might come in a compressed archive ZIP file. If it’s a ZIP file, you’ll need an unzipping utility to extract them. Windows XP and Me come with built-in ZIP support, so you can just double-click on the ZIP file to open it like a folder, and then drag-and-drop files into a new folder that you created for storing them. If you have any other Windows version, try WinZip, available from http://www.winzip.com. If the drivers you downloaded didn’t come with their own Setup program, you can use the Update Driver Wizard in Windows. The exact steps for it depend


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on your version of Windows. Here are instructions for the most popular versions.

Windows XP Follow these steps to check and update the display driver in Windows XP. 1. From the Display Properties (from the Control Panel), click on the Settings tab and then the Advanced button. A Properties dialog box for the video card and monitor will appear. 2. Click on the Adapter tab, and then click on the Properties button. A Properties dialog box for the video card will appear. 3. Click on the Driver tab, and then click on Update Driver. The Update Driver Wizard will run. 4. Choose Install from a list or specific location, and then click on Next. 5. Click on the Don’t Search button, and then click on Next. 6. Click on the Have Disk button and browse to the location of the downloaded files. 7. Complete the Wizard by following the prompts. While you are installing a new video card driver in Windows XP, you might see a message warning that the driver you are installing has not been digitally signed. Digital signatures on drivers ensure that they are not corrupted and that they’ll work in Windows XP. If you have a choice a signed driver is best, but you might not always have a choice. Try downloading the Windows XP driver for your video card from the manufacturer’s Web site. As a last resort, you can bypass the warning and install an unsigned driver. An unsigned driver will be fine in about 90 percent of cases, so don’t stress out too much over trying to find a signed driver.

Windows 2000 Follow these steps to check and update the display driver in Windows 2000. 1. From the Display Properties (from the Control Panel), click on the Settings tab and then on the Advanced button. A Properties dialog box for the video card and monitor will appear. 2. Click on the Adapter tab, and then click on the Properties button. A Properties dialog box for the video card will appear.

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3. Click on the Driver tab, and then click on Update Driver. The Update Driver Wizard will run. 4. Click on Next. Click on the Display a List of the Known Drivers button, and then click on Next again. 5. Click on the Have Disk button and browse to the location of the downloaded files. 6. Complete the Wizard by following the prompts.

Windows 98/Me Follow these steps to check and update the display driver in Windows 98 or Me. 1. From the Display Properties (from the Control Panel), click on the Settings tab and then on the Advanced button. A Properties dialog box for the video card and monitor will appear. 2. Click on the Adapter tab, and then click on the Change button. The Update Device Driver Wizard will run. 3. Click on Next. Click on the Display a List of All the Drivers in a Specific Location button, and then click on Next again. 4. Click on the Have Disk button and browse to the location of the downloaded files. 5. Complete the Wizard by following the prompts.

Installing a Monitor Driver The monitor driver is not really a driver in the same sense as the video card driver. It is just an information file (with an .inf extension) that tells Windows what the monitor’s maximum capabilities are (in terms of resolution and refresh rate) so it can eliminate any settings that the monitor can’t support from the Display Properties dialog box. By default, Windows identifies most monitors as Plug-and-Play. That’s fine, except that the maximum settings for that driver are rather low. You can make better settings available in many cases by installing a driver for the exact monitor you have. It might have come on a floppy disk with the monitor, or you might have downloaded it from the monitor manufacturer’s Web site. Monitor drivers install just like video adapter drivers except that you install them from the Monitor tab. If you need to change the monitor driver, see the steps in the preceding section for your operating system, but choose the Monitor tab rather than the Adapter tab.


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Adjusting the Windows Display Settings Your dissatisfaction with your current video card and monitor might be partly a result of incorrect display settings in Windows. Try adjusting some of the settings to see whether you can make an improvement.

Changing the Color Depth The color depth is the number of possible colors in a particular display mode. Each dot on the screen is assigned a color represented by a binary number. In a 4-digit binary number (0000 through 1111), for example, there are 16 possible combinations, so 4-bit color means 16 colors. (8-bit color is 256 colors, and so on.) The greater the color depth, the more vibrant and realistic photos and other graphics will look on the screen. High color depths put quite a load on the video card, however, because it must handle many times more data per second than in the lower color depths. 8-bit color (256 colors) is a good general-purpose mode to use for old video cards; higher modes, such as 32-bit color, are appropriate for the latest, fastest video cards. To change the color depth, follow these steps. 1. In the Display Properties dialog box (from the Control Panel), click on the Settings tab. 2. Open the Colors drop-down menu and choose the color depth you want. (The menu is called Color Quality in Windows XP.) 3. Click on OK. If a confirmation box appears, click on Yes or OK to accept it. 4. If you are prompted to restart Windows, do so.

Changing the Resolution The resolution is the number of unique dots that make up a display horizontally and vertically. Each monitor has a maximum resolution, which is its physical number of pixels. Windows can run at any resolution, from basic VGA (640 pixels across by 480 pixels up and down) to the monitor’s maximum. A high resolution makes everything appear smaller on the screen (except the Windows desktop, which expands to fill the area). Therefore, the highest resolution possible is not always the best choice. People with limited vision—or people who simply don’t want to squint all the time—might find a more moderate resolution best for their needs. For small monitors (14" or 15"), 640×480 or 800×600 are typical resolutions; for a larger monitor (17" and up), most people prefer 1024×768.

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To change the resolution, follow these steps. 1. In the Display Properties dialog box (from the Control Panel), click on the Settings tab. 2. Drag the Screen Area slider to the left or right to decrease or increase the resolution. (The slider is called Screen Resolution in Windows XP.) 3. Click on OK. If a confirmation box appears, click on Yes or OK to accept it. There may be two confirmation boxes—one before you change the resolution and one after you do.

Changing the Refresh Rate As soon as an electron hits a phosphor it immediately starts decaying, so each pixel in the display must be refreshed by a re-hit with the electron gun many hundreds of times per second. If pixels aren’t refreshed quickly enough, the display will flicker, which causes eyestrain. The measurement of how many times per second the display is refreshed is its refresh rate. The higher the refresh rate, the less the screen flickers, and the less likely it is to cause eyestrain. One reason to set up the monitor driver (refer to the preceding section) is to enable higher refresh rates in Windows’ Display Properties. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

A refresh rate set too high can cause on-screen distortion and can damage the monitor. If you have correctly identified your monitor to Windows, it will not let you set the refresh rate higher than the monitor can handle, but if you are using the wrong monitor driver, the wrong settings could be available. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

The best setting for refresh rate is usually Optimal, which uses the highest possible setting for the video card and monitor combination. If Optimal is not a choice, a mid-level setting, such as 85 Hz, is usually sufficient to prevent noticeable flickering on most monitors. The procedure is nearly identical for the different Windows versions. However, in Windows 98 and Me, the setting is on the Adapter tab, whereas in Windows 2000 and XP, it’s on the Monitor tab. To check and change refresh rate, follow these steps. 1. In the Display Properties dialog box, click on the Settings tab and then the Advanced button. A Properties box for the video card and monitor will appear.


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Figure 2.2 Increasing the refresh rate can result in a display with less flicker.

2. Click on the Monitor tab (see Figure 2.2) in Windows 2000/XP, or click on the Adapter tab in Windows 95/98. 3. Choose a refresh rate from the Screen Refresh Rate drop-down menu. 4. Click on OK to close all open dialog boxes.

Adjusting the Monitor When you change resolutions and refresh rates, the on-screen image might be shifted in one direction or become slightly larger or smaller than it was before. Most monitors have on-screen controls that adjust the image size, position (also known as phase), contrast, brightness, and other factors. Check your monitor’s manual to figure out how the controls work; they’re different for every model. Inexpensive or old monitors might have a couple of thumbwheels or knobs; fancier monitors will have complete menu systems of controls that appear when you press a certain button. You then move through the menu system by pressing buttons or moving a joystick or wheel on the front of the monitor. Figure 2.3 shows the on-screen menu for a high-end Sony monitor, for example. Some of the controls you might have available include ➤ Brightness. This controls the amount of light in the display. Most people find that brighter is better, although if you go overboard, the black areas will look gray.

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Figure 2.3 Some monitors have an on-screen menu system for adjusting them.

➤ Contrast. This controls the difference between light and dark areas. Most people like a lot of contrast. ➤ Geometry. This is the on-screen tilt and shape of the picture. You can use it to tilt the picture slightly clockwise or counterclockwise, make the sides bow in or out, or make the top or bottom of the display wider or narrower. ➤ Size. You can make the picture taller or shorter or wider or narrower. ➤ Centering. You can move the picture to the left, right, top, or bottom of the screen. This is also called phase or position. ➤ Convergence. This describes the relationship of the red, green, and blue dots in the triads to one another. Adjust this if a pure white background has a slight red, green, or blue tint to it. ➤ Color. Some monitors let you adjust the color tint. On high-end monitors, there may be very complex controls for this, including Bias and Gain settings for each color (red, green, and blue).

If all these adjustments have not produced satisfactory video performance, the next step is to consider a video card and/or monitor upgrade. The rest of this chapter will help you with that task.

Looking at Motherboards with Video in Mind The most essential selection criterion for a video card is the physical connection to the motherboard. Not all motherboards have all types of expansion slots, so you need to learn about the slot types and determine which types your PC has before you can choose a new video card.


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Understanding Expansion Buses A bus is a pathway from one part of a circuit board to another. Each bus has a width (in bits) and a speed (in MHz). It’s like a real-life highway; the total amount of traffic the bus can carry depends both on the number of lanes and the speed at which they travel. On a motherboard, expansion buses carry the data from the expansion slots to the CPU. A typical motherboard has several different kinds of expansion slots, and each one uses a bus with a different width/speed combination. ➤ ISA. This stands for Industry Standard Architecture. This is the oldest, slowest type of bus—a 16-bit bus that carries data at 8 MHz. You won’t typically find ISA video cards for sale anymore because almost all motherboards have one of the faster bus types, as well as ISA. Some new motherboards don’t have ISA slots at all. ISA slots are usually black. ➤ PCI. This stands for Peripheral Connect Interface, and it is the current standard for expansion slots. PCI is a local bus—that is, it has its own local connection to the motherboard chipset that doesn’t rely on passing through the ISA bus (which would only slow it down). It is a 32-bit bus that carries data at 33 MHz. PCI slots are usually white. ➤ AGP. This stands for Accelerated Graphics Port; it is a high-speed local bus slot designed specifically for video cards. It’s a 32-bit bus and it runs at between 66 MHz and 528 MHz depending on the motherboard’s age and capabilities. AGP slots are usually brown.

NOTE

Some 486 PCs (very old!) have a VESA Local Bus (VLB).This bus type is now obsolete, but it was the industry’s first attempt to make a local bus that circumvented the ISA bus to achieve greater speeds.

Figure 2.4 shows a motherboard with all three slot types, so you can see the difference between them. See the “Choosing a Bus Type” section later in this chapter for more details.

Understanding Built-In Video Some motherboards have built-in AGP video support. This is a cost-saving measure for PC manufacturers, so it’s found most often on bargain models. The chipset for the video card is built into the motherboard, and the video functionality uses some of the PC’s main RAM rather than having its own separate RAM.

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AGP PCI Figure 2.4 A typical motherboard with ISA, PCI, and AGP expansion slots

ISA

Systems with built-in video have a monitor connector that mounts to the back of the PC case and then connects to the motherboard via a narrow ribbon cable. Such motherboards usually don’t have an actual AGP slot, so you can’t replace the built-in AGP video support with a new AGP video card. (There are exceptions; some motherboards do have an AGP slot for later addition of an external video card.) If you want to use a video card on such a system, you must first disable the built-in video support. You can do this through the BIOS Setup program (covered in the Friday Afternoon session), and then you can add a PCI video card.

Selecting a Video Card Let’s assume for the moment that you have decided a new video card is in your future. The following sections review the key features that differentiate one video card from another.

Choosing a Bus Type When choosing a video card for a motherboard, the key is to make sure you buy one that fits in the highest-speed bus available. If an AGP slot is available, you want an AGP video card. If not, you want a PCI video card. If you don’t have AGP or PCI, your computer is so old that you should buy a whole new PC rather than trying to upgrade.


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There are three AGP speeds: 1X (66 MHz, 266 MBps), 2X (133 MHz, 533 MBps), and 4X (264 MHz, 1 GB/sec). AGP 1X and 2X are part of the original 1.0 AGP specification. The updated specification, AGP 2.0, supports 2X and 4X. A new standard, AGP 3.0, supports 4X and 8X, but has just been released and is not yet popular. When selecting an AGP video card, it’s important to match the card with the motherboard’s capability. A motherboard with an AGP 1.0 slot can accept any AGP card that supports 1X or 2X speeds, which means it can handle a 1.0 or 2.0 card but not one of the new AGP 3.0 cards (which support only 4X and 8X).

Selecting Video RAM The video card has its own RAM, separate from the RAM in the PC. It uses its RAM to keep track of what color each pixel in the display should be displaying at any given moment. The operating system constantly updates the video RAM’s information, and that information is constantly sent to the monitor so that it can update the on-screen image. The more video memory you have, the more data you can store and relay. The video RAM is different from the RAM in the PC both physically and in terms of how it works. Video RAM is contained in chips mounted directly on the circuit board. On some older video cards, the RAM is upgradeable (meaning that there are sockets in which you can install more), but in most of the newer video cards the RAM is permanently soldered in place. Most video cards sold today have at least 8 MB of RAM; some have up to 128 MB. The amount of video RAM is important because it enables higher resolution/color depth combinations. On some video cards, having more RAM can also result in better performance. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

One way to determine the amount of video RAM on an installed card is to watch as the PC starts up. For a brief second or two at the beginning, a message appears reporting the video card maker and model and the amount of video RAM. If you miss it, you can open the Display Properties dialog box, click on the Settings tab, click on the Advanced button, and then click on the Adapter tab.There you’ll find information about the video card, including the amount of video RAM. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

You can determine the total number of pixels in a display resolution by multiplying the number across by the number down. For example, a display resolution of 800×60 has 480,000 pixels. If you’re using 8-bit color depth (256 colors) it needs

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8 bits (1 byte) to describe each pixel, so you need 480 KB of video RAM to support that combination. That’s less than half a megabyte; since the average video card has at least 8 MB of RAM, all video cards should support that combination. However, the required RAM starts to add up when you start working with higher color depths and resolutions. Table 2.1 shows some examples of the amount of memory required for some common color depth and resolution combinations. As you can see in Table 2.1, even very high-resolution and color-depth combinations don’t require 8 MB of RAM, so why do most video cards these days come with more than that? One reason is that some of the extra memory can serve as a cache, which speeds up the video card’s performance. A cache is a holding area for data that is waiting to exit or enter. Earlier in the chapter, I talked about the bus that connects the video card to the motherboard—either AGP or PCI, and either 32-bit or 64-bit. The video card itself also has its own internal bus that carries data from its internal chipset to its RAM. This bus is usually 64-bit or 128-bit. On some cards, having more memory means that you can use a wider internal bus. The main reason for all the “excess” video memory, however, is to support 3D video acceleration. A video card with 3D is one that is optimized for running programs that have graphics with depth perspective, such as games that enable a character to move through what seems like a 3D space. It’s like the difference

TABLE 2.1 EXAMPLE VIDEO RAM REQUIREMENTS

FOR

DISPLAY MODES

Resolution

Color Depth

Approximate Video Memory Required

640×480

4-bit (16 colors)

154 KB

800×600

8-bit (256 colors)

480 KB

800×600

16-bit (65,536 colors)

960 KB

1024×768

16-bit (65,536 colors)

1.6 MB

1024×768

24-bit (16.7 million colors)

2.4 MB

1280×1024

24-bit (16.7 million colors)

3.9 MB

1280×1024

32-bit (4.3 billion colors)

5.2 MB


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between a drawing of a square and a drawing of a cube. In contrast, regular video operation that does not require 3D is known as 2D. 3D operation requires additional RAM for three buffers, which store video data and quickly transfer it in and out of the main video memory space to help improve the speed at which one graphic can morph into another. These buffers are the Front buffer, Back buffer, and Z buffer. They add quite a bit to the memory requirements. Table 2.2 shows some of the common resolutions and color depths used in 3D programs and the amount of video RAM required to run them. Suddenly 16 MB doesn’t seem excessive anymore, does it? There are many different types of RAM used on video cards. Some of these are the same as the RAM used in PCs (but in different external packaging); others are unique to video cards.

TABLE 2.2 VIDEO RAM REQUIREMENTS Resolution

FOR

3D VIDEO MODES

Color Depth

Video Memory Required

640×480

16-bit

2.34 MB

640×480

24-bit

3.52 MB

640×480

32-bit

4.69 MB

800×600

16-bit

3.66 MB

800×600

24-bit

5.49 MB

800×600

32-bit

7.32 MB

1024×768

16-bit

5.49 MB

1024×768

24-bit

9 MB

1024×768

32-bit

12 MB

1280×1024

16-bit

10 MB

1280×1024

24-bit

15 MB

1280×1024

32-bit

20 MB

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If you had shopped for video cards several years ago, you might have seen cards advertised with Video RAM (VRAM), Windows RAM (WRAM), or MDRAM (Multibank DRAM). These were all types of RAM designed specifically for video cards, which provided higher performance than the standard PC RAM on a video card. However, these are all obsolete now. The current types of RAM found on video cards are ➤ SDRAM. This stands for Synchronous Dynamic RAM. It is the same as what is used in the PC’s main memory (but packaged differently, of course). It’s also called SDR (Single Data Rate) DRAM. It operates at the same speed as the motherboard’s system bus. ➤ SGRAM. This stands for Synchronous Graphics RAM. It is a high-end type of RAM that is used in many of the highest quality video cards. It’s one of the most expensive types of video RAM because it includes circuitry for performing block writes that can significantly increase the speed of graphics fill or 3D Z-buffer operations. ➤ DDR SDRAM. This alternative to regular SDRAM can operate at up to twice the speed of regular SDRAM by performing two operations per cycle rather than one. It provides about a 20% actual performance boost from regular SDRAM but is cheaper to produce than SGRAM, making it an attractive mid-level choice.

Evaluating the RAMDAC Speed The RAMDAC is the digital-to-audio converter on the video card. It takes the digital data from the PC and converts it to analog data that the monitor can display. Its speed is measured in MHz—faster is better. A typical RAMDAC speed for today’s video cards is 300 to 350 MHz. The main benefit of faster RAMDAC is higher refresh rate capability. RAMDACs of 300 MHz and higher allow 75 Hz or higher refresh rates at resolutions of up to 1920×1200. That should be plenty for almost any usage.

Deciding on a Video Chipset There are hundreds of video card makers out there, but they all buy the same chipsets wholesale from the same few chipset makers and incorporate them into their video cards. The chipset acts as a traffic director, controlling the movement of data within the video card. More than any other card feature, it determines


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the video card’s overall performance capabilities. Therefore, when shopping for a video card, you are mostly shopping for a chipset. The most popular chipsets at this writing are made by ATI and NVIDIA. Both companies have their own branded line of video cards, but they also sell their chipsets to other video card makers. NVIDIA’s line of GeForce chipsets currently dominates the mid-to-high-end market. The GeForce 3 and GeForce 4 chipsets are used in many of the best video cards sold today. The other major players are ATI’s Radeon and Rage product lines. By the time you read this, however, the information may be out of date because new chipset manufacturers and chipsets come and go rapidly. A year ago, for example, I would have told you about S3 and Diamond as major chipset manufacturers, but both have recently gone out of the chipset-making business.

Evaluating Your 3D Acceleration Support Needs As you learned in the Video RAM section earlier in the chapter, some video cards support 3D acceleration. This basically means that they use a part of their RAM for multiple buffers, which store data for quicker graphics handling in programs that have 3D graphics. To understand 3D animation in terms of the video card, think about an animated cartoon. In the old days, each frame of the cartoon had to be drawn and colored by hand, so animation was very labor intensive. Computers have greatly simplified the process in several ways. Animators can create each individual frame on a computer, and the computer itself can actually create some of the frames automatically, using keyframes. Suppose you want to animate an object moving from point A to point B. With computer animation, you can create a still image of the object at point A and another one at point B, and the computer will fill in all the frames between them (see Figure 2.5). Many computer programs that contain a lot of animation employ keyframes for their animation, so the computer program doesn’t have to send such a staggering amount of data to the video card through its relatively slow connection. Instead, the program sends only selected keyframes to the video card, and the video card uses its extra memory and processing capabilities to generate the other frames needed for the animation. In programs with 3D perspective, an object moving across the screen moves not just up (height) and across (width), but in the third dimension as well (depth).

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Figure 2.5 Keyframes cut down on the CPU load by offloading some animation to the video card.

The X, Y, and Z vertices define the location of an object in this 3D space (like the axes in a geometry problem). These vertices define simple geometric objects known as primitives, which are used to create an object. As a simple example, three stacked spheres make a snowman. Every object in every program is similarly made up of groups of primitives. Each primitive has its own position and animation. Almost any 3D video card can animate simple shapes, but today’s sophisticated games and graphics applications require much more, such as shading and texturing as the object moves across the screen. This process of filling in a primitive shape with appropriate texture and shading is known as rasterization. One of the ways that a program creates realistic-looking 3D objects through rasterization is with texture mapping. The application includes textured patterns in the form of small graphic files that it tiles onto the surface of the image, as shown in Figure 2.6. The application then modifies the appearance of each tile by applying perspective and shading to it, just like when a real-life surface, such as metal or concrete, is hit by sunlight, fog, or rain. Other methods of shading include flat shading (filled with a solid color) and Gouraud shading, which applies different colors to different points on an object and then blends the colors together in the middle.


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2D graphic file of a brick

Texture applied to a 3D shape

Figure 2.6 Texture mapping is one technique for creating realistic textured 3D images without placing undue burden on the CPU.

Early 3D applications used software alone for rasterization, which bogged down the CPU considerably. To help with this, video cards were developed that could accept some of the processing responsibility for rendering 3D images. Some of the functions that a good 3D video card can perform include ➤ Scan conversion. Determines which pixels fall into the area delineated by a primitive. ➤ Shading. Applies color to a primitive shape using flat or Gouraud shading. ➤ Texture mapping. Fills primitives with images from 2D graphics files. ➤ Visible surface determination. Determines which primitives should obscure other primitives behind them in the display. ➤ Antialiasing. Smoothes the edges on objects to avoid jagged areas. ➤ Fogging. Simulates foggy weather conditions. ➤ Alpha blending. Creates translucent object fills, which simulate seethrough objects such as glass and smoke. ➤ Environment-based bump mapping. Uses lighting and texture effects to simulate rough textures such as bricks, ocean waves, and mountains. It combines three texture maps (color, size, and effects).

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➤ Stencil buffering. Allows part of the screen to display a fixed object and use less overhead to do so, while other parts of the screen dynamically change. For example, a 3D shoot-em-up game might have a 2D player control panel on the side of the screen that remains the same, whereas the rest of the screen shows a moving 3D image. ➤ Z buffering. Reduces overhead by not redrawing the details for a primitive that is not visible on the screen at the moment (because it’s obscured by some other object).

There are many more functions, but this gives you a basic set to consider. Some video cards use multiple passes to generate the display—one to lay down the basic primitives and another to shade and texture them. However, the best video cards these days use a single-pass method. Just because a video card supports a particular operation does not mean it supports it well. The more effects the video card must process, the more time it takes for it to process each frame of the animation. Do you remember when I talked about refresh rate, measured in Hz, as the number of times per second that the video card updates the monitor display? The frame rate is analogous to that, except that it refers to the number of times per second that the video card alters what it sends to the monitor. When a video card is heavily taxed with operations to perform, its frame rate drops. Most people find that a frame rate of 20 Hz is acceptable, but some people notice choppiness at up to 40 Hz. Therefore, some video cards don’t support every 3D function possible to ensure that they can maintain a decent frame rate. The advanced features of a 3D video card are useless unless the application you are running happens to take advantage of them. Therefore, it’s essential that the video card you choose support the same standards as the applications you want to run. Fortunately, this is not difficult to achieve because most 3D video cards these days support most of the popular standards, as do most of the 3D applications. The programmers who write 3D applications use industry-standard APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to create the lines of code that tell the video card what to do. This makes it possible for a program to work with many different video cards, rather than being written specifically for one model. The most popular APIs for graphics are ➤ OpenGL. This is supported by nearly all video cards. For quite a few years, most game programmers considered OpenGL the superior API. Most 3D applications include an option for using it.


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➤ 3Dfx Glide. This is an enhanced version of OpenGL, found only on video cards that use 3Dfx chipsets. The company that made 3Dfx chipsets has recently gotten out of the chip-making business, so this API will probably become obsolete soon. ➤ DirectX. This is a whole collection of APIs—not just for video but also for sound. DirectX is a product of Microsoft, so all recent versions of Windows include support for it. ➤ Direct3D. This is the subset of DirectX that deals specifically with video card graphics. It was originally considered weaker than OpenGL by many programmers, but improvements to it have made it a strong competitor.

Any 3D video card you buy today should support both OpenGL and DirectX/Direct3D, as should any 3D application you want to run. But of course the devil is in the exceptions, so look for it in the specs.

Deciding on Extra Features Some video cards have extra features built into them. If you happen to need one of these features it can be a good deal for you, but if you don’t need them, there’s no sense in paying extra for them.

MPEG-2 Decoding If you want to play DVD movies on your PC, you need a DVD drive (discussed in the Saturday Evening session), and you also need an MPEG-2 decoder card. This functionality is built into some video cards so you don’t need the extra card.

TV Out Some video cards enable you to connect a television set to your PC and use it like a monitor. This can be handy when you want a large screen for a presentation, for example, but you would not want to use a TV for an everyday monitor because the display quality is not as good as a regular monitor.

TV/Video Capture In Some video cards have inputs so you can connect a digital video camera or recorder and transfer video data into your PC. Others have TV tuner cards built into them so you can watch TV from your monitor.

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Dual Monitor Output Some video cards have more than one output plug on them so you can connect multiple monitors at once.

Selecting a Monitor Now that you know something about video cards, turn your attention to monitors. Many people make the mistake of skimping on the monitor, and then they regret it. A large, high-quality monitor can make it a pleasure to work at your PC. My monitor, a 21" high-end Sony, cost as much as my PC did, but it is well worth the expense. In the following sections, you’ll learn how monitors work and what makes one monitor better than another.

Types of Monitors There are two types of monitors sold today: CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) and LCD (Liquid Crystal Display). CRTs are the boxy type of monitor that most people think of immediately when they hear the word “monitor.” They’re heavy and bulky, but they’re inexpensive and they look good no matter what resolution you run them in. LCDs are the flat-panel monitors in notebook PC screens and the latest chiclooking flat desktop units. They’re lightweight and take up very little desktop space, and they display photos vibrantly. But they’re much more costly than comparable CRTs, and they tend toward fuzzy text display if you run them in a lower resolution than their maximum.

CRTs A CRT is essentially a large vacuum tube. At the back of the CRT is a long narrow neck containing a cathode, and at the front is a broad rectangular surface with colored phosphors on it. When the cathode is heated, it emits negatively charged electrons. Those electrons are attracted to the positively charged front of the CRT, where they strike the phosphors and cause them to light up (see Figure 2.7). In a monochrome monitor, there is only one electron gun; in a color CRT, there are three guns: one each for red, blue, and green. The actual colors are created by the phosphors on the screen. For each pixel on the screen, there are three phosphors (red, green, and blue) arranged in a triangular shape, called a triad.


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Figure 2.7 A CRT lights up phosphors by activating them with an electron gun.

Each electron gun works only on dots of a certain color. So, for example, if a certain pixel is supposed to be purple, the red and blue guns (but not the green gun) would fire at that triad. The distance between one color in a triad and the same color in the adjacent triad is the dot pitch of the monitor—one measure of CRT quality. A lower number means the dots are closer together, which makes for a better-quality picture. LCD monitors (covered in the next section) are also evaluated in terms of dot pitch (see Figure 2.8). As you can imagine, there is great potential for misalignment error when you are dealing with such small phosphors. There are several technologies for keeping the electron beams properly aligned. The most common is a shadow mask, a thin sheet of perforated metal that sits between the guns and the phosphors. Each gun directs itself through the designated hole for a particular triad, masking any stray electrons (see Figure 2.9). Another technology for accomplishing the same thing is an aperture grille, made up of vertical wires between the guns and phosphors. A third method, slot mask, is a combination of the two technologies. In both aperture grille and slot mask, there are red, green, and blue stripes that run the full length of the monitor rather than interspersed dots. The main difference between those two is the number and placement of the stabilizing wires. On an aperture grille or slot mask monitor, stripe pitch measures the distance from one colored stripe to another stripe of the same color, but it’s basically the same

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Figure 2.8 Phosphors on the screen are arranged in triads.

.

Figure 2.9 A shadow mask helps align the electron beams precisely.

thing as dot pitch—lower is better. Entry-level CRTs have a dot pitch or stripe pitch of about 0.28 mm, whereas the highest quality monitors have .22 mm or so.

LCDs An LCD screen has two polarized filters, and between them are liquid crystals. In order for light to appear on the display screen, it must pass through both filters and the crystals. The second filter, however, is at an angle to the first, so by


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default nothing can pass through to the display. By applying current to a crystal, you can cause it to twist, which also twists the light passing through it. If the light twists so that it matches the angle of the second filter, it can pass through it and light up an area of the display (see Figure 2.10). On a color LCD, there is an additional filter that splits the light into separate cells for red, green, and blue. Because there is no need for a mask to help direct electrons, there is less dark area between each pixel; that’s what gives an LCD display that “saturated” appearance that most CRTs cannot fully duplicate and that makes photos look so good. There are several different technologies for directing and controlling an LCD display. These differ primarily in the number of transistors controlling the cells. The cheapest-to-manufacture type of LCD is a passive matrix display. On a passive matrix, there is one transistor for each row and one transistor for each column, much like spreadsheet row numbers and column letters. The transistors emit pulsing charges, and the combination of charges from two sides twists the liquid crystals in that row/column intersection. Because a passive matrix relies on pulsing, each pixel has moments when it is receives no signal; therefore, passive matrix displays are not as bright as other types of LCD. For example, on a laptop with a maximum monitor resolution of 1024×768, there are a total of 1,792 transistors. Double-scan passive matrix (DSTN) displays were developed to help improve the brightness of a passive matrix display without increasing the cost too dramatically. These displays use the same technology as a normal passive display, but

Figure 2.10 Liquid crystals twist when electricity is applied to them, causing light to be able to pass through them.

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they divide the screen into two sections with separate transistor rows/columns for each section. This allows the screen to be refreshed more rapidly. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

One of the unfortunate qualities of any passive matrix screen is that it is difficult to view at an angle. Looking at the screen straight on gives a fairly bright image, but if several people are trying to look at the monitor and have a discussion about what’s on the screen, only the person sitting directly in front of it will have a good view. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

In contrast, active matrix LCD provides a separate transistor for each pixel. Because pixels don’t have to share, pulsing is not required, and each cell can be “on” constantly. This results in a much brighter display that is visible from any angle, but that uses a lot more power. The latest type of active matrix display, TFT (Thin Film Transistor), uses multiple transistors for each pixel (up to four), resulting in very high refresh and redraw rates and even higher power consumption.

Measurements of Monitor Quality The best way to choose a monitor is to see it in action—in the resolution and color depth that you plan on using. Stores that offer big displays of various monitors, all showing the same image at once, can be help you decide what you want. Subjective evaluation is not the only way to distinguish one monitor from another, of course. The following sections outline some shopping specs for monitors.

Maximum Resolution The monitor has a maximum resolution, which is the physical number of pixels it has across and down. Remember that the video card has a maximum resolution too, and you’re limited to the resolution on which the two can jointly agree. Therefore, it makes no sense to spend extra money for a monitor that can display an ultra-high resolution if your video card can’t, and vice versa. A low-end CRT might have a maximum resolution of 1280×1024, which means there are 1,280 pixels across and 1,024 pixels down, for a total of 1,310,720 pixels. More expensive monitors will usually have higher maximum resolutions, up into the 2,000s. LCD monitors usually have lower maximum resolutions than their CRT counterparts; a high-quality LCD might have a maximum resolution of only 1024×768.


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Most monitors can operate in any of a range of resolutions by treating several triads as an individual pixel. On a CRT this is no big deal; in fact most people operate CRTs at a lower resolution than the maximum. However, LCD monitors are less adept at simulating lower resolutions than their maximum, so an LCD monitor’s display (especially text) can look fuzzy at lower resolutions. In such a case, a high-resolution LCD monitor might actually give inferior display results compared to a less-expensive LCD monitor with a maximum resolution that matches the resolution at which it is being operated. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

Not all LCD screens can operate in less than their maximum resolution. If you change the resolution on some Windows notebook PCs to lower than the maximum, a big black ring appears around the outside.This is mostly an issue on older notebook PCs, but if possible you should test a notebook PC in the resolution in which you plan to operate it before you buy it. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

Maximum resolution is not a big issue for most people because the maximum resolution is usually much higher than you would ever want to use. At high resolutions everything on the screen is very small; most people prefer a lower resolution to avoid eyestrain.

Dot Pitch In the “CRTs” section earlier in the chapter, you learned about dot pitch, stripe pitch, and slot pitch as measurements of monitor quality in CRTs. These all refer to how close a phosphor of one color is to another phosphor of the same color. The minimum dot pitch you should consider would be .28 mm; high-end monitors should have .25 mm or less. Dot pitch is a much more important factor than maximum resolution because it affects the display’s overall quality, regardless of the resolution in which you operate it.

Viewable Image Size As you shop for monitors, you will see the screen size expressed in two numbers, such as 17"/15.9". The second number is the real size of the viewable image. The larger number is the overall dimension of the monitor glass, including the part that’s hidden behind the plastic bezel and is therefore unusable. Viewable image size is significant because monitors differ in their bezel sizes. A 17" monitor might have a viewable image size of anywhere from 15.5" to 16.3", which is almost half an inch of difference. Look for a monitor with as large a viewable image size as possible.

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Refresh Rate Earlier in the chapter, you learned about refresh rate and the importance of it being high enough to prevent screen flicker. The higher the resolution, the more challenging it is for the monitor to refresh at top speeds because of the increased number of unique pixels involved. At a refresh rate of lower than 75 Hz, a display flickers noticeably, so a high maximum refresh rate is an important feature in a monitor. The maximum refresh rate is typically not expressed as a single number, but rather as a separate number for each of several common resolutions. For example, a monitor might be capable of a 120 Hz refresh rate at 800×600, but only 85Hz at 1280×1024. When shopping for a monitor, look for one that offers a maximum refresh rate of at least 100 Hz at the resolution that you plan to use most often. That way you’ll end up with a decent refresh rate at a slightly higher resolution as well, in case you ever change your mind and want to go higher. Some older or cheaper monitors have electron guns that cannot keep up with the refreshing needs to display a decent picture. Rather than spending more money for better electron guns, manufacturers sometimes use a technique called interlacing, which refreshes only every other line of the display with each pass, rather than every line. There is little reason to buy an interlaced monitor new today—assuming you could even find one—because monitor technology has advanced over the last few years to the point where interlacing is seldom necessary.

Adjustments Good-quality monitors come with on-screen controls for adjusting the contrast, color tone, image size, positioning, and many other factors. These were described in detail earlier in the chapter, in the “Adjusting the Monitor” section. Make sure the monitor you choose has the controls that you want and that they are easy to manipulate.

Brands If price is an important consideration, an off-brand monitor might be the best choice. But if you don’t mind spending a few extra dollars, a brand-name monitor offers the peace of mind of a good warranty and a quality track record. Some of the major monitor manufacturers include Mag Innovision, ViewSonic (and


59

their low-end Optiquest subsidiary), Samsung, Mitsubishi, and Sony. Sony is known in particular for their high-end, very expensive professional-quality monitors.

Take a Break Now you have all the facts you need for your shopping trip, so go out and buy what you want! Then come back here and continue with the rest of this chapter, which covers installation.

Installing a Video Card Installing a new video card is one of the easiest upgrades—anyone can do it. In the Friday Afternoon session you learned how to remove the cover from the PC, and that’s more than half the battle. Take the cover off and jump right into installing the video card. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

This afternoon’s session covered basic safety precautions when working on a PC, which apply in this situation too. Work on the PC only with the power off and unplugged, and take steps to avoid ESD. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

Removing the Old Video Card and Installing the New One You probably have an old video card installed already, so remove it first. To do so, follow these steps. 1. Make sure the PC is turned off. Remove the PC cover if it is not already off. 2. Locate the old video card. It is the expansion card into which the monitor is connected. Disconnect the monitor cable from it. 3. Remove the screw holding the old video card’s backplate to the back of the PC. Set it aside for later reuse (see Figure 2.11). 4. Pull the old video card out of the expansion slot, touching it only by the edges and the metal backplate. Sometimes a seesawing motion from front to back can help loosen a tight fit.

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Remove the screw.

Figure 2.11 Remove the screw holding the old video card in place.

5. If the old video card is still operational, carefully set it aside. You can store it in the plastic bag that the new card comes in after you have installed the new card.

NOTE

If the old card is not operational, dispose of it properly. As discussed in the Friday Afternoon session, a circuit board contains lead and should be considered hazardous waste and taken to a hazardous waste disposal site rather than simply thrown into the trash.

If your old video card is not really a card at all, but rather video support built into the motherboard, you must take a different route. Instead of physically removing anything, you must go into BIOS Setup and disable the onboard video support. The exact steps for doing this vary depending on the BIOS. (See the Friday Afternoon session for more information about the BIOS.) To install a new video card, just reverse the procedure for removing the old one. 1. Remove the new video card from its protective plastic bag. 2. If you are installing the card in a different slot than the old one was removed from, remove the backplate cover over the hole where the new card will fit in the back of the PC. This is mainly an issue for systems in which you are replacing built-in video with a real video card.


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Figure 2.12 Insert the new video card in the slot. Handle it only by the top edge or the metal backplate.

3. Insert the new card firmly into the expansion slot by pressing only on the top edge and the metal backplate (see Figure 2.12). 4. Secure the new video card’s backplate to the back of the computer with the screw you removed from the old card. (If you did not remove an old card, use the screw that held the backplate in place.) After installing a video card, you will want to see whether it works. To test the new video card, connect the monitor to it and reconnect the power cable to the PC. You can leave the PC’s cover off for now. Turn on the PC and watch the screen. If you see any text onscreen, the new video card is properly installed. Allow Windows to start up, and then see the following section to install a driver for the new video card.

Installing a Windows Driver Having the correct Windows driver installed for your new video card can make an enormous difference in its performance. It’s a waste if Windows thinks the installed card is a generic VGA video card rather than one with the great new capabilities you’ve paid good money to have. Depending on the video card model and your Windows version, Windows might automatically detect the new card at startup and install drivers for it. If it

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does, the new monitor’s name will appear on the Settings tab of the Display Properties dialog box. (Look back at the “Finding Out What You Already Have” section earlier in this chapter for details.) If Windows does not automatically detect your video card, run the Setup program that came with the new card. It should be on CD or floppy disk in the video card box. If you didn’t get a driver disk for the video card, download a driver from the manufacturer’s Web site. Then see the “Updating the Video Card Driver” section earlier in the chapter to install it.

Troubleshooting Video Card Installation Problems Here are a couple of common problems you might come across when installing video cards, as well as some solutions. For issues involving Windows or specific applications, see the “Troubleshooting Windows and Application-Specific Video Problems” section later in the chapter. ➤ Nothing appears on the screen. The video card is either defective or not installed properly. Make sure the card is pushed all the way down into the slot and that it’s the right type of slot. Make sure the monitor cable is firmly connected to the video card and the monitor, and that the monitor is turned on and its contrast and brightness are turned up. ➤ The screen has a red, green, or blue tint. This generally means that a pin is broken on the monitor or video card connector, or that the connector is not snugly plugged in so that one of the colors (red, green, or blue) is missing from the display. Check all connections for tightness and check each connector for broken or bent pins. If all appears to be well, the video card or monitor is probably defective.

Installing and Testing a Monitor Installing a new monitor is a simple matter of unplugging the old one and plugging in the new one. It’s as easy as plugging in a new toaster or television. Not much can go wrong safety-wise when you install a new monitor. Just make sure the computer and the old monitor are powered off before you disconnect them. To install a new monitor, follow these steps. 1. Turn off the PC and the old monitor. 2. Disconnect the old monitor from the PC and unplug it from the wall outlet.


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3. Connect the new monitor to the PC and plug it into the wall outlet. To test the new monitor, follow these steps. 1. Turn on the new monitor’s power. Wait about 5 seconds, and then turn on the PC. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

Do not turn on the monitor and PC at the same time. They both draw more amps of power at startup than they need, especially the monitor, so turning them both on at once can cause a power sag. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

2. If you see text on the screen, the monitor is connected properly. Wait while Windows starts up. 3. Install a driver for the monitor (as described earlier in the chapter) if Windows doesn’t automatically detect it. 4. If there are any areas of distortion on the screen, try degaussing the monitor. Degaussing discharges any static buildup that might be causing distortion. There should be a Degauss feature in the monitor’s on-screen controls. When you select it, the screen briefly turns itself off and back on again, and the picture wavers for a moment and then comes back to normal. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

Repeated degaussing can be hard on a monitor, so don’t do it very often. Do it only with a new monitor or when you notice display anomalies. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

5. Use the monitor’s on-screen controls to fine-tune the picture. 6. If you want to get really critical of the monitor’s performance, try the following steps. ➤ Display an all-white screen (such as a blank word processing document) and look for areas that have a red, green, or blue tinge to them, indicating convergence problems. Some on-screen monitor controls enable you to correct convergence problems; you must have other monitors professionally serviced. ➤ Try various combinations of color depths, resolutions, and refresh rates in Windows and make sure that the monitor can correctly display them all. (You might be limited by your video card’s capabilities.) The most challenging test of a monitor is to run it at the

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highest resolution, color depth, and refresh rate that it can support. If something is wrong with the monitor, it’ll probably show up in that mode. ➤ Use a monitor-testing program to run the monitor through its paces at a variety of screen resolutions, color depths, and refresh rates. Such programs are available for free download from various Internet sites, such as CNet (http://download.com.com/2001-20-0.html). These programs typically also include pure red, green, and blue screens that you can display to check for bad pixels. One or two bad pixels on a monitor is no big deal, but if there are bad pixels and it’s under warranty, you might as well return it and get a perfect one.

Disposing of the Old Monitor Old monitors, like old circuit boards, are considered hazardous waste. In the case of the monitor, the hazardous part is the phosphorous on the inside of the monitor screen. In addition, monitors should not be thrown in with the regular trash because they are rather large plastic boxes that take up an undue amount of landfill space. Take old monitors to your local hazardous waste disposal facility. If your old monitor is still working, there’s no need to throw it away—donate it to charity. Many schools, libraries, churches, and other organizations are glad to receive used computer equipment that is in working condition.

Troubleshooting Windows and Application-Specific Video Problems Having problems with the display? Here are some tips for tracking down problems with Windows video in general or with specific applications. ➤ Windows will only start in Safe Mode. This indicates a bad Windows video driver. Perhaps Windows incorrectly detected the monitor and used the wrong driver for it, or perhaps the driver file it used was corrupted. In such a case, Windows will start in Safe Mode using a generic video driver, but it won’t start in normal mode. Try downloading and installing the newest video driver from the card manufacturer’s Web site. ➤ Pictures and colors in Windows look bad. In standard 16-color VGA mode, colors look washed out and pictures don’t look real. If Windows starts in 16-color VGA mode after you install a new video card, it


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probably has detected the card as a generic VGA card. You must install the correct drivers for the card, as described earlier in the “Installing a Windows Driver” section. ➤ No driver is available. If you can’t find a driver for your video card and your version of Windows anywhere—on disk, in Windows, from a Web site, or anywhere else you have tried—you have two choices. You can give up and get a different video card or you can try to slink by with a driver that’s not written specifically for your card or not specifically for your version of Windows.

Having a driver specifically for the video card is more important than having one for the Windows version. As a general rule, drivers for Windows 95, 98, and Me are all roughly compatible so if a driver for one of these versions is available, you can try it with one of the other Windows versions. The same is true for Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, and Windows XP as a group. (You cannot, however, mix and match drivers between the two groups.) If no driver is available for your video card for any Windows version, why did you buy the card in the first place? Can you return it and get your money back? If not, try a generic SuperVGA video driver, if one is available in your Windows version. You might be able to choose SuperVGA from a list of standard display types, for example. Although this won’t give you great performance, it might at least let you have 256 colors and 800×600 resolution. Somewhat riskier is the practice of choosing a specific driver for some other video card that you think might have a similar chipset to yours. This might enable you to use the video card’s full capabilities, but it could also lock up your system. If Windows won’t start normally after you do this, go into Display Properties in Safe Mode and change to a generic VGA driver (or use the Roll Back Driver feature to go back to the previous driver). ➤ Certain applications won’t run. If the problem is confined to a specific application, especially if it’s a game, your problem is likely with the API. Recall from earlier in the chapter that game programmers use APIs to access the built-in 2D and 3D accelerator features in the video card. If the game uses a different API than the video card supports, or if the application has bugs in it that crop up with certain video cards, problems can result.

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One solution is to download a patch for the game from the manufacturer’s Web site. I have found this to be the most reliable method of fixing problems with specific games. Another possible solution is to make sure you have the latest version of DirectX installed in Windows. Remember that DirectX is a whole suite of APIs that Microsoft has released, of which Direct3D is a subset. Games that support DirectX usually come with a version of it in their Setup program, and it installs automatically if you don’t already have that version or later. However, if it’s an older game, an even newer version of DirectX might be available from Microsoft. Check at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/downloads/default.asp. Occasionally, a problem with a specific program might occur because of a general problem with your video card driver that manifests itself only with certain programs. If you have tried other fixes and they haven’t solved the problem, make sure you have the latest version of your video card’s driver and that it’s for the exact version of Windows that you have.

Exploring Video Input Add-Ons While I’m on the subject of video, take a look at some of the other cool PC upgrades you can buy that will enhance your video capabilities. Whereas the video subsystem I’ve talked about so far in this chapter is an output system— that is, a way of seeing the results on the screen—the following items are primarily input systems—that is, ways of getting pictures into your PC.

Scanners Scanners are like two-dimensional digital cameras. They take pictures of flat objects you place on them, such as magazine pages or photos. I will discuss digital cameras later in the chapter, but first I’ll focus on scanner technology because a lot of the technical details behind this two-dimensional video capture also apply to the three-dimensional capture involved in digital cameras, Webcams, and camcorders. A fixed linear array, called a CCD (Charge-Coupled Device), is found inside the scanner. It’s composed of an array of photosensitive cells, sort of like the eye of an insect, that convert light to electrical charge. Many digital cameras have this same type of technology for capturing images. A light bar moves across the object being scanned, and a system of mirrors reflects the light to a lens and then into the CCD. Each of the photosensitive


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cells produces an electrical signal proportional to the strength of the reflected light that hits it, and that signal is converted to a binary number and sent to the computer. Dark areas have lower numbers; light ones have higher numbers. The CCD receives data for one line of the image at a time, sends it to the computer, and then tells the stepper motor to advance the lamp to the next line. Therefore, the CCD does not need to have a number of cells equivalent to the number of pixels in the entire page—only the number of pixels in a single row. On a scanner that can accept an 8.5" sheet at 300 dpi (dots per inch), that’s about 2,600 cells. Scanners with a higher dpi have more CCD cells—for example, about 10,400 in a 1,200 dpi model. This is the scanner’s horizontal dpi or horizontal resolution. (It is also called the x-direction sampling rate.) Some inexpensive scanners do not have a CCD and mirror/lamp/lens system, but instead have a CIS (Contact Image Sensor) consisting of rows of red, green, and blue LEDs. The image sensor mechanism, consisting of 300 to 600 sensors spanning the width of the scan area, sits very close to the glass. When the image is scanned, the LEDs combine to provide white light, and the illuminated image is then captured by the row of sensors. CIS scanners are cheaper, lighter, and thinner, but do not provide the same level of quality and resolution found in most CCD scanners. Many scanners also report a vertical dpi or vertical resolution in their specifications (also called a y-direction sampling rate). This is the number of separate lines per inch that are recorded as the light moves down the page. It’s technologically easier for a scanner manufacturer to make a light that moves in more precise increments than it is to include a CCD with more cells, so you will often see scanners advertised with a higher vertical than horizontal resolution, such as 600×1200 dpi. When you see two numbers like this, the first one is always the horizontal. Some scanners’ specifications report very high resolutions, such as 4800×4800. When you see a high resolution, you should be skeptical and look closer. The reported resolution is probably not the hardware resolution—the actual resolution of the scanner itself. Instead, it probably refers to software-enhanced resolution. One method of software enhancement is called interpolation. Interpolation invents extra pixels between the actual scanned ones and uses a mathematical formula to determine their values. For example, if one pixel has a value of 10 and the next one has a value of 20, interpolation would insert a pixel between them with the value of 15. (I’m using regular base 10 numbers here for the sake of discussion, but in a real scanning situation the numbers would be binary values.)

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Scanner Light Types When desktop scanners were first introduced, many manufacturers used fluorescent bulbs as light sources. However, fluorescent bulbs cannot emit consistent white light, and they produce heat that can distort the other optical components. Therefore, most manufacturers moved to cold-cathode bulbs as soon as was practical. Cold-cathode bulbs resemble fluorescent bulbs, but they have no filament, so they operate at much lower temperatures and are more reliable. Lately, most scanner manufacturers have moved to using Xenon bulbs, which produce a very stable, full-spectrum light source, although they do use slightly more power than the fluorescent and cold-cathode bulbs.

Color Scanning In black-and-white or grayscale scanners, a single light bar and mirror system transmits grayscale data to the CCD. In a color scanner, however, there must be three separate evaluations of each pixel in the image, for the amount of red, amount of blue, and amount of green. There are several methods of gathering this data during the scanning process. Early color scanners made three passes across the image, gathering the color data separately. This worked well with the limited technology available, but was very slow. A slightly newer method is to use three different colored lights, which all move down the page together. Each light has its own mirror system, or a single mirror system has three filters so that it can separately accept each color’s data. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

On any system that gathers data for each color separately, there is the potential for misalignment errors. The accuracy of a scanner’s color alignment is known as registration. When evaluating a used scanner, it’s a good idea to scan a complex color image and check the results for registration problems. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

The most modern method employs three separate CCDs (or a single CCD with three stripes), each one collecting data about a single color. This is the most common method used in scanners sold today. Among scanners that have separate CCD areas for each color, there is one further differentiation. Some use a beam splitter, in which the single image coming from the mirror is split into the three colors, each of which is read by a different CCD. Others coat each CCD with a film so that it can read only one of the colors from an unsplit beam. Beam-splitting often produces a better scan result, but is more expensive.


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Scanner Color Depth The original scanners were 1-bit. They were black-and-white only (no grayscale and no color) and transmitted a single bit of data for each cell in the CCD. The number of bits is the number of binary digits required to represent each pixel’s value. In a 1-bit system, each pixel is either 0 or 1—off or on. Then came 4-bit scanners (16 unique values), and then 8-bit (256). This concept is similar to display color depth, which was discussed earlier in this chapter. Today all scanners support at least 24-bit scanning. This is known as “true color,” and it uses a 24-digit binary code to represent each pixel. That amount of color depth provides over 16 million colors to choose from, which is more than the human eye can detect, so in theory 24-bit color depth is the most you would ever need in a scanner. However, newer scanners advertise 30-bit or even 36-bit support. Why would they do that when the best that most monitors can display (and most printers can print) is 24-bit? The answer is a bit complicated. (No pun intended!) A 24-bit scanner offers an 8-bit range (256 levels) for each primary color (8+8+8=24), but a few of the least significant bits are lost in noise, and any post-scanning tonal corrections reduce the range further. Therefore, you want the scanner driver to make any brightness and color corrections before making the final scan. If you have a scanner that starts with a 40-bit depth, it has a wider range to start with, so it can make tonal corrections and still end up with a decent 24 bits at the end. Using the scanner driver through your OS, you can control which 24 of those 40 bits are kept and which ones are discarded by changing the Gamma Curve setting.

Dynamic Range A specification related to color depth is dynamic range. Not all scanners advertise their dynamic range but if you can find that data, it can be extremely helpful for comparing scanners without actually seeing their output. Dynamic range is a measure of the scanner’s ability to distinguish light and dark. The scale runs from 0 to 4, and most inexpensive desktop scanners rate about 2.4. Higher-end scanners might have a rating of 2.8 to 3.2. Professional-quality scanners for which you pay top-dollar approach 3.8 in their dynamic range.

Scanning Speed Speed refers to the amount of time that the scanner takes to scan. This is a tricky factor to evaluate because the actual speed varies depending on what you are scanning (a full-page item versus a smaller item), at what resolution you are

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scanning (150 dpi, 300 dpi, and so on), whether you are scanning in grayscale or color (most color scanners can do either), and whether you are using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to import scanned text. An extremely quick speed rating, such as 9 to 20 seconds, likely refers to the raw capability of the scanning head to move from the top to the bottom of the glass in a quickest-case scenario. It’s an easy way to compare one scanner to another in terms of hardware, but doesn’t take into account many real-world factors that will affect your actual mileage, such as the scanner software, the operating system you are using, and the image size and resolution. A slower speed rating, such as 45 to 60 seconds, likely refers to the time for a typical scan. This number is not very meaningful, however, unless the specification also tells the exact resolution and image size. For example, a scanner might take 60 seconds to scan a 4"×6" color photo or a full-page black-and-white drawing, 90 seconds to scan an OCR page of text into a word processor, and 150 seconds to scan an 8.5"×11" color photo.

Scanner Interface The interface the scanner uses to connect to the computer also affects speed. In the past, most low-end scanners used a parallel interface. Because most PCs have only one parallel port, parallel scanners typically come with some sort of passthrough that allows the scanner and printer to share a single parallel port. However, parallel pass-throughs don’t always work very well. In particular, ink-jet printers seem to have a difficult time “playing nice” on a shared parallel port. You can sometimes make system-setting adjustments in BIOS to work out a compromise between the two devices or you can unhook the scanner and hook up the printer every time you want to print, but this sharing is less than an ideal arrangement. Parallel is also the slowest scanning interface, which results in slower overall performance for your scanner. Most high-end scanners, in contrast, have traditionally used a SCSI interface. Most computers do not have a SCSI interface, so it’s an extra expense to add a SCSI card. SCSI has been around for a long time and has many advantages, such as high speed and the ability to daisy-chain several devices together to use a single SCSI port. SCSI scanners are not common in local computer and office supply stores, so you will likely need to order a SCSI scanner if you want one. In today’s consumer-level scanner market, USB has become the interface of choice. It’s fast, it can chain several devices together on a single port (like SCSI), and most computers already have a USB port (like parallel). The main drawback


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to USB is that it’s relatively new, so if a PC is more than a few years old, it might not have a USB port. You can buy USB circuit boards that add USB capability to an older PC, much like you can with SCSI. USB requires Windows 95C or higher, so older PCs might need a double upgrade—both an add-on USB port and a new OS version.

Scanner Shopping Points When shopping for a scanner, you will probably need to trade off performance for cost. Higher-end features cost more, of course. Here’s a quick rundown of the major factors that determine a scanner’s quality. ➤ CCD versus CIS. CCD is the traditional scanning technology, which produces better results. CIS is cheaper and lighter, but is limited to 300 to 600 dpi. ➤ Resolution. The higher the hardware resolution, the more costly the scanner. Don’t confuse hardware resolution with software-enhanced resolution, such as via interpolation. If there are two numbers advertised, the first one is the horizontal resolution, which is the more important measure of scanner quality. ➤ Light type. If power consumption is not a critical issue, choose a scanner with Xenon bulb(s) for more consistent light and less heat build-up. ➤ Color depth. 24-bit is sufficient for casual use, but you will be hard-pressed to find a scanner that is less than 30-bit these days. Therefore, color depth is not an important shopping factor unless you are buying a high-end model for professional graphics use. In that case, look for 36-bit models. ➤ Dynamic range. This is the scanner’s ability to recognize light and dark. It is a fairly good measurement of the overall quality of the innards. For casual use, a rating of 2.4 is acceptable; for the highest-quality professional scans, look for a rating in the high 3s. ➤ Speed. There are many ways to report a scanner’s speed. Make sure you are comparing apples to apples when comparing the speeds of two or more scanners. The most accurate way to compare is raw capability—the amount of time needed for the scan head to move from top to bottom. If you are comparing average scan times, make sure the type and size of the image are the same in each rating. ➤ Interface. For commercial or professional use SCSI is still champ, but USB is a cheaper and very viable alternative for personal or small office use. Avoid parallel interface when possible because of speed and sharing issues.

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Still Digital Cameras Digital cameras take pictures like a regular 35mm camera, but store the pictures digitally rather than on film. That means you don’t have to develop them, and you can make as many copies as you want for free. You can also e-mail the pictures to other people, post them on Web sites, or print them out on your PC’s printer. Most digital cameras have a CCD, like a scanner. Others have a CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) chip that performs the same function. When considering a digital camera, the following shopping specs are important. ➤ Resolution. Just like on a monitor, the resolution of a digital photo is the number of pixels across and down. The higher the camera’s maximum resolution, the finer the quality of the pictures. If you plan to have your digital photos professionally printed by a printing service, a high-resolution camera is important. If you are going to use the pictures only on a computer (on a Web page, for example), it’s not so important. However, any camera you get should be able to produce at least a 1024×768 image. ➤ Flash type. A good digital camera should have a built-in flash that you can turn on or off as needed. Even better is a feature that automatically turns the flash on and off for you. Some have red-eye reduction or a hot shoe (a connector for attaching an external flash). ➤ Zoom. An optical zoom magnifies the image using a multi-focal-length lens. A digital zoom simply magnifies the existing pixels, rather than actually zooming in with a lens. Magnification is expressed in multiples of the basic setting, such as 2X or 3X. A digital zoom is cheaper but may produce fuzzier images. ➤ Time between shots. This is also known as lag time or recycle time. It’s the time you must wait after taking a photo before you can take another, and it can be anywhere from 1 to 20 seconds. If you take single shots this is not very important, but if you like to take rapid-fire shots, shop with this factor in mind. Some cameras have a rapid-fire mode that takes multiple shots with a single button press. This is also known as burst mode or continuous shooting mode. ➤ Image transfer. Different cameras have different ways of transferring the pictures to a computer or printer. The Sony Mavica line uses floppy disks as “film,” for example, rather than connecting directly to the PC. Other


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cameras use the USB or FireWire (IEEE 1394) interface, the parallel or serial interface, infrared (IrDA), or some proprietary interface. Still other cameras have the option of connecting directly to certain models of printer (some Epson cameras and printers, for example), so a PC is not required to print the images. ➤ Removable media. Some cameras must be connected to the PC to transfer images when they fill up; you must empty them before you can take more pictures. Other cameras have removable media, so you can change cartridges and keep shooting, and then transfer all the images later when it is convenient. Look for removable media if you think you will take a lot of pictures between trips back to your PC. ➤ Number of images. Most entry-level cameras can store at least 20 images, either overall or per removable cartridge. This can vary, so if you plan to take a lot of pictures, this is an important consideration. ➤ Camera size. Different cameras have different physical sizes, shapes, and weights. If you want a tiny model that fits in a shirt pocket, you might have to compromise on features or pay a little more. ➤ Manual settings. If you are a camera buff and are interested in being able to take full control of your camera (setting aperture, exposure, manual focus, and so on), look for a model that allows these manual settings. ➤ Extra features. Some cameras have extra features, such as the ability to record short motion-video clips or audio, interchangeable or external lenses, and remote or timed shutter control.

Webcams and Digital Camcorders Digital video cameras are similar to the still digital cameras discussed in the preceding section except that they are designed to capture motion video. Many of the shopping specs discussed previously also apply, but there are some additional ones as well. There are two kinds of digital video cameras. The cheaper kind is connected full-time to your PC (usually via USB cable). It operates only when connected. This is sometimes called a Webcam because it can be used to feed digital video into a Web site or to see people in online chat rooms. You can also use it for video teleconferencing. This type of camera is typically fairly inexpensive ($200 or less), and it also can be used to take still digital photos (although not great quality ones). See Figure 2.13 for an example.

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Figure 2.13 This Intel PC Camera Pro can be used as a Webcam for video teleconferencing or online chat.

When shopping for a Webcam, consider these features. ➤ Automatic lighting adjustment. Some Webcams can correct for low light conditions automatically. ➤ Still photo capability. Look for a Webcam with a button on it that you can press to snap a still image. It won’t be as good of quality as a regular digital camera, but it’ll do in a pinch. ➤ Interface. Most Webcams are USB, but other interfaces are also available. To use USB, you must have a PC with a USB port and at least Windows 98. ➤ Automatic focus. Look for a Webcam that focuses itself; you don’t want to be messing with a manual-focusing ring.

The more expensive kind of digital video camera is a truly portable model, like a regular video camera that you might take to your family reunion picnic. These are known as digital camcorders. They store digital video footage on a cartridge that’s approximately the same size and shape as an analog Super-8 cartridge, but it’s really a miniature hard disk. You can buy additional cartridges to record lots of video footage. Then you connect the camera—with the cartridge installed— to the PC to transfer the footage to the PC’s hard disk. From there, you can use a video-editing program to clean up the footage, add soundtracks and narration, and more.

NOTE

Windows Me and Windows XP both come with a program called Windows Movie Maker that offers basic video-editing capabilities.


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This latter type of camera generally requires a FireWire (IEE 1394) connection to the PC, and most PCs don’t have that type of port by default. Therefore, you must buy an interface board and install it in the PC (which is just like installing a video card, covered earlier in the chapter in the “Installing a Video Card” section), and then connect the camera to the interface board. FireWire is a highspeed serial interface and a competitor to USB. When shopping for a digital camcorder, consider all of the factors covered in the “Still Digital Cameras” section earlier in the chapter, plus the following points. ➤ Interface. As I mentioned, most digital camcorders use only the FireWire interface, but you might be able to find one that uses USB or some other interface if you don’t want to have to buy a FireWire board. ➤ Storage media. Look for a camcorder that uses standard digital-video cartridges, not some proprietary type that you’ll have difficulty finding. The two standard types of cartridges are DV and Mini-DV. ➤ Auto lighting. Some models have their own subject lighting that comes on automatically when there is insufficient light in the room. ➤ LCD screen. Most digital camcorders have a little digital screen that shows the image being filmed so you don’t have to look through an eyepiece. ➤ Remote control. With a remote, you can film yourself or operate the camera remotely.

Moving On In this evening’s session, you learned about the video card and monitor, which together create the display output that you look at when you use a PC. You also learned about some video input devices including scanners and digital cameras. Now you’re ready to buy and install your own video upgrades, if you haven’t done it already. In the next chapter, you’ll go through the same basic process, but you’ll do it with sound. You’ll learn about the various types of sound cards and speakers that can turn your ordinary PC into a powerful stereo for playing audio CD-ROMs, MP3 files, games that have complex sounds, and more.


NIGHT

OWL

1

Upgrading to a Better Printer ➤ What Makes One Printer Better Than Another? ➤ Choosing Printer Technologies ➤ Speed, Color, Quality, Fonts, and Memory ➤ Making the Most of Your Current Printer

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ot happy with your current printer? Are you looking for higher-quality output, faster speed, or more realistic color? In this session, I’ll present the various types of printers available and assess how one might better meet your printing needs. Not everyone needs a new printer; it’s entirely possible that your old printer isn’t pleasing you because it’s not set up correctly. Therefore, this session also includes some advice on adjusting printer settings for maximum performance.

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What Makes One Printer Better Than Another? The price of a printer reflects its balance of the following qualities. ➤ Technology. The newer the technology and the better the output of that technology, the higher the price. For example, a laser printer is more expensive than a dot-matrix printer. ➤ Speed. More pages per minute costs you more. ➤ Color. A color printer costs more than the equivalent black-and-white model, and photo-quality color costs more than simple spot color. ➤ Print resolution. Print resolution is measured in dpi. For black and white, the higher the dpi, the nicer the output and the higher the price. For color printers, dpi is a factor, but dot size and the number of ink colors can make more of a difference in photographic color quality and price. ➤ Fonts. Higher-cost printers, especially laser printers, often have many built-in fonts. ➤ Memory. Printers that compose the entire page at once (notably laser printers) need enough memory to hold the entire page. More memory means a higher up-front cost, but you will probably pay even more to add extra memory to a printer later. Memory is not an issue with inkjet and dot-matrix printers. ➤ PostScript. The capability to print PostScript fonts and images adds to the printer’s price.

NIGHT OWL 1 Upgrading to a Better Printer

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The following sections discuss these qualities in more detail.

Choosing Printer Technologies Three technologies dominate the printer market—dot matrix, inkjet, and laser. Each of these technologies has its hybrids and subtypes, but almost all printers fall into these categories. (Dot matrix is a distant third in popularity, but it remains an option for special-purpose tasks, as you’ll learn shortly.) You might come across a few other types of printers, such as dye sublimation, thermal wax transfer, and pen plotter, but these are expensive and not practical choices for the casual user. They are designed for professional-quality color graphic art.

Dot Matrix The low-end printer technology, and the oldest technology still sold today, is dot matrix. A dot-matrix printer strikes the paper with a series of little pins against a ribbon (like a typewriter ribbon). In many ways, a dot-matrix printer is like an automated typewriter, except that instead of letter-shaped hammers, a group of small pins change positions to form each letter. Most dot-matrix printers have 24 pins, which gives nearly the same quality as a typewriter when the printer is operating at its maximum quality setting. Older dot-matrix printers have only nine pins, which results in less desirable output.

NOTE

A dot-matrix printer prints only a portion of a line at a time (usually 1/2 to 1/3 of a line), so each letter is actually comprised of more than 24 dots.

Dot-matrix printers and their replacement ribbons are inexpensive. However, they are noisy and slow, and you can’t print in more than one color without changing the ribbon. The main reason to buy one would be to print on multi-part forms. Because a dot-matrix printer is an impact printer (that is, it prints by physically striking the ribbon), it can make carbon copies; other printers can’t do this.

Inkjet Inkjet printers are the current favorite for home and small office use because they are inexpensive, produce near laser-quality output, print fairly quickly (three or more pages per minute), and can print in color. Their only drawback

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is the high cost of ink cartridges, which can run $20 or more depending on the model and usually only print a few hundred copies before needing to be replaced. An inkjet printer, as the name implies, works by forcing liquid ink out of jets and onto the paper. There are two technologies for forcing the ink out of the nozzles—thermal and piezoelectric. A thermal inkjet printer heats the ink to about 400 degrees Fahrenheit, which creates vapor bubbles that force the ink out. This creates a vacuum inside the cartridge, which in turn draws more ink into the nozzles. Most inkjet printers made by Hewlett-Packard and Canon use this technology, which is called bubble jet. Because the heat tends to degrade the print heads over time, ink replacement cartridges for these models often include replacement print heads as well. (That’s one reason why you should avoid home-refilling inkjet kits; when you simply refill the ink, you don’t get a new print head.) A piezoelectric inkjet printer moves the ink with electricity instead of heat. The nozzles contain piezoelectric crystals that change their shape when electricity is applied to them, which forces the ink out. Piezo technology is newer and is used in most of the inkjet printers sold today by Epson and Lexmark. It’s easier on the printer because the printer doesn’t need to contain a heating element, and it’s better for the output because the ink used is less prone to smearing. If speed is important, look for a printer that has a decent pages-per-minute (ppm) rating. For an inkjet printer, 8 ppm for black and white and 4 ppm for color is average. Most inkjet printers have a variety of quality settings; you can trade off higher-quality output and faster printing speed by making an adjustment to the printer’s settings in Windows. You should also consider the ink cartridge system when choosing an inkjet printer. Some printers have four separate ink cartridges—black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. This is the best arrangement because you can replace each cartridge individually as it runs out. Other printers have one cartridge for black and one cartridge for color, with three separate inkwells in the color cartridge. This is less desirable because often you will run out of one color first, and the ink left over in the other color wells will be wasted. The cost and availability of the ink cartridges is the final factor to consider. If you buy a well-known printer brand, such as Canon, Epson, or HewlettPackard, you will be able to buy cartridges at almost any office supply store. If you go with an off-brand printer, make sure it can use the same cartridges as a brand-name unit.


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Laser Before inkjet technology got the kinks worked out of it, laser printers were the only choice for serious business users. They are still very popular in the business world because of their razor-sharp text output and fast, quiet operation. They also spit out completely dry pages, so you don’t have to worry about smearing wet ink if you grab a page immediately as it ejects. With a laser printer, you are stuck with black-and-white output unless you want to spend more than $1500 on a color model. Upgrading laser printer technology for color was not a simple matter of revising the ink delivery system by adding some extra cartridges, as it was for inkjet printers. The innards of a color laser printer are completely different than those of a black-and-white one. Some of the shopping considerations for a laser printer include the print resolution, the amount of memory it contains, the page description language (PDL) it uses, and the speed at which it prints. Each of these factors is discussed in more detail later in the chapter. As with an inkjet, you should consider the cost of the toner cartridge for a laser printer, how many pages that cartridge will produce, and how readily available it is in the stores in your area. Generally speaking, laser printers have a much lower cost per page than inkjet printers, making them a practical choice for businesses. Over the course of a few years, a laser printer can pay for its cost difference over an inkjet through lower ink costs.

Hybrids Several manufacturers produce a type of hybrid printer, designed mainly for small and home offices, that combines a printer with some other devices, such as a fax machine, a copier, a scanner, and so on. They go by different names; one manufacturer calls it a Mopier, and another calls it an OfficeJet. They can be based either on inkjet or laser technology. These multifunction devices can seem like great values—you get all the functions of several devices for the price (and footprint) of one. The thing to keep in mind is that you’re not getting a top-quality unit in any category. It may print, but not as well as a dedicated printer of the same price. It may scan, but not as well as a real scanner. You get the idea. They also break down more disastrously than single-function units. The parts aren’t unreliable, but when the scanner goes out it’s likely to take the printer with it, which wouldn’t be the case if they were in two separate boxes. I’m not saying to avoid these hybrids, but do keep these things in mind.

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Speed The printer’s speed depends heavily on the technology that it employs. Dot matrix is the slowest, followed by inkjet, with laser at the top of the heap. If you pay enough money, you can have a printer that prints at incredible speeds such as 28 ppm. Most people have better things to do with their money, though; a home user will probably be happy with a modest 8 ppm. The ppm rating is a lot like reported gas mileage for a new car; it will probably vary—and not in your favor. The 8 ppm is the speed that the printer could print, in theory, if it didn’t have to process any graphics or wait for the computer to send it any data. In reality, whenever you print a page that contains fonts that do not reside in the printer (or when you print graphics), you will have to wait longer. Despite the ratings, complex color output can run into minutes per page rather than pages per minute!

Color Nearly all inkjet printers are color-capable these days, and nearly all laser printers are not. Therefore, your choice of color or black-and-white printer is already made for you when you decide on the printer technology you want. If printing color photos is important to you, look for a printer that advertises itself as “photographic quality.” The exact definition of what this entails is somewhat fuzzy and varies by manufacturer, but such printers are typically designed to print at high resolutions on special-coated photo paper. They also work well on regular paper at regular resolutions. To evaluate color printing, take a trip to a big computer store so you can see and handle the printouts from various models. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

Some inkjet printers require special paper to print at their highest resolution setting. If you pick up a stunning color printout sample at a store, notice what kind of paper it is printed on. You won’t be able to duplicate that result at home unless you use some of that special, expensive paper, which can cost more than $1 a sheet! ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

Color laser printers have a reputation for producing better color output than inkjets, but that is not always the case. The main thing you get with a color laser printer is consistency. The printed copy is not wet and will not smear if you


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touch it right away. And because a laser printer does not have liquid ink, it is not prone to clogged ink jets that can cause abnormalities (like stripes) in the printout, which is common with color inkjets—especially as their ink cartridges begin to run low.

Print Quality and Resolution Print quality on a dot-matrix printer is not measured very precisely. Printers are either 9-pin (and the output is euphemistically called “near letter quality,” which, in fact, it isn’t) or 24-pin (in which the output is called “letter quality.”) On inkjets and laser printers, quality is measured in dots per inch. The higher the number, the finer the quality of the image. In most cases, you worry about dpi only for the sake of graphics quality; text looks good no matter how many dpi you have. Most home and casual business users will be happy with anything over 600 dpi, the most common quality of low-budget laser printers. On inkjet printers, dpi is expressed in two separate measurements—vertical and horizontal. You might have an inkjet printer that prints 1440×720, for example, which means that the printer’s vertical resolution is better than its horizontal. (You don’t notice the difference; all you notice is that one printout looks a little better than another.) Most inkjet printers offer at least 720×720. Some printers offer resolution enhancement, which means they use one trick or another to make the printout seem like it has a higher dpi than it actually does. One such technology is Hewlett-Packard’s PhotoRET, which varies the inkjet dot size to create sharper images. These technologies can make a huge difference in image quality, so don’t let the dpi be your only determining factor. Look at sample printouts, if possible, to decide which unit has the best quality.

Printer Language The printer and the computer communicate via a page description language (PDL), which is a set of codes that they both understand. The driver you load for a printer in Windows contains the PDL needed to communicate with that printer. For laser printers, the most popular PDL is Print Control Language (PCL), made by Hewlett-Packard. An alternative PDL is PostScript, made by Adobe. Many laser printers support both, and you choose which one to use by installing one driver or another in Windows.

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A printer that supports PostScript is likely to be more expensive, but there are two good reasons to pay for this feature. PostScript-format graphics, which are used primarily in high-end professional desktop publishing, can print only on a PostScript printer. Also, you might need PostScript font support. Before Windows 3.1 introduced TrueType fonts in the early 1990s, PostScript printers were very popular because they had 35 or more built-in typefaces scaleable to any size. (Most printers at that time had one or two typefaces and a choice of five or fewer sizes for them.) Now that almost everyone uses a Windows version that supports TrueType fonts, this font support is no longer an important issue.

Fonts As I mentioned in the preceding section, PostScript printers typically have 35 or more typefaces built in, but if you use Windows 3.1 or higher (and almost everyone does these days) you have TrueType fonts, so the fonts that a printer does or does not have are not important.

Printer Memory Printer memory serves different functions, depending on the printer technology. On dot-matrix and inkjet printers, the printer prints one line at a time on the page as the paper moves through it. (This is known as a line printer.) Therefore, the printer needs only enough memory to hold one line at a time. That’s not much! Any additional memory the printer has holds TrueType fonts sent to it by the PC or serves as a buffer. When the computer tells the printer what to print on the upcoming line before the printer has finished the current line, the extra information waits in the buffer. The larger the buffer, the more data that can wait in line, and the sooner the PC can finish its role and get back to normal work. More memory doesn’t help the printer function any better for the most part, so the memory in an inkjet or dot-matrix printer is not an important shopping issue. In contrast, the memory in a laser printer is very important. A laser printer composes the entire page in memory and then spits it out onto the paper in one pass. (This is known as a page printer.) Consequently, the printer needs enough memory to hold the entire page plus any fonts sent to it. Sadly, most laser printer manufacturers cut corners and provide only 512 K or 1 MB of memory with their printers—you have to buy memory upgrades to get more. 1 MB is just barely enough to hold a single full-page graphic. If you get out-of-memory error


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messages when printing large graphics or pages with lots of fonts, your printer is probably memory deficient.

Paper Handling A good printer should be able to accept at least 100 sheets in its paper tray so you don’t have to constantly restock the paper supply. Better models accept up to 250 pages, and some have multiple paper trays. Models with two or more trays are good when you use two kinds of paper, such as regular and letterhead or first-page letterhead and subsequent-page letterhead. Special trays are often available for legal-size paper or other non-standard sizes. You can also get envelope feeders for some laser printers.

Making the Most of Your Current Printer Now that you know what to look for when shopping for a new printer, consider this: Your old printer might not need upgrading. If you are ready to trade it in because you’re unhappy with its performance, check out the following tips first.

Slow Printing Speed If you don’t care about a little reduction in output quality, you can probably increase your printer’s speed by switching to a lower resolution or draft mode in its settings in Windows. For example, Figure 3.1 shows the settings for a typical inkjet printer; notice that you can choose from several quality settings. Figure 3.2 shows a typical laser printer, for which you can choose from several resolutions.

Inkjet Color Quality Problems Quality problems with inkjets are usually the result of empty or dried-up ink cartridges or clogged print heads. This could manifest itself as one color being entirely missing, as odd discolorations, or as colored stripes on the printout. If your printer has a self-test, run it to and see which color(s) are missing— either entirely or in spots. Then check the ink to make sure you have plenty of that color in the printer. If lack of ink is not the problem, try running the head-cleaning utility, and then run the self-test again. If you see a little improvement after the cleaning, clean it again. Keep cleaning until you do not see any more improvement or until the

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Figure 3.1 Print quality adjustment for a typical inkjet printer

Figure 3.2 Print quality adjustment for a typical laser printer

print quality is acceptable. The cleaning utility is probably accessible from the printer properties in Windows or by pressing a certain button combination on the printer itself. (Consult your documentation for the specifics on how to access this utility.)

Inaccurate Color Output If the colors on-screen don’t match the colors on the printout, you can make adjustments in the printer’s properties in Windows to correct this. Some printers


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have a utility program to help you with the correction; others let you create and edit color profiles.

Paper Jams You can avoid a lot of paper jam problems simply by using the right type of paper. Any paper that is extra-heavy (more than 24 lbs) or extra-light (less than 16 lbs), or is torn, curled, or wrinkled is likely to cause a jam, as is paper that is heavily textured or embossed. Paper jams can also be the result of paper and toner particles inside the printer, so clean the printer thoroughly as a first step. See the printer’s manual for instructions. Sometimes when the humidity is high, paper can stick together in the paper tray, feeding multiple sheets at once and causing jams. To avoid this, take the paper out and fan it. If you’re still having jams, check to see whether the printer has some sort of control that specifies the thickness of the paper. If this adjustment does not match the paper you are using, jams can result. If you still can’t solve the problem and the printer is old, perhaps the paper feed rollers are getting worn and too smooth. Try roughening them up slightly with a kitchen pot-scrubber or fine-grain sandpaper to help the paper advance through the feed mechanism.

Moving On So now you’re ready to pick out a printer. Will you head out to the online stores tonight and do some shopping, or will you get some sleep? It’s your call. Tomorrow morning bright and early we’ll start talking about sound cards and speakers.


S AT U R DAY

MORNING

Improving Sound Performance ➤ Looking at Motherboards with Sound in Mind ➤ Shopping for Sound Cards ➤ Evaluating Speakers ➤ Installing a Sound Card, Sound Drivers, and Speakers ➤ Adjusting Speaker Configuration in Windows

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s the sound emanating from your PC’s speakers tinny and anemic? Do you care? Not everyone does, you know. People who just use the computer for a few business applications don’t need great-sounding music or realistic game sound effects, and should put their money elsewhere. But if sound is a priority for you, this session will help you decide how much to invest in sound cards, speakers, and other equipment and how to choose and install the best models.

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What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? A sound upgrade will affect any applications you run that have an audio component, from simple system notification sounds, such as beeps and dings, to the most sophisticated music composition and editing software. Here are a few activities in which you will notice an improvement after upgrading your PC’s sound. ➤ Watching DVD movies. If you use your PC as a DVD player for movies, they will sound much better with good speakers and a good sound card. See the Saturday Evening session, “CD and Other Removable Disk Drives,” for more information about DVD drives. Most DVD movies have stereo sound encoded in them and even surround sound in many cases, but unless your system’s sound card and speakers are up to snuff, you won’t hear anything special. ➤ Listening to music. Lots of people use their PC’s CD-ROM drives to play audio CDs and MP3 files, but as with the DVD movies, you won’t hear the CDs at their full potential unless your sound card and speakers are good. The quality difference might not be obvious to the casual listener, but a real audiophile will notice. ➤ Music composition and editing. If you use your PC with a MIDI instrument, such as an electronic keyboard, to compose your own music, the quality of that recording and playback is probably important to you. If so, a high-quality sound card can help. Some sound cards are much better

SATURDAY MORNING Improving Sound Performance

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than others at receiving and processing input from MIDI instruments and playing back MIDI recordings. ➤ Playing games. Admit it, this is the main reason many of you are interested in a sound upgrade! Today’s sophisticated games have lavish soundtracks and realistic sound effects, and some can even take advantage of multiple sets of speakers for movie theater-like sound if you have a highquality sound card and speakers. ➤ Video teleconferencing. If you are just chatting with a friend with a cheap little Webcam and microphone, any sound card will do, but for the professional video teleconference, a high-quality sound card and microphone can make the sound you transmit much clearer. ➤ Web phones. You can get software that allows you to place and receive free telephone calls via the Internet, but such calls typically don’t sound very good. A high-quality sound card and microphone can make them sound better, although it can’t make them sound as good as real telephone calls. ➤ Speech recognition. There are many applications that include voice recognition capability, and add-on programs such as Dragon Naturally Speaking can add voice capability to almost any program. Most people get frustrated with such programs, however, because they are hit-and-miss at converting speech to text. A high-quality sound card and microphone can dramatically increase the accuracy of speech recognition programs, making them much more satisfactory.

Is Your Existing Hardware Enough? Some of the sound problems you are experiencing with your current system might include ➤ Overall poor sound or music quality. This could be an issue with your sound card, your speakers, or both. ➤ Unrealistic sound in certain games. Many of the latest games have 3D sound features that can make the game sounds very realistic, but with a cheap sound card you won’t hear that stuff; the game will sound fairly ordinary. ➤ Crackling coming through the speakers. This might be a failing or cheap sound card, or you may have a microphone plugged in that is picking up sounds. Try muting the microphone with the Volume Control in Windows before assuming you need new equipment. See the “Troubleshooting a Non-Working or Crackling Microphone” section later in the chapter.

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➤ Incorrect ports. Cheap sound cards don’t always have the input/output and MIDI jacks that you might need, depending on what activities you want to pursue.

Identifying Your Current Sound Card If you are convinced that you need a new sound card and speakers you can skip the rest of this section, but if you are curious about what you currently have, follow these steps. 1. Do you have speakers plugged into your PC? If so, notice where the speaker cable is plugged in. If not, look on the back of the PC for a set of ports that look like the ones in Figure 4.1. 2. Remove the PC cover and look at what’s behind the ports you identified in Step 1. If those ports are part of an expansion board, you have a sound card. If those ports are on a backplate that connects to the motherboard via a ribbon cable, or if the sound ports appear to be coming out of the side of the motherboard itself, you have built-in sound support on the motherboard. Built-in sound support on the motherboard is not inherently inferior to a separate sound card. There are many bargain sound cards that aren’t as feature-rich as the built-in sound on some motherboards, so replacing built-in sound with a sound card will not necessarily improve your sound performance. However, it’s important to know which type you have because when you install an improved

Sound ports

Figure 4.1 A sound card and built-in sound support on the motherboard both look the same from the outside of the PC.


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sound card, you’ll either need to remove the old sound card or disable the onmotherboard sound support. After you have determined whether you have a real sound card or on-motherboard sound, you need to determine the sound card model. (I’m using the term “card” here generically; it could be a separate card or not.) To check this out, look at the Device Manager in Windows. 1. From the Control Panel, double-click on System. 2. In Windows 9x/Me, click on the Device Manager tab. In Windows 2000/XP, click on the Hardware tab and then the Device Manager button. 3. Click on the plus sign next to Sound, Video, and Game Controllers. 4. Read the list of sound devices installed. In Figure 4.2, there are several sound devices; all of these are actually different drivers supporting different parts of the same physical sound card. The sound card model itself is Creative SB Live! Value (WDM).

NOTE

How do you know that the sound card is the Creative SB Live! Value (WDM) entry in Figure 4.2 and not one of the other entries? By process of elimination. Anything with the word “Legacy” is for backward compatibility with older programs; it’s not the sound card. Nor is “Gameport”; that’s the joystick port.You’ll learn about “Codecs” later in this chapter. And “Media Control Devices” is too generic—it doesn’t sound like the name of a sound card. So Creative SB Live! Value (WDM) is all that’s left.

Figure 4.2 Determining the sound card model from within the Device Manager.

Sound card

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Figure 4.3 A built-in sound chip on a motherboard

Another way to determine what sound card you have is to pull it out of the PC and examine it physically. It might report the model and manufacturer somewhere on the circuit board or one of its chips. A motherboard with built-in sound might have the sound model written on a chip somewhere on the motherboard. Look for a medium-sized square or rectangular chip with something about “sound” on it (or ESS, the most popular maker of on-board sound chips). Figure 4.3 shows an example of a SoundPro built-in sound chip, for example.

Understanding the Capabilities of Your Current Sound Card The sound card model might not mean much to you right off the bat. You probably haven’t researched sound cards yet, so one model is the same as another to you at this point. After you have determined what sound card you have, do a little Internet research to try to find out what the specifications are for your current sound system. Print these out and keep them handy as you look at the features of sound cards later in the chapter. Here are some places to look for information about sound cards. ➤ VIAHardware.com. http://www.viahardware.com ➤ ESS Technology. http://www.esstech.com ➤ Voyetra/Turtle Beach (Santa Cruz). http://www.turtlebeach.com/site ➤ Creative Labs (Sound Blaster). http://www.creative.com ➤ Guillemot (Maxi Sound). http://www.guillemot.com ➤ Pine Group. http://www.pinegroup.com ➤ Philips. http://www.pcsound.philips.com/index2.html


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You can also derive some information about your sound card simply by looking at it. For example, look at the labeling on its ports. Figures 4.4 and 4.5 show two different sound cards. One of them has three round ports; the other has five. One of the additional ports in Figure 4.5 is Line In; it’s used for input from external devices besides microphones. This is useful in situations in which you want to convert analog sound to digital, such as hooking up your stereo to your PC or making a CD out of an old LP album. The other additional port is Digital Out; it’s used to send data out to a digital device. Normally the sound card functions as a converter to transmit the digital audio signals inside the PC to analog output devices, but with a Digital Out port you can transmit out to digital devices as well. Different models of sound cards vary as to whether they have pictures or text to describe the function of each port. The round ports are also usually color-coded on newer sound cards, which makes it easier to determine the purpose of each port. Table 4.1 lists the color assignments.

Mic (red) Speaker (black) Figure 4.4 Line Out (green) A low-end sound card with only three round ports

Speaker (black) Line Out (green) Mic (red) Line In (blue) Figure 4.5 A mid-range sound card with five round ports

Digital Out (yellow)

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TABLE 4.1 COLOR ASSIGNMENTS Port

Color

Line Out

Green

Speaker Out

Black

Microphone

Red

Line In

Blue

Digital Out

Yellow

FOR

SOUND PORTS

Getting Updated Sound Card Drivers Before you spring for a new sound card and/or speakers, make sure that you are using your old ones to their fullest capabilities. You might have perfectly good equipment and just not have the right drivers loaded or the right settings configured! If you have upgraded your Windows version since you bought your old sound card, or if it’s been more than six months since you bought it, you might want to check the Internet to see whether an updated driver is available. Newer drivers can help eliminate any problems you might be experiencing and might add new features as well. Here are some Web sites where you can download drivers. If your manufacturer isn’t listed here, use a search site such as Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com) to find the manufacturer’s Web address, and then look for a Downloads or Support section at their site. ➤ ESS. http://www.esstech.com/techsupp/drivers.shtm ➤ Creative Labs. http://www.americas.creative.com/support/ welcome.asp?RD=download ➤ Turtle Beach. http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/dl_products/ producthome.asp

Installing sound drivers is the same basic process as installing video drivers, which you learned about in the Friday Evening session. The sound driver updates you download will probably be contained in a single executable file


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(with a .exe extension). Double-click on that file to start a Setup program that updates the drivers automatically for you. In some cases the drivers may be in a ZIP file (with a .zip extension) instead of an .exe. If that’s the case, you need either Windows XP or Me (which have builtin ZIP support) or an unzipping utility such as WinZip, which you can download from http://www.winzip.com. Unzip the contents of the ZIP file to a new folder. In that new folder, you should find a Setup.exe file that starts the driver install. Very rarely you might encounter sound drivers with no Setup program—just a bunch of .drv, .sys, and .dll files. If that happens, place all the files in a new folder and then use the Update Driver Wizard from the Device Manager, as explained in the following steps. 1. From the Device Manager, double-click on the sound card to open its Properties dialog box. 2. On the Driver tab, click on the Update Driver button. 3. Work through the Update Driver Wizard, pointing it to the folder that contains the drivers when prompted.

Troubleshooting a No-Sound Situation If your sound card is currently not working, it’s either broken or there are no drivers installed for it. First try to install the needed drivers; you can get them from the manufacturer’s Web site, as discussed in the preceding section. If the sound card shows up in the Device Manager, it’s a good bet that the drivers are correctly loaded. If you still aren’t hearing any sound from it, check the following things. ➤ Are the speakers plugged into the Speaker jack on the sound card? Are the speakers turned on and turned up? ➤ Is the Volume Control in Windows muted? Double-click on the speaker icon in the notification area (by the clock) to display the Volume Control (see Figure 4.6). Additionally, you can access it from the Accessories/ Entertainment submenu on the Start menu. ➤ Is it just audio CDs that won’t play? If you hear system sounds but not your audio CDs, the cable might be missing that connects the sound card to the CD-ROM drive. Check inside your CPU. There should be a small round cable running between them (or between the motherboard and the

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Figure 4.6 Check the muting in the Volume Control. Make sure the sound is not muted.

CD-ROM drive if you have built-in sound). I’ll talk about installing this cable later in the chapter. Also, make sure that CD Audio is not muted (refer to Figure 4.6). ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

Turtle Beach, a sound card manufacturer, offers a free sound card testing utility called Sound Check, which you can download at ftp://ftp.voyetra.com/pub/voy/schck/sndcheck.exe. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Troubleshooting a Non-Working or Crackling Microphone If you can hear sounds but not record them, make sure the microphone is plugged into the Mic port on the sound card and that its On/Off switch is turned on if it has one. Also check the Recording properties in the Volume Control to make sure the Mic port has not been muted. If you are hearing crackling noises from the speaker, go into the Volume Control and do the opposite— mute the Mic port. To do either one: 1. Double-click on the speaker icon in the notification area, near the clock. 2. Choose Options, Properties, and then choose Recording in the Properties dialog box that appears (see Figure 4.7). 3. Click on OK. You will see the recording devices in Volume Control. Mark or clear the Select check box for the Microphone, and then close the Volume Control.


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The title bar of the Volume Control now says Record rather than Play.

Figure 4.7 Switch to Recording controls to check the volume on your microphone.

Select the Microphone to enable it; clear the check box to disable it.

Display recording devices by selecting them here.

In Figure 4.7, when you are dealing with recording volumes rather than play volumes, the check box beneath each item is Select, not Mute, and you mark the check box rather than clearing it to enable the device.

Looking at Motherboards with Sound in Mind The motherboard is an important part of the sound subsystem because the sound must pass through it. With built-in sound, the sound processor is in the motherboard itself, whereas with a sound card it’s on an expansion board plugged into the motherboard. Either way, the motherboard bus carries the data to and from the CPU and memory. A sound card can plug into either an ISA or a PCI slot on the motherboard. As you learned in last night’s session, an ISA slot uses the ISA bus on the motherboard, which is fairly slow (8 MHz). If possible, it is much better to use a sound card that fits in a PCI slot because the PCI bus is much faster and more efficient. In addition, the PCI bus offers many advantages over the ISA bus, such as the ability to share system resources like IRQs. See the Friday Evening session for a more thorough explanation of buses.

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NOTE

IRQ stands for Interrupt Request. A typical motherboard has 16 IRQs (0 through 15). Each device is assigned an IRQ line, which it can use to signal the CPU that it needs attention. ISA devices must each have their own IRQ but PCI devices can share IRQs, making it less likely that the system as a whole will run out of them.Therefore, in a system that is loaded with many devices, a PCI sound card can be a great advantage.

If you have a motherboard with built-in sound, that doesn’t mean you are stuck with it. On most such motherboards, you can disable the on-board sound in the BIOS Setup program. (See Friday Afternoon’s session for details about how to access BIOS Setup.) Even if that’s not possible, you can still disable on-board sound using the Device Manager in Windows to keep the built-in sound from consuming system resources, and then just install a real sound card in any available expansion slot.

So Far, So Good . . . . At this point, you should have figured out ➤ What kind of sound support you currently have, if any. ➤ Whether your current equipment is adequate when it’s working properly. ➤ How to disable built-in sound, if you have it. ➤ Whether you have any free PCI expansion slots in your motherboard in which you can install a new sound card.

Now that you have that information in hand, you can start learning about sound card and speaker features and decide how much you want to pay for the features you want.

Shopping for Sound Cards A poke around some online computer hardware vendors will show a dramatic price range for sound cards—anywhere from $20 to more than $200. What are the differences? Which are worth it?

General Features No matter what your other priorities are, shop for these minimum requirements first.


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➤ Plug-and-Play. This one almost goes without saying; all sound cards made today are Plug-and-Play compatible, which means Windows can detect them automatically and assign resources to them. ➤ Windows version compatibility. Whatever Windows version you have, make sure the sound card you select comes with drivers specifically written for it. ➤ PCI interface. Unless you don’t have any PCI expansion slots available, make sure you get a PCI card rather than ISA. The card should be compatible with PCI 2.1. (That’s a version number for the PCI standard.) ➤ MPU 401 UART. A UART is a controller chip; serial ports have UARTs too. All sound cards should have an MPU 401 UART, but it never hurts to make sure. ➤ MPC3-compatible. MPC stands for Multimedia PC, and the 3 is for version 3. This is a standard for PCs to make sure they conform to minimum requirements needed for certain programs. All sound cards sold today should be MPC3-compatible.

Sound cards play two different types of sound—waveform (also called wave or digital audio) and MIDI. A waveform sound is a digital recording of an analog sound. For example, if you use a microphone to record yourself singing, the resulting recording is a wave file. If you buy an audio CD-ROM, all of the songs on it are waveform files because at some point, a real live person sang into a microphone to record them. Some waveform files have the extension .wav, but that’s merely one of the many formats in which waveform files can be saved; others include .mp3, .wmf, and .au. (Those are all file extensions.) In contrast, a MIDI file is computer-generated music that has no origin in reallife analog. If you attach an electronic keyboard to your PC, play a few chords, and record them, you’ve just created MIDI music. The extension on MIDI files is usually .mid. Some sound cards are designed to play one type of file better than another, so take a look at the features of each of them separately.

MIDI Features MIDI (Multi-Instrument Digital Interface) is a standard for hooking up musical instruments to your PC and recording music from them. It is also a standard for playing back MIDI music that someone else has recorded and saved as a file. On most sound cards, the 15-pin port doubles as both a joystick and a MIDI instrument connector.

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The most important feature that a sound card can have for processing MIDI is wavetable synthesis. This means that the sound card has recorded clips of actual instruments playing actual notes, and it plays them back whenever you play back MIDI-recorded music. This makes MIDI music sound more real and less like a robot. The alternative to wavetable synthesis is FM synthesis, which attempts to digitally simulate sounds. Most games use only FM synthesis, so MIDI features like wavetable synthesis are not essential for people who want a sound card for gaming. However, for anyone who is interested primarily in music composition, it’s a must. Nearly all sound cards support wavetable synthesis, but not all in equal degrees of quality and complexity. The main features that differentiate one sound card from another in this area include ➤ New instrument capability. If you are into music composition, look for a sound card that enables you to download and incorporate new instrument clips. ➤ Polyphony. This is how many MIDI “voices” can play simultaneously. Can your sound card simulate a 64-piece orchestra or just a 4-piece string quartet? More is better. Most good-quality sound cards support 64 voices. ➤ ROM size. Some sound cards have read-only memory (ROM) for holding clips; others rely on system RAM for this. A card that has ROM might have 1 MB or so of it. ➤ RAM size. This is how much memory can be allocated to working with sound. A card with ROM might have some RAM on it, perhaps between 4 MB and 24 MB. On cards that use system RAM the actual usable amount depends on the available system RAM, but a sound card will have a theoretical maximum. A mid-range card might support up to 32 MB; a higher-end one up to 1 GB. ➤ Synthesizer effects. Some sound cards include built-in effects such as Reverb, Chorus, Flanger, Pitch Shift, and Distortion. Having these effects built in is superior to having such effects created by software when you compose or play music. Low-end sound cards don’t typically have built-in synthesizer effects. ➤ MIDI channels. This determines the maximum number of channels of data for MIDI recording and playback. 16 would be typical of a low-end card; 48 would be typical of a mid-to-high-end card. ➤ Effects engine. Some higher-end sound cards have one of these for generating special effects; most mid-range and low-end cards don’t.


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➤ Recording depth. This refers to the number of bits of data that can be recorded simultaneously. 16-bit is typical. ➤ Maximum recording rate. This is a measurement of the number of sounds per second (called samples) that can be recorded. A maximum of 48 kHz is typical. ➤ Playback depth. This is the number of bits of data that can be played back simultaneously. A low- or mid-range card might have 16-bit; a highend card might have 24-bit.

NOTE

When you see a card advertised as a number of bits, such as 24-bit, you can usually assume that this number refers to the maximum playback depth.

➤ Maximum playback rate. This is the number of sounds per second that can be played back. It might range from 48 kHz to 96 kHz, depending on the card quality. ➤ Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This measures the amount of distortion (noise) in proportion to the amount of sound produced. Higher is better. Cards might range between 80 and 100 db (decibels).

Digital Audio Features Digital audio refers to the card’s ability to play back recorded sounds in nonMIDI digital format. Gamers will want to look for sound cards that are strong in the digital audio area. Many of the latest games conform to certain APIs. You’ll remember from the Friday Evening session that API stands for application programming interface. An API is a standard that programmers use to hook into the features of a piece of hardware, such as a sound or video card. By looking for a sound card that supports the latest APIs, you ensure that the latest games and other programs will work to their full potential sound-wise. Some digital audio features to shop for include ➤ Built-in amplifier. Usually you don’t need this because your speakers contain their own amplification, but some sound cards have it anyway. It enables you to get decent volume from the system using cheap, unamplified speakers. ➤ Sound Blaster compatibility. If you plan to use the sound card only in Windows, in which a driver written specifically for that sound card will be available, compatibility is not an issue. However, if you plan to play sound

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in older MS-DOS programs (each of which must provide its own sound driver), compatibility with an established sound card type is useful. Sound Blaster is the most popular sound card standard, and almost all MS-DOS programs that include sound come with a Sound Blaster driver. ➤ Microsoft DirectSound and DirectSound 3D support. This is the dominant standard for 3D sound support. I’ll talk more about 3D sound later in this chapter. ➤ EAX support. EAX is another API for rendering 3D sound support. If your sound card supports it, programs (mostly games) that include EAX API programming calls will sound better. EAX is a proprietary standard developed by Creative Labs; as of this writing it is found only on cards manufactured by Creative Labs. ➤ Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding. Dolby Digital 5.1 is a standard for digital sound playback when watching DVD movies. (Actually, it’s only one of the standards for DVD movie sound; DTS is the other.) A sound card that supports it will play back audio recorded in Dolby Digital 5.1 or better, including supporting surround sound. ➤ Separate speaker and woofer adjustments. If you have more than two speakers, look for a sound card that supports more of them—up to six—and allows you to adjust the balance and volume of each speaker separately, in addition to the woofer (if you have one separate from the speakers).

NOTE

There is software available that can make some cards work with three sets of speakers for surround sound output, even if your sound card supports only one set of them.The software maps the front speakers to the regular speaker port, the rear speakers to the Line In port, and the subwoofer speakers to the Mic port.This is called 5.1 Channel Audio Effects.

I/O Ports Different sound cards can have different I/O ports, both external and internal. Back in Figures 4.4 and 4.5, you saw two different sets of external ports. The ones in these figures were not that different, but as you get into the higher-end equipment you will notice more. In addition, different sound cards have different internal ports. These are connectors on the circuit board itself, to which you attach internal cables inside the PC. It isn’t important to have every single type of internal port available—as long as you have the ones you happen to need.


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Here are the most common external ports. ➤ MIDI. Most sound cards have a 15-pin D-shaped MIDI connector that doubles as a joystick connector. Sound cards designed primarily for MIDI might have two DIN connectors (the same type of connector used for an AT-style keyboard)—one for MIDI in and one for MIDI out. ➤ Line In. With this type of port, you can connect a stereo or other analog audio device and record its sounds into files on the PC. You could retrieve audio from a portable CD or cassette player, for example. ➤ Line Out. Use this type of port to export digital audio from the PC to an analog device, such as a cassette recorder. ➤ Digital Out. This output port lets you transfer data from the PC to an external digital device without converting it to analog (sound wave). ➤ Microphone. This is like the Line Out port except it’s just for a microphone. The two (Line Out and Mic) can be interchanged in a pinch, as long as you remember to change the appropriate setting when you adjust the recording volume in Windows. ➤ Speaker. This output port sends analog data to speakers. Usually this is stereo data. One speaker is the primary one; it connects directly to the sound card. The secondary speaker connects and receives its data from the primary speaker. Some sound cards have more than one Speaker output port (Speaker 1 and Speaker 2, perhaps) for connecting multiple sets of speakers. Other cards let you connect multiple sets of speakers to a single plug. This usually works by connecting a subwoofer to the sound card and then connecting the rest of the speakers to the subwoofer. ➤ IEEE 1394 (FireWire) connector. Some high-end sound cards include one of these high-speed serial ports, which you can use to connect two PCs for high-speed gaming networking or as a general-purpose IEEE 1394 port.

NOTE

An IEEE 1394 port, also known as FireWire, is a high-speed serial port—a competitor to USB— used primarily for the interface between a digital video camera or other digital video equipment and a PC.

➤ Headphones. Some sound cards (not many) have a headphone jack separate from the speaker jack(s). ➤ Optical Out. This port might be used for exporting to a mini-disc player.

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➤ Optical In. This port might be used to accept input from a set-top DVD player or a gaming system to allow it to use your PC’s speakers.

The internal ports on a sound card are pin-based connectors on the circuit board that enable you to attach internal cables running from one device to another. For example, you might run a cable from an internal modem to the TAD (Telephone Answering Device) internal connector on a sound card to enable the modem to be used as an answering machine (with the right software). Figure 4.8 shows the internal ports on a typical sound card. Here are some of the more common internal ports that you might find. ➤ TAD. Run a cable between an internal modem and this port to hear messages from your answering machine software through your PC speakers. ➤ CD IN (Audio In). Run a cable from your CD-ROM drive to this port to hear audio CDs play through your PC speakers. ➤ S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface). An internal S/PDIF interface would typically connect via cable to an extra backplate with several S/PDIF external ports on it. An S/PDIF output port might be useful for exporting sound to a portable digital audio (MP3) player, for example. ➤ TV Tuner. If you have a TV tuner card installed in your PC, hook it to the sound card via this port so you can hear the TV’s sound through your PC speakers. ➤ Mic Con. If you have an internal microphone, connect it to the sound card here. Most microphones are external, however. ➤ AUX IN. This is an all-purpose input port; use it for a second CD-ROM drive or some other internal device that generates sound that you want to be able to play through your PC speakers.

Figure 4.8 Internal I/O ports on a sound card are mounted directly on the circuit board.


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3D Sound I’ve saved 3D sound for its own separate discussion because it can be a rather complex subject. 3D sound is somewhat like surround sound in a movie theater; the sounds seem like they are coming at you from all sides, with realistic effects. For example, if you are playing a game in which a monster is creeping up behind you, you would hear it from the rear speakers (if you have multiple sets of speakers). But it’s more than just positional audio; 3D sound in some games can be extremely sophisticated. For example, suppose a monster is to your character’s left in the game, and the character moves so that a brick wall is between him and the monster. The sound that the monster is making will change to sound like it is actually coming through the brick wall. It’s pretty amazing what you can do with 3D sound. In order for 3D sound to work, however, the programmers must have included commands that use an API supported by the sound card. For example, if your sound card supports Microsoft’s DirectSound 3D, and the game has DirectSound 3D API commands embedded in it, you’ll get the 3D sound effects; otherwise the sound will be rather ordinary. Because the feature won’t work unless both the hardware and the software support it, serious gamers should look for sound cards that support as many different APIs as possible. The 3D standards to look for include ➤ A3D. Developed by Aureal Semiconductor, A3D 2.0 is found in the Vortex 2 audio accelerator chip. It’s a very sophisticated audio engine that supports the A3D 2.0 API. One benefit of A3D is that it produces fairly good 3D sound with a single pair of speakers; you don’t need multiple speaker sets (true surround sound) to enjoy 3D effects. However, this company has been bought by Creative Labs, and no further support or development for this standard is anticipated. ➤ EAX. This is an API standard developed by Creative Labs, the makers of the venerable Sound Blaster line of sound cards. They are currently on version 3.0, which competes fairly well with A3D for its capabilities. EAX is much better with four speakers than with two, however, and Creative Labs even sells four-speaker kits to take advantage of that. ➤ Sensaura. This API uses very sophisticated modeling techniques to accurately reproduce sounds as they would hit a human ear in real life. Sensaura is popular with programmers because they don’t have to learn a new API to program Sensaura support into a game; it is layered beneath Microsoft DirectSound 3D. Sound cards that use the Yamaha Waveforce and ESS Maestro 2 chips include Sensaura support.

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➤ DirectSound3D. This is the common denominator, the baseline for 3D sound support. Nearly all sound cards and all games support it. It is not as sophisticated as the other technologies mentioned, but it does provide some basic 3D functionality.

Other Features At the high end of sound card functionality you find all kinds of strange things. Some sound cards have add-on devices that work with them, such as drives that store MIDI clips or sound fonts. A sound font is the rough equivalent of a text font. You know how you take some basic text in a word-processing program and apply a different font to make it look different but say the same words? Well, picture applying a distortion filter to a basic sound clip so it sounds a little bit different. That’s a sound font. Another recent development in sound cards is an external sound card. It’s not really a “card” at all; it’s an add-on appliance, which you connect to your PC via a USB port, that functions as a sound card, processing the ins and outs of all sound-related data. One of the limitations of a traditional sound card is that the backplate can only accommodate a limited number of ports. This large external box can have many more ports on it, including multiple jacks for speaker sets. The most popular model is the Sound Blaster Extigy by Creative Labs. It includes nearly all of the external I/O ports listed earlier in the chapter, plus three sets of speaker connectors (for Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound) and just about every other connector type you would ever want.

Evaluating Speakers Most PCs come with entry-level speakers. The definition of “entry level” can vary widely depending on how much you paid for the PC. I have seen bargainbasement computers come with dinky little speakers that don’t have any amplification in them at all; I’ve also seen decent name-brand PCs that come with speakers that just about anybody (well, anybody except the serious gamer) would be satisfied with.

Amplification Amplification is almost a given for speakers—or it should be, anyway. Any speakers you get should be amplified, and most of them are. (In contrast, stereo speakers designed for your home stereo system are not amplified because they


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are hooked up to a separate amplifier/radio tuner box that does that job.) Amplification does just what the name says—it amplifies the sound coming from the sound card so humans can easily hear it. If you don’t have amplification in your speakers, you might have problems getting the sound loud enough. Amplification is achieved through electricity, so to be amplified, speakers must either have batteries or (better yet) an AC adapter. Some have both. So what does the speaker do with this electricity it receives from the battery or wall outlet? It gives you watts of amplification. The subwoofer will have its own watts (more is better), as will each of the satellite speakers. The average watts for a subwoofer are around 18; for each satellite speaker it might be around six. Watts are measured as follows. ➤ RMS (Root Mean Squared ). This is a standard measurement of the amount of wattage a speaker can reliably handle in a sustained manner. ➤ RMS Maximum. This is the wattage that the speaker can handle in short bursts; it will be higher than the regular RMS. ➤ PMPO. This is the absolute maximum that the speaker can handle for a split second, just before it dies from over-wattage. It’s not a realistic measurement of what the speaker can handle. Cheap speakers often advertise their wattage in PMPO, but you can’t fairly compare it to speakers that advertise wattage in RMS.

Number of Speakers The main shopping decision to make when purchasing PC speakers is how many of them you want. Most PCs come with two speakers designed for stereo operation. One speaker connects to the PC; the other speaker connects to the first speaker. This is known as a 2.0 configuration. The alternative is to get some sort of setup that includes a subwoofer, which is a speaker that’s dedicated to handling bass. A subwoofer makes that thumpthump effect and makes sound effects in the lower range (below 150 Hz) much more dramatic. In a two-speaker stereo system with no subwoofer, each speaker has its own subwoofer that handles bass (although not as well as a dedicated subwoofer). You might consider one of the following configurations. ➤ Two speakers plus a subwoofer. This is known as 2.1. It’s a mid-level setup that enhances the stereo performance by adding increased bass. ➤ Four speakers plus a subwoofer. This is known as 4.1. Two speakers are for the front (right and left) and two are for the rear. For this setup you

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will need a sound card that has two speaker jacks and supports fourchannel operation. ➤ Five speakers plus a subwoofer. This is known as 5.1, or surround sound. It has the same four speakers (front/rear, right/left) as 4.1, but it adds a single center speaker as well. This is useful primarily for playing DVD movies; not many games support it. For this configuration you will need a sound card that supports Dolby Digital 5.1.

NOTE

There is also a new 7.1 standard that uses seven speakers, but it is very high-end and not common on PCs.

Other Speaker Considerations Here are a few other things to think about when comparing one speaker system to another. Not all of them may be important to you, and they may vary between models, but it doesn’t hurt to be aware of them. ➤ Shielding. Speakers have magnets in them; if they get too close to the monitor or other components, you might get EMI (Electromagnetic Interference). Speakers with shielding have a protective barrier that minimizes the amount of EMI that leaks out of the speakers, so you can set them next to just about anything without any problems. Shielding is important but as with amplification, it’s nearly a given if you shop for speakers designed specifically for use with computers. ➤ Frequency range. Speaker systems with a very wide frequency range will reproduce sounds more accurately. Look for a frequency range of at least 50–10,000 Hz. ➤ Analog versus digital. Most speakers are analog. The Speaker connector on a sound card sends analog data to the speaker, which broadcasts it. However, digital speakers are also available, and hardcore audiophiles claim that they are better—less background noise and hiss at high volumes. Most people will not notice a difference. To use digital speakers, you must have a Digital Out port on your sound card. ➤ External device connectors. Some speakers have a Line In or other port that you can use to connect an external device that is completely separate from your PC, such as a separate CD player or MP3 player box. Look for this feature if you think you might use it.


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Take a Break Is your head spinning with specs at this point? If so, take a break. Do some comparison shopping, figure out what you want, and then come back here to do the install in the next section. You might want to check out your local electronics and computer stores as well as shopping online at the big vendors, such as Buy.com.

Installing a Sound Card Installing a sound card is very straightforward; it’s just a simple circuit board inserted in an expansion slot on the motherboard. Nothing to it! But in case you need a little help, the following will guide you through the process. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

Review the safety precautions in the Friday Afternoon session. Most of it is common sense: Turn the PC off and unplug it, handle circuit boards only by the edges, and try to avoid zapping anything with static electricity (ESD). ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

If there’s an existing sound card, uninstall it in the Device Manager before you remove it physically. To do so, select it in the Device Manager and press the Delete key. If a confirmation appears, click on OK. Repeat this for each of the associated sound devices in the Device Manager. For example, you might need to individually delete the joystick port, the audio codecs, and so on, or they might disappear automatically when you delete the sound card’s entry. Shut down the PC and remove the old sound card. 1. Remove the cover from the PC and locate the old sound card. 2. Disconnect the speakers and anything else that is plugged into the PC’s external ports. Remember where everything went; you will need to connect things to the new sound card later. 3. If there are any internal ports with cables connected, disconnect the cables. The most common one is a cable that runs between the CDROM drive and the sound card. 4. Remove the screw holding the backplate in the case and set it aside. 5. Handling the board by the backplate and the edges, pull it up out of the expansion slot (see Figure 4.9).

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If you have built-in sound in your motherboard, you should disable it. Depending on the motherboard, there might be a jumper that you set to a different position to disable it, or there might be a setting in the BIOS Setup. After you disable the sound support, remove the sound ports from the PC if possible. If they are on a backplate with a ribbon cable that runs to the motherboard, take out the backplate and detach the ribbon cable. If they’re built into an ATX motherboard, there’s nothing you can do to get rid of them. Removing them is not essential; it simply helps you avoid confusion later when you’re trying to remember which is the “live” set of sound card ports. If you can’t disable the built-in sound on the motherboard or in the BIOS, disable it through the Device Manager. Installing a new sound card is just the reverse of removing the old one. Handle the new card with the appropriate care to avoid damaging it. Handle it only by the edges or the backplate, and keep it in its protective bag until you are ready to install it. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

Never set any circuit board on top of an antistatic bag that held a circuit board.These bags are designed to conduct static electricity from the inside of the bag to the outside, so the outside is loaded with damage-producing static charge! ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

To install a new sound card, follow these steps. 1. Choose the expansion slot in which you will install the sound card and remove the blank backplate for that slot if necessary. If you are installing in the same slot as the old sound card, this is unnecessary.

Screw removed

Grasp by the edge and pull out

Figure 4.9 Removing the old sound card


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2. Pressing only on the top of the board and the backplate, insert the card into the expansion slot. When the lip on the backplate rests firmly on the back ledge, it is fully inserted. 3. Attach the card to the case with the screw you removed from the backplate or the old sound card. 4. If you removed any cables from the old sound card, attach them to the new one. For example, there might be an audio cable running from the CD-ROM drive. 5. If you are planning to reuse your old speakers, connect them to the new sound card. If the external plugs are color-coded, the speaker is probably the black one. Actually, it is a good idea to try out your new sound card with your old speakers because you know they work. If you don’t hear any sound, you know it’s not the speakers’ fault. You can replace them with new speakers later.

Installing Windows Sound Drivers When you fire up Windows after installing the new sound card, one of the following things will happen. ➤ It will see the new sound card immediately and automatically install the needed drivers. (Best case!) ➤ It will see the new sound card but won’t be able to detect it completely; you’ll need to run the Setup software that came with the sound card to complete the installation. ➤ It won’t see the new sound card at all. Running the Setup software may force it into awareness—or not. (If “or not” is the case, the sound card might be defective or improperly installed.)

If you hear sound right away, your version of Windows and your sound card understand each other. You don’t have to load the software that came with the sound card unless you want to. There might be some useful utility programs there, but a lot of the software that comes with a typical sound card is just junk—or duplicates the functionality of other programs you likely already have. It’s up to you. If you don’t immediately hear any sound, check to see whether the new sound card shows up in the Device Manager. Open the Device Manager and click on the plus sign next to the Sound, Video, and Game Controllers category, if it’s not already open. If you see your sound card there, Windows sees it too. If it’s not there, look in the Other Devices (or Unknown Devices) category. If it’s there—

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or if some mysterious new entry is there—then Windows has detected that there’s a new “thing,” but it doesn’t know what it is. If this is your situation, run the Setup software that came with the sound card and to straighten this out. If there’s no sign of Windows detecting anything about the new sound card, check its physical installation. Try running the Setup software that came with it; it might help. Then call the toll-free tech support number for the sound card and get one of their technicians to help you. If Windows sees the sound card but you aren’t hearing any sound, try the following procedure. ➤ Double-click on the speaker icon in the notification area to open the Volume Control and make sure that the sound is not muted. There won’t be a speaker icon if Windows has not detected the sound card. ➤ In the Device Manager, double-click on the sound card and check its status on the General tab. It should report, “This device is working properly” (see Figure 4.10). If it doesn’t, and you don’t know how to fix it, call the toll-free tech support for the sound card. ➤ In the Control Panel, open the Sounds applet, which goes by slightly different names depending on the Windows version. In Windows XP, for example, it is called Sounds and Audio Devices. Click on the Sounds tab, and then click on one of the sounds (for example, Asterisk) and click on the Play button (see Figure 4.11). If you hear the sound, all is well. If not, keep troubleshooting.

Status

Figure 4.10 Check the sound card’s status on the General tab in the Properties dialog box.


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Choose one of the events with a speaker icon next to it. Figure 4.11 Try playing one of the system sounds to test the sound card and speakers.

Click on the Play button.

➤ Make sure the speaker cable is plugged into the correct jack on the sound card, and that the speakers are turned on and turned up.

Installing Speakers Speakers can be tough to install because there’s so much cable and so many connectors. What plugs into what? Often your best friend can be the installation diagram that came with the speaker set. Generally speaking, you must make the following connections. ➤ Speaker to sound card. At least one of the speakers (or the subwoofer) must connect to your sound card. ➤ Speaker to speaker. Each of the other speakers must plug into the speaker or subwoofer connected to the sound card. Usually they all plug into one central location, such as the subwoofer, but occasionally you might find a set that chains them. ➤ Speaker to power. Assuming the speakers have amplification, they must receive power. There might be an AC adapter that plugs into each speaker, or perhaps it only plugs into the main speaker or subwoofer and all of the other speakers draw their power from it.

Figures 4.12 through 4.14 show the typical cabling for various types of speaker setups.

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Figure 4.12 Simple stereo speakers with no subwoofer might each get their own AC power, as shown here, or one might draw from another through the data cable.

d an ta r Da owe p

Speaker #3 (if present)

Speaker #2

Da ta po and we r

Speaker #1

Speaker #4 (if present)

Subwoofer

Figure 4.13 With two speakers and a subwoofer, the speakers take data and power from the subwoofer. If there are four speakers, there is typically an extra cable from the sound card to the subwoofer for their data.

If four-channel audio (4 speakers), an extra cable connects to control second speaker set.


nd ta a

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er pow

Da

Figure 4.14 A five-speaker (5.1) configuration uses only one connection to the sound card (typically), but uses a special type of connector at the subwoofer end.

Adjusting Speaker Configuration in Windows Not all versions of Windows enable you to adjust your speakers. Windows XP does, however, so that’s the version I’ll discuss here. You can specify what speaker configuration you have and also adjust the volume on each speaker individually. 1. In the Control Panel, double-click on Sounds and Audio Devices. 2. On the Volume tab, click on the Advanced button. This opens the Advanced Audio Properties dialog box. 3. From the Speaker Setup drop-down menu, select the description that most closely matches your speaker configuration (see Figure 4.15).

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Figure 4.15 Tell Windows what speaker configuration you have.

4. Click on OK to return to the Volume tab of the main properties. 5. Click on the Speaker Volume button to open the Speaker Volume dialog box. 6. Drag the sliders to adjust the volume separately for right and left. Depending on your sound card and speakers, there might be additional volume sliders here for front, back, and center. 7. Click on OK twice to close all dialog boxes.

Moving On Now you have the PC sound system you have always dreamed of! Well, you do if your budget allowed it, anyway. At least you know what to dream of now, and what to budget for in the future. Ready for some more upgrade excitement? Then stay tuned, because in the next chapter, I’ll talk about a very popular upgrade—hard disk space.

S AT U R DAY A F T E R N O O N

Adding More Hard Disk Space ➤ Wringing More Space out of Your Old Hard Drive ➤ Selecting a Hard Drive ➤ Planning Your Data Transfer Strategy ➤ Installing a Drive in the System Case ➤ Partitioning and Formatting Hard Drives ➤ Troubleshooting Hard Drive Problems

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hen you buy a new computer, it usually comes with what seems to be a huge hard disk. You think to yourself, “No way will I ever fill that thing up!” But inevitably, a year or so later, you find yourself running out of hard disk space. If that’s your situation, this chapter can help you alleviate the space crunch, either by showing you ways to optimize your old hard drive or by helping you buy and install a new one.

W

What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? This upgrade is for anyone who is running out of hard disk space. With a larger hard disk, you can ➤ Install more programs without having to uninstall anything ➤ Download music and video clips from the Internet ➤ Save large data files ➤ Avoid worrying about keeping your PC “cleaned up” by removing outdated files to save space

If you replace an old, slow hard disk with a faster one (that is, one with a faster access time), you might also notice an improvement in the speed at which files are opened and saved.

Is Your Existing Hardware Enough? How do you know if you are running out of disk space? One way (not the most pleasant one!) is to see an error message in Windows telling you that your hard disk is full or that it is running low on space. Another way is to simply look at the properties for the hard disk to find out how much free space remains on it. 1. Open My Computer. 2. Right-click on a hard drive and choose Properties.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON Adding More Hard Disk Space

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3. Check the statistics on the General tab (see Figure 5.1). How low is “low”? It depends on what you do with your PC and how much memory it has. At the bare minimum, you need an amount of free hard disk space equal to the amount of physical memory (RAM) in the PC. (View the System Properties in the Control Panel to determine how much memory you have.) But you should probably have more than that as a safety buffer. Personally, I consider anything less than 1 GB of free space to be low. Running low on disk space is a problem not just for the obvious reason—that you can’t copy any more files to the drive. It also causes problems with running your existing programs. Why? There are a couple of reasons. One is that as a program operates, it creates temporary files. These files are deleted when you exit the program, so you don’t notice them in file listings. When the hard disk is full the program can’t create the temp files it needs, so it doesn’t run very well (or it doesn’t run at all). Another reason is that Windows uses virtual memory as a backup to regular RAM. Virtual memory is hard disk space that is used to swap data into and out of real RAM so that the operating system can hold more in RAM than it ordinarily could. Using virtual memory makes it harder for a PC to run out of memory as it operates, so it’s a very good thing. When hard disk space gets low, Windows tries to hobble by on less virtual memory than it would normally want. This can make Windows run more slowly and be more prone to lockups and out-of-memory errors when you are running many programs at the same time.

This drive only has 1.71 GB left.

Figure 5.1 See how much space remains on your existing hard drive.

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Windows manages the virtual memory settings automatically, but if you ever want to check them out, open System Properties in the Control Panel and locate the Virtual Memory settings. They’re in different places in different Windows versions. ➤ Windows XP. On the Advanced tab, click on the Settings button in the Performance section. Click on the Advanced tab, and then click on Change in the Virtual Memory section. ➤ Windows 2000. On the Advanced tab, click on the Performance Options button, and then click on the Change button in the Virtual Memory section. ➤ Windows 95, 98, and Me. On the Performance tab, click on the Virtual Memory button.

Still another reason for a hard disk upgrade is to get speedier disk access. The latest hard disks have faster access times than the old hard disk that’s probably in your computer right now. If you have the right IDE interface (motherboard or add-on card, which I’ll talk about later), you can take advantage of these high-speed drives and decrease the time it takes for programs to load, for data files to be opened and saved, and for Windows to start up and shut down. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

If your problem is a non-working hard drive rather than one that is out of space, skip to the Troubleshooting section at the end of the chapter and see if you can rectify the problem; you might not need a new hard drive at all. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Wringing More Space out of Your Old Hard Drive I’m not trying to discourage you from buying a new hard drive, but are you sure you need one? The following sections outline some ways to get more space on your existing hard drive without spending any money.

Checking for Unused Drives Because of the size limitations on older BIOS and operating system versions (which I’ll tell you about in the following sections), sometimes a single drive letter does not use up all the available physical space on a hard drive. If your


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C drive is running out of space, check in My Computer; maybe there is another hard drive letter (D, perhaps?) that you never noticed before, empty and waiting.

NOTE

The term hard drive can be a little confusing because it means several different things depending on the context.The physical hard drive is one thing. A single physical hard drive can be partitioned into one or more logical drives, each of which gets assigned a drive letter. A single physical hard drive can show up as multiple hard drives in Windows and unless you look inside the PC case, you can’t be certain whether or not they are separate physical drives. Some people use the term “volume” or “logical disk” to refer to a drive letter that may or may not encompass an entire physical drive.This will become clearer later in the chapter when I talk about partitioning.

Cleaning Up Your Old Hard Drive Most hard disks contain a fair amount of stuff that never gets used so before you assume that you need a new drive, try cleaning up your old one. To start, use Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel to uninstall any programs that you don’t use. 1. From the Control Panel, double-click on Add/Remove Programs. (In some Windows versions, the name of the icon is Add or Remove Programs.) 2. Click on a program you want to remove and then click on the Change or Remove button. (The exact button name depends on the Windows version and the program in question.) 3. Follow the prompts to uninstall the program. All versions of Windows except 95 have a utility called Disk Cleanup that can automatically delete unneeded files for you, further freeing up space. To run it: 1. Choose Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup. 2. A box will appear, asking which drive you want to clean up. Choose the appropriate drive and click on OK. 3. Place a check mark next to each category you want to delete, as in Figure 5.2, or click on View Files to see which files are included in that category. 4. Click on OK. A confirmation box will appear. 5. Click on Yes, and then wait for the files to be cleaned up. The program will close automatically when it is finished.

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Figure 5.2 Use Disk Cleanup to get rid of some unneeded files.

Converting to FAT32 Windows 98 comes with a FAT32 Drive Converter utility that converts from FAT16 to FAT32 without you having to reformat or lose any data. FAT32 is a 32-bit file system with many advantages, one of which is a smaller cluster size that makes your hard disk more efficient at storing files. If you bought the PC with Windows 98 preinstalled, you might already have FAT32 in place, but if you upgraded from Windows 95, you probably don’t. Converting to FAT32 is a good idea and can free up many megabytes of space on your drive. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

DriveSpace, a disk compression feature discussed in the next section, is incompatible with FAT32. You won’t be able to use DriveSpace if you change to FAT32; if you already use DriveSpace, you won’t be able to convert to FAT32. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

If you aren’t sure whether or not your drive is already FAT32, try to run the FAT32 converter. The program will tell you if the drive is already FAT32. To run the FAT32 converter (Windows 98 only): 1. Choose Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Drive Converter (FAT32). 2. Read the introductory material and then click on Next.


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3. Select the drive you want to convert and then click on Next. 4. Follow the prompts to complete the conversion process. Windows Me also includes a FAT32 converter, but it’s not a Windows-based program. Instead it runs from a command line. In Windows Me only, follow these steps to run the converter. 1. Choose Start, Run. 2. Type CVT C: (or whatever drive letter is assigned to your hard disk) and click on OK. 3. Follow the prompts to complete the conversion.

NOTE

Windows 95 version C supports FAT32, but it does not include a converter; the only way to get a FAT32 drive in Windows 95 is to repartition and reformat (covered later in this chapter). However, if you do this, you will lose all of your data.

Using DriveSpace DriveSpace is an old technology dating back to MS-DOS 6.2. (It was originally called DoubleSpace, but they had to change its name and details due to a lawsuit.) It stores more data on a hard disk (about twice the amount) by running all of the data through a translation scheme that allows data to be stored closer together. It’s kind of like a valet parking lot; they fit more cars in the lot by packing them close together. However, it takes a little longer to retrieve a given car (or the data you want) because some shuffling needs to occur to access it. DriveSpace only works with FAT16; it is incompatible with FAT32 and NTFS. That’s the main reason why it isn’t included in the most recent versions of Windows—because nowadays, nearly everyone uses the FAT32 or NTFS file systems. You’ll only find it in Windows 95 and 98 as a full-fledged utility. Windows Me includes an edit-only version of DriveSpace that does not compress drives but lets you manage already-compressed ones. To compress a FAT16 drive in Windows 95 or 98, follow these steps. 1. Choose Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, DriveSpace. 2. Choose Drive, Compress. The Compress a Drive dialog box will open (see Figure 5.3). 3. Click on Start and wait for the drive to be compressed.

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Figure 5.3 DriveSpace enables you to compress a FAT16 hard disk to increase the amount of data it can hold.

As you can see in Figure 5.3, the size limit for a DriveSpace drive is 1 GB. If you are working with a drive larger than that (2 GB is the maximum for a FAT16 drive), it will compress 1 GB of it into a compressed drive and leave the other 1 GB as an uncompressed part of the host drive.

NOTE

For those of you who are curious about technical details, here’s how DriveSpace works. Assume that your hard disk is C. DriveSpace creates a big file on drive C that fills up almost the entire drive. Then it installs a driver that makes Windows see that big file as a separate drive, and it moves all of the files that used to be on C into that file. (For this example, assume the new drive is named H.) This big file can store files closer together than a real hard disk can, which is how it gets the extra capacity. As the final step, DriveSpace adds a command that tricks Windows into believing that H is actually C and vice versa, so that programs installed on C will appear to still be on C.Your “real” C drive is now named H.

DriveSpace is pretty cool, but it’s not without its problems. Disk-checking programs such as ScanDisk take more than twice as long to run on a DriveSpace drive, and when errors occur, there is a much greater chance of you losing everything on the drive than with an uncompressed drive. I recommend it only for people who are so strapped for cash that they truly cannot afford a new hard drive.

Some Techie Details about Hard Disks Warning—you’re about to get into a rather long section that talks about how hard drives work. You don’t need to know this stuff in order to upgrade your


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hard disk. I just think it’s fascinating, so I hope that my enthusiasm for the subject will rub off and you will think it’s cool too. Reading this section will help you understand the shopping specifications discussed later in the chapter, but you can skip it if you’re not in the mood for it.

Understanding How Disks Store Data Disks store data as binary numbers. Each text character can be uniquely described by a certain combination of 1s and 0s, and that’s how they’re stored on the disk. A disk’s reading mechanism does not need to be able to recognize a whole alphabet of characters; it only needs to be able to tell the difference between a 1 and a 0. Disks can store data either magnetically or optically. Hard disks store it magnetically; CD-ROMs store it optically. Both of these storage methods are based on transitions. There are two possible states for a particular spot on the surface of a disk. On a magnetic disk, it’s a positive or negative magnetic charge; on an optical disk, it’s reflective versus non-reflective. Those two types of spots do not represent the 1s and 0s directly, though. Instead, the drive’s read/write head looks for the spots in which the disk changes from one state to the other, and then sends an electrical pulse to the drive controller that indicates a 1. If no pulse is sent, that indicates a 0 (see Figure 5.4).

Figure 5.4 A read/write head interprets a transition between two states as a 1 and a lack of transition as a 0.

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Figure 5.5 The physical mechanism of a hard drive

Magnetic storage creates the transitions by magnetizing areas of the disk with either a positive or negative polarity. That’s what the plus and minus signs in Figure 5.4 represent. It then reads the transitions between the positive and negative areas as 1s and the lack of transitions as 0s. Floppy and hard disks are examples of magnetic storage technology. Each hard disk unit consists of multiple metal platters stacked on top of each other with read/write heads in between—one for each side of each platter. Each platter is coated with a thin layer of iron oxide particles, which hold the magnetic charges that store the data. An actuator arm moves the read/write heads in and out as needed to access different spots on the disk platters. Figure 5.5 shows three platters (six heads) to keep things simple, but in most hard disks today there are eight platters (16 heads).

Understanding How Disk Space Is Organized When a disk is first manufactured, each platter surface is one large area. Before the disk can accept any data, an organizational structure must be imposed on it that uniquely names each physical location on each side of each platter. That way the drive controller can specify the exact physical spot on which a given bit of data should be written or retrieved.


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The following list explains the organizational units into which a disk can be broken down. ➤ Heads. Each platter is double-sided. There is a separate read/write head for each side. The numbering starts at the bottom side of the bottom platter with 0. An average number of heads for a hard disk today is 16. ➤ Tracks. Each disk side is organized into concentric rings called tracks, like the rings on a cross-section of a tree. Each disk side has its own separate tracks (see Figure 5.6). ➤ Cylinders. The heads move in and out on a single actuator so that they are all in the same position at all times. The stack of tracks accessible at a given position constitutes a cylinder. The number of cylinders a drive has is the same as the number of tracks on a single disk side. ➤ Sectors. The surface of the disk is further divided into pie slices made by lines that bisect the disk. Where these lines intersect the track lines, they create small segments called sectors. A typical IDE hard drive usually has 63, although it can vary. Each sector holds exactly 512 bytes of data (see Figure 5.7).

Figure 5.6 A track is a concentric circle on a disk side.

Figure 5.7 A sector is a section of a track.

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This slicing up of the disk surface into logical organization units such as tracks, sectors, and so on is accomplished by a procedure known as low-level formatting. Low-level formatting determines the number and spacing of the tracks and the number and spacing of sectors per track. Together, these two factors determine the total number of sectors on the disk, and therefore its storage capacity (because each sector holds 512 bytes). This also assigns a unique number to each sector for addressing purposes. Hard disks are low-level formatted at the factory. A label on a hard drive casing reports the number of cylinders, heads, and sectors for the disk; this is sometimes abbreviated as CHS. Another name for this basic description of the drive’s organizational characteristics is geometry. BIOS Setup requires this information in order to communicate with the drive. Most hard disks can report their geometry to BIOS automatically, but you can also enter the data manually in the BIOS Setup. Low-level formatting is not the same as the formatting you do in an operating system (with the Format command, for example). When you format a hard disk through your operating system, you are performing a high-level format, which I’ll discuss in more detail later. As an end user, you will probably never do any low-level formatting. You just need to know that it exists and that it’s how the drive’s capacity gets defined.

NOTE

Floppy disks work differently than hard disks in their formatting. For a floppy disk, there is no separation between low-level and high-level formatting. Both are done simultaneously when the user formats a disk in the operating system (for example, with the Format command at a command prompt). Floppy disks are not low-level formatted at the factory.

How the Motherboard BIOS Deals with the Hard Drive The BIOS needs to know the hard drive’s specifications (number of cylinders, heads, sectors, and so on) so it can address them accurately. On modern systems the BIOS automatically detects the hard drive’s specifications and configures itself, so no special setup is required. However, on a system with an older BIOS, you might need to do a little bit of prompting in the BIOS Setup program (which you’ll look at later in the chapter). The following sections detail some of the facts that the BIOS wants to know about the hard drive.


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Hard Disk Type and Size A BIOS Setup program typically has numbered drive types you can select for a hard drive interface, from 1 to 39. Back in the early days of personal computing, there were very few sizes and types of hard disks, so BIOS makers thought they would be able to identify them all by a numeric value. However, this soon proved impossible because hard drive technology grew quickly, and many different manufacturers were producing all kinds of drives. As a consequence, all of these 39 drive types are long obsolete, and hardly anybody uses these drive types anymore. They are included in BIOS Setup only for backward compatibility. The more popular setting for a hard drive is Auto, which allows the drive to report its settings to BIOS automatically, including its CHS (cylinders, heads, sectors) and its preferred settings for other values (described in the next few sections).

BIOS Methods of Addressing the Drive The size limit was 540 MB on the original IDE hard drive specifications. It wasn’t that the drive or the system BIOS individually couldn’t handle more, but the combination of the two couldn’t. The drive could physically have a lot more cylinders than the BIOS could track. The BIOS’s limit is 1,024 cylinders, but there is no fixed limit for hard drives; some have upwards of 16,000. On the other hand, the BIOS could keep track of a lot more heads than the drive could physically have. It supports up to 256 heads, but most drives have only 16 or so, and can’t have more without making the drive’s external dimensions larger. To overcome this limitation, the ATA-2/Enhanced IDE (EIDE) standard, developed in 1996, enabled the BIOS to translate the addresses coming in from the drive controller into different addresses it could convey to the software. For example, if the drive actually has 8,000 cylinders and 16 heads, it can tell the software that it has 1,000 cylinders and 128 heads. It comes out to the same number of sectors either way. There are three possible settings in most BIOS Setup programs. ➤ Standard CHS (Normal). The addressing is the same coming into and going out of the BIOS—a straight pass-through. This setting turns off any translation and limits the drive size to 540 MB. ➤ Extended CHS (ECHS, also called Large). This was the original type of translation. It accepts the CHS data from the drive and divides the

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number of cylinders by whatever number is necessary to get it under the 1,024 limit. Then it multiplies the number of heads by the same amount so you end up with the same total number of sectors as before. It then conveys this translated sector data to the software. This would still be an appropriate setting for a drive that did not support LBA, described next, but it is becoming obsolete. ➤ LBA. This stands for Logical Block Addressing. When communicating with the drive, the BIOS assigns a number to each sector and deals with them on a sector-by-sector basis rather than according to cylinder and head. However, the operating system still requires CHS values, so the BIOS creates a CHS table to match the operating system’s requirements. When communicating with the drive, the BIOS uses a 28-bit binary number, which gives a maximum capacity of 128 GB; when communicating using CHS, it is limited to 8.4 GB, for an effective maximum of 8 GB. Some BIOS programs, especially more recent ones, do not offer ECHS; they have an on/off setting for LBA. As you know, today’s hard drives are much larger than 8 GB, so how do they manage? The 8-GB barrier is broken by an extension to the BIOS called Enhanced BIOS Services for Disk Drives, which was introduced in 1998. This is a BIOS feature, not a drive feature, and it supports up to 18 trillion gigabytes. However, the ATA standard for IDE drives limits drive size to 137 gigabytes, so that’s the real maximum at this writing. So why am I telling you all this? There’s actually a good reason. It’s so you will understand why your old PC might not be able to support the full capacity of a brand-new hard drive, at least not without a BIOS update. A BIOS made before 1996 probably will not have support for ECHS or LBA, so whatever drive you put in such a system will be seen as no larger than 528 MB in size. If it’s a 20GB drive, 19.5 GB of it will be wasted and inaccessible so there’s no point in paying extra for the large size. A BIOS update might solve this problem—if one is available. A BIOS made between 1996 and 1998 might support LBA but not have Enhanced BIOS Services for Disk Drives support, so a drive connected to such a system would be limited to 8.4 GB—anything over that would be wasted. Again, you can potentially overcome this with a BIOS update. You could also overcome it by adding an IDE controller expansion card (which has its own BIOS) and connecting the drive to that controller card rather than directly to the motherboard.


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CAUTION

The FAT16 file system, which is your only choice under MS-DOS or Windows 95, limits the size of an individual volume to 2.1 GB. If you install a large hard disk in such a system, you must use partitioning to carve it up into logical drives of 2.1 GB or less in order for the operating system to be able to access all of the disk space. I’ll discuss this further later in the chapter. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

BIOS-Based Data Transfer Modes The transfer mode for a drive selected in the BIOS Setup determines how quickly the BIOS will attempt to send and receive data on that drive. The most common transfer mode type used to be Programmed I/O (PIO). There are five different PIO modes, numbered 0 through 4, ranging from 3.3 MBps for PIO 0 to 16.67 MBps for PIO 4. Nearly all drives today can support PIO 4, but if you use a PIO mode that’s higher than what the drive can handle, it might result in data corruption. Check the drive label; if there is no information about PIO mode there, check the drive’s specifications on the manufacturer’s Web site. An alternative transfer mode to PIO is DMA (Direct Memory Access). DMA transfers data directly between the BIOS and memory without going through the CPU. This helps improve overall system performance because the burden on the CPU is less. There are two kinds of DMA—regular and bus mastering. Regular DMA uses the DMA controller on the motherboard, the same one that handles DMA functions for slower-speed items such as the keyboard and sound card. Bus mastering DMA has higher-speed DMA functionality built into the south bridge of the chipset so it can take advantage of the PCI bus for DMA transfers. There are three bus mastering DMA modes, 0 through 2, ranging from 4.16 MBps to 16.67 MBps. Today, however, both of these transfer types are nearly obsolete because of the introduction of UDMA (UltraDMA), also called UltraATA. UltraDMA modes are supported on motherboards that conform to the ATA-4 or higher IDE standard. That includes most motherboards manufactured after mid-1998. UltraDMA modes support transfer rates from 33 MBps (ATA-4) to 100 MBps (ATA-6), blowing away even the fastest PIO and DMA modes. Some BIOSes enable you to choose which UltraDMA mode to use; for others, you simply enable UltraDMA and it does the rest. Again, why do you need to know this? Because when you are choosing a new hard drive, you might have the opportunity to pay a little more to get, for example, an ATA-6 drive rather than an ATA-4. Understanding that not all BIOSes will

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support the highest ATA standards will prevent you wasting your money on functionality that you can’t use anyway. I’ll talk more about the specifics of the various ATA standards later in the chapter.

Selecting a Hard Drive The following sections outline some of the factors to consider when selecting a new hard drive.

IDE versus SCSI IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) and SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) are the two main interface types for hard drives. IDE is the overwhelming favorite among end users, whereas SCSI is the favorite for network servers. For a regular desktop PC, get IDE. It’s cheaper, it’s much easier to find for sale at your local retailer, you don’t need a special expansion board for it, and the performance is nearly as good as SCSI—better in some cases. There are several subtypes of IDE: UltraDMA/33, UltraDMA/66, and UltraDMA/100. Find out which standard your motherboard supports (check your PC’s manual or look in the BIOS Setup) and match the two of them up. It doesn’t make sense to spend money for a drive with a higher UltraDMA spec than your motherboard can support. If your motherboard is really old and doesn’t support any UltraDMA, you can either get the cheapest hard disk you can find (because performance won’t matter) or you can buy a PCI-based expansion board with UltraDMA support and plug the new drive into it instead of into the motherboard. For a network server or a situation in which you need lots of drives in a single PC (more than four), go with SCSI. SCSI drives share the interface more effectively, so they work with many drives in the same system better than IDE. If you don’t already have a SCSI expansion board to plug the drive(s) into, get one, matching the expansion board’s capabilities to the drive. To reiterate: Ordinary PCs do not need SCSI, nor do they benefit from it in any significant ways. Therefore this book assumes that you are going to buy an IDE drive. If you’re interested in SCSI, check with a technically savvy friend to help you set it up.

Capacity Obviously, a larger-capacity hard drive is going to cost more. You will notice when shopping, though, that a drive with double the capacity of another doesn’t


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cost twice as much; you get more capacity for your money as you go up in size. That’s because a good chunk of the cost of manufacturing a hard disk is tied up in the mechanical parts, and they’re the same for all capacities in most cases. I always tell people to buy the largest capacity drive they can afford because no matter how much you think the drive is overkill, you will be amazed at how quickly it fills up. Also, hard drives are portable from PC to PC, so if you buy a new PC you can put your old hard drive in it as a secondary drive. However, before you put extra money into a large-capacity drive, make sure that there are no BIOS limitations that would prevent your PC from using it. As you learned earlier, a BIOS made before 1998 might not support drives of more than 8.4 GB, so there is no point in buying a 40-GB drive if that’s your situation. A BIOS update might be available that can solve the problem, but if not you’ll need to decide whether you want to live with the limitation or consider a new motherboard (or a whole new PC). The Sunday Evening session, “A New Motherboard,” talks about motherboard replacement.

Maximum Data Transfer Rate For an IDE hard drive, the UltraDMA standard to which it conforms dictates its maximum data transfer rate. Recall from our earlier discussion that ATA-4, ATA-5, and ATA-6 transfer data at a maximum of 33, 66, and 100 MBps, respectively. The higher ones will cost more, of course. Not all drives that conform to a particular standard are necessarily capable of achieving that transfer rate, though, especially on a sustained basis. Therefore, this specification is more of a theoretical measurement—a means for comparing the “on-paper” capabilities of two drives, rather than an actual measurement of a particular drive. In addition, the same drive might not always be capable of its theoretical maximum due to external factors. For example, if the motherboard’s IDE interface does not support UltraDMA, the maximum transfer rate would be bottlenecked by the motherboard. A drive that would normally support 66 MBps might be limited to only 16 MBps or even less by an old motherboard. Also, an IDE drive is limited to the maximum data transfer rate that it can agree upon with the other IDE drive on the same cable. It isn’t necessary to pay a premium price for the fastest drive. A transfer rate of 33 MBps is still really fast—faster than you will probably ever need. The average user will not notice that much of a difference between a 33 MBps, 66 MBps, or 100 MBps drive.

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Other Performance Specifications As you are shopping for hard drives, you might run into some of these specifications. They are important if the highest read/write performance is an issue for you, but for most people the price and the disk capacity are more compelling shopping factors. ➤ Read and write seek times. These measurements tell how quickly, on average, the drive can locate a particular piece of data to be read (read seek time) or a particular spot on the drive to write to (write seek time). These measurements are expressed in milliseconds (ms). An average read seek time might be 9 ms, and an average write seek time might be 12 ms. Lower is better. ➤ Latency. The drive’s average latency is the amount of time between when a command is issued to it and when it kicks in and executes the command. It’s measured in milliseconds too; an average amount is 5 ms. Lower is better. ➤ Rotational speed. Some drives are advertised according to their rotational speed—that is, the speed at which the drive spins its disks or platters in revolutions per minute (rpm). Generally speaking, a higher rpm means higher drive performance. An rpm of 5600 is typical of an UDMA/33 drive, whereas an rpm of 7200 is commonly found on UltraDMA/66 drives. Rotational speed in and of itself is not that important. I don’t care how fast the drive spins; I only care how fast it retrieves and stores data. However, faster rpm is typical of better drives, so the two factors are indirectly connected.

Take a Break Now you know what you want, right? So go out and buy it! And pick yourself up a snack while you’re out. Then come back here for the next section, in which you’ll start the process of installing the new drive.

Planning Your Data Transfer Strategy When you get the new drive, are you planning to use it as an additional drive to your existing PC or are you planning to replace your old drive? If you’re going to add it while leaving the old drive in place, then you don’t need any special strategy for data transfer. The new drive will simply become another storage


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option. However, if you are going to replace an old drive, you need to figure out beforehand how you will move the data. There are several options, described in the following sections.

Manual File Copying The simplest method is to copy the files you need onto some removable disk medium, such as floppy, ZIP disk, or writeable CD. You can manually select and copy just the files you want; you don’t have to do a full-system backup. For example, you probably won’t want to waste your time copying files that can be replaced later by reinstalling Windows or applications that you have on CD-ROM. To copy to a floppy, ZIP disk, or CD-RW (rewriteable CD), you can drag-anddrop in Windows Explorer. 1. Open Windows Explorer and select the files and folders you want to back up. (Hold down the Shift key to select a contiguous group or the Ctrl key to click on multiple individual files.) Figure 5.8 shows an example. 2. Drag and drop them to the desired drive in the folder tree. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

If you already have multiple hard drives in your PC, you could also back up files to one of the hard drives that is not being removed. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Figure 5.8 One backup method is to manually copy individual files and folders to a removable disk.

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If you plan to manually copy the data, go ahead and do it now, before you install the new drive.

Backup Software A more formal way of backing up files is to use a backup application. With such an application, the files are compressed as they are transferred so you can fit more than normal on a disk. A backup program is also able to split large files and transfer files to a tape backup drive (if you happen to have one) as well as to a floppy or other removable disk. You can buy backup programs in stores, but some versions of Windows come with a backup program for no extra charge. You’ll find an early version of Microsoft Backup with Windows 95, but it does not support many drive types. For example, you would not be able to back up to a CD or ZIP drive with that version. Windows 2000 and XP Professional also come with Microsoft Backup, but a much better and more feature-rich version of it that supports many drive types. The disadvantage of using a backup program is that the resulting backup is not accessible through normal means (that is, through Windows Explorer and other file listings). To restore your backup, you must install and run the same backup program again, and run it in Restore mode. If you plan to use a backup program, go ahead and back up whatever you need from your old drive now.

Ghosting The term ghosting has come to mean, generically, the wholesale copying of an entire drive from one disk to another. The name comes from a specific program—Norton Ghost, which remains one of the most popular and featurerich examples of this class of software. Other examples of such software include DriveCopy and DriveImage. Windows does not come with a utility that performs this function; you must buy software separately to do it. Ghosting software does a complete sector-bysector backup of an entire drive, either onto another drive of the same or larger capacity or onto a writeable CD (or a series of them). This is useful if you want to transfer the entire contents of the old drive to the new drive or if you want to make a master backup of a drive, even if you aren’t removing it at the moment. If you plan to ghost your old drive, do it now.


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Ghosting is useful but temporarily installing both drives in the PC might be an easier solution, if you are able to do it.

Installation of Both Drives With this method, both the old and the new hard drives are installed at the same time, and you use Windows Explorer to move files from drive to drive. When all of the files have been moved over from the old drive, you shut down the PC and remove the old drive or you keep it indefinitely as an extra. It’s your choice. This is my preferred method because it’s easy and you don’t have to fumble with backup disks. However, in order to do it, you must have a free drive interface for connecting both drives at once. A typical system can have four IDE devices hooked up at once. If you already have two CD drives and two hard drives, that’s four—and your system is full. If you want the old and new hard drives to both be operational at the same time, you will need to disconnect something temporarily. (Your secondary CD-ROM drive might be a good choice.) This process will make more sense after you have read further in this chapter and learned about the physical techniques involved in drive installation. If this is the method you are going to use (and I encourage it!), you don’t have to back anything up right now; just proceed to the next section. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

If there are a few essential files on your old hard drive that you can’t survive without, back them up before going any further—even if you plan to install the new hard drive alongside the old one.That way, if something horrible happens (which is not likely, but possible), and your old hard drive gets zapped or damaged, you’ve at least saved your essentials. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

Preparing an IDE Drive for Installation Start by familiarizing yourself with your new drive. Take it out of the packaging and look for the following features, which are also pointed out in Figure 5.9. ➤ IDE connector. This is a 40-pin connector surrounded by a plastic trough. At one end is a tiny “1” or arrow indicating which end is pin 1. The 40 pins are numbered, and you need to know where the numbering starts to orient the ribbon cable correctly. ➤ Power connector. This is a D-shaped plastic plug with four large metal prongs in it. A connector from the PC’s power supply connects to it.

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Figure 5.9 A typical IDE hard drive

Power connector

IDE connector

Jumper

➤ Jumper. Because there can be up to two IDE drives per drive interface, each IDE drive has a jumper that you set to specify whether it is the first or second drive on that interface (the master or the slave). I’ll talk about the master/slave status in the next section.

The drive package might also contain a ribbon cable for attaching the drive to the drive interface. You might not need it, especially if you are adding the new drive as the second drive on an existing drive interface. There might also be mounting rails included in the package, which, depending on the case, you might need to attach to the sides of the drive to make it fit into your case.

Setting IDE Slave/Master Status There can be either one or two IDE devices per interface. Most motherboards have two IDE connectors, so you can have a total of four IDE devices directly connected to it. (You can add an expansion card with more IDE connectors on it if you run out.) Each IDE interface has one drive that’s designated the master. It’s the primary drive on that interface and it takes control of all traffic on that cable. If there is a second drive on the same interface, it’s designated as the slave. The main difference between the two is the amount of traffic to which the drive pays attention. The master listens for all traffic, decides what data should be passed along to the slave, and then passes it along. The slave listens only for data coming from the master drive.


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Any IDE drive can function either as master or as slave, but you can’t have two slaves or two masters on the same cable. A single IDE drive on an interface with no second drive is automatically the master. A jumper controls a drive’s master/slave status. Depending on the drive, this jumper might be on the bottom of the drive (on the circuit board) or at the back next to the ribbon cable connector. You will learn how to set this jumper later in the chapter, when you’re actually installing a drive. On most IDE drives, the jumper positions are obvious. Letters next to the jumper pins designate a pair of pins for a certain setting, or a label on the drive shows diagrams of the positions. For example, see Figure 5.10—the diagrams are rotated 90 degrees clockwise from the jumpers. Here are the most common settings. ➤ Master. Often abbreviated MA or MS. Use this when there are two drives on the interface and this one should be the master, or when the drive is alone on the interface. ➤ Single. Not all drives have this setting, but if it is present you should use this rather than the Master setting for a drive that is alone on the interface. ➤ Slave. Often abbreviated SL. Use this when there are two drives on the interface and this one should be the slave. ➤ Cable Select. Often abbreviated CS. Use this when you are using a special type of IDE ribbon cable that enables the drive’s master/slave status to be determined by its position on the cable.

Figure 5.10 The master/slave jumpers on a hard drive, along with the chart on the drive’s label specifying the settings

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If you are using Cable Select, the master drive should be connected to the far end of the ribbon cable (farthest away from the motherboard interface), and the slave should be connected in the middle. Cable Select only works if the controller and both drives support it, if both drives are set to Cable Select, and if the right type of cable is used (a Cable Select-capable 80-conductor cable).

IDE Ribbon Cables UDMA/66 and UDMA/100 work only with an 80-wire ribbon cable. Such a cable has only 40 holes on the connectors, but it has extra wires between each of the “live” wires in the cable that reduce cross-talk interference between the wires. Figure 5.11 shows the difference. If you use a 40-conductor cable on a drive that is capable of UDMA/66 or higher, the drive will be limited to UDMA/33 performance levels. If your new drive came with an 80-wire cable, and you are installing the new drive as the second drive on an existing interface that already has a cable, you might want to switch to the new cable for the best performance.

Planning Drive Positioning for Best Performance Check your motherboard (or IDE expansion board) and see whether you have any unused IDE interfaces. If you do, plan to put the new hard drive on it by itself—on its own ribbon cable. If you do not, you will need it to share an existing ribbon cable with an existing IDE device. When two IDE devices share a ribbon cable, the UDMA performance level will be limited to the maximum upon which the two devices can agree. For example, if a UDMA/33 and a UDMA/100 hard drive are sharing a cable, both will operate at 33 MBps. If possible, a fast hard drive (such as your new one) should be on its own ribbon cable, on a separate IDE interface from slower drives. If the system is “full” with four IDE devices, the choices are: Be satisfied with lesser performance from the

Figure 5.11 A 40-wire versus an 80-wire ribbon cable


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high-speed drive or add an IDE expansion card with a high-performance IDE interface that can be devoted to the high-speed drive. If sharing is unavoidable, make the faster drive the master and, if possible, make a CD-ROM drive or other less frequently accessed drive its slave. This will enable high-speed performance for the drive as much as possible. A reduction in performance of a UDMA/66 or UDMA/100 drive is not as big a hardship as one might think because on most systems, a transfer rate of 33 MBps is adequate to keep up with the rest of the components. Optimal positioning of the IDE drives on the available interfaces may require some shuffling. You might need to change the master/slave jumper for existing IDE devices as well as for the new drive.

Installing a Drive in the System Case Now that you have prepared the drive and the drive interface (either SCSI or IDE), it’s time to do the physical installation of the drive.

Mounting the Drive in the Bay First, choose the bay. Hard drives are internal, so you don’t need one of the externally accessible drive bays for it. Look for a bracket inside where the existing hard drive is mounted; there is probably room for another hard drive above or below it. If there is an existing hard drive, notice how it is held in place in the case. There might be a removable metal cage in which it is installed. You might need to remove the cage in order to attach the screws on the far side of the drive. It’s usually held in place by one or two screws. Next, slide the drive into the bay. If you’re working with a removable cage for a hard drive, attach the drive to the cage with screws and then replace the cage in the main case. If you’re installing the drive in a bay that’s part of the main case, simply set the drive loosely into the bay for the moment, as shown in Figure 5.12. You can attach it with screws after you have run the cables. It’s easier to fit your hand into the tight spaces where the cables connect if the drive is not already secured by screws. Some cases do not use screws to hold drives in place; instead they use mounting rails that fasten to the sides of the drive and snap the drive into the case. Such cases typically come with sets of rails, but you can also buy them separately.

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Figure 5.12 Slide the drive into the drive bay.

Connecting the Drive to the Motherboard or the Expansion Board If this will be the first device on the cable, you must connect the cable to the motherboard or expansion card. Select an appropriate ribbon cable for the drive type—a 40-pin (40- or 80-wire) IDE cable for IDE or a 50-, 68-, or 80-pin cable for SCSI. If you are using SCSI, install any converter plugs that might be necessary to go from one number of pins to another. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

Some IDE cables and connectors are keyed, with pin 20 (approximately in the middle of the cable/connector) missing on the circuit board and a block covering the hole for the corresponding pin on the cable.This is to prevent you from installing the cable backwards. If the hole for pin 20 is blocked out on the IDE cable you have, make sure that pin 20 is missing on the motherboard. If it’s not, use an unkeyed cable. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

Find the end of the cable that is farthest away from the other connectors on the cable. This is the end that connects to the motherboard or expansion card. Plug it in so the red stripe on the cable points to pin 1 (see Figure 5.13). If both IDE connectors are available on the motherboard, use the one with the lowest number. Sometimes they’re numbered 0 and 1; other times it’s 1 and 2. The numbers are usually stamped on the motherboard next to the connectors and/or printed in the motherboard manual.


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Figure 5.13 Connect the ribbon cable to the drive interface on the motherboard or expansion card.

Connect one of the other connectors on the cable to the drive. Choose the connector according to the following rules. ➤ If you are using a SCSI cable, choose any connector that lies between the SCSI expansion board and the terminator block (if there is one). ➤ If you are using an IDE cable, use the connector at the far end of the cable first. In reality, you can use either one unless you are defining master/slave position via Cable Select, but using the connector at the far end is a good habit.

Again, the red stripe on the cable must align with pin 1 on the drive. Most drives have a label that shows where pin 1 is, but in almost all cases it is the end that’s closest to the power supply connector. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

Sometimes IDE cable length can be insufficient for every connector to reach between a drive and the motherboard, and you might have to resort to using whatever connector will reach. You might even need to change the drive bay in which drives are installed to make the cables reach. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

Connecting the Power Cable Connect any available power plug from the power supply to the drive. There are two types of power supply plugs, as shown in Figure 5.14. Choose the larger size (called a Molex connector) for a hard drive. If you can’t fit your hand far enough into the space to connect the drive, loosen the screws holding it in place and slide it forward slightly.

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Figure 5.14 The two types of power supply connectors; use the larger size (Molex) for hard drives.

Now that the drive is connected to both power and the drive interface, you can attach the screws that will hold it in its bay if you want, or you can wait and attach them after you have configured the drive in BIOS (IDE only) to make sure it will work.

Configuring the Drive in the BIOS Depending on the drive and the BIOS, the BIOS might detect the drive automatically when you start the PC or it might require you to enter the BIOS Setup and change a setting or two. You learned in the Friday Afternoon session about entering BIOS Setup; once you get there, hunt around for the hard drive configuration settings and figure out which position your new drive occupies. A typical system has four IDE positions—primary master for the master drive on the first IDE interface, primary slave for the second drive on that interface, secondary master for the master drive on the second IDE interface, and secondary slave for the second drive on that interface. If the drive shows up automatically in the BIOS Setup—great. That means it’s installed correctly and you’re ready to go. You can exit the BIOS Setup program and go on to the next step—partitioning the drive. Otherwise, you’ll need to go into the BIOS Setup and set the IDE position for the drive. As you’ll remember, the BIOS Setup program typically has numbered drive types you can select for a hard drive interface, from 1 to 39. The more popular setting for a hard drive is Auto, which allows the drive to report its settings to BIOS automatically, including its CHS (cylinders, heads, sectors) and its preferred settings for other values (see Figure 5.15). Auto is the best setting in almost all cases for new drives.


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Figure 5.15 BIOS Setup has automatically discovered the correct settings for this drive. All I did was set its IDE position to Auto.

If Auto doesn’t work, you can try setting the IDE position to User and then filling in the CHS values yourself. However, if Auto doesn’t work there’s probably an external reason, such as bad jumper settings or cabling on the drive or a nonworking drive. At this point the drive is ready to use, at least from an interface perspective. However, the operating system will not immediately recognize the drive; you must partition and format it first. These skills are covered in the next few sections.

Understanding Partitions and Formatting If you would rather get down to business, you can skip this whole section; it’s just theory so you will understand what you’re doing a little more thoroughly. (And again, I find it interesting and I hope you will too!) If you are in a hurry, you can jump right to the “Partitioning and Formatting Hard Disks” section.

Logical Drives and Partitions The operating system does not deal directly with physical hard disks. Instead it deals with logical drives. A logical drive is a drive letter that has been assigned to a portion of a physical disk. A single physical disk can have multiple logical drives. The operating system might see a C drive, a D drive, and an E drive, for example, and all of them are physically a part of a single disk drive.

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Some people like having multiple logical drives because it gives them more storage flexibility and it enables them to install multiple operating systems on a single PC, each on its own logical drive. Other people prefer to have a single large logical drive for each physical drive so they don’t have to worry about running out of room on one logical drive while another one has space to spare. The operating system’s file system limitations might also force you to create some logical drives to access all of the available space on a large physical hard drive. If the operating system supports only the FAT16 file system (if you are using MSDOS or Windows 95, for example), you must create logical drives no larger than 2.1 GB. (This is explained further in the following section on clusters.) This limitation is one reason why many people upgrade to Windows 98 or higher.

NOTE

There were several minor releases of Windows 95: Windows 95A, Windows 95B, and Windows 95C. Windows 95B and 95C support the FAT32 file system and allow logical drives to be larger than 2.1 GB; Windows 95 original and Windows 95A do not.To determine which version of Windows 95 you have installed, choose Help, About Windows 95 from any file management window.

To create these logical drives, you first must create partitions. At minimum, you must create a primary partition on the drive. When you create the primary partition, you can use all of the space on the entire physical drive or you can set some of it aside. If you set aside some space, you can create an extended partition using that space. You can then create logical drives on that extended partition. An extended partition differs from a primary partition in two ways—it is not bootable and it can have multiple logical drives within it, whereas a primary partition can have only one logical drive letter. Figure 5.16 shows how a single physical drive might be divided into three logical drives—one on the primary partition and two on the extended partition. Creating partitions is covered in the “Partitioning and Formatting Hard Drives” section later in the chapter. The FDISK partitioning program that comes with MS-DOS and Windows 9x/Me allows only one primary partition per physical drive; all other partitions must be extended. However, Windows 2000’s Disk Management program enables you to create multiple primary partitions on a single physical drive. For an operating system to boot from a partition, it must be a primary partition and it must be the active partition. This second condition is necessary because it is possible for a drive to have more than one active partition. FDISK or any other partitioning program can make a partition active. When a PC boots, the BIOS


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Figure 5.16 A primary partition can have only one logical drive; an extended partition can have multiple logical drives.

searches the active partition for startup files, so setting a particular partition to be active makes the operating system boot from that partition. In most cases, the primary partition is automatically set to be active because there is only one.

NOTE

The information about the physical drive’s partitions is stored in an MBR (Master Boot Record ) written to the first sector of the first cylinder (Cyl 0) of the first head (Hd 0). It persists there no matter what high-level formatting is done to the drive.

Clusters Because a single sector holds only 512 bytes, a file would very rarely occupy only one of them. In the vast majority of cases, a file occupies many sectors. Therefore, to cut down on the overhead involved in sending instructions to a drive, high-level formatting creates multi-sector clusters. The operating system then works with those clusters rather than with individual sectors. Another name for clusters is allocation units. The partition-creation process defines the cluster size for a logical drive. FDISK does this automatically based on the size of the drive and the file system (FAT16 versus FAT32, which is discussed in the following section). Some other partitioning programs enable users to choose a cluster size. The best cluster size depends on the size of the disk. It’s a trade-off between performance and storage space. The larger the clusters, the more efficient the file system is because it has fewer units to address. However, large clusters waste disk

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space. A cluster can hold data from only one file so if it contains even one sector’s worth of data, it is considered completely full when some other file looks for available space. A file is rarely exactly the same size as a cluster, so you end up with many half-full clusters with wasted empty space in them. The larger the cluster size, the more pronounced this problem becomes. Defining a cluster size is an issue primarily with drives under 2 GB in size using the FAT16 file system. Table 5.1 lists some hard disk sizes and the recommended cluster sizes for each of them under FAT16. Notice that the largest number of sectors allowed per cluster is 64. Because FAT16 uses 16-byte entries to reference clusters, there can be only 65,536 clusters. That’s where the 2.1 GB limit per logical drive comes from for FAT16 partitions—65,536 clusters times 32,768 bytes per cluster. With the 32-bit FAT32 file system, the maximum number of clusters increases to 268,435,456. That means a single logical drive that uses FAT32 can be up to 2 terabytes (TB) in size, so there is no need to break a single physical hard disk into multiple logical drives with FAT32 unless you want to. Using FAT32 changes the default cluster size. On small drives, FAT32 uses small cluster sizes for maximum storage space, but on larger drives it uses large clusters for maximum access efficiency. Table 5.2 lists the default cluster sizes for FAT32 partitions. The NTFS file system uses smaller clusters than FAT. Table 5.3 lists the default cluster sizes for NTFS.

TABLE 5.1 DEFAULT HARD DISK CLUSTER SIZES

FOR

Drive Capacity

Cluster Size

16 MB to 128 MB

4 sectors (2,048 bytes)

128 MB to 256 MB


256 MB to 512 MB


512 MB to 1 GB


1 GB to 2 GB


FAT16 PARTITIONS


TABLE 5.2 DEFAULT HARD DISK CLUSTER SIZES

FOR

Drive Capacity

Cluster Size

Up to 260 MB

1 sector (512 bytes)

260 MB to 6 GB


6 GB to 16 GB


16 GB to 32 GB


32 GB to 1 TB


TABLE 5.3 DEFAULT HARD DISK CLUSTER SIZES Drive Capacity

Cluster Size

Up to 512 MB

1 sector (512 bytes)

512 MB to 1 GB


1 GB and up


FOR

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FAT32 PARTITIONS

NTFS PARTITIONS

High-Level Formatting After you create the logical drives, the operating system sees them but cannot read from and write to them because they have not yet been high-level formatted. High-level formatting lays down an organization system that is compatible with the specific operating system installed.

NOTE

This type of formatting is called high-level to distinguish it from low-level formatting, which you learned about earlier in the chapter. When you hear the term “formatting” by itself, you can generally assume it to mean high-level formatting.

There are two main file systems that you can format a drive as—FAT (which includes both FAT16 and FAT32) and NTFS. The following sections look at each briefly.

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FAT Formatting FAT16 is the original type of FAT. As its name implies, it uses 16-bit binary numbers to uniquely identify each cluster on the logical drive. FAT32 is a 32-bit variant that uses a 32-bit binary numbering system for cluster identification. FAT32 is supported by Windows 95C and higher only, so a FAT32 drive cannot be read in MS-DOS or the original version of Windows 95. Therefore, if you have a drive that requires MS-DOS to be able to access it, you need to stick with FAT16. FAT32 makes it possible to have much larger logical drives. If you want a logical drive to be more than 2 GB, you must use FAT32 rather than FAT16. FAT32 also enables drives to have smaller cluster sizes than an equivalent-sized drive under FAT16. There are other minor improvements as well. For example, FAT32 synchronizes the two copies of FAT much more intelligently than FAT16 did, so there is less chance of corruption and error.

NTFS Formatting NTFS (NT File System) is an entirely different file system developed specifically for Windows NT. It has some advantages over FAT16 and FAT32, such as the support of enormous partition sizes (up to 16 exabytes) and more sophisticated security permission capabilities on an individual file level. For example, the version of NTFS that comes with Windows 2000 (NTFS 4) enables files to be encrypted based on user certificates. NTFS is only for hard disks; floppy disks use only FAT, so they are universally compatible with all MS-DOS and Windows PCs. Why don’t all PCs automatically use NTFS for hard drives? It’s primarily an issue of compatibility. Drives formatted with NTFS can be used only with Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. If you have a PC set up for dualbooting with MS-DOS or Windows 9x, any partitions formatted as NTFS are not visible when you are using those operating systems. Another drawback of NTFS is that because its partitions can’t be read under MS-DOS, you can’t boot from a DOS or Windows 9x startup disk and access that partition. When troubleshooting a system problem that prevents Windows from starting normally, it is sometimes advantageous to be able to access the disk via the command prompt and copy some of the files off onto floppy disks to save them. You can’t do that with an NTFS partition. (You can, however, use the Windows 2000/XP Recovery Console to access certain system folders on an NTFS partition if Windows won’t boot normally.)


NOTE

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The operating system must support NTFS, but when accessing an NTFS partition over a network, the remote PC does not need to have an operating system that supports it directly.That’s because the request for file access passes through the local operating system, which converts it to network packets.The fact that the file was retrieved from an NTFS partition is of no concern to the remote PC.

You can format a new partition with NTFS as part of the Setup program when you are installing Windows NT 4.0, 2000, or XP. You can also format NTFS partitions from within any of those Windows versions using the Disk Management tool. You can also right-click on a drive icon in My Computer and choose Format. You can change a FAT partition to NTFS by reformatting it, but it will lose all of its data. To convert a partition from FAT to NTFS and preserve the data, you can choose that option during Windows Setup or use the Convert utility at a command prompt afterward.

Partitioning and Formatting Hard Drives Now we’re back to the hands-on stuff. Anybody who was dozing through the theory in the last section—wake up now! It’s time to partition and format your new hard drive. The method to use depends on your operating system version. There are two classes of operating systems—those based on DOS (which include Windows 95, 98, and Me) and those based on Windows NT (which include Windows 2000 and Windows XP). The ones based on DOS use a utility called FDISK for partitioning and a utility called FORMAT for formatting. The ones based on NT have partitioning and formatting utilities built into Windows Setup and also in the Windows-based Disk Management utility. The following sessions address the two operating system classes separately.

Partitioning and Formatting in MS-DOS or Windows 9x The following sections address how to set up FAT partitions in DOS and Windows 9x, and how to format the logical drives.

Partitioning with FDISK You can use FDISK (Fixed Disk Utility) to create and delete partitions. FDISK.EXE is located in the C:\DOS directory in MS-DOS or on the startup

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disk you create in Windows 95, 98, or Me (and also in the C:\WINDOWS\ COMMAND folder in those operating systems). It is also on the startup floppy that you create when installing Windows. To start FDISK, type FDISK and press Enter at a command prompt. You can also use third-party partitioning programs such as Partition Magic, which are more feature-rich and easier to operate, but FDISK is free. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

Simply running FDISK will not affect any existing partitions or any data on them, so you can use FDISK to check the partitions at any time. However, make sure you do not delete any partitions through FDISK that contain data you want to keep. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

DOS and Windows 95 support only FAT16 partitions, but Windows 98 and Windows Me support both FAT16 and FAT32. In the latter two operating systems, you choose whether you want FAT16 or FAT32 by your answer to a question about enabling large disk support when FDISK starts. After you start FDISK and answer Y or N to the question if it appears, the main FDISK menu will open, as shown in Figure 5.17. The options on this main menu are as follows. ➤ Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive. Use this option to create new partitions on a drive. If the drive is brand-new, you will create a primary partition first, and then (optionally) an extended partition. ➤ Set Active Partition. If there is more than one partition, you can choose which will be active (bootable) here. If you create a single primary parti-

Figure 5.17 The main menu in FDISK


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tion that occupies all of the disk space, it is automatically active; otherwise, you must manually activate a partition. ➤ Delete Partition or Logical DOS Drive. Use this option to delete existing partitions or to delete logical disk drives from the extended partition. (Remember, the extended partition can have more than one logical disk drive, whereas the primary partition can have only one.) ➤ Display Partition Information. Use this option to examine the current partitions without making any changes. ➤ Change Current Fixed Disk Drive. The partition information for all of the preceding options pertains to only one physical hard drive. If you have more than one physical hard drive, you can switch among them with this option. Otherwise, this option does not appear.

You can press Esc to back up a level in FDISK’s menu system after choosing one of the preceding options. If you are already at the top-level main menu, Esc exits the program entirely. To set up a disk’s partition system, follow these steps. Each of these steps is explained in greater detail in the sections that follow. 1. If you have more than one physical hard drive, make sure that you are working with the desired one. Use the Display Partition Information and Change Current Fixed Disk Drive commands as needed. 2. If there are any existing partitions that you want to delete, delete them. You might do this if the disk is already partitioned and you want to change how the space is allocated. For example, perhaps the disk is partitioned and formatted as FAT16 and you want FAT32. Or perhaps the entire disk is a single primary partition and you want to split it up into two or more logical drives. 3. If the disk does not have an existing primary partition, create one using the Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive command. You can make the partition take up the entire physical disk or only a portion of it. 4. If you did not assign all the space to the primary partition, create an extended partition. 5. Create one or more logical drives within the extended partition. 6. If you have both a primary and an extended partition, make one of them active using the Set Active Partition command. This will be the partition that the system attempts to boot from. Additionally, when you install an operating system, it will be the partition on which the boot files are stored.

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7. Exit from FDISK and reboot to allow the system to assign drive letters to the new partitions. Use the preceding steps as your overall roadmap for the process, and refer to the following sections as needed to perform the steps.

Displaying Partition Information Use this command whenever you need to see the current partition assignments for the current physical disk drive. 1. From the FDISK main menu, type 4 and press Enter to select Display Partition Information. Information about the partitions will appear, as shown in Figure 5.18. 2. When you are finished looking at the information, press Esc to return to the main menu.

Changing the Current Fixed Disk Drive If you don’t have two or more physical hard drives installed, you won’t see this option on the menu at all. If you do, however, follow these steps to change drives. You want to make sure that you are working with your new hard drive, not an existing one! 1. From the FDISK main menu, type 5 and press Enter to select Change Current Fixed Disk Drive. A list of the drives will appear. 2. Type the number that represents the one you want and press Enter.

Figure 5.18 Displaying partition information


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3. Press Esc to return to the main menu. 4. (Optional) Display the partition information (see the preceding section) to confirm that you have chosen the desired physical drive. Then return to the main menu by pressing Esc.

Deleting Partitions or Logical DOS Drives If the drive contains existing partitions, you might want to delete them and create new ones. This is not necessary, but you might want to change partition sizes or convert a drive from FAT16 to FAT32 (for example, if the drive was originally partitioned under DOS or Windows 95 but now you have upgraded to Windows 98 or Me). You cannot resize a partition; you must delete it and recreate it. Deletions must be completed in the reverse order in which they are created. First you delete any logical drives on the extended partition; then you delete the extended partition itself; then you delete the primary partition. To delete a logical drive on the extended partition, follow these steps. 1. From the FDISK main menu, type 3 to select Delete Partition or Logical DOS Drive. Another menu will appear. 2. Type 3 and press Enter to select Delete Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition. A list of the drives will appear. 3. Type the drive letter of the drive you want to delete and press Enter. 4. A prompt will appear, asking you to type the volume label. Do so and press Enter. If there is none, just press Enter. 5. An Are You Sure? prompt will appear. Type Y and press Enter. 6. If there are any other logical drives to delete, repeat Steps 3–5 and then press Esc to return to the main menu. After the extended partition has been emptied of logical drives, you can delete it. To do so, follow these steps. 1. From the FDISK main menu, type 3 to select Delete Partition or Logical DOS Drive. Another menu will appear. 2. Type 2 and press Enter to select Delete Extended DOS Partition. A warning will appear. 3. Type Y and press Enter. 4. Press Esc to return to the main menu.

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After the extended partition has been deleted, you can delete the primary partition. To do so, follow these steps. 1. From the FDISK main menu, type 3 to select Delete Partition or Logical DOS Drive. Another menu will appear. 2. Type 1 and press Enter to select Delete Primary DOS Partition. 3. A warning will appear. Type the partition number to delete (probably 1) and press Enter. 4. A prompt will appear, asking you to type the volume label. Do so and press Enter. If there is none, just press Enter. 5. An Are You Sure? prompt will appear. Type Y and press Enter. 6. Press Esc to return to the main menu.

Creating a Primary Partition With FDISK you can create only one primary partition; with third-party utilities you can create up to four. I’ll focus on FDISK for the moment, however. You can create a primary partition in FDISK only on a completely empty disk—that is, one that contains no other partitions. First delete any other partitions, as described in the preceding section, and then follow these steps. 1. From the FDISK main menu, type 1 and press Enter to select Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive. The menu shown in Figure 5.19 will appear. 2. Type 1 and press Enter to select Create Primary DOS Partition.

Figure 5.19 The FDISK menu for creating partitions


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3a. A message will appear about verifying the drive integrity while it counts up to 100%. Then another message will appear, asking whether you want to use the maximum available size. If you do, type Y and press Enter to accept the full disk amount. If you specify Y, a screen will appear, prompting you to press Esc to exit FDISK. Restart your PC, and you’re done with partitioning. 3b. If you want an extended partition too, type N and press Enter. Specify an amount of space in megabytes or a percentage (followed by a % sign) and press Enter to describe the size you want for the primary partition (see Figure 5.20). 4. Press Esc to return to the main menu, and then create an extended partition as described in the following section.

Creating an Extended Partition and Logical Drives If you have space left over after creating the primary partition, you can either create an extended partition out of it now or you can leave it unpartitioned for the time being. You must partition the space if you want to use it for additional logical drives. To create an extended partition, follow these steps. 1. From the FDISK main menu, type 1 and press Enter to select Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive. 2. Type 2 and press Enter to select Create Extended DOS Partition.

Figure 5.20 You can specify the size of the primary partition up to the full size of the physical drive.

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3. If you want to use all of the space for the extended DOS partition, press Enter to accept the default size. Otherwise, enter a smaller number for the size or a percentage (followed by a % sign), as shown in Figure 5.21. You can have several extended partitions on the disk, although there is little advantage to having separate extended partitions versus a single extended partition with multiple logical drives. 4. Press Esc to continue. A screen will appear, offering to create the first logical drive on the extended partition. If you want to use the entire extended partition for it, press Enter to accept the maximum size. Otherwise, enter a smaller size or a percentage and press Enter. 5. If you did not use the full amount of space in Step 4, the prompt will reappear to ask for the size of the next logical drive. Repeat Step 4 until all of the space has been assigned, and then press Esc to return to the main menu.

Setting the Active Partition If you created multiple partitions, none of them will be active, and a warning will appear to that effect on the FDISK main menu. You must set an active partition in order for the disk to be bootable. FDISK only makes a partition active automatically if it’s a single primary partition that occupies the entire physical disk. To choose a partition to be active, follow these steps. 1. From the FDISK main menu, type 2 and press Enter to select Set Active Partition.

Figure 5.21 Creating an extended partition


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2. A list of partitions will appear. Type the number for the one you want and press Enter. 3. Press Esc to go back to the main menu. After you have created all the partitions you need, you must exit FDISK and reboot the computer. This is essential because when it reboots, it reassigns the drive letters to the new partitions. Only after you have rebooted can you proceed to the next step—high-level formatting.

Formatting with the FORMAT Command Formatting is much simpler than partitioning because there are very few options involved. Formatting a hard disk is a high-level format operation only; you’ll recall from earlier in the chapter that hard disks are low-level formatted at the factory. To format, use the disk, the syntax is

FORMAT

command at a command prompt. As with a floppy

FORMAT drive:

For example, to format the C drive, you would type FORMAT C:

Some operating systems allow you to make the formatted hard disk bootable with the /S switch, as with a floppy. This copies the startup files IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, and COMMAND.COM from the current disk to the named disk. For example, to transfer the system files from the hard disk to a floppy, you would type FORMAT C: /S ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

The /S switch does not work on hard disks when you are using a command prompt from a Windows Me boot disk. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

The FORMAT command checks each cluster as it formats to make sure it is readable; it isolates any clusters that aren’t. You can bypass this checking on an already-formatted disk by adding the /Q switch (for Quick). FORMAT C: /Q

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Formatting from My Computer You can also format from Windows if you kept your old hard drive and the new one is simply an extra. Partitioned logical drives show up in My Computer in Windows regardless of whether they have been formatted. Therefore, you can format them from there just like you would a floppy disk. 1. Right-click on the drive icon in My Computer and choose Format from the shortcut menu. The Format dialog box will open, just as it does for a floppy disk. 2. Choose any formatting options you desire, such as doing a quick format or adding a label. Then click on Start (see Figure 5.22). 3. A dialog box will appear, warning you that this is a hard disk and that you’ll lose all data on it. Click on OK to continue. 4. Wait for the formatting to finish. A Results box will appear. Click on Close to close it. 5. A box will appear, reminding you to check the disk for errors before using it. Click on OK. 6. Depending on the Windows version, a Help window might appear, explaining how to check the drive for errors using ScanDisk. Follow those instructions to check the disk. If you don’t see such a window, run ScanDisk manually by choosing it from the Programs, Accessories, System Tools menu. Checking a hard disk after formatting is not strictly necessary, but it’s a good idea to do so. If you do, make sure you choose a Thorough check, which checks the surface of the disk for errors.

Figure 5.22 Formatting a hard drive from within Windows 98


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Partitioning and Formatting during Windows 2000 or XP Setup The Windows 2000/XP Setup program has a built-in disk partitioning and formatting utility. In the early part of the Setup program, you are asked whether you want to change the existing partitions and logical drives and which one you want to install Windows 2000 on. For example, in Figure 5.23, the Windows 2000 Setup program has found no existing partitions but instead 4 GB of unpartitioned space, on which it offers to create a new partition. If you want a single primary partition to be created out of the entire amount of space, you can simply press Enter to create such a partition. Alternatively, you can press C to specify the size you want for the primary partition. After you’ve created the partition and specified that you want Windows to be installed on it, the Setup program offers to format it for you. You can choose either NTFS or FAT. If you need compatibility with Windows 9x or DOS on a dual-booting system, choose FAT; otherwise, choose NTFS (see Figure 5.24).

Partitioning and Formatting from Windows 2000/XP Disk Management Disk Management is an administrative tool in Windows 2000 and XP that enables you to see all the partitions and logical drives on the system, their sizes, their formatting, and their statuses. For now, you’ll just use it to create and format partitions.

Figure 5.23 Create a partition from within Windows 2000 or XP Setup.

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Figure 5.24 Format the partition as either FAT or NTFS.

To start Disk Management, follow these steps. 1. From the Control Panel, double-click on Administrative Tools. 2. Double-click on Computer Management. 3. On the folder tree at the left, double-click on Disk Management. The Disk Management controls will appear, as shown in Figure 5.25.

Figure 5.25 Manage partitions and formatting in Windows 2000 from Disk Management.


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In Figure 5.25, there are three physical disk drives—two hard drives and one CD-ROM. The first physical hard drive is laid out as a single primary partition. The second physical hard disk has not been partitioned or formatted yet. Disk Management works the same way in both Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Creating a Partition in Disk Management To create a partition from Disk Management, follow these steps. 1. Right-click on the unpartitioned space and choose Create Partition. The Create Partition Wizard will run. Click on Next to begin. 2. Select the type of partition you want—Primary or Extended. Then click on Next. (The rest of these steps assume that you chose Primary.) 3. Enter the amount of disk space to use for the partition or leave it set at the default to use the maximum. Then click on Next. 4. On the Assign a Drive Letter or Path screen, leave the Assign a Drive Letter option button marked and choose a drive letter from the drop-down menu. Then click on Next. 5. If you do not want to format the partition yet, choose Do Not Format This Partition. Otherwise, leave the default option selected (Format This Partition with the Following Settings), choose a file system (NTFS, FAT, or FAT32), and set any other formatting options you desire (see Figure 5.26). Then click on Next. 6. Click on Finish. Windows will partition and format the drive.

Figure 5.26 You can format a partition as part of the Create Partition Wizard.

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■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

To delete a partition, right-click on it and choose Delete Partition. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Formatting a Partition in Disk Management If you did not format the partition when you created it in the preceding section, or if you want to reformat an already-formatted partition (perhaps using a different file system, for example), you can format it now by following these steps. 1. Right-click on the partition in Disk Management and choose Format. A Format dialog box will open. 2. Enter a volume label, if desired. 3. Choose a file system from the drop-down menu. 4. Set any other formatting options desired; then click on OK to format the partition. 5. A warning will appear; click on OK to move past it.

Testing the New Drive At this point, you should be able to access the new drive. If you are at a command prompt, follow these steps to test it. 1. Type C: (or whatever drive letter it is) and press Enter. The prompt should change to the drive letter—for example, C:\>. If it does not, you are either using the wrong drive letter or the logical drive has not been defined yet (see FDISK). 2. Type DIR and press Enter. A File Not Found message should appear if there are no files on the disk; if there are any files, they should appear in a listing. If you see a message about invalid media or that it cannot read from the disk, the partition probably has not been formatted yet. To test the new drive in Windows, double-click on its icon in My Computer. A file management window should open, listing its contents (which will be nothing at first, of course). If an error message appears, the drive has not been formatted yet, or it uses a file system that this version of the operating system cannot recognize.


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Transferring Data to the New Drive Now you are ready to transfer the data from your old hard drive to the new one. If you used a ghosting program, follow its instructions to copy the data to the new drive. The steps vary depending on the program. If you used a Backup program, copied the files manually, or are planning to copy drive-to-drive directly, you will first need to install an operating system on the new drive (Windows, for example). Do so, and then use Windows to either restore your files from the Backup program or manually copy the files from drive to drive. How do you install Windows, you might be wondering? Simple. It depends on the Windows version, though. ➤ Windows 9x/Me. Boot from your startup floppy—the same one that you’ve been using for FDISK and FORMAT—and change to the CD-ROM drive. (Type its drive letter and press Enter.) Then type Setup. ➤ Windows 2000/XP. Insert the CD-ROM in your drive and restart the PC. A message will appear briefly, telling you to press any key to boot from the CD; do so. The Setup program will start automatically.

Troubleshooting Hard Drive Problems Here are some things that could potentially go wrong when you are installing and configuring a hard drive—or, things that might go wrong with your old hard disk, making you think about buying a new hard drive in the first place.

Dead Drive If the drive does not spin and its light does not come on at all, it is either not receiving power from the power supply or it is not configured in the BIOS Setup. You can tell whether a hard drive is spinning by resting your palm flat against the top of the drive. You can feel vibrations if the drive is spinning. ➤ Make sure the power and ribbon cables are snug. ➤ Make sure the drive is enabled in the BIOS Setup. ➤ Try a different power supply connector.

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➤ Try a different ribbon cable. ➤ Try a different drive.

If none of these suggestions work, the problem is likely the drive interface in the motherboard itself. Try installing an expansion board that includes a drive controller for that drive type and then disabling the motherboard’s built-in controller in the BIOS Setup.

BIOS Doesn’t See the Drive (IDE) The BIOS Setup should automatically detect and list IDE devices. If it does not see a particular drive, it might be due to one of the following problems. ➤ The power supply connector is not snug. ➤ The ribbon cable connectors are not snug. ➤ There is an incorrect jumper setting. ➤ You have a physically defective drive. ➤ You have an old BIOS version that is unable to detect the new type of drive.

To narrow down the problem, try a different drive of the same type using the same cables.

BIOS Sees the Drive but Windows Doesn’t If the BIOS sees the drive, the interface is working, so it is not an interface problem. This usually indicates that the drive has not yet been partitioned.

Windows Sees the Drive but Can’t Read It This usually means that the drive has been partitioned but not formatted or that it’s formatted using a file system that this version of Windows doesn’t recognize. Remember, Windows NT 4 cannot see FAT32 drives, and Windows 95, 98, and Me cannot see NTFS drives.


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Not Bootable In this scenario, you can’t boot MS-DOS or Windows 9x from the hard disk, but you can boot from a startup floppy and access the hard disk from a command prompt. This problem usually occurs when one or more of the system files are missing. Remember that MS-DOS and Windows 9x require IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, and COMMAND.COM to all be present in the root directory of a bootable disk. The first two are hidden system files but COMMAND.COM is not, and it is fairly easy to accidentally delete it. You can manually copy COMMAND.COM from your startup floppy to the hard disk, but if IO.SYS or MSDOS.SYS are missing, they cannot be manually copied. The best way to transfer the system files is by using the SYS command. To transfer from the A drive to the C drive, for example, you would make sure that the A drive contains a bootable disk created with the same OS version as the one you want on the hard disk, and then type the SYS C: command from the A:\> command prompt. Because you can’t boot to a command prompt, you can’t perform this procedure on Windows NT/2000/XP. The best way to repair a non-bootable disk with one of these Windows versions is to boot from the setup CD for the OS and use the Repair Windows feature.

Data Errors Reading or Writing to the Disk The exact wording of this error message varies depending on the OS version. At a command prompt, it will be Data error reading drive [letter]:. In Windows, it might be Cannot read from specified disk. In either case, it means that the drive’s read/write head cannot read a specific physical spot on the disk due to damage. In many cases, whatever file was stored in the damaged area is now irretrievable. However, sometimes you can manage to retrieve it by running a disk repair utility such as ScanDisk or Check Disk (or a third-party program such as Norton Disk Doctor). These programs typically have two modes—Standard or Thorough. The Standard check looks only for logical errors; in this case you would want the Thorough check, even though it might take several hours to do a full check. The utility looks at each physical sector on the disk and marks any unreadable ones as bad, and then attempts to extract any data from the bad

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sectors and relocate it to a good sector. (This is not always possible; it depends on how severe the damage is.) This way, the utility is sometimes able to restore access to an otherwise lost file.

Sector Not Found Errors Whereas a data error means there’s a problem with the physical surface of the disk, a sector not found error means there’s a problem with the retrieval of data from the disk. This could be due to one of the following reasons. ➤ The drive has a faulty read/write head. ➤ The hard disk is identified incorrectly to the BIOS setup with manual user settings. ➤ The drive controller is damaged. ➤ Your system has been infected by a virus.

No matter how you look at it, a sector not found error is bad news. Copy as much data off the drive as you can immediately, and then check in the BIOS Setup to make sure the settings are appropriate. If they are, do some rigorous testing of the drive with a diagnostic utility program. If all tests come back okay for the physical operation of the drive, repartition and reformat it. Then use it cautiously for a while, and don’t store your only copy of any important files on it.

Loss of Partition Information or Accidental Formatting The most common cause of the loss of partition information or the loss of FAT is virus infection. Another cause is physical drive failure. There are no mainstream utilities that can recover a lost partition table or FAT, but there are professional utility programs (rather high-priced ones) that offer this capability if the drive is still physically operable and the BIOS Setup is able to see it. One of the best known programs of this type is Easy Recovery by OnTrack International. It’s available online at http://www.ontrack.com. If the data on the disk is not critical, the best solution is to simply remove the virus (if there is one) by recreating the master boot record (with FDISK /MBR at a command prompt or with the FIXMBR command in the Windows 2000 Recovery Console).


TABLE 5.4 SUPPORTED FILE SYSTEMS File System

BY

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OS

FAT16

FAT32

NTFS

MS-DOS

Yes

No

No

Windows 95

Yes

No

No

Windows NT 4

Yes

No

Yes

Windows 98

Yes

Yes

No

Windows 2000

Yes

Yes

Yes

Windows Me

Yes

Yes

No

Windows XP

Yes

Yes

Yes

Wrong File System for the Operating System If a particular hard disk is inaccessible under a certain operating system, remember that not all operating systems support all file systems. See Table 5.4 for a quick rundown.

Non-Healthy Disks in Disk Management In Disk Management, each partition should report a status of Healthy. If you see any other status, there’s a problem. The first thing you use to try to solve the problem is the Reactivate Disk command. Right-click on a failed partition and choose Reactivate Disk from the shortcut menu. If only one partition on the drive reports a condition other than Healthy, and that condition persists after you try reactivating it, you should delete and recreate the partition. First copy any data from the partition that you want to keep, and then right-click on the partition and choose Delete. Then recreate it through Disk Management as described earlier in the chapter. If all of the partitions on the drive report a status other than Healthy, the drive might be defective. If you can still access the volumes or partitions from Windows Explorer, copy any files you want to keep and then replace the drive.

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Moving On Congratulations, you installed a new hard drive! As you learned in this chapter, there’s a lot more to installing a hard drive than simply inserting a circuit card, but you pulled it off like a pro. Congratulate yourself with a nice dinner, and if you’re interested in CD-ROM drives and their variants (such as CD-RW and DVD), come back this evening for a session on that topic.

S AT U R DAY

EVENING

CD and Other Removable Disk Drives ➤ Selecting a CD-ROM, CD-RW, or DVD drive ➤ Selecting Other Removable Storage Devices ➤ Installing an Internal IDE Drive ➤ Installing an External Disk Drive ➤ Troubleshooting Drive Installation Problems

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his chapter builds upon the last one by focusing on drives that have removable disks or cartridges. These drives add new storage possibilities to your system, as well as new capabilities, such as playing DVD movies and enhancing the performance of CD-ROM-based game play. Best of all, installing a CD drive or other removable disk drive is not very difficult; almost anyone can do it.

T

What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? There are two reasons to get a new CD or other removable disk drive—to replace an old one or to add a new capability to your system. Most people do it for the latter reason because there are so many exciting new capabilities available involving special drive types. Here are some of the benefits you can gain. ➤ Game performance. Gamers who play graphic-intensive games directly from the CD might find that game performance improves with a faster CD drive, provided that there are no other performance bottlenecks in components such as video cards, sound cards, or hard drives. ➤ Data storage. Almost everyone can benefit from having a high-capacity removable storage device, even if it’s just for backing up important data occasionally or transferring files that are too large to fit on regular floppy disks. There is a wide range of choices, including both CD and DVD, which I’ll discuss in the next section. ➤ Audio CDs. You can make copies of your CD-ROMs for backup purposes and you can even make your own audio mix CDs with songs from lots of different CDs and/or downloaded music clips. ➤ Movies. With a DVD drive, you can play DVD-format movies on your computer.

SATURDAY EVENING CD and Other Removable Disk Drives

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Drive Types There are so many different types of high-capacity removable disk drives that it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the choices. Here’s a quick summary of what you’ll find for sale. ➤ CD-ROM. This stands for CD Read Only Memory, referring to the fact that the drive only reads discs; it does not write. This is the “standard” type of CD drive. The ones made nowadays are faster and more efficient than older models, but they have no new features. ➤ CD-RW. This stands for CD Rewriteable. This drive writes on CD-R discs (R stands for Recordable) and also on CD-RW discs. So, what’s the difference? CD-R discs can be written to only once; CD-RW discs can be written to multiple times, somewhat like a floppy disk. Originally, writeable CD drives only wrote to CD-R, but today’s models write to both. CDRW drives also read regular CD-ROMs. ➤ DVD. This stands for Digital Versatile Disk (or Digital Video Disk, if it’s a disk containing a movie). It’s basically a high-capacity (4.7 GB), read-only CD-ROM. A DVD drive reads DVD data discs and plays DVD movies if you have an MPEG decoder. DVD drives also read regular CD-ROMs, and most can read CD-R and CD-RW discs as well. ➤ Writeable DVD. There are a variety of competing standards for writeable DVD; all work more or less like CD-Rs or CD-RWs, but on discs that store data more efficiently so they can hold more data. I’ll review all of these competing standards later in the chapter. ➤ LS-120. This is also known as SuperDisk or Super Floppy. It’s a replacement for your floppy drive and it also reads regular floppy disks. Its native-format disks are the same size and shape as a regular floppy, but they hold 120 MB of data. ➤ ZIP. ZIP doesn’t stand for anything; it’s a brand name. It’s a drive that reads and writes to 100 or 250 MB cartridges that are like thick floppy disks. ➤ Tape backup. Whereas all of the other drives on this list are disk-based, a tape drive is cassette-based. They aren’t the regular cassettes you play in your stereo, though; they are special cartridges that contain very wide tape (usually 1/2" wide).

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Is Your Existing Hardware Enough? If you’re adding a drive that adds a new capability to your system, this question is a no-brainer. However, if you’re simply thinking about replacing an existing drive with the same type, it becomes a valid question to consider. First, consider standard CD-ROM drives. Some applications that run from the CD, such as games, require a certain CD-ROM drive speed for the best performance. This minimum speed is listed on the box. Compare your current drive’s speed to it. When I talk about speed, I’m basically talking about the drive’s X rating. The original CD-ROM drives were 1X and transferred data at 150 KBps. Most drives sold today are at least 32X and can transfer data at up to 4.8 MBps. The “up to” part is important; a drive seldom achieves its rated maximum transfer rate because it has to spend time searching for the right area from which to read. If your regular CD-ROM drive is also a DVD drive, the speed measurement is different. A 1X DVD drive spins about three times the speed of a 1X CD-ROM drive, so you can approximately triple the advertised X speed on a DVD drive to determine how it will perform with regular CDs. For example, a 16X DVD drive would be equivalent to a 48X CD-ROM drive when reading from regular CD-ROMs. How do you tell what speed your current drive is? Some drives list the speed right on the front panel. In other cases, the entry for the drive in the Device Manager might report its speed. If neither of those produces the answer, check the documentation that came with the PC or just try running the program in question. If the CD drive is too slow, you might experience jerky sound or animation or slow game play.

NOTE

A drive diagnostic program can be useful in determining a drive’s “real-life” speed. One good drive-speed testing program is called DriveSpeed. At this writing, the current version is 3.10, and you can download it from any of the large shareware sites such as http://www.zdnet.com or http://www.cnet.com. However, keep in mind that the speed reported by such a program will probably not tell you what the maximum rated speed for the drive is because a drive seldom achieves its maximum speed. For example, my 32X CD-ROM drive tested at only 4,578 KBps, which translates to 30X.

When you are replacing an older CD-R or CD-RW drive, the big issue is recording speed. There is no specific minimum recording speed required; it’s simply a question of how long you want to wait for a disc to be recorded. Older


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writeable CD drives might write at speeds as low as 1 or 2X; a new CD-RW drive might record at 16X or more. That’s a big difference in wait time, especially if you burn a lot of CDs.

NOTE

The process of writing to a CD is called burning because a laser is used to create non-reflective areas in the metal coating on the disk. I’ll talk about this writing process in the following section.

Selecting a CD-ROM Drive Whether you are shopping for a regular CD-ROM drive, a CD-RW, or a DVD, many of the technological principles are the same. Start by looking at regular CD-ROM drives; once you understand how they work, the other technologies will fall right into place.

How CD-ROMs Store Data A CD-ROM stores data in binary form, as do all computer media. The main difference is that CD drives read the data optically rather than magnetically (as with hard and floppy disks). The CD’s surface (beneath a smooth, clear protective coating) contains aluminum film, which reflects light. Data is stored on the CD in a pattern of pitted and unpitted areas. (Unpitted areas are called land.) The CD-ROM drive reads the data by shining a light beam onto the disc and using a photodiode to measure the amount of light that gets bounced back from it. Areas with pits reflect the light less strongly than unpitted areas. As with magnetic storage, the data is stored based on transitions. When the laser detects a transition from a pitted to an unpitted area, it sends a 1 to the PC. When it fails to detect a transition within a time period when a transition would have been possible, it sends a 0 (see Figure 6.1).

Speed As I mentioned earlier in the chapter, the theoretical maximum data transfer rate and corresponding rotational speed for the drive are expressed with an X rating, where X is a multiple of 150 KBps of data transferred. Because the drive can read the data no faster than the data can whiz by the read mechanism as the disc spins, the two factors are inextricably connected.

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Figure 6.1 The surface of a CD-ROM contains shiny land areas and less-shiny pitted areas.

NOTE

A new technology is emerging called TrueX/Multibeam, which uses several laser read heads to read more data per rotation than a normal CD-ROM. Because these drives read more data per rotation of the disc, their data transfer rate and their rotation speed are not the same.

The original CD-ROM drives (1X) read 75 2,048-byte sectors of data per second, which comes out to 150 KBps. Since then, drive speeds have advanced in multiples of 150 KBps. A 2X drive, for example, reads 150 2,048-byte sectors per second, for a rate of 300 KBps, whereas a 4X reads 300 sectors, for a rate of 600 KBps. Data transfer rate is only a theoretical measurement for a drive because no drive actually achieves its rated transfer rate in sustained performance. When a program calls for something to be read from the disc, the disc must start spinning and get up to speed, and the read head must move in and out to find the spot on the disc on which the needed data resides. The actual speed when reading a certain spot on the disc also depends on whether the drive is CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) or CAV (Constant Angular Velocity), both of which are discussed next.

CLV versus CAV Two technologies are used for CD-ROM drives—CLV and CAV. Generally speaking, CLV is found in older regular CD-ROM drives and in multi-purpose drives such as CD-RW, whereas CAV is used in newer regular CD-ROM drives.


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All CD-ROM data is recorded using CLV. No matter what spot is being recorded on the disc, it is recorded at the same area per second. That means that when you are recording near the center of the disc, the drive must spin faster because there is less area to be covered there. As the recording reaches the outside of the disc, the drive must slow down. If you have a CD-R or CD-RW drive that also plays CDs, it plays them using CLV. A CLV drive has a single-speed measurement, such as 8X or 16X, because the amount of data it reads per second does not vary. (The actual rotation of the disc—in rotations per minute, or RPM—does vary.) Most of the higher-speed regular CD-ROM drives sold today play CDs at CAV. That means that the CD rotates at a constant speed (RPM), and the amount of data being read per second varies depending on the spot on the disc from which it is being read. Because these drives do not have a single data transfer rate, they can’t have a single, accurate X rating either. Therefore, you’ll often see them advertised with two X ratings—a minimum and a maximum, such as 28X/32X. The smaller number is the data transfer rate at the center of the disc; the larger number is the rate for the outside edge. Such drives almost never achieve their top speed, however, because data on a CD is written from the inside to the outside, and most CDs are blank at the outer edge. CAV is typically found in 12X drives and above, and almost all 16X and above drives sold today are CAV. If you see a single-speed rating for a drive above 16X, you can guess that it probably refers to the highest speed for that drive, and that the lower number has been omitted for marketing purposes. CLV drives are available up to 48X, although they’re not common, so read the entire drive specification to be sure. High-speed CLV drives tend to be noisier and more expensive than comparable CAV drives.

Access Time Access time is the amount of time that elapses between your PC’s request for data from a CD-ROM and the drive’s delivery of the first part of that information. It’s mostly a measure of the drive’s mechanical ability to move the read head to the correct spot. Access time is not directly related to the drive’s speed (X), although drives with faster speeds tend to also have superior mechanics inside that allow for better access time. Another name for this is average access speed. A 1X drive has a typical access time of around 400 milliseconds (ms). Today’s best-performing drives have an access time of around 75 ms.

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Multi-Read Technology One of the problems with CD-RW discs (which are discussed in more detail in the “Selecting a CD-RW Drive” section later in this chapter) is that the land areas are much less reflective than on a regular CD-ROM (about 1/3 of the normal reflectivity), so some drives have difficulty reading them. This is especially true with older CD-ROM drives. One way to compensate for this problem has been to introduce multi-read technology, which is a system of amplification that steps up the reflectivity readings taken on a CD-RW disc to ensure that it gets read reliably.

Other CD-ROM Performance Factors Two big determinants of a drive’s performance, of course, are its rotational speed (X) and its access time. In real-world use, however, several other factors play a part as well. The following factors are important when choosing a CD or DVD drive. ➤ Drive interface type. Traditionally, the SCSI interface has been considered superior to IDE for all types of drives, but recent advancements in IDE technology (discussed in the Saturday Afternoon session) have helped level the playing field in terms of drive performance. SCSI still has a slim advantage, however, because of its decreased CPU utilization. There are various types of SCSI interfaces, from the low-cost SCSI-3 to the top-ofthe-line Ultra2Wide. Low-end SCSI is appropriate for an ordinary CDROM, whereas higher-end SCSI would be advantageous for CD-R or CD-RW. Portable CD-ROM drives are also available with parallel or USB interfaces. Parallel is very slow; USB is very fast. ➤ Competition for interface bandwidth. If your CD-ROM drive shares an IDE subsystem (that is, it’s on the same cable) with another IDE device that gets heavy use, such as your main hard disk, you might experience performance problems with your CD-ROM drive, especially in time-critical applications such as playback of DVD movies. When feasible, place the CD-ROM drive on an IDE cable by itself for the best performance. ➤ Drive cache. The larger the size of the built-in cache (a.k.a. buffer) in the CD-ROM drive, the less it needs to re-read data from the disc when subsequent requests are made for the same data. A good drive should have at least a 512-KB cache.


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➤ CPU usage. Drives vary in terms of how much of your computer’s processing time they require to do their jobs. (Less is better.) In very broad terms:

• SCSI is better than IDE because SCSI operates more independently of the processor than IDE does. • CLV is better than CAV because CLV uses a modest fixed amount of processor time, whereas CAV varies from very little (at the center of the disc) to a great deal of time (at the outer part of the disc). • A large drive cache helps minimize CPU usage.

NOTE

You might hear CD-ROM standards being discussed in terms of colors, as in Red Book, Yellow Book, and so on.These used to be important in the early days of CD-ROM because you could not assume compatibility between drives. Nowadays, however, it is hardly worth mentioning because all CD-ROM drives conform to the same standards. Red Book is the original CD-ROM standard; Yellow Book is the set of standards for modern CD-ROM operations; and Orange Book is the standard for writeable CDs. There are many other colors of books, each covering a specialized usage of CDs.

Selecting a CD-RW Drive Now that you know something about ordinary mass-produced CD-ROMs, take a look at writeable CDs—CD-R and CD-RW.

What’s the Difference between CD-R and CD-RW? As you’ll recall from earlier in this chapter, CD-R discs can be written to only once (except in the case of multi-session writing). They are relatively cheap (less than 50 cents each in large quantities) and work best when recording data that will not change. CD-RW discs can be written to many times; they function somewhat like a hard disk or a floppy. CD-RW is a good choice when you need to store small amounts of data over time, such as a daily backup of a few critical files. Early recordable CD-ROM drives were CD-R only, but most drives today support both CD-R and CD-RW writing. Therefore, you will probably have to buy a CD-RW drive even if you want to record only on CD-R discs. It doesn’t hurt to have the CD-RW capability, just in case you ever need it.

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TIP

When you install the software that comes with your new CD-RW drive, it will probably include a packet-writing program designed to allow CD-RW discs to be written to like floppies. This program will be set to load automatically at startup; one popular version of the program is DirectCD. If you never plan to use CD-RW discs, you don’t have to install that component; in fact, it might be better if you don’t because you can save a little bit of space in memory. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Understanding the CD-R Recording Process When you make your own CDs, you don’t have the manufacturing equipment to create the pitted aluminum layer that exists on a mass-produced CD. Therefore, the recording process must be different. The recording process for CD-Rs is possible because CD-ROM readers don’t actually touch the surface of the disc—they only look at it. As you just learned, a CD-ROM drive bounces light off the surface of the CD and reads data depending on the amount of reflectivity it finds there. So a home-recorded CD need not actually have the pits and land areas of a normal CD as long as it appears to have them. Recordable CDs are physically different than mass-produced CDs. They are coated with metal and then overlaid with photosensitive organic dye. The dye layer reflects back to a CD-ROM drive just as a blank CD would (that is, all land). Then, during the recording process, a laser heats the metal and the dye layers in certain spots so that they change their reflectivity to resemble a pit on an aluminum-pitted CD. When a drive reads the CD, the CD appears to have the normal pit and land areas of a commercially-produced CD even though there are not actually any pits. Compare Figure 6.2 to Figure 6.1 to see the difference.

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Figure 6.2 The surface of a CD-R contains virtual pits in lessreflective areas.

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Most CD-ROM drives, including all drives manufactured in the last several years, treat a CD-R or CD-RW disc just like any other CD. Almost all audioonly CD players (such as in your home stereo system) can handle CD-R discs with no problem, so you can make your own music CDs and play them almost anywhere that regular CDs will play.

Understanding the CD-RW Recording Process The CD-RW medium is physically different than a CD-R disc. It is more complex and costs more to manufacture, which is why CD-RW discs cost so much more. In the preceding section, you learned how data is burned into a CD-R by heating the dye and metal to change how it reflects in certain spots on the disc. That change is permanent, which is why you can’t make changes to the data on a CD-R. A CD-RW disc, in contrast, does not have the traditional dye-andmetal coating. Instead, it is coated with a metal alloy (containing silver, indium, antimony, and tellurium, in case you’re curious) with reflective properties that change depending on the temperature to which you heat it. A CD-RW drive has a laser that has three different power settings. The high setting heats the alloy to approximately 600 degrees Celsius, at which point it liquefies. When the alloy solidifies again, it has lost its reflective properties, which imitates a pit. The same spot can be re-heated to a lower temperature (approximately 200 degrees Celsius), causing it to revert back to its original reflectivity and imitate a land area. That’s how it rewrites an area; the lowest power setting is used to read the data without changing it.

BURN-Proof Technology When writing to a CD-R disc, the data source must feed the data to the writeable CD drive in a continuous, steady stream. For example, suppose you are recording a CD-R containing backup files from your hard drive. The hard drive feeds those files to the CD drive, which writes them in a continuous, unbroken stream. If something distracts the PC’s full attention, such as moving the mouse pointer on-screen, displaying a dialog box, or opening or saving a file in some other program, the hard disk might not be able to continue feeding those files to the CD drive in that continuous stream; it might need to pause for a few seconds. Most CD drives have a small buffer, a storage area in which a little bit of incoming data can wait. Therefore, a very small delay might not be a problem for the

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recording; the drive can simply record what’s in the buffer and then the hard disk will refill the buffer as soon as it gets back on the job. However, when the buffer is empty and the data source still hasn’t come up with any more data to record, a buffer under-run error occurs. This generates an error message in the recording software and trashes the CD-R disc so you have to start recording all over again. Talk about frustrating! To try to fix this problem, some CD-RW drive manufacturers have introduced BURN-Proof, a technology developed by Sanyo. BURN-Proof enables the drive to pause during the burning process without causing an error. This is great because it allows the user to be less cautious about performing other tasks on the computer while a CD is being created. It’s a very worthwhile feature to shop for! ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

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Read/Write Speed As with a regular CD-ROM drive, speed for a CD-RW drive is expressed in X values. Remember, 1X is 150 KBps, and all other X values are multiples of that. Recall from our earlier discussion that a normal CLV CD-ROM drive has a single X rating, such as 32X, and that a CAV CD-ROM drive has a two-rating range, such as 28X/32X. All recordable CD drives are CLV, so they have a single rating for their reading speed. However, a CD-RW drive has two additional speed ratings—one for writing to CD-R and one for writing to CD-RW. That brings its total up to three speeds, all of which are reported in its specifications, such as 24X/12X/40X. When you see three speeds like that, the first one is CDR writing, the second is CD-RW writing, and the third is reading.

Selecting a DVD Drive DVD drives are available both for PCs and as stand-alone DVD players for home-theater systems. In this chapter, I’m talking about the PC type. A DVD drive can function as a regular CD-ROM drive, so most people who add a DVD drive to their system do so by replacing their standard CD-ROM drive with it. With a DVD drive and a CD-RW drive, you can handle almost any type of CD that comes your way.


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How DVD Works DVD is basically a souped-up version of CD-ROM, technologically speaking. As you learned earlier in the chapter, CD-ROM data is stored in patterns of pits and land on a disc. DVD data is stored the same way, except the pits are much smaller and closer together. That’s why CD-ROMs top out at about 650–700 MB of data, whereas DVDs can hold multiple gigabytes of data. Because the pits are more tightly written on a DVD disc, the mechanism in the drive for reading them also has to be finer and more precise. That’s mainly why DVD drives cost more than CD-ROM drives. DVD drives can also read regular CD-ROM discs with no problem because the difference is mostly in the spacing. How much data are we talking about on a DVD? Well, with a single-sided, single-layer disc of the same thickness as a normal CD-ROM (120 mm), it’s 4.7 GB of data or 135 minutes of video. (That’s the DVD-5 standard, by the way.) If the disc is double-sided (DVD-10), you can double that capacity to get a 9.4GB or 270-minute capacity. The makers of DVD standards have figured out another way to squeeze more data onto a disc—they record it in two layers. The top layer is semi-reflective so the read laser can pass through it to read the second layer of data beneath it. This scheme doesn’t exactly double the amount of data, but it’s close—a two-layer disc (DVD-9) can hold 8.5 GB. Combine the two methods for a double-sided, double-layer disk (DVD-14), and the capacity tops out at 13.24 GB.

NOTE

You might be wondering what happened to DVD-1 through DVD-4.Well, those were earlier standards that used a different thickness disc (80 mm as opposed to the normal 120 mm). DVD-1 (single-sided, single-layer) held 1.4 GB or a half-hour of video, whereas DVD-4 (double-sided, double-layer) held 5.3 GB or 2.5 hours of video.

Speed DVD drives spin the disc faster and read the data faster than a normal CDROM drive, so you can’t fairly compare the speeds using X ratings alone. Recall that a CD-ROM drive is measured in relation to the original 1X standard of 150 KBps data transfer rate. Because the data is stored on a CD at a fixed number of bits per area, you can determine the drive’s raw speed at reading data from the speed at which the disc rotates. Therefore, a 2X drive would have to spin twice as fast as a 1X drive in order to double the data transfer rate to 300 KBps.

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Because the data on a DVD disc is stored so much more compactly, a drive spinning at a speed of 1X can transfer approximately 1.4 MBps, which makes it roughly equivalent to a regular 9X CD-ROM. The rates go up from there, with a 16X DVD drive topping out at about 22 MBps, or faster than a 140X CDROM (if there even were such a drive). However, you can’t just look at DVD transfer rates when evaluating a DVD drive for your system because, in reality, you will probably use it mostly for regular CD-ROM discs, and the transfer rate for those drops back down again. A 1X DVD drive spins at about 2.5 times the speed of a 1X CD-ROM drive, so you can multiply the advertised X speed on a DVD drive by 2.5 to determine how it will perform with regular CDs. For example, a 16X DVD drive would be equivalent to a 40X CD-ROM drive.

Other DVD Performance Factors Technologically a DVD drive is similar to a CD-ROM drive, so you will want to shop for many of the same features, such as low average access time (under 100 ms), multi-read technology, and an appropriate interface for your needs.

Selecting an MPEG-2 Decoder Card Many people are confused when they buy a DVD drive (or when one comes with their system) about whether an MPEG decoder card is required. The answer: It all depends on your planned use for the drive. If you want to use your DVD drive in your PC to play DVD movies, you will need MPEG-2 decoding capability. If you are just using the DVD drive for data, you won’t need it. MPEG-2 decoding processes the audio and video data and allows it to play on your PC. When you are reading data from a DVD data disc, it plays no role. One type of MPEG-2 decoder is a separate circuit card you install in your PC. You plug your monitor’s VGA plug into it rather than into your video card, and then you run a pass-through cable from the decoder card to your video card input. Some variants let you connect the monitor directly to your video card, with an internal cable connecting the video card to the MPEG-2 decoder card. Although this system takes up system resources (a PCI slot, an IRQ, and so on), it does result in good audio and video playback performance. It also takes most of the processing workload off your main system when you are playing movies. An alternative to the separate MPEG-2 decoder card is a video card with builtin MPEG-2 decoding. This is more convenient because it does not require a


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separate card and separate resources, but the performance can lag behind that of a separate decoder card. In addition, more of your main system resources are consumed when playing a movie, and if you don’t have a fast system with lots of available RAM, playback performance can suffer.

NOTE

Some new DVD drives include MPEG-2 software decoding. In theory, these can substitute for a hardware-based decoding solution. However, unless your PC is really fast, performance problems can ensue.

Selecting a Writeable DVD Writeable DVDs work using basically the same technology as writeable CDs, but there are some minor differences. First, take a look at the similarities. Both technologies use a writeable disc that’s coated with an organic dye (for write-once) or a metal composite (for rewriteable). The laser heats an area of the disc, changing the properties of that area so that it reflects light differently when the read laser hits it. Writeable DVD discs, unlike CD-ROM, have pre-defined grooves or “tracks” in the blanks. The grooves are wavy (rather than straight, like on a phonograph record), and the interval of the waves helps keep the timing correct when you are playing back the disc on different drives that spin at different speeds. Depending on the writing technology, data can be written either in the grooves only or in both the grooves and the land areas between them. The other details, however, aren’t nearly as clear-cut. There are a variety of writeable DVD standards at the moment—some standards are write-once, like CD-R; others are rewriteable, like CD-RW. Each technology has its own proprietary blank discs to which it writes. Here’s a quick summary. ➤ DVD-R. This stands for DVD Recordable; it allows each disc to be written only once (like CD-R). Most regular DVD drives and players can read these discs. ➤ DVD+R. This is a competing standard to DVD-R; it is very similar to DVD-R in functionality but is incompatible with it. ➤ DVD-RW. This stands for DVD Rewriteable; like a CD-RW, these discs are writeable multiple times (up to 1,000). ➤ DVD+RW. This is a competing standard to DVD-RW; it is very similar to DVD-RW but incompatible with it.

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➤ DVD-RAM. This stands for DVD Random Access Memory; it is an older type of rewriteable DVD drive (writeable multiple times). It requires a disc caddy, so you can’t play its discs in regular DVD drives, either computer or television. Its main purpose is mass data storage, and its main advantage is that the same disc can be rewritten up to 100,000 times.

NOTE

The Recordable DVD Council, founded in April 2000, supports the DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVDRAM standards. Its members include Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba, JVC, and Hitachi. The other camp is the DVD+RW Alliance, which supports DVD+R and DVD+RW and includes Dell, Philips Electronics, Ricoh,Thomson Multimedia, and Yamaha Electronics.

The most difficult part of buying a writeable DVD drive is knowing which standard to choose. It’s still a crapshoot which standards will emerge as the victors, and you don’t want to get stuck with the equivalent of a Betamax. The drives themselves are not so prohibitively expensive that you couldn’t switch technologies later (they are under $500 in most cases), but if you have a lot of data stored on a certain format of disk, you won’t want to switch all that data over to a new format. A smart compromise, provided you are interested primarily in writeonce DVDs, is to go with DVD-R or DVD+R, both of which produce discs that can be read in normal DVD drives. That way your data will always be readable.

Selecting Other Removable Storage Devices I’ll round out the drive discussion by discussing non-CD removable storage devices, which can be broken down into two main categories. ➤ Disk cartridge drives. These are drives that write to small square or rectangular cartridges holding magnetic or optical disk platters. They are useful for backing up small amounts of data (less than 1 GB) informally, such as by simply copying it to the disk rather than working with a fullblown backup program. They’re also good for transferring files from PC to PC, provided that both PCs have the same drive type. Their primary advantage over CD-RW is that the writing speed is faster. ➤ Tape cartridge drives. These are drives that write to a special type of wide cassette tape. These are used primarily for unattended system backups. The cartridges hold a lot of data (multiple gigabytes in many cases), so you can back up larger amounts of data without having to be there to


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change the cartridge. The drawback is that it can be a very slow process to retrieve stored data from the tape because a tape is not random-access; the drive must fast-forward and rewind to find the spot in which the needed data is stored. Whichever you choose, consider these factors. ➤ Reading/writing speed. The more you plan to use the drive, the more important the reading and writing speeds are. If the drive is primarily for backups, writing speed is most important because you won’t be reading unless a disaster occurs that forces you to restore your backups. Read/write speeds will probably be expressed in kilobytes or megabytes per second, the same as for CD drives. ➤ Capacity. Higher capacity is usually better, especially if you plan to copy data to the drive unattended. A high-capacity storage medium means less cartridge swapping. Don’t overdo it, however; a high-capacity cartridge costs more than a lower-capacity one. There’s no sense in using a 1-GB cartridge to back up a half-dozen word processing files. ➤ Compatibility. If you plan to take your data to another computer, make sure the other computer can support the medium. One of the advantages of CD-R, for example, is that any PC with a CD drive can read the discs. Consider also what might happen if your drive ever went bad; you would need to replace it in order to access your backed-up data unless you had another drive that could read that same media type. ➤ Internal or external. An external drive is handy because you can hook it up to any PC that uses its interface type. That means two or more PCs can share a single drive for transferring data between them. An internal drive, on the other hand, does not require a separate power source and doesn’t take up space on your desk. ➤ Interface. Most internal drives are IDE, and that’s a pretty good choice. IDE has many advantages, as you learned in this afternoon’s session. SCSI is an alternative, as with CD drives, but most people won’t experience a dramatic speed difference between SCSI and IDE, and SCSI is usually significantly more expensive. For external drives, parallel and serial are rather slow interface options; SCSI and USB are quicker ones. ➤ Price. The price of various types of disks or tapes varies widely, so check out how much per megabyte it is going to cost you to store data on that drive before you make your final decision.

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Take a Break Now that you know the facts about removable drives, stretch those legs and go buy one! Brand name is not important—shop by specs only. Surprised to hear that? When I talked about video cards and sound cards, brand names were important. However, the reasons for caring about brand names are to ensure compatibility and to make sure that an up-to-date driver will always be available. With drives neither of those are issues because all drives conform to the same basic standards (such as IDE or SCSI), and drives don’t require any special drivers to work with Windows. When you’ve selected your new drive, continue on to the next section.

Installing an Internal IDE Drive In the Saturday Afternoon session, I broke up hard drive installation into two sections—IDE and SCSI. Realistically, though, most people will be working with IDE. The same goes for removable disk drives—IDE is the dominant standard. Therefore, rather than repeat everything about SCSI in this chapter, I’m going to assume that you’re installing an IDE drive. If you have SCSI instead, turn back to the Saturday Afternoon session and use the steps presented there to set up a SCSI adapter and set SCSI ID and termination. There are many types of IDE drives—CD-ROM, ZIP, LS-120, and so on— but they all install approximately the same way. You slide the drive into an empty drive bay and then connect it to the motherboard or an IDE controller and to the power supply. To install the drive, you will need a Phillips-head screwdriver. You might also need a small flat-head screwdriver to pry off the plate that covers the front of the drive bay. If you need to set jumpers on the drive, you might also want a pair of tweezers to help you grasp and pull off the jumper caps, although you can also do this with your fingers.

Safety Precautions Watch out for these pitfalls when installing the drive. ➤ Wear an antistatic wrist strap or ground yourself frequently by touching the power supply. ➤ Make very sure the computer’s power is off before you plug or unplug any cables inside.


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➤ Be careful not to cut your fingers on any sharp metal edges inside the computer. ➤ Handle a drive only by its metal casing. If there is a circuit board on one side of the casing, avoid touching it.

Preparing the Drive Start out by examining your new CD drive (shown in Figure 6.3), so you’ll know where everything plugs in when it’s time to do the installation. ➤ IDE connector. This is 40-pin connector surrounded by a plastic trough. At one end is a tiny “1” or arrow indicating which end is pin 1. The 40 pins are numbered, and you will need to know where the numbering starts in order to orient the ribbon cable correctly, just like with a hard drive. ➤ Power connector. This is a D-shaped plastic plug with four large metal prongs in it. A connector from the PC’s power supply connects to it. ➤ Jumper. Because there can be up to two IDE drives per drive interface, each IDE drive has a jumper that you set to specify whether it is the first or second drive on that interface. ➤ Audio connector. This is a small (typically four-pin) connector to which a cable attaches that connects the CD drive to the sound card, enabling you to play audio CDs through the PC’s speakers.

Figure 6.3 A typical IDE CD drive

Audio connectors

IDE jumper

IDE connector

Power connector

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Planning Drive Positioning for Best Performance If you didn’t read the Saturday Afternoon session, turn back now and read the section entitled “Setting IDE Slave/Master Status” to find out how to physically set the master/slave jumper on an IDE device. You need to make some decisions about where you want this new drive to be placed within your computer’s IDE universe. Just plunking the new drive down wherever there happens to be a vacancy is not necessarily the right plan if you are interested in achieving the best performance. Here are some guidelines to help you make the decision. ➤ If there are only two IDE devices in a system, each should be on its own ribbon cable. The root issue is that each IDE channel can have two devices, and those two devices share the bandwidth. So if two devices need to communicate with the CPU at once, one will have to wait. ➤ If there are high-performance hard drives (UDMA/66 or higher), they should not share a ribbon cable with a lower-performing hard drive. It is best that the drives not share at all, but if they must, they should share with a CD drive, which should be the slave. That way the hard drive can set the pace (fast!) and then pass on any data to the slower slave as needed. ➤ If there is more than one CD drive, the highest-performing hard drive should share a cable with the CD drive that will be used the least. You don’t want the hard drive to be slowed down because it has to process a lot of data on behalf of a slave drive, so give your most important hard disk a slave that is relatively inactive. ➤ A writeable CD drive should be on its own ribbon cable; if that’s not possible, it should be the master. The rationale for this is that the less traffic on the cable, the less likely that delays will occur in the CD writing process that would cause a buffer under-run error. If the CD drive cannot be alone on the cable, making it the master ensures that all the arriving data comes to it first—the data stream is not at the mercy of some other drive as the master. ➤ If you plan to copy CDs, the CD drive that will hold the source disc should be on a different ribbon cable from the writeable CD drive. As I mentioned earlier, this is advantageous because any time two devices share a cable, they share the bandwidth and must take turns. When one drive is reading and copying data from another drive, neither should have to wait—and on some CD drives, waiting can cause buffer under-runs.


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Some of these rules can potentially conflict with one another, so you have to weigh each individual situation and plan which configuration would cause the fewest problems. Take a look at an example. Suppose you currently have the following components. ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤

Primary Master. High-performance hard drive. Primary Slave. Empty. Secondary Master. CD-ROM drive. Secondary Slave. ZIP drive.

Now suppose you want to add a CD-RW drive. Putting it in the open slot (primary slave) is not the best idea because it violates several of the guidelines. A CDRW drive should be the master if possible, and a high-performance hard drive should not share a cable with a drive that is going to generate a lot of traffic. If you think about the amount of traffic that each drive generates, the lowesttraffic drive is probably the ZIP drive, so what about putting it in as the primary slave? This would be good for the hard drive, but then the two CD drives would be on the same cable together, which could cause recording problems when copying from on CD to another. Instead, a better configuration might be ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤

Primary Master. High-performance hard drive. Primary Slave. CD-ROM drive. Secondary Master. CD-RW drive. Secondary Slave. ZIP drive.

This configuration would allow the CD drives to be on separate cables, the hard drive to share with a low-traffic drive, and the CD-RW drive to be the master of its cable.

NOTE

Remember also that UDMA/66 and higher hard drives require an 80-wire ribbon cable.You can use either an 80-wire or 40-wire with a CD drive; it has no effect on the drive’s performance.

Ponder your IDE drive-positioning choices, and then set the jumper for the new device. If necessary, remove the existing IDE devices and change their jumper settings too.

Installing a Drive in the System Case Installing an internal disk drive is much the same as installing a hard drive, except that the drive will be mounted in an external drive bay.

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CAUTION

Ribbon cable lengths can be a problem if you need to connect two drives that are physically distant from one another to the same cable.You might have to remove some or all of the IDE drives from the case and shuffle their physical positions for the ribbon cables to reach. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

1. Select the drive bay. Consider these factors: • Bay size. A CD drive requires a large bay; a ZIP drive or LS-120 drive fits in a small one. However, if you only have a large bay and you have a small drive to put in it, you can use a mounting bracket like the one shown in Figure 6.4. You can buy a bracket at your local computer store. • Physical position. If you need to make a ribbon cable stretch from one drive to another, you will want to select a bay with that in mind. Try to put the new drive as close as possible to the drive with which it will be sharing a cable. 2. Pop out the plastic plate covering that drive bay on the front of the PC, as shown in Figure 6.5. (A flat-blade screwdriver works well for this. Alternatively, you can push it out from the back if you can get your hand in there.) If there’s a metal plate behind the plastic one, pop that one out and discard it. 3. Insert the drive into the bay—but not all the way yet. You’ll want some room behind it to connect the cables, which will be discussed in the following section. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, some cases do not use screws to hold drives in place; instead they use mounting rails that fasten to the sides of the

Figure 6.4 Use a mounting bracket to put a small drive into a large bay.


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Figure 6.5 Remove the plastic plate from the front of the bay that you want to use.

drive and snap it into the case. Such cases typically come with sets of rails, but you can also buy the rails separately if you misplace the ones that came with the case. You’ll want to attach these rails before you insert the drive into the bay.

Connecting the Drive to the Motherboard or Expansion Board This is just like working with a hard drive so if you remember that part from this afternoon’s session, you can skim over it here. First, if you’re not hooking into an existing ribbon cable, connect the ribbon cable to the IDE interface on the motherboard. Connect the end that is farthest away from the middle connector to the motherboard. Removable IDE drives such as CDs can use either 40- or 80-wire cables. Remember that some IDE cables and connectors are keyed, with pin 20 (in the middle of the cable/ connector) missing on the circuit board and a block covering the hole for the corresponding pin on the cable. This is to prevent you from installing the cable backward. If the hole for pin 20 is blocked out on the IDE cable, make sure that pin 20 is missing on the motherboard. If it’s not, use an unkeyed cable. Next you need to connect the ribbon cable to the drive. Unless you are using the Cable Select feature to set the master/slave status, it doesn’t really matter which connector you use for the master or slave. Traditionally, however, if there is a single drive only on the ribbon cable, it is positioned at the far end of the cable. The red stripe on the cable must align with pin 1 on the drive. Most drives have

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a label that shows where pin 1 is, but in almost all cases it’s the end that’s closest to the power supply connector.

Connecting the Power Cable Now you’re ready to connect any available power plug from the power supply to the drive. All removable drives except floppy drives use the larger size—the Molex connector. You might have to slide the drive forward (out of the bay) slightly to reach the connector. If your system already has many drives, you might be out of power connectors. An easy workaround is to buy a splitter, which is like an extension cord. It plugs into a single plug and has two or more outlets. Keep in mind, however, that a power supply has a finite number of plugs because it has a finite amount of power. If all of the plugs are in use, the power supply is probably close to its limit. If you plug in more devices with a splitter, you might overload it. When a power supply overloads, it usually just shuts down, but sometimes it causes damage to devices connected to it. If you just need one more plug than your power supply provides you are probably okay. However, to be on the safe side, you might consider replacing the power supply with a larger one or perhaps replacing the entire case with one that has more bays and a larger power supply. See the Night Owl 2 session, which follows this chapter, to learn how to replace a power supply.

Connecting the Audio Cable The audio cable makes it possible for the CD drive to play audio CDs through the sound card. Without it, you will hear system sounds, sound effects in games, and MP3 music files stored on your hard drive, but not audio directly from a CD. On most sound cards, there are multiple audio cable ports, as you learned in this morning’s session. Most CD drives also have at least a couple of connectors from which to choose. The standard audio cable has four pins/holes and carries analog data. Figure 6.6 shows a couple of styles of plugs and the connector on the drive.

Securing the Drive After you have attached all of the cables, align the front of the drive with the front of the case and secure the drive with screws (unless, of course, it’s a case


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Figure 6.6 Audio cable connectors attach the CD player to the sound card.

that uses clips instead of screws). Ideally you should put four screws on each side, but if you are short on screws you can use two on each side, diagonal to one another.

Configuring the New Drive in the BIOS Most BIOSes today use Plug-and-Play to automatically detect drives, so you should not have to do any special setup in the BIOS Setup program for your new drive to be recognized. This applies to not only hard drives and CD drives, but also to other IDE devices such as ZIP drives and tape backups. If the BIOS does not immediately see the new drive, try changing the setting of the drive’s IDE channel in the BIOS Setup. If it is not already set to Auto, try that setting first. If that doesn’t work, try the CD-ROM or ATAPI settings.

Installing an External Disk Drive An external disk drive is a piece of cake to install. In most cases, you don’t even need to open the case! 1. Connect the drive to the PC using whatever interface is appropriate. Common interfaces for external drives include USB, parallel, and SCSI. If you’re using SCSI, you might need to install a SCSI adapter card first.

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2. Connect the drive to a power source. It will probably have its own AC power cord. 3. Turn on the PC and let Windows detect the new drive. If necessary, install the software that came with the new drive to help Windows identify it.

Testing the New Drive Now check the new drive to make sure it works. 1. Boot Windows normally and open My Computer. The new drive’s icon should appear there. 2. Insert a disc in the new drive and double-click on the drive icon to display its contents. If you inserted a blank unformatted disc, you might need to format it; right-click on the drive icon and choose Format to do so. 3. Install any software required to activate any special features of the drive. For example, a CD-RW or DVD drive will work like a normal CDROM drive without any special setup, but they might require you to run the Setup program for the CD-writing software or the DVD-playing software in order to achieve full functionality. 4. Test the drive’s special functionality, if any. For example, if it’s a CD-RW drive, try burning a data or audio CD-R. 5. If it’s a CD drive and you have attached an audio cable between it and the sound card, try playing an audio CD. If everything works—great. If not, see the following section for troubleshooting help.

Troubleshooting Drive Install Problems Use the following sections to help troubleshoot problems. Many of these are the same issues that you might run into with a hard drive, which was discussed in this afternoon’s session.

The BIOS Doesn’t See the Drive The most common reason for the BIOS not detecting an IDE drive is that it isn’t hooked up correctly. Make sure the red stripe on the ribbon cable is con-


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nected to Pin 1 at both ends and that it’s snug. Also check to make sure the master/slave jumpers are set correctly for all devices on that cable. Two masters or two slaves on the same cable won’t cut it, nor will a drive with a separate single setting configured as a master when there is no slave drive. Refer back to this afternoon’s session for more help with IDE configuration, if necessary. If it is any other type of drive besides IDE, it’s normal for the motherboard’s BIOS not to see it. Check in Windows, My Computer to verify the drive’s presence.

There Is No CD-R or CD-RW Capability Windows will probably detect a CD-RW drive automatically, but except for Windows XP, the operating system does not have any CD-writing software included in it. Therefore, if you want to burn CDs, you must install a thirdparty program. Almost all CD-RW drives come with a suite of programs you can use. The most popular CD-R creator is Roxio Easy CD Creator; another popular alternative is Nero Burning ROM. Nearly all drives come with a standard version of one or the other. For CD-RW, you must install UDF (Universal Disk Format) support in Windows. Some versions of Windows have this automatically; for others you must install a program, such as Roxio’s DirectCD, to handle it. Without UDF support, you will not be able to drag-and-drop files to a CD-RW disc nor read files from a CD-RW disc recorded on this or another computer.

The DVD Drive Won’t Play DVD Movies As I mentioned earlier this evening, a DVD drive will read DVD data discs, but if you want to play movies you need an MPEG decoder in your PC that is hooked up to your DVD drive. An MPEG decoder is usually hardware-based (either built into your video card or a separate add-on board). You also need a DVD movie player application. Some versions of Media Player in Windows will play DVDs, and most DVD drives come with DVD movie player software as well. Be aware, however, that if you upgrade to a new version of Windows, you will probably need to download an upgrade of your DVD player software for it to continue to work.

The Drive Can’t Read from a Blank Disk Depending on the drive, you might need to format a blank disk before it is readable. CD-RW discs that you plan to use for drag-and-drop storage, for example,

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must be formatted. ZIP and LS-120 disks must also be formatted before use. Format them the same way you would a floppy—right-click on the drive icon and choose Format.

The Disc Won’t Eject If a CD drive is not getting power or is having some other physical problem, it might not eject when you press the Eject button on the front. The manual eject on a drive is the little hole near the Eject button. Stick a straightened-out paperclip into it and push, and the tray should pop out an inch or so—enough to grab it and pull it the rest of the way open (see Figure 6.7). Drives might not eject for reasons other than physical problems. If Windows is locked up or if the drive is being used by an application such as DirectCD, it won’t eject when you press the button. You must reboot Windows in the case of a lockup or issue an Eject command through the software you are using.

Figure 6.7 Manually eject a CD by sticking a pointed object into the manual eject hole.

Moving On In this chapter, you learned how to select and install removable disk drives, such as CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, and so on. Now you can add new drives to your PC to give you a wide range of storage options. The next chapter is a short, optional Night Owl session on replacing a power supply; you can skip it and get a good night’s sleep unless you need to do that. (If you’re in doubt, you probably don’t!)

NIGHT

OWL

2

Upgrading the Power Supply ➤ Power Supply Basics ➤ Evaluating Power Supply Wattage Needs ➤ Recognizing the Symptoms of a Faulty Power Supply ➤ Testing a Power Supply ➤ Replacing a Power Supply

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ower supply problems can cause all kinds of frustrating, tough-totroubleshoot errors. The hardest part is figuring out if your power supply is the cause for the errors. Once you’ve got that nailed, pulling out the old one and installing a new one is fairly simple. In this bonus Night Owl session, you’ll learn how the power supply works, how to tell if it isn’t working correctly, and how to put in a new one.

P

A Crash Course in Electrical Measurement Never dealt with electricity before? No problem. Here’s what you need to know for this session. Voltage is the strength of the electrical charge—that is, the difference between the positive and the negative charges. The stronger the voltage, the greater the attraction between the charges. Ordinary household AC current is 110 volts (V), and that’s what comes into the power supply. The power supply steps down that current to much lower levels (in the 3V to 12V range) and sends it out to the sensitive electronic components plugged into it, such as the motherboard and the drives. Amperage is the amount of power being drawn. Each component draws a certain number of amps of electricity. For example, a CD-ROM drive might draw 1 amp of +5V power and 1 amp of +12V power. The four-wire power supply connector plugged into the drive provides two black wires (for grounding), one red wire (for +5V power), and one yellow wire (for +12V power). Wattage is the total amount of electricity being used. It’s determined by multiplying voltage by amperage. For example, the aforementioned CD-ROM drive would use 17 amps (1×5 plus 1×12). The power supply has a maximum wattage and as long as the overall usage stays under that wattage, the power supply will usually not suffer from overloading problems. I’ll show you how to calculate the needed wattage for a system later in this session. The power from a wall outlet is AC (alternating current), which means the polarization between the positive and negative of the two prongs/holes changes many

NIGHT OWL 2 Upgrading the Power Supply

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times per second. The components in the PC require DC (direct current), which does not alternate, so in addition to stepping down the voltage, the power supply also converts the AC power to DC.

Power Supply Basics The power supply is the big gray metal box inside the PC case with all the colorful wires coming out of it. It takes wall current (120V, 60Hz AC) and converts it to an appropriate level of DC voltage for the various components in a PC. Figure 7.1 shows a power supply removed from a PC. Have you ever wondered why the plug from the power supply to the motherboard has so many different pins and wires of different colors? It’s to provide different voltages of power signal to the motherboard, which then parses them out as needed to connected devices. Depending on the component, the voltage can be +3.3V, +5V, or +12V. Generally speaking, the motherboard and any circuit cards use +3.3V or +5V, and fans and disk drives use +12V. Newer motherboards and processors tend toward +3.3V, whereas older ones are usually +5V. Many power supplies also generate -5V and -12V, but those negative voltages are rarely used (if at all) in modern systems, and some of the newer power supplies do not even provide -5V support. Support for -5V is part of the ISA standard, but new systems are almost all PCI-only, so they do not require this. All of the other plugs coming out of the power supply — called Molex connectors — are for drives, and they provide +12V (yellow) and +5V (red) power, plus two ground wires (black). See Figure 7.2 for an example of a Molex connector.

Figure 7.1 A typical power supply

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Figure 7.2 A Molex connector provides power to a device from the power supply.

When you turn on a PC, the power supply starts up. It waits until any startup spike or sag has passed and the power output has stabilized, and then it sends +5V through pin 8 (on an ATX connector) or pin 1 on the P8 connector (on an LPX connector—more about ATX versus LPX shortly). This is called the Power_Good signal. The motherboard looks for this signal and if it finds that between +3.0V and +6.0V are passing through the Power_Good pin, it knows it’s okay to turn itself on and start making use of the rest of the power coming through the other pins on the power-supply-to-motherboard connector. If the motherboard is receiving power from the other pins but the right voltage is not coming through the Power_Good pin, it waits, continually resetting itself until it receives the correct voltage on Power_Good. This system helps prevent electrical damage to sensitive components from a malfunctioning power supply. The original designers of the PC thought this was a very conservative system that would ensure freedom from power supply problems, but as you will learn later, problems sometimes occur anyway. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

The power supplies in PCs do not run without a load—that is, without some device drawing power from them. If you turn on a power supply that is not connected to anything, it either won’t work at all (if it has protection circuitry built in) or it will fry itself out within a few seconds (if protection circuitry isn’t built in). Therefore, you should always have something connected to a power supply when you’re testing it, even if it’s an old broken-down motherboard and an obsolete drive. How much do you need to connect? It depends on the age of the power supply. On modern systems, most motherboards draw the needed amount of current by themselves, but on older systems or those with larger power supplies, you might need to connect at least one disk as well. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

Understanding Power Supply Form Factors Form factor refers to the style of power supply—in other words, the type of computer case for which it is designed. As you will learn in the Sunday Evening


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session, “A New Motherboard,” there are two main form factors for motherboards and cases—ATX and Baby AT. Each uses a different type of power supply. Today’s ATX systems use ATX power supplies, and modern Baby AT systems use LPX power supplies. Sometimes LPX power supplies are called AT, but that’s sort of misleading; there have been many different styles of AT power supplies over the years, and LPX is just one of those styles. (It happens to be the style that has become the most popular, though, to the virtual exclusion of all others.) ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

There have been many variations of each type of power supply over the years, so if you are working with an older, proprietary PC, you can’t assume that one of the standard store-bought replacement power supplies will work. Keep the receipt when you buy one in case you have to take it back. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

So how do you tell the power supplies apart? It’s fairly easy, actually. Look at the connector that attaches to the motherboard. If it’s in two pieces with six wires each, it’s an LPX. If it’s a single piece with 20 wires, it’s an ATX. Figures 7.3 and 7.4 show the difference.

Figure 7.3 An LPX power supply’s motherboard connector

Figure 7.4 An ATX power supply’s motherboard connector

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Evaluating Power Supply Wattage Needs A power supply has a maximum wattage that it can deliver. For example, you might see an ATX-style 235-watt power supply or an LPX-style 200-watt power supply. To avoid overloading the power supply, which can cause problems such as rebooting and system lockups, you must make sure you do not connect more components to the power supply than it can support. Figure 7.5 shows the label on a power supply, indicating its maximum wattage. In Figure 7.5, the power supply’s maximum is broken down into the following voltages. +5V—maximum of 25 amps (125 watts) +12V—maximum of 8 amps (96 watts) -5V—maximum of .5 amps (2.5 watts) -12V—maximum of .5 amps (2.5 watts) +3.3V—maximum of 14 amps (46.2 watts) +5VSB (standby)—maximum of 1 amp (5 watts) Sharp-thinking readers have probably figured out that when the watts are added up, they total 277.2. How can that be, when the power supply’s overall maximum is 235 watts? The issue is with the +5V and the +3.3V maximums. You cannot have both going full blast at once; the overall power consumption between the two cannot put the power supply over 235 watts of usage. Fortunately, this is very seldom an issue because a motherboard typically will draw a lot of either one or the other (depending on the type of CPU), but not both. Some power supplies specify a combined maximum for +5V and +3.3V on the label; the one in Figure 7.5 does not, so you must infer it. If your power supply doesn’t have this detailed of a breakdown on it, don’t worry too much; just keep in mind that if you load up the system with devices that use only a certain voltage, the power supply could become overloaded even if the overall maximum wattage is not exceeded.

Figure 7.5 A power supply’s label reports its maximum wattage.


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The next task is to figure out how much wattage each component is drawing. It isn’t always easy to get power consumption data for the various components in your system, but you can use the following rough numbers for a conservative calculation. These numbers represent the maximum for each component; the actual amount drawn will likely be less. ➤ Motherboard. 5 amps of +5V or +3.3V and .7 amps of +12V ➤ ISA circuit boards. 2 amps of +5V and .175V of +12V ➤ PCI circuit boards. 5 amps of +5V, 0.5 amps of +12V, and 7.6 amps of +3.3V ➤ CD-ROM drives. 1 amp of +5V and 1 amp of +12V ➤ 3 1⁄2" floppy drives. 0.5 amps of +5V and 1 amp of +12V ➤ 5 1⁄ 4" floppy drives. 1 amp of +5V and 2 amps of +12V ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

When a drive is spinning, it requires about twice the normal amount of +12V power, so when calculating the needed +12V amps, double the measurement. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

Figure 7.6 shows a typical label on a drive that tells how much wattage it requires. For example, in Figure 7.6 the hard drive takes 0.5 amps of +12V (6 watts) and 0.6 amps of +5V (3 watts), for a total of 9 watts. An extremely high-wattage power supply in a lightly loaded system is a waste because the system draws only what it needs in terms of amps. (That is not to say, however, that a high-quality power supply is a waste, because high-quality power supplies can provide cleaner and more reliable power to a system and can help reduce sags and spikes from the wall current.)

Wattage information Figure 7.6 Some components list their power consumption on the label.

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Recognizing the Symptoms of a Faulty Power Supply Now that you know how a power supply works, you need to know how to tell if it is working correctly. First you look for performance problems that could possibly be related to the power supply. A failing power supply can cause all sorts of problems that do not appear to be directly related, leading the less-experienced technician on a wild goose chase through memory, processor, motherboard, and hard disk errors. Suspect the power supply when you are troubleshooting an intermittent problem that seems to jump around—for example, a memory problem that reports a different memory address as faulty each time, or spontaneous rebooting after a random amount of time. There are three reasons why a power supply can cause a problem—physical failure, overloading, and overheating. A failing power supply is not generating its rated amount of power or it is providing the wrong voltages on some wires. The PC generally will not start at all if such a condition exists. If in doubt, see the next section, “Testing a Power Supply,” for help determining whether a power supply is working correctly. Replacing a faulty power supply is the best solution; repairing power supplies can be dangerous. On an overloaded power supply, there is not enough wattage to support all of the devices plugged into it. On a system with an overloaded power supply, problems will often occur at startup, when all the drives are spinning up, or when you are accessing a drive. See the preceding section to calculate how much wattage you need in the system, and then replace the power supply with a higher-wattage model if necessary. Overheating happens when the power supply fan (or the processor cooling fan) is not doing its job adequately or when the system case’s airflow is obstructed. If the system starts okay but then begins to have problems after several minutes of operation, inadequate cooling is almost always the problem. Make sure the airflow path is unobstructed, that the processor heat sink or cooling fan is in place and operational, and that the power supply fan is working quietly and correctly.

Testing a Power Supply If you suspect that the power supply is malfunctioning, you can verify it by testing its voltage output to the motherboard. This testing is optional. If you prefer, you can simply replace the power supply and see if that solves the problem. The


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testing requires a multimeter, which costs more than a new power supply, so unless you have a multimeter already this might not be worth your time and money. The multimeter has two probes—a red and a black. You touch the black probe to something grounded (such as one of the black wires) and the red probe to the wire you want to check. Figure 7.7 shows a multimeter.

NOTE

A digital multimeter has an LCD display. An analog multimeter has a needle that moves to give you the reading.The analog kind will work okay for some tasks on a PC (this voltage test being one of them), but it is unsuitable for some other types of tests on sensitive electronics, such as resistance testing.Therefore, if you are going to buy a multimeter, buy a digital one.

When testing the power supply, you must check it in-place; readings obtained while you are disconnected from a load will not be accurate. You can’t disconnect the connectors while the computer is running, of course, so you must use a technique called back probing to take your measurements. You stick the probes into the “back” of the connector, where the wires enter it, so you can test the wires’ voltages without preventing them from operating normally (see Figure 7.8). You can test every wire of the connectors from the power supply to the motherboard, but the most important one to test is the Power_Good wire. 1. Set your multimeter to Volts. 2. Remove the cover of the PC and locate the power supply connector to the motherboard. 3. Insert the black probe into the top of the connector where a black wire goes in.

Figure 7.7 A digital multimeter

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Figure 7.8 Back probing allows you to test the voltage without unplugging the device.

4. Insert the red probe into the top of the connector for the Power_Good wire. On an ATX it is the gray wire; on an LPX it is the first wire on the P8 connector (the farthest away from the black wires). 5. Turn on the PC and watch the multimeter’s readout. You should get a reading of between +3V and +6V. If you don’t, the power supply is not working correctly. 6. (Optional) If the Power_Good wire tests okay, test some of the other wires. You can also back probe the individual Molex connectors that attach to each drive, but it is much easier to simply try a different connector if a drive isn’t getting power. If a different connector works, you know that the one you used earlier is defective.

Shopping for a New Power Supply The primary factors to shop for are the form factor and the wattage. Do not skimp on wattage! If you are replacing a power supply because it is too underpowered for your current system, try to buy one that is at least 100 watts greater than the one you are replacing. If you are replacing a dead power supply or one that is causing performance problems, let the wattage requirements of your current configuration be your guide. Brand name does not matter with power supplies per se, but a very cheap generic power supply can potentially cause performance problems because it might not stay within the needed tolerances in its voltage output. It might fluctuate in the amount of power it delivers, and that fluctuation could cause malfunctions and/or damage to components.


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My general rule is if I am replacing a power supply in an old or cheap computer that I don’t care too much about, I’ll go with a cheap generic power supply. But if I’m putting a power supply into a new system I’m building or replacing the power supply in a “good” computer, I’ll spring for a brand-name model. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

The best-known name in PC power supplies is PC Power and Cooling; they sell top-notch power supplies and cases.Visit them on the Web at http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

There are specs that differentiate a cheap power supply from a more expensive one, but they’re difficult to use for actual shopping because the cheap power supplies will not typically report their specs in these areas. These specs include MTBF, input range, peak inrush current, holdup time, transient response, overvoltage protection, and maximum and minimum load current.

Replacing a Power Supply After this big build-up, you might be expecting power supply replacement to be difficult. It isn’t. To take out the old power supply, follow these steps. 1. Take the cover off the PC. 2. Disconnect the power supply connectors from the motherboard and all drives. 3. Supporting the power supply from behind so it doesn’t fall, remove the four screws that hold it in the case (see Figure 7.9). 4. If it’s an LPX power supply (AT-style case), there are leads that connect the power supply to the power switch on the case; remove them (see Figure 7.10).

Figure 7.9 Remove the old power supply.

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Figure 7.10 On an AT-style case, disconnect the power supply connectors from behind the power button.

◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

Make sure you remember which color of wire goes to each lead behind the power switch. Draw yourself a diagram if necessary. You’ll need to attach the leads for the new power supply the same way. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

5. Set the old power supply aside. Install the new power supply, securing it to the case with the screws you removed in Step 3. 6. Connect the new power supply to the drives and the motherboard. 7. If it’s an LPX power supply, connect the leads to the power switch in the case. 8. Make sure all of the connections are snug, and then replace the cover and boot the PC to try out the new power supply.

Moving On In this session, you learned about power supplies—what they do, how to evaluate them, and how to replace them. Even if your current power supply is fine, it’s useful to know this information for future reference. Go get some sleep now, because tomorrow morning you’ll start by upgrading your Internet connection.

S U N DAY

MORNING

Improving Internet Speed ➤ Methods of Connecting ➤ Selecting a Broadband Connection Method ➤ Installing a Modem ➤ Creating a Dial-Up Networking Connection ➤ Setting Up Internet Connection Sharing

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f you spend a lot of time on the Internet, you owe it to yourself to have a decent Internet connection. A few years ago, most of us were stuck with a dial-up modem for Internet access because higher-speed alternatives were either not available or were priced way out of our budgets. All that has changed lately, with the proliferation of cable Internet, DSL, satellite, and other broadband technologies. At this point, for most people the problem is no longer a lack of options, but a bewildering assortment of them—it seems like everybody and his brother wants to sell you broadband access. So, how do you make sense of all the choices? Read this chapter.

I

What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? Almost anything you do online will go faster and more smoothly with a broadband (high-speed) Internet connection. A few examples include ➤ Web surfing. Web pages will load faster, especially those with many graphics. ➤ Sending and receiving e-mail. Any time you send or receive e-mail with a large attachment, it will process faster with a high-speed connection. ➤ Online gaming. If you play games on the Internet that involve complex graphics or quick reaction play, you will be able to play without delays, slowdowns, or choppiness. ➤ Downloading files. Large file downloads, such as game patches and updates, shareware applications, and Windows updates, will occur much more quickly, which will result in less waiting and annoyance on your end. ➤ VPN (Virtual Private Networking) connections. If you connect to a corporate network via VPN, the connection will be much smoother and more reliable, especially if you run applications and open large files remotely.

SUNDAY MORNING Improving Internet Speed

NOTE

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The term broadband literally means just what it sounds like—a wide pathway between point A and point B. Just as a 10-lane highway can carry more cars per minute than a two-lane highway, a broadband connection can carry more data than a narrower-band connection.

Is Your Existing Hardware Enough? You probably have a good idea of whether you are content with your current Internet connection speed. If you are interested in assigning a numeric value to your connection experience, check out one of these Web sites that will test your connection speed. ➤ MSN Speed Test. http://tech.msn.com/internet/speedtest.asp ➤ Bandwidth Place Speed Test. http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest ➤ PC Pitstop. http://www.pcpitstop.com/internet/Bandwidth.asp ➤ CNET Bandwidth Meter. http://webservices.cnet.com/bandwidth ➤ TestMySpeed.com. http://www.testmyspeed.com ➤ Broadband Reports Speed Test. http://speedtest.dslreports.com

These tests all work basically the same way—they try to upload and download from your PC and then measure how quickly the activities finish. Figure 8.1 shows a typical test result.

How Internet Service Works The Internet itself is free. Anybody can hook up a computer to it, set up a mail server to send and receive e-mail, and apply for a block of IP addresses to use. There’s an awful lot of administrative hoops to jump through to do that, however, and you need special phone or cable lines and a variety of other rather expensive pieces of hardware. Consequently, most people find it much easier to pay a modest fee to an ISP (Internet Service Provider) who has already done all the legwork and tap into their existing connectivity. An IP address is a unique identifier number (four sets of up to three digits) such as 192.168.71.3. Every PC on the Internet must have its own IP address. ISPs buy up blocks of them and then parcel them out to their clients as needed. With a dial-up connection, you will be assigned a random IP address from the ISP’s pool each time you connect, and you’ll keep it until you disconnect. With an

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If you have a modem, your speed will be somewhere around this level.

Figure 8.1 The results of a connection speed test My speed

always-on connection, you keep the same IP address indefinitely. That’s why people with always-on connections need to be more aware of Internet security than people with dial-up. Because their IP address stays the same for longer periods of time, they are more vulnerable to hackers. An ISP provides you with permission to tap into their server, along with at least one e-mail address to use. You can then use their server as an on-ramp to the Internet at large. Many types of ISPs are available, offering different levels of service including online, dial-up, and broadband. Online services (such as AOL, the only remaining popular one) provide the interface software and permission to dial into their server with it. To use AOL, you need a modem and an AOL startup disk. You can use AOL with a broadband connection, but unless you sign up specifically for AOL broadband, you’ll end up paying twice—once to the ISP and once for the AOL service. Dial-up service providers give you permission to dial into their server and a phone number to call, but you use your own software for the connection.


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Windows has everything you need—a dialing program (Windows Dial-Up Networking), a Web browser (Internet Explorer), and an e-mail program (Outlook Express). You can use these programs or any other that you prefer. Broadband service providers usually provide not only permission to connect but also the necessary hardware and line. For example, if you sign up for cable Internet, the cable company brings a cable modem to your house, runs the appropriate lines, and hooks it all up for you. (Alternatively, they might sell you a self-install kit, but you are still using their equipment.) As with dial-up service, you can use the Web browser and e-mail programs built into Windows or any other programs you prefer.

Methods of Connecting The following sections briefly outline the choices you might have for Internet connectivity.

Dial-Up versus Full-Time Connection Windows does not make a distinction between the different types of connections you will learn about in the following sections; it sees the Internet world in much simpler terms. Windows sees all Internet connections as falling into one of two categories—those that involve a dial-up networking connection and those that are connected full-time. Connections involving dial-up networking must be established and terminated. You double-click on a dial-up networking icon, enter a user ID and password, and log on. When you are finished, you terminate the connection within Windows. A dial-up connection ties up the phone line while it is connected, so people who rely on dial-up often have a second phone line. Connections not involving dial-up are always on. You do not need to log in or supply a user name and password for the connection because Windows sees it as a network connection and validates you as a user based on the network settings for that connection.

Modem Modem is the old, slow way of connecting to the Internet. If you’re using a modem currently, you have my condolences! A modem’s speed is limited to 56 Kbps (realistically speaking, it’s almost always less than that—around 42 Kbps in most cases), and it requires a dial-up connection each time you want to use it (see Figure 8.2).

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Figure 8.2 How an Internet connection with a modem works

DSL DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) is a service of the local telephone company, so your local phone company must support it in order for it to be available. DSL is suitable for both businesses and residences. Two kinds of DSL are available—ADSL (asynchronous) and SDSL (synchronous). Asynchronous and synchronous refer to the speed difference when downloading versus uploading. ADSL is the most common type, and it allows faster downloads than uploads. SDSL is the more expensive, less common type, and it has the same speed for both uploading and downloading. The speed of DSL varies depending on the service type, but it can range from 256 Kbps to more than 2 Mbps, and is usually in the 1 Mbps range. Even though DSL service comes through your phone line, it is not a dial-up service and it does not tie up your phone line. It works using unused portions of the telephone line, so you can receive and place regular calls while it is running. Instead of a modem, DSL uses a terminal adapter (usually an external box) that connects to the PC and manages the connection. Windows then sees the connection as a LAN connection to the Internet. Monthly fees vary, but they are usually in the $40 to $50 range for basic ADSL residential service.

Cable Cable Internet service is usually available only in residential areas. Like DSL, it is a full-time connection that Windows sees as a LAN connection to the Internet. As you might expect, cable Internet comes from your cable TV provider, so it’s available only if your local cable TV company has upgraded your area to the digital cable lines required to carry the Internet signal. Because cable Internet service has nothing to do with the telephone, you do not need a telephone line for it.


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Unlike DSL, cable bandwidth is shared by others in your neighborhood, so you might experience slightly slower service during periods of high usage if many people in your area have cable Internet access. However, the problem is nowhere near as severe as the DSL companies would like you to believe. The speed of cable access varies between 512 Kbps and 2 Mbps, usually hovering around 1 Mbps, so it is more or less equivalent to DSL speed. As with DSL, prices vary; my local cable company offers service for $35 to cable TV subscribers, and the price is slightly higher for those who do not have cable TV.

One-Way Satellite One-way satellite has a dish that is similar to satellite TV service. The dish is just different enough that your ordinary satellite dish won’t work; you need one specifically designed for DirecPC use. However, the DirecPC dish will work with DirecTV television programming, so you can have a single dish for both as long as it is this special type of dish. One-way satellite service is less than ideal because it requires you to maintain a separate dial-up modem account in addition to the satellite. The satellite is oneway only; it broadcasts the data you want, but it doesn’t accept input from you. That’s where the modem comes in. Therefore, all of the drawbacks of a dial-up modem connection apply to a one-way satellite connection, including tying up a phone line, having to connect each time you want to use it, and poking along at only 56 Kbps. The only advantage that one-way satellite offers is superior download speeds—up to 512 Kbps. Figure 8.3 shows a diagram of how it works.

NOTE

Satellite Internet is separate from satellite TV; they don’t interfere with one another. You can use the Internet and watch TV at the same time.

Two-Way Satellite Two-way satellite uses the same technology as one-way satellite for downloading, but for uploading it has its own transmitter so you do not need to rely on a phone line. It’s served by the same company as the one-way service, but it goes under a different name—DirecWay. Adding the transmitter to the mix solves most of the problems with the one-way satellite. The connection is always on, and you don’t need a phone line for it. Upload and download speeds are reasonably good—between 100 Kbps and 512 Kbps. The drawbacks are the expense of buying the hardware (nearly $700 to

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ISO relays results of request to satellite

Figure 8.3 How Internet connection with a one-way satellite works

get started) and the rather hefty monthly fee for service ($70 as of this writing). Other minor annoyances: When it rains hard, you might temporarily lose your Internet connection, and you need a hardware modem (that is, not a Winmodem) to get the service set up initially.

ISDN In earlier years, before cable and DSL became popular, ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) was one of the few ways to get a faster Internet connection (about twice as fast as regular dial-up) without spending thousands of dollars. ISDN uses a telephone line, but not a normal one; it uses a special digital ISDN line, available from your local telephone company. There are restrictions on the distance an ISDN line can extend from a station. An ISDN phone line can be used for a telephone as well as for Internet access, and both can be used at the same time, but since it’s a special digital line the existing extension


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jacks in your home will not work with it. Therefore, the telephone is limited to the same room as the computer. The ISDN line is fairly expensive—usually $50 or more a month to your telephone company—and then you have ISP fees on top of that, ranging from $20 to $40 per month. ISDN does not give much bang for the buck. Traditionally, people who have adopted ISDN do so because of a lack of options, usually because they live in an area that does not offer cable or DSL. Such areas are becoming less common, and now that two-way satellite is an option, few people will find ISDN to be their best buy.

Summarizing the Options Confused? Don’t be. Table 8.1 lists all the connection options I’ve talked about so far, so you can compare them at a glance.

TABLE 8.1 INTERNET CONNECTION METHODS Method Modem

Phone Dial-Up Line? Networking?

Speed

Notes

Yes

Yes

56 Kbps

Economical; available almost everywhere. Slowest type of connection. Ties up phone line when connected.

ISDN

Yes (special digital line required)

Yes

64 Kbps to 200 Kbps

Special phone line is expensive; speed is not much better than a modem.

DSL

Yes

No

256 Kbps to 2 Mbps or more

Uses standard phone line, but does not tie it up while in use. Available in both commercial and residential areas.

Cable

No

No

512 Kbps to 2 Mbps

Uses cable TV line but does not interfere with cable TV use. Available in residential areas.

One-way satellite

Yes

Yes

56 Kbps upload; An add-on to modem service that 512 Kbps or enables faster downloads. more download

Two-way satellite

No

No

100 Kbps to 512 Kbps

Uses a special two-way satellite dish. Requires professional installation.

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What’s Available in Your Area? Before you get too excited about a technology, find out what’s available in your area. The following Web sites can provide a quick check. ➤ GetSpeed. http://www.getspeed.com ➤ MSN Broadband Qualification. https://bbrac.msn.com/nationwide/dsl/prequalify.asp ➤ DSL Service Providers and Availability. http://www.dsl-serviceproviders.net ➤ Broadband Availability. https://www.ibuybroadband.com ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

None of the listed sites are objective or comprehensive. In some cases they only list providers that have paid an advertising fee. Visit all four of them—and search for others too—to get a realistic picture. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

Even if a particular service appears to be available in your area based on the Web site, you should call to find out the specifics. These sites are based mostly on ZIP codes and/or phone numbers, and they aren’t 100% accurate. For example, a search at one of these sites tells me that cable Internet is available in my area, but I happen to know that the cable lines stop about one mile from my house.

Selecting a Broadband Connection Method Now that you know what options exist and what’s available in your area, the next step is to choose a provider.

How Broadband is Sold Different kinds of broadband Internet access are sold and distributed in different ways. It’s not essential that you know how the system works, but it’s helpful to understand how one brand differs from another when you’re trying to find the best deal. Cable Internet access is sold, branded, and distributed by your local cable company. You don’t have a choice of cable providers in most cases. If you want cable Internet, you are stuck with whatever company services your area. Your e-mail address will likely reflect your cable company’s name, such as @comcast.net or @cox.net. To find out about cable Internet, call your local cable company.


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Satellite Internet is distributed mainly through a single company — DirecPC. However, several conventional ISPs sell satellite access under their own names, such as AOL, Earthlink, and Pegasus. (Pegasus is also a satellite TV distributor for DirecTV.) They use DirecPC hardware, but your e-mail address is through the ISP. For example, I have Earthlink Satellite, and my e-mail address ends with @earthlink.net. There is no mention of DirecPC anywhere on my account or billing, even though I’m using DirecPC hardware to access the DirecPC satellite out in space. To find out what ISPs currently support satellite, visit http://www.direcpc.com. DSL Internet uses the phone lines provided by your local phone company, but your phone company is not your ISP. The phone company in your area makes a deal with one or more ISPs to provide DSL service, and those ISPs handle your account. A huge number of independent ISPs offer DSL service, including big players like MSN, but they don’t necessarily offer it in all areas. In small markets or rural areas, only a single DSL provider may be available. In major cities, there are likely to be many choices, all of which use the same telephone lines to provide service.

Price Cable and DSL prices are very similar, with cable perhaps having a slight edge. Many types of DSL service exist (ADSL versus SDSL, plus speed differences), so if a DSL price seems too high, inquire about what it includes. Both cable and DSL are priced based on unlimited usage because they are always on. Typically prices range from $35 to $75 a month. Equipment might be free, or you might have to rent or purchase it. One-way satellite is old technology now, so the hardware for it can be quite a bargain. However, two-way satellite is the wave of the future, so you probably don’t want to invest in the one-way stuff. At this writing, the two-way service costs $59.99 a month and you have to buy equipment (plan on spending about $600) and install it to get started.

Speed In terms of raw throughput for the bucks, cable is your best value. It routinely achieves more than 1 Mbps in actual use. DSL versions that are faster exist, but they aren’t as economical. The base-level (cheap) DSL service is slightly slower than cable. However, remember that cable Internet connections share bandwidth with neighbors so you could potentially experience slowdowns during

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peak usage, whereas with DSL you have your own private bandwidth. Satellite is slower than cable and DSL (although still faster than a modem).

Other Considerations As you are shopping for an Internet provider, keep these additional points in mind. ➤ Reliability. A company you have never heard of might be fine—or it might not. You don’t want to be stuck with an ISP whose service is down frequently or who has trouble getting e-mail distributed to you in a timely manner. Get recommendations from others who have used their service if you aren’t sure. ➤ Long-term commitments. Beware of a company that makes you sign up for more than one year. If their service is so great, why are they so afraid of losing your business? User agreements are not the only form of longterm commitment; buying two-way satellite equipment at more than $500 is a commitment too. Sure, you can cancel the service after one year, but having put all that money into equipment makes it more painful. ➤ Usage limits. Look for an ISP that offers unlimited usage. (This is an issue only with dial-up service.) You don’t want to be hit with additional per-hour charges if you use the Internet a lot. ➤ E-mail addresses. Some services give you multiple e-mail addresses for the base price so everyone in your family can have a separate address. Other services give only one. This is not a big deal, though, because anyone can get a free Web-based e-mail account at Hotmail or Yahoo. ➤ Web hosting. Some services give you a certain amount of space on their Web server for posting your own Web page. Some services have restrictions on this free usage, such as no commercial usage and not more than a certain amount of traffic or file size.

Selecting a Modem This chapter focuses mostly on non-modem forms of Internet connection, but assume for a moment that you are stuck with modem connectivity and you need to buy a new modem for some reason—perhaps yours has died, for example. Here’s a quick rundown of the shopping points for choosing a modem. ➤ Internal or external. An external modem is easier to set up (just plug it into a COM port on the back of the PC), but it takes up desk space and


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requires an AC outlet. An internal modem fits in an expansion slot in the motherboard. I’ll explain how to install and configure a modem later this morning. ➤ Hardware modem or Winmodem. A hardware modem works in any operating system; everything you need is in the modem itself. A Winmodem is a cheaper modem that offloads some of the modem functionality to Windows-based software. Winmodems can be more difficult to configure (although it’s easier in the newer versions of Windows), and in some rare cases they won’t do the same job as a hardware modem. (One of those rare cases is when you’re setting up two-way satellite service; for some reason this requires a hardware modem, although it’s a one-time thing and you can remove the modem afterward.) ➤ Brand. Personally, I am somewhat of a snob when it comes to modems; I only buy U.S. Robotics/3COM modems. They have never failed to work correctly right out of the box. On the other hand, I have struggled for hours with generic modems because their drivers didn’t work quite right with my Windows version. You can try the cheap one if you want, but to me it’s worth the extra $10 or so to buy a modem that I know will work. ➤ Standards and speed. The only speed sold today is 56 Kbps, and the only standard is V.90 or V.92 (which is basically the same thing either way). Therefore, standards and speed are not issues anymore. Several years ago, 33.6 Kbps modem speed was also available, and there were two competing standards for 56 Kbps operation: Kflex and X2. Both of those standards have been replaced by V.90. ➤ Bus type. If you buy an internal modem, make sure it is PCI rather than ISA. (That refers to the slot in which it fits in the motherboard.) If you buy an external modem, you can choose between a serial (COM) port connection and USB; USB is better but it requires a USB port and at least Windows 98. ➤ Additional features. All modems are fax modems, which means they also send and receive faxes if you install faxing software. (Faxing software usually comes with the modem.) Some modems are also voice modems, which means you can use them to run a telephone answering machine program on your computer instead of using a real answering machine. This sounds like a really cool feature, but in practice it has some drawbacks that make most people give up on it after a week or so—such as not working when the computer is off and forcing you to sit down at the computer to check your voicemail.

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Take a Break Ready to do some fast Web surfing? I was so excited when I got my first broadband connection that I dropped everything and got it set up ASAP. If you’re in the same state of mind, skip the break and go right on to installing! You might be forced into a break, however, if you have to place an order for service and then wait for an installer to show up. I had to wait an agonizing four weeks for an installer for my two-way satellite Internet. Some types of broadband are available in a self-install kit (such as cable, DSL, and one-way satellite), but professional installation should also be available. Two-way satellite requires professional installation (FCC rule) because of the broadcasting functionality.

Installing Broadband Connections This section is going to be fairly short and generic because most people get professional installation for broadband Internet and those who don’t use a selfinstall kit that comes with very specific instructions—much more specific than I can give here. Still, the following sections will give you a general idea of what to expect. All of the following sections assume that you have already signed up for the service, you have an account set up, and you have all the information you need (such as passwords, e-mail address, and the names of your incoming and outgoing mail servers).

Installing DSL Service A DSL modem is not really a modem; it’s a terminal adapter. It plugs into an AC outlet and a phone line connects to it. Remember that although DSL uses your regular phone line, it doesn’t monopolize it; DSL works on a different portion of the line, so regular phone calls can come and go freely. The terminal adapter connects to the computer in one of two ways. Either it has an Ethernet-type network cable running to a network interface card installed in the PC (category 5 UTP cable with an RJ-45 connector, which looks like a fat phone connector) or it connects to a USB port via USB cable. To install a DSL terminal adapter, follow these steps. 1. Shut down the computer.


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2. If you need to install a network card in the PC:

3. 4.

5.

6. 7. 8.

9.

a. Select an expansion slot and physically install the NIC. It’s a simple circuit board, just like the sound and video cards you learned about earlier in the book. b. Start the PC and make sure the network card works. Install any drivers for it if Windows does not detect it automatically with Plugand-Play. c. Look in the Device Manager to make sure the NIC is working. d. Shut down the computer again. Connect the terminal adapter to the computer using network cable or USB, whichever is appropriate. Connect your phone line to the terminal adapter in the Line port. There should be two phone jacks; make sure you get the Line one and not the Phone one. If you want to pass the phone line through to a telephone (for example, if you only have one phone jack in the room), connect the telephone to the Phone jack on the terminal adapter. Connect the terminal adapter to AC power and turn it on (if it has a separate power switch). Turn on the PC and let Windows start normally. If any setup software came with the terminal adapter, run the setup program. At this point, you should be able to access the Web through Internet Explorer. If you can’t, call the toll-free support number in the installation kit. See the “Setting Up an E-Mail Account” section later in the chapter to set up your e-mail.

Figure 8.4 shows a diagram of the connections for DSL service.

Installing Cable Internet Service A cable Internet installation is virtually identical to DSL installation except you don’t use the telephone line. Cable Internet uses an external terminal adapter like DSL does, and that terminal adapter then connects to the computer via network cable or USB. The main difference is that the Internet comes in on coaxial cable from your cable TV outlet. Many people who get cable Internet choose

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DSL terminal adapter (back) Phone input “Line” AC power

Phone output “Phone” (optional)

Network or USB connection to PC

Figure 8.4 Installing DSL service

a professional installation rather than trying it themselves because you have to install a splitter on your cable TV line and then run additional coaxial cable from the room the TV is in to the room the computer is in. This might involve going into an attic, basement, or crawlspace, and/or drilling holes in the walls. Here are the steps for installing cable Internet. 1. Shut down the computer. 2. If you need to install a network card in the PC: a. Select an expansion slot and physically install the NIC. It’s a simple circuit board, just like the sound and video cards you learned about earlier in the book. b. Start the PC and make sure the network card works. Install any drivers for it if Windows does not detect it automatically with Plugand-Play. c. Look in the Device Manager to make sure the NIC is working. d. Shut down the computer again. 3. Connect the terminal adapter to the computer using network cable or USB, whichever is appropriate.


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4. Run a coaxial cable from your TV to the computer’s location, installing a splitter to allow the signal to go both ways. If you are using a splitter that came with your self-install kit, it should have the appropriate filter for keeping the Internet and the TV separate; if not, contact the cable company to find out what kind of filter is required. 5. Connect the cable to the terminal adapter. 6. Connect the terminal adapter to AC power and turn it on (if it has a separate power switch). 7. Turn on the PC and let Windows start normally. 8. If any setup software came with the terminal adapter, run the setup program. At this point, you should be able to access the Web through Internet Explorer. If you can’t, call the toll-free support number in the installation kit. 9. See the “Setting Up an E-Mail Account” section later in the chapter to set up your e-mail. Figure 8.5 shows a diagram for the connections involved in cable Internet service.

Splitter/filter

Cable

Cable terminal adapter (back)

AC power

Figure 8.5 Installing cable Internet service

USB or network connection to PC

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Routing Cable or DSL to Multiple PCs Both cable and DSL Internet are not PC-specific; they simply provide a networklike connection to the Internet that any PC attached can use. Therefore, you can use a network router to set up a simple network through which all of the computers in your home or office can share the cable or DSL service. If you already have a peer-to-peer network connecting your computers, just replace the hub with a router and then connect the cable or DSL terminal adapter to the router instead of to an individual PC. (The router should come with instructions for sharing an Internet connection that are more specific than I can be here.) If you don’t already have a network, you will need a router (which will also serve as a hub) and an NIC for each PC. Because you have to buy equipment anyway, I strongly suggest using a wireless router. That way, you can connect PCs in other rooms to the Internet without running network cables. The computer that sits near the router can connect to it with a regular Ethernet network cable and can have a regular (inexpensive) NIC.

Installing Satellite Internet Service Satellite Internet service is tied to the individual computer and works with a driver and settings you install there. Therefore, you can’t share it with other networked PCs using a router. (However, if you have Windows 98 Second Edition or higher, you can use Internet Connection Sharing to share satellite Internet services from the primary PC, which accomplishes basically the same effect except that the primary PC must always be on for the Internet connection to be accessible from other PCs.) Two-way satellite Internet must be professionally installed, but the installer is concerned mainly with getting the cables run and the dish pointed. Some installers also install the software on your PC; others simply leave you with the hardware ready to go and you must run the setup program yourself. The hardware involved in two-way satellite consists of two separate terminal adapters—one for transmitting and one for receiving. The Receive unit is the dominant one; the AC power and the USB cable that run to the PC both attach to it. The Transmit unit attaches to the Receive unit and draws its power and connectivity from the unit. Each unit has a separate coaxial cable that runs from it to the satellite dish. If you also have satellite television, that cable is yet another separate cable off the satellite dish. You cannot use a splitter to make the same cable work for both Internet and television. Figure 8.6 shows a diagram of the connectivity.


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Satellite dish

USB to PC

AC power Satellite terminal adapters

Figure 8.6 Installing two-way satellite service

◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

If a professional installer has left the software portion for you to complete the installation yourself, he has probably also left the Receive unit disconnected from your PC. Do not connect this until you are prompted to do so by the setup software; otherwise, Windows will immediately detect the unit and try to install a driver for it.The Setup software needs to install its own version of the driver. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

As part of the software setup, the installation program must use your modem to dial into the DirecWay server and collect information about your account. Therefore, you must have a modem in order to set up satellite Internet service. (So don’t get rid of your modem just yet!) Further, it must be a hardware modem, at least according to the documentation. I won’t say much more about satellite setup because your professional installer will be able to answer any specific questions you have about it, and because the setup software will probably have changed by the time you read this; DirecWay updates it regularly.

Installing a Modem Even people with broadband Internet access sometimes keep their modems. It can be handy to have a modem installed and a dial-up networking connection configured to use as a backup.

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The rest of this chapter deals with modems—installing them, configuring them, and setting up Windows so they can dial into ISPs. Broadband connections are fairly foolproof once you get them running, so if you have a broadband connection you probably don’t need any more help at this point. On the other hand, modems can be temperamental and quirky, so those who are stuck with a modem need all the help they can get!

Installing an Internal Modem If you already have an old modem (which probably doesn’t work, since you are installing a new one!), remove it as you would any circuit board. This should be familiar stuff for you by this point because you’ve done the same thing with video cards and sound cards already. If you don’t have an old modem to replace, start at Step 5. 1. Make sure the PC is turned off. Remove the PC cover if it is not off already. 2. Locate the old modem and disconnect any phone cables from it. 3. Remove the screw holding the old modem’s backplate to the back of the PC. Set it aside for later use. 4. Pull the modem out of the expansion slot, touching it only by the edges and the metal backplate. Sometimes a seesawing motion from front to back can help loosen a tight fit. If the modem is still operational, set it aside carefully. You can store it in the plastic bag that the new modem comes in after you have installed the new one. 5. Remove the backplate from behind the slot where you will install the new modem. If you removed an old modem from the same slot, the backplate is already off. 6. Remove the new modem from its protective plastic bag. 7. Insert the new modem firmly into the expansion slot by pressing only on the top edge and the metal backplate. 8. Secure the new modem’s backplate to the back of the computer with a screw. (You should have a screw left from removing the backplate and/or the old modem.) 9. Put the cover back on the PC and close it up with any screws you removed from it. Now skip to the “Setting Up a Modem in Windows” section to complete the software portion of the installation.


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Installing an External Modem An external modem is very simple to hook up because you don’t even have to take the cover off the PC. Just follow these steps. 1. Make sure the PC is turned off. 2. Unpack the modem and connect it to the PC. It will either connect to a USB port or a serial port, depending on the model. 3. Connect the AC power to the modem. At least one light on it should illuminate. That’s it! See, I told you it was simple. Now go on to the next section, in which you set up the modem in Windows.

Setting Up a Modem in Windows When you start your PC after installing a modem, Windows might detect the modem automatically. That’s the ideal situation; it saves a lot of hassle! (Incidentally, that’s why I always buy U.S. Robotics modems. Windows is extremely good at auto-detecting them, much better than with many other brands.) Here are some things that might happen when Windows starts. ➤ A message might appear, saying that Windows has detected your new hardware and has installed a driver for it. This message will go away, and the modem will be installed automatically. When you look in the Device Manager, it will be there in the Modems category. Success! Move on to the “Testing a Modem” section. ➤ A message might appear, saying that Windows has detected the new hardware and prompting you for a driver for it. You can insert the CD or floppy that came with the modem and try to get the Wizard to read the driver off that disk, or you can click on Cancel and then run the Setup program that came with the modem. ➤ You might see nothing at startup, but when you look in the Device Manager, you might see the modem listed in the Other Devices category. To fix this, run the Setup program that came with the modem. ➤ You might see nothing at startup, and in Device Manager there might be an exclamation point next to the modem. This indicates a resource conflict—the modem wants to use an IRQ or other resource claimed by another device. See the “Resolving Resource Conflicts with Modems” section later in the chapter.

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➤ You might see nothing at startup, and in the Device Manager there might be no evidence of the modem at all. If it’s an internal modem, this usually indicates a problem with its physical installation. Either it is not firmly seated in its slot or it is physically defective. If it’s an external modem, the COM port to which it is attached is probably disabled in the BIOS Setup. See the “Enabling and Disabling COM Ports in the BIOS” section later in this chapter. If it’s an external modem connected via USB, check in the Device Manager to make sure the USB root hub is active. If it is, the problem is either the modem itself or the cable you are using to connect it. Just in case you’ve forgotten how to interact with Device Manager:

1. Right-click on My Computer and choose Properties. 2. In Windows 95/98/Me, click on the Device Manager tab. Or in Windows 2000/XP, click on the Hardware tab and then click on the Device Manager button. 3. Click on the plus sign next to Modems. If your modem appears there, and there are no special symbols next to it, such as an exclamation point, it’s installed properly. Double-click on it to see its properties; in the Device Status area it should say, “This Device is Working Properly,” as shown in Figure 8.7.

Figure 8.7 Checking the modem in the Device Manager


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Testing a Modem If the modem appears in the Device Manager, as in Figure 8.7, run a test on it to make sure all systems are go. Different versions of Windows have different methods of accessing this test. In Windows XP or Windows 2000, follow these steps. 1. From the Device Manager, double-click on the modem to display its Properties dialog box. 2. Click on the Diagnostics tab, and then click on Query Modem. A box will appear, telling you it is querying the modem. 3. Check the query results. If at least one of the lines in the test comes back reporting Success or OK, as in Figure 8.8, the modem is working. If the message “Couldn’t Open Port” appears, it means the modem is not set up correctly or is physically defective. In Windows 95/98/Me: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Figure 8.8 Query the modem to make sure it is functioning.

In the Control Panel, double-click on Modems. Click on the Diagnostics tab. Click on the modem on the list of COM ports. Click on the More Info button. The test results will appear momentarily.

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Resolving Resource Conflicts with Modems If an exclamation point appears next to the modem in the Device Manager, check for resource conflicts. This is much more common in earlier Windows versions (95 or 98) than in later ones. To check for resource conflicts, follow these steps. 1. Click on the modem and then click on Properties. A Properties dialog box will appear for the modem. 2. Check the Conflicting Device list. If a conflict is listed, note whether it is an Input/Output Range conflict or an IRQ conflict. 3. Clear the Use Automatic Settings check box. 4. Open the Settings Based On drop-down menu and choose a new configuration. Keep trying until you find one that reports No Conflicts in the Conflicting Device List. 5. Click on OK to close the dialog box. 6. Try testing the modem again, as in the preceding section. In rare cases, all of the configurations on the list have a conflict. If you face this situation, you can try changing the IRQ (Interrupt Request) and Input/Output Range separately. Keep choosing configurations from the Settings Based On list until you find a configuration with only one conflict. Make a note of what it is (IRQ or I/O Range), and then click on the matching line in the Resource Settings list. Next, click on Change Setting. One of two things might happen: You might see a message that the setting cannot be modified or you might see a box containing alternate settings. If you see the latter, try a different setting. Repeat this until you find a setting that produces no conflicts. Another possibility is to disable one of the built-in COM ports to free up its resources, which is described in the following section.

Enabling and Disabling COM Ports in the BIOS One of the problems with internal modems is that they need a COM port assigned to them. By default, the odd-numbered COM ports use IRQ4 and the even-numbered ones use COM3. Because you already have built-in COM ports 1 and 2, a conflict can occur with the IRQs when the modem tries to assign the same IRQ to itself when it claims COM3 or higher for itself. This happens more in earlier versions of Windows; the latest versions of Windows use Plug-andPlay more effectively and avoid this problem.


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One way to get around the conflict is to disable one or both of your internal COM ports if you are not using them. First check the back of the computer to locate a COM port with nothing plugged into it. A COM port is a 9-pin or 25pin male connector on the PC. Do not confuse it with the 25-pin female connector, which is the parallel printer port. Note the number next to the free COM port—1 or 2. If there is only one COM port, it is COM1. Next, enter the BIOS Setup and find the COM port; then change its setting to Disabled. (Refer back to the Friday Afternoon session for a review of the BIOS Setup, if necessary.) The reverse can be done here as well. If you are connecting an external modem to a COM port and it won’t work, perhaps someone has disabled that COM port. Change its setting from Disabled to Enabled or something similar; the exact wording of the settings depends on the BIOS version. After you make your changes in the BIOS Setup, exit and save your changes (usually the F10 key does this; refer back to Friday Afternoon’s session for help).

Creating a Dial-Up Networking Connection Dial-up networking is a Windows feature that enables you to use a modem to establish a TCP/IP connection with another computer—which is exactly what’s required if you need to connect to an ISP. You create individual dial-up networking connections, each one with a phone number to dial and a set of configuration settings for that connection. That way you can use the individual connection to connect to different ISPs on the same computer, if you want.

Running a Wizard to Create a Dial-Up Networking Connection All versions of Windows include a wizard that walks you through the process of creating a connection, but the name and location of the wizard varies depending on the Windows version. In Windows XP: 1. Choose Start, All Programs, Accessories, Communication, New Connection Wizard. The New Connection Wizard will start. Click on Next. 2. Choose Connect to the Internet and click on Next. 3. Click on Set Up My Connection Manually and then click on Next. 4. Click on Connect Using a Dial-Up Modem and then click on Next.

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5. Type the ISP name. This is the text that will appear under the icon; it is for your benefit. Click on Next. 6. Type the phone number to dial, including any extra digits such as 1, and then click on Next. 7. Type your user name and password. Retype the password in the Confirm Password box to make sure you typed it correctly (see Figure 8.9). 8. Leave all three check boxes marked (as in Figure 8.9) and click on Next. 9. (Optional) Select the Add a Shortcut to This Connection to My Desktop check box. Click on Finish. In Windows 2000: 1. Choose Start, Settings, Network and Dial-Up Connections, and then double-click on the Make New Connection button. The Network Connection Wizard will run. 2. Select Dial-Up to the Internet and click on Next. The Internet Connection Wizard will open. 3. Choose I Want to Set Up My Internet Connection Manually and click on Next. 4. Click on I Connect through a Phone Line and Modem and then click on Next. 5. Enter the telephone number. Clear the Use Area Code and Dialing Rules check box if it’s a local number (see Figure 8.10). If you have any special settings required for your ISP, click on Advanced and enter them; otherwise, click on Next.

Figure 8.9 Creating a dial-up networking connection in Windows XP


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Figure 8.10 Setting up a dial-up networking connection in Windows 2000

6. Enter the user name and password given to you by your ISP, and then click on Next. 7. Enter a connection name. This will be the text that appears under the icon; it’s for your benefit. Then click on Next. 8. At the prompt to set up a mail account now, click on No if you want to follow along with doing this later in the chapter or click on Yes and try it on your own now. 9. Click on Finish (assuming you chose No in Step 8; otherwise you’re on your own). In Windows Me: 1. Choose Start, Settings, Dial-Up Networking, and then double-click on Make New Connection. The Make New Connection Wizard will run. 2. Type a connection name. This will be the text that appears under the icon; it’s for your benefit. 3. Select the modem to use and then click on Next. 4. Enter the phone number and then click on Next. 5. Click on Finish. In Windows 95 and 98: 1. Double-click on the My Computer icon, and then double-click on DialUp Networking. (If it doesn’t appear, see the next section.)

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2. If there are no connections already, the Make New Connection Wizard will run. If there are connections already, a window will appear that contains icons for them; double-click on Make New Connection. 3. Follow Steps 2 through 5 of the Windows Me procedure.

Installing Dial-Up Networking Dial-up networking (the feature as a whole) might not be installed by default in Windows 95 or 98. If it’s not installed, it won’t appear in the My Computer window. Here’s how to install it. 1. In the Control Panel, double-click on Add/Remove Programs and then click on the Windows Setup tab. 2. Double-click on Communications and click to place a check mark next to Dial-Up Networking. Click on OK. If you are prompted to insert the Windows 95 disk, do so and click on OK. 3. If you see a message about providing computer and workgroup names, do so in the box provided. It doesn’t matter what names you use if you are not planning to have this computer be on a LAN. Click on OK. 4. A confirmation will appear; click on OK to close it and then restart Windows. When you restart, you might be prompted for a user name and password. Skip the password unless you want to see this prompt every time you start the PC.

Setting Up Internet Connection Sharing Many people are interested in sharing the Internet connection of one PC with other PCs in their home or small-office network. With Windows 98 Second Edition and higher, this is not only possible, but also fairly simple. Broadband connections naturally lend themselves to sharing, but you can share a regular dial-up modem connection too.

NOTE

The PC with the connection to be shared must have Windows 98 Second Edition or higher, but the other PCs—the ones that will use the shared connection—can be running any version of Windows.

To use ICS (Internet Connection Sharing), your PCs must be networked already. This book doesn’t cover networking specifically, but I’ll touch on it briefly: You


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just install NICs in each PC and then hook each of them up to a network hub. Most versions of Windows automatically configure the network for you. ICS must be installed manually in Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows Me; it is pre-installed on Windows 2000 and XP, and you configure it when you set up your Internet connection.

Installing ICS in Windows 98 Second Edition ICS is not installed by default in Windows 98 SE, so you must add it using Add/Remove Programs. You install ICS on the PC containing the Internet connection to be shared. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10.

From the Control Panel, double-click on Add/Remove Programs. Click on the Windows Setup tab, and then double-click on Internet Tools. Place a check mark next to Internet Connection Sharing. Click on OK until you have closed all open dialog boxes. If prompted, insert the Windows CD and click on OK. When the Internet Connection Sharing Wizard appears, click on Next to start it. If you see a list of adapters, select the adapter for the shared connection. For a modem, it’s Dial-Up Adapter. If you are asked what type of connection you have (dial-up or highspeed), click on the appropriate button and click on Next. If you are prompted, select the connection from the list provided. You won’t see this prompt unless you have chosen high-speed and the Wizard can’t determine which connection is for Internet. Click on Next. When you see a message that the Wizard will create a client configuration disk, click on Next. When prompted, place a blank disk in your floppy drive and click on OK. When prompted, remove the disk from the drive and click on OK. Then click on Finish. When you are prompted to restart, click on Yes.

You can use this disk to configure PCs running other versions of Windows to use the shared connection. To run the disk on one of those PCs, pop it in the floppy drive, display the drive content in My Computer, and double-click on the Icslet icon. Then just follow the prompts. The setup disk won’t work with Windows NT/2000/XP PCs, but these should work automatically with the shared connection without any special setup. If the

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Internet connection does not work automatically, run the Internet Connection Wizard and instruct Internet Explorer to connect through a LAN.

Installing ICS in Windows Me As with Windows 98 Second Edition, ICS is not installed by default in Windows Me. The Windows Me version is more sophisticated, and its setup process asks a few more questions than the 98 version. 1. From the Control Panel, double-click on Add/Remove Programs. 2. Click on the Windows Setup tab, and then double-click on Communications. 3. Place a check mark next to Internet Connection Sharing. 4. Click on OK until you have closed all open dialog boxes. If prompted, insert the Windows CD and click on OK. 5. When the Home Networking Wizard starts, click on Next to begin. 6. Choose Yes, This Computer Uses the Following, and then choose A Direct Connection to My ISP Using the Following Device. 7. Open the drop-down menu and choose your Internet connection. It is a dial-up networking connection if you use a modem; it’s a network card or USB device if you have an always-on connection. Then click on Next. 8. When you are asked whether you want to share your connection, click on Yes. Then open the drop-down menu and select the network card to use for sharing. (This is the network card for your local network.) Then click on Next. 9. You are then prompted to create a setup disk. If you have PCs on the network that do not use Windows Me or higher, choose Yes; otherwise, choose No and skip to Step 11. 10. When prompted, place a blank disk in your floppy drive and click on OK. When prompted, remove it and click on OK again. 11. Click on Finish. When you are prompted to restart your computer, click on Yes. 12. After your computer restarts, a box will appear, announcing that Home Networking has been set up. Click on OK. You can use the setup disk to set up the PCs that will share the connection; just insert the floppy and run the Setup utility on the disk. As with Windows 98, the setup disk won’t work with Windows NT/2000/XP PCs, but these should work automatically with the shared connection without any special setup.


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Sharing an Internet Connection in Windows 2000 To share an existing Internet connection in Windows 2000, follow these steps. 1. Choose Start, Settings, Network and Dial-Up Connections. 2. Right-click on the connection to share and choose Properties. 3. Click on the Sharing tab and then select the Enable Internet Connection Sharing for This Connection check box. 4. Click on OK.

Sharing an Internet Connection in Windows XP When you create an Internet connection in Windows XP, the Wizard might ask you if you want to share the connection. If you indicate that you do, it might already be set up for you. If not, or if you are not sure, follow these steps. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Choose Start, Connect To, Show All Connections. Right-click on the connection you want to share and choose Properties. Click on the Advanced tab. In the Internet Connection Sharing section, select the Allow Other Network Users to Connect through This Computer’s Internet Connection check box. 5. Click on OK.

Setting Up an E-Mail Account Some versions of Windows ask you if you want to set up an e-mail account when you configure your Internet connection. If you did that, you don’t need to do it now. The first time you start an e-mail program such as Outlook or Outlook Express, the program offers to help you set up an e-mail account if you do not have at least one account set up already. That’s usually your best bet. For example, here are the steps for setting up an e-mail account in Outlook Express 6, which comes with Windows XP. 1. Choose Start, (All) Programs, Outlook Express. If a wizard runs, click on Cancel. 2. Choose Tools, Accounts. The Internet Accounts dialog box will open.

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3. Click on the Add button, and a menu will appear. Click on Mail. The Internet Connection Wizard will run. 4. Enter your name as you want it to be displayed in other people’s mailboxes when you send them mail. Then click on Next. 5. Enter your e-mail address, and then click Next. 6. Leave the My Incoming Mail Server option set to POP3 if you don’t know differently. Most e-mail accounts are POP3. Your other choices are IMAP and HTML (see Figure 8.11). 7. Type the incoming and outgoing mail server addresses in the boxes provided. Your ISP should give you this information; call them if they didn’t provide it. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

Sometimes you can guess the mail server name.Take whatever’s after the @ sign in your e-mail address, put a period in front of it, and then add either pop or mail to the front for incoming servers, and either smtp or mail to the front for outgoing mail servers. For example, if my e-mail address is [email protected], my incoming mail server might be pop.sycamoreknoll.com. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

8. Enter your account name and password. This is your name for that server, not your complete e-mail address. For example, if your e-mail address is [email protected], your account name would usually be joe. Check with your ISP if you are not sure. Click on Next.

Figure 8.11 Configuring an e-mail account for Outlook Express


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9. Click on Finish. Your e-mail account is now set up. Click on Close. 10. To test the sending and receiving mail function, click on the Send/Recv button.

Troubleshooting Internet Connection Problems One nice thing about having an Internet account with an ISP is that you can call their tech support department whenever something goes wrong. Don’t hesitate to do it! Their salaries are covered in the cost of your monthly service. Some problems are simple and you can fix them yourself, though. Here are a few of the most common ones and some ideas for solving them.

No Broadband Connection If you aren’t getting any Web or e-mail access, look at the lights on the front of your broadband Internet terminal adapter. If it has worked in the past, you likely know what the lights look like when everything is okay. If the lights don’t look like that now, the terminal adapter either is not getting a signal from the ISP or it needs to be reset. Usually solid lights mean okay and flashing lights mean problems, but it all depends on the model. To reset your terminal adapter, turn it off, wait 10 seconds, and turn it back on again. If there’s no on/off switch, unplug it. If that doesn’t work, shut down your computer, reset the terminal adapter, and then turn the computer back on again. Still no luck? Then the problem is probably the service itself, not your computer. Give tech support a call and ask.

Web Service but No E-Mail If the Web works but e-mail doesn’t, you probably don’t have your e-mail account set up correctly in your e-mail program. Check the settings. In Outlook Express, choose Tools, Options and click on the Mail tab. Double-click the account to see its settings. If you have not changed anything since the e-mail stopped working, the settings are probably okay; your ISP’s mail server is probably just temporarily down for maintenance. Wait an hour or so and try again, or call the ISP’s tech support to find out if there’s a problem.

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E-Mail Service but No Web This error is actually fairly uncommon; it happens only with broadband connections. Some broadband services configure your Web browser to use a proxy server to speed up access. A proxy server sits between the real Web and your computer, and if you happen to call for any pages that it has stored, it provides them more quickly than it could retrieve them from the Internet at large for you. If you can send and receive e-mail but you can’t get to the Web, the proxy server might be down or someone might have messed with your proxy server settings in your Web browser program. To check, open Internet Options (in Internet Explorer, choose Tools, Internet Options), click on the Connections tab, and click on the LAN Settings button. Try deselecting the Use a Proxy Server check box. Or, click on the Advanced button and check the proxy server address against the information your ISP gave you.

Dial-Up Won’t Connect or Won’t Stay Connected If your dial-up connection has worked in the past and you haven’t changed anything, the problem is likely your ISP, and there’s nothing you can do about it other than try again in an hour or so. You can call and complain if it will make you feel better. Here are some of the common problems. ➤ No dial tone error message. No phone line is connected to the modem, or the phone line is connected to the wrong port on the modem. There are two ports—Phone and Line. The incoming line must be connected to the Line port. ➤ Could not open port error message. The modem is not installed correctly, it’s having a conflict with some other device, or it’s already in use by some other application. Try rebooting and try again. If that doesn’t work, remove the modem from the Device Manager and allow Windows to redetect it. ➤ Brief modem connection sounds, a 15–30 second wait, and then a hangup with an error message. This could be the result of using the wrong password or user name, or of not having the TCP/IP protocol installed (an issue only in Windows 95). Check in the Network properties in the Control Panel and make sure TCP/IP is on the list. If it is not, click on Add and add it. (TCP/IP is a Microsoft protocol.)


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➤ Modem connection sounds for a long time (more than 20 seconds) and then a slow (28 Kbps or less) connection, or a hang-up without connecting. Occasionally this is the ISP’s intermittent problem, but it usually means your telephone line is staticky. Call your local phone company and ask them to test it. Replace the phone cable from the wall outlet to the modem if the line itself is okay.

Moving On I know you’re probably having a great time playing with your new high-speed Internet connection, but can you handle a little more reading? The next chapter covers the important subject of memory and CPU upgrades—two upgrades that can make a huge difference in your PC’s performance. So get some lunch and join me on the next page!


S U N DAY A F T E R N O O N

Memory and CPU ➤ Understanding RAM ➤ Selecting RAM for Your Motherboard ➤ Understanding CPUs ➤ Adding Memory ➤ Replacing a CPU

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he upgrades in previous chapters have mostly focused on adding new capabilities to your PC, but this chapter takes a different approach—it shows you how you can improve the speed at which your computer performs its existing activities. Memory and CPU upgrades can make a huge difference in the computer’s speed, and neither is difficult to install. The big trick with these upgrades is deciding which type to buy, a subject which this chapter covers in detail.

T

What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? The CPU (Central Processing Unit)—a.k.a. the processor—does all the math (and there’s a lot of math to be done!), so the overall speed of the PC is dependent upon it. A faster CPU will make whatever you do faster in general. Some of the activities that might improve include game playing, data crunching (anything involving number calculations), and graphics and video editing. RAM (Random Access Memory) is the workspace of the computer’s processing capabilities; the more RAM you have, the more workspace there is for loading and running programs. More RAM can sometimes increase a PC’s speed, but not in all cases. For a RAM upgrade to be useful, your system must be deficient in RAM to begin with. A computer uses only as much RAM as it needs to run the operating system (Windows) and applications. Anything above what’s needed does not do much.

Is Your Existing Hardware Enough? Most people don’t know what they’re missing when it comes to CPU speed until they sit down at a faster computer for a few minutes. Suddenly everything seems like it’s in the fast lane. Menus and windows open faster, programs load more quickly, games run more smoothly and quickly, and so on. Then when they go

SUNDAY AFTERNOON Memory and CPU

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back to their old, slower PC, it feels like it’s crawling through mud. The point is: CPU speed being “fast enough” is a subjective thing. Specific applications and Windows versions require a certain CPU speed (listed on the box), but above that minimum, the difference is qualitative. What about RAM? How much is enough? The answer here depends on a lot of different factors, including the Windows version you are running and the applications that you like to run simultaneously. There might also be higher than normal RAM requirements for specific applications, such as photo or video editing software or games. Generally speaking, 64 MB is the minimum a PC should have (if you have an older PC, you likely have less than that), 128 MB is a moderate amount, and 256 MB should be enough for almost any task. You might think that if a PC doesn’t have enough memory, it simply won’t perform certain tasks, right? In the olden days of MS-DOS that was true, but Windows has a feature called virtual memory that allows it to use part of the hard disk to simulate extra memory when needed, so a program can run even if you don’t have the needed RAM to support it. The only catch is that because hard disks are much slower than RAM, the program runs much more slowly than it normally would. That’s why adding more RAM can make a PC run faster— because it stops relying on virtual memory so heavily and it runs the program using real RAM. One way to gauge how much a PC is relying on virtual memory is to observe the hard drive as an application runs. Listen for hard disk activity and watch the disk light on the front of the PC flash on and off. A lot of hard disk activity as a program runs (except when opening or saving a file) indicates that data is being transferred in and out of RAM to virtual memory. This is called churning because the hard disk makes a sort of grinding sound as it reads and writes. When you observe a lot of churning, it’s a good indicator that having more RAM would be beneficial.

Do You Really Want to Do This Upgrade? I’m not trying to talk you out of upgrading your RAM or CPU, but I do want to warn you that there are some issues involved with these upgrades. You might find it is more cost-effective to buy a whole new PC, or you might realize that the parts you need are either not available or will not result in a substantial enough performance boost to justify the cost. I’ll confine my “gloom and doom” on these subjects to the following sections.

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Barriers to Upgrading RAM The main difficulty in upgrading RAM is determining the type of RAM that the motherboard requires. There are many types of RAM, as you’ll learn shortly, and a particular motherboard usually works with only one or two specific types. If you have a manual that came with your PC that contains this information, you’re halfway there! Finding the RAM you need might also be a problem if your computer is more than a few years old. Certain older types of RAM are no longer being made; however, you can probably find almost any type of RAM for sale on the Internet, especially on eBay. Another concern when adding RAM is whether there are any free RAM slots in your motherboard. If not, you must remove some of the existing RAM and replace it with a higher denomination. For example, suppose your PC currently has four RAM slots, each one filled with a 16-MB stick of RAM. That means you have a total of 64 MB. If you want to upgrade to 128 MB, you must remove two of the 16-MB sticks and replace them with 64-MB sticks. You could leave the remaining two 16-MB sticks in place for an extra 32 MB (a total of 160 MB), or remove them and sell them or use them in some other PC (if they are compatible). Notice a couple of things about this example. First, the RAM was handled in pairs, not in single sticks. On some PCs this is necessary; on others it is not. I’ll cover the rules for that later in the chapter. Second, the RAM comes in denominations that are multiples of the lower denomination only. For example, RAM comes in 16-, 32-, 64-, and 128-MB sticks, but not in any sizes in between.

NOTE

The term “stick” refers to a small rectangular circuit board (about 1" high and somewhere between 4–8" long) with multiple RAM chips mounted on it.The circuit board fits into a slot in the motherboard.

In older PCs (486s and early Pentiums), there might be complex rules for adding RAM spelled out in the motherboard manual. For example, if there are three RAM slots, and you want to put two sticks of RAM in, you might need to put them in certain slots, and they might need to be the same denomination— or the higher denomination might need to be in a certain slot. Rules like that are much less common in newer PCs, but unless you have a manual for the PC or the motherboard, you can’t know for sure. If you install some RAM and it doesn’t work, is it bad RAM? Or is it the wrong type? Or have you simply installed it wrong, violating one of the rules for the motherboard?


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In the end, sometimes the best you can do with RAM is make your best guess and then keep your fingers crossed when you boot the PC for the first time after the installation. If you aren’t sure you are buying the right stuff, buy it from a local vendor with a liberal return/exchange policy.

Barriers to Upgrading the CPU Even though a CPU upgrade will benefit your PC’s performance more than almost any other upgrade, it’s not a common upgrade to perform, and you will probably not end up performing one yourself. Why? Because of the motherboard. The motherboard is the large circuit board inside the PC that everything else plugs into—including the CPU. Just as CPU technology advances rapidly, so does motherboard technology, and the latest CPUs only work with the latest motherboards. Each motherboard has a short list of specific CPUs that will work with it, and those CPUs are all fairly similar to one another in speed and capabilities. Therefore, if you want to put a different CPU in the same motherboard, you’ll probably be limited to a new CPU that is only slightly faster than your old one. (And if your old CPU is at the high end of the speeds that the motherboard supports, no upgrade is even possible; you must swap out the whole motherboard, which will be discussed further in this evening’s session, “A New Motherboard.”) Another difficulty you might encounter is finding a new CPU to purchase. If your computer is more than a few years old, manufacturers are no longer making CPUs compatible with your motherboard, so you’ll need to find one used. (eBay is a good place to start looking.) One more potential problem is figuring out which CPUs your motherboard will accept. Most store-bought PCs do not include that information in their manuals. You might be able to get the information from the company’s Web site—if the company is still in business and if they provide the info. Most PC manufacturers do not want you to upgrade your PC; they want you to buy a new one. Therefore, they can be rather tight-lipped on the specs of the motherboards they use. Many PC manufacturers also use a variety of motherboards in the same model of PC, depending on whatever is cheap in the wholesale market at the moment, so knowing your PC’s model number might not be enough to identify its motherboard’s capabilities. These drawbacks combine to make it difficult and usually not cost-effective to upgrade a PC’s CPU. So what if you realize that your PC won’t accept a faster CPU, or at least not a dramatically faster one? Your choices are to be happy with what you’ve got, buy a whole new PC, or replace the motherboard, as discussed in this evening’s

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session. If you replace the motherboard, you will have to buy a new CPU and also probably new RAM, so keep reading this book to learn more about it before making a decision.

Understanding RAM When people hear “memory,” they generally think of Dynamic RAM (DRAM), the main memory of a PC that stores the operating system and applications as they are running. There are actually other types of memory too. Generically, the term “memory” can mean anything that stores data. You’ve got your own memory in your brain, for example. In computer terms, however, memory refers to a device (usually a microchip) that stores data in binary format. Computer memory can be broadly divided into two categories. ➤ ROM (Read-Only Memory). This is memory that cannot be changed. It is programmed at the factory with certain data, and that data remains there. This type of memory is commonly used for the BIOS chip on a motherboard. ➤ RAM (Random Access Memory). This is memory that can be changed. It is blank to begin with, and as the PC operates, it copies data into the RAM, using it as a holding tank for the CPU. This type of memory is used for almost everything except the BIOS chip. RAM can be further subdivided into two categories.

• SRAM (Static RAM). This is RAM that stores the data it is given until it receives other instructions. It does not need to be refreshed. It’s like a light switch—it stays in the position you put it in until you change it. This type of RAM could theoretically be used for the main RAM in a PC, but it’s very expensive so it typically is used only for CPU caches (discussed later in the chapter). • DRAM (Dynamic RAM). This is RAM that requires constant refreshing with electrical charges in order to retain its content. If DRAM stops receiving electricity, it reverts to its default state—blank. All of the other types of memory are interesting to know about, but when you upgrade the memory in your PC you are upgrading only the main DRAM on the motherboard. Therefore, the remainder of this chapter will focus only on DRAM. In the computer industry, the terms DRAM and RAM are used synonymously even though everyone privately knows that SRAM also exists, and this book continues that tradition. So whenever you see “RAM,” you can assume that I’m talking about DRAM.


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How RAM Stores Data One of the rules for adding memory to a particular motherboard is that the RAM has to be installed in identical pairs or even in groups of four. To understand this, you need to know a little about how RAM stores data. Each RAM chip (the little individual chips, not the whole stick) has a width and a depth, the same way that a spreadsheet has a certain number of rows and columns. For example, a RAM chip might be four columns wide by 1,024,000 rows deep (see Figure 9.1). Another RAM chip might be one column wide by 256,000 rows deep. At each of those intersections of row and column is a tiny capacitor that can be charged to hold a 1 or not charged to hold a 0.

NOTE

When referring to the depth of RAM chips, it is common to round the number off and use Kb for a thousand bits (kilobit) and Mb for a million bits (megabit). For example, 1,024,000 would be appreciated as 1 Mb.The small “b” means bits. Sometimes the “b” is dropped, as in 1 M. When an abbreviation uses a capital B, it means bytes (8 bits). For example, a hard disk’s capacity might be expressed in megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB).

On/off capacitor at each row/column intersection

Figure 9.1 Each RAM chip is like a tiny spreadsheet that stores binary data in its cells (1 or 0).

1,024,000 (1 megabit)

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Figure 9.2

16

16

16

16

Several RAM chips combine on a stick of RAM to define the stick’s overall bit width.

The width of the RAM chip is significant because the CPU must address the system RAM in units matching the width of the address bus on the motherboard. On the oldest PCs, that was 8 bits (1 byte); on modern PCs, it’s 64 bits. That means, for example, that a single RAM chip that’s 16 bits wide cannot interact with the CPU on a 64-bit address bus. It must be combined with enough other RAM chips to produce the needed width. For a 64-bit address bus, that would mean four 16-bit RAM chips (see Figure 9.2). Modern systems have 64-bit address buses and use 64-bit sticks of RAM, so each stick of RAM can function as its own bank. (A bank is a single or group of RAM slots that has the same bit width as the address bus.) However, in older PCs the address bus was wider than the widest available stick of RAM, so multiple RAM slots would work together to create a single bank. Reading the manual for the motherboard or the PC will usually tell you which RAM slots constitute each bank, but you can also guess for yourself by knowing what type of CPU is installed and looking at the RAM packaging, which is discussed next.

How RAM is Packaged Back in the earliest PCs, individual RAM chips were mounted directly to the motherboard. This system quickly became impractical, however, as the amount of RAM in a typical computer grew larger. This led to the development of the first stick-type of RAM—the single inline memory module (SIMM). A SIMM mounts several RAM chips on a small circuit board, so users installing or removing RAM do not need to handle the chips directly. The first SIMMs were 30-pin models, which meant they had 30 individual metal contacts running along the edge of the circuit board. Each 30-pin SIMM’s RAM chips added up to either 4 or 8 bits in total. On a 32-bit motherboard (which included 386 and 486 PCs), four SIMM slots comprised a single bank. Figure 9.3 shows a motherboard with two banks—one full of 30-pin SIMMs


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Bank

Figure 9.3 Four 30-pin 8-bit SIMMs make up a single 32-bit bank of RAM in a 386 or 486 PC.

Bank

and one empty. SIMMs in the same bank must be the same depth; different banks can have different depths. In the latter days of the 486, an improved type of SIMM with 72 pins was introduced. The 72-pin SIMM is about 1 inch longer than the 30-pin variety and has smaller, more closely spaced pins. Each 72-pin SIMM is 32-bit, so a single SIMM can act as its own bank in a 486 PC. Pentium PCs have a 64-bit address, so two 72-pin SIMMs are required per bank on a Pentium motherboard. The number of chips on a SIMM does not tell you anything about its capacity, and the chips on an individual SIMM are not necessarily all the same. Different SIMM manufacturers combine different RAM chips (all with the same depth, of course) on a single stick. Figure 9.4 shows four different 72-pin SIMMs, all of which are 32 bits in width. On later Pentium systems and everything produced after that, a new type of memory packaging became the norm—the dual inline memory module (DIMM). DIMMs are longer than 72-pin SIMMs and have 168 pins across the bottom. The “dual” in the name means it is double-sided; there are 84 pins on each side. DIMMs are 64-bit, so only one DIMM slot is required to make up a bank in a motherboard with a 64-bit address bus. That means that a system with only three DIMM slots can have three complete banks, which makes more memory depth expandability. (Remember, it’s the depth that determines the memory capacity.) Figure 9.2 showed a DIMM. Notice that there are a couple of offset notches in the bottom; this makes the DIMM “keyed” so it cannot be inserted the wrong way. Earlier I mentioned that you can tell how many RAM slots comprise a bank by looking at the type of RAM and knowing what type of CPU you have; Table 9.1 provides the data you need to do that.

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Figure 9.4 Different styles of 72-pin SIMMs, all with the same 32-bit width.

TABLE 9.1 NUMBER

OF

SIMMS

OR

DIMMS NEEDED

FOR A

BANK

RAM Packaging

486

Pentium and Higher

30-pin SIMM (8-bit)

32-bit address bus, 4 SIMMs per bank

Not used

72-pin SIMM (32-bit)

32-bit address bus, 1 SIMM per bank

64-bit address bus, 2 SIMMs per bank

168-pin DIMM (64-bit)

Not used

64-bit address bus, 1 DIMM per bank

There is one more RAM package type—the RIMM. This is a high-speed RAM packaging available in high-end PCs. The “R” stands for Rambus; the official name is Direct Rambus technology. It’s very expensive, costing more than four times as much as DIMMs, and it fits into a 184-pin custom RAM slot. Most people who have a system that uses RIMMs are well aware of the fact because they paid a premium price for it. If you are not sure whether you have DIMMs or RIMMs, take a stick out and count its pins. (You’ll learn how to remove RAM later in this chapter.)


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Parity and Non-Parity RAM Some SIMMs have a 1-bit-wide chip on them called a parity chip. It stores no data; it’s included as a sort of “sanity check” to ensure the accuracy of the data storage. It compares the number of 1 values stored in a particular byte with the number of 1 values found when accessing that byte. If the values are the same, the data is assumed to be correct. If the values are not the same, a parity error occurs, and you see an error message. Parity makes RAM more accurate, but it also adds overhead so it slows it down just a bit. Nowadays parity RAM is uncommon because memory technology has improved to the point where RAM is much more reliable. A variant of a parity bit called Error Correction Code (ECC) enjoyed a period of popularity in the late 1990s, but is also now obsolete because it requires a motherboard that is capable of ECC and it makes the system more expensive. Why do you need to know about this? Because if you have an older PC (a 486 or a Pentium) that uses 72-pin SIMMs, it’s possible that your motherboard might require either parity RAM or ECC RAM; if that’s the case, that’s what you must buy. The best way to know, of course, is to look in the manual, but if you don’t have it and you can’t call the tech support line for the PC’s manufacturer, you might be able to make the determination by pulling out a stick of RAM and examining it. A SIMM with nine chips on it is generally assumed to be a parity SIMM—eight chips for data and one for parity. Back in Figure 9.4, notice the bottom two sticks. One has eight (non-parity) and one has nine (parity). If the SIMM has a number of chips other than eight or nine, you can’t be sure whether it is parity or non-parity unless there is a label on it.

RAM Speeds SIMMs are mostly FPM (Fast Page Mode) RAM. This type of RAM’s speed is measured in nanoseconds of delay in retrieving data from it. Lower numbers are better. For example, 60-ns RAM is faster than 70-ns RAM. Each motherboard that uses SIMMs has a specific speed of RAM it will accept. You can use faster RAM than it requires, but not slower. You also have to be careful not to mix RAM speeds in the same motherboard because this can cause intermittent memory storage glitches. DIMM speed, on the other hand, is usually synchronized with that of the system bus. This is called SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic RAM). In motherboards that use DIMMs, the RAM’s speed must match the bus speed. For example, if the motherboard has a 133-MHz bus, you need 133-MHz RAM (a.k.a. PC133). As

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with FPM RAM, you can use a higher speed than the motherboard requires but not a lower speed. To determine what speed of SDRAM DIMM to buy, you can look at the existing RAM to see whether there is a sticker indicating its speed (PC100, PC133, and so on), or you can consult the PC or motherboard manual to find out what the system bus speed is. Most new systems today come with DDR (Double Data Rate) SDRAM, which adds a multiplier to the RAM so that for every tick of the system bus, the RAM can perform two operations. This gives the RAM an overall rate of 200 MHz or 266 MHz on a 100-MHz or 133-MHz system bus, respectively. DDR SDRAM is physically the same size and shape as regular DIMMs, but the notches are in different spots so it can’t be used with a motherboard that doesn’t support DDR SDRAM. Rambus RAM (which comes in RIMMs, as mentioned earlier) is even faster than that—it can run at up to 800MHz. It’s very expensive, however, and not currently found on most mainstream PCs. This might change in the next few years, or Rambus RAM might die out.

Refresh Technology Some 72-pin SIMMs use a technique for performance enhancement called EDO (Extended Data Out). This type of RAM requires electrical refreshing less frequently, so it has lower overhead and better performance than regular FPM RAM. If a motherboard requires EDO RAM, that’s the type you need to buy. Some motherboards can use either EDO or regular FPM RAM, but it must all be the same—no mixing and matching.

What the Specs Mean The numbers on the chips of a SIMM or DIMM can be difficult to figure out because they refer to different specifications on different types, and there are likely several numbers on each chip and on stickers pasted onto the stick itself. Markings on RAM have different meanings depending on the type. Back in the days of 30-pin SIMMs, RAM was typically marked by the vendor (or on the packaging) with two measurements. The first number was the bit depth (in millions), and the second number was the bit width. So, for example, you might have a 4×8 SIMM that was 4 megabits deep and 8 bits (one byte) wide. That would be a 4-MB SIMM. On a 30-pin SIMM, the first number tells you the number of megabytes of capacity (because you would multiply 4 by 8 to get the number of megabits, and then divide by 8 to convert the megabits to megabytes).


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This data is typically on a sticker on the RAM rather than permanently etched on it. There might be a chip on the SIMM with different markings than the others, though, that can tell you the stick’s capacity and speed. For example, in Figure 9.5, the markings indicate that it’s a 256-KB SIMM with a speed of 80 ns. (This is a really old SIMM; it is just 1/4 of 1 megabyte in capacity!) On 72-pin SIMMs, you might also see two numbers on a sticker or on the packaging, but they have a different meaning than those on 30-pin SIMMs. The first number is the bit depth, the same as before, but all 72-pin SIMMs are 32 bits in width, so you multiply the first number by four to determine the number of megabytes (because a bit is 8 bytes and there are four 8s in a 32-bit width). The second number can be either 32 or 36. If it’s 32, it’s a non-parity SIMM; if it’s 36, it’s parity. So, for example, you might have a 4×32 or 4×36 SIMM, and both would be the same capacity—16 MB. These numbers are typically written on a sticker on the SIMM rather than permanently etched into the chips themselves. Both 30-pin and 72-pin RAM might also have the speed labeled on the individual chips. When looking for the speed rating for FPM RAM (basically any SIMM), you are looking for a 6, 7, or 8 (or 60, 70, or 80) at the end of a string of numbers and letters. For example, in Figure 9.6, the number on one of the chips is KM416C1200AJ-7; on one of the other chips, it’s HYB511000BJ-70. SDRAM DIMM capacity is expressed as a single number—the number of megabytes of storage it represents, such as 64 MB or 128 MB. Its speed is expressed as “PC” plus a number (usually 100 or 133). This information is usually on the packaging or a sticker only; it is not coded into the numbers on the RAM chips themselves.

Figure 9.5 A very old 30-pin SIMM with a 256-KB capacity and 80-ns speed

Figure 9.6 RAM speed for a SIMM can sometimes be deciphered from the lettering on the chips.

Speed

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Selecting RAM for Your Motherboard The best way to determine what type of RAM a motherboard can accept is to look at its manual. If you don’t have a manual, you can try looking up the motherboard’s specifications on the Internet (one source is http://www. motherboards.org). Another way is to examine the existing RAM in the system to see whether you can determine its specifications from the labeling on it. Here is a review of the shopping specifications you need to be aware of when buying RAM—matching the RAM’s specs to that of the motherboard. ➤ Physical size. 30-pin SIMM, 72-pin SIMM, 168-pin DIMM, or 184-pin RIMM ➤ Capacity. Expressed in megabytes ➤ Speed. Expressed in nanoseconds (ns) for FPM or in megahertz (MHz) or PC rating for SDRAM; DDR or non-DDR for DIMMs ➤ Refresh technology. EDO or non-EDO (72-pin SIMMs only) ➤ Parity. Parity or non-parity, ECC or non-ECC (72-pin SIMMs only)

There is one other rather minor factor that has not been mentioned yet—the metal used in the pins. It can be either gold (yellow) or tin (silver). Some PC professionals feel that you should not mix unlike metals because it encourages corrosion, so you need to match the metal used in the RAM to the metal used in the RAM slot on the motherboard. However, most technicians agree that by the time the metals get around to corroding, the system will be long obsolete so this is not an important consideration. You also need to know whether your current RAM slots are all full. Locate the RAM on the motherboard and check. Figure 9.7 shows a motherboard with three DIMM slots, only one of which is full. There’s plenty of room here for more RAM! If there are no empty slots, you will need to remove some of the existing RAM before you can install new RAM. Remember that some SIMMs work in pairs. (30pin SIMMs work in sets of four, and 72-pin SIMMs work in pairs on Pentium motherboards, but individually on 486 motherboards.) Therefore, if you must

Figure 9.7 One DIMM is installed; two DIMM slots remain available.


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remove some SIMMs, you might have to remove more than one stick to clear an entire bank. Removing SIMMs and DIMMs is covered later in the chapter.

Understanding CPUs Now let’s look at selecting a replacement CPU. As I mentioned earlier, this is a relatively rare upgrade because most motherboards support a rather narrow band of different CPUs so your current one is probably almost as good as any replacement that the motherboard will accept. PC prices are so low that it might be more cost-effective to buy a new PC. However, I’m assuming that you’re curious about CPUs if you’re reading this section, so I’ll provide a brief introduction to them in the following sections and let you make up your mind about the upgrade yourself.

How CPUs Communicate The CPU’s only job is to perform mathematical calculations. The operating system sends it instructions that include the numbers to calculate and the formulas to use, and the CPU provides the result. When data comes into the CPU, it comes in strings of a specified length (64 bits, for example). Half of that string is the number to be calculated (the loworder bits), and the other half is a code representing the instruction to be performed on it (the high-order bits). The CPU knows the codes for many different math operations, such as multiply, divide, add, and so on (in addition to more complex ones), and it looks up the code in an internal list to determine what should be done with the number to be calculated. Machine language is the set of commands (which come through in the highorder bits) that the CPU understands. In order to speak to a CPU, the operating system needs to know the codes for all of the instructions that the CPU knows so it can send the appropriate commands in the high-order bits. Part of the operating system’s job is to interface with the chipset (the set of controller chips on the motherboard) to determine what commands the CPU can accept and then translate all of the commands that the user issues into machine language instructions. Each CPU has its own machine language, although new generations of CPUs usually have machine languages built upon a core set of commands from previous generations of CPUs. This is one reason why a motherboard can support only a select list of CPUs, instead of every CPU that has ever been made. For the operating system to work

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with the CPU, it must find out the details about the CPU’s machine language from the motherboard’s chipset. If the motherboard doesn’t recognize the CPU, it can’t provide that information. Another reason that motherboards are picky about CPUs is that they must match up in their speed capabilities.

CPU and External Data Bus Speeds Data doesn’t just flow freely into and out of the CPU at any speed it wants; there’s a very orderly cadence to the process. That tempo is set by the system crystal, which is a timekeeping unit on the motherboard similar to what’s in a modern wristwatch, except it ticks much faster. Each tick of the system crystal is a clock cycle, and data movement occurs in rhythm with this ticking. The system bus operates at the same speed as the system crystal. On modern motherboards, 100 MHz or 133 MHz are common system crystal speeds. The CPU has its own maximum speed for which it is rated, also measured in MHz. This is known as the CPU’s internal speed. The system crystal (not the CPU) determines the speed at which the PC operates. The actual speed at which the CPU operates as directed by the system crystal is its external speed. If the system crystal directs the CPU to run more slowly than its rating, it’s called underclocking; if it pushes the CPU to run faster than its rating, it’s overclocking.

NOTE

Overclocking involves manually setting up the motherboard as if the CPU were of a higher internal speed than it actually is. This was easy on older motherboards with such jumpers, but most modern motherboards are jumperless and can detect the CPU and configure settings such as internal and external speeds automatically.Therefore, it is much harder to overclock modern CPUs than older ones. Overclocking is not really a very good idea anyway because it forces a chip to run hotter than normal and can result in data loss and errors. Part of the reason why it’s harder to overclock today is that CPU and motherboard manufacturers are trying to discourage the practice. Overclocking is sometimes successful because of the way CPUs are manufactured and tested. A manufacturer will typically produce thousands of CPUs at once, all the same, and then test them, pushing them to run faster and faster until they fail.Then they back off of that failure speed by a certain amount and put that speed on the CPU’s label. For example, if a CPU failed at 1.2 GHz, the manufacturer might mark it as a 1-GHz CPU. In reality, that CPU might be able to run at 1.1 GHz with no problem. Furthermore, sometimes when a manufacturer runs low on inferior CPUs, it fills out its inventory with chips that are much better. For example, suppose a manufacturer needs to fill an order for a million 1-GHz chips but their manufacturing process is so good that they don’t have enough chips that failed at 1.2 GHz to package that way.They might then take some chips that failed at 1.6 GHz and mark and sell them as 1-GHz chips.You never know what the real maximum speed of a CPU is until you overclock it yourself.


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Some motherboards have a system crystal that operates at only one speed or that automatically adjusts its speed to match that of the installed CPU; others have jumpers that enable the user to change the speed to accommodate different speeds of CPUs. Today’s PCs run much faster than the external speed of the average motherboard. In other words, the internal speed of a CPU is many times greater than the external speed of the motherboard (as dictated by the system crystal). This is accomplished with a clock multiplier. Starting with 486 computers, some CPUs could process two or more operations per clock tick, resulting in speeds that were double, triple, or even quadruple the external speed. Some motherboards can detect such CPUs and work with them automatically; others require you to set jumper settings to specify the clock multiplier. The clock multiplier need not be a whole number. For example, a 333-MHz CPU might have an external speed of 95 and a multiplier of 3.5. On some motherboards, a set of jumpers enables the user to set the clock multiplier and the system bus speed manually. Figure 9.8 shows a chart printed on a motherboard that enables multipliers of between 2.0 and 5.5 and bus speeds of between 66 MHz and 112 MHz. On other motherboards, there is only one multiplier possible or the motherboard automatically chooses a multiplier based on the CPU installed. It’s important to know a motherboard’s external data bus speed options because the CPU you choose must be compatible with it. For example, the earliest Pentium CPUs had an external speed of 60 MHz, whereas the later ones had 66 MHz or 75 MHz. If you want to replace one Pentium chip with another, it either must have the same external speed or the motherboard must be capable of multiple speeds. Clock multiplier

Figure 9.8 Some motherboards allow you to set the system bus speed with jumpers.

System bus speed

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Looking at CPU Packaging Besides the other shopping considerations for a CPU, you must make sure you buy a CPU that will physically fit into your motherboard. There are two main types of CPU packaging. ➤ SEC (Single Edge Connector). This is a cartridge style of CPU with a circuit board on the bottom that fits into a slot in the motherboard (see Figure 9.9). ➤ PGA (Pin Grid Array). This is a chip style of CPU—a square or rectangular ceramic block with a microchip mounted in it. On the bottom of the ceramic block are concentric rings of pins that fit into holes in a socket in the motherboard (see Figure 9.10).

SEC CPUs and Slots There are two variants of an SEC slot in a motherboard: Slot 1 and Slot A. They are functionally incompatible with one another even though they are physically identical. Slot 1 supports Intel CPUs, and Slot A supports AMD CPUs. You must match the motherboard to the CPU brand. Figure 9.11 shows an SEC CPU slot. Notice the mounting brackets on the ends; they help keep the CPU held securely upright.

Circuit board (fits into motherboard slot) Figure 9.9 An SEC type of CPU

CPU not visible, encased in ceramic shell Figure 9.10 A PGA type of CPU

Pins (fit into motherboard socket)


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Figure 9.11 An SEC slot in a motherboard

SEC slots were very popular in the late 1990s and reached their peak of popularity with the Intel Pentium II and the AMD Athlon processor. The newest systems, however, have gone back to PGA packaging.

PGA CPUs and Sockets There are many old styles of PGA sockets and CPUs, but I’m going to skip over them because you’ll seldom run into them today, even in an older PC. Instead, jump right into the modern type of PGA socket—the ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) socket. It’s a socket in the motherboard with a little lever that raises to release the socket and lowers to secure it. This makes it possible to install a PGA-style CPU without applying any pressure (see Figure 9.12). There have been many sizes of PGA sockets, each one with a different number of holes in it. PGA is an older technology than SEC but it has lately been enjoying a resurgence in popularity; the latest Pentium 4 chips use it. Each size of PGA socket has a name, such as Socket 1, Socket 2, and so on. The most popular one to date has been Socket 7, which was used in the mid-1990s for a wide variety of CPUs produced by Intel and AMD.

Lever (raise to release, lower to lock)

Figure 9.12 A PGA socket in a motherboard

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CPU Core Voltages Just like any other device, a CPU requires a certain voltage to operate. This is its core voltage. The older a CPU is, the higher the core voltage will be; early CPUs required +5V, whereas the latest CPUs use +2.8V or less. A voltage regulator on the motherboard steps down the voltage provided by the power supply before it reaches the CPU socket. Lower voltage is advantageous because it makes the chip run cooler, so it is less sensitive to overheating and requires less aggressive cooling methods (smaller fans or no fans at all). CPU cooling is discussed later in this chapter. Some motherboards have a variable voltage regulator that makes them capable of supporting CPUs of different voltages. You select the voltage of the installed CPU with a jumper. Other motherboards support CPUs of only one voltage or have an automatic detection feature that determines a CPU’s voltage and adjusts itself accordingly.

CPU Caches The CPU is by far the fastest component in the system. The RAM, the system bus, and all of the other components don’t even come close. Therefore, bottlenecks often occur when data enters or exits the CPU. On the front side (that is, the “going into the CPU” side), delays often occur when the CPU needs data that must be retrieved from RAM. It takes several clock cycles for the data to be retrieved from RAM and sent to the CPU via the external data bus; meanwhile, the CPU sits idle. To help prevent such bottlenecks, modern systems include an L1 cache (also called a front-side cache). A cache is an area of reserved, extremely fast memory with a fast connection to the CPU. Data that the CPU is likely to need in the near future (say, the next several millionths of a second) is stored in the L1 cache so that it’s more readily available when the CPU does call for it. Modern CPUs are more adept than their ancestors at predicting what data the CPU will need, so they are better able to keep the L1 cache stocked with the correct data for the fastest performance. In addition, modern CPUs have the L1 cache built right the CPU packaging so no external bus is required to transfer data between it and the CPU. On the back side (that is, the “leaving the CPU” side), delays occur when the CPU has more processed data to dump back onto the external data bus than the bus can handle at the moment. This results in data being unable to leave the


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CPU promptly, which means that new data can’t come in because there’s no room for it. To solve this problem, an L2 cache (also called a back-side cache) is employed to store excess output from the CPU until the external data bus can catch up with it. On early systems, the L2 cache was a separate SRAM stick mounted in a special slot on the motherboard. This type of L2 cache was known as a COAST (Cache on a Stick). Modern CPUs integrate the L2 cache into the CPU packaging instead.

CPU Classes A CPU class is a group of CPUs that are roughly the same except for variations such as speed. CPUs of the same class are more likely to be interchangeable in a motherboard than CPUs of different classes. Early classes had numeric names, such as 286, 386, and 486, but after that they began having trademark-able text names such as Pentium, Athlon, and Celeron. There’s a lot of information I could give you about the various CPU classes, including the new features that were introduced with each model. That’s not relevant for upgrading, however. All you really need to know is where in the CPU chronology your current CPU falls so you can get some idea of its age and compare it to the CPUs currently for sale in new PCs. This comparison can help you make a decision as to whether you want to try upgrading or buy a whole new PC. Here are some specific notes and recommendations for various classes of CPUs. Keep in mind that all of the CPUs discussed in the following sections (except Pentium 4) are no longer being made, so if you buy a replacement CPU you will probably have to buy it used.

Pentium and Pentium Pro The term Pentium actually refers to several different subclasses of CPUs. They are not compatible with each other’s motherboards because of socket size and voltage differences. Therefore, when replacing a Pentium or Pentium Pro, you must be very sure that your motherboard supports the replacement model you plan on using. First-generation Pentiums were 5V PGA chips with 273 pins that fit into a Socket 4 motherboard. They ran at either 60 MHz or 66 MHz, so if you have one of these there is no point in upgrading the CPU. They had some problems, like any new product, mostly involving the tremendous amount of heat they generated.

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The second generation of Pentiums ranged in speed from 75 MHz to 200 MHz. They were 3.3V PGA chips with 296 pins that fit into a Socket 5 or Socket 7 motherboard. Because of the wide range of speeds in this category, a system with a low-speed second-generation Pentium CPU, such as 75 MHz, could be improved easily and cheaply by replacing it with a higher-speed CPU, such as 200 MHz. However, at the max you would end up with a 200-MHz PC, and a lot of the latest applications have higher minimum requirements than that. The third generation of Pentiums came in 166-, 200-, and 233-MHz models (2.8V) and incorporated a technology called multimedia extensions (MMX) that improves graphics processing in programs that support it. You can distinguish the 200-MHz version of the third-generation Pentium from the 200-MHz secondgeneration Pentium by the MMX marking on the third-generation chip. A Pentium MMX is not worth upgrading because of the modest difference between the low and high ends (166 MHz versus 233 MHz). The Pentium Pro was never very popular, and it died out quickly. Released between the second- and third-generation Pentiums, it was optimized for 32-bit operating systems. With a 16-bit operating system such as MS-DOS, the Pentium Pro was actually slower than a regular Pentium. That and its inability to support MMX doomed it. It used an oblong-shaped PGA socket called Socket 8 and was a 387-pin, 3V CPU. Pentium Pros are not good candidates for upgrading.

AMD K5 and Cyrix 6x86 The main competitor to the Intel Pentium was the AMD-K5. It was compatible with the Pentium both physically and in circuitry, so it worked in most Pentium motherboards. It was slightly cheaper than the real Pentium and offered some modest technical improvements. The marketing of the K5 used a rather misleading numbering system that did not correspond to the actual clock speed of the CPU. AMD claimed that the internal advantages of a K5 made it unfair to compare it to an Intel CPU of the same clock speed, so they gave the chips numbers that matched what they considered the “true speed”—the clock speed of the comparable Intel model. For example, the AMD PR166 supposedly offered the same performance as the Intel 166-MHz Pentium, but it actually had a clock speed of 117 MHz. There’s a minor voltage issue to consider with a K5. The K5 operates at 3.52V and will not work very well on a motherboard that supports only 3.3V CPUs. However, there were many different voltages used for the various Pentium generations, so many Pentium-class motherboards have a wide variety of voltage


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settings they can accept. Avoid replacing a Pentium with a K5 unless your motherboard is configurable to support 3.52V CPUs. Cyrix produced Pentium competitor chips as well. The 6x86MX series came in speeds ranging from 166 MHz to 233 MHz and were pin-compatible with second-generation Pentium motherboards (Socket 7).

Pentium II In terms of technology, the Pentium II is basically a fast Pentium Pro with MMX added. Pentium II CPUs fit into a Slot 1 SEC slot and are contained in a black cartridge. They have an internal speed ranging from 233 to 450 MHz, and run on external buses of either 66 MHz or 100 MHz. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

Pentium II CPUs do not have the speed written anywhere on them, so you can’t tell at a glance what you have. Instead they use a cryptic system of S values. These begin with SL and are followed by three additional characters; you must look up that string in a table to determine the CPU’s specifications. You can find this table at Intel’s Web site, at http://processorfinder.intel.com/scripts/list.asp?ProcFam=47&CorSpd=ALL&SysBusSpd=ALL& PkgType=ALL. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

When you consider replacing one Pentium II with another, consider not only the speeds of the CPUs, but also the speed of the external data bus. Your motherboard might support both 66-MHz and 100-MHz external data buses, or it might support only one or the other. A 66-MHz motherboard with a slow Pentium II (such as a 233 MHz) might not be able to accommodate the fastest Pentium II (450 MHz) because of the 100-MHz data bus requirement. Another consideration when replacing one Pentium II with another is voltage. Different Pentium IIs have different voltage requirements, ranging from 2.8V to 2.0V. Most—but not all—Pentium II motherboards support the full range of voltages, but not necessarily automatically; some of them require you to change the jumpers.

Celeron Intel uses the name Celeron for its low-budget Pentium II model. (It also uses that same name for its low-budget Pentium IIIs, but more on that later.) The Celeron Pentium II came out after the Pentium II had been perfected, so its performance is actually better than the early Pentium II even though it is cheaper.

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The main difference between the Celeron and the Pentium II is the packaging. Like the Pentium II, the original Celeron was a chip mounted on a small circuit board that fit into a Slot 1 socket. However, with the Celeron there was no outer plastic cartridge, so the overall effect was a PGA socket mounted on a circuit board, and the circuit board inserted into a Slot 1 slot. This type of packaging was called SEP (Single Edge Processor). It was cheaper to manufacture than SEC because it did not have the plastic outer shell. It was also easier to cool because the fan could be attached more directly to the CPU. The SEP design was used for most Pentium II-based Celerons, but as competitors began to have success with a 370-pin PGA socket chip with Pentium IIlevel performance, Intel switched the Celeron to that style of socket as well. You might expect this socket to be called Socket 9, to go along with the numbering scheme from earlier days, but in fact it is known as the Socket 370 or PGA-370. There is somewhat of a blurring between Celerons based on the Pentium II and Celerons based on the Pentium III because neither of them officially bears the Pentium name (and because there is not a dramatic difference in technology between the Pentium II and Pentium III). Celerons running at 333 MHz and lower are SEP; those between 366 MHz and 433 MHz are available both ways. The newer Celerons, running at 466 MHz and above, are PGA only. As with the name “Pentium,” there were so many models of Celerons that it’s difficult to know anything for sure about a chip simply because that’s its class. Therefore, when replacing a Celeron CPU, it’s important to consult the motherboard documentation to make sure it supports the replacement model.

AMD K6 Intel’s primary competition for the Pentium II market has been AMD with its K6 CPUs. The K6 offers performance somewhere between the Pentium and Pentium II and comes in a Socket 7 PGA chip. The K6 chip is interesting because inside it’s like a Pentium II, but outside (that is, in its connection to the motherboard) it’s like a Pentium MMX. There have been three versions of the K6 chip. ➤ K6. This is the original; it has speeds of between 166 MHz and 300 MHz. ➤ K6-2. This version has speeds of 266 MHz to 475 MHz. ➤ K6-3. The latest version has speeds of 400 or 450 MHz


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The K6 chips tend to run hot, so they require high-quality cooling fans. They also have rather complex voltage requirements, so they should be used only in motherboards specifically designed for them.

Pentium III The Pentium III improved the Pentium II design with better performance, faster speeds, and more cache memory. The Pentium III comes in speeds from 450 MHz to 1,000 MHz (1 GHz). In terms of packaging, some Pentium III CPUs use an improved version of SEC called SECC2; others use a Socket 370 PGA. The main innovation in Socket 370 PGA packaging was to place the Pentium III CPU on the top of the ceramic PGA package rather than on the underside, so it could be closer to the cooling fan. This is called flip chip (FC), and its packaging is known as FC-PGA. The SECC2 version of the Pentium III has less cryptic markings than the Pentium II cartridges. The first line of its coding tells the speed, cache size, bus speed, and voltage, such as 600/512/100/2.0V. It also has an S-spec, which appears as S followed by four characters, but you don’t have to rely on looking up that S spec to get the basic information about the CPU. As with any other CPU upgrade, check to make sure the motherboard supports the planned upgrade. As with the Pentium II, a budget version of the Pentium III was available under the Celeron name.

AMD Athlon and Duron AMD’s Athlon CPU is its competitor to the Pentium III. It runs at between 550 MHz and 1 GHz. The first Athlons used an SEC packaging like the Pentium II that physically fit into a Slot 1 motherboard but wouldn’t run there. Instead, it required a special motherboard with a Slot A slot designed specifically for AMD CPUs. Later versions of the Athlon used a PGA style rather than the SEC, and the socket for this was called Socket A. It is physically the same as Socket 370, but the pin functions are different. As with Slot A, the motherboard manufacturers can use parts they already have but the consumers must buy a motherboard specifically for the CPU. The AMD Duron CPU is a low-budget Athlon that uses the PGA-style Socket A.

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Pentium 4, Athlon XP, and Itanium At this writing, the popular CPU in the industry is the Pentium 4. If you have one of these, you don’t need to upgrade it—just be happy with it! AMD also continues to improve their CPUs, and a competitor to the Pentium 4 called the Athlon XP is available. Intel also has a very high-end CPU available at this writing, called the Itanium. It is expensive and used only in the most powerful servers. It’s designed for 64bit systems and does not run regular 32-bit software; a special 64-bit version of the operating system is required.

Summing Up the CPU Classes I just threw a lot of technical detail about CPUs at you, so don’t think you have to memorize all of it! Heck, you didn’t even have to read it all closely, as long as you paid attention to the section pertaining to your current CPU. Here’s what it all boils down to. ➤ A motherboard usually supports only one class of CPU; within that class it might support only certain internal speeds, external speeds, or voltages that further limit your upgrade choices. ➤ Check the motherboard manual to find out which CPUs it specifically supports, and don’t try to use one that isn’t on that list. ➤ If you don’t have the motherboard manual, call the PC manufacturer or look online for the information. See the “Online Resources for Motherboard Information” section later in the chapter for more information.

CPU Cooling CPUs generate a lot of heat as they operate; if left alone, they quickly overheat and shut down. A variety of cooling techniques have been developed over the years to prevent that from happening. As I mentioned earlier, one way to make a CPU run cooler is to decrease the core voltage. The newer CPUs have lower core voltages than their predecessors. Another way to cool off a chip is to place a heat sink on it. A heat sink is a metal or ceramic plate with spikes on it that channel heat away from the CPU. The heat gradually dissipates into the air. On some systems, the power supply’s fan blows or sucks air across the spikes to further aid the cooling. Plain heat sinks, like the one shown in Figure 9.13, are often called passive heat sinks because they don’t have any moving parts. These are usually fastened permanently to the


Figure 9.13

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Passive heat sink

A passive heat sink cools a CPU by channeling heat away from the chip and up into the spikes.

CPU using a glue-like compound that transfers heat very efficiently. (You can buy it at a computer store.) If a heat sink has a fan attached to it, it’s an active heat sink. CPUs that run too hot to be properly cooled by a passive heat sink alone will often employ a heat sink/fan combination to keep cool. Figure 9.14 shows an example. These usually attach to the CPU via a clip so that they’re removable, rather than attaching with a heat sink compound. Fans can go bad, and you wouldn’t want a broken one to be permanently attached to your CPU. The increased cooling effectiveness of an active heat sink makes it possible for them to operate next to the CPU, rather than being glued to it.

CPU cartridge Clip holding heat sink to CPU Heat sink Figure 9.14 An active heat sink has a fan that pulls hot air away from the CPU. It might also have the same type of spikes as a passive heat sink for extra cooling.

Fan

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Online Resources for Motherboard Information Throughout this chapter, as I’ve discussed selecting RAM and CPU upgrades, I’ve constantly pushed a single directive: Consult the motherboard manual. But what if you don’t have it? Then what? Because CPUs are rather expensive, and used CPUs might not be returnable, I would personally never buy a CPU unless I could verify in advance that it would work with my motherboard. Assuming you don’t have access to the manual, here are some places you can potentially get the necessary information about the CPU support: ➤ From the PC manufacturer. This is the most reliable source because the company can usually look up your PC’s serial number in a database to find out exactly which motherboard you have and what it supports. However, some companies might not have this information or might not be forthcoming with it. ➤ From the motherboard manufacturer. You might be able to identify the motherboard manufacturer and model number from the writing on the motherboard. To do this you’ll need to take the cover off the PC and poke around with a flashlight (and possibly a magnifying glass). If you can get the model number, you can then contact the motherboard manufacturer for help. ➤ Web directories of motherboard specifications. If you have a model number but no direct support from the manufacturer, try Motherboards.org (http://www.motherboards.org). They have a huge repository of motherboard data.

Take a Break I meant it earlier when I said that the hardest part of these upgrades was choosing what to buy. So triple-check that you know what you want, and then go make your purchase. Pick up a snack on the way home! Then check out the following sections to do the installation.

Adding Memory When you take a PC to a repair shop for a memory upgrade, it takes the technician all of about five minutes to do the installation—and that includes removing and replacing the cover and checking to make sure it works! The main


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reason people have RAM installed at a repair shop is because they’re intimidated by figuring out what kind of memory to buy. Since you’ve already taken the time to figure that out, you’re more than halfway there.

Safety Precautions RAM is extremely sensitive to ESD (which, as you might remember from Friday Afternoon, is static electricity). Because of that, you ideally should wear an antistatic wrist strap when installing or removing RAM. If you don’t have one, make sure you frequently ground yourself as you work by touching the metal frame of the PC. RAM is not particularly fragile except for its susceptibility to shock, but don’t knock it around any more than necessary. Handle it only by the edges, as with any circuit board, and keep it in its antistatic bag until you are ready to install it.

Removing Old Memory If there are no empty RAM slots, you will need to take out some of the old RAM and replace it with RAM of a higher capacity. Remember to remove the entire bank of RAM as a group if there is more than one stick per bank. SIMMs (both 30-pin and 72-pin) are inserted and removed at a 45-degree angle to the motherboard. They tilt up to be perpendicular when fully installed. On some very old systems, they remain tilted when installed, but this is the exception rather than the rule. To remove a SIMM, follow these steps. 1. Using your fingers, release the clips at both ends of the SIMM and gently tilt it back to a 45-degree angle (see Figure 9.15). 2. Lift the SIMM out of the slot. 3. Before setting the SIMM aside, note its orientation. There is a notch out of one end. When you install the new SIMMs, you must orient them so the notch is in the same location; otherwise, they won’t fit. Figure 9.16 shows an example. DIMMS are inserted and removed straight up and down, with the DIMM staying at a 90-degree angle to the motherboard at all times. To remove a DIMM, follow these steps. 1. Using your fingers, press down on the levers at the ends of the DIMM, pushing the DIMM up out of the slot (see Figure 9.17).

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Clips

Figure 9.15 To remove a SIMM, release the clips and tilt it to a 45-degree angle. Notch Figure 9.16 Note which direction the notch in the removed SIMM points; the new SIMM will go in the same way.

Push down to pop out the DIMM

Figure 9.17 To remove a DIMM, press down on the levers at the ends, causing it to pop out of its slot.

2. Lift the DIMM out of the slot. Carefully set it aside.

Installing New Memory Before you install the new memory, decide where you are going to put it. If existing RAM is installed, put it as close as possible to that. If there’s no existing


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RAM, look for labels on the motherboard that indicate the bank number and put it in the lowest bank number available (usually Bank 0 or Bank 1). Then insert the SIMM or DIMM. To insert a SIMM, follow these steps. 1. Decide on the correct orientation for the SIMM. Refer back to where the notch was when you removed SIMMs in the preceding section, or just notice how the already-installed SIMMs are installed and orient the new one the same way. 2. Slide the SIMM into the slot at a 45-degree angle. 3. Using your fingers, tilt the SIMM up to be perpendicular to the motherboard. The metal clips at both ends should snap into place. If they do not, check to make sure you don’t have the SIMM in backward. (That’s what the notch at one end is for—to prevent the clips from snapping into place when you install it incorrectly.) To insert a DIMM, follow these steps. 1. Decide on the correct orientation for the DIMM. Check out the bottom edge of the DIMM and notice that there are offset notches cut out of it. These match up with spacers in the slot, so it’s impossible to install the DIMM backward. 2. Make sure the levers at both ends are pulled back in fully open position. 3. Press the DIMM into the slot, seesawing one end and then the other if necessary. When the DIMM is fully inserted, the levers at the ends will be straight upright. You might need to apply a lot of pressure to secure the DIMM fully in the slot, especially if the slot has never been used. Push only by the top edge, but don’t be afraid to push hard.

Testing the New Memory After you have installed the new memory, start the PC and watch the screen carefully. If you’ve done everything right, the PC will display the new memory amount as it starts up. That’s it! You’ve succeeded. If that doesn’t happen, see the following section for some troubleshooting tips. The process for manufacturing memory is very good, so very little bad memory ever reaches the market. However, you can test the new memory with a diagnostic program if you want. There are many diagnostics on the market, and some of them are freeware or shareware that you can acquire from sites such as CNet.com.

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Troubleshooting Memory Installation Problems Following are some troubleshooting suggestions if things don’t go perfectly when you are installing new RAM. ➤ Blank screen. You have the new memory installed incorrectly; it’s defective memory; or it’s the wrong type of memory for this PC. There is one more possibility—if your motherboard has a jumper on it that controls the type of memory, and you have changed the type (for example, from ECC to non-ECC), you might have the jumper setting wrong. ➤ Memory parity error. On some PCs, it’s normal to get this message the first time you start up after adding memory. If you get this message once, along with a prompt to enter the Setup, press whatever key necessary to do so. After entering and exiting the Setup, reboot. If you still get the same error again, the RAM is defective or it’s the wrong type for this PC. ➤ Memory counts up, then an error or lockup occurs. If the PC starts counting its RAM and then a problem occurs, the RAM is defective. If you added more than one stick, try each stick by itself (assuming each stick is a bank all by itself ) to determine which stick is causing the problem; then return it for an exchange. ➤ Beeping. If the PC’s speaker beeps more than once when starting up and nothing appears on the screen, the memory is installed incorrectly, is defective, or is the wrong type. ➤ Startup OK but new memory not detected. If the PC still reports its old amount of memory, go into the BIOS Setup and check whether you need to manually specify the amount of RAM installed. Sometimes just entering and exiting the BIOS Setup is enough to make the PC recognize the new memory.

Replacing a CPU CPU replacement, while expensive, is fairly simple to do. Just pull the old one out and pop in the new one. Before you install the CPU, find out what type of cooling device it requires (such as a passive heat sink or a heat sink with fan) and make sure you have one. If you are not sure, ask at your local computer store or check the Web site for the CPU manufacturer. It’s important to use the recommended cooling device for the CPU because problems will result if the CPU does not stay cool enough.


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If you will be attaching a passive heat sink, you will need some heat sink compound (basically a heat-conductive glue). If you will be attaching an active heat sink with a fan, it will probably clip on without the compound (and you can clip the fan on later, after you’ve installed it). You don’t want to use compound when attaching an active heat sink to a CPU because it’s a permanent thing, and the fan might go bad and need to be replaced.

Safety Precautions As with RAM, the CPU is extremely sensitive to ESD, so make sure you wear an antistatic wrist strap or ground yourself frequently when working with it.

Replacing a PGA CPU On a PGA CPU, the pins on the bottom of the chip fit into a socket on the motherboard with corresponding holes. All PGA CPU sockets are ZIF. They have a handle on one side that lifts to release and lowers to tighten. To replace a PGA CPU, follow these steps. 1. If there is an active heat sink (with fan) currently attached, remove it. To do so, press down to release the clip that holds it in place (see Figure 9.18). If the existing CPU has only a passive heat sink, it is probably glued on; you don’t need to remove it. When you remove the CPU, the heat sink will go with it.

Push down on the clip.

Figure 9.18 Remove the fan from the existing CPU.

The clip is released from the tab on the socket.

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2. Lift the handle on the PGA socket, releasing the CPU. 3. Lift the CPU out of the socket, handling it only by the edges, and set it aside carefully. 4. Remove the new CPU from its protective bag and drop it into the socket so that the notched corner aligns with the different corner in the socket. Notice that one of the corners has fewer holes than the others; that’s the one that matches up with the notch (see Figure 9.19). ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

CAUTION

It is physically possible on some motherboard/CPU combinations to install the CPU at the wrong orientation, which can damage the CPU. ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

5. Lower the handle on the socket, locking the new CPU into place. If the handle does not lower easily, check to make sure the CPU is in the right holes and firmly seated. 6. Attach the heat sink. If it’s a passive heat sink, you will need a new one because the old one is glued to the old CPU. Apply a thin layer of heat sink compound to the top of the CPU and affix the heat sink to it, allowing time for it to dry. Heat sink compound serves two purposes—it attaches the heat sink to the CPU and it creates greater conductivity between them so that the CPU can more effectively channel its heat into the heat sink, where it can be dissipated.

Figure 9.19 Make sure that you get the notched corner of the CPU lined up with the corner on the socket that has fewer holes than the others. Notched corner

Corner with fewer holes


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If it’s an active heat sink, clip it onto the CPU—no heat sink compound is required. Slip one loop under the tab on one side of the socket and then press the other side of the clip down until it loops over the tab on the other side. 7. If you are using an active heat sink, plug in the fan’s power cord. On most motherboards there is a three-pin connector near the CPU for this purpose, as in Figure 9.20; if not, you can buy an adapter that will allow the fan to plug into a power connector from the power supply.

Replacing an SEC CPU SEC CPUs are large, easy-to-handle cartridges, so you don’t have to be as meticulous with their handling as you do with a PGA CPU. However, you do still need to be aware of static electricity and avoid touching the exposed circuit board edge. To replace an SEC CPU, follow these steps. 1. Remove the heat sink/fan from the existing CPU. Nearly all SEC CPUs use active heat sinks with fans that detach by pulling a metal lever away from the cartridge, as in Figure 9.21. You then lift off the heat sink. Unplug the fan’s power connection and set it aside. 2. Remove the old cartridge from the slot. The process might be slightly different for some models, but on most you pull back the clips at the ends of the CPU to release them from the bracket, as shown in Figure 9.22, and then lift the cartridge out and set it aside. 3. Insert the new cartridge in the slot. Notice that the channel into which it fits has an offset separator so the cartridge will fit only one way. Push the cartridge down into the slot until the clips snap into the mounting bracket.

Figure 9.20 Connect the fan’s power cord.

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Pull the metal clip away from the CPU.

Figure 9.21 Remove the heat sink/fan. Lift to release the metal clips hooked into the CPU cartridge.

The cartridge lifts out.

Figure 9.22 Remove the old CPU cartridge.

Use your thumb to push this tab away from the cartridge to release it.

4. Check the cooling requirements for the new CPU to ensure that they are the same as the old CPU; if so, you can reuse the same heat sink/fan. 5. Hook the metal hooks on the heat sink/fan onto the side of the CPU, and then push the metal bar on the heat sink/fan toward the CPU until it locks into place—the opposite of what you did when you removed the old one.


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6. Plug in the fan’s power cord. On most motherboards, there is a three-pin connector near the CPU for this purpose; if not, you can buy an adapter that will allow the fan to plug into a power connector from the power supply.

Testing the New CPU To test the CPU, hook up everything and turn on the PC. If you see any text at all on the screen, then the CPU is working. Following are some minor glitches that you might encounter even with text visible on the screen. ➤ If the text on the screen reports that the CPU speed is different from what you think you just installed, check in the BIOS Setup to make sure there is not a setting that you need to adjust. Also look on the motherboard to see whether there is a jumper that needs to be changed, such as for the CPU internal speed, the external data bus speed, or the clock multiplier. ➤ If the PC appears to be working for a while but then locks up or shuts down after a few minutes, there is probably a cooling problem. Make sure you have installed the recommended type of heat sink or cooling fan for this CPU, and that it’s working.

Troubleshooting CPU Installation Problems One of the scariest types of computer problems is when you see nothing at all on the screen. If you’ve just replaced the CPU and this happens, at least you know where to start troubleshooting! First, check to make sure you have the CPU installed correctly. If it’s a PGA CPU, make sure it is oriented with the notch to the different corner on the socket. If it’s an SEC CPU, make sure it’s completely pushed down into the slot. Next, check the motherboard to make sure there are no jumpers that you need to change. For example, if there’s a jumper for core voltage and you have changed to a CPU of a different core voltage, it won’t work unless you change the jumper. No luck? Put the old CPU back in and start up the computer. If everything works fine, you know that the new CPU is defective. If it doesn’t, then you have probably accidentally messed something else up; perhaps you have zapped something with static electricity. At that point, it might be useful to call a friend with

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some PC troubleshooting experience or enlist the help of a repair shop. Fortunately, this situation is uncommon.

Moving On Be proud of yourself—you’ve just done something that most computer users would be intimidated to try! You’ve added memory and/or a CPU and enhanced your computer’s performance. Take some time out to play with the computer and enjoy its new speed and efficiency. What? You say you weren’t able to upgrade your memory and CPU because your system is too old or your motherboard won’t accept a decent upgrade? Then the next chapter is for you. In it, you’ll learn how to do the biggest, scariest upgrade of them all—replacing the entire motherboard.

S U N DAY

EVENING

A New Motherboard ➤ Choosing a New Motherboard ➤ Removing the Old Motherboard ➤ Preparing the Case for the New Motherboard ➤ Installing a Few Essential Components ➤ Performing the Initial Tests

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otherboard replacement is the Big Kahuna of upgrades. If you are not comfortable working with your PC’s innards, do yourself a favor and take your PC to a friendly local repair shop to do the work. No shame in it.

M

On the other hand, don’t be too intimidated by the tangle of wires inside the PC’s case. The motherboard is just a big circuit board, after all. The only thing complicated about it is that everything else plugs into it, so you have to do a lot of disconnecting and reconnecting. Throughout the previous chapters you have learned bit-by-bit the uses of each of those cables and wires inside the PC; if you remember all that, you are probably ready for this project.

NOTE

I’m not trying to talk you out of upgrading the motherboard, but make sure you have thought your options through first. A new motherboard usually means a new CPU and memory, and both of those things can be expensive. After you have priced the motherboard, CPU, and memory you want, compare that to a whole new PC. You might find that a whole new PC is a much better value.

What Activities Will Improve with This Upgrade? The primary reason to replace the motherboard is to be able to use a better CPU or more memory than your current motherboard will support. In that sense, it is difficult to separate the benefits of a new motherboard from the benefits of CPU and memory upgrades. Would anyone ever replace the motherboard and not get a new CPU? It’s unlikely, but it could happen. And in some cases, you might be able to use your old memory in the new motherboard. Some of the possible benefits of a motherboard-only replacement might include ➤ Better BIOS support for the latest hardware. If for some reason you can’t update the BIOS on the existing motherboard, and you need it to support

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a certain technology, such as Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) or a larger hard drive size, a new motherboard with a more recent BIOS could do the trick. ➤ Different expansion slots. An older motherboard might not have the slots you want. For example, it might not have an AGP slot for a video card, or it might have too many ISA slots and not enough PCI slots. ➤ Built-in components. The old motherboard might have a built-in component that doesn’t work anymore but can’t be disabled for some reason, and you might replace it with a motherboard that had a working one or that didn’t have that component built in at all (so you could add an expansion card for it). On the flip side, if your old motherboard doesn’t have any built-in components, you can replace it with one that does. This would be a cheap way of adding some components that you would otherwise buy separately, such as sound, video, or network interface.

Other minor potential benefits might be offered from a new motherboard, but they are not compelling reasons to upgrade by themselves. For example, the new motherboard might support the latest, fastest versions of certain specifications such as AGP or USB, or have enhanced password or virus protection.

How a Motherboard Works The motherboard manages the data flow between the other components of the PC, such as the CPU, the memory, the disk drives, and so on. Data travels through the motherboard via electrical pulses that represent binary numbers. The essential components involved in this travel process are the buses, which are the pathways that carry the data, and the chipset, which is the set of controller chips on the motherboard that dictates how data flows through the buses. When hardcore techies compare one motherboard to another, they talk a lot about the performance of the buses and the chipsets because these components can make a difference in the performance of a high-end motherboard. However, when buying a motherboard for ordinary home or small business use, the exact specifications of the buses and the chipset are not all that important because even economy motherboards have good enough chipsets and buses for average use. Nevertheless, it doesn’t hurt to at least understand what techies mean when they fling those terms around, so the following sections provide a brief overview.

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If you want to get really serious about comparing every detail of one motherboard to another, you need more help than this book can provide. My favorite reference is Motherboards.org (http://www.motherboards.org).They review hundreds of models and show detailed pictures and diagrams. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Understanding Buses A bus is a path from one component to another on the same circuit board. The typical motherboard houses many different buses, and each one has its own width and maximum speed, just like a highway. For example, the bus that runs between the CPU and the memory—called the address bus— is a very fast (over 200 MHz on most systems) and very wide bus (64-bit). As you know from earlier chapters, motherboards have expansion slots of various types into which you can plug expansion boards. Each type has its own bus. For example, all of the PCI slots share the PCI bus, all of the ISA slots share the ISA bus, and so on. The PCI bus is usually 32-bit and 33 MHz; the ISA bus is 16-bit and 8 MHz. Different expansion buses are necessary because of the need for backward compatibility. If you have old boards you want to use in the new motherboard, you need to pay attention to the types of expansion slots that the new motherboard has. For example, if you have old ISA expansion boards, you will need a motherboard with ISA slots (which are becoming difficult to find).

Understanding Chipsets The exact routes of the various buses and the components tied into each one at certain points depend on the chipset of the motherboard. The chipset, as the name implies, is a set of chips mounted on the motherboard that direct the flow of traffic along and between the buses. Two motherboards with the same chipset are functionally identical, even if they have different manufacturers. Intel is the largest maker of chipsets; some other manufacturers include Via Technologies and Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS). A chipset can consist of a single chip, but it is usually two or more chips working together. There are two basic architectures for chipsets in motherboards— north/south bridge and hub. You do not need to shop for a motherboard based on the chipset, but it’s helpful to understand the differences between the two chipset types.


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The older style of chipset is north/south bridge. It consists of three chips (or sets of chips)—the north bridge, the south bridge, and the super I/O. A motherboard that uses this chipset style can support ISA expansion slots, but it has some limitations. The main drawback of the north/south bridge architecture is that the north and south bridges are connected via the PCI bus. This forces the PCI bus to do dualduty, carrying its own expansion slot traffic and the rest of the chipset traffic as well. In addition, most north/south bridge motherboards are limited to 33 MBps performance on the IDE channels. There is a variant used for AMD Athlon/Duron systems that overcomes this limitation and allows up to 100 MBps IDE. Unless you need a motherboard with ISA slots, there is little reason to select one that uses a north/south bridge chipset. Newer motherboards are likely to use a hub chipset. Pentium III and higher systems usually have this style of chipset. The main difference is that the two main chips (north and south, but called by different names here—memory controller hub and I/O controller hub) are not connected to one another via the PCI bus, but rather through their own high-speed interface bus that operates at 266 MBps. Most hub chipset motherboards do not support ISA slots. This is the chipset type you will find on most of the new motherboards available for sale today. Within these two big categories of chipset types are many variations. The chipset is the determinant of nearly every attribute of the motherboard. For example, it determines which CPUs the motherboard will support, how fast the system bus is, what type of memory it can use, and many other factors that you will look at individually in the next few sections.

Choosing a New Motherboard There are many decisions to make when selecting a motherboard, but most of them are not particularly complex. What size board will fit in your case? Which motherboard has the slots you need? Which will support the CPU you want to use? The following sections outline the major decisions to be made.

AT or ATX AT and ATX are the two broad classes of motherboards available today. They refer not only to the motherboard’s physical size, but also to some other characteristics that make them compatible with AT or ATX cases and power

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supplies. Unless you are also replacing the case and the power supply, you will need to buy whichever motherboard matches the case and power supply that you already have. AT is the older of the two styles of motherboards and is on its way to becoming obsolete. The name AT (Advanced Technology) comes from a very popular IBM PC from the late 1980s—the IBM AT. Even though the original 80286-based AT computers are long obsolete, manufacturers are still using some of the design improvements that the AT introduced, including the PS/2 port, the 3.5" floppy drive, and the AT motherboard layout. The original AT motherboard was rather large—12"×13". In later PC models, this size was reduced to only 8.5"×13", or about the size of a legal sheet of paper. This was known as Baby AT size. Today’s AT motherboards are even smaller, measuring only 8.5"×9.5".

NOTE

Even though ATX motherboards are approximately the same shape and size as the original AT motherboard, they won’t fit in cases designed for one another because the expansion slots are positioned differently.

ATX is the current standard for motherboard layout. An ATX motherboard is 12"×7.5" and has many design improvements over the AT. For example, it orients the CPU closer to the power supply so that the power supply fan can help cool it better, and it has the parallel and serial ports built into the side of the board so they don’t require ribbon cable connections. Many of the design improvements of ATX involve the power supply’s relationship to the motherboard. The ATX uses a different power supply that enables the PC to shut itself down automatically when you shut down Windows and wake itself up when it receives a request for data via its network interface (Wake on LAN) or through its modem (Wake on Ring). The easiest way to tell an AT motherboard from an ATX is to look at the keyboard connector. If it’s a chunky round connector (a DIN-style connector), it’s an AT. If it’s a smaller round connector that’s physically the same as the mouse connector (a PS/2 style connector), it’s an ATX. Figure 10.1 shows the difference. Another way to tell an AT motherboard from an ATX is to look at how the expansion slots are oriented. On an AT motherboard, they are parallel to the wide side of the board; on an ATX, they are parallel to the narrow side.


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Figure 10.1 Keyboard connectors on AT and ATX motherboards

Still one more way to tell is to look at the connector where the power supply connects to the motherboard. If the power supply connects with two six-wire plugs, it’s an AT; if it connects with a single 20-wire plug, it’s an ATX.

Expansion Slots All motherboards today come with at least one AGP slot and several PCI slots. Some motherboards can still be found with ISA slots, but they’re getting more rare. If you have a lot of expansion boards that you want to move over to the new motherboard, make a list of them, note which type of slot they need, and make sure that the new motherboard has more than enough slots to handle them. “More than enough” is important because you will want some room for expansion. Many motherboards these days have built-in sound, network card, modem, video card, and so on, so keep the built-in capabilities in mind when you are considering expansion slots. For example, if you have an old ISA sound card, you might be better off throwing it away and buying a motherboard with builtin sound than you would be trying to find a motherboard with ISA slots. The slots you might see on your old motherboard include ➤ ISA. These black slots are old technology—avoid them when possible. If you have any expansion boards in ISA slots, try to replace them either with built-in components on the new motherboard or with PCI versions. ➤ PCI. These white slots are the modern all-purpose standard for expansion slots. Any boards that currently fit into these slots should move over to the new motherboard with no problems.

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➤ AGP. There is typically only one of these brown slots per motherboard, for the video card. If you have one of these in your old motherboard and it holds a video card, you will need to make sure the new motherboard has an AGP slot too. (Actually the new motherboard should have an AGP slot anyway, even if you are not going to use it immediately.)

Figure 10.2 shows an ATX-style motherboard with one AGP slot, four PCI slots, and three ISA slots.

Memory Slots If you are replacing a motherboard that is more than a year old, there is not much hope of reusing the RAM in the new motherboard. Most RAM these days is synchronous, which means it operates at the same speed as the motherboard’s system bus (or at a multiple of its speed). When you get a new motherboard, you will need new RAM to match it. The big choice to make with a motherboard regarding RAM is how fast you want the RAM to be. Faster RAM means better performance, obviously, but it also means that you’ll spend more money to equip the motherboard with RAM. A new motherboard might support one of three types of RAM—Single Rate SDRAM, DDR (Double Data Rate) SDRAM, or RDRAM Rambus RAM (listed from slowest to fastest). Within each of those types are various speeds. The motherboard has a maximum RAM speed, and you can use any RAM speed at or below it, but you can’t mix and match speeds in the same motherboard. Before you make the final decision on a motherboard, get some prices for the RAM that it would require.

Figure 10.2 A typical ATX motherboard with a Pentium II SEC-style CPU and three types of expansion slots


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Another consideration is the number of RAM slots. Most motherboards have three; some high-end boards have four. When buying RAM for a motherboard you will probably buy a single large-denomination DIMM for a single RAM slot, so having a total of three versus four slots is not likely to be an important issue.

CPU Slot or Socket You must match the CPU to the motherboard, both physically (slot or socket size) and in terms of the chipset’s capability. As you learned earlier, the chipset controls what CPUs the motherboard will accept. If you use an unsupported CPU, it might not work at all or the motherboard might force it into one of its supported modes. For example, suppose your new motherboard supports Pentium 4 chips of up to 2 GHz, and you put a 2.2 GHz CPU in it. It might not work, or the motherboard might run the CPU at 2 GHz. There are two basic styles of CPU sockets—Pin Grid Array (PGA) and Single Edge Contact (SEC). The newest CPUs (Pentium 4 and equivalents) use PGAstyle packaging, so any new motherboard you buy will probably have that type of CPU socket. Rather than worrying about the socket size, simply check the specs for the motherboard to find out which CPU types and speeds it accepts, and then match that with the CPU you are interested in buying.

Built-In Components Many motherboards now include built-in components. This can be helpful if you need basic capability—no frills or special features—but you don’t have an expansion board for it already. Keep in mind, however, that if you want a topof-the-line component, you’ll want to buy it on a separate expansion board. If that’s your plan, spending extra for a motherboard with that built-in component is a waste. To check whether your existing motherboard has any built-in components, look at the ports on the back of the computer and then trace them from outside to inside. Any components that have a ribbon cable running from the connector to the motherboard are built into the motherboard. If you don’t buy a motherboard with that same component built in, you will have to buy an expansion board for the component.

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I/O Ports Input/Output (I/O) ports are fairly standard in newer motherboards; you get one or two COM (serial) ports, one LPT (parallel) port, a keyboard port, at least two USB ports, and a mouse port. Depending on the motherboard design, these might be built into the side of the board (ATX) or attached via small ribbon cables (AT). If you currently have two serial ports on your old motherboard and both are in use, make sure the new motherboard has two as well. Some motherboards might support more than two USB ports (for example, two on the board plus two or three more with ribbon cable connectors) and they might include FireWire ports.

Drive Connectors Nowadays, all motherboards come with a standard set of drive connectors— two IDE and one floppy. Some high-end motherboards have additional IDE controllers for creating RAIDs (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disk, a network server feature used for preventing data loss due to hard disk crashes), but for an end-user PC, this feature is not important.

Take a Break Now that you know what you’re looking for in a motherboard, go out and find it! You might have to order it online or you might be able to find what you need at a local computer store. I like buying from local stores because it’s simpler to return things if they don’t work—and motherboards are more likely than some other components to be DOA. Who shops on a Sunday evening? Okay, you’ve got me there. The stores you need might be closed by this point. If so, do your shopping tomorrow and pick up the rest of the chapter at your leisure.

What’s in the Box? Ready to install that new motherboard? Good. It probably came in a box with a lot of accessories. Open the box and verify that you have the following parts. ➤ The motherboard ➤ A motherboard manual


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➤ A CD-ROM containing the drivers for any built-in components ➤ An IDE cable ➤ A floppy-drive cable ➤ A bag of screws and washers ➤ Backplates with ports and small ribbon cables on them (usually AT only)

If you are missing any of these parts, return the motherboard to the store. The only possible exception might be that not all motherboards come with IDE and floppy cables. However, you probably already have these cables, so it’s no big deal if you don’t get new ones with the motherboard. The most critical accessories that come with the motherboard are the manual and the CD-ROM. If either of these is missing, it will be extremely difficult to set up the motherboard correctly.

Preparing the Work Area Clear a table to work on and put down something to protect the surface of the table if necessary. You don’t want to scratch a fine wood table with the rough corner of the case. Assemble the tools you will need, which include ➤ Phillips screwdriver. ➤ Antistatic wrist strap. ➤ Other screwdrivers—depending on the model. Some Compaq PCs use Torx screws, which are six-pointed stars, for example. ➤ Small dish to hold removed screws.

To protect yourself and the hardware, observe these safety precautions when working with motherboards. ➤ Wear an antistatic wrist strap to avoid ESD damage. ➤ Unplug the PC before touching the installed motherboard. ➤ Keep the new motherboard in its protective bag until you are ready to work with it. Do not set the motherboard on top of the bag. ➤ Handle motherboards only by the edges. ➤ Be careful not to bend any pins or resistors on the motherboard. ➤ When removing and installing expansion boards, handle them only by their edges.

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Removing the Old Motherboard First, disconnect everything from the motherboard. Remove all the expansion boards, and then disconnect all cables. This is easy to do; the difficult part will come when you have to reconnect them to the new motherboard and you’ve forgotten where everything goes! Therefore, be disciplined with labeling. If you think there is any possibility of forgetting where a particular cable goes, put a piece of masking tape on it and write a note to yourself indicating its location. If your old motherboard is an ATX, it is probably held in the bottom of the case by three to five screws. Remove those screws, and it should lift right out. If it’s an AT, there might be some plastic knobs, called standoffs, with umbrella tips that poke up through the motherboard and hold it in place. The bottoms of these standoffs are in channels in the case floor; slide the motherboard about an inch to the side and they should lift out. On some cases, the motherboard is mounted to a removable panel instead of to the fixed floor of the case. On such systems, you remove the screws holding the panel to the case, and then pull the motherboard and panel out the bottom. You can remove the motherboard from the panel much more easily than you can remove one from a full case. Figure 10.3 shows a case with a removable panel.

Setting Up the New Motherboard Before you install the new motherboard, you should do a few things to prepare for setup because it will be harder to work with after it’s in the case. 1. Install the CPU and RAM. You learned to do this in the previous chapter.

Figure 10.3 The floor of this case comes out with the motherboard attached to it.


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2. Install the heat sink or fan for the CPU as needed. Check with the CPU manufacturer if you’re not sure what’s needed; insufficient cooling can cause major problems. 3. Consult the motherboard manual and make any jumper changes necessary for the CPU and RAM you have installed. Newer motherboards are more likely to be jumperless.

Preparing the Case for the New Motherboard Standoffs are the supports (plastic or brass) that hold the motherboard off the floor of the case so that the metal in the floor does not conduct electricity through the board and short-circuit it. If you removed an AT motherboard, the plastic standoffs probably came with it. You don’t have to remove them from the old motherboard unless the new motherboard didn’t come with its own, in which case you have to reuse the old ones. To remove a standoff, squeeze the umbrella-like tip with pliers to collapse it, and then pull it out of the hole from the bottom (see Figure 10.4). Fortunately, most new motherboards come with a bag of screws and standoffs, so you should not have to remove the old ones. ATX motherboards do not use plastic standoffs at all. Brass standoffs remain in the case when you remove the old motherboard. Take a close look at one of them. They screw into the case floor and they have holes on top that allow other screws to fit into them (see Figure 10.5). Place the new motherboard into the case and note where the screw holes in the new motherboard fall. If they fall directly over the existing brass standoffs, great.

Figure 10.4 If you need to remove the old standoffs from the old motherboard, pinch the top with needle-nose pliers to make it fit back through the hole.

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Figure 10.5 Brass standoffs remain in the case, although you might need to reposition them to match the holes in the new motherboard.

If not, pull the motherboard back out and unscrew any brass standoffs that do not match up, and then reposition the standoffs to match the screw holes. The case should have several sets of screw holes in its floor to accommodate various motherboard designs. After you get the brass standoffs in the right places, place paper washers over their tops. Your new motherboard’s pack of screws and standoffs should contain at least six paper washers. Don’t discard them—they are very important! Wherever metal touches the motherboard, the possibility for an electrical short exists. To avoid trouble, you must install these paper washers. You will also place washers between the motherboard and the metal screws that you install later. If you have an AT system, the next step is to install the plastic standoffs in the case. They come out with the motherboard when you remove it, but they go in before the motherboard when you install it. Note which holes in the motherboard align with standoff canals in the case floor. Slide a standoff into place in each of the canals. Place the motherboard into the case so that the holes in the motherboard align with the tips of the plastic standoffs. Press the motherboard down so that the tips of the plastic standoffs poke through, holding the motherboard in place. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

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You will probably have trouble keeping the paper washers atop the brass standoffs as you press the motherboard down and lock it to the plastic standoffs. One way to keep the washers in place is to tape the paper washer to the brass standoff with a tiny piece of clear tape. Another method is to apply a very small amount of glue from a glue stick to each side of the washers. Don’t use bottled glue—you’ll get it on too thick. It only needs to hold for a few minutes. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■


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Figure 10.6 Use these pieces to attach the motherboard to the case.

Finally, place paper washers over each hole in the motherboard that corresponds to a brass standoff, and then tighten a screw into the hole. The paper washer prevents the metal screw from touching any metal on the motherboard that might cause it to short out. Figure 10.6 shows all the connectors and pieces needed for each hole.

Connecting the Power Supply On an AT system, the power supply connection to the motherboard comes in the form of two six-wire connectors labeled P8 and P9. They connect to the motherboard with the black wires facing together. Physically they will fit the other way too, but beware! It will fry the motherboard. Connect them as shown in Figure 10.7. On an ATX system, the power supply connection is a single 20-pin block, as in Figure 10.8. It only fits one way because of the shapes of the individual squares in the block; some have rounded corners.

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Figure 10.7 Connecting the power supply to an AT motherboard

Figure 10.8 Connecting the power supply to an ATX motherboard

Connecting Wires for Case Buttons/Switches Inside the front of the case is a cluster of wires. Each connector has between two and four wires attached to it and fits down over certain pins on the motherboard, as in Figure 10.9. For example, one set of wires runs from the hard disk light on the front of the PC, another one runs to the Reset button, and so on. Refer to the diagram in the motherboard manual to find out what goes where.

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If you don’t have the manual, you can sometimes deduce where most of the wires go by reading the lettering on each connector and deciphering codes on the motherboard that match up. For example, the Power SW connector probably connects to the pins on the motherboard labeled PWR. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

The only difference between an AT and an ATX is that an ATX system has a wire that runs from the power switch to the motherboard, whereas an AT system has a thick black cable that runs from the power supply to the case, bypassing the motherboard. Unless you removed the power supply, you should not need to do anything with it when replacing the motherboard.


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Figure 10.9 Connecting the case wires to the motherboard

Installing a Few Essential Components To test the motherboard installation, you will need to install a video card. You learned how to do this in the Friday Evening session. Simply fit the video card into an expansion slot in the motherboard and secure its backplate to the back of the PC with a screw. Then connect a monitor to the video card and turn on the monitor. You will also need a keyboard and a mouse connected, so go ahead and connect those to their respective ports—the same ports from which you disconnected them before removing the old motherboard.

Performing the Initial Tests Now you’re ready to see if the motherboard is operational. The test is fairly easy—just turn on the PC. If you see text on the screen, you’ve installed the motherboard correctly. If you don’t see anything onscreen, you did something wrong or the motherboard is defective. If the test doesn’t work, see one of the following sections for help.

No Fan, No Video There are several possible reasons why the power supply fan might not spin. ➤ You have a defective motherboard. Either it came defective or you have accidentally killed it with electrostatic discharge.

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➤ The motherboard is not installed in the case correctly. For example, a screw might have come in contact with a stray bit of solder on the board and short-circuited it—hence the importance of the paper washers between screws and the board. ➤ The power supply is not firmly connected to motherboard, or P8 and P9 connectors are reversed on an AT motherboard. ➤ The CPU is defective or not installed correctly. ➤ The RAM is defective or not installed correctly. ➤ The jumpers on motherboard are set incorrectly for CPU type or speed.

Fan but No Video If the power supply fan spins but nothing appears onscreen, there are several possible reasons. ➤ You have a defective motherboard. ➤ You have a defective video card, the video card is not completely seated, or the monitor is not firmly connected to video card. ➤ The jumpers on the motherboard are set incorrectly for RAM or CPU. ➤ The CPU is defective or not installed correctly (although usually the fan will not spin if this is the case). ➤ The RAM is defective or not installed correctly.

You might also hear a pattern of beeps coming from the PC speaker. These are called beep codes—they are coded error messages from the BIOS to tell you what is wrong with your motherboard. See the Web site for the BIOS manufacturer to find out what the codes mean. By far the most common reason for beep codes is bad or improperly installed RAM. If you have checked everything and can’t figure out why you aren’t getting any video, don’t be afraid to call in the big guns. Take the computer to a repair shop or invite a techie friend over for dinner.

Connecting the I/O Ports Assuming you got some text on the screen, turn off the PC because it’s now time to connect the I/O ports. On an ATX motherboard, they are mostly connected for you because they’re built into the side of the motherboard. However, on an AT system you must install the backplates for the ports in the case and then connect the ports to the specified pins on the motherboard. Because you are replacing an


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old motherboard, the backplates might already be there (or you might’ve removed them to get the old motherboard out and the new one in). Consult the motherboard manual to find out which connectors go where. Figure 10.10 shows some I/O ports connected with the motherboard outside of the case so you can get a better view, but of course yours will already be inside the case.

Connecting the Drives Next, connect the ribbon cables for the drives to the motherboard. These should already be connected to the drives, so all you need to do is plug the other ends into the motherboard. Remember—red stripe toward pin 1, as you learned in the Saturday Afternoon and Saturday Evening sessions. There will be two IDE connectors on the motherboard, labeled IDE1 and IDE2 or IDE0 and IDE1. The primary hard drive should be connected to the lowernumbered IDE connector because that’s the primary IDE channel. It might even be labeled “Primary” on the motherboard (see Figure 10.11).

Figure 10.10 I/O ports on backplates connect to an AT motherboard via small ribbon cables.

Figure 10.11 Connecting the drive cables to the motherboard

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Testing It All Together Now turn on the PC again. This is the big test; will the BIOS recognize the drives and auto-configure them? Chances are good if it’s a new motherboard. If you see the names and specs of the drives scroll by on the screen, success! If not, you might have the drive cables connected backwards or the BIOS might need a little help. Enter the BIOS Setup program and if there is a feature for detecting IDE devices, run it. If not, make sure that the IDE channels are all set to Auto. See the Friday Afternoon session if you need help with the BIOS Setup program. The BIOS allows the hard drive to boot after it detects it, so if you had Windows installed before, you still do. Windows will detect the new hardware (in this case, the motherboard and all of its resources, such as ports and expansion slots) and install the needed drivers. If prompted to restart Windows to complete the setup, do so—this is normal.

Moving On Congratulations, you just completed something that most people would be scared to death to try—a real motherboard upgrade. You should be pretty proud of yourself on this one. This is the last “regular” chapter of the book, but if you are still wide awake, check out the Night Owl session that follows to learn a little more.

NIGHT

OWL

3

Replacing a Motherboard Battery ➤ Locating the Battery ➤ Buying Batteries ➤ Replacing the Battery

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he useful life of a motherboard battery is between three and five years. Most people get new computers every five years on average, so they never need to worry about the battery. However, if you’ve decided to keep your old computer alive a little longer, replacing the battery might become an issue. In this extra session, you will learn what the battery does, where it’s located, and how to change it.

T

Symptoms of a Failing Motherboard Battery The most obvious symptom of a failing motherboard battery is that the computer’s date/time clock starts losing time. If you have to adjust the time in Windows every few days, that’s a sure sign that the battery needs to be replaced.

NOTE

Windows XP comes with an Internet time synchronization feature that automatically adjusts your clock as needed. This feature can mask a low-battery problem because the time will always be correct, even if the battery is completely dead.

If the BIOS Setup program forgets what hardware you have each time you shut the computer off, this is another symptom of a failing battery. As you learned in the Friday Afternoon session, each motherboard has a BIOS Setup program that shows the default settings for the motherboard and enables users to change them. When the battery fails completely, your BIOS Setup program might forget any custom settings you have specified because, on some systems, the battery supplies power to a CMOS chip that stores the exceptions to the BIOS defaults. In such cases, all BIOS settings revert to their defaults if the battery dies. This is less of an issue on newer systems because of Plug-and-Play. Each time a Plug-and-Play-compatible PC starts up, it redetects the hardware and relies less on manually configured settings in the BIOS than older PCs do.

NIGHT OWL 3 Replacing a Motherboard Battery

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Locating the Battery Early motherboards used a barrel-type battery that was permanently soldered to the motherboard. When the battery failed, you had to disable it and add an external battery pack. Figure 11.1 shows one of these old batteries. Notice the pins labeled + Jbt - to the left of the battery. You can connect an external battery to these pins in the event that the original battery dies. The external battery pack will have a connector that fits down over these pins. Some of these barrel-style batteries can be removed; they are held in place by tight metal plates on the ends. For these batteries, you can pull the barrel out from between the plates and replace it with a new battery of the same type (provided you can find one for sale). The next generation of motherboards used a replaceable battery with a similar size and shape to the ordinary alkaline batteries used in household devices (see Figure 11.2). These are not regular batteries, however, and you can’t use regular batteries in such sockets. These batteries must be replaced with special batteries from an electronics store.

Figure 11.1 A barrel-style battery permanently attached to a motherboard External battery connector

Figure 11.2 An early removable motherboard battery

Built-in battery

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Figure 11.3 A coin-style battery

Later motherboard models switched to a replaceable battery that looks like a thick coin or a very large watch battery (see Figure 11.3). It is held in place by a clip and can easily be removed and replaced. Some systems do not have a battery at all or have a battery built into the CMOS chip. If you cannot locate the battery on a motherboard, consult the motherboard manual or the PC manufacturer’s Web site to find out where the battery capability resides. On systems with a combination battery and CMOS chip, you must replace the chip when the battery dies. On systems with no battery at all, there is a capacitor on the motherboard that charges whenever the PC is plugged in; to charge the battery, simply leave the PC plugged in for a while.

Buying Batteries Radio Shack (http://www.radioshack.com) is a reliable source for most battery types, but is not cheap. You might be able to find cheaper batteries elsewhere. Baber.com also sells a wide variety of batteries (http://www.baber.com/baber/ computer_clock_battery/generic.htm). When shopping, make sure you carefully compare the old battery to the new one to ensure you are getting the right thing. You must match the voltage as well as the physical size and shape. If in doubt, get someone from the vendor’s sales staff to help you determine the correct model. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

TIP

When shopping for unusual old batteries, you will probably have better luck at a battery store than at a computer store. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

NIGHT OWL 3 Replacing a Motherboard Battery

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Replacing the Battery If the battery is not removable but there’s an external battery connector, as in Figure 11.1, you can buy a battery pack like the one shown in Figure 11.4, and then attach it to the connector on the motherboard. Mount the battery pack nearby on the case. (Usually these battery packs come with a strip of Velcro for that purpose.) Some barrel-style batteries pull out of their holders; others are permanently attached. The removable ones are held in place by friction, so you can just pull them out and then wedge in the new one. Coin-style batteries have arms that hold them down. Pull the arm up and pop the battery out with a pointed tool. On some models, you push the battery to one side with your finger and then pry or lift it up.

Figure 11.4 An external battery pack that replaces a dead built-in battery

Moving On Congratulations, you made it through the entire weekend! This is the last session of the book. At this point, you should have a fully upgraded, fully functional computer. Thanks for hanging in there through all the sessions, including this bonus one.

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I hope you enjoy the upgrades you’ve installed, and that you look for some of my other books from Premier Press the next time you’re in the bookstore. One that you might especially enjoy is Tune Up Your PC in a Weekend. That book does for software what this book did for hardware—it helps you figure out what might be wrong and how to fix it by upgrading, patching, or running utilities. Good luck with all your computing!

APPENDIX

A

Buying Parts Online These days, there is certainly no shortage of online vendors willing to sell you PC parts. But where is the best place to buy them? You can get a huge list of stores from any search engine; so rather than throw a lot of names at you here, I’ll give you the short list of what I consider the best places to buy parts online.

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Buy.com

Amazon.com

http://www.buy.com

http://www.amazon.com/computers

This is one of the cheaper reliable vendors of new parts. They also sell more than just computer parts.

Yeah, they sell more than just books! Amazon has a computer department with all the usual parts you would find at other online retailers. Prices are reasonable, although perhaps not the lowest—but if you’re already familiar with the Amazon interface, shopping here can save you time.

Dirt Cheap Drives http://www.dirtcheapdrives.com Although this company specializes in hard drives, they actually sell all kinds of computer parts.

CNET Shopper http://shopper.cnet.com

This is a good source of new and used parts for proprietary systems such as Compaq, Toshiba, and IBM.

When I’m looking for the bottom-line best price on a particular model, I check out comparison shopping sites such as this one. You plug in the model you want and it spits out a list of vendors who carry it, sorted by lowest price.

PC Power and Cooling

Dealcatcher

http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com

http://www.dealcatcher.com

If you are in the market for a top-quality case or power supply, look no further. This company makes (and sells) the good stuff.

I love this site. It lists all of the coupons and special deals that many online retailers have issued, so you can potentially save a few bucks. I always check here before finalizing my purchase at any online store to make sure I’m not missing out on a coupon.

Big Blue Online http://www.bigblueonline.com

Computer Geeks http://www.compgeeks.com This site often has good specials on closeout, overstock, and used parts, as well as a full regular catalog of new items. If you’re looking for a cheap price on a slightly smaller hard drive than what’s for sale at your local computer store or last year’s popular CPU, this can be a great place to shop.

APPENDIX

B

Getting Hardware Information Online Getting the full scoop on a particular product might not be possible from a single Web site. The device manufacturer will be a prime source of accurate facts and figures, but you might also need to visit a consumer opinion Web site or check out newsgroups to find out the buzz about a product.

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The following sections list some helpful Web sites from which you can get the information you need.

General Technology Information

Tom’s Hardware

Check out some of these sites if you are still pondering a particular technology and are not quite ready to select a brand and model.

This is a very nice repository of technical information. Check out the Tom’s Guides section for general articles on various components.

Ziff-Davis

TechTutorials

http://www.zdnet.com

http://www.techtutorials.com

The publishers of many of the leading computer magazines, including PC Magazine, offer this site full of articles and technical information. You are required to register to access some of the information on this site.

This site offers a lot of free information about computer technology, broken down by easy-tobrowse categories.

CNet http://www.cnet.com An excellent resource for all things technologyrelated, from industry trends to hardware reviews. (Also see my description of CNet in the next section.)

PC TechGuide http://www.pctechguide.com This is one of my favorite places to find general information about computer technology, including how things work and what makes one device different from another.

http://www.tomshardware.com

Hardware Manufacturer Directories Rather than reinventing the wheel, I’ll first point you to some Web sites that offer rather exhaustive lists of manufacturers. If you don’t find a particular manufacturer in the “Individual Manufacturers” section later in this appendix, try one of these listings.

The Computer Web Source: Hardware Companies http://vanbc.wimsey.com/~glenz/source1.html This is an amazingly comprehensive list of hardware companies with hyperlinks to their Web sites.

APPENDIX B Getting Hardware Information Online

The Ultimate Industry Connection

Belkin

http://www.acehardware.net/complist.html

http://www.belkin.com

This is another good list of hardware manufacturer Web sites.

Canon Digital Cameras

Trish’s Escape from Hardware Hell List of Motherboard Manufacturers

http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/ home.html

http://hardwarehell.com/mobo.htm

Compaq

Actually, this whole site is great (http:// hardwarehell.com, notice that there is no “www” in the address), but this list of motherboard manufacturers is particularly helpful.

http://thenew.hp.com

Individual Manufacturers

Dell

Here are some of the top hardware manufacturers. I won’t comment on each of their sites individually because they’re straightforward manufacturer sites that describe the current product lines and provide driver downloads and support for both old and new models.

Epson

This is not a comprehensive list; if the manufacturer you seek isn’t listed here, try one of the directories in the preceding section.

3COM http://www.3com.com

AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) http://www.amd.com

ATI Technologies Inc. http://www.ati.com

Creative http://www.creative.com

http://www.dell.com

http://www.epson.com

ESS Technology, Inc. http://www.esstech.com

Gateway http://www.gateway.com

Guillemot (Maxi Sound) http://www.guillemot.com

Hewlett-Packard http://www.hp.com

IBM http://www.ibm.com

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Intel

OKI

http://www.intel.com

http://www.okidata.com

Iomega

Olympus America

http://www.iomega.com

http://www.olympusamerica.com

Kensington

Philips PC Peripherals

http://www.kensington.com

http://www.pcstuff.philips.com

Kodak Digital Cameras

Pine Group

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/nav/ digital.shtml

http://www.pinegroup.com

Promise Technology, Inc. Lexmark

http://www.promise.com

http://www.lexmark.com

Samsung Logitech

http://www.samsung.com

http://www.logitech.com

SIIG, Inc. MAG Innovision

http://www.siig.com

http://www.maginnovision.com

Sony Matrox

http://www.sony.com

http://www.matrox.com

U.S. Robotics Maxtor

http://www.usrobotics.com

http://www.maxtor.com/Maxtorhome.htm

VIAHardware.com Microsoft

http://www.viahardware.com

http://www.microsoft.com

Viewsonic NVIDIA http://www.nvidia.com

http://www.viewsonic.com

APPENDIX B Getting Hardware Information Online

Voyetra/Turtle Beach http://www.turtlebeach.com/site

Western Digital http://www.westerndigital.com

Zoom Technologies

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about a particular brand and model. It’s the resource I turn to first when I need to know about any potential problems that the manufacturer is keeping quiet.

Epinions.com http://www.epinions.com

http://www.zoom.com

This is a good place to read uncensored, unvarnished opinions about various technologies, devices, and models.

Consumer Reviews and Opinions

Consumer Reports

Use these sites to find out what other consumers think about the models and brands you are considering.

CNet http://reviews.cnet.com The Reviews section at CNet is a great resource for finding out what the buzz on the street is

http://www.consumerreports.org This is the Web site for the magazine of the same name. Useful product reviews, but this is a general consumer site, not specifically for computers, and you must be a subscriber to read most reviews.


INDEX Numbers

A

3D acceleration 3DfxGlide, 51 alpha blending, 49 animation keyframes, 47–48 antialiasing, 49 APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), 50–51 Direct3D, 51 DirectX, 51 environment-based bump mapping, 49 flat shading, 48 fogging, 49 frame rate, 50 Gourand shading, 48 OpenGL, 50 primitives, 48 rasterization, 48 scan conversion, 49 shading, 49 stencil buffering, 50 texture mapping, 48–49 video card needs evaluation, 47–51 visible surface determination, 49 X vertex, 48 Y vertex, 48 Z buffering, 50 Z vertex, 48 3D graphics accelerator, 7 3D modeling, video card upgrade reason, 32 3D sounds, 107–108 3D video mode, video RAM requirements, 45 3DfxGlide, graphics API, 51 5.1 Channel Audio Effects, sound cards, 104

A3D 2.0 standard, sound cards, 107 AC (alternating current), defined, 202–203 Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) bus, 41–42 access times, CD-ROM drives, 179 active heat sink, fan attached, 274 active matrix, LCD monitors, 56 active partition described, 148–149 setting in FDISK utility, 160–161 Add Hardware, Control Panel applet, 25 Add or Remove Programs, Control Panel applet, 25, 27–28 Add Printer Wizard, 26 Add/Remove Programs applet, removing unused programs, 123 address bus, defined, 290 adjustment controls, monitors, 58 Adobe, PostScript, 83–84 ADSL (Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line), Internet connection, 218 Advanced Technology (AT) form factor, motherboards, 291–293 AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) bus, 17, 41–43, 294 AGP 1.0 specification, speed ratings, 43 AGP 2.0 specification, speed ratings, 43 AGP 3.0 specification, speed ratings, 43 all-in-one computer, pros/cons, 8 allocation units. See clusters alpha blending, 3D acceleration, 49 AMD Athlon CPU, 4, 273 AMD Duron CPU, 273 AMD K5 CPU, 270–271

321

322

Index

AMD K6 CPU, 272–273 amperage, defined, 202 amplification, speaker consideration, 108–109 analog multimeter, power supply testing, 208–210 analog speakers, versus digital speakers, 110 animation, keyframes, 47–48 antialiasing, 3D acceleration, 49 antistatic bags, component storage, 14 antistatic wrist strap motherboard installation preparation, 297 when to use, 13–14 AOL, online service, 216 aperture grille, CRT alignment method, 53 APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), 3D acceleration, 50–51 applets Control Panel, 25–30 described, 25 applications, video problem troubleshooting, 64–66 Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), Internet connection method, 218 AT (Advanced Technology) form factor, motherboards, 291–293 AT form factor, motherboard/power supply connections, 301–302 ATA-2/Enhanced IDE (EIDE) standard, hard drives, 131 Athlon XP CPU, 274 ATI, video chipsets, 47 AT-style cases, power supply connectors, 211–212 ATX form factor described, 205 motherboard/power supply connections, 301–302 motherboards, 291–293 audio cables, CD-ROM drive connections, 196 audio CDs CD-ROM upgrade advantage, 174 sound quality considerations, 90 audio connectors, IDE drives, 191 AUX IN port, sound cards, 106 average access speed, CD-ROM drives, 179

B Baby AT form factor, 205, 292 back probing, power supply testing, 209–210

backups files/folders, 138 hard drive before new drive installation, 139 restore considerations, 138 bandwidth, CD-ROM drive performance factor, 180 bank, RAM, 256 barrel-style battery, 309 batteries disposal guidelines, 15 motherboard replacement, 307–311 beep codes, BIOS, 304 BIOS (Basic Input Output System) accessing on startup, 22–23 active (boot) partition, 148–149 beep codes, 304 data transfer modes, 133–134 described, 22–23 enabling/disabling COM ports, 236–237 hard drive configuration, 146–147 hard drive setup, 130–134 IDE drive configuration, 197 motherboard upgrade reason, 288–289 BIOS-based data transfer modes, hard drives, 133–134 brand name, versus generic components, 11–12 brass standoffs, motherboards, 299–301 brightness, monitor adjustment, 39 broadband connection installation, 226–231 connection method criteria, 222–224 defined, 215 Internet connection troubleshooting, 245–247 Internet surfing method, 216 speed rating issues, 223–224 upgrade considerations, 5 versus dial-up connections, 217–221 browsers, Internet Explorer, 217 bubble jet printers, 80 buffers, CD-RW drives, 183–184 built-in AGP video, pros/cons, 41–42 built-in amplifier, digital audio, 103 built-in components, motherboard upgrade reason, 289, 295 built-in video, disabling, 60 burning, defined, 177 BURN-Proof technology, CD-RW drives, 183–184 burst mode, digital cameras, 72

Index

buses Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP), 41–42, 43 described, 290 Industry Standard Architecture (ISA), 41–42 local bus, 41 modem types, 225 Peripheral Connect Interface (PCI), 41–42 VESA Local Bus (VLB), 41 video types, 41–42 business applications, upgrade reasons, 5–6

C cable Internet installation, 227–229 Internet connection method, 218–219, 222 multiple PC routing, 230 speed advantages, 223 cable select jumper, hard drives, 141–142 cables, ribbon, 20–21 cache CD-ROM drive performance factor, 180 CPUs, 268–269 described, 44 camcorders, 73–75 canned air, component cleaning, 15 Canon, bubble jet printers, 80 capacity, hard drive considerations, 134–135 case buttons, motherboard connections, 302–303 cases AT-style power supply connectors, 211–212 cover removal methods, 15–16 drive bay, 3 external drive bay, 19–20 hard drive mounting, 143–144 internal drive bay, 19–20 internal IDE drive installation, 193–197 motherboard standoffs, 299–301 PC Power and Cooling, 211 Cathode Ray Tube (CRT), monitor type, 52–54 CAV (Constant Angular Velocity), CD-ROM drives, 178–179 CCD (Charge-Coupled Device), scanners, 66–67, 71 CD In (Audio In) port, sound cards, 106 CD-R (CD Recordable) drives burning CDs, 177 copying files to, 137–138

323

described, 3, 175 recording process 182–183 recording speeds, 176–177 versus CD-RW drives, 181–182 CD-ROM (CD Read Only Memory) drives access time, 179 audio cable connections, 196 audio connectors, 191 average access speed, 179 BIOS configuration, 197 cable-sharing avoidance, 192–193 cache size, 180 CLV versus CAV, 178–179 CPU usage issues, 181 data storage process, 177–178 data transfer rates, 177–178 described, 3, 175 drive bay mounting, 193–197 drive interface types, 180 IDE ribbon cable connector, 191 installation preparations, 191 interface bandwidth competition, 180 interface types, 20 jumpers, 191 land, 177–178 manually ejecting CDs, 200 motherboard connections, 195 multi-read technology, 180 performance factors, 180–181 performance positioning considerations, 192–193 power cable connections, 196 power connectors, 191 Red Book standard, 181 speed ratings, 176 testing, 198 viewing disk contents, 24–25 wattage requirements, 207 Yellow Book standard, 181 CD-RW (CD Rewriteable) drives buffers, 183–184 burning CDs, 177 BURN-Proof technology, 183–184 copying files to, 137–138 described, 3, 175 read/write speeds, 184 recording process, 183 recording speeds, 176–177 versus CD-R drives, 181–182

324

Index

CDs (Compact Discs) burning, 177 data storage process, 177–178 manually ejecting, 200 Celeron CPU, 271–272 centering, monitor adjustment, 40 Central Processing Unit. See CPU Charge-Coupled Device (CCD), scanners, 66–67, 71 chemicals, disposal guidelines, 15 chipsets described, 290–291 hub architecture, 290–291 motherboards, 22 north/south bridge architecture, 290–291 video cards, 46–47 churning, virtual memory use, 251 circuit boards, disposal guidelines, 15 CIS (Contact Image Sensor), scanners, 67, 71 classes, CPUs, 269–274 cleaners, disposal guidelines, 15 clock cycle, CPUs, 264 clock multiplier, CPUs, 265 clusters, hard drives, 149–151 CLV (Constant Linear Velocity), CD-ROM drives, 178–179 CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) battery replacement issues, 310 digital cameras, 72 COAST (Cache on a Stick), 269 coin-style battery, 310 color depth described, 37 scanners, 69, 71 Windows display setting, 37 colors monitor adjustment, 40 printer quality consideration, 78, 82–83 scanners, 68 sound card labeling, 95–96 COM ports, enabling/disabling in BIOS, 236–237 commands Copy, 24 Cut, 24 FIXMBR, 170 FORMAT, 161 Paste, 24 Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) battery replacement issues, 310 digital cameras, 72

components antistatic bag storage, 14 brand name versus generic, 11–12 cleaning with canned air, 15 disposal concerns, 15 Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) issues, 13–14 Plug-and-Play technology support, 24 temperature extreme avoidance, 15 video subsystem, 33 Compress a Drive dialog box, 125–126 compression, DriveSpace utility, 125–126 computers all-in-one pros/cons, 8 build-your-own advantages, 10 disposal concerns, 15 new versus upgrade considerations, 9–11 connectors AT motherboard, 301–302 AT-style power supply, 211–212 ATX motherboard, 301–302 ATX power supply, 205 Ethernet network card, 18 expansion board by type identification, 18 hard drive ribbon cables, 142, 144–145 IDE hard drive, 139–140 LPX power supply, 205 modems, 18 parallel port, 18 SCSI card, 19 serial port, 18 sound card, 18 video card, 18 Constant Angular Velocity (CAV), CD-ROM drives, 178–179 Constant Linear Velocity (CLV), CD-ROM drives, 178–179 Contact Image Sensor (CIS), scanners, 67, 71 continuous shooting mode, digital cameras, 72 contrast, monitor adjustment, 40 Control Panel Add Hardware, 25 Add or Remove Programs, 25, 27–28 Add/Remove Programs, 123 Device Manager, 26, 28–30 Display, 26 Display Properties, 33–34 Game Controllers, 26 Keyboard, 26 Mouse, 26

Index

Network Connections, 26 Phone and Modem Options, 26 Printers and Faxes, 26 Scanners and Cameras, 26 speaker configuration settings, 117–118 System, 26 Virtual Memory, 122 controllers, expansion board type, 17, 18 convergence, monitor adjustment, 40 cooling CPUs, 274–275 core voltages, CPUs, 268 costs, upgrade advantages, 11 covers, removal methods, 15–16 CPU (Central Processing Unit) address bus, 290 AMD Athlon, 273 AMD Duron, 273 AMD K5, 270–271 AMD K6, 272–273 Athlon XP, 274 caches, 268–269 CD-ROM drive usage issues, 181 Celeron, 271–272 classes, 269–274 communication methods, 263–264 cooling, 274–275 core voltages, 268 Cyrix 6X86, 270–271 described, 4 external data bus speeds, 264–265 Intel classes, 4 Itanium, 274 megahertz (MHz) speed measurement, 4 motherboard socket/slot types, 295 overclocking, 264 packaging, 266–267 Pentium, 269–270 Pentium 4, 274 Pentium II, 271 Pentium III, 273 Pentium Pro, 269–270 replacing, 280–286 speed increase, 250–251 testing, 285 troubleshooting installations, 285–286 upgrade advantages, 250 upgrade barriers, 253–254 CRT (Cathode Ray Tube), monitor type, 52–54

customer support, name brand versus generic parts, 11 cylinders, hard drive unit, 129 Cyrix 6X86 CPU, 270–271

D data bus speeds, CPUs, 264–265 data flow, motherboards, 289 data, hard drive storage process, 127–128 data storage CD-ROM drives, 177 CD-ROM upgrade advantages, 174 data transfer modes, BIOS-based, 133–134 data transfer rates CD-ROM drives, 177–178 DVD drives, 185–186 hard drive considerations, 135, 167 DC (direct current), defined, 203 DDR SDRAM, video card RAM type, 46 defective units, name brand versus generic parts, 11 degaussing, monitors, 63 desktop publishing, upgrade reasons, 6 Device Manager described, 26 identifying current sound card, 93 modem configuration, 233–234 modem connection testing, 235 property display, 29–30 video card information display, 33–34 Windows 2000/XP access, 28 Windows 9x/Me access, 28 Windows sound driver installation, 113–115 dial-up connections Internet surfing method, 216 versus full-time connection, 217–221 dial-up networking installation, 240 Internet surfing uses, 217 modem connections, 237–240 digital camcorders, 7, 73–75 cameras, upgrade reason, 7 instruments, sound card requirement, 3 multimeter, power supply testing, 208–210 speakers, versus analog speakers, 110 video cameras, 73–75 zoom, digital cameras, 72

325

326

Index

digital audio built-in amplifier, 103 Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding, 104 EAX, 104 Microsoft DirectSound, 104 Microsoft DirectSound 3D, 104 Sound Blaster compatibility, 103–104 speaker adjustments, 104 woofer adjustments, 104 Digital Out port, sound cards, 105 Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), Internet connection method, 218, 223 DIMMs, RAM, 257–258, 278 Direct Memory Access (DMA) data transfer mode, 133 Direct3D, graphics API, 51 DirectCD program, writeable CDs, 182 DirectPC, one-way satellite connection method, 219–220, 223 DirectSound3D, sound cards, 108 DirectX, graphics API, 51 DirecWay, two-way satellite connection method, 219–220 disk cartridge drives, purchasing considerations, 188–189 Disk Cleanup, deleting unneeded files, 123–124 Disk Management utility non-healthy disk status report, 171 partitioning/formatting disks, 163–166 Windows 2000, 148 disks described, 19 moving/copying files between, 24 Display, Control Panel applet, 26 display modes, video RAM requirements, 44 Display Properties, video card information display, 33–34 display settings color depth, 37 monitor adjustments, 39–40 refresh rate, 38–39 resolution, 37–38 DMA (Direct Memory Access) data transfer mode, 133 Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding, digital audio, 104 dot matrix printers, 79 dot pitch, monitor measurement, 53, 57 double-scan passive matrix (DSTN), LCD monitors, 55–56 DoubleSpace. See DriveSpace

drag-and-drop copying files to removable media, 137–138 moving/copying files, 24 DRAM (Dynamic RAM), operating system storage, 254 drive bay CD-ROM drive installation, 193–197 described, 3 external, 19–20 hard drive mounting, 3, 143–144 internal, 19–20 internal IDE drive installation, 193–197 drive controllers, expansion board type, 17, 18 Drive Converter (FAT32), 124–125 drive interfaces, CD-ROM types, 180 DriveCopy, hard drive copying program, 138 DriveImage, hard drive copying program, 138 drivers monitor, 36 sound card installation, 113–115 sound card updates, 96–97 video card installation, 61–62 video card updates, 34–36 drives described, 19 motherboard connections, 305 DriveSpace, hard drive compression, 125–126 DriveSpeed program, drive diagnostics, 176 DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) installation, 226–227 Internet connection method, 218, 223 multiple PC routing, 230 speed ratings, 223 DSTN (double-scan passive matrix), LCD monitors, 55–56 Dual Monitor Output, video cards, 52 DVD (Digital Versatile/Video Disk) drives data transfer rates, 185–186 described, 3, 175 DVD-5 standard, 185 movie playback process, 185 MPEG-2 decoding, 186–187 performance factors, 186–187 Recordable DVD Council support issues, 188 speed issues, 185–186 speed ratings, 176 DVD movies DVD upgrade advantage, 174

Index

playback troubleshooting, 199 sound quality considerations, 90 upgrade reasons, 7 video card upgrade reason, 32 DVD+R drives, 187 DVD+RW drives, 187 DVD-5 standard, 185 DVD-R (DVD Recordable) drives, 187 DVD-RAM (DVD Random Access Memory) drives, 188 DVD-RW (DVD Rewriteable) drives, 187 dynamic range, scanners, 69, 71

E Easy Recovery program, partition information, 170 EAX, digital audio, 104 EAX standard, sound cards, 107 eBay, older parts source, 253 effects engine, MIDI sounds, 102 electricity, 13–15 Electromagnetic Interference (EMI), speakers, 110 Electrostatic Discharge (ESD), 13–14 e-mail Internet connection update reason, 214, 223 ISP (Internet Service Provider), 216 ISP account setup, 243–245 Outlook Express, 217 EMI (Electromagnetic Interference), speakers, 110 Enhanced BIOS Services for Disk Drives, 132 environment, outdated PC disposal concerns, 15 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), hazardous waste disposal, 15 environment-based bump mapping, 3D acceleration, 49 EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), hazardous waste disposal, 15 Epson, piezoelectric inkjet printers, 80 ESD (Electrostatic Discharge), 13–14 Ethernet network cards, connector arrangement, 18 expansion boards described, 2, 17–18 hard drive cable connections, 144–145 types, 17–18 expansion buses, video types, 41–42 expansion slots motherboard types, 17, 293–294 motherboard upgrade reason, 289

327

Extended CHS (ECHS), hard drive addressing, 131–132 extended partition defined, 146 creating in FDISK utility, 159–160 external battery pack, motherboard battery replacement, 311 data bus speeds, CPUs, 264–265 device connectors, speakers, 110 disk drives, connection types, 197–198 drive bay, 19–20 ports, sound cards, 105–106 external modems described, 224–225 enabling/disabling COM ports, 237 installation, 233 external speed, CPUs, 264

F familiarity, build-your-own advantages, 10 FAT file systems, high-level formatting, 151–152 FAT16 file system 2.1-GB partition limitation, 133 DriveSpace support, 125–126 FAT32 conversion, 124–125 hard drive cluster sizes, 150 hard drive partition limitations, 148 FAT32 Converter utility, 124–125 FAT32 file systems, hard drive cluster sizes, 151 faxes, modem capability, 225 FDISK utility changing current fixed disk drive, 156–157 deleting logical DOS drives, 157–158 deleting partitions, 157–158 extended partition creation, 159–160 logical drive creation, 159–160 main menu options, 154–155 master boot record recovery, 170 partition information display, 148, 156 primary partition creation, 158–159 running from a command line, 153–154 setting active partition, 160–161 file downloads, Internet connection update reason, 214 file extensions, .inf (information), 36 file systems FAT16 to FAT32 conversion, 124–125 hard drive cluster sizes, 150–151

328

Index

files copying to removable media, 137–138 deleting unneeded, 123–124 deleting/retrieving, 25 moving/copying, 24 renaming, 24 searches, 24 selection techniques, 137 viewing contents, 24–25 Find/Search, file search, 24 FireWire (IEEE 1394) connector digital camcorders, 7, 75 digital cameras, 73 FIXMBR command, master boot record recovery, 170 flash, digital cameras, 72 flat shading, 3D acceleration, 48 floppy disks copying files to, 137–138 formatting with FORMAT command, 161 low-level formatting non-support, 130 Sony Mavica digital camera, 72 viewing contents, 24–25 floppy drives, wattage requirements, 207 FM synthesis, sound cards, 102 fogging, 3D acceleration, 49 folders copying to removable media, 137–138 deleting/retrieving, 25 moving/copying, 24 moving/copying files between, 24 renaming, 24 searches, 24 selection techniques, 137 viewing contents, 24–25 fonts, printer quality consideration, 78, 84 form factors, power supplies, 204–205 FORMAT command, 161 formatting high-level, 151–153 system disks, 161 FPM (Fast Page Mode), SIMM speed, 259 frame rates, 3D acceleration, 50 frequency range, speakers, 110

G Game Controllers, Control Panel applet, 26

game playing CD-ROM upgrade advantages, 174 FM synthesis, 102 sound quality considerations, 91 upgrade reasons, 6 video card upgrade reason, 32 GeForce, video chipsets, 47 generic, versus brand name components, 11–12 geometry hard drive organizational units, 130 monitor adjustment, 40 ghosting, hard drive copying method, 138–139 gigabytes (GB), memory measurement, 255 Gouraud shading, 3D acceleration, 48 graphics accelerator, 7 graphics editing, upgrade reasons, 6–7 grounding, ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) avoidance, 14

H hard drives active partition, 148–148 ATA-2/Enhanced IDE (EIDE) standard, 131 backups, 138 BIOS configuration, 146–147 BIOS setup, 130–134 BIOS size limitations/workaround, 131–132 BIOS-based data transfer modes, 133–134 cable select jumper, 141–142 capacity considerations, 134–135 checking available storage space, 120–122 clusters, 149–151 copying files to removable media, 137–138 cylinders, 129 data storage process, 127–128 data transfer, 167 described, 3 Direct Memory Access (DMA) transfer mode, 133 drive bay, 3 drive bay mounting, 143–144 DriveSpace compression utility, 125–126 dual installation, 139–146 Enhanced BIOS Services for Disk Drives, 132 extended partition 146 FAT formatting, 152

Index

formatting from My Computer, 162 formatting with FORMAT command, 161 geometry, 130 ghosting, 138–139 heads, 129 high-level formatting, 151–153 IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics), 20 IDE connectors, 139–140 IDE ribbon cables, 142, 144–145 IDE versus SCSI, 134 installation testing, 166 latency, 136 logical drives, 123, 147–149 low-level formatting, 130 Master Boot Record (MBR) storage, 149 master/slave jumpers, 140–142 maximum data transfer rates, 135 motherboard cable connections, 144–145 motherboard/drive connections, 305 NTFS formatting, 152 organizational units, 128–130 partitioning/formatting during Windows 2000/XP setup, 163 partitioning/formatting in MS-DOS/Windows 9x, 153–162 partitions, 122–123, 147–149 performance positioning considerations, 142–143 power cable connections, 145–146 power connectors, 139–140 primary partition, 146 Programmed I/O (PIO) transfer mode, 133 read/write heads, 127–128 read/write seek times, 136 removing unused programs, 123–124 rotational speeds, 136 SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface), 20 sectors, 129 selecting in FDISK utility, 156–157 tracks, 129 troubleshooting, 167–171 UltraDMA (UDMA) transfer mode, 133 viewing disk contents, 24–25 virtual memory, 121–122 hardware 3D graphics accelerator, 7 antistatic bag storage, 14 brand name versus generic parts, 11–12

CD-R drives, 3 CD-ROM drives, 3 CD-RW drives, 3 cleaning with canned air, 15 CPU (Central Processing Unit), 4 disposal concerns, 15 drives, 19 DVD drives, 3 electrical safety issues, 13–15 ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) concerns, 13–14 expansion boards, 2, 17–18 hard drives, 3 jumpers, 21–22 memory, 4 monitors, 3 motherboards, 4, 16–17 new computer versus upgrade issues, 9 removable drives, 3 ribbon cables, 20 sound cards, 3 speakers, 3 temperature extreme avoidance, 15 video cards, 2 hardware modems, 225 hardware resolution, scanners, 67 Headphone port, sound cards, 105 heads, hard drive unit, 129 heat sinks, CPUs, 274 Hewlett-Packard bubble jet printers, 80 PCL (Print Control Language), 83 high-level formatting, hard drives, 151–153 horizontal dpi, scanners, 67 horizontal resolution, scanners, 67 hub architecture, chipsets, 290–291 hybrid printers, 81

I I/O (Input/Output) ports motherboards, 296, 304–305 sound cards, 104–106 ICS (Internet Connection Sharing), 240–243 IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) drive interface, 20 subtypes, 134 versus SCSI hard drives, 134

329

330

Index

IDE drives audio cable connections, 196 audio connectors, 191 BIOS configuration, 197 cable-sharing avoidance, 192–193 IDE ribbon cable connector, 191 installation preparations, 191 internal installation, 190–197 jumpers, 191 motherboard connections, 195 performance positioning considerations, 192–193 power cable connections, 196 power connectors, 191 testing, 198 troubleshooting, 198–200 IDE interface, CD-ROM drives, 180 IDE ribbon cables, hard drives, 142, 144–145 IEEE 1394 (FireWire) connector digital camcorders, 7, 75 digital cameras, 73 sound cards, 105 image storage, digital cameras, 73 image transfer, digital cameras, 72–73 Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, 41–42 .inf (information) file extension, 36 ink cartridges, inkjet printers, 80 inkjet printers, troubleshooting color quality, 85–86 Input/Output (I/O) ports, motherboards, 296 installation cable Internet, 227–229 CPUs, 281–285 dial-up networking, 240 DSL service, 226–227 external disk drives, 197–198 external modem, 233 internal IDE drive, 190–197 internal modem, 232 memory, 278–279 monitor driver, 36 monitors, 62–64 multiple hard drives, 139–146 satellite Internet service, 230–231 sound cards, 111–113 speakers, 115–117 video card, 59–62 Windows sound drivers, 113–115 Windows video card drivers, 61–62

Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) drive interface, 20 subtypes, 134 versus SCSI hard drives, 134 Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), Internet connections, 220–221 Intel, chipsets, 290 interface bandwidth, CD-ROM drive performance factor, 180 internal drive bay, 19–20 internal IDE drives, installation, 190–197 internal modem described, 224–225 enabling/disabling COM ports, 236–237 installation, 232 internal ports, sound cards, 106 internal speed, CPUs, 264 Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), 240–243 Internet Connection Wizard, 238–239 Internet Explorer, Web browser, 217 Internet Service Provider (ISP) e-mail account setup, 243–245 e-mail service provider, 216 Internet surfing requirement, 215–217 selection criteria, 224 Internet surfing broadband connection criteria, 215–216, 222–224 broadband connection installation, 226–231 checking connection services, 222 connection methods, 217–222 connection sharing, 240–243 dial-up networking connection, 237–240 dial-up services, 216 dial-up versus full-time connection, 217–221 e-mail account setup, 243–245 existing hardware checking, 215 Internet Service Provider (ISP), 215–217 IP address conventions, 215–216 modem connection testing, 215–216 modems, 224–225 online services, 216 troubleshooting connections, 245–247 upgrade reasons, 5 interpolation, scanners, 67 Interrupt Requests (IRQs) modem resource conflict resolution, 236 sound cards, 100 IP address, Internet surfing requirements, 215–216

Index

IRQs (Interrupt Requests) modem resource conflict resolution, 236 sound cards, 100 ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) bus described, 41–42 expansion card slot type, 17 motherboard expansion slot type, 293 sound cards, 99, 101 ISA circuit boards, wattage requirements, 207 ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), Internet connections, 220–221 ISP (Internet Service Provider) Internet surfing requirements, 215–217 e-mail account setup, 243–245 e-mail service provider, 216 selection criteria, 224 Itanium CPU, 274

J jewelry, removing before working inside a PC, 13 jumpers described, 21–22 hard drive cable select, 141–142 hard drive master/slave status, 140–142 IDE drives, 191

K Keyboard, Control Panel applet, 26 keyboards, AT versus ATX connectors, 292–293 keyframes, animation, 47–48 Kflex standard. See V.90 standard kilobits (Kb), memory measurement, 255

L labels, power supply information, 206–207 lag time, digital cameras, 72 land, CDs, 177–178 laser printers, 81 latency, hard drives, 136 LBA (Logical Block Addressing), hard drives, 132 LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), monitor type, 52, 54–56 Lexmark, piezoelectric inkjet printers, 80 Line In port, sound cards, 105 Line Out port, sound cards, 105

331

line printers, 84 Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), monitor type, 52, 54–56 loads, power supply issues, 204 local bus, 41 Logical Block Addressing (LBA), hard drives, 132 logical drives creating in FDISK utility, 159–160 deleting, 157–158 described, 123, 147–149 Disk Management utility, 163–166 long-term commitment, ISP consideration, 223 low-level formatting, hard drives, 130 LPX power supplies, 204–205 LS-120 (SuperDisk/Super Floppy) drives, 175

M machine language, CPUs, 263–264 Mag Innovision, monitors, 58 magnets, equipment damage concerns, 14 Make New Connection Wizard, 239–240 manuals, motherboard, 252 Master Boot Record (MBR), partition information storage, 149 master/slave jumpers, hard drives, 140–142 maximum playback rate, MIDI sounds, 102 maximum recording rate, MIDI sounds, 102 MBR (Master Boot Record), partition information storage, 149 megabytes (MB), memory measurement, 255 megahertz (MHz), CPU speed measurement, 4 memory. See also RAM (Random Access Memory) adding, 276–280 address bus, 290 cache, 44 data storage, 254 DDR SDRAM, 46 described, 4 DRAM, 154 installing, 278–279 motherboard slot types, 294–295 printer quality consideration, 78, 84–85 RAM, 254 removing, 278 ROM, 254 Single Data Rate (SDR) DRAM, 46 SRAM, 254

332

Index

memory (continued) static electricity, 277 Synchronous Dynamic RAM (SDRAM), 46 Synchronous Graphics RAM (SGRAM), 46 testing, 279 troubleshooting, 280 video RAM, 43–46 virtual, 6, 121–122 Mic Con port, sound cards, 106 Microphone port, sound cards, 105 Microsoft Access, system upgrade considerations, 5 Microsoft Backup, file/folder backup, 138 Microsoft DirectSound, digital audio, 104 Microsoft DirectSound 3D, digital audio, 104 Microsoft Excel, system upgrade considerations, 5–6 Microsoft Windows, Plug-and-Play technology, 24 MIDI (Multi-Instrument Digital Interface) port, 8, 105 sound cards, 101–103, 105 wavetable synthesis, 102 MIDI channels, MIDI sounds, 102 MIDI port, sound cards, 8, 105 MIDI sounds described, 101 effects engine, 102 maximum playback rate, 102 maximum recording rate, 102 MIDI channels, 102 new instrument capability, 102 playback depth, 102 polyphony, 102 RAM size, 102 recording depth, 102 ROM size, 102 signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), 102 synthesizer effects, 102 Mitsubishi, monitors, 58 modems brand name considerations, 225 bus types, 225 COM port enabling/disabling, 236–237 connection speeds, 225 connection testing, 235 connector arrangement, 18 could not open port error message, 246 expansion board type, 17, 18 external, 233 fax capable, 225

hang-ups, 246–247 hardware, 225 installation, 232–233 internal, 232 internal versus external, 224–225 Internet connection method, 217–218 Internet connection testing, 215–216 Internet connection troubleshooting, 245–247 no dial tone, 246 purchasing considerations, 224–225 resource conflict resolution, 236 upgrade reasons, 5 V.90 standard, 225 V.92 standard, 225 Windows configuration, 233–234 Modems applet, modem connection testing, 235 Molex connectors, power supplies, 203–204 monitors active matrix, 56 adjustment controls, 58 brand-name recommendations, 58–59 brightness, 39 centering, 40 color depth, 37 colors, 40 contrast, 40 convergence, 40 CRT (Cathode Ray Tube), 52–54 degaussing, 63 described, 3 display settings, 37–39 disposal considerations, 15, 64 dot pitch, 53, 57 driver installation, 36 DSTN (double-scan passive matrix), 55–56 electrical shock concerns, 13 geometry, 40 installation/testing, 62–64 LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), 52, 54–56 maximum resolution, 56–57 passive matrix display, 55–56 phase adjustment, 39, 40 position, 40 purchasing considerations, 52–59 quality measurement criteria, 56–58 refresh rate, 3, 38–39, 58 resolutions, 37–38 shadow mask, 53–54

Index

size, 40 slot mask, 53 TFT (Thin Film Transistor), 56 triad arrangement, 52–54 types, 52 video subsystem component, 33 viewable image size, 57 motherboards Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) bus, 41–42, 43 address bus, 290 AGP specifications, 43 AT versus ATX form factor, 291–293 Baby AT form factor, 292 battery replacement, 307–311 BIOS (Basic Input Output System), 22–23 BIOS beep codes, 304 built-in AGP video, 41–42 built-in components, 295 built-in sound chip, 94, 100 built-in sound disabling, 112 built-in sound support, 3 built-in video support, 2 buses, 290 case button/switch connections, 302–303 case standoffs, 299–301 chipsets, 22, 290–291 CPU slots, 295 CPU socket types, 295 CPU upgrades, 253–254 CPUs, 263–264 data flow process, 289 data transfer modes, 133–134 described, 4, 16–17 disabling built-in video, 60 drive connectors, 296, 305 expansion boards, 2 expansion bus types, 41–42 expansion slot types, 17, 293–294 external battery connector, 309 fan but no video on startup, 304 final test, 306 form factors, 205 hard drive cable connections, 144–145 I/O (Input/Output) ports, 296, 304–305 IDE drive connections, 195 Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, 41–42 initial tests, 303–304 IRQs (Interrupt Requests), 100

333

jumpers, 21–22 local bus, 41 memory slot types, 294–295 no fan, no video on startup, 303–304 online resources, 276 Peripheral Connect Interface (PCI) bus, 41–42 Pin Grid array (PGA) socket type, 295 power supply connections, 301–302 pre-installation steps, 298–299 primary IDE connector, 305 RAM upgrades, 252–253 removing existing, 298 required tools, 297 secondary IDE connector, 305 selecting RAM, 262–263 upgrade reasons, 288–289 VESA Local Bus (VLB), 41 video bus types, 41–42 video subsystem component, 33, 40–42 wattage requirements, 207 work area preparation, 297 Mouse, Control Panel applet, 26 MP3 files, sound quality considerations, 90 MPC (Multimedia PC), 101 MPC3-compatible, sound cards, 101 MPEG-2 Decoding described, 7 DVD drive performance enhancement 186–187 video cards, 51 MPU 401 UART, sound cards, 101 MS-DOS hard drive partition limitations, 133, 148 partitioning/formatting hard drives, 153–162 Multi-Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), sound cards, 101–103 Multimedia PC (MPC), 101 multimeter, power supply testing, 208–210 multi-read technology, CD-ROM drives, 180 music composition sound quality considerations, 90 wavetable synthesis, 102 music composition/editing sound quality considerations, 90–91 upgrade reasons, 8 My Computer checking available hard drive storage space, 120–122 hard drive formatting, 162 viewing disk contents, 24–25

334

Index

N network cards, 226–229 Network Connections, Control Panel applet, 26 network servers, SCSI hard drive advantages, 134 New Connection Wizard, 237–238 new instrument capability, MIDI sounds, 102 non-parity, RAM, 259 north/south bridge architecture, chipsets, 290–291 Norton Ghost, hard drive copying program, 138 NTFS file systems hard drive cluster sizes, 151 high-level formatting, 152–153 NVIDIA, video chipsets, 47

O OCR (Optical Character Recognition), scanners, 70 one-way satellite, Internet connection method, 219–220 online gaming, Internet connection update reason, 214 online resources, motherboards, 276 OnTrack International, Easy Recovery program, 170 OpenGL, graphics API, 50 operating systems, new computer versus upgrade issues, 9 Optical Character Recognition (OCR), scanners, 70 Optical In port, sound cards, 105 Optical Out port, sound cards, 105 optical zoom, digital cameras, 72 Optiquest, monitors, 58 Orange Book standard, writeable CDs, 181 Outlook Express, e-mail, 217, 243–245 Outlook, e-mail account setup, 243–245 overclocking CPUs, 264

P page description language (PDL), laser printers, 81, 83–84 page printers, 84 paper jams, printer troubleshooting, 87 paper-handling, printer quality consideration, 85 parallel interface, scanners, 70 parallel ports, connector arrangement, 18 parity, RAM, 259 partitions active, 148–149, 160–161

deleting, 157–158 Disk Management utility, 163–166 extended, 146, 159–160 FAT16 file system limitations, 133, 146 FDISK utility, 153–161 hard drive cluster sizes, 150–151 hard drives, 122–123, 147–149 information display, 156 logical DOS drives, 157–158 logical drives, 123, 147–149, 159–160 MBR (Master Boot Record), 149 primary, 146, 158–159 parts, build-your-own advantages, 10 passive heat sinks, 274 passive matrix display, LCD monitors, 55–56 PC Power and Cooling, cases/power supplies, 211 PCI (Peripheral Connect Interface) bus described, 41–42 motherboard expansion slot type, 17, 293 north/south bridge architecture, 291 sound cards, 99, 101 wattage requirements, 207 PCL (Print Control Language), laser printers, 83 PDL (page description language), laser printers, 81, 83–84 Pentium CPU, 4, 269–270 Pentium II CPU, 4, 271 Pentium III CPU, 4, 273 Pentium 4 CPU, 4, 274 Pentium Pro CPU, 269–270 Peripheral Connect Interface. See PCI bus PGA (Pin Grid Array) motherboard CPU socket type, 266–267, 295 replacing, 281–283 phase, monitor adjustment, 39, 40 Phone and Modem Options, Control Panel applet, 26 photography editing, video card upgrade reason, 32 piezoelectric inkjet printers, 80 Pin Grid Array. See PGA PIO (Programmed I/O) data transfer mode, 133 pixels, 2 plastic standoffs, motherboards, 299–300 playback depth, MIDI sounds, 102 Plug-and-Play technology described, 24 sound cards, 101 PMPO, watts measurements, 109 polyphony, MIDI sounds, 102

Index

ports built-in sound card, 3 I/O (Input/Output), 296 MIDI (Multi-Instrument Digital Interface), 8 sound cards, 3, 95–96, 104–106 troubleshooting existing sound systems, 91 USB, 7 position, monitor adjustment, 40 PostScript printer language, 83–84 printer quality consideration, 78 power cables hard drive connections, 145–146 IDE drive connections, 196 power connectors, IDE hard drive, 139–140, 191 power strips, surge suppressors, 15 power supplies back probing, 209–210 described, 203–204 electrical shock concerns, 13 fault symptoms, 208 form factors, 204–205 generic versus brand name, 210 load issues, 204 LPX, 204–205 Molex connectors, 203–204 motherboard connections, 301–302 PC Power and Cooling, 211 purchasing considerations, 210–211 replacing, 211–212 testing, 208–210 wattage label information, 206–207 wattage needs evaluation, 206–207 primary partition creating in FDISK utility, 158–159 defined, 146 primitives, 3D acceleration, 48 Print Control Language (PCL), laser printers, 83 print quality, printer quality consideration, 83 print resolution printer quality consideration, 78, 83 printer speed enhancement, 85 printers line, 84 page, 84 paper jams, 87 paper-handling considerations, 85 print color does not match on-screen color, 86–87

335

quality considerations, 78 speed enhancements, 85 types, 79–81 Printers and Faxes, Control Panel applet, 26 processor. See Central Processing Unit (CPU) Programmed I/O (PIO) data transfer mode, 133 programs adding/removing, 25, 27–28 removing unused, 123–124

Q quality, name brand versus generic parts, 11 queries, modem connection testing, 235

R Radeon, video chipsets, 47 Rage, video chipsets, 47 RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks), 296 RAM (Random Access Memory). See also memory bank, 256 data storage, 255–256 DDR SDRAM, 46, 260 DIMMs, 257–258 finding, 252 installation problems, 252 measuring chip depth, 255 motherboard slot types, 294–295 non-parity, 259 number of slots to make a bank, 257–258 packaging, 256–258 parity, 259 Rambus RAM (RIMMs), 260 refresh technology, 260 requirements, 251 SDR (Single Data Rate) DRAM, 46 SIMM chips, 256–257 sizes, 252 specifications described, 260–261 speeds, 259–260 sticks, 252 Synchronous Dynamic Ram (SDRAM), 46 Synchronous Graphics RAM (SGRAM), 46 understanding, 254–261 upgrade barriers, 252–253 video card selection guidelines, 43–46 virtual memory, 121–122

336

Index

RAM size, MIDI sounds, 102 RAMDAC, video card speed, 46 rasterization, 3D acceleration, 48 read/write seek times, hard drives, 136 read/write speeds, CD-RW drives, 184 Recordable DVD Council, 188 recording depth, MIDI sounds, 102 recording speeds, CD-R/CD-RW drives, 176–177 Recycle Bin, deleting/retrieving files, 25 recycle time, digital cameras, 72 Red Book standard, CD-ROM drives, 181 refresh rate described, 38 monitors, 3, 58 Windows display settings, 38–39 reliability, ISP consideration, 223 removable media CD-R (CD Recordable), 175 CD-ROM (CD Read Only Memory), 175 CD-RW (CD Rewriteable), 175 copying files to, 137–138 current hardware determinations, 176–177 described, 3 digital cameras, 73 disk cartridge drives, 188 DVD (Digital Versatile/Video Disk), 175 LS-120 (SuperDisk/Supper Floppy), 175 tape backups, 175 tape cartridge drives, 188–189 writeable DVD, 175 ZIP disks, 137–138, 175 resolution 3D video mode/RAM requirements, 45 described, 37 digital cameras, 72 monitors, 56–57 printer quality consideration, 78, 83 scanners, 67, 71 video RAM requirements, 44 Windows display setting, 37–38 ribbon cables CD-ROM positioning considerations, 192–193 described, 20–21 IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics), 20, 142–145, 191 motherboard/drive connections, 305 ribbons, dot matrix printers, 79 RMS (Root Mean Squared), watts measurement, 109

RMS Maximum, watts measurement, 109 ROM (Read Only Memory), 254 ROM size, MIDI sounds, 102 Root Mean Squared (RMS), watts measurement, 109 rotational speeds, hard drives, 136 routers, multiple PC broadband connection, 230

S S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) port, sound cards, 106 sampling rate x-direction, 67 y-direction, 67 Samsung, monitors, 58 satellite broadband connection installation, 230–231 broadband connection method, 223 Internet connection method, 219–220 speed ratings, 223 scan conversion, 3D acceleration, 49 scanners CCD (Charge-Coupled Device), 66–67, 71 CIS (Contact Image Sensor), 67, 71 color depth, 69, 71 colors, 68 dynamic range, 69, 71 hardware resolution, 67 horizontal dpi, 67 horizontal resolution, 67 interface types, 70–71 interpolation, 67 light types, 68, 71 OCR (Optical Character Recognition), 70 parallel interface, 70 purchasing considerations, 71 resolution, 67, 71 SCSI interface, 70 speed ratings, 69–70, 71 USB interface, 70–71 vertical dip, 67 vertical resolution, 67, 71 video input device, 66–71 x-direction sampling rate, 67 y-direction sampling rate, 67 Scanners and Cameras, Windows Me/XP Control Panel applet, 26 screwdrivers, magnetic tip concerns, 14

Index

SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) CD-ROM drive advantages, 180 connector arrangement, 18 drive interface, 20 hard drive ribbon cables, 145 network server advantages, 134 scanners, 70 versus IDE hard drives, 134 SDR (Single Data Rate) DRAM, video card RAM type, 46 SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic RAM) speed, 259 video card RAM type, 46 SDSL (Synchronous Digital Subscriber Line), Internet connection, 218 Search/Find, file search, 24 searches, files/folders, 24 SEC (Single Edge Connector), CPUs, 266 SEC (Single Edge Contact), motherboard slot type, 295 SEC CPUs replacing, 283–285 slots, 266–267 sectors, hard drive unit, 129 seek times, hard drives, 136 Sensaura API, sound cards, 107 serial ports, connector arrangement, 18 servers, SCSI hard drive advantages, 134 SGRAM (Synchronous Graphics RAM), video card RAM type, 46 shading, 3D acceleration, 48, 49 shadow mask, CRT alignment method, 53–54 shielding, speakers, 110 signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), MIDI sounds, 102 Silicon Integrated Systems (SIS), chipsets, 290 SIMMs RAM, 256–257, 278 speed FPM (Fast Page Mode), 259 Single Data Rate (SDR) DRAM, 46 size, monitor adjustment, 40 slave/master jumpers, hard drives, 140–142 slot mask, CRT alignment method, 53 slots, SEC CPUs, 266–267 Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) CD-ROM drives advantages, 180 connector arrangement, 18 drive interface, 20 hard drive ribbon cables, 145

337

network server advantages, 134 scanners, 70 versus IDE hard drives, 134 software, new computer versus upgrade issues, 10 Sony Mavica digital camera, 72 monitors, 58 Sony/Philips Digital Interface (S/PDIF) port, sound cards, 106 Sound Blaster compatibility, digital audio, 103–104 sound cards 3D sounds, 107–108 5.1 Channel Audio Effects, 104 A3D 2.0 standard, 107 AUX IN port, 106 built-in amplifier, 103 built into motherboard, 3, 94, 100 CD In (Audio In) port, 106 connector arrangement, 18 described, 3 digital audio, 103–104 digital instrument support, 3 Digital Out port, 105 DirectSound 3D, 108 Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding, 104 driver updates, 96–97 EAX standard, 104, 107 effects engine, 102 expansion board type, 17, 18 external ports, 105–106 FM synthesis, 102 Headphone port, 105 I/O ports, 104–106 identifying current system, 92–94 IEEE 1394 (FireWire) connector, 105 information URLs, 94 installation, 111–113 internal ports, 106 IRQs (Interrupt Requests), 100 ISA bus support, 99, 101 Line In port, 105 Line Out port, 105 maximum playback/recording rate, 102 Mic Con port, 106 Microphone port, 105 Microsoft DirectSound, 104 Microsoft DirectSound 3D, 104 MIDI (Multi-Instrument Digital Interface), 101–103

338

Index

sound cards (continued) MIDI channels, 102 MIDI port, 8, 105 MPC3-compatible, 101 MPU 401 UART, 101 new instrument capability, 102 non-working/crackling microphone troubleshooting, 98–99 no-sound troubleshooting, 97–98 Optical In port, 105 Optical Out port, 105 PCI bus support, 99, 101 playback depth, 102 Plug-and-Play technology, 101 polyphony, 102 port labeling/color assignments, 95–96 purchasing considerations, 100–108 RAM size, 102 recording depth, 102 ROM size, 102 S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) port, 106 Sensaura API, 107 signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), 102 Sound Blaster compatibility, 103–104 speaker adjustments, 104 speaker connections, 115–117 Speaker port, 105 speakers, 3 synthesizer effects, 102 TAD (Telephone Answering Device) port, 106 TV Tuner port, 106 wavetable synthesis, 102 Windows driver installation, 113–115 Windows version compatibility issues, 101 woofer adjustments, 104 Sound Check, sound card testing utility, 98 sounds 3D, 107–108 audio CD considerations, 90 DVD movie considerations, 90 MIDI, 101 speakers, 108–110 troubleshooting existing systems, 91–92 waveform, 101 Speaker port, sound cards, 105 speakers analog versus digital, 110 configuration scenarios, 109–110

digital audio adjustments, 104 DVD movies, 90 EMI (Electromagnetic Interference), 110 external device connectors, 110 frequency range, 110 installation, 115–117 purchasing considerations, 108–110 shielding, 110 sound component, 3 troubleshooting existing sound systems, 91 watts measurement, 109 Windows configuration settings, 117–118 speech recognition, sound quality considerations, 91 speed ratings broadband connection methods, 223–224 CD-ROM drive data transfer, 177–178 printer quality consideration, 78, 82 removable media, 176 SRAM (Static RAM), 254 Standard CHS (Normal), hard drive addressing, 131 standoffs, motherboard, 299–301 static electricity, ESD, 13–14 stencil buffering, 3D acceleration, 50 sticks, RAM, defined, 252 subwoofers, speaker configurations, 109–110 Super Floppy (LS-120) drives, 175 SuperDisk (LS-120) drives, 175 surge suppressors, power strips, 15 switches, motherboard connections, 302–303 Synchronous Digital Subscriber Line (SDSL), Internet connection method, 218 Synchronous Dynamic RAM (SDRAM), video card RAM, 46 Synchronous Graphics RAM (SGRAM), video card RAM, 46 synthesizer effects, MIDI sounds, 102 System, Control Panel applet, 26–30 system crystal, CPUs, 264 system disks, formatting, 161

T TAD (Telephone Answering Device) port, sound cards, 106 tape cartridge drives, purchasing considerations, 188–189 tape drives, 175 technology, printer quality consideration, 78 teleconferencing, sound quality considerations, 91

Index

Telephone Answering Device (TAD) port, sound cards, 106 terminal adapters cable Internet installation, 227–229 DSL service installation, 226–227 satellite Internet installation, 230–231 texture mapping, 3D acceleration, 48–49 TFT (Thin Film Transistor), LCD monitors, 56 thermal inkjet printers, 80 toner cartridges, disposal guidelines, 15 tools antistatic wrist strip, 13–14 canned air, 15 motherboard installation, 297 unmagnetized only, 14 tracks, hard drive unit, 129 triad, CRT arrangement, 52–54 troubleshooting accidental hard drive formatting, 170 BIOS doesn’t see IDE drive, 198–199 blank disk formatting, 199–200 could not open port error message, 246 CPU installation, 285–286 dead hard drive, 167–168 dial-up won’t connect/stay connected, 246–247 Disk Management non-healthy status report, 171 DVD movie playback, 199 e-mail service but no Web service, 246 existing sound systems, 91–92 fan but no video, 304 hang-ups, 246–247 hard drive data read/write errors, 169–170 hard drive physical surface errors, 170 hard drive/BIOS recognition, 168 hard drive/Windows recognition, 168 hard drives, 167–171 IDE drives, 198–200 inkjet printer color quality, 85–86 Internet connections, 245–247 manually ejecting CDs, 200 memory, 280 missing CD-R/CD-RW software, 199 modem resource conflict resolution, 236 no broadband connection, 245 no dial tone, 246 no fan, no video, 303–304 non-bootable hard drive, 169 non-working/crackling microphone, 98–99

339

no-sound, 97–98 partition information loss, 170 print color does not match on-screen color, 86–87 printer paper jams, 87 sector not found errors, 170 video card installation, 62 Web service but no e-mail, 245 Windows and application-specific video problems, 64–66 Windows can’t read from hard drive, 168 wrong file system, 171 TV Out, video cards, 51 TV Tuner port, sound cards, 106 TV/Video Capture In, video cards, 51 two-way satellite, Internet connection method, 219–220

U U.S. Robotics/3COM, modems, 225 UDF (Universal Disk Format), CD-RW requirement, 199 UDMA (UltraDMA) data transfer mode, 133 UDMA/100, hard drive performance, 142–143 UDMA/33, hard drive performance, 142–143 UDMA/66, hard drive performance, 142–143 UltraATA. See UltraDMA (UDMA) underclocking, CPUs, 264 Universal Disk Format (UDF), CD-RW requirement, 199 Update Device Driver Wizard, 36 Update Driver Wizard, 35–36 upgrade planning all-in-one computer pros/cons, 8 build-your-own advantages, 10 business applications, 5–6 desktop publishing, 6 DVD movie playback, 7 game playing, 6 graphics editing, 6–7 Internet surfing, 5 music composition/editing, 8 new computer advantages, 9–10 new computer versus upgrade considerations, 9–11 prioritizing needs, 4–8 upgrade advantages, 11 video broadcasting, 7 video editing, 7 worksheet, 9

340

Index

usage limits, ISP consideration, 223 USB interface digital cameras, 73 scanners, 70–71 Webcams, 74 USB port DSL service connection, 226–228 Windows 98 requirement, 7

V V.90 standard, modems, 225 V.92 standard, modems, 225 vertical dpi, scanners, 67 vertical resolution, scanners, 67, 71 vertices, 3D acceleration, 48 VESA Local Bus (VLB), 41 Via Technologies, chipsets, 290 video broadcasting, upgrade reasons, 7 video cards 3D acceleration needs evaluation, 47–51 3D graphics accelerator, 7 Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) bus, 41–42, 43 APIs (Application Programming Interface), 51 built into motherboard, 2 bus type purchasing considerations, 42–43 chipsets, 46–47 connector arrangement, 18 DDR SDRAM memory, 46 described, 2 Device Manager information display, 33–34 disabling built-in video, 60 disposal considerations, 60 driver updates, 34–36 Dual Monitor Output, 52 expansion board type, 17, 18 game playing considerations, 7 Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, 41–42 MPEG-2 decoding, 51, 186–187 Peripheral Connect Interface (PCI) bus, 41–42 RAM selection guidelines, 43–46 RAM types, 46 RAMDAC speed, 46 removal/installation, 59–62 Synchronous Dynamic RAM (SDRAM) memory, 46 Synchronous Graphics RAM (SGRAM) memory, 46 troubleshooting, 62

TV Out, 51 TV/Video Capture In, 51 upgrade reasons, 32–33 VESA Local Bus (VLB), 41 video subsystem component, 33 Windows driver installation, 61–62 video editing, 7, 33 video editing, Windows Movie Maker, 74 video input digital camcorders, 73–75 scanners, 66–71 still digital cameras, 72–73 Webcams, 73–75 video RAM 3D video mode requirements, 45 cache, 44 resolution (display mode) requirements, 44 selection guidelines, 43–46 startup information display, 43 types, 46 video subsystems color depth, 37 components, 33 monitor adjustments, 39–40 monitor drivers, 36 monitors, 52–59 motherboards, 40–42 refresh rate, 38–39 resolutions, 37–38 Windows display settings, 37–39 video teleconferencing, sound quality considerations, 91 viewable image size, monitors, 57 ViewSonic, monitors, 58 virtual memory described, 6 property settings, 121–122 Windows feature, 251 Virtual Memory applet, Windows settings, 122 Virtual Private Network (VPN), Internet connection update reason, 214 viruses, hard drive partition information loss, 170 visible surface determination, 3D acceleration, 49 VLB (VESA Local Bus), 41 voltage, defined, 202 VPN (Virtual Private Network), Internet connection update reason, 214

Index

W warranty name brand versus generic parts, 11 new computer versus upgrade issues, 10 wattage defined, 202 power supply needs evaluation, 206–207 watts, measurement methods, 109 waveform sounds, 101 wavetable synthesis, sound cards, 102 Web browsers, Internet Explorer, 217 Web hosting, ISP considerations, 223 Web phones, sound quality considerations, 91 Web sites Baber.com, 310 Bandwidth Place Speed Test, 215 Broadband Availability, 222 Broadband Reports Speed Test, 215 CNet, 64 CNET Bandwidth Meter, 215 Creative Labs (Sound Blaster), 94, 96 DirecPC, 223 DirectX, 66 DSL Service Providers and Availability, 222 EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), 15 ESS Technology, 94, 96 GetSpeed, 222 Guillemot (Maxi Sound), 94 MSN Broadband Qualification, 222 MSN Speed Test, 215 OnTrack International, 170 PC Pitstop, 215 PC Power and Cooling, 10, 211 Philips, 94 Pine Group, 94 Radio Shack, 310 TestMySpeed.com, 215 VIAHardware.com, 94 Voyetra/Turtle Beach (Santa Cruz), 94, 96 WinZip, 34 Web surfing, Internet connection update reason, 214 Webcams, 7, 73–75 Windows sound driver installation 113–115 speaker configuration settings, 117–118

341

UDF (Universal Disk Format), 199 video problem troubleshooting, 64–66 Windows 2000 Disk Management utility, 148 Internet connection sharing, 243 Internet Connection Wizard, 238–239 Update Driver Wizard, 35–36 virtual memory settings, 122 Windows 2000/XP Add/Remove Programs applet, 27 Device Manager access, 28 Disk Management utility, 163–166 hard drive partitioning/formatting during setup, 163 identifying current sound card, 93 Microsoft Backup utility, 138 modem configuration, 234 modem connection testing, 235 refresh rates, 38–39 Windows 95 2.1-GB partition limitations, 133 FAT32 file system support, 125 hard drive partition limitations, 148 Microsoft Backup utility, 138 Windows 95/98, Make New Connection Wizard, 239–240 Windows 95/98/Me modem configuration, 234 modem connection testing, 235 virtual memory settings, 122 Windows 98 SE, ICS (Internet Connection Sharing), 241–242 Windows 98, FAT32 Converter utility, 124–125 Windows 98/Me refresh rates, 38–39 Update Device Driver Wizard, 36 Windows 98+, USB port requirement, 7 Windows 9x/DOS partitioning/formatting a hard drive, 153–162 Windows 9x/Me Add/Remove Programs applet, 27 Device Manager access, 28 identifying current sound card, 93 Windows Explorer copying files to removable media, 137–138 file selection techniques, 137 viewing disk contents, 24–25

342

Index

Windows Me FAT32 Converter, 125 ICS (Internet Connection Sharing), 242 Make New Connection Wizard, 239–240 Scanners and Cameras applet, 26 Windows Movie Maker, 74 Windows Movie Maker, video editing, 74 Windows systems, display settings, 37–39 Windows XP e-mail account setup, 243–245 Internet connection sharing, 243 New Connection Wizard, 237–238 Scanners and Cameras applet, 26 speaker configuration settings, 117–118 Update Driver Wizard, 35 virtual memory settings, 122 Windows Movie Maker, 74 Winmodems, pros/cons, 225 WinZip, compression utility, 34 wizards Add Printer, 26 Internet Connection, 238–239 Make New Connection, 239–240 New Connection, 237–238 Update Device Driver, 36 Update Driver, 35–36 woofer adjustments, digital audio, 104 work area, motherboard installation preparation, 297 worksheets, upgrade planning, 9

wrist strap, antistatic, 13–14 writeable CD drives cable-sharing avoidance, 192–193 Orange Book standard, 181 recording process, 182–183 writeable DVD drives described, 175 types, 187–188

X X vertex, 3D acceleration, 48 X2 standard. See V.90 standard x-direction sampling rate, scanners, 67

Y Y vertex, 3D acceleration, 48 y-direction sampling rate, 67 Yellow Book standard, CD-ROM drives, 181

Z Z buffering, 3D acceleration, 50 Z vertex, 3D acceleration, 48 ZIP disks copying files to, 137–138 described, 175 zooms, digital cameras, 72

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