PC Hangs What To Do?

If you’re PC, System Hang is not new to you! Yeah! it’s very common on Windows. So what do you do?

1. Reboot your PC?
2. Break the monitor with your head because of the unsaved documents?
3. Wait forever?
4. “Esc” key on your keyboard as fast as you can?
5. OR open“Windows Task Manager”?

My answer is number 5.

Microsoft define "Windows Task Manager" as:

“Task Manager provides information about programs and processes running on your computer. It also displays the most commonly used performance measures for processes.

You can use Task Manager to monitor key indicators of your computer's performance. You can see the status of the programs that are running and end programs that have stopped responding. You can also assess the activity of running processes using as many as fifteen parameters, and see graphs and data on CPU and memory usage.

In addition, if you are connected to a network, you can view network status and see how your network is functioning.

If you have more than one user connected to your computer, you can see who is connected, what they are working on, and you can send them a message”

Every time I get hang (not responding) application I immediately

1. hit “Ctrl” + “Shift” + “Esc” key which is the shortcut key for “Task Manager”
2. go to “Process” tab and sort the “Mem Usage” column and see which has the highest memory usage.
3. click to select the suspected application (culprit).
4. finally click “End Process” button to kill the culprit and see who it goes away

Some causes of PC Hangs:

1. Bad HDD, developing bad sector.
2. Virus or Malware
3. Windows Driver issue, incompatible drivers is also know cause of PC hangs specially for gaming.

Lets kill unresponsive applications!

How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from starting

I got a very nice resource from Microsoft.com really informative and effective. Read on...

"This article describes how to recover a Windows XP system that does not start because of corruption in the registry. This procedure does not guarantee full recovery of the system to a previous state; however, you should be able to recover data when you use this procedure.

Warning Do not use the procedure that is described in this article if your computer has an OEM-installed operating system. The system hive on OEM installations creates passwords and user accounts that did not exist previously. If you use the procedure that is described in this article, you may not be able to log back into the recovery console to restore the original registry hives.

You can repair a corrupted registry in Windows XP. Corrupted registry files can cause a variety of different error messages. See the Microsoft Knowledge Base for articles about error messages that are related to registry issues.

This article assumes that typical recovery methods have failed and access to the system is not available except by using Recovery Console. If an Automatic System Recovery (ASR) backup exists, it is the preferred method for recovery. Microsoft recommends that you use the ASR backup before you try the procedure described in this article.

Note Make sure to replace all five of the registry hives. If you only replace a single hive or two, this can cause potential issues because software and hardware may have settings in multiple" locations in the registry.

Continue learning here >> Microsoft

Boost Your Computer – Speed it UP!

So I love tweaking my computer to speed it up.
Windows default facilities that helps speed computer are the following:

1. Services.msc – this the command to launch Windows Services where you can disable and enable services.
2. Cleanmgr – command to launch Windows Disk Cleaner where you can delete temporary files and other unnecessary files on your computer.
3. Msconfig – command for Windows System Configuration Utility where you can disable programs that loads during start up.
4. Disk Manger – where you can defrag your hard drive for faster accessibility of your files.
5. Check disk or chckdsk /f /r – for checking/repairing hard drive surface/bad sectors. It actually not repairs it but reallocate all files saved on possible broken sector of the drive.
6. Updating driver will also help.

These are all windows default facility for cleaning your computer and drive which will boost it. But do you know that there are 3rd party facilities to do all of these? Drum roll please….. Ccleaner is my favorite tool to do most of computer booster. For windows update here is my favorite tool: Download Windows Driver

Windows Drivers Published in PCPitstop.com

Have you upgraded to Windows 7 and you found out that some of your device drivers are not working in this version? If yes then we are on the same shoes.

OK my problem is my Realtek Audio driver. I spent couple of hours in search for its driver but no joy until recently I found that PCPitsstop.com compiled a list of newly released device drivers that works on Windows 7. I got mine there. check it >> PCPitstop

Realtek
Intel
Marvel
ATI

are device manufacturers that posted their new drivers.

OK this is good news but what if the drive you need is not listed there? Then that will be the time you need to go for a 3rd party windows driver searcher/downloader/Installer. Yes! a program that will search, download and install the driver you need. Is that simple? Here is my tested/trusted choice: Windows Device Driver

Motherboard Replacement for Intel E2200

On my previous post Is My Motherboard Dead? My 3rd computer is motherboard is dead. My board was MSI P6NGM with Intel E2200 processor. I was very lucky that only motherboard is broken, other parts are working and in good shape.

So last Monday I visited my favorite computer store to check a replacement for it. Processor is the main consideration for motherboard selection, was happy that my Intel E2200 has found its new home with MSI G31TM-P31
Below are the specs.:

• Intel® G31 Chipset
- Supports FSB 800/1066/1333/1600* (OC) MHz.
- Supports dual channel, DDR2 667/800.

• Intel® ICH7 Chipset
- Hi-Speed USB (USB2.0) controller, 480Mb/sec, up to 8 ports.
- 4 SATA ports with transfer rate up to 3Gb/s.
- PCI Master v2.3, I/O APIC.

Main Memory
• Supports two unbuffered DIMM of 1.8 Volt DDR2 SDRAM
• Supports up to 8GB memory size.
• Supports dual channel DDR2 memory architecture.
• Supports DDR2 667/800 memory interface.
• Due to the limitation of G31 chipsets, dual channel support must meet some requirement in the specification of memory modules. please refer to Test Reports for detailed description.

On-Board IDE/SATA
• One Ultra DMA 66/100 IDE controller integrated in ICH7
- Supports PIO, Bus Master operation modes.
- Can connect up to two Ultra ATA drives.

• SATA controller integrated in ICH7
- Up to 3Gb/s transfer speed.
- Supports four SATA ports.

Audio
• Chip integrated by Realtek® ALC888S
- Flexible 7.1-channel audio with retasking
- Compliant with Azalia 1.0 Spec
- Meet Microsoft Vista Premium SPEC

• To reach the 8-channel sound effect, the 7th and 8th channels must be output from front panel if you purchase the mainboard with 3 audio jacks.

On-Board Pinheaders/ Connectors
- ATX 24-pin power connector
- ATX 4-pin 12V CPU power connector
- CPU / System x 2 FAN connectors
- CD-in connector
- Front panel audio connector
- Front panel connector
- Chassis intrusion switch connector
- 2 x USB 2.0 connector support additional 4 ports
- 1 x Floppy disk drive connector
- 4 x Serial ATA II connectors
- 1 x ATA133 IDE connector
- Clear CMOS jumper
- 1 x Serial port connector
- 1 x SPDIF-out header
- 1 x Parellel port connector

After installing my new motherboard and made sure that everything is OK I then booted the computer and was expecting a BSOD as it is a different chipset but to my surprise I got into the desktop with any issue. I just had to install Windows XP Drivers that comes with it. So my computer was back into business in just 20 minutes!