These days, owning a PC is not purely for business purposes. While we all know that most people are buying computers for studies or word processing requirements, they have also been considered to appease kids who look towards them for playing games that require specific requirements such as higher video cards and large storage space.

It does seem like a waste for most but for people who want to keep their kids at home and away from vices, such is a price that is more than enough to consider. Besides, it is a matter of priorities. Improving the specs a little bit can still satisfy the need to have these personal computers be used for official ways such as documents and spreadsheets for work or school.

As far as getting more expensive hardware for a customizable PC, it is really a logical price to pay. Computers have always been known to provide entertainment and if games are something that they are keenly interested to be kept away from harm, then by all means parents should think beyond the box.

Cost is something most PC buyers will ponder upon. But while that is a given, it would be best to see which benefits and downfalls such an investment would make. As far as raising children and keeping them busy at home is concerned, buying a new PC with specialized specs is indeed something worthy parents will acknowledge not now, but in the future.

For most software that you install, there will be the ideal PC requirements provided so you can be assured of optimum performance for programs and games you will install on your PC. At times, varied differences as far as video specifications, memory and processor capacity will be stated. But while many would see the usual minimal requirements, you have to consider the fact on whether these will be sufficient to satisfy the level of performance you are expecting once these software programs are installed.

Based on experience, it would never hurt to be a step ahead. This entails making sure that you are installing the software on hardware that is a bit advanced. For example, if video card requirements are at least 128 MB, why not install a 256 MB video card if the difference is just a couple of bucks? Or perhaps if memory requires at least 256 RAM, why not go double like 512?

Some may call it overkill but they are really some form of making sure that you get best performance from these programs. Remember that if you go for minimal requirements, you will eventually find yourself wanting better performance and hence upgrading these concerned hardware peripherals in the end.

In summary, do not take the minimal system requirements as a measure of competent utilization of programs. They are placed there so that you know that the program will indeed run. But as far as great performance is concerned, do consider the fact that it is not stated anywhere in that part of the software box for you to ponder on as well.

If you happen to be wondering why your computer would suddenly give you a blue screen, check out the message first. If it has something to do with your video card, chances it is overheating for some reason.

Normally, you will notice that these video cards have built-in auxiliary fans. The purpose for this is to maintain a certain temperature level for their use. Some make use of wider heat-sink fans but if you are the type who spends a lot of time on the computer, this may not be practical.

Going back, once you get that blue screen, try and check our video card hardware. Observe if the fan is still functioning and how fast it is going. If it is not the normal speed to which ventilation is being circulated, chances are your video card is indeed overheating.

Normally, this will be a real problem for you. While you can try and use your computer over and over again, chances are it will keep on crashing and giving that blue screen. Worst, if you are not careful, the next time around your computer may not load anymore.

Such big problems from one computer peripheral can really be frustrating but it is something you just have to face. Video cards such as Nvidia or Palit Daytona normally have these small fans to help mediate the temperature level for their use. In case this happens, you have two options; either buy a new video card or replace the fan. The fans can be replaced at a much cheaper rate and all you have to is bring it to a technician so that it can be replaced.

Few days back, I bought Windows Vista Business Upgrade the other day so I could start playing with it. Since I did not want to mess up the configuration of my current computer, I thought I would install Vista on a blank hard drive.

Sounds easy enough, after all the previous versions of Windows required you to have a legitimate copy of an older Windows operating system and simply asked for that copy during the install so they could verify upgrade compliance.

Before installing Windows Vista, I ran the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor on my current system. As I suspected, my video card was not up to Vista standards and the 512MB of RAM was on the low end of what Vista wanted. (more…)

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Here’s a lot of talk about the new user account control policy in Vista, and all I can say is: as it is, it annoys the hell out of me and slows down my normal computer usage. Just why, oh why, does it have to flash my video card to a black screen, take 5 seconds and really just make itself a royal pain in the arse?

To turn it off, the easiest way is to go into the Control Panel and type in ‘UAC‘ into the search bar. It’ll bring up a search result of ‘Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off’. Just follow the prompts from there.

To keep some of the security of the UAC, let’s just turn off the crazy annoying blacking out screen bit. To do this: (more…)

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Just because Windows Vista is such a resource hog, the operating system features the Windows Experience Index, a rating system designed to measure the capability of the computer’s hardware configuration in order to assess the overall performance of the machine through a numeric base score. The algorithm for determining a base score ranging from 1.0 to 5.9 is directly connected with the processor, physical memory (RAM), graphics, gaming graphics and the primary hard disk. However, there are a few contexts in which the Windows Experience Index, the mechanism at the basis of the system rating will present and erroneous score for the hardware configuration.

This is a problem observed following the commercial release of the operating system back in January 2007. (more…)

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