Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
There are several handy free utilities out there that will tell you what hardware is inside your PC.
One of the best I’ve ever used is HWiNFO.
Like Speccy, HWiNFO is a free program that provides tons of details about your system’s CPU, motherboard, memory and such.
But HWiNFO also provides a live snapshot of the CPU temperature and various system voltages, great information to have if you’re a computer tech or system builder. [Read more…]
Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.
About a year ago I decided to put together a basic solar power system to power my home office so I could keep working during our somewhat frequent short-term power outages.
Being new to the world of solar power, I spent quite some time researching how it all worked and what types of components are needed to build a basic off-grid solar power setup.
It actually ended up being quite simple as there are only a few parts that are really needed to make it work. [Read more…]
Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.
Question from Wilma: My 6 year old desktop computer died and I’m in the process of shopping for a new one.
I really like the look of some of the All-in-One computers that I’ve seen.
And I also like the idea of not having to deal with a tower box or a bunch of extra cables, but I really don’t want a laptop.
I’d love to hear your honest opinion of All-in-One computers. [Read more…]
Question from Nancy: Rick, my desktop PC has started making a faint, but noticeable clicking sound when I first turn it on.
It only clicks for about 8-10 seconds, then it boots up normally and runs fine until I shut it down.
It’s hard to tell for sure, but I took the cover off the side of the computer and the clicking sound seems to be coming from the hard drive.
I haven’t downloaded anything recently or made any changes to the system that I’m aware of.
This machine came with Windows 8.1 but it’s been updated to Windows 10.
Do you have any idea what I can do to stop the clicking? [Read more…]
Question from Alvin: I recently retired after working for the same construction company for 43 years.
Now I’d like to take up something new to occupy all this free time that I suddenly have to fill.
I’ve always wanted to learn about computers so I’ve started reading a few tech blogs, and RicksDailyTips is one of them (thanks to my brother Keith for recommending it).
I’m not tech savvy by any stretch (I hope to change that eventually) but I do believe I’m progressing ok for an older dude who still uses a flip phone.
There’s a term that keeps popping up in the articles I read that I just can’t seem to get my head around. Can you tell me what the word “bottleneck” means in regards to computers? [Read more…]