Daniel J Miller – Elkhart PC and network help

Windows 7 “GodMode”
posted by Daniel Miller 1/23/10

Applies to Windows 7, 32 and 64bit, and Vista 32bit only!
DO NOT PERFORM ON VISTA 64bit

I am not sure I am all that excited over what people are calling it.  It really is nothing new, just a new name for All Tasks, or MasterControl.  Also see
The name “Godmode” was probably coined by gamers, as there are special cheat codes for most games that make a player invincible, or give them special powers; these are commonly referred to as “GodMode”. 

“GodMode” is only recently what it has become known by.   Microsoft did not name it; it is not an undocumented function and the name of the folder you create for this hack DOES NOT NEED TO BE NAMED GodMode,  as you see in most articles.  It was just unknown to most people.

My theory on how this all got started was probably a group of gamers thought they discovered a new hidden mode and coined the name GodMode.  It got passed to CNet see here,  got published before anyone really did their homework,  and because it came from CNet, it spread across the internet.  Microsoft is probably having some fun with this.

What is “Godmode”?   It is not a mode; it just creates a folder with quick access just every control panel function in Windows 7.  Nothing new in that folder that you can’t do somewhere else, just easy access to all settings in one place.

Warning, even though this works fine in Windows 7, and Vista 32bit, it DOES NOT work with Vista 64 bit.

How to enable it?

1. Create a new folder anywhere in your system
2. Rename the folder to any_name_you_want .{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
I renamed mine to system.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}.  The important part is the period  and what follows.

If you want to know technically how this works. Click here

If you want to call this a mode, there are actually many more: See here

Note: If you perform this, keep in mind Microsoft may change the functionality of how this works in the future.
To delete the hack simply right click the folder and pick delete, just like any other folder.

64BIT VISTA
If you applied this hack to Vista64 bit….. you know by now it does not work.  It crashes explorer, making it difficult to delete the folder you created for this hack using explorer.
You will need to delete the folder at the command prompt rather than utilizing explorer.

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Speed up my PC Series – Part 3

Topics covered:
Memory Installation

Software Tools covered:
Computer Properties
In part 2 of Speed up my PC we discussed memory optimization.  In part 3 we will look at the physical process of installing the memory.

1. Before we get started we need to check My Computer Properties to verify the amount of memory currently installed in your system.  The easiest way to do this is by Right Clicking My Computer and selecting properties, noting the memory reported to the operating system. Top  image Vista and Windows 7 Example, Lower Window XP.

2. Before opening up your PC, properly shut down your PC, disconnect all connected peripherals, printers, monitor, mice, network and/or modem connections, keyboards, and anything else connected to it. Unplug the system unit from the power source.

The number one rule for working on PC’s – BE STATIC FREE!  Memory modules are among the most susceptible of all PC components to Electrostatic Discharge.  Your memory modules come packaged in an environment to keep them protected from electrostatic discharge.  Keep them in that environment until you are ready to install them.

Once the system unit is unplugged, push the power button, like you would to start the PC.  I highly recommend this second step, as power supplies in PC’s contain components that store an electrical charge and by trying to start the PC while it is disconnected from its power source discharges these components.

NOTEBOOKS
Same basic rules but what may not be obvious is that to disconnect from the power source requires the additional step that you to remove the battery from the laptop.  After the battery has been removed, like the PC, push the power button to completely discharge the power supply.  Refer to your system documentation if you are unsure how to remove your laptop’s battery.

 
This installment in this series assumes that you have determined, and have obtained the correct memory modules for your system.  In part 2 of this series I mentioned that different systems support differing types and amounts of memory.  Refer to your system documentation for the type, speed and memory configuration your system supports. If that is not available the following are links to Memory Manufacturer’s configurators:

Crucial
Kingston
Corsair
PNY
Patriot

3. Open the PC and locate the memory sockets.
Before you touch anything, put on your antistatic wrist strap and clip the alligator clip to the metal chassis of the PC.  I do not recommend connecting to the metal screw that fastens the 110V outlet face plate for three reasons.  #1 – it presents some danger loosening the face plate of a 110V receipt cover, and it is hard to get a good ground from a loose screw.  #2 – I have seen way too many 110V receptacles incorrectly wired to trust any of them.   #3 – and most important to me, it is not as important that you be grounded as much as both you and the chassis are at the same electrical potential.  You may be at ground potential but there is nothing to guarantee the chassis is.

NOTE:  Antistatic wrist or ankle straps should NEVER be worn while working on higher voltage components, such as monitors and power-supply units.

 

 DDR2 240 Pin PC Memory Sockets Shown below. 

 Note: 4 chips used in (2) banks, the banks are color coded, in this instance the first bank to be populated are the blue slots. Refer to your system documentation as configuration varies between manufacturers.

4. To remove or install press outward on the retaining clips,(white in the image left), for removal as you press the retainers’ outward the ram chip will be pushed out of the socket.   If you are installing the chip you will notice the memory chip and socket are keyed.  They will only go in one way so look before you try and force it.

Note: The slots, they will only fit one way in the socket. The chips on the left have integrated heat sinks – common in high performance memory.

Align the slot on chip with the socket, with the retaining clips spread apart, as you push the memory into place the retainer clips will snap into the side of the memory module. Insure they are fully seated.  If they snap into place, they are installed properly.





5. Close the case, re-connect your system components and connect to your power source.

6. Start-up you PC.  As it boots up, or POSTS (P)ower (O)n (S)elf (T)est, the System may come-up with an error stating the amount of memory has changed, hit F1 to continue, or go to Setup.  What is happening is that the BIOS (B)asic (I)nput (O)utput (S)ettings recognized the additional memory and it is different than what was stored in the CMOS BIOS settings the last time the PC booted.  You may safely hit F1; you shouldn’t see this message again, as the new values will be automatically written the BIOS memory.

7. Go back to Step 1 in this article and verify your operating system sees the newly installed memory.

NOTEBOOKS
Current notebooks use SO-DIMM or MICRO-DIMM – SO-DIMM comes in 72, 100,144,200, or 204 pins.
The 72 and 100 pin support 32bit transfers and the 144 – 204 support 64bit transfers.
MICRO-DIMM comes in 144 – 214 pin packages.  The SO-DIMM, (lower left), and MICRO-DIMM, (lower right), packages are much smaller than standard DDR memory and memory expansion in laptops is usually limited to 1 or 2 sockets.

If you are planning on upgrading your notebook memory you will want to refer to its documentation, or locate the memory expansion area to verify how much memory, and how many slots are available for memory expansion. Notebook memory expansion can be located in one of two areas, under the keyboard or behind a compartment door on the backside of the notebook.  The following example illustrates the most common location, under a compartment door on the bottom of the notebook.  If yours is located under the keyboard, please review your documentation, as the procedures vary widely and the plastic bezels on many notebooks can be broken easily.

 
1. After removing the power adapter and battery from your notebook, and properly connecting your anti-static wrist strap. Turn the notebook over with it back facing up.

2. Locate the memory module compartment; refer to system documentation if available, usually the compartment is labeled memory, expansion, or M.

3. Using the appropriate driver, usually a small Phillips screwdriver, remove the captive screw from the cover exposing the memory expansion connector.

4. To remove an existing memory module, Use your fingertips to carefully spread apart the clips on each side of the connector.  The module will pop up at you at a 45 deg angle.

To install, note the notch in the memory module and align it up with the notch in the connector. At a 45 degree angle firmly push the module into the connector and rotate the module down.  The clips will click module into place.  If it does not click into place remove the module, check the orientation and re-install.

5. Replace to memory cover of the back of the computer, re-install the battery, and connect to your AC adapter and plug into and electrical outlet.

6. Start-up you PC.  As it boots up, or POSTS (P)ower (O)n (S)elf (T)est, the System may come-up with an error stating the amount of memory has changed, hit F1 to continue, or go to Setup.  What is happening is that the BIOS (B)asic (I)nput (O)utput (S)ettings recognized the additional memory and it is different than what was stored in the CMOS BIOS settings the last time the PC booted.

You may safely hit F1; you shouldn’t see this message again, as the new values will be automatically written the BIOS memory.

7. Go back to Step 1 in this article and verify your operating system sees the newly installed memory.

This concludes part three of the series.  In Part three of Speed up my PC, we examined the physical process of installing PC and Notebook memory.  In Part four we continue the series, learning about how to identify and properly configure start up processes and the use of msconfig and task manager to identify and configure troublesome programs and processes.

 
Watch for Part 4 the last week of January 2010.  Be sure to bookmark this site or subscribe to our RSS feed to keep up with the latest posts.

Topics covered:
Memory and Memory Optimization
Virtual Memory, PageFile
Basic Binary

Software Tools covered:
Computer Properties/Advanced System Settings

In the 1st part of this series we ended with a short discussion of Hard Drives.  In this article we will be discussing memory and memory optimization.  Student in my A+ Classes at this point would get a 90 minute exercise in the Binary, Octal, and Hexadecimal numbering system, but we will dispense with that for now, just remember computers are just machines that manipulate numbers. They have become very fast but are really kind of dumb as at their basic level they only work with 2 numbers 0 and 1.  This is called the binary system.  We humans are accustomed to the base 10 or decimal system.  Hexadecimal and Octal systems were created for computers to easily express large numbers rather than their binary system.  Why do you need to know this?  It will help your understanding of how the different areas of your PC function.  You will begin to see what a 32bit operating system can only address 4Gigs of ram basically because that is all the higher it can count.  “Oversimplified but true”

(Q)What is a bit?
(A) A bit is the basic unit of information in computing and telecommunications; it is the maximum amount of information that can be stored by a device or other physical system that can normally exist in only two distinct states.  These two states are 0 and 1

(Q) Then what is a byte?
(A) A Byte is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications. It is an ordered collection of bits, in which each bit denotes the binary value of 1 or 0. Typically it is 8 bits long.
With 32 bits the largest number we can represent is a little over 4 Billion 4,294,967,295 to be exact.
How can we add more than 4G memory to a computer that only runs a 32 bit operating system…lt can’t even count that high!

Now that did not take 90 minutes and it wasn’t that painful was it?

All these bits and bytes is what is stored in RAM.  When most of us think of memory and PC’s we think of RAM (R)andom (A)ccess (M)emory.  There are many components and chips that have memory that can be addressed by your processor but most of these we have little control over as they cannot be easily replaced. Ram however can be easily expanded on most systems, within limitations.  Ram has become one of the easiest and most cost effective ways to increase the speed of your computer.

In part one of this series we discussed the recommended size of RAM for XP, VISTA, and Windows7. RAM has gotten so inexpensive that if you are running a 32bit operating system you may as well purchase 4Gig of Ram and be done with it, assuming your mother board supports 4G, most systems less than 3 years old, unless it be a notebook more than likely support 4G.  Refer to your system documentation to be sure.
Do you need 4G of Ram?  That depends on what you do with your PC.  Very few games even require more than 2G of Ram.  I use dual monitors and am normally running multiple applications most of the time.  Each one of those applications has a memory requirement and they can add up quickly.

Not having enough ram usually does not keep you from running a program or performing an operation. When your PC performs a process that requires more physical memory than what you have installed Windows Virtual Memory Manager comes to the rescue.  It does this by allocating an area on your hard drive by creating a special file called Pagefile.sys to simulate the physical memory you do not have but the operation requires.  It’s called a page file because memory is stored and addressed by a memory location (like a row and column in excel) and the VMM, (V)irtual  (M)emory (M)anager), moves inactive data from physical memory to the pagefile in a process called paging or swapping.   It tries to keep in physical memory what it thinks the processor is going to need next and swap out what it won’t need for a while to the hard drive.  It is constantly doing this for you behind the scenes, and does a pretty good job of it. The disadvantage is that your hard drive is an extremely slow memory replacement.  Even though VMM does a good job of trying to keep up with requests from the processor, any time the processor needs to access information stored in memory locations that point to the pagefile.sys it must wait while the information is retrieved through that painfully slow hard drive.

Have you ever gotten the error “Your system is low on virtual memory. To ensure that Windows runs properly, increase the size of your virtual memory paging file. For more information, see Help”?  When you clicked ok you probably got the following:

“Your system is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your virtual memory paging file. During this process, memory requests for some applications may be denied. For more information, see Help.”

While your memory was being resized, more than likely a program or two also stopped responding.
What can we do?  The most obvious is increase the RAM installed.  It’s a pretty cheap upgrade and if you’re operating system is only 32bit we are only talking 4G memory anyway.   But what if this only happens occasionally or you do not want to purchase additional RAM, in some cases you may not be able to purchase ram.  (Some  older RAM such as RAMBUS memory is now extremely expensive as it is no longer being manufactured).

The following screen captures are from Windows7.  Vista and XP are very similar and the procedure is the same.

1. Open the Start menu - Right Click on Computer and click Properties
 – note how much installed memory you have installed

2. Click on Advanced system settings tab and then Settings in the Performance Area

3. Click on the Advanced tab again
4. Under Virtual memory, click on the Change button

5. Uncheck the automatically manage paging file size for all drives.



















6. You can now manually change the drive and size.

There are several thing we can now do, depending on how our current PC is set.

By Default, XP, VISTA and WINDOWS 7 store the paging file on the same drive as the operating system.
Usually this is the c: drive. If you have another physical drive listed, (not a partition on the same physical drive), and want to use it.  Make sure the drive it at least as fast or faster than the drive your operating system is on.

Click on the drive letter you want to change or add a paging file to
Note: the radio buttons

System managed size – allows the operating system to automatically manage this for you
Custom Size – allows you to enter Initial size and Maximum size
No paging file – allows you to remove the paging file from the drive selected.
You would only do this if you have more than one drive that has a paging file.  If you remove all paging files your system will slow down drastically! Even if you have plenty of RAM, some programs must have virtual memory to run!

We discussed fragmentation in part one of this series, but did you know that your paging can also become fragmented?  Most defragment programs will not be able to defrag this file normally because it is always in use.  One way to defrag it is to remove the paging file completely, reboot the PC, then defrag the drive and then recreate it.  When you do recreate it, you can take some steps that will not only improve the performance of your system but reduce the future fragmenting of the paging file.  Pick Custom Size and set the initial size and maximum size to the same value.  In that way you eliminate the system from ever having to resize the paging file, which not only takes time, but fragments the file.

For 32bit Systems: We need to allow for 4096MB of memory usage, as this is all that can be addressed by 32bit operating systems.

We can use the following formula:  Size to enter in initial and maximum boxes = 4096 minus (-) the amount of physical ram installed.  Example:  if you had 768M ram you would set initial and maximum to 3328.

Select set to complete the operation

To move the paging file to another drive

Step 1: Select the drive where you want the new paging file located then select custom size and enter the size we calculated in the steps above, or you can pick system managed size, but remember when we let windows manage it, as it shrinks and grows it will become fragmented. When done click Set.

 Step2: Select the original drive location, and then click no paging file. When you do you will get a warning similar to this: “If the pagefile on volume C: has an initial size of less than 126 megabytes, then the system may not be able to create a debugging information file if a STOP error occurs.
Continue anyway?”   By selecting yes, if you ever get the Blue Screen of Death, the memory dump file will not be created”.  I personally have never used the memory dump file for troubleshooting BSOD, (B)lue (S)creen (O)f (D)eath errors,  however if this is a concern see below:

NOTICE: The optimal solution is to create one paging file that is stored on the boot partition, and then create one paging file on another partition that is less frequently accessed on a different physical hard disk if a different physical hard disk is available. Additionally, it is optimal to create the second paging file so that it exists on its own partition, with no data or operating-system-specific files. By design, Windows uses the paging file on the less frequently accessed partition over the paging file on the more heavily accessed boot partition. An internal algorithm is used to determine which paging file to use for virtual memory management. The above notice re Microsoft: KB314482

64Bit WindowsI have given you some recommendations for optimizing 32bit systems and the same basic rules apply for 64bit systems such as moving the pagefile and the setting of the initial and maximum pagefile sizes the same to prevent fragmentation.  However there are some differences to take into consideration.  The first is the fact that theoretically a 64 bit system can support up to 18 Exabytes of memory.  How big is 18 Exabytes – Well let’s just say Bill Gates couldn’t afford it.  One Exabyte = 50,000 years of DVD quality video.  This is a theoretical limit.  Current Limits for Windows Operating systems as follows:

XP- 128G

Vista Home Basic – 8G
Vista Home Premium – 16G
Vista Business and up – 128G

Windows 7 Home Basic – 8G
Windows 7 Home Premium – 16G
Windows 7Professional and up – 192G

If you are running a 64bit system I recommend 4G of memory to start with.  Because most applications and games currently are written for 32 bit systems they will not take advantage of 64-bit processing.  As 64bit systems become more common place this will more than likely change.

Note: Currently, most hi-end PC motherboards do not support more than 24G or 6 slots.

This concludes part two of the series.  In Part two of Speed up my PC, we examined the memory requirements of  XP through Windows 7, very basic Binary numbering overview, looked at Virtual Memory Manager and the page file,  and ways of optimizing the pagefile.  In Part three we will physically install the Memory.

Watch for Part 3 the 3rd week of January 2010.  Until then, God Bless
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Speed up my PC Series
Part 1

Topics covered:
Operating System Requirements and Recommendations
Basic HD Information and Maintenance tools
Software Tools covered:
Microsoft Diskcleanup or cleanmgr
Microsoft Defrag
Smart Defrag

This is the first of the articles for the series.  This may seem like a long series however I want you to understand why and what you are doing, not just shoot a video for you to blindly follow along or a checklist of items to try.  I may go into detail in the topics but the purpose of this series is education so bear with me.  There are many reasons why your PC may be running slow and we are going to assume in this article that you are running above the minimum recommended hardware for the operating system.

Yes,  this article is based on Microsoft technologies, and throughout I will suggest using tools already built into the operating system rather than the all in one fix it software tools that are everywhere these days.  Most times even the better ones end up getting you into trouble.  If you understand your system and the tools built in you will not only save money and grief, but be much better equipped to handle these and other issues when they arise.

For the record I am running Windows 7, Vista, and XP on my local network. This series will cover these systems only. If you are running an older operating system such as Windows 98 or 95, and that is what came with your PC, it’s time to replace the hardware.

Official Microsoft and CompTIA answers for XP
Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)
At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard disk
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
Keyboard and a Microsoft Mouse or some other compatible pointing device
Video adapter and monitor with Super VGA (800 x 600)or higher resolution
Sound card
Speakers or headphones

Official Microsoft and CompTIA answers for VISTA Home Basic
800-megahertz (MHz) 32-bit (x86) processor or 800-MHz 64-bit (x64) processor
512 megabytes (MB) of system memory
Note On system configurations that use system memory as graphics memory, at least 448 MB of system memory must be available to the operating system after some memory is allocated for graphics.
DirectX 9-class graphics card
32 MB of graphics memory
20-gigabyte (GB) hard disk that has 15 GB of free hard disk space
Internal or external DVD drive
Internet access capability
Audio output capability

Official Microsoft and CompTIA answers for VISTA Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate
1-gigahertz (GHz) 32-bit (x86) processor or 1-GHz 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of system memory
Windows Aero-capable graphics card
128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
40-GB hard disk that has 15 GB of free hard disk space (the 15GB of free space provides room for temporary file storage during the install or upgrade.)
Internal or external DVD drive
Internet access capability
Audio output capability
Official Microsoft Windows 7
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Note:  the above answers were for those of you who may want to know the official answers.  My recommendations below assume you have at least the recommended hardware and concentrate on RAM, Hard Drive and Video.

A 32 bit operating system can only address a maximum of 4Gig of memory.  Because this also includes Video RAM, RAM on your PC Cards, and Motherboard, if you install 4G, you will likely only be able to use between 2.5 and 3.4 Gig of physical RAM.  No… it’s not a Microsoft bug it’s a numbers game.  If you are running a 64 bit operating system and want to max the ram refer to your hardware documentation.  Most times the limit is the hardware not the software.

Current 64Bit Limits for Windows Op systems

XP- 128G

Vista Home Basic – 8G
Vista Home Premium – 16G
Vista Business and up – 128G

Windows 7 Home Basic – 8G
Windows 7 Home Premium – 16G
Windows 7Professional and up – 192G

My Recommendations:
XP 32bit – 1G-Minimum 2G-Prefered
Vista 32bit – 1G Minimum 3-4G Preferred
Windows7  32bit – 1G Minimum 3-4G Preferred

HARD DRIVE RECOMMENDATIONS

SIZE

Too small, as far as the operating system is concerned, will probably not be an issue any longer as it is getting hard to find a drive smaller than 160G unless we are talking solid state.  How large a drive you need depends on what you actually use your PC for.  Just like memory, large hard drives have become extremely affordable.  A good basic rule to follow is to always treat your hard drive like it is only 75% of its actual size.  A 500G hard drive should be considered full when less than 25% of the drive is free, (125G).  This allows some safety room and enough free space so you’re Hard Drive can be defragged.

What is fragmentation? – A simple answer is that over time as we  add/remove software, programs, files, images, iTunes songs,  or any type of data, the data is written to areas of the drive that are marked as unused.  Over time new files that are written to the disk are not written sequentially, and may actually be in many areas of the hard drive.  When this becomes the case the hard drive’s read/write heads must move back and forth across the disk surface to read or write that data, therefore your system spends a lot of time waiting on the drive to visit all the areas of the disk needed just to retrieve that file.  You may see this symptom visually as your hard drive activity light continuously on.

The process of putting the files back into sequential order is what we are doing when we defrag the hard drive.  To defrag the hard drive we can use Microsoft’s built in tool defrag.exe, there are other third party tools such as I recommend here but the all require hard drive free space to temporally move files in the process.  If there is not enough free space on the hard drive it cannot be defragged efficiently or sometimes even at all.   You can view the free space on any of your drives by clicking start and then computer, right click on the drive you would like to see and pick properties.  On the General Tab you see Used Space and Free Space.

FIG A – click to enlarge in new window

While we are on this screen I want you to notice the File System Spec, shown just above Free and Unused space.  Without going into great detail at this time, insure your file system type is NTFS (New Technology File System).  In today’s systems there is no reason, unless you want to dual boot your PC, to be using FAT or FAT32.  NTFS, among many other benefits, allows your drive to be used much more efficiently.  There is also no reason to dual boot with all the free virtual technology available.  If yours is FAT or FAT32 and you do not know why…. convert it!
For the sake of keeping this installment a reasonable length – if you need to convert click here.

FIG B – click to enlarge in new window

Before we actually defrag the hard drive we will want to uninstall any unused programs and delete any unneeded files.  Microsoft provides us with a nice little utility called Disk Cleanup, shown in FIG B, click on the Disk Cleanup Button FIG A, or type cleanmgr in the start run dialog box.
The program defaults to some safe assumptions including not even emptying your recycle bin, but that’s ok, scroll through the list and select your options, then click ok when finished. Once completed you are ready to defrag the drive.

(Q)Do you have to do this before I defrag the hard drive?
(A)No, but if you do this after defragging the drive, the operating system marks the areas on the drive where you deleted the files as unused, this gives the fragmentation process a head start in messing up our nice sequential written hard drive.

We just deleted all the files we no longer need by using the disk cleanup tool and we are now ready to defrag the hard drive.  Click on the Tools Tab then defragment now as shown in FIG A.
you will see FIG C Below
FIG C – click to enlarge in new window

Optionally you can start the utility by typing defrag into the start menu and hit enter.  Vista users may have to click through the UAC (U)ser (A)ccess (C)ontrol prompt.

Note: most of the following screen captures are from windows 7, Vista Screens are very similar
to automate this procedure with XP, use the task scheduler – for additional details for XP click here.








FIG D – Vista Defrag Screen – click to enlarge in new window

Windows 7 users will see a similar screen, and will need to click the Configure Schedule button:
FIG E Windows 7 Defrag Screen- click to enlarge in new window









FIG F – Windows 7 Defrag Scheduler – click to enlarge in new window

From this screen you can disable the automatic defrag or modify the schedule by clicking on the Modify schedule button:


This is one of those occasions where I am going to recommend 3rd party software.  I do not schedule a defrag I have it done continuously using a Freeware program called Smart Defrag. Details on that software are here.






Hard Drive TYPES

Other Hard Drive Considerations: Most all newer motherboards utilize SATA drive interface technology. SATA stands for (S)erial (A)dvanced (T)echnology (A)ttachment, also known as Serial ATA. There are currently 2 versions SATA1 and SATA2 which are capable of transferring data at 150MBps or 300MBps respectively. SATA3 is coming very soon at 600MBps.

The other Standard which was known for many years as IDE (I)ntegrated (D)rive (E)lectronics is now known as PATA (P)arallel (A)dvanced (technology (A)ttachment or Parallel ATA. PATA Drives use a 40 pin connector and cable that supported speeds up to 33MBps. Newer ATA 66, 100, and 133, drives use the same 40pin connector but an 80 pin ribbon cable. The extra conductors in the cable are used to shield the data conductors. This was the limiting speed factor of the PATA interface. If you happen to be running ATA 66, 100, or 133 PATA drives in your system, insure you are using an 80 pin cable. They will normally work with a 40 wire cable but at 33MBps speeds.

FIG G – Hard Drive Cable Types – click to enlarge in new window

If you are upgrading your system and installing a new Hard Drive, you of course want to choose SATA 2 drives, but your PC must support it.  SATA drives only allow 1 device per channel, or cable and EIDE support 2 per channel, or cable through jumper block settings.  Most all new mother boards support SATA, many support both and older systems will use PATA or EIDE.  You could also purchase an IDE to SATA hard drive Motherboard Adapter Bridge.  Look at your motherboard or your system documentation to see if your older system can support SATA.

FIG H – Mother Board Hard Drive Connections – click to enlarge in new window

I will be covering Drive arrays and RAID,  (R)edundant (A)rray of (I)nexpensive (D)isks, in a future article for those of you who are gamers and want to really trick-out and optimize your system or an advanced PC user needing  Data Redundancy .


In Part 2 of this series we will be discussing memory, including virtual memory and ways of optimizing both. 
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Microsoft Security Essentials.

If you have read some of my free antivirus reviews you know I am a fan of Eset Nod32 antivirus.
Eset Nod32 however, is not free.  I have found that free antivirus programs, like so many other free things in life, usually do have a cost.  I do not need to take my PC to the geek squad or the local PC shop for repair or pest eradication, and hopefully you do not either, but if you do, don’t be surprised if you get a bill between $150 and $250 for backup, complete operating system re-install and restore.  This may well be part of the true cost of your free anti-virus!   I imagine your time is valuable to you also, so even if you perform this yourself, you could be looking at a minimum of a few hours of work.

When I first heard of a free security package from Microsoft I was intrigued.  We all have heard the MAC  vs PC, and  PC vs Linux propaganda .  Sample Below!

You know the comments…..my MAC never gets viruses, or Linux is so secure it doesn’t need any protection. I agree that the VBA scripts and Macro languages that have been used and still available in Microsoft Office products open up security holes. They are also responsible for much of the interoperability between the applications in the office suite that makes them so popular. The Microsoft Platform, depending on what you believe is on between 75 -90% of the worlds PC’s… If you’re a budding virus writer and want to leave your mark or society, what operating system are you going to pick on?
I am excited to see Microsoft offer Security Essentials as free software. Who better to have a stake in its success! I am really putting Microsoft Security Essentials to the test. Two weeks ago I removed Nod32 on my production PC, an Intel Quad Core windows 7 box, and installed Security Essentials. So far I am very impressed. Watch for full review on this product Mid Feb 2010.

Download Microsoft Security Essentials

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