Category Archives: Hardware
Geek Friday: A Cool PC Cooling System
Well, there’s cool, and then there’s cool. PCWorld recently published a do-it-yourself article on a “PC Liquid Cooling System: Build It Yourself. If you are handy with tools and you are into overclocking, then this might be just what you need to keep your rig from overheating.
Geek Friday: How to Fix Dell Inspiron Screen Hinge
Dell laptops are one of the easiest brands to work on, and that especially goes for the Inspiron line. However, like all makes and models, they do have their weak points, and on the Inspiron, the weak point is in the hinge screws that hold the screen together.
If you catch it early enough, all you might have to do is pop out the rubber screw cover and tighten the screws, then put the covers back on (not required, but it helps keep things stable, or they might more easily work their way back out).
If you need something more extensive, there is a guide on inspecting for damage on Inside My Laptop on “How to fix damaged screen hinge in Dell Inspiron E1705 laptop”.
Now, if you really want to do a more permanent repair, you may have to replace it with a larger screw. Of course, in order to do that, you might have to drill the holes bigger. You might be able to do it by following Charles D House’s very thorough instructions, or if you only want to go partway, you might follow these modified instructions by Richard Thorp on Repair4Laptop.
Of course, do realize that you should only take the more drastic steps if the laptop is no longer under warranty, as some of these repairs would obviously void it. Also, these instructions come with no guarantee, and if you are not handy with tools, you probably don’t want to go this far. If you mess up the screen, you can figure at least another $100 to replace it.
Having said that, you can also save on repairs and avoid replacing the hinges.
DVI-D? On an HP Computer?
A not-so-geek Wednesday.
I was working on an HP computer the other day. I went to hook up a monitor, and I noticed there was a DVI port and a regular VGA port on the back. Well, I hooked up the VGA port to a VGA monitor, and I didn’t get any video, so I decided to try the DVI. I slipped on the DVI adapter, and it wouldn’t fit!
I kept checking the orientation, removed the adapter from the cable and tried just the adapter. I tried another adapter. I then carefully inspected the connector, and it was different!
I had to look this one up on the web. Turns out that computers normally have a DVI-I or a DVI-A connector to carry analog signals. You can tell these because the flat horizontal piece is closely surrounded by four short pins (2 at the top, 2 at the bottom).
This connector did not have the four pins!
Turns out is is a DVI-D connector, in that it only carries digital signals. When I looked it up on the web, these types of connectors are usually found on monitors, not on computers.
People wonder why I grumble about HP/Compaq so much. I’ve always disliked both HP’s and Compaq’s propensity for proprietary equipment. When they merged, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the whole notion.
Seems not much has changed.
Now Offering Custom Built PCs
This is a multi-purpose article.
First off, it is to showcase one of our custom built multimedia machines. It is a Home Theater PC (HTPC). Built with Antec and ASUS components, it contains a TV tuner, 640GB Western Digital 7200RPM hard drive, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 2 Blu Ray burners, Iomega Zip drive and runs 64-bit Windows 7 Professional.
Second, this video is a way to test out video editing software. As I wrote yesterday, I used CyberLink PowerDirector. I will write more about this tomorrow.
The Slow Death of the Floppy
Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but I have been digging into a particularly aggravating problem. It seems that there is a severe dearth of IDE support these days. Even worse, there is even less support of the good old floppy.
I previously encountered a problem even finding a store that sells floppies. I was only a little surprised by this, seeing as a lot of machines no longer come with floppy drives and are bootable from CDROM. However, there are a slew of older machines still out there.
Well, now there aren’t even controllers on the motherboards, it turns out. Worse, there seem to be no PCI adapters for floppy drives. You can find IDE support for hard drives and the like (warning: it could be very slow according to some reports), but not floppies.
Part of the issue is that floppies are not really IDE. In fact, they predate IDE by several years. So, in essence, we’ve been buying time with them as it is.
Well, I thought at least I could just get an internal USB, right? After all, don’t they still make external USB drives? Well, it turns out that there are actually very few of these around (make that 1 that I could find). Even then, it seems they are made for laptops, so I also have to buy a bay adapter to fit it into a machine.
I’ll let you know how that works out.
