How to clean a Motherboard to save computer life?

Motherboard is the main part of your computer that contains all hardware components. Your computer motherboard could fry, if you do not keep it clean on periodically basis. Dust is the main cause to heat up your system and heat link to hardware failure. You can save your computer maintenance cost if you clean your computer on the regular basis. This will improve the cooling and performance of the motherboard components.

-To clean your motherboard first unplugs your system power from the electrical outlet.
-Using the screwdriver remove the side covers of your computer case and put them to one side.
-Check all data and power cables connections. Inspect all motherboard PCI and AGP slots.
-Remove all add-on card of your motherboard for example RAM, modem, VGA, sound card and LAN card.
-Now blow the air around all the motherboard sides and keeping away your blower nozzle 4 to 5 inches away from main board components. You can use vacuum cleaner also for this purpose but compressed air is the better solution to clean a system.
-At the end assemble back all cards, cables and side covers of your system.
-I recommend you doing this after every three months if you want to save your system life.

How to install and uninstall a webcam?

First read the instructions from your camera manufacturer and follow them carefully to ensure proper installation of your camera. You must follow all guidelines specific to your camera.

Correct camera installation involves inserting the camera setup/installation CD, following all steps described in your installation booklet, and restarting your computer. Plugging in the camera's USB cord at the incorrect time during the camera software installation procedure can cause various problems. After installation reboot your system

To uninstall your webcam:

-Uninstall any existing camera installations. Click "Start," "Settings," "Control Panel," and "Add/Remove Programs."


-Unplug the camera's USB cord from the computer and Reboot your computer.

How to prevent users from writing to USB drives?

Today USB drive also known as key chain drive is becoming the most popular removable storage device to move data to different locations. USB drives are available in the market with different features, for example password protected, compatible with all windows versions and extra storage capacity (up to 65 GB).

A common security issue at organizations is how to prevent their workers to write data onto USB drives using their PCs, because a user can easily move confidential data for other location.

If you have windows XP with SP2, then you can disable the writing option to USB drives.


Follow the given steps to disable the USB writing option:


-To edit the computer registry, first you should log onto your computer with administrative rights.


-First click on Start button and type "Regedit" in Run option.


-Here locate the location to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control


-Here in right side panel, click right to create a key with the name "StorageDevicePolicies".


-Now in left side panel, select "StorageDevicePolicies" key, again right click to create new DWORD value then label it "WriteProtect".

Set its value to "1". But again enable this option set its values "0".


-Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

How to Enable the Windows Task Manager?

Windows Task Manager is used to view the status of running applications, active processes, CPU and Page file usage history and active user in windows environment. As a system administrator you can mange the all features of Windows Task Manager, you can end task any running application and set the priority of any running process according to application importance. By default Windows Task Manager Status is enabled, but a user can also disable or enable it manually. But some time a registry hack applies on windows task manager to disable it and your system give you a message” Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator.” then you should enable it with editing the system registry or using Group Policy Editor.
Before proceeding further, first scan your system with up-to-date antivirus, and then follow the given steps to enable it using group policy editor.
To enable this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.
-Now click on Start button and type “Gpedit.msc” in Run option then press OK.
-In Group Policy Editor, expand the “Administrative Templates” > “System” then “Ctrl+Alt+Del Options”, under the User Configuration option.
-Now in right side of panel “Ctrl+Alt+Del Options” double click on “Remove Task Manager” to change it setting. Here set the option “Disable” to “Enable” or “Not configured” and your task manager is available once again.

How to use Google advanced hidden Calculator?

Normally search engine keep the record of website addresses along with the important words for description of each web page, but the interesting thing is that you can use Google search box as calculator. Using the Google calculator you can perform standard and advanced scientific functions. Google built-in calculator can solve your routine mathematical problems for example (simple Arithmetic function, Trigonometric, Inverse trigonometric, Hyperbolic and Logarithm functions). One important feature of this calculator to evaluate the Constants values, units of measurement and currency conversion also.
Follow these examples with different type of calculations:

-Arithmetic Function
First open the Google.com and type the value like 100+500-10= in search box and press search button to show the result.

-Logarithm Functions
To calculate logarithm base 10 values, type log (100) in search box and press search button to show the result.

-Advanced Math Function
To calculate cos90 value, type cos(90) in search box and press search button to show the result.

Currency Conversion
To convert the 100 USD in British pounds, type 100 USD in British pounds and press search button to show the result.

How to recover windows startup missing files using Recovery Console?

Some time windows missing the startup files due to the power failure, virus's attack and any other illegal action by user. You can solve the windows startup problem with running the windows recovery console feature. Almost all windows serious problem can be solved using windows recovery console function. You can enable or disable the services, copy and paste data from one drive to others, format any drive and many others. Recovery console is normally used to recover the windows missing files from copying any other hard disk and CD drive to your hard disk or enable/disable the windows services. For repair windows using recovery console, you should have the bootable windows CD.
-First boot your computer using bootable windows CD. To boot from CD, first change the booting order setting in your system BIOS.
-When first blue screen will appear, press R to start the windows recovery console.
-Here you are prompted for Administrator password, type password or press
-enter if the administrator password is blank.
-Now at command prompt, type the command that you want to use for system recovery.
Enable: used to enables the windows drives or services.
Bootcfg: used to modify the Boot.ini files.
Copy: used to copy file from one location to target location.
Del: used to delete any file.
Cls: Clear the screen
Disable: used to disable the windows drivers or services.
Diskpart: used to manage the hard disk volumes.

How to clean a CD/DVD-Drive?

If your CD drive creating problem to read CD disc, taking time to read and showing message there is no disc in the drive. These are the symptoms of dirty or weak CD-drive lens, because dirty lens can create errors in reading or writing and soon will not work at all.
Follow the given steps to care and clean a CD-Drive.
-First make sure your discs are clean, unscratched and you are loaded it properly.
-Always use laser lens cleaner to clean drive lens.
-Insert the laser lens cleaner disc and play it for 2 to 3 min.
-Using CD drive cleaner properly clean the CD-ROM laser from dust. If your drive still creating problem then open it and clean the lens with a cotton swab.

How to display text message warning before windows Logon?

You can insert legal warnings or any interesting messages for others just before logon to windows based computer. This is very useful if you want to give a message to new users about the uses of computer. You can create this banner message using the windows registry editor but make sure before modifying your system Registry about its backup because Registry contains all information how your system runs. This backup will help you to restore Registry in case any problem occurs after modifying.
To edit the computer registry, first you should log onto your computer with administrative rights.
-Click Start button then type regedit in Run option then press Enter for next.
-Here locate the location to:
HKeyLocalMachine\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon
-Here in right side panel, double click on the key LegalNoticeCaption and give it a value you want to see in the menu bar. For example “Welcome Screen for All Users”.
-Now again in right side panel, double click on the key called LegalNoticeText and change the value you want to see in the dialog box. For example “You may not succeed later when trying to logon without a password.”
-Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

How to manage the compatibility issues of Office 2007 to earlier office versions?

By default all Microsoft Office 2007 applications use the different files extensions than the earlier versions. All earlier Office applications used the file extensions as .doc, .xls and .ppt for Word, Excel and PowerPoint respectively, but now Office 2007 applications uses the .docx, xlsx and .pptx file extensions for Word, Excel and PowerPoint respectively. These all new file extensions are not compatible with all previous versions of Office applications, that is why Office 2002 and Office 2003 applications cannot open and read the .docx, xlsx and .pptx file extensions.
However, you have an option in Office 2007 to save the files with in older files extensions, But if you are frequently using the older versions of the file and also if the files created by you are to be shared on other computers which have earlier versions of Office, you may want to save all your new documents in the older format, but that would create duplicate files. There is better option in Office 2007 applications to change the default saving file format to the older format and then the new file format in Office 2007 will be changed to .doc, .xls and .ppt for Word, Excel and PowerPoint respectively.
Today we will set the older file format for Word 2007 and other applications will be discussed in the next tips. Follow the given steps to set the default older file format for Word 2007:
-First click on Start button, go to Program then click on Microsoft Word 2007 to run the word application.
-Now click on File menu in the top left corner then click on Word Options button to change the default word options.

-In the left side panel, click on Save option, and now "Customized how documents are saved" option will appear in right side panel.

-Here find the "Save File in this format" option and click on drop down box to select the different format. Now you will find many options here, select the Word 97-2003 Document (*doc) option.

-Now click on Ok button to save the settings and all new Word files will be created in the format you set as default

How you find Signs of viruses in your Computer?

Some time your run an infected file and e-mail attachment on your computer but you might not realize that you've introduced a virus until you notice something is not quite right.
Here are some indicators that you will find if your computer viruses infected:

The first and basic sign your computer must runs more slowly than normal after viruses attack.
Your computer stops responding after some time and stuck without any warning and sign or may be after some warning.

Your computer crashes and restarts every few minutes with a message because some viruses tries to break windows security system then system automatically restart and after restart your system may be not in position to run properly and create any application failure problem.

Data on your Hard disk create problem or disks and disk drives are inaccessible.

You see unusual error messages after some time on your system like scan your system, your computer attempt by any other remote computer.

You see distorted menus and dialog boxes disturbing your routine work.

How to Troubleshoot a LAN Adapter

If your network adapter can not connect with network, please check the following:

1. Make sure your adapter is defective, or not
We can run Diagnostic program which bundled in our shipping driver diskette to check the adapter's hardware. Please follow below instructions to run the Diagnostic program. a. Make sure that the adapter is completely plugged in PC's slot.b. Remove any add-on adapters from slot, except for VGA adapter.c. Disable PnP OS support in BIOS.d. Boot from DOS-only environment.e. Before run Diagnostic program, please don't run any drivers.f. If the adapter tests fail, try to use another slot.

2. Check the LED status. If you have installed driver and re-boot PC completely, please check the network adapter and connected device's LED. The LED of adapter and connected device should show the same link-speed.
a. If the LED does not flash, please check your cable. We can take a sample test. Plug the UTP cable into Up-link and normal port ofhub. If both LEDs of connected port are flash, the UTP cable should be fine.Use Crossover or Straight-Through cable
b. If the LED shows incorrectly. we can try to force line-speed of adapter.The default parameter of our adapters is "auto-sensing". For some of Auto-Negotiation incompatible issues, we must force the line-speed of adapter. Please refer the readme file to set the line- speed.

3. Check cabling system Fast Ethernet cabling system and rule

4. Make sure your configuration of Network Operating System is correct. Please refer to the read me file to install driver. Below hints to check the configuration of your Network Operating System.
a. Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000 and NT. Because the default protocol of Windows 98/Me/2000 and NT is TCP/IP, so we must assign IP address for each PC. If you don't know how to assign IP address for each PC or don't connect to Internet, we can install NetBEUI protocol.

How to Install a printer driver on a Windows 2000-based computer

To install a printer driver locally on a Windows 2000 computer:
1. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Printers.
2. Double-click Add Printer to start the Add Printer Wizard.
3. Click My Computer, and then click Next.
4. Click Add Port, click Local Port, and then click New Port.
5. In the Port Name box, type the path to the printer in the following format, where server is the name of the print server and printer is the name of the printer:
6. Click OK, and then click Close.

How to Install an Internal Modem on system

Installing an internal modem is not an easy task. You have to open the computer to install modem cards. Given steps applies to all computer system.
-Shut down the computer and disconnect all peripheral devices from the computer, then remove the computer's cover.
-Find a slot that matches the pins. PCI modems have fewer pins and fit into a smaller slot than ISA modems. Put new modem into that slot if it will physically fit.
-First unscrew the metal plate on the slot holder on the back panel, and insert the modem in that slot.
-Screw modem into slot holder if it has a screw hole.
-Reconnect the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Connect the modem to phone line.
-Reboot the computer.
-If Windows detects modem upon startup, follow the on-screen instructions to install the driver and additional software. If Windows doesn't detect the modem, manually complete the installation using the Add New Hardware control panel.
-Follow instructions in your modem manual to configure the modem in Windows.
-Adjust the modem settings to match your telephone service and personal preferences.
-You can verify that your modem is working properly by using the diagnostics that are available through the Phone and Modem Options icon in Control Panel. On the Modems tab, click the modem that you want to test. Click Properties, then click Diagnostics, then click Query Modem.

Reduce the shutdown time of Windows 2000 and XP

You can reduce the shutdown time of windows 2000 and XP using some tricks. Actually windows XP take time to close all running programs and applications before shutdown, but you can minimize this time if you have little knowledge about editing windows registry.
Follow the given steps to reduce the shutdown time:
-First click on Start button then type Regedit in Run option. Here locate the location to:
-Go to Hkey_Current_User\Control Panel\Desktop
-Here in right side panel, double click on AutoEndTasks and here its default value is 0. Now change it to 1.
-Now in same side panel double click on value name WaitToKillAppTimeout. Its default value data is 20000; now change this value of WaitToKillAppTimeout to 3500.
-Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.