The Old Days
I remember using one back in the Windows98 days, and I often see ads for such products online promising to speed up my PC, in fact due to the content of this article, you’ll probably notice that Google ads on this page may offer such products. But I can’t recall ever feeling the need for one since before the year 2000. And the client machines that I saw them on had plenty of RAM installed, and I also wondered if they memory optimizers were legitimate so I decided to do some research on the internet.

Different Names, Same Function
Memory Optimizers, memory boosters, and windows washers by any name work on the premise that in order to prevent your PC from having to swap out programs from your memory to your hard drives page file, you need to clear your ram so that the programs that you run will be able to run from ram.

If the paragraph above sounds confusing, that’s because it is. In order to avoid using the page file to store programs for quick access, optimizers move programs from ram to the page file. They are doing what they are trying to avoid. The act of moving the programs from ram to the pagefile slows down your PC during the write process, and will once again be slow when you need to load that program back into ram to be processed.

The Real Solution
What is really needed is more ram. You can’t make a computer run any faster by loading another program when the PC is already low on ram. What is needed is either more ram or less processes running in the background. And I have seen computers that had so little ram that they were just able to run windows and not much more.

System Requirements
Windows as well as most software programs publish minimum as well as recommended system requirements. In many cases these are best case scenarios and should be viewed as only a guide. It’s better to play on the safe side and have more ram than the requirements recommend. Each program you install and run will require ram on top of that used by the operating system. Each service pack on WindowsXP increases the memory requirements as well.

WindowsXp without any service packs can run on 64 MB’s of ram with 128 MB’s recommended, but with all the service packs you really should have at least 512 MB’s and 1 Gig or more is even better.

Windows Vista will run with 512 MB’s of Ram, but realistically, it’s almost unusable until you have 1 GB of Ram. 2 GB’s seems to be the best to run Vista on.

Windows7 recommends 1 GB for 32 bit systems and 2 GB’s for 64 bit systems, but my recommendation is that if you are going to run the 64 bit version then go ahead and get 4 GB’s or more of ram since anything less makes using the 64 bit version of Windows7 somewhat pointless because the main reason to choosing the 64 bit version is to be able to address 4GB’s and more of ram.

An Experts Opinion
According to one of the foremost authorities on Windows, Mark Russinovich, who was a co-founder of Winternals Software LP. Winternals created such fine windows tools that Microsoft acquired their company, Mr. Russinovich wrote an article on WindowsITPro http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/internals-and-architecture/the-memory-optimization-hoax.aspx called “The Memory-Optimization Hoax” saying in essence that buying a memory optimization program is a waste of money, that installing one might actually slow down ones computer.

Conclusion
As far as I’m concerned, the case he made convinced me that there is in fact no good reason to install a memory optimizer on any Windows based machine. So the next time you see an ad online and it looks promising, remember this article and save your money.

Carl

Symptoms of Infection
How will you know if you you’re infected when your AV product doesn’t say anything? Perhaps you can’t access the internet even though your connected. Or perhaps your computer has slowed to a crawl or even freezing. Other symptoms might be that you can’t even open any programs, constant pop ups showing up on your screen telling you that you’re infected and telling you to pay a fee so that they can remove the infection, when your open your browser you are directed to somewhere other than your own homepage, your friends are getting emails from you that are infected, or all your files are corrupted.

These symptoms and more can happen during an infection. The worst though is when you don’t notice anything while the malware steals and sends your information out on the internet, or when your connection slows to a crawl because there’s a server running in the background that is part of a botnet sending spam out onto the internet.

Some infections can render your computer unusable. Simple things like opening a window can take minutes to complete. Sometimes, they prevent you from surfing to any sort of security related site, or download and install any malware removal tools. Many are resistant to being shut down or removed, and many polymorph, constantly changing to avoid detection and cleaning.

Cleaning
When an infection is bad and is resisting all efforts to be removed, you’ll have to perform the removal while the operating system (Windows) is not running. How do we do that?

First Step: Boot Another Operating System
The other method if you have access to another PC is that you remove the hard drive from the infected machine and place it in another machine that has the tools that you will need.
Using this method you can boot the host operating system, and use that to scan your infected hard drive.

Many home users may not have access to another PC to use in this way, or may be intimidated at the thought of removing and installing a hard drive. In that case, using a bootable CD is the easiest method.

There are numerous free bootable CD ISO’s on the net that will allow you to boot your PC using the CD player on your computer. The OS on the Cd may be Linux or Microsoft based. When booted this way, the operating system is loaded into RAM and runs from there. The operating system on your hard drive is not loaded at this time. However, you can access the files that are on your hard drive. Which allows us to take a back up of our important files if we haven’t been keeping backups.

Decide on Method
Once you’ve gotten all your important files backed up, you’re ready to decide on the best method for you to clean the infected hard drive. There are two ways you can proceed, either using a bootable antivirus CD or using another PC to scan the infected drive.

Don’t rely on just one product to do the scan. One product may find and clean what another does not. I generally start out using a bootable Antivirus app such as AVG rescue disk, then I use Malwarebytes which requires a running copy of windows, and finally Avast which also requires running windows.

In all cases make sure you get the latest updates for the product before running your scans.

Be careful what you delete when given the choice of what to delete, it is safer to rename the file than to delete it outright if you are not totally sure that it’s not an important system file. Using AVG Rescue and similar products, it is possible to delete system files which can render your operating system unbootable. If in doubt, rename the infected files.

Post Cleaning
Once you’ve removed or renamed all infected files, reinstall the drive in your computer if you removed from the original machine. Once it’s clean and installed on the original machine it’s time to boot into the operating system. Keep your fingers crossed. Once you’ve booted into windows, I’d recommend using your native AntiVirus app to run a final scan of the drive, then use a product such as CCleaner to get rid of any garbage on the drive, then do a full defrag on the drive using something such as Auslogics, or Piriform Defraggler. Windows includes a defrag utility in System Tools but it’s rather slow and outdated compared to some of the third party apps you can get nowdays.

Conclusion
Your drive should now be clean and optimized. If your drive is still infected after all the above, it is time to consider a full reinstall. Many PC repair techs will take this route as a first choice so long as they have a decent backup of the data on the drive in order to save time. It’s up to you. Personally, I’d rather not have to reinstall because that requires all the updating and reinstalling any software that you have installed since you first got the computer. Sometimes though, Windows is just too corrupted and it’s not worth the time of trying to clean and infection and simply reinstalling Windows is the fastest and simplest solution. The choice is up to you.

Carl

Coming out and boldly stating what is the best free Anti-Virus is fraught with danger. Everyone has their favorite, and new test reports come out all the time showing that one application has improved while another has not. Also, many are of the opinion that there’s no way that something that is free can ever compete with a paid for application. I think differently.

What You Give Up Are Features
Generally, what you tend to give up when choosing a free version of a vendors software over their paid version are certain features. These features are usually ones of convenience and not necessarily are you giving up effectiveness. Can you imagine an Anti-Virus company that would make their free version let in more viruses? They do have a reputation to protect.

My Observations
In my computer repair business, the vast majority of repairs are related to viruses and other types of malware. It’s sometimes a treat to get to repair an actual physical malfunction on a computer. In looking at my order log, fully 95% of the computers that come into my shop are in because of malware compared to the 5% that have an actual breakdown.

Many Users Choose Free
I’ve also noticed that many users tend to use one of the many free anti-virus applications out there once their trial period with the AV that came installed on their PC’s at the factory run out. In some cases, lack of research has led them to install one of the bad apps known as Fake or Rogue Anti-Virus applications which prompted me to write this article.

My Own Opinion
The recommendations here were by no means arrived at in any scientific way. They are just the results of my own research of the internet, and my own opinions after having used each of these at one time or another, either at the request of a client who did not want to purchase a paid solution, or on one of my own personal machines.

Keep in mind that I am of the opinion that no application is 100% guaranteed to keep you safe. The writers of malicious code are constantly inventing ways to circumvent and even disable security software and it’s a never ending battle to stay ahead of them. That being said, some products do a better job than others at keeping you protected, and if some bad piece of software happens to slip by them, do better at cleaning the infection.

Criteria For Selection
The things I look for that are important to me when choosing an AV application whether free or paid for, are the following:
1. Real-Time Scanning – Can also be called on-access scanning, background guard, resident shield, or autoprotect. I want my app to scan as the file enters my PC or as a file on my PC is accessed.

2. Automatic Scans – I want my AV application to scan at regular intervals without me having to initiate it. Preferably daily during a time of day that my PC is either idle or not as heavily used.

3. Automatic Updating – I want the App to automatically update itself and download the latest definition files daily.

4. Light on Resources – On my higher powered computers this is not so crucial, but on lesser machines this could be a deal breaker if an AV App takes up too much resources and slows my computer down significantly.

5. High Detection Rates – Of course I want the highest detection rates possible, but we also don’t want too many false positives.

6. Heuristics – This detects malware by how it behaves rather than by comparing it to a signature or definition file. This helps detect malware that may not yet be well known.

7. Good cleaning ability – If the worst happens, will my app be able to clean the infection effectively.

8. Would be nice if the AV product also helped with Spyware and Rootkits as well. Most should.

Recommended Free Anti-Virus Applications
1. Avast Free Anti-Virus – My personal favorite and recommendation. Has many features normally associated with the paid AV application vendors. It is light on resources. It updates in the background and runs daily scans in the background and I never know it. I am often startled when using my PC late at night and a little female voice comes on and tells me that my Anti-Virus has been successfully automatically updated or that the daily scheduled scan has completed. I really never know it’s there unless I try to surf to a website that is known to be potentially harmful to my computer or if a website tries to download a harmful piece of software to my PC at which time it will display a red pop up window in the lower right hand corner of my screen saying that the malicious content was blocked. Many people on Experts Exchange where I often visit say they’ve never been infected while using it. That goes for myself also.

2. Panda Cloud Anti-Virus – Fairly new to the AV scene. It’s extremely light on resources because it mainly runs from the Cloud meaning that much of the processing and scannnig is done on a remote server. This may very well be the future of malware protection where all the work is done in the cloud. This one requires an internet connection to be effective however it also works in offline mode as well.

3. Microsoft Security Essentials – Another fairly new entry to the AV scene. This one is also fairly light on resources, and very effective. Seeing as it’s made by Microsoft who also makes the Windows operating system, you would think that they would know how to protect their own operating system. Good reviews all around make a strong case for this product which has no paid version.

Honorable Mentions
AVG Free – This is the number one free anti-virus application out there. It’s popular. It’s been around for many years now. And provides decent protection. However, in the last few years, in my opinion, it has become more taxing on your PC’s resources, and it’s detection rates are not as high as the ones listed above.

Avira Anti-Vir Personal – Yes that’s it’s name. A good product that provides some of the highest detection and cleaning rates in the industry. However the free version lacks several features that I deem to be essential. The paid version is excellent.

Comodo Antivirus – I used this on my WindowsXP box for a couple years and it’s a good product. They are also one of the most accessible companies you’ve ever seen. What other software company can you write to and chat and expect a response from their CEO? You can chat directly with the CEO of Comodo on their forums and he also maintains a blog as well where you can comment. What I really love about Comodo is their firewall which I often use in combination with Avast Free AV. I prefer Avast over Comodo for my AV solution. When you download Comodo you get both and simply select just the firewall option when installing and not the AV portion of the program.

Well there are my recommendations for Best Free Anti-Virus Software. I know there will be many people who disagree with my choices, or say that there’s no way they’d use a free solution. But for those that do choose free over paid, I hope that you’ll consider one of the above and don’t accidentally choose one of the Fake or Rogue AV applications out there.

Carl

What is Connection Speed?

Today I’m going to write about checking your internet bandwidth and latency. Latency also known as ping time is the time it takes for a packet to travel from your computer to a distant computer and back again measured in milliseconds or ms. Bandwidth refers to the amount of data usually measured in megabytes (mb), but often time in kilobytes (kb) especially if you’re using a dial up modem, that can travel between your computer and another computer per second.

Many times people like myself in the title of this post use the term speed to relate this information. But speed is not truly an accurate term. You may have a low latency but low bandwidth and the connection will seem slow. You can have high bandwidth but low latency and the connection will still seem slow.

Many Possible Causes

There are many reasons why your internet connection may seem to be running slow. Causes can range from your own hardware/software to congestion on the internet. There are also many ways to check the various areas that could be affecting your internet speed.

Other Factors

Remember that your hardware as well as the hardware of the server that you are downloading from may also have an impact so even if latency is low and bandwidth is high you may still think it’s slow.

There is also the issue of throttling which can be induced by the server, the ISP, your computer, or any of the points on the internet that the data has to travel over.

ISP’s are also known to oversell it’s bandwidth advertising a certain bandwidth but oversell the service figuring that not everyone will ever be online at the same time. In my neighborhood, evenings are usually slow because everyone has come home, had dinner, and now want to download videos and music off the internet.

Testing

But for now lets get back to testing your connection speed. One such free service to test your bandwidth is Speedtest.net. Once there, select a few servers close to you and far from you and run a test on each. You will find that the farther away a server is in general the times will be longer which is to be expected and closer servers will seem faster in general. Try to find the fastest connection you can find to a server near your location. It’s possible that the fastest time you can achieve is less than the advertised bandwidth of your ISP. Your results screen will look like this with the exception that my I.P address above the words Road Runner are blacked out.

What you can do

Now if you’re paying for a guaranteed service level you can talk to your ISP. Often times they will have disclaimers. And understandably, there are times when the internet is just busy. But other times, there can be a real problem that they are unaware of and can correct once they know about it.

One of my experiences

I once had an issue where my service would drop off for a few seconds to a few minutes every so often which was irritating when I was playing online multi-player games where a fast steady connection was required. The ISP sent out techs to check my connection and they said the signal strength was fine after making a few checks and changes. Well, they ended up coming out three times and the final fix was they ran all new wiring from the telephone pole all the way to my cable modem in my home. The problem was really on the junction box on the telephone pole but they decided to change the cables running into my home anyway to make sure everything was perfect. I can’t complain. They really did work hard solving that issue and a second tech came to help the one already assigned to my home since he was in the area and was free. Being both a former electronic tech and a current I.T. tech myself, I was probably like the old cliche of the doctor being the worst patient. I hovered over them and watched them, and made suggestions that there really was something wrong in spite of their measurements showing adequate signal strength. For their part, they were very nice to me and were genuinely interested in my being an I.T. Tech. since many old school I.T. Techs come from the same background as they do and share much of the same knowledge base.

Conclusion

As outlined above, there are many potential causes to slow connection speed. I have given you one tool that you can use to check one of the possible factors and knowing that you have a problem is the first step into finding a solution.

Carl

Don’t gamble with your equipment or data.

It’s safe to say that most home computer users and many small business users run their computers by plugging them directly into the wall socket. But they are taking a chance. Sure you can get away with it many times that the power fails and you can boot your computer back up when the power is restored, but it’s playing a game of roulette in which there are no winners.

The electronics inside your computer are very sensitive to fluctuations in voltage and even if they don’t fail outright, you have shortened their life each time they have to absorb a surge or sag in line voltage. If your hard drive is reading or writing when the power goes out, you risk not only lost data, but damage to the hard drive unit itself. Hope you have a Local Backup or a Remote Backup. The power supply built into your computer can absorb some of this, but eventually, it too may fail.

How much protection?

A decent UPS for home or office use will start around $50.00. Typical home computers and business class workstations consume right around 350 watts. There are higher rated ones as well for more powerful pc’s and servers. Don’t expect to be able to keep on working for any length of time with a cheaper unit. They are designed to give you enough time to save your work and shut down properly. They aren’t meant for you to go on working until the power is restored.

If you are the type that shuts your pc down when you leave the computer, or if you have set a short time before hibernation, a basic UPS will probably suffice. You should know that if the power goes out and your battery runs out before the computer has shut down or gone into hibernation, it’ll be the same as if the power simply went out. If you leave your computer running all the time unattended, consider a “Smart UPS”. This has software that runs on your computer that gracefully shuts your computer down automatically when the power goes out.

How to use a UPS

There are usually several outlets on the UPS for you to plug into. Some are battery back up outlets and some are simply surge protectors. Make sure your computer and monitor are plugged into the battery back up outlets. Plug any other peripherals into the surge protection outlets. Make sure you do not exceed the capacity of the UPS however if you plug many devices into it.

Never plug a laser jet or for that matter any printer into the UPS. I would think that you don’t do any printing that is so crucial that you can’t print later when the power comes back on. But plugging a laser printer in particular into a UPS will shorten it’s battery life because of the frequent heavy voltage draw that laser printers need on warm up as it starts the printing cycle.

At least one manufacturer recommends that you do not use surge protectors or power strips with your UPS either upstream or downstream of the UPS.

UPS batteries do eventually wear out even if no power outages occur. When that happens, don’t replace the UPS, simply buy new batteries which are usually replaceable by the owner.

UPS is cheap insurance that no computer should be without. I highly recommend that you allow for UPS in your computer budget.

Carl

Combofix should never be installed or run on your computer unless you have been specifically directed by a trained and qualified expert located at one of a select few forums. It is a powerful tool in the hands of someone who knows how to use it, and a sledgehammer in the hands of a novice. There is purposely very little publicly accessible documentation on this program because it’s not supposed to be used without guidance, and should you decide to ignore the warnings, you are responsible for the results.

A list of authorized forums where there are trained personnel that volunteer to help people with their malware problems can be found at http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix. There are also sites in other languages besides English and you can find them by clicking the link above.

I’m currently repairing Windows on a laptop of someone who did use Combofix without expert help, and no backup or image. It’s going to be an expensive fix. I hope you never experience this.

Carl

These free apps are both effective and free. What you are usually giving up when choosing the free version over the paid version is features and convenience. The creators of these programs do not sacrifice effectiveness because that would harm their reputations. They offer their free versions so that if you are satisfied with the product that you might consider upgrading to their paid version.

I decided to create this list because many times an infected machine will be brought into my shop for malware cleaning and I see all kinds of “rogue applications” downloaded and installed by the user from the internet. All of the applications listed below are from reputable companies with quality products that have been tested by independent third parties. And the links have been verified by myself. The list is in no particular order other than the first one is my personal favorite that I use on all my machines and that has a special offer going for those who decide to purchase it through my site. I have used most of the other ones at some point or other as well.

1. Avast

2. AVG Free

3. Avira

4. Panda Cloud

5. Microsoft Security Essentials

6. Comodo Antivirus

7. Comodo Internet Security

Sometimes Confusing

Automatic Updating will check for Important and Recommended updates for Vista and above. For WindowsXP, it’ll check for High-priority updates. These are mainly security vulnerability patches or feature improvements. There are often optional updates but you’ll have to manually check and decide if you want them.

For consumers and small business, you’ll generally want to have automatic updates set to download and install updates automatically.

If you’re in an enterprise environment, your Network Administrator will generally manage the update process since he will want to test the updates with your companies software configuration before releasing it company wide. Many large companies never upgraded past Service Pack 2 for WindowsXP instead choosing to only implement the security updates individually.

If you have Automatic Updating turned on, depending on the settings you choose, Microsoft Windows, Windows update will download and install updates specifically for Windows at a time of your choosing. If you have other MS products installed such as MS Office, etc, Microsoft Update will download and update those as well.

Not using Automatic Updates

According to Microsoft “If you do not use automatic updating, you should check for updates at least once each week. Microsoft generally releases updates that cause a restart on the second or fourth Tuesday of the month. However, some updates may be released at any time in order to offer you the choice to install them and realize the benefits as quickly as possible.”(Microsoft)

I hope that if you haven’t already been keeping your computer updated, that you begin today. These updates help to keep you and your data safe, and your software stable.

Carl

Older Computers
Many older home and small business computers out there today are Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon single processor based models. If they were budget pc’s, perhaps they might have an Intel Celeron or AMD Duron processor installed. Typical processor speeds are 1.8 Megahertz to 2.8 Megahertz.

Economic Climate

Because of the current economic climate, many owners have decided to put off buying a new computer as long as they can since their current machines seem to do the job well enough even though most wouldn’t refuse a little extra boost of speed. These are the machines I typically see come in for repairs since they are now starting to age.

Purpose of RAM

To understand the importance of RAM in your system, it will be necessary to get just a little technical. In a modern pc, the processor or cpu is what does all the calculations or thinking. It processes the data that is fed to it by RAM. The CPU can only access the data that is in RAM, it cannot directly access the hard drive. The hard drive stores data and software think of it as a book that stores the information. RAM is like a blackboard where the data from the book is written to. Then the cpu like your brain works on that data and places the solution back on the blackboard or RAM.

I remember friends who were confused between the functions of memory(RAM) and hard drive storage. Easy way to remember is that the hard drive is storage like that book, and memory in our case is like the blackboard where we write down the data so that we or the cpu can work on that data.

Here’s a little graphic to show the path that data takes between the hard drive and CPU.

So when you start your computer, the operating system is loaded from the hard drive into RAM. Additional memory addresses are also reserved for the various hardware on your computer. If you have an on-board graphic chip, that also reserves a portion of RAM for it’s own uses. And when you load programs, the computer loads those programs from the hard drive into RAM where the cpu can access and process that data.

When we load many programs or there is not enough RAM to begin with, then the computer starts to perform what is called as swapping into an area on the hard drive known as Virtual Memory. The way this works is for example, after loading up the hardware and operating system into RAM, we have just enough space to run two programs. Now if we start a third program, what will happen is that the computer will have to decide which is being worked on now, and decide on a priority. It will take one of those programs and temporarily store it on the hard drive in virtual memory and load up the third program. When it needs space to load the second program again, it’ll select one of the programs in RAM and swap that with the program in Virtual Memory. Because the swapping back and forth between RAM and the hard drive is slow, and takes additional processing power, it slows down the computer overall.

All the start up programs you see running in your system tray, and all the icons on the desktop, the operating system, the hardware, and many programs and daemons that you don’t see running in the background on your computer must be loaded in RAM. The more of these you have, the more RAM you need. Today’s programs are larger and have higher memory requirements as well as that web browser, and all this pictures and videos that it displays take up additional RAM.

Required RAM

Many of these pc’s were designed and built with minimal or just over the minimum amount of RAM installed by the factory. WindowsXP’s minimum recommended RAM was a mere 64 megabytes of RAM with 128 MB’s recommended. Windows Vista’s requirements were 512 minimum and 1 Gigabyte recommended. And Windows7 is 1 GB and 2 GB recommended. This recommendation is based just on running the operating system alone. It does not take into account how many applications the end user would install or run. Also, many computers use what is known as Integrated Graphics which means the graphics chip is on the motherboard and this chip requires ram as well and it is often shared with the system ram further increasing the requirements.

Real World Requirements
In practice it has been found that WinXP will run best on 1 to 2 GB’s of ram, Vista 2GB’s, and Win7 2GB’s or better. However most of the computers mentioned above shipped from the factory with between 256 and 512 Megabytes of RAM installed.

Replacing RAM

RAM is usually easily replaced by the owner/user of the computer. If you feel the least bit unsure or uncomfortable with opening up your computer, then have a technical friend or the store install it. If it’s a laptop, many times it’s preferable that you have a professional install it since many laptops may have to be partially disassembled in order to install RAM.

The first thing we need to do is to determine what kind of RAM our pc uses. We can find that out by looking on the outside of the case or in the back of the PC and looking for the model number, and/or serial number of the unit. Some manufacturers also use a tag or service number.

Once we have that information, go to the manufacturers support website and look up your particular model. There you will be able to find out what kind and how much original RAM was installed as well as how many memory slots your motherboard has and the maximum amount of RAM that it will support. This is the ideal way to select and purchase RAM with the correct knowledge on what your motherboard can support.

The other method which is somewhat less precise in that we won’t know how much maximum memory our motherboard will support is to open the case, pull out the memory chip and count how many memory slots it has and take that memory chip to the store and purchase the same type of RAM chips to either add to or replace our existing RAM. If you use this less precise method, make sure that the replacement RAM is of the same type and specs as the original since we don’t know how far we can push our motherboard.

So if you have 512 Megabytes of original RAM and it took 1 out of the two available slots, you might consider simply buying another 512 MB”s chip and using both together to effectively double your RAM. However, if that 512MB’s was originally, two 256 MB chips, and we only have two slots we might consider buying one or two 512 MB or one or two 1 GB chips as replacements. I know at this point this may all sound confusing but the sales rep can probably guide you in your decision if you can tell him how many slots you have and what you had in it to begin with.

One of the reasons I say to purchase RAM of the same specs is that if you intend to reuse the old chip, you won’t want to spend more money buying a faster memory chip and use it along side the older slower memory chip. For example, your original chip ran at 100 Mhz speed, and you see the RAM in the store but you notice one that runs at 133Mhz, if you buy two 133 Mhz, and not use that old 100Mhz then fine your RAM will run at 133Mhz. However if you place a 100Mhz chip alongside the 133Mhz chip and try to run it, both will run at the 100Mhz speed since the faster chip will be limited by the slower chip. But if that’s all that the store has sometimes you have to take it so long as it fits on your board and your board supports it you’ll be fine, just have a few less dollars when you walk out.

Here’s a picture of what a typical DDR RAM chip from this generation of PC’s might look like. Remember that RAM has different specs and that the slots are different and are made specifically for a certain type slot. Don’t ever try to force RAM to go in the slot if it’s not going in easily. I have seen people fry the chips this way. Yes with enough force you can make practically anything fit but it won’t work.

My purpose with this article was to enlighten people to the possibility of extending the life of their older computers. That older machines processing speed is probably enough to see you through another couple of years with just a RAM upgrade. Also because I often get a machine in that does not have enough RAM which makes troubleshooting difficult. I often have to install my own spare chips of RAM if I have some of the correct type just to be able to repair or clean a computer. In any case, upgrading the RAM in any computer old or new will usually increase the performance over the default factory designed amount of RAM.

Carl

Services are attractive

As a consumer, I’ve read the ads with interest and studied the features of the various services out there and the cost of implementing these solutions. As a PC Repair Technician, I’ve also noted the limitations of how an online service would be restricted by the medium they choose to perform their services. For one, your pc needs to be able to start and boot into the operating system, and secondly, you’ll need to be able to connect to the internet.

Qualifications of Personnel

First off, I’m not saying that these people are not qualified or don’t know what they are doing. Many of them are highly trained and experienced in computer repair and definitely know what they are doing. I’m not dissing their services that’s not what this article is about. But you never really know who’s on the other end of the line or connection. I’m merely looking at the limitations imposed by having to repair a computer remotely.

Convenience

Where remote pc repair excels at is the convenience. You’re not taking your pc into a shop nor are you at your office or home waiting for a tech to arrive then having to work around him for a couple of hours.

Ideal for Software Issues

Certain services lend themselves extremely well to such a service. Computer Tune ups, anti-malware scans, software updates, driver installation and trouble shooting, and software installation are among the types of services that can effectively be done using remote repair services.

Will not solve Hardware Issues

But what if your pc won’t power on or your hard drive is crashed? What if your operating system won’t boot? What if the malware that you are infected with blocks any attempt to connect to the internet or blocks any sort of repair site? How effectively can you remove a rootkit or other malware while the operating system is running? These sorts of problems are not uncommon in consumer or small business computer malfunctions. And any physical hardware issues are going to be beyond the abilities of remote repair.

Real Life Example

A friend of mine was experiencing severe internet slow downs through her well known brand name wireless router. She calls the company to get support. They charge her credit card first for over the telephone support which in the end failed to solve her problem. I happened to drop in to hang out and she was fuming because she knows what I do for a living but was impatient and felt ripped off. I brought up her routers interface which is what the phone support tried to walk her through and she was saying yeah that’s what they had me doing. To make a long story short, I did in fact clear up her problems, and because she was a friend the service was free, but had she been a paying customer, she still would have been better off with me since she didn’t have to pay up front without knowing if the repair would work and she got a detailed explanation of what I was doing as I was doing it so she learned a bit more about her router settings. Note-Most techs don’t want you to be hanging over their shoulder as they work. It’s uncomfortable for them so be sensitive if you do it.

Not Always Cheaper

After researching the pricing of several vendors, I have noted that there is not always a cost savings over in-person repair services which surprised me. I would have thought that the costs of providing such services would have been lower. I’d especially shy away from any sort of yearly subscription type service since such is usually tied to a specific computer, and should a problem arise that they cannot repair which renders your pc unusable, you are out the money and will still need to see a traditional repair shop many of whom do offer some sort of service contract with which they will repair anything that goes wrong with your pc during the coverage period.

Conclusion

Remote Computer Repair looks very promising and offers convenience. But after looking at the services they offer, the pricing, and limitations, I cannot say that I would recommend using such a service. I’d recommend doing some research and asking friends for recommendations on reputable local repair service companies. Many do offer an extended service contract if that’s what you’re looking for, and competitive rates. Many local shops also offer remote service but are able to respond when your needs require a hands on approach. The ability to be able to get to know your tech firsthand and ability to deal in person should you not be satisfied with the service can only be a benefit to you.

Carl