Master the Essentials: 29 Crucial PC Skills

Posted 09/07/2010 at 10:47am | by The Maximum PC Staff and Paul Lilly

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These 29 essential PC skills define the core competency of any power user

Do you consider yourself a power user? It’s a tough question. After all, where do you draw the line? Hardware hacking? Command-line skills? Unix?

As we sat down to answer this question, the possibilities seemed endless, making our task feel more daunting. Windows registry hacks? Networking know-how? Upgrades? We even asked you, our readers, to contribute your suggestions. We received a bunch of great ones, but this only further broadened our pool of ideas.

Illustrated Merit Badges by Jim Kopp

Undeterred, we took a step back to consider the very essence of a power user. Eureka! A power user, we reasoned, is not a simple state of being. It’s a path, filled with accomplishments and achievements and failures and applied knowledge. And merit. We imagined a Boy Scout sash, filled with badges indicating various acts of heroism and knowledge, as well as empty spaces where future achievements will eventually reside.

On the following pages, you’ll learn what our version of this path is. Enjoy!

Setting Up Your PC

The first few hours of any new PC’s existence are critical. Set things up right and you’ll enjoy years of stability and longevity. Get things wrong and… well, you know how that goes. Every mistake, oversight, and wrinkle introduced during a new PC’s inception will compound itself over time. Here are the essentials to getting it right.

Install Windows the Right Way

You already know how to install Windows—pop in the disc and watch an episode of The Office—but what do you do when it’s finished? The first step we take is to fire up Windows Update and install any and all applicable patches. You’ll most likely have to reboot your system, at which point you should check Windows Update again.

When that’s finished, head over to your motherboard maker’s website and download/install the latest chipset drivers specific to your mainboard. Next, install the latest graphics driver for your videocard, and then finish things off by updating any other components, like your soundcard and/or network adapters. Windows’ default drivers will handle most components in a fairly stable fashion, but you’re going to get the best results from native drivers.

Banish Crapware from a New PC

PC Decrapifier is ideally suited for any PC purchased from a retail outlet or online vendor. Goodbye, crapware!

Trials and toolbars and links, oh my! As a way of generating revenue from software vendors, OEMs often shovel all kinds of performance-hampering crapware onto your new PC. You can spend the first 30 minutes hunting down uninstallers and restoring your system to pristine condition, or knock out the bloat with a single blow using PC Decrapifier, a free utility that detects and uninstalls whichever programs you select.

Manage Power Usage and Sleep Better at Night

Navigate to the Control Panel and select Hardware and Sound > Power Options. For portable PCs where battery life is a priority, we build off of the Power Saver profile. Similarly, choose the High Performance setting if you’re working with an enthusiast-class rig. Once you have a starting point, tweak the individual settings by clicking Change Plan Settings and then Change Advanced Power Settings. Here are our favorite toggles:

• Hard Disk - You can configure your HDD to switch off after a set period of inactivity. If you own a modern hard drive, chances are it already comes with several power-saving features built in, so don’t expect any miracles here. And if you own an SSD, any potential power-saving benefits go right out the window because of a lack of moving parts.

• USB Selective Suspend - When enabled, USB devices will stop drawing power while in an idle state. This is done at the driver level, so not all devices support this setting.

• Processor Power Management - Notebook users looking to extend battery life can set the Maximum Processor State to a value less than 100 percent. The obvious drawback here is that you’ll lose performance when performing CPU intensive tasks, and since today’s processors come with all kinds of power-saving features already built in, this is of dubious value on modern machines.

• Display - A brightly lit LCD drinks electricity like it’s going out of style, and what’s the point if you aren’t even looking at it? Notebook users should configure the display to dim after a short period of inactivity, or better yet, turn off altogether. Desktop users won’t see much benefit, but hey, you’ll sleep better at night knowing you reduced your carbon footprint.

When you’re finished configuring your power options, look for any problems using Windows’ Powercfg utility. To do this, open an elevated command prompt (right-click on cmd and run as an administrator) and type powercfg -energy -output c:\report.html. Windows will then observe your PC for 60 seconds and spit out an energy report at the location and filename specified.

Set Up Three Displays

Before shuttling those old LCD monitors to the landfill, consider filling your desktop with a triple-display setup instead. In most cases, you’ll need a second videocard to make the magic happen, but it doesn’t have to be gaming grade—a PCI card will work just fine. Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows 7 isn’t likely to cough up a hairball in this scenario. Once installed, go into Display Properties to finalize your configuration options. For even more control, we recommend running UltraMon or DisplayFusion to squeeze out additional features, like multiple taskbars, from your three-headed monster.

Use Benchmarks to Expose Shoddy Settings and Busted Hardware

There’s more to benchmarking than just bragging rights. It’s also an ideal way to gauge whether your components are firing on all cylinders. An unusually low benchmark score could be indicative of a misconfigured setting, or even a faulty piece of hardware.

Before you begin your first benchmark run, prep your PC to eliminate any outside variables. Disconnect from the Internet, turn off your screen saver, turn off auto update, and disable your antivirus and any other background tasks. It’s also a good idea to defrag your hard drive (but not your SSD). Finally, reboot your PC.

Far Cry 2's built-in benchmark allows you to measure your new system's real-world performance. It's a great way to gauge whether your rig is running in a healthy manner.

Use a mix of synthetic and real-world benchmarks, starting with Futuremark’s PCMark Vantage Suite to get an overview of your system as a whole. To suss out your CPU, fire up Maxon’s Cinebench 11.5. You can benchmark your RAM with SiSoft Sandra’s built-in benchmarking tools, and for your GPU, we recommend a variety of tests, including Futuremark’s 3DMark Vantage and built-in game benchmarks, such as the one included with Far Cry 2.

Stress testing is a little different than benchmarking, in that you’re primarily testing for stability, not performance. Running Prime95 will let you know if your overclock is stable (select Run Benchmark from the Options menu), while Memtest86+ does an excellent job at exposing defective RAM. To use the latter, download either the bootable ISO or auto-installer for USB keys and boot directly from either one. Let Memtest86+ run a full pass on each stick individually.

Three Smart Ways to Protect Your Data

Stupefy Hackers with Strong Passwords

While using your girlfriend’s name as a password qualifies as a heartfelt gesture, it’s also a boneheaded security risk. Avoid using passwords that are easy to guess and instead use a mix of alphanumeric characters and symbols. At the very least, use symbols and numbers like @, 3, !, or 0 in place of the vowels A, E, I, or O. If what you’re trying to password protect is mission-critical, use an online password generator such as this one from PC Tools.

Lock Down Your Router Tighter Than Fort Knox

Without a password in place to protect your wireless Internet, you’re not only a sitting duck, but inviting trouble. Keep bad guys out by using a unique SSID and by securing your router with a password. To access your router, type 192.168.1.1 into your browser (or check your router manual for an alternative). You’ll be prompted for a password—type “admin” for both entries, or consult your router manual if this doesn’t work. Now, navigate to the security section. This will vary by make/model—if you own a Linksys router, for example, head over to Wireless > Wireless Security and choose the strongest encryption your network adapters support, such as WPA2. Type in a strong password mixing both letters and numbers, and either write this down (temporarily) or commit it to memory. You’ll need to punch this in when prompted on any PCs or Internet-connected devices that tap into your router.

Secure Your Sensitive Data

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that a deleted file is gone forever. All any two-bit hack has to do is Google “data recovery” to find a list of apps that promise to resurrect files already emptied from the recycle bin. Use Eraser when you need to securely delete files. If you’re getting ready to dispose of your hard drive, KillDisk decimates any traces of data. And finally, put your trust in TrueCrypt for on-the-fly encryption.

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