Tips for a healthy pc

[Naveed Ashrafi]

Carrying on from the 'dell' thread I thought Id start this particular thread to give some tips for your computers.

1. If purchasing from a vendor : -

Open the side case and check to see how the cabling has been arranged. Any cabling suspended ie not tied to other cables and his hanging around near the cpu fan is asking for trouble because theres a possibility that the cable can move and potentially rest on the cpu fan. If this happens then cpu failure can occur.

DO PURCHASE A SUPPORT PACK! Faults occuring from a vendors' pc can be replaced without additional costs. Besides, its more cost effective than going to 'a mates' for fixing/repairing it.

If you build your own pc then get a large chassis as this allows for better cooling. The antec p180 case is just about the best you can get for this despite its sub £150 price tag.

Attach coolers to your hdd so they run cooler and last longer as a result

If you are going to overclock your cpu then make previsions by getting a better cooler than your reference hsf. £20 will get you an Artic cooler freezer 64 cpu cooler for both amd and intel processors and tests show cpus running at least 10 degrees cooler than with the stock reference hsf.

Please please please defrag your hdd literally at the end of each session you are on the pc for. Windows own defragger is good but personally i use Disk keeper 9 pro edition and ive set it to continuous defrag whilst im using the pc.

The more 'red' sections shown on the defragmenter's program the more its showing you fragmented files/folders. This causes pc's to slow right down. Regular defragmenting keeps things running smoothly.

Use 'msconfig' to see how many programs run in the background. Go to the 'startup' tag in msconfig and deselect the software you dont use. Doing this significantly increases responses from your pc as well increasing boot/shutdown times though this can be adjusted in the registry (i aint going into that one).

Thats enough for now. You can wake yourselves up!

[Naveed Ashrafi]

Anyone wishing to switch from standard crt (cathode ray tube) monitors to lcd/tft screens make sure the response time is at least 8 milliseconds and under. This allows video to run smoothly without any ghosting. The larger the screen ie 19 inch and over will allow minimum 12 - 16ms response time.

Screens at 17' and under give the quickest response times.

Your contrast ratio should be 500 : 1 for excellent picture quality

My personal recommendations are monitors from Viewsonic. A 17' monitor from Viewsonic cost around £220.

[Humbled]

naveedashrafi said:

Attach coolers to your hdd so they run cooler and last longer as a result

If you are going to overclock your cpu then make previsions by getting a better cooler than your reference hsf. £20 will get you an Artic cooler freezer 64 cpu cooler for both amd and intel processors and tests show cpus running at least 10 degrees cooler than with the stock reference hsf.

What do you think about cooling systems that use water?

Anyone wishing to switch from standard crt (cathode ray tube) monitors to lcd/tft screens make sure the response time is at least 8 milliseconds and under. This allows video to run smoothly without any ghosting. The larger the screen ie 19 inch and over will allow minimum 12 - 16ms response time.

Screens at 17' and under give the quickest response times.

Your contrast ratio should be 500 : 1 for excellent picture quality

My personal recommendations are monitors from Viewsonic. A 17' monitor from Viewsonic cost around £220.

Avoid flat screens if you want to use your pc for playing games. CRT's are the best for gaming and they are way cheaper.

[Naveed Ashrafi]

Cooling systems with water are great because of the fact that they cool to at least 15 - 20 degrees better than even the best of fan coolers.

However you must remember that a water cooled system needs a case to support the radiator that maintains temperature of the water. Also make sure to not have any leakages from the pipes.

A standard cooling system can start from around £100 which will cool a processor to 20 degrees below the stock reference fan.

A direct competitor to water cooling systems are the Akasa ak 913 hsf (AMD 64 cooler) which cools approx 15 degrees cooler than a reference amd hsf. The same for the intel skt 775 hsf from Artic Freezer, approx 10 degrees below stock fans.

The other benefit is its near silence operation (radiator fans do still run) but youll have less noise which will make a significant impact in your room.

All depends on your processor. AMD 64's can be passively cooled but not the Intel cpus. Their TDP is much higher than AMD's (single core cpu's at least), around 75 watts compared to 89 - 110w with an Intel cpu (depending on what model).

If its an Intel cpu then better off with a water cooled system. Get the Swiftech H2O Apex water cooler for £160. Cools both vendors of cpu to around 25 degrees below reference hsf.

[Humbled]

I'd love to get a Nitrogen cooling system, that would freeze the CPU!

do you think its posibble to get a water cooling system and replace the water with Nitrogen or would that just freeze the cooling system?

[Naveed Ashrafi]

Water and liquid nitrogen would not work. Besides, the transistors that surround the motherboard would be too cold to run. The last nitro cooling occured not that long ago and they cooled a 3ghz intel cpu and clocked it to 5ghz before it refused to boot.

Dont forget liquid nitro is at kelvin temp so its not viable yet. The next best thing is phase change cooling. Gas turns to liquid to cool cpu then reverts back to gas then its cooled at the radiator then turned to liquid to cool the cpu again (or vga/chipset)

[Sajid Karim]

moyeen said:

I'd love to get a Nitrogen cooling system, that would freeze the CPU!

do you think its posibble to get a water cooling system and replace the water with Nitrogen or would that just freeze the cooling system?

please be careful when discussing these sensitive topics, 'nitrogen and computers' .... you could have the MI5/FBI knocking on your door linking you to 9/11 before you could say gwantanamo

[Naveed Ashrafi]

That would be great for the intelligence (if they are intelligent) agencies to watch this site.

if they are intelligent enough then get out of Iraq and restore Saddam Hussein back to full power so he can get his country back into full working order before they invaded.

Next tip :- Keep logged on to this site for advice/hints/tips/discussions as there is a full spectrum of people to talk with and listen to.

[Mohammed Khan]

karim said:

moyeen said:

I'd love to get a Nitrogen cooling system, that would freeze the CPU!

do you think its posibble to get a water cooling system and replace the water with Nitrogen or would that just freeze the cooling system?

please be careful when discussing these sensitive topics, 'nitrogen and computers' .... you could have the MI5/FBI knocking on your door linking you to 9/11 before you could say gwantanamo

lol, theyre probably reading and checking your address out as we speak. If you see strange men going through your rubbish at fajar time, you will know ;D

[Naveed Ashrafi]

I hope they do! When theres nothing criminally going on but talk of getting the best performance from your pc then theres nothing to worry about!

Inshallah nobody here has criminal intentions