Copyright © 2002, PC World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. The trademark PC World is owned by International Data Group and used under license by PC World Communications, Inc. Printed in the United States. You must have permission before reproducing any material from PC World. Direct inquiries to permissions@pcworld.com. FAT32 NTFS ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ TECHNOLOGY ADVICE YOU CAN TRUST TM ◆ WWW.PCWORLD.COM ◆ PC WORLD MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS PPoowweerr GGuuiiddee ttoo PC Hardware >>SPECIAL BONUS COLLECTION<< AGP’s strength is its ability to process texture maps. Certain 3D games and a few 3D graphics development tools are currently the only programs that benefit greatly from fast-moving texture maps. To make sure you’re getting the full benefits of AGP 4X, go into your CMOS setup program and make sure your PC is set to run at AGP 4X rather than 2X. Load the latest AGP drivers onto your PC. The AGP drivers that come with Win- dows 9x are limited, and systems using AMD’s Athlon CPU don’t work well with older drivers. Check with the manufac- turer of your PC, motherboard, or chip set—in that order—to find updated driv- ers and installation instructions. Hardware Tips welcomes your tips and ques- tions and pays $50 for published items. Kirk Steers is a PC World contributing editor. tem’s CMOS setup program to see these statistics. But we’ve found a handy work- around: Just use Alex van Kaam’s Moth- erboard Monitor freeware utility to keep watch over your PC’s fans, voltages, and temperatures. Head to find.pcworld. com/16020 to download the program. AGP 3: WORTH THE UPGRADE? I REPLACED MY 1X/2X AGP graph- ics card with a 2X/4X AGP adapter, but my graphics performance has not improved. Should I have waited for the AGP 8X cards to come out? Evan Nathan, Dallas absolutely not. Applications that take full advantage of AGP 8X transfer speeds are at least a year away. Other improve- ments to third-generation AGP graphics cards should enhance graphics perfor- mance, however. FIGURE 1 shows the max- imum transfer rates of the AGP versions. KIRK STEERS HARDWARE TIPS HARDWARE TIPS HARDWARE TIPS A Cool Breeze Keeps Your PC’s Innards From Frying biggest temperature changes occur when you turn your system on and off, so leave your PC on but use its power-manage- ment functions to keep its innards as cool as possible when it’s idle. When you turn on your computer in a really cold office, let the system warm up for 15 minutes before saving anything to its hard drive. Listen to your fans: Your PC keeps cool by blowing a constant stream of air through its case. The primary air mover in most PCs is the power-supply fan, although some systems have an additional ventila- tion fan built into the case. Even in rela- tively clean offices, dust can accumulate on the fan intakes and seriously obstruct airflow. Clean your PC’s fans and fan intakes regularly, especially if you hear a change in the fans’ one-note whir. Most CPUs also have a cooling device— either a fan or a heat sink. (A heat sink is a metal plate with fins or spikes intended to dissipate heat.) If your CPU’s fan or heat sink stops functioning properly, a CPU failure won’t be far behind. A heat sink needs a constant flow of air to remove heat. In most PCs, the internal fans provide the required airflow. Never leave the case off your system while it’s running. Going topless may lower the overall temperature inside your PC, but it also destroys the internal airflow patterns that keep your CPU and other compo- nents from overheating. Mercury rising: Most PCs made in the last few years monitor and report on the state of their case, CPU, and power-supply fans. Some also provide data on the sys- tem’s internal temperature, and some have a temperature alarm built into their BIOS. You usually have to open your sys- WWW.PCWORLD.COM FEBRUARY 2002154 do the cold, dark days of winter have you dreaming of tropical beaches, sunny deserts, and the inside of your PC? You read right. The climate inside your com- puter can rival that of Death Valley in the summer, and triple-digit temperatures are bad news for your hardware. Most desktop PCs run comfortably when their internal temperature is be- tween 60 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit. (Check your system documentation to find your PC’s exact range.) Internal tem- peratures over 110 degrees can stress del- icate circuits and electrical contacts, which may substantially shorten your computer’s life. Hard drives are especial- ly vulnerable when the temperature goes up: Data transfers slow down, and data written to the disk is more likely to be lost. Here’s how to beat the PC heat. Avoid ups and downs: Sudden changes in temperature are just as harmful to your PC’s circuitry as high temperatures. The HERE’S HOW FIGURE 1: FASTER AGP rates speed up tex- ture maps but won’t help most applications. DOES YOUR CURSOR sometimes appear and disappear, move in the wrong direc- tion, or change size and shape? It could be a sign of mouse trouble, which is often due to a conflict with your graphics card’s driver. If you use Windows 9x or Me, there may be a solution simpler than installing an updated driver. Open Con- trol Panel, double-click the System icon, choose the Performance tab, and click the Graphics button. Move the slider next to Hardware Acceleration one notch to the left. This change disables some graphics capabilities, but it may be the solution to your rodent problem. A CONFLICTED MOUSE ឣ Transfer speed (MB/second)AGP SPEED AGP 1X AGP 2X AGP 4X AGP 8X 266 533 1066 2133 AGP DATA TRANSFER RATES KIRK STEERS HARDWARE TIPS HARDWARE TIPS HARDWARE TIPS For Fast, Easy Computing, USB Is the Bus to Ride CONNECT DEVICES WITH A USB HUB A UTILITY FOR CACHE MANAGEMENT AN OLD AGP CARD IN A NEW AGP SLOT ial or parallel port often requires a com- plicated configuration. USB avoids the hassles of setting and juggling IRQs and other resources. One IRQ covers all the hardware attached to each USB port. USB peripherals have fewer compatibility problems than peripherals using serial or parallel ports. Speed: A USB 1.1 controller transfers data at up to 12 mbps, or about four times faster than the speediest parallel port and 100 times quicker than a serial port. While that won’t affect the performance of a mouse or joystick, it makes a big dif- ference with printers, scan- ners, and other data-hungry peripherals. Portability: All USB devices can be hot- swapped, which means that you can plug a piece of hardware into your PC, or un- plug one, while your system is running. The operating system will automatically recognize and configure new USB devices. Support for old hardware: There once was a lack of USB peripherals, but now almost every I/O device comes in a USB version. Even old devices run off USB by using an adapter that converts parallel, serial, and other devices to USB. Belkin and SIIG are two vendors that offer such adapters. One port, many devices: With the use of a USB controller, a single USB port can theoretically support up to 127 different devices, although practically speaking, it’s unlikely you’ll ever run more than ten WWW.PCWORLD.COM MARCH 2002154 lots of things get better with time: friendship, a fine cabernet, and yes, even PCs. Every day we’re bombarded by ad- vertisements hawking systems that are faster and cheaper—so much so that it’s easy to lose sight of really useful improve- ments, like the Universal Serial Bus. USB is the way to connect anything to your PC. It’s fast, simple, and so much better than parallel and serial ports that they look downright medieval by compar- ison. (Not to say that leeches and a good suit of armor don’t come in handy every now and then. But, hey, enough about my personal life.) Judging from all the e-mail I get about problems with parallel and serial ports, a surprising number of you still aren’t aware of just how great USB is. And with USB 2.0, the spec gains even more advantages. Here’s a rundown on why you should be riding with USB. Ease of use: USB just works better. Peri- od. Getting hardware to function on a ser- peripherals at one time. All the devices connected to a USB 1.1 controller have to share its 12-mbps bandwidth. If you need to run multiple devices that eat up more than 12 mbps, you can use a PCI adapter card to add a USB controller to your PC. Belkin sells a USB 1.1 PCI adapter card for $39 and a USB 2.0 version for $59. Easy linking: If you’ve ever tried to chain together two devices—such as a printer and a Zip drive—you know it can be a real nightmare. USB allows any device to be connected to any other USB device that has a built-in hub. So you’ll never have to crawl under your desk to reach the back of your PC when attaching a peripheral. Some keyboards and monitors have built-in hubs with one or two USB ports. If you don’t already have one of these, consider buying a dedicated USB hub that sits on your desktop. Dedicated hubs have clusters of two, four, or more ports. Belkin’s four-port USB 2.0 hub, for exam- ple, costs as little as $52 online (see FIG- URE 1). If your hub connects lots of USB devices to your PC, make sure you have adequate power to run them all. Printers and many similar devices have their own power connections, but mice, keyboards, modems, and others get their power from the USB connection. If the devices need more power than the USB port can deliv- er, the entire bus may shut down. When this happens, Windows displays a warn- ing icon next to the Universal Serial Bus Controller entry in Device Manager. For- tunately, you can avoid power problems by using the right type of USB hub. Bus-powered USB hubs draw electrici- HERE’S HOW FIGURE 1: EASILY ADD AND REMOVE USB hardware by installing a USB hub such as Belkin’s four-port device. PHOTOGRAPH: MARC SIMON WHEN YOUR PC uses the same chunk of data over and over, it often stores that piece of information in fast memory, or cache, where it can retrieve the data faster than it can off a hard drive. Stor- ing the right amount of data in the cache can improve your PC’s performance. Outer Technologies’ $10 Cacheman is an excellent shareware utility that lets you conveniently monitor memory use and control your cache settings. Go to find. pcworld.com/17641 to get the download. SPEND YOUR CACHE WISELY If you buy a self-powered hub, make sure it provides a full 500 mA to each port—some don’t. To check, divide the hub’s total amperage rating (found in its documentation or on the power supply) by the number of ports. For example, a four-port hub should provide at least 500 mA per port, or 2 amps total. If your PC originally shipped with Windows 98 or later, it almost certainly has a set of working USB ports. Look on the back of your PC for two narrow, rec- tangular openings. If you have an older system without USB, an adapter card should get you up and running. (Using USB on systems running Windows 95 is, at best, problematic. If that’s what you’re using, consider an OS upgrade.) Many PC peripherals now support the USB 2.0 specification. USB 2.0 devices can run more than 40 times faster than those using USB 1.1. The top USB 2.0 data rate is 480 mbps, which is faster than the IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ports that run hard drives, digital still and video cam- eras, and CD-RW drives (see FIGURE 2). USB 2.0 products are backward com- patible, so you can use older USB devices on a USB 2.0–equipped PC. So what’s the catch? USB 2.0 products are a bit more expensive. Also, the selection of USB 2.0 devices is limited at present, and they re- quire a USB 2.0-ready PC to run them. Look for the first USB 2.0–ready moth- erboards and systems to hit the mar- ty from the incoming USB connector and output up to 100 mA per port (that’s milli- amps, a measure of electrical current). Self-powered hubs draw their own power or, in the case of the root hub in your PC, get it from the PC. They provide up to 500 mA per port. Keyboards, mice, and other low-power USB devices use 25 mA to 40 mA and run well on a 100-mA port of a bus-powered hub. More-demanding de- vices need to use a self-powered hub. FIGURE 2: USB 2.0 HARDWARE MOVES DATA slightly faster than devices using an IEEE 1394 (FireWire) connection, but it can be more than 40 times faster than USB 1.1 devices. ៑ Maximum data rate (mbps) CommentsSPECIFICATION USB 1.1 USB 2.0 IEEE 1394 (FireWire) 12 480 400 Supports low-speed (up to 1.5 mbps) peripherals such as mice and keyboards, as well as printers, scanners, and other medium-speed devices. Also called High-Speed USB, the new standard is fast enough to support external hard drives, CD-RW drives, and other high-speed peripherals. Popular spec for digital video cameras; will allow direct connection of IEEE 1394 devices (such as a DVD player to a TV) without the signal having to pass through a PC. USB VS. FIREWIRE DATA RATES ket sometime this spring. You can add USB 2.0 functionality to your system now by using one of the adapters mentioned above. But before buying a USB 2.0 prod- uct, check with the vendor to confirm the availability of USB drivers for your oper- ating system. As I write this, USB drivers for Windows XP are still unavailable, and drivers for Windows 98 and Me aren’t always included with USB products. ANY AGP PORT IN A STORM? MY BROTHER JUST gave me his old Pentium III PC minus a graphics card. I opened up its case to add the AGP 2X graphics card I took from my for- mer computer, but the AGP slot in the P-III PC is much longer than the slot in my old system. Can I safely add my old graphics card to the newer computer’s AGP slot? Peter Miller, Topeka, Kansas you probably can, but before adding an old AGP card to a new motherboard, make sure the two are compatible. There are three different types of AGP slots: the original AGP 1.0 1X/2X slot, the AGP 2.0 2X/4X slot, and the AGP Pro slot. The 1X/2X version is the shortest and can be distinguished from the 4X type by a small separator that divides it into two sections. The 4X slot also has extra pins at one end. From your description, your PC proba- bly has an AGP Pro slot. These slots have an extension added to the end of the 4X slot without the extra pins. While the AGP Pro slots are designed for top-end graphics cards costing over $1000, they are also found frequently on mother- boards used in mainstream PCs. Because the AGP Pro slot is backward compatible, a 1X/2X or 2X/4X AGP card will work in the slot. But take care when inserting a 1X/2X card to avoid incorrect- ly inserting it into the AGP Pro extension. Often these extensions come with a cover to prevent this, but the covers can fall off. Also make sure your graphics card and motherboard support the same operating voltages. The original AGP 1.0 spec called for motherboards and cards that operate at 3.3V, and the AGP 2.0 spec added sup- port for operation at 1.5V. If your old graphics card operates at 3.3V, you’ll need a motherboard that supports 3.3V AGP. Likewise, a card that runs at 1.5V needs a corresponding AGP slot. Fortunately, many motherboards come with ‘universal’ AGP slots that support either voltage, and many of the latest graphics cards support both voltages as well. Not all setups do, however. A few motherboards out there run exclusively at 1.5V and won’t support the older 3.3V cards. Check with your motherboard and graphics card vendors to determine your hardware’s precise requirements. Kirk Steers is a PC World contributing editor. Reach him at kirk_steers@pcworld.com. Hardware Tips welcomes your tips and ques- tions and pays $50 for published items. HERE’S HOW HARDWARE TIPS ឣ KIRK STEERS HARDWARE TIPS HARDWARE TIPS HARDWARE TIPS Will a New CPU Give Your PC More Vroom? THE INS AND OUTS OF CPU UPGRADES MATCH UP YOUR MOTHERBOARD FASTER WRITING TO REMOVABLE DISKS That’s because other components play a big role in determining your system’s overall performance. For example, dwin- dling hard disk space or too little RAM can slow down a system that’s trying to process big spreadsheets or databases. And adding a topflight graphics card to your PC can dramatically improve the look and play of many games. But if you’re on a tight budget and you need a moderate, across-the-board perfor- mance boost, adding a new CPU can be worthwhile. Our rule of thumb: If you’re staying in the same processor class, buy a CPU upgrade only if it will at least double your current clock speed—from 400 MHz to 800 MHz, for example. Better yet, move up an entire CPU class, such as from a Celeron chip to a full-fledged Pen- tium II or Pentium III. If you have an older system, keep in mind that powerful new PCs are cheaper than ever. If a CPU upgrade costs more than $300, you may be better off spend- ing a little more for a new PC. Here’s what you need to know about your PC before you buy a new CPU: What’s your old CPU’s name? Use Intel’s Processor Frequency ID Utility to identify the company’s CPUs. Go to find.pcworld. com/11880 to download the program. What’s your PC’s chip set? The chip set your motherboard uses determines what types of CPU, RAM, hard drive, and other hardware will work with your PC. To dis- cover what chip set your PC uses, look in your system’s manual or download and run a hardware diagnostic program such WWW.PCWORLD.COM OCTOBER 2001198 if you think you can feed your need for PC speed without investing in a whole new system, simply by replacing your old CPU with a newer and faster one, you’re right—probably. A CPU upgrade can be a cost-effective way to boost PC perfor- mance, but it’s not for everyone. Any prospective upgrader should ask two questions: How much performance will a new processor add to my PC? And is the bounce worth the cost? You can find a CPU upgrade for almost any PC—from systems based on Intel’s ancient 80486 chip through today’s Pen- tium III models. But don’t expect mir- acles from a new CPU if its clock speed is only slightly higher than that of your cur- rent CPU. A new processor running at twice the clock speed you’re used to won’t come close to doubling your system’s per- formance. A 10 to 20 percent jump in per- formance is more realistic. as the HWInfo shareware package. Visit find.pcworld.com/11881 to get it. Does it use a socket or a slot? The type of CPU connector your motherboard uses determines which CPUs can connect to your system. FIGURE 1 lists information to help you determine what your PC uses. What about your frontside bus and multi- pliers? The frontside bus (or FSB) is the path between your RAM and CPU. It runs at a particular frequency: 66, 100, or 133 MHz. The motherboard multiplies that frequency to drive the CPU. For ex- ample, a Pentium II-233 CPU typically runs on a motherboard with a 66-MHz FSB and a multiplier of 3.5. The same sys- tem can run a Pentium II-266 CPU if you change the multiplier from 3.5 to 4. But running a Pentium II-400 CPU on that system would be a waste: With an FSB of 66 MHz and a top multiplier of 4, the old machine can run no faster than 266 MHz. What is the voltage? If you’re adding a standard CPU rather than an upgrade processor, make sure your motherboard’s CPU voltage matches the voltage needs of your new CPU. Some motherboards sup- port multiple CPU voltage settings, but many older boards don’t. Check your manual to be sure of what you need. Kirk Steers is a PC World contributing editor. Hardware Tips welcomes your tips and ques- tions and pays $50 for published items. HERE’S HOW FIGURE 1: KNOW YOUR motherboard attach- ment type before you buy a CPU upgrade. IF YOU FREQUENTLY use a removable storage drive—such as an Iomega Zip or Jaz drive—you can speed up data writing to the drive by enabling write-behind caching. This arrangement allows Win- dows to temporarily store data destined for the disk in RAM and then write it to the disk when no other tasks are being performed. To enable this option, launch Control Panel’s System applet, select Performance•File System•Removable Disk, and check the Enable write-behind caching on all removable disk drives box. MORE ZIP FOR YOUR ZIP Motherboard attachment CPU Pentium (75 to 133 MHz) Pentium (133 to 200 MHz) Pentium MMX Pentium Pro Pentium II Pentium III Celeron (300 to 433 MHz) Celeron (466 MHz or faster) K5 K6, K6-2, K6-III Athlon Athlon (Thunderbird) Duron Socket 5 or 7 Socket 7 Socket 7 Socket 8 Slot 1 Slot 1 or Socket 370 Slot 1 or Socket 370 Socket 370 (PPGA or FC-PGA) Socket 5 or 7 Socket 7 or Super 7 Slot A Socket A Socket A WHAT’S YOUR SOCKET? IntelAMD ឣ A UGUST 2001 190 PC WORLD HARDWARE TIPS KIRK STEERS HARDWARE TIPS grounded outlet. Always remove all traces of the old device before you install the new one. Here’s what to do: 1. Use the Add/Remove Programs applet in Control Panel to remove all of the soft- ware associated with the device. 2. Remove the device’s driver. Click Start•Settings•Control Panel• System, choose the Device Manag- er tab, double-click the device’s category, select the device you’re uninstalling, and click the Remove button. Note: To remove the driver of a graphics card (Windows calls it a “display adapter”), first double- click the device name, choose the Driver tab in its Properties box, and select the Update Driver but- ton; then use the Update Device Driver Wizard to install Windows’ generic VGA driver (see FIGURE 1). 3. Shut down your PC. 4. Open your system’s case, and remove the old device. If you’re upgrading your graphics card, put the new one in now. 5. Restart the PC and check Device Man- ager. If the old device’s entry is still there, repeat the uninstall. Sometimes you have to “remove” a device more than once before there are no traces of it left in Windows. Install new devices one at a time, and use your PC for a few days between each installation to give problems time to reveal themselves. Some things to re- member as you install: 1. Plug and Play isn’t always the best method for installing a device. Some drivers have their own installation programs that are best run independently of every time you crack open your PC’s case to add or remove hardware, you’re rolling the dice. Maybe you’ll slip that new modem or ethernet card into its slot and watch Windows seamlessly install its driv- ers. Yeah, and maybe your Internet stocks will return to triple-digit share values, too—but I sure wouldn’t count on it. Even with such technologies as Plug and Play, hardware can still be quite tricky to install. Mistakes or prob- lems can lead to hours of trouble- shooting, or even to an unusable PC. These installation guidelines should help keep your system running. First, create a backup. Windows 98 automatically backs up its Registry files every day. By default it stores the last five backups in the Windows\Sysbckup folder as .cab files named rbxxx.cab, where xxx is the number of the backup— 001, 002, or whatever. Copy the most re- cent .cab file, and give it a different name so it won’t be overwritten by a corrupted copy. If you need to restore a backup file, restart your system in DOS mode and run regscan.exe—running it from a DOS ses- sion in Windows won’t work. Windows Me’s System Restore utility automates system backups. Click Start• Programs•Accessories•System Tools•System Restore to reload a system configuration that Windows saved previously. Last, make sure that you’re electrically grounded. Even a small static charge on your body can damage your PC’s delicate circuitry. Touch the system’s metal chas- sis just before you unplug it from its Windows’ own installation routines. 2. If the installation instructions are unclear or refer to a different model num- ber, go to the manufacturer’s Web site and look for updated documentation. 3. Get the latest driver update. The drivers on the floppy or CD-ROM that came with the device may be out-of-date. Check the vendor’s Web site for newer versions. 4. Don’t interrupt a driver installation. Stopping in midprocess can cause all kinds of trouble. If you want to abort an installation, finish the procedure com- pletely, and then uninstall the driver. 5. Secure cards to the case with their fas- tening screws. Unfastened cards can work their way out of their slots over time. For additional hardware tips, visit www.pcworld.com/heres_ how. Send your tips and ques- tions to kirk_steers@pcworld.com. We pay $50 for published items. Kirk Steers is a PC World contributing editor. Reserve a Cab ABOUT THE ONLY time you need your Win- dows CD-ROM once your PC is running is when you install hardware. If you can’t find the disc, or if you can’t get your CD-ROM drive to work, you could be stuck. To play it safe, make a folder on your hard disk, name it CABS, and copy Windows’ .cab files (the compressed versions of Windows operating system files) to it. Just copy the ‘win98’ and ‘drivers’ folders from the Windows CD. They occupy about 275MB, but it’s space well used, even if you only need the files once. Your PC’s Case: Enter With Caution ឣ FIGURE 1: BEFORE INSTALLING A NEW graphics card, replace the old driver with Windows’ Standard VGA driver. . published items. HERE’S HOW HARDWARE TIPS ឣ KIRK STEERS HARDWARE TIPS HARDWARE TIPS HARDWARE TIPS Will a New CPU Give Your PC More Vroom? THE INS AND. your hardware s precise requirements. Kirk Steers is a PC World contributing editor. Reach him at kirk_steers@pcworld.com. Hardware Tips welcomes your tips