9 Essential Steps to Disaster-Proof Your PC
Posted 06/30/09 at 11:00:00 AM by Paul Lilly
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8. Get in Tune with Your System
More often than not, there are signs of impending disaster, if you know where to look
Whether you’re a professional race car driver or a power user pushing your PC to the limit, it’s imperative you become one with your hot rod. By doing so, you can pick up on subtle nuances that would otherwise fly under the radar and predict problems before they happen. But you don’t need to rely on your instinct alone.
Are those new videocard drivers helping or hampering performance? You’ll know if you first establish a baseline for comparison. Benchmarks aren’t just for bragging rights, they can also serve as helpful diagnostics and clue you in when something is amiss. Futuremark’s 3DMark Vantage runs your GPU through a series of 3D gaming tests, while its PCMark Vantage analyzes your system as a whole (both free, www.futuremark.com). Run both of these and refer back to your scores whenever you make a change, be it new hardware or a driver update. See our online benchmarking guide for a list of even more free benchmarks that will tax various subsystems of your PC.
Benchmarks are a handy way of monitoring your system's health. We like PCMark Vantage because it runs a variety of scripts intended to stress all the major components rather than focus on a single piece of hardware.
To ensure your rig doesn’t overheat and blow up (figuratively), get in the habit of monitoring temperatures. SpeedFan (free, www.almico.com/speedfan.php) will help you do this and can even adjust your system’s various fan speeds based on the temperature of your components. SpeedFan also comes with a S.M.A.R.T. tab, which reports the health of your hard drive and can sometimes be useful in predicting when a drive might be on its last legs.
By using SpeedFan to monitor your system's temperatures and dynamically adjust fan speeds accordingly, you can run a quieter PC without overheating your components.
If you find that your temperatures tend to run high, there are a number of different ways you can lower them. Most third-party CPU heatsinks offer far better cooling potential than the stock units AMD and Intel provide. In most cases, you get what you pay for, so don’t expect to slap a $5 cooler on your Core i7 and unleash a new level of overclocking headroom—it won’t happen. Switching to a high-performance thermal compound, like Tuniq’s TX-2 or Arctic Silver 5, can also shave off a few more degrees. For case cooling in general, be sure you have enough fans in your system. You should have at least two 12cm fans, one in the front to pull air in and one in the back as an exhaust. If it’s an option, add another exhaust fan on top. Some cases even come with 20cm or 25cm side-panel fans, giving your entire setup a blast of cool air.
Finally, investigate any sounds that are out of the ordinary. A failing hard drive will often make a clicking or grinding noise shortly before it stops working completely, so if you hear this, back up any important data right away. If your system suddenly seems quieter than it used to be, check to see that one or more fans haven’t stopped spinning.
9. Keep a PC First-Aid Kit
In case of emergency, you should keep handy a repository of spare parts that can address a PC's most common points of failure
1. Cables
If you're lucky, hardware that appears to be faulty might really just need a new cable. We've seen it happen. You should keep an assortment at your disposal, including SATA, IDE, Ethernet, and USB cables of various sizes.
2. Optical Drive
There are many symptoms to a failing optical drive, including slow performance, corrupted files when installing Windows, or the inability to work at all. Keep a spare drive around for good measure.
3. Hard Drive
Grinding noises coming from your PC are never a good thing, and usually mean your hard drive is about to go belly-up. Keep a spare hard drive within reach for emergency backups and troubleshooting.
4. Thermal Paste
Over time, your thermal compound may dry up and lose its ability to transfer heat. Always keep a tube of thermal paste on hand, whether you’re applying a fresh coat or installing a new heatsink.
5. Boot Disc
If your system suddenly refuses to boot, you only need to panic if you didn’t have the foresight to create a boot disc. Use this to get into your system to retrieve files, clean up malware, and fix other issues.
6. Screws and Standoffs
We don’t know why we end up with fewer screws than when we first started, but we always do. Keeping a supply of various-size screws and standoffs solves this problem so we can focus on the task at hand.
7. USB Hard Drive Adapter
Whether your motherboard is fried or you’re trying to move your desktop files to a notebook PC, migrating data is made a million times easier with a USB hard drive adapter.
8. Thumb Drive
Thumb Drive With the price of flash media plummeting, there’s no reason not to keep a spare thumb drive around. Use it to transfer files in a pinch, store diagnostic utilities, or even as a bootable drive.
9. CMOS Battery
CMOS Battery A faulty CMOS battery can cause your system to forget the date and time, refuse to boot, display quirky error messages, or lose your BIOS settings. Thankfully, these tiny batteries are ultra cheap and a cinch to replace.
10. Arcticlean
Some thermal-grease cleaners leave behind a nasty residue as a result of perfumes and other foreign substances that have been added. ArctiClean doesn’t and it works better than isopropyl alcohol at breaking
down thermal paste and pads.
Why is this on the magazine's front cover?
Submitted by Th3MadScientist on Tue, 07/07/2009 - 8:03pm
This should not be the main feature of the latest MaximumPC magazine. These tips are for noobs that have no idea what they are doing and do not deserve to either build or operate a computer. Make sure to have anti-virus installed....really... thanks for the tip guy.
MaximumPC has not been really Maximum at all these past few months. You guys seem to be catering more to the oblivious PC enthusiasts.
BTW Microsoft Virtual PC is horrible compared to VMWare Workstation. Sure it is free and that is why it sucks. Nothing but a headache, with VMWare Workstation I was ready to go in about 15 minutes without any previous experience.
Im seriously considering abandoning ship and heading over to Anandtech for my hardware reviews and using Dailytech for my daily news updates were the discussions are between IT professionals and not basement dwelling trolls.
Submitted by badamsz on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 1:59pm
I have found that CrashPlan (http://www4.crashplan.com/consumer/index.html) is an awesome automatic backup system that offers a variety of backup options varying from self hosted to pay per gb. I love the flexibility of backup options such as local drive, another computer at home, remote comptuers, friends computers and more. Also their response to user requsts such as provideing your own encryption keys, etc. is nice to see.
Cancelling subscription...
Submitted by K0BALT on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 3:46am
I think that there should be some sort of delay for online stories. I check MaxPC.com numerous times a day online. It's dissapponting to get my magazine 3 days later with everything in it that i've already read. Have a subscriber's section on the web or something. It's a waste of money to get it in paper 3 days later. Until something is resolved, I am yet another that will not be renewing my subscription.
Submitted by phaze on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 7:31am
I have been subscribing for almost 5 years now and will continue my subscription.
Those of you saying that you won't pay one penny since the articles are free online have not considered the fact that if the magazine goes out of business, this site will require paid subscriptions, like espn.com.
If people don't pay for that, then the writers can't get paid and then we all go home.
C'mon people maxpc is doing
Submitted by Bless on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 1:21am
C'mon people maxpc is doing this because their country is in big crisis, thousand of people have become homeless, lose their job and so on, those people need to save their money to keep them from being starv to death. maxpc have a good heart u know? dont do this to our lovely magz. I'm sure there are other articles that is in the magz that is not covered in this site.
Cover storys!
Submitted by Mr.Pooney on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 9:12am
Sur Bless there are probably some footnotes or editorials that dont make it on to the site.... my beef is the Fracken coverstory on the site right after or even before some ppl have gotten there mags.
as for theyr country in trouble.... good on them! AIG GOLDMANSUCKS ETC there the reason every one is hurting. im in canada and im hurting! so why would i pay for a mag that i can get for free (more then 1$ a mag for me) off the net! thats what happend when i cutoff my satelite srvice for basic cable! i can get the same stuff on the net for free!!!
if the guys at Max pc dont do something about this there mag will fail and they will be starving.... unless they want the print to die so that they can keep the more lucrative site up.
Long Story Short! If you pay for something you want it to be worth your hard earned cash!
on the go? i have mobile internet on my phone! i dont have to bring the mag hicking!
i have a laptop i dont have to bring the mag in the bathrooom!
i want the mag! NOT the website in print! i have a printer for that!
i know that the world moves fast and if you dont put your story out about the latest mobo or gtx cards you'll get scooped.... but think about the loyalty of ppl that promise to read the mag with a 1yr 2yr sub..... not some random visitor off of google or bing(bing is the $hit BTW IMHO)
im tired of this argument... but i feel it coming up again... say round the last week of july... begining of august... Luckly ill be in Notre-Dame-Du-Nord at the truck rodeo so when i get back the mag and the site will be new! so i wont have a beef :P
Submitted by MajorMajor on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 6:25pm
I for one appreciate the article, both in the magazine and online. At 1$e the magaszine is essentially free and is only printed at all as a vehicle for the ads. As long as the content is useful and interesting, online and off, I will renew.
Thanks
Submitted by mrvander on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 8:15pm
The words "essentially free" do not make any sense. Something is free or it costs something. When I enter $1 times 12 into my calculator, it comes up $12. It doesn't say "$0". There is no such thing as "essentially free." However, I'm extremely glad you are willing to support the magazine so they will continue to provide me and other financially logical folk the same stuff... for free.
This is a great article by the way - this is the kind of stuff I love MaxPC for. Keep 'em coming!
Submitted by Mr.Pooney on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 2:01pm
Ok... I wonder if anyone from the mag reads the forums? how about an official statement! you see that the ppl have questions and a very valid argument..... ppl have been bitch slaping you guys in the face about this! are you just gonna sit there and take it!?!?
Submitted by mrvander on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 5:40pm
They don't need to make a statement. It's simply a matter of business, not what we say here in the comments or forums. The dollars will do the talking. Once they see their revenue drop as more people realize they're paying for information the staff is delivering for free on the Net, the mag will die (unless things change.) It's sad really because I would easily pay for a magazine subscription again if it had content that was exlcusive to the magazine for at least a few months. I don't mean a news blurb or a review here and there, I'm talking the major articles and how-to's.
It's simple for me, really. Make a magazine with major articles exclusive to the print mag with added content online and they'll have my money again. Like others have said, I love having physical media I can take with me outside, to the bathroom, or to the doctor's waiting room, but I'm not going to pay for something they're giving away for free otherwise.
WTF
Submitted by winmaster on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 12:04pm
Screw all you guys who got the mag before this was posted, I'm still waiting for mine. Needless to say, I will not be renewing my subscription.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
I had gotten a free 1 month
Submitted by DBsantos77 on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 1:33pm
I had gotten a free 1 month mag and never renewed it because of this sole reason.
Submitted by dinotrex on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 9:52am
Thank you for putting such an informative article. Keep up the good work!
Joel
Submitted by Asterixx on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 9:33am
Nunc est bibendum!
I hope the print version never dies. Can't take the online version into the bathtub with you (unless you're willing to risk a thousand dollar laptop and/or electrocution). It'd be too big a pain to take the laptop into the bathroom every time nature calls, as well. And sometimes you just feel like sitting out on the patio on a nice summer day with a magazine. A hot, heavy, hard-to-see-in-sunlight laptop isn't optimal here either...
Cobian
Submitted by lunchbox73 on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 4:28am
Another excellent and free backup tool is Cobian. http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm
Submitted by blackcat77 on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 10:39pm
I couldn't access the WHS console from the two computers on which I'd installed Open DNS, and even after trying some of the tips out on the net to address the issue, nothing worked. While I appreciate the extra security Open DNS provides, losing my daily WHS backups was not an option.
Submitted by VorteX on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 8:18am
If you have an OpenDNS account associated with your IP address, just uncheck the following options under Settings > Advanced Settings
- Typo correction
- Filtering of .cm wildcard
- OpenDNS proxy
This will prevent redirection of local DNS requests to OpenDNS and will allow you (and WHS) to connect to local computers via the computer name.
My router is a D-Link DGL-4500 and this has worked perfectly for me. Just make sure you set up the OpenDNS server's on the routers side, not on each individual computer.
WHS and OpenDNS get along fine with the right router.
Submitted by ColdDeck on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 4:56am
WHS and OpenDNS get along fine with the right router. It has to do with how your router handles netbios name resolution. If it handles it locally everything will work. If it offloads it to your ISP then OpenDNS will probably break it (WHS that is). With my Linksys WRT54gs running DD-WRT, WHS worked flawlessly with no configuration. With my D-Link DGL-4500 I had to dig into the advanced settings and check a few boxes. Day to day backups work fine, but I have to reset to my ISP DNS to add a new machine. Check your router's configuration settings for anything related to netbios to see if you can make it work.
Submitted by Skillz_n_Magic on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 9:11pm
Sweet. I just got my magazine in the mail today and see the cover feature is online, for free. Plus, the first article is about Will's 5 essential apps. That was online several days ago, again, for free.
Plus, every other article is about how MaximumPC - that's P-C - loves Macs. The processor guy wrote about Apple making their own procs this month. Last month was hackintosh, before that iphones. Really guys? You might as well write about cars, it's just as relevent to PC's as macs are. Are you on Steve Jobs payroll?
Submitted by robotsneedhugs2 on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 10:50am
Oh man, and here I was thinking about subscribing to this wonderful magazine. But, now that you guys have enlightened me to the fact that there's absolutely no reason in doing so, I don't have to. Thank you Maximum PC for making your magazine pointless! :D
Submitted by mrvander on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 8:07am
This is why I've let my subscription expire. No sense paying for something I can get for free. And heck, use Adblock Plus and there are now zero ads.
This current model will kill the print mag. All I have to do is wait for the online articles, complete with clickable links and (sometimes) further-edited content. The site is ad-free. And after a while, I even have an archive of fully searchable PDF's. It's only a matter of time as more people let their subscriptions expire as I have.
Submitted by Mr.Pooney on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 6:55am
i hear you Skillz_n_Magic
i had the same beef with the mag last month! the day i got my mag bam! coverstory on the website!
atleast this time it took 4 or 5 days!
Kinda makes you rethink your subscription. i dont pay for the mag and look at the calender every day in hopes of getting my next issue of bathroom reading material! i pay to get a quality mag with info you cant get anyware else!
and now this add system that pop's every lil bit... atlease you can skip! but if you pay for the mag! you should havea special account that lets you skip^the adds!!!!
I wanna call gordon on this one! not that he can change anything! but he'll have the balls to tell it form the mags point of view
and this was my rant of the week!!!!
Is Maximum PC and Maximumpc.com 2 completly diffrent things that just hapen to have the same info?
if so then evolution says one is gonna die!
Submitted by lunchbox73 on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 12:48pm
I read the site every day and check out the mags from the library. Sorry MPC. I love yuh but you're not getting any $ from me.
Submitted by Saltboy on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 5:00am
This just in, Macs ARE PCs. All the guts are essentially the same. The only real difference these days is the OS. Have people forgotten what PC even means??
Politically Corect?
Submitted by nekollx on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 8:21am
Politically Corect? Personal Criopractor? Prince Charming?
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
Submitted by Skillz_n_Magic on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 8:13am
Even though Macs use Intel processors they are not PC's. PC's are an
open platform, Macs are proprietary, and that is why you have to shell out
$300 for a dongle to run their OS on a PC.
Macs use the same hardware
Submitted by n0ctis on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 10:34am
Macs use the same hardware as PCs and, while most of the OS is proprietary, the core of it is BSD Unix. Macs are PCs. They are just overpriced, horribly locked down, not-worth-it PCs in a cult-like niche market. You can use other OSes on their hardware.
Submitted by mew905 on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 8:35am
PC's are capable of using any hardware as long as the parts are compatible with each other, and finding the required drivers. Vista, XP and Windows 7 all have alot of drivers pre-loaded. HOWEVER I've never owned a mac, will never buy one for the fact they are rediculously expensive for weaker hardware and less compatibility, having but two advantages over PCs: lack of viruses. But why hit the minority when you can target Windows as the Majority? Macs lack of viruses is because Windows is the popular system. Mac certifies all their hardware, whether or not it will work with uncertified hardware is beyond me, but because it certifies everything, stability is amazing.
Now, in terms of the PSU calculator they provide. I came across one that was incredibly accurate (2 watts lower than my actual usage, but I forgot to put in my 8800GT's overclock), completely free, but doesnt have a long list of the newer parts. It'll make a recommendation as to what size PSU you need, as well as what size UPS you should get if needed.
Here's the link: http://web.aanet.com.au/SnooP/psucalc.php
Naw.....
Submitted by Havok on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 6:32pm
Essentially they are the same, but no true apple faboy will ever call a mac a pc
OMGWTFBBQ
Submitted by n0ctis on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 8:44pm
Wouldn't want to defile the divine Cult of Apple with the profane infidel philistines of PC would we
Submitted by dcrail on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 8:28pm
Well, at least I had my subscription copy 2 days before the cover story was online. I guess that's something.
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