Tips to Keep Your Computer
Running
These tips apply to MS-DOS/Windows 3.1 and
Windows 95
I will be adding to this list often so come back
last edited: 03/01/2003
Coming Soon: MS-DOS for Windows Users
Things That Will Slow
Your Machine Down
"Scandisk" often. How
often depends on how you use your machine.
How often?
How do I do it?
"Defrag" periodically.
It takes time, but the more often you defragment your hard drive, the faster the next
defragmentation goes.
How often?
How do I do it?
Consider running your machine all
the time. Particularly if you run Windows 95. You can turn off your monitor.
If an application is giving you
trouble, reinstall it. If it still gives trouble, reinstall Windows or Windows 95. How???
Buy a Virus Protection program.
You can get a demo program from McAfee.
Try to keep your software and
drivers somewhat up-to-date. Usually, the driver upgrades are improvements or
enhancements. If you don't know how to install drivers, read number 7.
Learn the fundamentals of your
machine. How to copy, move, rename and edit files in both DOS and Windows are the basics
to operation. Learn the directory structure. If you don't know what I am talking
about, buy a book (I like the Dummies series), read it
and work along with the examples. Want to take a class? Fine, just realize that you must
do your homework. Oh, and don't forget to buy that book, you will need it for reference.
Don't buy cheap floppy disks.
The two brands that I have had the least trouble with are Verbatim and Fujifilm.
I have tried all the brands in attempt to save money, these work the best.
Don't be a downloading fool. It is
fine to download and install files from reputable companies, but realize that every time
you install any software, particularly beta, there is a certain amount of risk involved.
Make sure you know how to fix your machine if software breaks it.
Don't be an installation fool.
Having software is fine, but do you really need to have 3 word processors and six
spreadsheet programs? Software programs can conflict with each other particularly if you
put lots of software designed for Windows 3.1 on a Windows 95 machine. It also fills up
your hard drive.
Games are the worst. Don't put
many games on a business machine. If you rely on your machine to make money, do really
need to have Quake XXX on there? If you are really into games, see number 7. I like Doom.
Don't believe everything you read in the magazines.
The author may only have tried this new gee whiz thing on one machine in a limited
situation. Before you run out and buy something expensive or try one of the tips,
make sure you understand what is being discussed. If you are one of my regular
customers, ask me about it. If you don't, you may end up paying me
$200 to install a scanner that cost you $199.
Don't believe everything you read in magazines II.
Advertisements. The prices you see in the back pages of "Computer
Shopper" may have something very important deleted from the description. An
example of this may be a system for sale for $899. Does it have a monitor?
Does it have Level 2 cache? Is it two generations (or more) old and on
close-out? Be very careful and read the descriptions very carefully. A Pentium
II at XXX megahertz will not perform the same on a lousy motherboard, and soon, all
Pentium II's will not all be alike even if the megahertz speed is the same.
Intel is preparing to market Pentium II chips rated at the same speed in Mhz, but
will will perform at a much slower speed than the "real" ones. This is
attempt to snare unwary "bargain hunters".
Keep at least 50 megabytes free on your
hard drive for Windows 95. If you don't, there will be printing trouble and other
error messages.
I know that Microsoft says Windows 95 will run on 8
megabytes of RAM, but it won't run well. 16 is the absolute minimum.
On a Windows 3.1 machine,anything over 8 megabytes is a
waste, but you should have 8 megabytes.
Printing speed is directly related to computer speed
because of spool file generation. A spool file is a temporary file created to put
the printing information in, so that you can do other things while printing takes
place. The longer it takes to generate the spool file, and then transfer the
printing to the printer, the longer it takes to print. Keep at least 50MB free on
your hard drive for the spool file and even more if you are printing photographs or other
graphics. The new printers rely on the RAM in your computer, so increasing RAM may
speed up printing. Another way to increase printing is to reduce the resolution
in your printer settings. Most printing is not for public consumption, so printing
in "draft" mode is usually acceptable. See your printer manual to see how
to do this.
Back up your data, but not necessarily your programs, on
to a tape drive, ZIP drive or a floppy. It is not a question of if your hard drive
will fail, but when. This will help you ward off many problems, including legal.
Buy a good quality hard drive. I recommend Western Digital because I have seen them fail less often.
Software manufactures are forever wanting to put icons on
your Windows 95 desktop. Sometimes these are in the system tray (next to the clock)
and sometimes "always on top", in the upper right hand corner, such as what
Office 97 does. If you see one of these, it means that a program is running in the
background. To see what is running in the background hold the "Ctrl" and
the "Alt" buttons down and press "Delete" once. This
will display the task manager, which shows you what is currently running. Examine
the list, if you see too many items there, you will have trouble.
Typically, you will get messages that display as a blue screen with a message that
contains a 0D or a 0E in white letters. You have run out of RAM. Remove excess
items from the "startup" group by right clicking the taskbar. Some
software puts an automatic startup in the system registry, if you know how to edit the
system registry, you can take it out or just uninstall the program. I am not going
to describe how to edit these out of the system registry here because it is too dangerous
if you don't know how.
Consider a battery backup. Do you live miles away from
your electrical sub-station? Do you live in a mobile home? Do you live in an older home?
Do your lights blink and dim a couple of times a day? Those blinks and dimming mean that
your hard drive is not getting enough juice. A hard drive is a motor spinning a disk at
about 4500 RPM (or faster). Motors want nice clean electricity, not too much, and not too
little. When the lights dim, it means that the voltage has dropped and with it a few bits
have probably been lost. Additionally, this jerking around is shortening the life of your
all the parts in your computer. Buy a battery backup. Buy APC
brand and buy at least 400VA. It will have a surge suppresser built in, but probably not a
telephone surge suppresser. You need one of those, too.
Surge Suppression: Get it. Buy APC, don't forget the telephone either.
I see many "hits" every year. Most of them come through the telephone line and
into the modem. If you are lucky, it stops there. If you are not lucky, it can rattle
around in the box, taking out motherboards, hard drives and anything else you can think
of. Make sure you have a good ground. Go outside and check to see if you can find a
grounding rod underneath the box where the telephone line comes into the house. You may
have to dig down a few inches to find it. Can't find one?, call the telephone company, it
is their job to have it installed and will cost you nothing. Then make sure that the rod
has a grounding wire that goes to the grounding rod under where the power line comes into
the house, so that the two rods are wired together. This is called "bonding the
grounds". Not bonded together?, call the company that did the last work. Newer
electrical codes call for it, you should insist on it, they should give it to you and
usually for free. Older houses, from before about 1976, may have only two wires going to
each wall socket rather than three, if so, the one that is missing is the ground wire. The
surge suppresser will indicate if you have a good ground or if you are missing one. It is
usually not necessary to rewire the house, but you should make sure that your computer has
a ground. If you don't know what I am talking about here, ask an electrician.
Unknown Files: Please do not delete any file unless
you know what it is and what it is for. If you don't know what it is don't fool with it.
It is very simple to delete a file that is necessary for a program to run. Getting
these files back can be problematic. If you have deleted a file in Windows 95, check
the Recycle Bin to see if it in there and put it back where it came from. If you are
using Windows 3.1 or DOS, usually, a reinstallation of the program or DOS, Windows or Windows 95 can replace the files you have
deleted. If you have tried all these of things and it still doesn't work, you should get
more help.
System crashes: Look for patterns. Did it begin
after you installed a certain program? What do the error messages say?
Sometimes the problem is because of the video driver, get the newest one available.
Try to think about what has changed.
Do not use the recycle bin as a tool. The recycle
bin is the "Oh, no!" place where things are put once they have been
deleted. Do not use it as a storage device. Deleting, in your mind,
should be as if it is gone forever, not just stored to get back when ever you get around
to reviewing the files. Keep the recycle bin bin empty, keeping it full slows down your machine.
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Copyright Eric Vey, 1997 - 2002
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