The Ultimate Boot CD

I have just discovered this neat bootcd, that is a collection of your favorite tools, such as

Prime95: CPU/Ram stress utility
Memtest86: Ram tester
CPUid information
System information
CPU benchmarks
3d benchmarks

Many bios, harddisk installation and diagnostic tools as well

You can see the entire list and download it here.

Download the .iso and burn it using your favorite burning software, I prefer imgburn.

Find the source of BSODs

Do you ever receive the dreadful blue screen of death at random times and cant quite figure out how to solve the issue because you can't understand the blue screen? So do I actually, but I have this program I like to use called WhoCrashed from Resplendence Software, you can download it here. Basically the program checks for drivers which have been crashing your computer and directly says the exact driver file. It checks your dump files that windows creates when a BSOD error happens, but those files are confusing for human to read directly.

When you run the program (You have to run it as administrator, right click > run as administrator) you press Analyze, it will then spit out the log, something like this, I had a BSOD recently, you can see the WhoCrashed analyzing it here,

On Tue 7/21/2009 1:54:36 AM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: atikmdag.sys
Bugcheck code: 0xD1 (0x0, 0x2, 0x1, 0xFFFFF88003F1DFD9)
Error: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\atikmdag.sys
product: ATI Radeon Family
company: ATI Technologies Inc.
description: ATI Radeon Kernel Mode Driver


Which was my ATI drivers, maybe I should update them >.<, You can also click on the links that the log provides, yes this an actual example :)

Like all BSODs, there is no simple answer, most of them are from driver issues, but some maybe from hardware. WhoCrashed is a program which can make fixing BSOD errors alot easier!

HOW TO: Update your sound card drivers

Updating your sound card can be very easy, and sometimes very hard especially when you don't know what sound card you have. Hopefully, this article will help you update your sound card no matter what problems you encounter.

To start off, lets figure out what your sound card is, ok?

1) Right click My Computer - Manage
2) Open Device Manager in the left window pane
3) Open Sound, Video, and game controllers

Here you can see multiple devices, or maybe none at all! So how do you determine which is yours?
If you go to your volume control - right click - view playback devices, you should see the default playback sound input have a big green check

(Skip the below step if your sound card is detected)
But what if my sound card isn't detected in device manager you may ask
Well, luckily, I have this program called everesthome, this program can detect all kinds of hardware that device manager, doesn't have implemented yet, sadly. Download the program and install it

1) Launch Everest Home > Multimedia - Now scour through the tree to find your sound card, hopefully its something you recognize,

Another way to find your sound card is to open up your PC case and look at sound card directly, if you still can't find it or its integrated check your motherboard manual it should tell you what sound card is in there.

Now you know your sound card name so now its time for some updating
If you don't have a well known card such as creative, finding your sound card can be difficult especially if you have the integrated intel cards. Updating should be fairly easy to do, as long as you find your card.

1) Go to google.com
2) Type in your soundcardname + drivers + downloads (example creative sound blaster x-fi + drivers + downloads)
Hopefully the first link will be the model of your sound card and something related to driver updates
3) Dowload the correct drivers for your operating system and run the executable (In vista run as administrator)
4) Now, to see if your sound card is successfully updated, go back into device manager and right click on your sound card and go to properties, then check the driver tab for the correct date! If it is fairly new, congratulations you have updated your sound card!

Speed up your PC with Auslogic and CCleaner

Here are two easy ways to help speed you up your PC with these two very easy to use programs, Auslogic Disk Defrag and Ccleaner.

The first one is a Defrag program know as Auslogic Disk Defrag.

A defrag program works by moving scattered files on your hard drive. Files are scattered from installing new programs and files being added. The reason for the files not being properly stored on a HD is the way MS operating system works, in order to keep speeds up and system resource use done most files are added to the HD as it sees fit. A defrag program goes through these files and moves them into a better configuration on the HD boosting program opening speed and performance.

I recommend Auslogic over the default defrag provided by Microsoft, for its ability to do a much more efficient job and increase performance even more.

The link for Auslogic is here

The second best way to speed up your system and my personal favorite is a program know as CCleaner. CCleaner is basically a big vacuum, it is mainly meant to delete cookies, cached files and downloads you have accumulated from browsing the Internet. CCleaner also has another function of removing unused registry entry's left over from old programs. Before you run CCleaner be sure to remember all your passwords you have for your email and other online accounts, as CCleaner will remove them from the cache.

The link for CCleaner is here

By using Auslogic on a monthly bases or after installing and or downloading a few programs you can be sure that your PC is working as it should. Then top it off by weekly clean up of old and unused files with Ccleaner will keep your PC working at peak performance

HOW TO: Update your video card!

Video card manufacturers release driver updates every now and then, such as nvidia.com or ati.com, which are the most commonly used video cards on the market. Along with the video card are drivers, updating your drivers can be very useful to improve performance, updates can include tweaks, fixes, optimization, and even added support to video games. Sometimes, updating drivers can be a very bothering task, especially if you don't know what kind of video card you have. I will teach you how!

First: Figure out what your card is!
1. Press start
2. If you are using vista, go to step 3, if you are using an OS older than vista, click run
3. Type in dxdiag

Now the Directx diagnostic tool will appear
There is a lot of information in this screen, what we want is the driver name and the driver date,

4. Click Display 1
5. Write down the Name of the card, (example mine says ATI Radeon HD 4800 SERIES)
6. The Date of the driver is on the right, (mine says 5/15/2009), if it is fairly new to the recent update, you don't have to update, but still it is advisable to do so!
7. Now if it is an nvidia.com or ati.com you are in luck! Click on the corresponding sites and fill in the correct information from your Driver name,( you can find out your OS by double clicking on My Computer)
8. Download those drivers and run the installer!

Now what if my driver name is not ati or nvidia you may ask,

Well, this can be solved, you wrote down your driver name right? Good!
1. Go to google.com.
Pick option A or B for step 2
2a. Type in your driver name and then type + driver, example (ATI Radeon HD 4800 SERIES + updates), this will shorten your search to include driver + your card, this is very useful finding it.
2b. Type in the manufacturers website into site + driver name + (driver downloads): (example site:intel.com + intel GMA 950 + driver downloads), this will shorten your list to your download, hopefully
3. Now the site you need to pick is hopefully your manufacturer, intel.com etc,
4. Click on the site, look for the download link for your OS and install those drivers!

Is this article useful? Are you still have problems? Please comment them! I will be glad to assist you

jlluitj

Domain

The website is now on its own domain!

You can now access the website here http://www.pchalp.com/

Enjoy

jlluitj

Gmail Notifier + "is:unread" ? What is this?

Make your life a little easier with this little app, if you use gmail and like to know when you receive emails. Use this program called gmail notifier.
I use this program as well and I love it! Install it, type in your username and password for gmail and you are good to go. It is really simple!

Now, who gets frustrated when they want to make there gmail all organized and make every email read? This is very tedious when you have hundreds of emails so mark as read. Well here is a shortcut to make that simpler in ten easy steps!

1. Login to gmail.com
2. Settings
3. Filters
4. Create a New Filter
5. Enter in "is:unread" without the quotes into Has the Words.
6. Click Next Step
7. A dialog box will come up, just hit ok
8. Checkbox "mark as read"
9. Checkbox the "Also apply to ## conversations below"
10. Hit create filter!

Now all your emails are officially read! Now, just make sure you delete the filter when your done with it so all your emails aren't read when they come in :)

jlluitj