Welcome to the expert section of the Computer Technician series. Although the topics we’re going to deal with here are mostly organizational in nature (with a couple of really troublesome, migraine-inducing problems), the “expert section” title isn’t misleading. Both small and large-scale, short or long-term, planning always takes a lot of knowledge and a great deal of intuition.
In some cases, more knowledge than fixing a computer problem, because the variables you have to count in are much more numerous. With any science, be it electronics, chemistry or digital circuitry, synthesis (creation) is much more complicated than analysis (disassembly).
In this issue we will discuss tailoring a computer configuration to a specific task, currently available components, and, of course, the depth of the client’s pocket. By doing a bit of planning you can ensure you know exactly what kind of workplace needs what kind of machine.

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In the computer industry there are plenty of buzzwords that get slung about when talking about the next generation of computer hardware and CPU codenames are quite possibly the hardest to keep track of due to the sheer amount of them. We have put together this list with the codename of each of the existing AMD and Intel processors.
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In our last episode on Optical drives and firmware flashing, we discussed ways to upgrade your optical drive’s speed and features. While it’s a great finishing touch for both your own and your clients’ computers, it’s not exactly a common thing you’d be called up for. One of the most hazardous, annoying, and generally panic-inducing failures that happen on any computer are hard-drive failures. While they can be moderately to extremely hard to fix, diagnosing them comes first, so you could be able to determine just how much damage the disk sustained and can sustain before it finally dies.

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Last time, on TNCT 202, you could read about the various functions of the system’s BIOS and the means to upgrade them for the sake of either improving stability, or adding various options. In this course we’ll examine the workings of optical drive firmware, the reasons to upgrade it and the general procedure how to do it, because like the BIOS, there are some advantages to having a flashed drive.

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Last time, in the TNCT 201 article, we discussed a strategic approach to expanding your market. Regardless of whether you’re dealing with home repairs, SoHos or even your own computer, sooner or later you’ll have to fiddle with the lowest-level functions, either to fix or optimize something. Today we’ll discuss the nature of BIOS, its general functions – which vary between manufacturers and models – some common chokepoints, and finally, ways of upgrading or fixing it. Learning to use and upgrade your BIOS and other flash firmware is primarily for optimization purposes, but can come handy in overcoming some very basic hardware problems.

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Last week, on Technibble: CT 102 we discussed the best way to prepare your software toolkit. Today, however, we’re back on the hardware railroad to discuss the one component your whole computer depends on: the Power Supply Unit. Any computer, no matter how perfectly planned, prepared or assembled, will fail to boot, sputter, smoke and eventually die if connected to an inadequate, weak or just plain faulty power supply. Picking a decent power supply isn’t much of a science; however, knowing what voltages run through your computer is, and knowing it will come in handy once you start actually repairing, as it might indicate what exactly went wrong with the powersupply. While you shouldn’t attempt to repair a PSU at any cost, knowing where the trouble lies will help you fill a replacement claim if the supply is still under warranty.

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The computer power supply is not only one of the most important parts on a PC; it is also the most overlooked. When computer buffs talk about their systems having very powerful processors, RAM and video cards they rarely ever mention the power supply, and if they do, they only mention the power wattage.
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Airflow’s good, heat is bad. If you’ve read our article on replacing GPU fans, you already know the dangers of heat and how to prevent its effect locally. However, keeping a computer running coolly isn’t just about placing a giant heatsink on the hotspot – although it undoubtedly helps. Just shifting the same stale air around isn’t going to help keep the components cool, in fact, it’ll only heat them up. So, aside from on-site planning, you need a bit of global planning as well to insure you have a cool computer case. After all, you have a CPU, a GPU and a power supply to cool in there.

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Heat is the enemy of computers. Unlike short circuits and lightning strikes, which usually do instantaneous damage to your components, heat is one of the nuisances that can damage your computer over a long period of time, as well. Without delving into water-cooling and similar alternatives, having a well-ventilated, spacious and tidy computer case can help the general airflow. However, sometimes heat has to be directly removed from the overheated component, be it the CPU, the northbridge chipset or the graphic card’s GPU. Those three are commonly considered the three critical overheating points inside a computer.

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There comes a time in the life of each hard-drive when it just won’t access any of the data on the drive anymore. The same applies to CDs and DVDs which, due to their fragile nature, get scratched and scraped beyond readability. As Murphy’s law would often have it, it happens exactly to the files you need when you need them. In order to preserve your data (and your sanity in case data starts mysteriously disappearing), you need to know exactly what can be done to make sure you don’t find yourself losing important files.

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