Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Why is my PC giving me a ‘Disk Boot Failure’?

Posted on July 15, 2021

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Question from Oliver: I bought a new graphics card and the guy at Best Buy told me I’d need to replace the power supply in my computer before I install it.

The power supply that was in there was 350 watts and the one I replaced it with is 750 watts.

Everything seems to be powering up correctly but now I’m getting a “Disk Boot Failure” message.

How can I fix this? Do I need to change a BIOS setting or maybe move a jumper somewhere to get the hard drive to work with the new power supply?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Review: WP Rocket (WordPress Caching Plugin)

Posted on July 15, 2021

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

I’ve been blogging for the better part of a decade and I thought I knew pretty much everything I needed to know about the technical side of working with WordPress.

One of the most important things I’ve learned over the years is how critical it is to have a good caching plugin installed on your blog.

Simply put, if your blog doesn’t have a caching plugin working 24/7 to serve static pages to its visitors it’s going to lag behind its competitors in two very important ways: [Read more…]

Q&A: Would it be worthwhile to double the amount of RAM in my PC?

Posted on July 14, 2021

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Question from Pete: I have a Dell desktop computer that came with 8GB of RAM and Windows 7. I have since upgraded it to Windows 10.

Per your recommendation I went to Crucial.com and ran their System Scanner on this machine and it says it can use up to 16GB of RAM.

I know that adding more RAM to a computer makes it run faster. My question is would doubling the amount of RAM in this particular computer to 16GB make it run a LOT faster?

[Read more…]

Q&A: Why are my AirPods dropping their Bluetooth connection?

Posted on July 14, 2021

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Question from Kim: I have a pair of AirPods that I love dearly.

I’ve used many different kinds of headphones and earbuds and the AirPods have the best sound quality of any of them.

I’ve recently started having a problem with them though. At random times the Bluetooth connection drops out and it interrupts my music.

This usually happens several times every time I listen to music on my phone.

Do you think I need a new pair of AirPods or is there something I can do to fix this?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: How can I reset the password on a hand-me-down PC?

Posted on July 13, 2021

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Question from Ben: My aunt recently sold her house and moved to another state.

Before she left she gave us a used, but working Acer Aspire U5710 computer with Windows 10 on it.

She said she didn’t want to pack it up and move it because she was wanting to buy a new computer anyway.

I tried setting it up for my daughter to use but it’s asking for a password. I don’t know the password and the one my aunt gave me doesn’t work.

Is there any way to reset the password on this computer? [Read more…]