What's a BIOS?

Summary: BIOS, for Basic Input Output System, is the software already built in to you computer. It's primary job? Load other software.

I keep hearing people talk about something called a BIOS in my computer. What is it?

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Your computer's BIOS is perhaps one of the oldest legacies of PC computers. It's special software that's on your computer before you take it out of the box, and before you even turn it on.

Even before the computer has a hard disk installed, the BIOS is there.

It's software that has a critical role in getting your computer started.

It's a little like my morning coffee that way.

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The BIOS, for "Basic Input Output System" is software (or more properly, "firmware") that resides in a special memory chip on your computer's motherboard. The BIOS begins running the instant that your computer is turned on, before any other software is loaded. It runs before your hard disk is even touched, or for that matter before your computer even knows that there is a hard disk.

"Your computer's BIOS is completely separate from (and unrelated to) Windows ..."

Your computer's BIOS is completely separate from (and unrelated to) Windows or whatever other software you might have installed on your hard drive.

The BIOS has three primary purposes:

• When you first turn on your machine the BIOS performs various tests - called the "Power On Self Test" or POST - to ensure that your hardware is operating properly at some basic level. It'll perform tests such as ensuring that memory is working, a keyboard is present, and that a hard drive can be found. The tests are not exhaustive (so as not to delay the next step), but often detect basic problems that would impact your ability to use the computer.
• After completing the POST it's the BIOS that boots your machine. It figures out what device (Floppy? CD/DVD? Which of several hard disks perhaps?) to boot from, and then loads and runs the software that it finds on the boot device. It's likely that on your computer this is where Windows starts to load.
• After the operating system is loaded, the BIOS is still available and can provide a common software interface to some of your computer's hardware. It's not uncommon for Windows (or other operating systems) to continue to use the software in the BIOS to access your hard disk or other common hardware.

The BIOS originally was truly software in hardware - it was placed in unalterable read-only memory (ROM) and could be replaced or updated only by physically opening the computer and replacing the chip that contained it.

In later years, ROM's were replaced with "Flash ROM's", which are similar in some ways to the Flash memory used in USB memory sticks and memory cards. The contents of the Flash ROM could be replaced by a upgrade process that required only special software. Typically this involved booting from a floppy disk and running a utility specific to that particular motherboard and ROM that would perform the magic sequence to replace the Flash ROM contents.

Unfortunately, if that failed, and the BIOS was incompletely updated, the result was often a dead motherboard. While all the hardware might be in fine working order, without a working BIOS there is no way to boot - not from floppy (to update the BIOS) or from a hard disk or from anything else for that matter. Initially, that meant physically replacing the chip once again.

Fortunately, memory got cheaper and many machines now include a backup copy of the "factory original" BIOS on the motherboard which can be reset - typically by opening the computer and setting a special jumper on the motherboard or some other special sequence. (The specific technique varies based on your motherboard.)

Normally your BIOS is not something you really need to think about. In fact, unlike other software on your machine I actually recommend updating it only when there's an identified need. Since it is possible for a BIOS update to fail, and recovering from that failure can often be quite painful, it's often just not worth it. When I've checked, most BIOS updates available for my equipment actually have nothing relevant to my machines or usage.

On occasion, however, updating a BIOS can be just the thing to do for specific problems. If that's the case, research on that specific problem will lead you to a BIOS update.

What is bandwidth?

Summary: Bandwidth is a term you hear frequently but it can be confusing and it's easy to gloss over exactly what it means.

Can you explain bandwidth to me in layman's terms? I have looked it up on the internet, but I get the standard mathematical explanation. My brain doesn't really work mathematically so I need something a little more tangible, or some examples of what is FAST and what is SLOW. For example, according to bandwidth.com, my download speed is 17237 kbps and my upload speed is 1615 kbps. I understand that means 17.237 mbps and 1.615 mbps respectively. But what does that mean? Is that fast? Slow? What do I compare it to?

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That's fast. Compared to me, anyway, that's fast. Given your ISP (from your email address) and the speeds you're seeing I'd guess you probably have cable internet.

I'm going to bring out the oldest metaphor I have to try and put a handle on how fast is fast. No math, but first just a teeny, tiny bit of computerese.

That part's inevitable.

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First, let's define the term: bandwidth simply is the speed at which data is transferred. Sometimes bandwidth is also used to refer to the maximum capacity, or the fastest, that a connection could move data.

Now let's define what you were told: 17237 kbps is 17237 "kilo-bits per second". "Kilo" is 1000, so what you're seeing is 17,237,000 bits per second.

Your math is correct: mbps is "mega-bits per second" so that's17.237 million bits per second.

For that to have some meaning, we need to understand what bits are, and how they're used to carry information.

You probably know that a bit is a single "thing" that can be either 0 or 1. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything in your computer, everything digital, everything you communicate on the network and on the internet is built on the fundamental concept of a bit. Everything. The bit is the very definition of digital.

"The bit is the very definition of digital."

Bits are commonly handled in groups of 8 called bytes. If you look at 8 bits whose possible values are either 0 or 1 each, the collection can have up to 256 possible unique combinations:

00000000
00000001
00000010
.
.
11111110
11111111

Now, when we represent text - such as the text you're reading here - on a computer, the most common way to do so is to use one byte for each character. So if I type, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog," that took 44 bytes to store all the characters, including the spaces between the words.

Now we break out the metaphor: The Bible.

Let's be clear; it doesn't matter if you believe or not. This has nothing to do with the contents of the Bible, only its size. You've probably seen one, perhaps even own one, and have a good sense for how big it feels, how hefty it might be, and how long it might take to read it cover to cover.

The Bible is a fairly sizeable common frame of reference.

You can download the text of The Bible from project Gutenberg as plain text meaning that it has only the text of The Bible, in its simplest form.

A representative copy in this digital form is about 5,000,000 bytes, or more commonly 5 megabytes.

And here comes just a little math.

Five megabytes at 8 bits per byte is, roughly, 40,000,000 bits.

On your 17,237,000 bits-per- second connection, that means you can download the entire Bible in about two and a half seconds. In the other direction you're running 1,615 kbps, so it would take you about 25 seconds to upload it.

Now let's compare that to some other common bandwidth figures and see how long it would take to transfer The Bible at those rates:

Connection Type	Common Bandwidth	One Bible Time
Common Dial-up	28kbps	23 minutes
Max Dial-up	56kbps	12 minutes
Basic DSL	768kbps	52 seconds
T-1 / DS1	1.5mbps	27 seconds
You (Cable)	17.237mbps	2.3 seconds
Max FIOS	50mbps	0.8 seconds

These are approximations meant to be examples of orders of magnitude. Your mileage will almost certainly vary and will likely be not quite as fast as the numbers above should you actually download a 5 -megabyte file. These numbers assume you have 100% of your connection available to you (which is not always true on shared resources like cable), and that the download is the only thing happening. I'm also completely ignoring any overhead caused by the way the internet and networking work in general. Typically, if you're getting within around 80-90% of these numbers, life is pretty good.

Naturally, we don't all go around downloading Bibles all day. But using that as a common physical object that translates into an easy- to -remember number of bits (40 million), perhaps that'll help give a sense of what bandwidth might mean and how fast your connection might compare to others.

As one final exercise for those so inclined, I'll point out that a data CD holds around 700,000,000 bytes, or 5.6 billion bits. A DVD? 4.7 gigabytes, or 37.6 billion bits. I'll let you do the math for your own connections, but for my T-1, that means with ideal conditions it would take me a little over an hour to download a CD and around 7 hours to download a complete DVD.

Top 5 Ways to Speed Up Your PC

5 Ways to Speed Up PC

Are you fed up with your slow PC? Well you can Speed Up your PC by 3 times. In this post you’ll find some of the most significant ways to speed up your PC. For your convenience, I ’ll split this post into 2 parts.
1. Automatic Ways to Speed Up PC (Using PC Speed Up Software's)
2. Manual Ways to Speed Up PC

Automatic Ways to Speed Up PC
You can use a PC Optimizer Tool to automatically boost the Speed of your PC without the need to worry about the manual ways of doing it. These tools will automatically find and fix upto 99% of your PC errors by optimizing the Windows registry, cleaning up junk files, removing unwanted items from the start up etc. This can speed up your PC and Internet speed by upto 3 times. Here are some of the best PC Optimizer Programs that I recommend.
1. Perfect Optimizer
2. Registry Easy
Using a PC Optimizer is the easiest way to speed up your PC. This is because, most of the performance tweaks such as Registry Cleanup cannot be done manually.

Manual Ways to Speed Up Your PC
1. Free Up Disk Space to increase the speed of your PC
* Remove temporary Internet files.
* Empty the Recycle Bin.
* Remove Windows temporary files.
* Uninstall Programs that you no longer use.
2. Periodically Perform Hard Disk Defragment. This can Speed Up your PC significantly.
3. Clean Up your Registry (Highly Recommended)
Cleaning Up your Windows Registry is very much necessary to speed up your PC. Unfortunately you cannot do this manually. You have to use a Registry Cleaner to do this. Here is the best registry cleaner on the web.
Registry Easy
A complete review of registry cleaners can be found at Registry Cleaner Reviews
4. Clean Up the browser cache to Speed Up your Internet.
5. Install a good Antispyware software
Spywares can really hurt the performance of your PC. So, install a good Antispyware to protect your PC from Spywares and improve the speed of your PC. I recommend the following Antispyware to protect your PC.
1. Spyware Cease
2. SUPER Antispyware™
Which is the Best Way to Speed Up my PC? (Auto or Manual)
The best way to speed Up your PC is by using a PC Optimizer such as Perfect Optimizer or Registry Easy. This is because, manual ways can only perform 30-40% of the tweaks to improve the speed of your PC, but the most important aspect of the Speed Up process such as Registry clean Up and other advanced performance tweaks can only be done using a PC Optimizer software. So if you are serious about improving the speed of your PC, then you need to use a PC Optimizer.

ALL About Spyware

There are a lot of PC users that know little about "Spyware", "Mal-ware", "hijackers", "Dialers" & many more. This will help you avoid pop-ups, spammers and all those baddies.

What is spy-ware?
Spy-ware is Internet jargon for Advertising Supported software (Ad-ware). It is a way for shareware authors to make money from a product, other than by selling it to the users. There are several large media companies that offer them to place banner ads in their products in exchange for a portion of the revenue from banner sales. This way, you don't have to pay for the software and the developers are still getting paid. If you find the banners annoying, there is usually an option to remove them, by paying the regular licensing fee.

Known spywares
There are thousands out there, new ones are added to the list everyday. But here are a few:
Alexa, Aureate/Radiate, BargainBuddy, ClickTillUWin, Conducent Timesink, Cydoor, Comet Cursor, eZula/KaZaa Toptext, Flashpoint/Flashtrack, Flyswat, Gator, GoHip, Hotbar, ISTbar, Lions Pride Enterprises/Blazing Logic/Trek Blue, Lop (C2Media), Mattel Brodcast, Morpheus, NewDotNet, Realplayer, Songspy, Xupiter, Web3000, WebHancer, Windows Messenger Service.

How to check if a program has spyware?
The is this Little site that keeps a database of programs that are known to install spyware.

Check Here: http://www.spywareguide.com/product_search.php

If you would like to block pop-ups (IE Pop-ups).
There tons of different types out there, but these are the 2 best, i think.

Try: Google Toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com/) This program is Free
Try: AdMuncher (http://www.admuncher.com) This program is Shareware

If you want to remove the "spyware" try these.
Try: Lavasoft Ad-Aware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/) This program is Free
Info: Ad-aware is a multi spyware removal utility, that scans your memory, registry and hard drives for known spyware components and lets you remove them. The included backup-manager lets you reinstall a backup, offers and multi language support.

Try: Spybot-S&D (http://www.safer-networking.org/) This program is Free
Info: Detects and removes spyware of different kinds (dialers, loggers, trojans, user tracks) from your computer. Blocks ActiveX downloads, tracking cookies and other threats. Over 10,000 detection files and entries. Provides detailed information about found problems.

Try: BPS Spyware and Adware Remover (http://www.bulletproofsoft.com/spyware-remover.html) This program is Shareware
Info: Adware, spyware, trackware and big brotherware removal utility with multi-language support. It scans your memory, registry and drives for known spyware and lets you remove them. Displays a list and lets you select the items you'd like to remove.

Try: Spy Sweeper v2.2 (http://www.webroot.com/wb/products/spysweeper/index.php) This program is Shareware
Info: Detects and removes spyware of different kinds (dialers, loggers, trojans, user tracks) from your computer.
The best scanner out there, and updated all the time.

Try: HijackThis 1.97.7 (http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html) This program is Freeware
Info: HijackThis is a tool, that lists all installed browser add-on, buttons, startup items and allows you to inspect them, and optionally remove selected items.


If you would like to prevent "spyware" being install.
Try: SpywareBlaster 2.6.1 (http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareblaster.html) This program is Free
Info: SpywareBlaster doesn`t scan and clean for so-called spyware, but prevents it from being installed in the first place. It achieves this by disabling the CLSIDs of popular spyware ActiveX controls, and also prevents the installation of any of them via a webpage.

Try: SpywareGuard 2.2 (http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html) This program is Free
Info: SpywareGuard provides a real-time protection solution against so-called spyware. It works similar to an anti-virus program, by scanning EXE and CAB files on access and alerting you if known spyware is detected.

Try: XP-AntiSpy (http://www.xp-antispy.org/) This program is Free
Info: XP-AntiSpy is a small utility to quickly disable some built-in update and authentication features in WindowsXP that may rise security or privacy concerns in some people.

Try: SpySites (http://camtech2000.net/Pages/SpySites_Prog...ml#SpySitesFree) This program is Free
Info: SpySites allows you to manage the Internet Explorer Restricted Zone settings and easily add entries from a database of 1500+ sites that are known to use advertising tracking methods or attempt to install third party software.

If you would like more Information about "spyware".
Check these sites.
http://www.spychecker.com/
http://www.spywareguide.com/
http://www.cexx.org/adware.htm
http://www.theinfomaniac.net/infomaniac/co...rsSpyware.shtml
http://www.thiefware.com/links/
http://simplythebest.net/info/spyware.html

Usefull tools...
Try: Stop Windows Messenger Spam 1.10 (http://www.jester2k.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/j...r2ksoftware.htm) This program is Free
Info: "Stop Windows Messenger Spam" stops this Service from running and halts the spammers ability to send you these messages.

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All these softwares will help remove and prevent evil spammers and spywares attacking your PC. I myself recommend getting "spyblaster" "s&d spybot" "spy sweeper" & "admuncher" to protect your PC. A weekly scan is also recommended

Free Virus Scan
Scan for spyware, malware and keyloggers in addition to viruses, worms and trojans. New threats and annoyances are created faster than any individual can keep up with.
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10 reasons why PCs crash U must Know

Fatal error: the system has become unstable or is busy," it says. "Enter to return to Windows or press Control-Alt-Delete to restart your computer. If you do this you will lose any unsaved information in all open applications."

You have just been struck by the Blue Screen of Death. Anyone who uses Mcft Windows will be familiar with this. What can you do? More importantly, how can you prevent it happening?

1 Hardware conflict
The number one reason why Windows crashes is hardware conflict. Each hardware device communicates to other devices through an interrupt request channel (IRQ). These are supposed to be unique for each device.

For example, a printer usually connects internally on IRQ 7. The keyboard usually uses IRQ 1 and the floppy disk drive IRQ 6. Each device will try to hog a single IRQ for itself.

If there are a lot of devices, or if they are not installed properly, two of them may end up sharing the same IRQ number. When the user tries to use both devices at the same time, a crash can happen. The way to check if your computer has a hardware conflict is through the following route:

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager.

Often if a device has a problem a yellow '!' appears next to its description in the Device Manager. Highlight Computer (in the Device Manager) and press Properties to see the IRQ numbers used by your computer. If the IRQ number appears twice, two devices may be using it.

Sometimes a device might share an IRQ with something described as 'IRQ holder for PCI steering'. This can be ignored. The best way to fix this problem is to remove the problem device and reinstall it.

Sometimes you may have to find more recent drivers on the internet to make the device function properly. A good resource is www.driverguide.com. If the device is a soundcard, or a modem, it can often be fixed by moving it to a different slot on the motherboard (be careful about opening your computer, as you may void the warranty).

When working inside a computer you should switch it off, unplug the mains lead and touch an unpainted metal surface to discharge any static electricity.

To be fair to Mcft, the problem with IRQ numbers is not of its making. It is a legacy problem going back to the first PC designs using the IBM 8086 chip. Initially there were only eight IRQs. Today there are 16 IRQs in a PC. It is easy to run out of them. There are plans to increase the number of IRQs in future designs.

2 Bad Ram
Ram (random-access memory) problems might bring on the blue screen of death with a message saying Fatal Exception Error. A fatal error indicates a serious hardware problem. Sometimes it may mean a part is damaged and will need replacing.

But a fatal error caused by Ram might be caused by a mismatch of chips. For example, mixing 70-nanosecond (70ns) Ram with 60ns Ram will usually force the computer to run all the Ram at the slower speed. This will often crash the machine if the Ram is overworked.

One way around this problem is to enter the BIOS settings and increase the wait state of the Ram. This can make it more stable. Another way to troubleshoot a suspected Ram problem is to rearrange the Ram chips on the motherboard, or take some of them out. Then try to repeat the circumstances that caused the crash. When handling Ram try not to touch the gold connections, as they can be easily damaged.

Parity error messages also refer to Ram. Modern Ram chips are either parity (ECC) or non parity (non-ECC). It is best not to mix the two types, as this can be a cause of trouble.

EMM386 error messages refer to memory problems but may not be connected to bad Ram. This may be due to free memory problems often linked to old Dos-based programmes.

3 BIOS settings
Every motherboard is supplied with a range of chipset settings that are decided in the factory. A common way to access these settings is to press the F2 or delete button during the first few seconds of a boot-up.

Once inside the BIOS, great care should be taken. It is a good idea to write down on a piece of paper all the settings that appear on the screen. That way, if you change something and the computer becomes more unstable, you will know what settings to revert to.

A common BIOS error concerns the CAS latency. This refers to the Ram. Older EDO (extended data out) Ram has a CAS latency of 3. Newer SDRam has a CAS latency of 2. Setting the wrong figure can cause the Ram to lock up and freeze the computer's display.

Mcft Windows is better at allocating IRQ numbers than any BIOS. If possible set the IRQ numbers to Auto in the BIOS. This will allow Windows to allocate the IRQ numbers (make sure the BIOS setting for Plug and Play OS is switched to 'yes' to allow Windows to do this.).

4 Hard disk drives
After a few weeks, the information on a hard disk drive starts to become piecemeal or fragmented. It is a good idea to defragment the hard disk every week or so, to prevent the disk from causing a screen freeze. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Disk Defragmenter

This will start the procedure. You will be unable to write data to the hard drive (to save it) while the disk is defragmenting, so it is a good idea to schedule the procedure for a period of inactivity using the Task Scheduler.

The Task Scheduler should be one of the small icons on the bottom right of the Windows opening page (the desktop).

Some lockups and screen freezes caused by hard disk problems can be solved by reducing the read-ahead optimisation. This can be adjusted by going to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System Icon-Performance-File System-Hard Disk.

Hard disks will slow down and crash if they are too full. Do some housekeeping on your hard drive every few months and free some space on it. Open the Windows folder on the C drive and find the Temporary Internet Files folder. Deleting the contents (not the folder) can free a lot of space.

Empty the Recycle Bin every week to free more space. Hard disk drives should be scanned every week for errors or bad sectors. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-ScanDisk

Otherwise assign the Task Scheduler to perform this operation at night when the computer is not in use.

5 Fatal OE exceptions and VXD errors
Fatal OE exception errors and VXD errors are often caused by video card problems.

These can often be resolved easily by reducing the resolution of the video display. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Display-Settings

Here you should slide the screen area bar to the left. Take a look at the colour settings on the left of that window. For most desktops, high colour 16-bit depth is adequate.

If the screen freezes or you experience system lockups it might be due to the video card. Make sure it does not have a hardware conflict. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager

Here, select the + beside Display Adapter. A line of text describing your video card should appear. Select it (make it blue) and press properties. Then select Resources and select each line in the window. Look for a message that says No Conflicts.

If you have video card hardware conflict, you will see it here. Be careful at this point and make a note of everything you do in case you make things worse.

The way to resolve a hardware conflict is to uncheck the Use Automatic Settings box and hit the Change Settings button. You are searching for a setting that will display a No Conflicts message.

Another useful way to resolve video problems is to go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Performance-Graphics

Here you should move the Hardware Acceleration slider to the left. As ever, the most common cause of problems relating to graphics cards is old or faulty drivers (a driver is a small piece of software used by a computer to communicate with a device).

Look up your video card's manufacturer on the internet and search for the most recent drivers for it.

6 Viruses
Often the first sign of a virus infection is instability. Some viruses erase the boot sector of a hard drive, making it impossible to start. This is why it is a good idea to create a Windows start-up disk. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Add/Remove Programs

Here, look for the Start Up Disk tab. Virus protection requires constant vigilance.

A virus scanner requires a list of virus signatures in order to be able to identify viruses. These signatures are stored in a DAT file. DAT files should be updated weekly from the website of your antivirus software manufacturer.

An excellent antivirus programme is McAfee VirusScan by Network Associates ( www.nai.com). Another is Norton AntiVirus 2000, made by Symantec ( www.symantec.com).

7 Printers
The action of sending a document to print creates a bigger file, often called a postscript file.

Printers have only a small amount of memory, called a buffer. This can be easily overloaded. Printing a document also uses a considerable amount of CPU power. This will also slow down the computer's performance.

If the printer is trying to print unusual characters, these might not be recognised, and can crash the computer. Sometimes printers will not recover from a crash because of confusion in the buffer. A good way to clear the buffer is to unplug the printer for ten seconds. Booting up from a powerless state, also called a cold boot, will restore the printer's default settings and you may be able to carry on.

8 Software
A common cause of computer crash is faulty or badly-installed software. Often the problem can be cured by uninstalling the software and then reinstalling it. Use Norton Uninstall or Uninstall Shield to remove an application from your system properly. This will also remove references to the programme in the System Registry and leaves the way clear for a completely fresh copy.

The System Registry can be corrupted by old references to obsolete software that you thought was uninstalled. Use Reg Cleaner by Jouni Vuorio to clean up the System Registry and remove obsolete entries. It works on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE (Second Edition), Windows Millennium Edition (ME), NT4 and Windows 2000.

Read the instructions and use it carefully so you don't do permanent damage to the Registry. If the Registry is damaged you will have to reinstall your operating system. Reg Cleaner can be obtained from www.jv16.org

Often a Windows problem can be resolved by entering Safe Mode. This can be done during start-up. When you see the message "Starting Windows" press F4. This should take you into Safe Mode.

Safe Mode loads a minimum of drivers. It allows you to find and fix problems that prevent Windows from loading properly.

Sometimes installing Windows is difficult because of unsuitable BIOS settings. If you keep getting SUWIN error messages (Windows setup) during the Windows installation, then try entering the BIOS and disabling the CPU internal cache. Try to disable the Level 2 (L2) cache if that doesn't work.

Remember to restore all the BIOS settings back to their former settings following installation.

9 Overheating
Central processing units (CPUs) are usually equipped with fans to keep them cool. If the fan fails or if the CPU gets old it may start to overheat and generate a particular kind of error called a kernel error. This is a common problem in chips that have been overclocked to operate at higher speeds than they are supposed to.

One remedy is to get a bigger better fan and install it on top of the CPU. Specialist cooling fans/heatsinks are available from www.computernerd.com or www.coolit.com

CPU problems can often be fixed by disabling the CPU internal cache in the BIOS. This will make the machine run more slowly, but it should also be more stable.

10 Power supply problems
With all the new construction going on around the country the steady supply of electricity has become disrupted. A power surge or spike can crash a computer as easily as a power cut.

If this has become a nuisance for you then consider buying a uninterrupted power supply (UPS). This will give you a clean power supply when there is electricity, and it will give you a few minutes to perform a controlled shutdown in case of a power cut.

It is a good investment if your data are critical, because a power cut will cause any unsaved data to be lost.