Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Although computer memory is a lot more reliable today than in times past, memory sticks do go bad from time to time. They don’t go bad very often, but it does happen.
And if one goes bad in your PC you can expect to experience problems ranging from minor software glitches to a system that simply refuses to boot up.
If you suspect that your PC might have a defective memory stick you can test it with a great free RAM diagnostic utility called Memtest86+. [Read more…]
Back in the days before the term “hacker” took on the dark, illicit meaning that it has today, being called a hacker was actually a compliment.
In the golden age of computing, being a hacker simply meant that you enjoyed modifying and enhancing computer hardware and software in order to make it do new, interesting and exciting things.
Then along came the Internet and in no time flat the word hacker had become synonymous with the words crook, thief and criminal. And it’s truly a shame.
[Read more…]
Question from Eric B.: Rick, I’m getting ready to buy a new laptop for my son to use for his schoolwork, and I need some advice on a matter that is puzzling me.
I’ve narrowed down my choices to two models: One has a 2.2 Ghz CPU and 8GB of RAM. The other has a 2.4 Ghz CPU but 4 GB of RAM. Which of these laptops do you think will offer more bang for the buck given that the cost is virtually the same?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Rodney T: I have an Acer Aspire 5552G-7641 with 8GB of RAM. It came with Windows 7 which always showed the entire 8GB on the System Information screen.
My employer paid for a copy of Windows 8 so I backed up my data and wiped the hard drive, then installed Windows 8 (that was an ordeal in itself but I won’t go into it here lol).
Long story short, after installing Windows 8 the System Information screen is only showing 3GB of RAM even though the BIOS screen shows the full 8GB. Did I do something wrong? [Read more…]
Question from Michael: I have an HP Pavilion dv5t laptop with a 500GB hard drive which recently began making clicking and clunking sounds. After reading your article about hard drives making unusual sounds I realize that the drive is probably in the process of failing.
My question is can hard drives be repaired? This is a 7200RPM model which I understand to be one of the best. (By the way, I have backed everything up so I’m not worried about losing any programs or data.)
Rick‘s answer: [Read more…]