>What is DirectX

>

 

Gaming and multimedia applications are some of the most satisfying programs you can get for your PC, but getting them to run properly isn’t always as easy as it could be. First, the PC architecture was never designed as a gaming platform. Second, the wide-ranging nature of the PC means that one person’s machine can be different from another. While games consoles all contain the same hardware, PCs don’t: the massive range of difference can make gaming a headache.

To alleviate as much of the pain as possible, Microsoft needed to introduce a common standard which all games and multimedia applications could follow – a common interface between the OS and whatever hardware is installed in the PC, if you like. This common interface is DirectX, something which can be the source of much confusion.

DirectX is an interface designed to make certain programming tasks much easier, for both the game developer and the rest of us who just want to sit down and play the latest blockbuster. Before we can explain what DirectX is and how it works though, we need a little history lesson.

DirectX history
Any game needs to perform certain tasks again and again. It needs to watch for your input from mouse, joystick or keyboard, and it needs to be able to display screen images and play sounds or music. That’s pretty much any game at the most simplistic level.

Imagine how incredibly complex this was for programmers developing on the early pre-Windows PC architecture, then. Each programmer needed to develop their own way of reading the keyboard or detecting whether a joystick was even attached, let alone being used to play the game. Specific routines were needed even to display the simplest of images on the screen or play a simple sound.

Essentially, the game programmers were talking directly to your PC’s hardware at a fundamental level. When Microsoft introduced Windows, it was imperative for the stability and success of the PC platform that things were made easier for both the developer and the player. After all, who would bother writing games for a machine when they had to reinvent the wheel every time they began work on a new game? Microsoft’s idea was simple: stop programmers talking directly to the hardware, and build a common toolkit which they could use instead. DirectX was born.

How it works

At the most basic level, DirectX is an interface between the hardware in your PC and Windows itself, part of the Windows API or Application Programming Interface. Let’s look at a practical example. When a game developer wants to play a sound file, it’s simply a case of using the correct library function. When the game runs, this calls the DirectX API, which in turn plays the sound file. The developer doesn’t need to know what type of sound card he’s dealing with, what it’s capable of, or how to talk to it. Microsoft has provided DirectX, and the sound card manufacturer has provided a DirectX-capable driver. He asks for the sound to be played, and it is – whichever machine it runs on.

From our point of view as gamers, DirectX also makes things incredibly easy – at least in theory. You install a new sound card in place of your old one, and it comes with a DirectX driver. Next time you play your favourite game you can still hear sounds and music, and you haven’t had to make any complex configuration changes.

Originally, DirectX began life as a simple toolkit: early hardware was limited and only the most basic graphical functions were required. As hardware and software has evolved in complexity, so has DirectX. It’s now much more than a graphical toolkit, and the term has come to encompass a massive selection of routines which deal with all sorts of hardware communication. For example, the DirectInput routines can deal with all sorts of input devices, from simple two-button mice to complex flight joysticks. Other parts include DirectSound for audio devices and DirectPlay provides a toolkit for online or multiplayer gaming.

DirectX versions
The current version of DirectX at time of writing is DirectX 10.0. This runs on all versions of Windows from Windows 98 up to and including Windows Server 2003 along with every revision in between. It doesn’t run on Windows 95 though: if you have a machine with Windows 95 installed, you’re stuck with the older and less capable 8.0a. Windows NT 4 also requires a specific version – in this case, it’s DirectX 3.0a.Xp,vista,Windows 7 Direct X 10,11…

With so many versions of DirectX available over the years, it becomes difficult to keep track of which version you need. In all but the most rare cases, all versions of DirectX are backwardly compatible – games which say they require DirectX 7 will happily run with more recent versions, but not with older copies. Many current titles explicitly state that they require DirectX 9, and won’t run without the latest version installed. This is because they make use of new features introduced with this version, although it has been known for lazy developers to specify the very latest version as a requirement when the game in question doesn’t use any of the new enhancements. Generally speaking though, if a title is version locked like this, you will need to upgrade before you can play. Improvements to the core DirectX code mean you may even see improvements in many titles when you upgrade to the latest build of DirectX. Downloading and installing DirectX need not be complex, either.

Upgrading DirectX

All available versions of Windows come with DirectX in one form or another as a core system component which cannot be removed, so you should always have at least a basic implementation of the system installed on your PC. However, many new games require the very latest version before they work properly, or even at all.

Generally, the best place to install the latest version of DirectX from is the dedicated section of the Microsoft Web site, which is found at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx. As we went to press, the most recent build available for general download was DirectX 9.0b. You can download either a simple installer which will in turn download the components your system requires as it installs, or download the complete distribution package in one go for later offline installation.

Another good source for DirectX is games themselves. If a game requires a specific version, it’ll be on the installation CD and may even be installed automatically by the game’s installer itself. You won’t find it on magazine cover discs though, thanks to Microsoft’s licensing terms.

Diagnosing problems

Diagnosing problems with a DirectX installation can be problematic, especially if you don’t know which one of the many components is causing your newly purchased game to fall over. Thankfully, Microsoft provides a useful utility called the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, although this isn’t made obvious. You won’t find this tool in the Start Menu with any version of Windows, and each tends to install it in a different place.

The easiest way to use it is to open the Start Menu’s Run dialog, type in dxdiag and then click OK. When the application first loads, it takes a few seconds to interrogate your DirectX installation and find any problems. First, the DirectX Files tab displays version information on each one of the files your installation uses. The Notes section at the bottom is worth checking, as missing or corrupted files will be flagged here.

The tabs marked Display, Sound, Music, Input and Network all relate to specific areas of DirectX, and all but the Input tab provide tools to test the correct functioning on your hardware. Finally, the More Help tab provides a useful way to start the DirectX Troubleshooter, Microsoft’s simple linear problem solving tool for many common DirectX issues.

>What is DirectX

>

 

Gaming and multimedia applications are some of the most satisfying programs you can get for your PC, but getting them to run properly isn’t always as easy as it could be. First, the PC architecture was never designed as a gaming platform. Second, the wide-ranging nature of the PC means that one person’s machine can be different from another. While games consoles all contain the same hardware, PCs don’t: the massive range of difference can make gaming a headache.

To alleviate as much of the pain as possible, Microsoft needed to introduce a common standard which all games and multimedia applications could follow – a common interface between the OS and whatever hardware is installed in the PC, if you like. This common interface is DirectX, something which can be the source of much confusion.

DirectX is an interface designed to make certain programming tasks much easier, for both the game developer and the rest of us who just want to sit down and play the latest blockbuster. Before we can explain what DirectX is and how it works though, we need a little history lesson.

DirectX history
Any game needs to perform certain tasks again and again. It needs to watch for your input from mouse, joystick or keyboard, and it needs to be able to display screen images and play sounds or music. That’s pretty much any game at the most simplistic level.

Imagine how incredibly complex this was for programmers developing on the early pre-Windows PC architecture, then. Each programmer needed to develop their own way of reading the keyboard or detecting whether a joystick was even attached, let alone being used to play the game. Specific routines were needed even to display the simplest of images on the screen or play a simple sound.

Essentially, the game programmers were talking directly to your PC’s hardware at a fundamental level. When Microsoft introduced Windows, it was imperative for the stability and success of the PC platform that things were made easier for both the developer and the player. After all, who would bother writing games for a machine when they had to reinvent the wheel every time they began work on a new game? Microsoft’s idea was simple: stop programmers talking directly to the hardware, and build a common toolkit which they could use instead. DirectX was born.

How it works

At the most basic level, DirectX is an interface between the hardware in your PC and Windows itself, part of the Windows API or Application Programming Interface. Let’s look at a practical example. When a game developer wants to play a sound file, it’s simply a case of using the correct library function. When the game runs, this calls the DirectX API, which in turn plays the sound file. The developer doesn’t need to know what type of sound card he’s dealing with, what it’s capable of, or how to talk to it. Microsoft has provided DirectX, and the sound card manufacturer has provided a DirectX-capable driver. He asks for the sound to be played, and it is – whichever machine it runs on.

From our point of view as gamers, DirectX also makes things incredibly easy – at least in theory. You install a new sound card in place of your old one, and it comes with a DirectX driver. Next time you play your favourite game you can still hear sounds and music, and you haven’t had to make any complex configuration changes.

Originally, DirectX began life as a simple toolkit: early hardware was limited and only the most basic graphical functions were required. As hardware and software has evolved in complexity, so has DirectX. It’s now much more than a graphical toolkit, and the term has come to encompass a massive selection of routines which deal with all sorts of hardware communication. For example, the DirectInput routines can deal with all sorts of input devices, from simple two-button mice to complex flight joysticks. Other parts include DirectSound for audio devices and DirectPlay provides a toolkit for online or multiplayer gaming.

DirectX versions
The current version of DirectX at time of writing is DirectX 10.0. This runs on all versions of Windows from Windows 98 up to and including Windows Server 2003 along with every revision in between. It doesn’t run on Windows 95 though: if you have a machine with Windows 95 installed, you’re stuck with the older and less capable 8.0a. Windows NT 4 also requires a specific version – in this case, it’s DirectX 3.0a.Xp,vista,Windows 7 Direct X 10,11…

With so many versions of DirectX available over the years, it becomes difficult to keep track of which version you need. In all but the most rare cases, all versions of DirectX are backwardly compatible – games which say they require DirectX 7 will happily run with more recent versions, but not with older copies. Many current titles explicitly state that they require DirectX 9, and won’t run without the latest version installed. This is because they make use of new features introduced with this version, although it has been known for lazy developers to specify the very latest version as a requirement when the game in question doesn’t use any of the new enhancements. Generally speaking though, if a title is version locked like this, you will need to upgrade before you can play. Improvements to the core DirectX code mean you may even see improvements in many titles when you upgrade to the latest build of DirectX. Downloading and installing DirectX need not be complex, either.

Upgrading DirectX

All available versions of Windows come with DirectX in one form or another as a core system component which cannot be removed, so you should always have at least a basic implementation of the system installed on your PC. However, many new games require the very latest version before they work properly, or even at all.

Generally, the best place to install the latest version of DirectX from is the dedicated section of the Microsoft Web site, which is found at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx. As we went to press, the most recent build available for general download was DirectX 9.0b. You can download either a simple installer which will in turn download the components your system requires as it installs, or download the complete distribution package in one go for later offline installation.

Another good source for DirectX is games themselves. If a game requires a specific version, it’ll be on the installation CD and may even be installed automatically by the game’s installer itself. You won’t find it on magazine cover discs though, thanks to Microsoft’s licensing terms.

Diagnosing problems

Diagnosing problems with a DirectX installation can be problematic, especially if you don’t know which one of the many components is causing your newly purchased game to fall over. Thankfully, Microsoft provides a useful utility called the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, although this isn’t made obvious. You won’t find this tool in the Start Menu with any version of Windows, and each tends to install it in a different place.

The easiest way to use it is to open the Start Menu’s Run dialog, type in dxdiag and then click OK. When the application first loads, it takes a few seconds to interrogate your DirectX installation and find any problems. First, the DirectX Files tab displays version information on each one of the files your installation uses. The Notes section at the bottom is worth checking, as missing or corrupted files will be flagged here.

The tabs marked Display, Sound, Music, Input and Network all relate to specific areas of DirectX, and all but the Input tab provide tools to test the correct functioning on your hardware. Finally, the More Help tab provides a useful way to start the DirectX Troubleshooter, Microsoft’s simple linear problem solving tool for many common DirectX issues.

>Speed Up Your Network and Internet Access

>

Windows Xp: Speed Up Your, Speed Up Your Network and Internet Access
I have a dial up connection and it improve my speeds about 25% in surfing the internet. give it a try. Im IT , only do it if you feel comfortable with changing registry.
Increasing network browsing speed
Does your computer slow down when you browse your local area network and connect to other computers that are sharing data? One of the most common causes of this slowdown is a feature of Windows Explorer that looks for scheduled tasks on remote computers. This effort can take some time on some computers and can really slow down your browsing. The window with which you are browsing the network may appear to freeze momentarily, as the system is waiting for a response from the remote computer.
Windows XP: Speeding Disk Access
Although this problem is a complex one, the solution is very simple. Instead of having to wait for the remote scheduled tasks, which is useless information to anyone who is not a system administrator remotely configuring scheduled tasks, you can disable this feature.
In order to do this, you will have to change the System Registry and delete a reference to a key so that this feature will not be loaded. To do this, follow these steps:
 

1. Open up the Registry Editor by clicking the Start Menu and selecting Run. Then type regedit in the text box and click the OK button.
2. Once the Registry Editor has loaded, expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key.
3. Next, expand Software and then Microsoft.
4. Locate Windows and expand that as well.
5. You will want to be editing the main system files, so expand CurrentVersion.
6. Because this feature is a feature of the Windows component known as Explorer, expand the Explorer key.
7. Next, you will want to modify the remote computer settings, so expand the Remote Computer key and then expand the Name Space key to show all of the features that are enabled when you browse to a remote computer.
8. In the Name Space folder you will find two entries. One is “{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}” which tells Explorer to show printers shared on the remote machine. The other, “{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF},” tells Explorer to show remote scheduled tasks. This is the one that you should delete. This can be done by right-clicking the name of the key and selecting Delete.
Tip
:
If you have no use for viewing remote shared printers and are really only interested in shared files, consider deleting the printers key, “{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}”, as well. This will also boost your browsing speed.
Once you have deleted the key, you just need to restart and the changes will be in effect. Now your network computer browsing will be without needless delays.

43 Things Tags: speed up your internet,Increase your speed of computer,speed xp

Technorati Tags: speed up your internet,Increase your speed of computer,speed xp

Download A Legal Music
Search Amazon.com Computers for sony walkman

>Speed Up Your Network and Internet Access

>

Windows Xp: Speed Up Your, Speed Up Your Network and Internet Access
I have a dial up connection and it improve my speeds about 25% in surfing the internet. give it a try. Im IT , only do it if you feel comfortable with changing registry.
Increasing network browsing speed
Does your computer slow down when you browse your local area network and connect to other computers that are sharing data? One of the most common causes of this slowdown is a feature of Windows Explorer that looks for scheduled tasks on remote computers. This effort can take some time on some computers and can really slow down your browsing. The window with which you are browsing the network may appear to freeze momentarily, as the system is waiting for a response from the remote computer.
Windows XP: Speeding Disk Access
Although this problem is a complex one, the solution is very simple. Instead of having to wait for the remote scheduled tasks, which is useless information to anyone who is not a system administrator remotely configuring scheduled tasks, you can disable this feature.
In order to do this, you will have to change the System Registry and delete a reference to a key so that this feature will not be loaded. To do this, follow these steps:
 

1. Open up the Registry Editor by clicking the Start Menu and selecting Run. Then type regedit in the text box and click the OK button.
2. Once the Registry Editor has loaded, expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key.
3. Next, expand Software and then Microsoft.
4. Locate Windows and expand that as well.
5. You will want to be editing the main system files, so expand CurrentVersion.
6. Because this feature is a feature of the Windows component known as Explorer, expand the Explorer key.
7. Next, you will want to modify the remote computer settings, so expand the Remote Computer key and then expand the Name Space key to show all of the features that are enabled when you browse to a remote computer.
8. In the Name Space folder you will find two entries. One is “{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}” which tells Explorer to show printers shared on the remote machine. The other, “{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF},” tells Explorer to show remote scheduled tasks. This is the one that you should delete. This can be done by right-clicking the name of the key and selecting Delete.
Tip
:
If you have no use for viewing remote shared printers and are really only interested in shared files, consider deleting the printers key, “{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}”, as well. This will also boost your browsing speed.
Once you have deleted the key, you just need to restart and the changes will be in effect. Now your network computer browsing will be without needless delays.

43 Things Tags: speed up your internet,Increase your speed of computer,speed xp

Technorati Tags: speed up your internet,Increase your speed of computer,speed xp

Download A Legal Music
Search Amazon.com Computers for sony walkman

Internet Fact

Internet Fact

  An Internet user has access to a wide variety of services like ,Electronic mail,file transfer etc. No one know exactly how many computers are connected to the Internet. It is certain,however, that these number in the millions. No one is in the charge of the Internet. There are organizations which develop technical aspects of this network and set standards for creating application on it, but no governing body is in control. The Internet backbone, through which Internet traffic flows is owned by private companies.

  All computers on the Internet communicate with one another using the Transmission control Protocol/Internet Protocol suite,abbreviated to TCP/IP. Computers on the Internet use a Client/server architecture. This means that the remote server machine provides files and services to the user’s local client machine. The Internet consists primarily of a variety of access protocols. Many of these protocols feature programs that allow users to search for and retrieve material made available by the protocol.

Here The Components Of The Internet

• The World Wide Web (abbreviated as the WEB or WWW) is a system of Internet severs that supports hypertext to access several Internet protocols on a single interface. Almost every protocol type available on the Internet is accessible on the web like (e-mail,FTP,telnet,Usenet news etc).
• The world wide web has its own protocol Ex : Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, or HTTP. The world wide web provides a single interface for accessing all these protocols. The web is the fastest -growing components of the Internet.
• The operation of the web relies primarily on hypertext as its means of information retrieval. HyperText is a document containing words that connect to other documents. These words are called links and are selectable by the user. A single hypertext document can contain links to many documents. In the context of the web,words or graphics may serve as links to other documents,images, video, and sound. links may or may not follow a logical path, as each connection is programmed by the creator of the source document.
• Producing hypertext for the web is accomplished by creating documents with a language called HyperText Markup language,or HTML. With HTML,tags are placed within the text to accomplish formatting,visual features such as font size, italic and bold, and the creation of hypertext link.
• The world wide web consists of files called pager of home pages, containing links to documents and resources throughout the internet.
• The web provides a vast array of experiences including multimedia presentations,real time collaboration,interactive pages, radio and television broadcasts, and the automatic “push” of information to a client computer.
• Programming languages such as Java,JavaScript,Visual Basic,Cold Fusion And XML are extending the capabilities of the web. A growing amount of information on the web is sever dynamically form content stored in database. The web is therefore not a fixed entity. But one that is in a constant state of development and flux.

• E-MAIL
• Electronic mail, or e-mail, allows computer users locally and worldwide to exchange messages. Each user of e-mail has a mailbox address to which messages are sent. Messages sent through e-mail can arrive within a matter of seconds.
• A powerful aspect of e-mail is the option to send electronic files to a person’s e-mail address. Non-ASCII files, known as binary files, may be attached to e-mail messages. These files are referred to as MIME attachments.MIME stands for Multimedia Internet Mail Extension, and was developed to help e-mail software handle a variety of file types. For example, a document created in Microsoft Word can be attached to an e-mail message and retrieved by the recipient with the appropriate e-mail program. Many e-mail programs, including Eudora, Netscape Messenger, and Microsoft Outlook, offer the ability to read files written in HTML, which is itself a MIME type.
• TELNET
• Telnet is a program that allows you to log into computers on the Internet and use online databases, library catalogs, chat services, and more. There are no graphics in Telnet sessions, just text. To Telnet to a computer, you must know its address. This can consist of words (LOCIS.LOC.GOV) or numbers (140.147.254.3). Some services require you to connect to a specific port on the remote computer. In this case, type the port number after the Internet address. Example: telnet nri.reston.va.us 185.
• Telnet is available on the World Wide Web. Probably the most common Web-based resources available through Telnet have been library catalogs, though most catalogs have since migrated to the Web. A link to a Telnet resource may look like any other link, but it will launch a Telnet session to make the connection. A Telnet program must be installed on your local computer and configured to your Web browser in order to work.
• With the increasing popularity of the Web, Telnet has become less frequently used as a means of access to information on the Internet.
• FTP
• FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. This is both a program and the method used to transfer files between computers. Anonymous FTP is an option that allows users to transfer files from thousands of host computers on the Internet to their personal computer account. FTP sites contain books, articles, software, games, images, sounds, multimedia, course work, data sets, and more.
• If your computer is directly connected to the Internet via an Ethernet cable, you can use one of several PC software programs, such as WS_FTP for Windows, to conduct a file transfer.
• FTP transfers can be performed on the World Wide Web without the need for special software. In this case, the Web browser will suffice. Whenever you download software from a Web site to your local machine, you are using FTP. You can also retrieve FTP files via search engines such as Ftp Find, located at /HTTP://WWW.FTPFIND.COM/. This option is easiest because you do not need to know FTP program commands.
• E-MAIL DISCUSSION GROUPS
• One of the benefits of the Internet is the opportunity it offers to people worldwide to communicate via e-mail. The Internet is home to a large community of individuals who carry out active discussions organized around topic-oriented forums distributed by e-mail. These are administered by software programs. Probably the most common program is the listserv.
• A great variety of topics are covered by listservs, many of them academic in nature. When you subscribe to a listserv, messages from other subscribers are automatically sent to your electronic mailbox. You subscribe to a listserv by sending an e-mail message to a computer program called a listserver. Listservers are located on computer networks throughout the world. This program handles subscription information and distributes messages to and from subscribers. You must have a e-mail account to participate in a listserv discussion group. Visit Tile.net at /HTTP://TILE.NET/ to see an example of a site that offers a searchablecollection of e-mail discussion groups.
• Majordomo and Listproc are two other programs that administer e-mail discussion groups. The commands for subscribing to and managing your list memberships are similar to those of listserv.
• USENET NEWS
• Usenet News is a global electronic bulletin board system in which millions of computer users exchange information on a vast range of topics. The major difference between Usenet News and e-mail discussion groups is the fact that Usenet messages are stored on central computers, and users must connect to these computers to read or download the messages posted to these groups. This is distinct from e-mail distribution, in which messages arrive in the electronic mailboxes of each list member.
• Usenet itself is a set of machines that exchanges messages, or articles, from Usenet discussion forums, called newsgroups. Usenet administrators control their own sites, and decide which (if any) newsgroups to sponsor and which remote newsgroups to allow into the system.
• There are thousands of Usenet newsgroups in existence. While many are academic in nature, numerous newsgroups are organized around recreational topics. Much serious computer-related work takes place in Usenet discussions. A small number of e-mail discussion groups also exist as Usenet newsgroups.
• The Usenet news feed can be read by a variety of newsreader software programs. For example, the Netscape suite comes with a newsreader program called Messenger. Newsreaders are also available as standalone products.
• FAQ, RFC, FYI
• FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions. These are periodic postings to Usenet newsgroups that contain a wealth of information related to the topic of the newsgroup. Many FAQs are quite extensive. FAQs are available by subscribing to individual Usenet newsgroups. A Web-based collection of FAQ resources has been collected by The Internet FAQ Consortium and is available at HTTP://WWW.FAQS.ORG/.
• RFC stands for Request for Comments. These are documents created by and distributed to the Internet community to help define the nuts and bolts of the Internet. They contain both technical specifications and general information.
• FYI stands for For Your Information. These notes are a subset of RFCs and contain information of interest to new Internet users.
• Links to indexes of all three of these information resources are available on the University Libraries Web site at /http://library.albany.edu/reference/faqs.html.
• CHAT & INSTANT MESSENGING
• Chat programs allow users on the Internet to communicate with each other by typing in real time. They are sometimes included as a feature of a Web site, where users can log into the “chat room” to exchange comments and information about the topics addressed on the site. Chat may take other, more wide-ranging forms. For example, America Online is well known for sponsoring a number of topical chat rooms.
• Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a service through which participants can communicate to each other on hundreds of channels. These channels are usually based on specific topics. While many topics are frivolous, substantive conversations are also taking place. To access IRC, you must use an IRC software program.
• A variation of chat is the phenomenon of instant messenging. With instant messenging, a user on the Web can contact another user currently logged in and type a conversation. Most famous is America Online’s Instant Messenger. ICQ, MSN and Yahoo are other commonly-used chat programs.

• Other types of real-time communication are addressed in the tutorial Understanding the World Wide Web.
• MUD/MUSH/MOO/MUCK/DUM/MUSE
• MUD stands for Multi User Dimension. MUDs, and their variations listed above, are multi-user virtual reality games based on simulated worlds. Traditionally text based, graphical MUDs now exist. There are MUDs of all kinds on the Internet, and many can be joined free of charge. For more information, read one of the FAQs devoted to MUDs available at the FAQ site at

>Internet Fact

>

Internet Fact

  An Internet user has access to a wide variety of services like ,Electronic mail,file transfer etc. No one know exactly how many computers are connected to the Internet. It is certain,however, that these number in the millions. No one is in the charge of the Internet. There are organizations which develop technical aspects of this network and set standards for creating application on it, but no governing body is in control. The Internet backbone, through which Internet traffic flows is owned by private companies.

  All computers on the Internet communicate with one another using the Transmission control Protocol/Internet Protocol suite,abbreviated to TCP/IP. Computers on the Internet use a Client/server architecture. This means that the remote server machine provides files and services to the user’s local client machine. The Internet consists primarily of a variety of access protocols. Many of these protocols feature programs that allow users to search for and retrieve material made available by the protocol.

Here The Components Of The Internet

• The World Wide Web (abbreviated as the WEB or WWW) is a system of Internet severs that supports hypertext to access several Internet protocols on a single interface. Almost every protocol type available on the Internet is accessible on the web like (e-mail,FTP,telnet,Usenet news etc).
• The world wide web has its own protocol Ex : Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, or HTTP. The world wide web provides a single interface for accessing all these protocols. The web is the fastest -growing components of the Internet.
• The operation of the web relies primarily on hypertext as its means of information retrieval. HyperText is a document containing words that connect to other documents. These words are called links and are selectable by the user. A single hypertext document can contain links to many documents. In the context of the web,words or graphics may serve as links to other documents,images, video, and sound. links may or may not follow a logical path, as each connection is programmed by the creator of the source document.
• Producing hypertext for the web is accomplished by creating documents with a language called HyperText Markup language,or HTML. With HTML,tags are placed within the text to accomplish formatting,visual features such as font size, italic and bold, and the creation of hypertext link.
• The world wide web consists of files called pager of home pages, containing links to documents and resources throughout the internet.
• The web provides a vast array of experiences including multimedia presentations,real time collaboration,interactive pages, radio and television broadcasts, and the automatic “push” of information to a client computer.
• Programming languages such as Java,JavaScript,Visual Basic,Cold Fusion And XML are extending the capabilities of the web. A growing amount of information on the web is sever dynamically form content stored in database. The web is therefore not a fixed entity. But one that is in a constant state of development and flux.

• E-MAIL
• Electronic mail, or e-mail, allows computer users locally and worldwide to exchange messages. Each user of e-mail has a mailbox address to which messages are sent. Messages sent through e-mail can arrive within a matter of seconds.
• A powerful aspect of e-mail is the option to send electronic files to a person’s e-mail address. Non-ASCII files, known as binary files, may be attached to e-mail messages. These files are referred to as MIME attachments.MIME stands for Multimedia Internet Mail Extension, and was developed to help e-mail software handle a variety of file types. For example, a document created in Microsoft Word can be attached to an e-mail message and retrieved by the recipient with the appropriate e-mail program. Many e-mail programs, including Eudora, Netscape Messenger, and Microsoft Outlook, offer the ability to read files written in HTML, which is itself a MIME type.
• TELNET
• Telnet is a program that allows you to log into computers on the Internet and use online databases, library catalogs, chat services, and more. There are no graphics in Telnet sessions, just text. To Telnet to a computer, you must know its address. This can consist of words (LOCIS.LOC.GOV) or numbers (140.147.254.3). Some services require you to connect to a specific port on the remote computer. In this case, type the port number after the Internet address. Example: telnet nri.reston.va.us 185.
• Telnet is available on the World Wide Web. Probably the most common Web-based resources available through Telnet have been library catalogs, though most catalogs have since migrated to the Web. A link to a Telnet resource may look like any other link, but it will launch a Telnet session to make the connection. A Telnet program must be installed on your local computer and configured to your Web browser in order to work.
• With the increasing popularity of the Web, Telnet has become less frequently used as a means of access to information on the Internet.
• FTP
• FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. This is both a program and the method used to transfer files between computers. Anonymous FTP is an option that allows users to transfer files from thousands of host computers on the Internet to their personal computer account. FTP sites contain books, articles, software, games, images, sounds, multimedia, course work, data sets, and more.
• If your computer is directly connected to the Internet via an Ethernet cable, you can use one of several PC software programs, such as WS_FTP for Windows, to conduct a file transfer.
• FTP transfers can be performed on the World Wide Web without the need for special software. In this case, the Web browser will suffice. Whenever you download software from a Web site to your local machine, you are using FTP. You can also retrieve FTP files via search engines such as Ftp Find, located at /HTTP://WWW.FTPFIND.COM/. This option is easiest because you do not need to know FTP program commands.
• E-MAIL DISCUSSION GROUPS
• One of the benefits of the Internet is the opportunity it offers to people worldwide to communicate via e-mail. The Internet is home to a large community of individuals who carry out active discussions organized around topic-oriented forums distributed by e-mail. These are administered by software programs. Probably the most common program is the listserv.
• A great variety of topics are covered by listservs, many of them academic in nature. When you subscribe to a listserv, messages from other subscribers are automatically sent to your electronic mailbox. You subscribe to a listserv by sending an e-mail message to a computer program called a listserver. Listservers are located on computer networks throughout the world. This program handles subscription information and distributes messages to and from subscribers. You must have a e-mail account to participate in a listserv discussion group. Visit Tile.net at /HTTP://TILE.NET/ to see an example of a site that offers a searchablecollection of e-mail discussion groups.
• Majordomo and Listproc are two other programs that administer e-mail discussion groups. The commands for subscribing to and managing your list memberships are similar to those of listserv.
• USENET NEWS
• Usenet News is a global electronic bulletin board system in which millions of computer users exchange information on a vast range of topics. The major difference between Usenet News and e-mail discussion groups is the fact that Usenet messages are stored on central computers, and users must connect to these computers to read or download the messages posted to these groups. This is distinct from e-mail distribution, in which messages arrive in the electronic mailboxes of each list member.
• Usenet itself is a set of machines that exchanges messages, or articles, from Usenet discussion forums, called newsgroups. Usenet administrators control their own sites, and decide which (if any) newsgroups to sponsor and which remote newsgroups to allow into the system.
• There are thousands of Usenet newsgroups in existence. While many are academic in nature, numerous newsgroups are organized around recreational topics. Much serious computer-related work takes place in Usenet discussions. A small number of e-mail discussion groups also exist as Usenet newsgroups.
• The Usenet news feed can be read by a variety of newsreader software programs. For example, the Netscape suite comes with a newsreader program called Messenger. Newsreaders are also available as standalone products.
• FAQ, RFC, FYI
• FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions. These are periodic postings to Usenet newsgroups that contain a wealth of information related to the topic of the newsgroup. Many FAQs are quite extensive. FAQs are available by subscribing to individual Usenet newsgroups. A Web-based collection of FAQ resources has been collected by The Internet FAQ Consortium and is available at HTTP://WWW.FAQS.ORG/.
• RFC stands for Request for Comments. These are documents created by and distributed to the Internet community to help define the nuts and bolts of the Internet. They contain both technical specifications and general information.
• FYI stands for For Your Information. These notes are a subset of RFCs and contain information of interest to new Internet users.
• Links to indexes of all three of these information resources are available on the University Libraries Web site at /http://library.albany.edu/reference/faqs.html.
• CHAT & INSTANT MESSENGING
• Chat programs allow users on the Internet to communicate with each other by typing in real time. They are sometimes included as a feature of a Web site, where users can log into the “chat room” to exchange comments and information about the topics addressed on the site. Chat may take other, more wide-ranging forms. For example, America Online is well known for sponsoring a number of topical chat rooms.
• Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a service through which participants can communicate to each other on hundreds of channels. These channels are usually based on specific topics. While many topics are frivolous, substantive conversations are also taking place. To access IRC, you must use an IRC software program.
• A variation of chat is the phenomenon of instant messenging. With instant messenging, a user on the Web can contact another user currently logged in and type a conversation. Most famous is America Online’s Instant Messenger. ICQ, MSN and Yahoo are other commonly-used chat programs.

• Other types of real-time communication are addressed in the tutorial Understanding the World Wide Web.
• MUD/MUSH/MOO/MUCK/DUM/MUSE
• MUD stands for Multi User Dimension. MUDs, and their variations listed above, are multi-user virtual reality games based on simulated worlds. Traditionally text based, graphical MUDs now exist. There are MUDs of all kinds on the Internet, and many can be joined free of charge. For more information, read one of the FAQs devoted to MUDs available at the FAQ site at

Increase Your Speed of Computer

• Since defragging the disk won’t do much to improve Windows XP performance, suggestion that will help you. Each can enhance the performance and reliability of your customers’ PCs. Best of all, most of them will cost you nothing. To decrease a system’s boot time and increase system performance, use the money you save by not buying defragmentation software — the built-in Windows defragmenter works just fine — and instead equip the computer with an Ultra-133 or Serial ATA hard drive with 8-MB cache buffer.
•  If a PC has less than 512 MB of RAM, add more memory. This is a relatively inexpensive and easy upgrade that can dramatically improve system performance.
• Ensure that Windows XP is utilizing the NTFS file system. If you’re not sure, here’s how to check: First, double-click the My Computer icon, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties. Next, examine the File System type; if it says FAT32, then back-up any important data. Next, click Start, click Run, type CMD, and then click OK. At the prompt, type CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS and press the Enter key. This process may take a while; it’s important that the computer be uninterrupted and virus-free. The file system used by the bootable drive will be either FAT32 or NTFS. I highly recommend NTFS for its superior security, reliability, and efficiency with larger disk drives.

•  Disable file indexing. The indexing service extracts information from documents and other files on the hard drive and creates a “searchable keyword index.” As you can imagine, this process can be quite taxing on any system.

  The idea is that the user can search for a word, phrase, or property inside a document, should they have hundreds or thousands of documents and not know the file name of the document they want. Windows XP’s built-in search functionality can still perform these kinds of searches without the Indexing service. It just takes longer. The OS has to open each file at the time of the request to help find what the user is looking for.

  Most people never need this feature of search. Those who do are typically in a large corporate environment where thousands of documents are located on at least one server. But if you’re a typical system builder, most of your clients are small and medium businesses. And if your clients have no need for this search feature, I recommend disabling it. 

• Here’s how: First, double-click the My Computer icon. Next, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties. Uncheck “Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching.” Next, apply changes to “C: subfolders and files,” and click OK. If a warning or error message appears (such as “Access is denied”), click the Ignore All button.
   Update the PC’s video and motherboard chipset drivers. Also, update and configure the BIOS. For more information on how to configure your BIOS properly, see this article on my site.

•  Empty the Windows Prefetch folder every three months or so. Windows XP can “prefetch” portions of data and applications that are used frequently. This makes processes appear to load faster when called upon by the user. That’s fine. But over time, the prefetch folder may become overloaded with references to files and applications no longer in use. When that happens, Windows XP is wasting time, and slowing system performance, by pre-loading them. Nothing critical is in this folder, and the entire contents are safe to delete.
   Once a month, run a disk cleanup. Here’s how: Double-click the My Computer icon. Then right-click on the C: drive and select Properties. Click the Disk Cleanup button — it’s just to the right of the Capacity pie graph — and delete all temporary files.
   In your Device Manager, double-click on the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers device, and ensure that DMA is enabled for each drive you have connected to the Primary and Secondary controller. Do this by double-clicking on Primary IDE Channel. Then click the Advanced Settings tab. Ensure the Transfer Mode is set to “DMA if available” for both Device 0 and Device 1. Then repeat this process with the Secondary IDE Channel.
   
• Upgrade the cabling. As hard-drive technology improves, the cabling requirements to achieve these performance boosts have become more stringent. Be sure to use 80-wire Ultra-133 cables on all of your IDE devices with the connectors properly assigned to the matching Master/Slave/Motherboard sockets. A single device must be at the end of the cable; connecting a single drive to the middle connector on a ribbon cable will cause signaling problems. With Ultra DMA hard drives, these signaling problems will prevent the drive from performing at its maximum potential. Also, because these cables inherently support “cable select,” the location of each drive on the cable is important. For these reasons, the cable is designed so drive positioning is explicitly clear.
   
• Remove all spyware from the computer. Use free programs such as AdAware by Lavasoft or SpyBot Search & Destroy. Once these programs are installed, be sure to check for and download any updates before starting your search. Anything either program finds can be safely removed. Any free software that requires spyware to run will no longer function once the spyware portion has been removed; if your customer really wants the program even though it contains spyware, simply reinstall it. For more information on removing Spyware visit this Web Pro News page.
   
•  Remove any unnecessary programs and/or items from Windows Startup routine using the MSCONFIG utility. Here’s how: First, click Start, click Run, type MSCONFIG, and click OK. Click the StartUp tab, then uncheck any items you don’t want to start when Windows starts. Unsure what some items are? Visit the WinTasks Process Library. It contains known system processes, applications, as well as spyware references and explanations. Or quickly identify them by searching for the filenames using Google or another Web search engine.
   
• Remove any unnecessary or unused programs from the Add/Remove Programs section of the Control Panel.
   
•  Turn off any and all unnecessary animations, and disable active desktop. In fact, for optimal performance, turn off all animations. Windows XP offers many different settings in this area. Here’s how to do it: First click on the System icon in the Control Panel. Next, click on the Advanced tab. Select the Settings button located under Performance. Feel free to play around with the options offered here, as nothing you can change will alter the reliability of the computer — only its responsiveness.
   
•  If your customer is an advanced user who is comfortable editing their registry, try some of the performance registry tweaks offered at Tweak XP.
   
•  Visit Microsoft’s Windows update site regularly, and download all updates labeled Critical. Download any optional updates at your discretion.
   
•  Update the customer’s anti-virus software on a weekly, even daily, basis. Make sure they have only one anti-virus software package installed. Mixing anti-virus software is a sure way to spell disaster for performance and reliability.
   
•  Make sure the customer has fewer than 500 type fonts installed on their computer. The more fonts they have, the slower the system will become. While Windows XP handles fonts much more efficiently than did the previous versions of Windows, too many fonts — that is, anything over 500 — will noticeably tax the system.
   
•  Do not partition the hard drive. Windows XP’s NTFS file system runs more efficiently on one large partition. The data is no safer on a separate partition, and a reformat is never necessary to reinstall an operating system. The same excuses people offer for using partitions apply to using a folder instead. For example, instead of putting all your data on the D: drive, put it in a folder called “D drive.” You’ll achieve the same organizational benefits that a separate partition offers, but without the degradation in system performance. Also, your free space won’t be limited by the size of the partition; instead, it will be limited by the size of the entire hard drive. This means you won’t need to resize any partitions, ever. That task can be time-consuming and also can result in lost data.
   
•  Check the system’s RAM to ensure it is operating properly. I recommend using a free program called MemTest86. The download will make a bootable CD or diskette (your choice), which will run 10 extensive tests on the PC’s memory automatically after you boot to the disk you created. Allow all tests to run until at least three passes of the 10 tests are completed. If the program encounters any errors, turn off and unplug the computer, remove a stick of memory (assuming you have more than one), and run the test again. Remember, bad memory cannot be repaired, but only replaced.
   
•  If the PC has a CD or DVD recorder, check the drive manufacturer’s Web site for updated firmware. In some cases you’ll be able to upgrade the recorder to a faster speed. Best of all, it’s free.
   
• Disable unnecessary services. Windows XP loads a lot of services that your customer most likely does not need. To determine which services you can disable for your client, visit the Black Viper site for Windows XP configurations.
   
•  If you’re sick of a single Windows Explorer window crashing and then taking the rest of your OS down with it, then follow this tip: open My Computer, click on Tools, then Folder Options. Now click on the View tab. Scroll down to “Launch folder windows in a separate process,” and enable this option. You’ll have to reboot your machine for this option to take effect.
• At least once a year, open the computer’s cases and blow out all the dust and debris. While you’re in there, check that all the fans are turning properly. Also inspect the motherboard capacitors for bulging or leaks. For more information on this leaking-capacitor phenomena, you can read numerous articles on my site.

  Following any of these suggestions should result in noticeable improvements to the performance and reliability of your customers’ computers. If you still want to defrag a disk, remember that the main benefit will be to make your data more retrievable in the event of a crashed drive.

>Increase Your Speed of Computer

>

• Since defragging the disk won’t do much to improve Windows XP performance, suggestion that will help you. Each can enhance the performance and reliability of your customers’ PCs. Best of all, most of them will cost you nothing. To decrease a system’s boot time and increase system performance, use the money you save by not buying defragmentation software — the built-in Windows defragmenter works just fine — and instead equip the computer with an Ultra-133 or Serial ATA hard drive with 8-MB cache buffer.
•  If a PC has less than 512 MB of RAM, add more memory. This is a relatively inexpensive and easy upgrade that can dramatically improve system performance.
• Ensure that Windows XP is utilizing the NTFS file system. If you’re not sure, here’s how to check: First, double-click the My Computer icon, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties. Next, examine the File System type; if it says FAT32, then back-up any important data. Next, click Start, click Run, type CMD, and then click OK. At the prompt, type CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS and press the Enter key. This process may take a while; it’s important that the computer be uninterrupted and virus-free. The file system used by the bootable drive will be either FAT32 or NTFS. I highly recommend NTFS for its superior security, reliability, and efficiency with larger disk drives.

•  Disable file indexing. The indexing service extracts information from documents and other files on the hard drive and creates a “searchable keyword index.” As you can imagine, this process can be quite taxing on any system.

  The idea is that the user can search for a word, phrase, or property inside a document, should they have hundreds or thousands of documents and not know the file name of the document they want. Windows XP’s built-in search functionality can still perform these kinds of searches without the Indexing service. It just takes longer. The OS has to open each file at the time of the request to help find what the user is looking for.

  Most people never need this feature of search. Those who do are typically in a large corporate environment where thousands of documents are located on at least one server. But if you’re a typical system builder, most of your clients are small and medium businesses. And if your clients have no need for this search feature, I recommend disabling it. 

• Here’s how: First, double-click the My Computer icon. Next, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties. Uncheck “Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching.” Next, apply changes to “C: subfolders and files,” and click OK. If a warning or error message appears (such as “Access is denied”), click the Ignore All button.
   Update the PC’s video and motherboard chipset drivers. Also, update and configure the BIOS. For more information on how to configure your BIOS properly, see this article on my site.

•  Empty the Windows Prefetch folder every three months or so. Windows XP can “prefetch” portions of data and applications that are used frequently. This makes processes appear to load faster when called upon by the user. That’s fine. But over time, the prefetch folder may become overloaded with references to files and applications no longer in use. When that happens, Windows XP is wasting time, and slowing system performance, by pre-loading them. Nothing critical is in this folder, and the entire contents are safe to delete.
   Once a month, run a disk cleanup. Here’s how: Double-click the My Computer icon. Then right-click on the C: drive and select Properties. Click the Disk Cleanup button — it’s just to the right of the Capacity pie graph — and delete all temporary files.
   In your Device Manager, double-click on the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers device, and ensure that DMA is enabled for each drive you have connected to the Primary and Secondary controller. Do this by double-clicking on Primary IDE Channel. Then click the Advanced Settings tab. Ensure the Transfer Mode is set to “DMA if available” for both Device 0 and Device 1. Then repeat this process with the Secondary IDE Channel.
   
• Upgrade the cabling. As hard-drive technology improves, the cabling requirements to achieve these performance boosts have become more stringent. Be sure to use 80-wire Ultra-133 cables on all of your IDE devices with the connectors properly assigned to the matching Master/Slave/Motherboard sockets. A single device must be at the end of the cable; connecting a single drive to the middle connector on a ribbon cable will cause signaling problems. With Ultra DMA hard drives, these signaling problems will prevent the drive from performing at its maximum potential. Also, because these cables inherently support “cable select,” the location of each drive on the cable is important. For these reasons, the cable is designed so drive positioning is explicitly clear.
   
• Remove all spyware from the computer. Use free programs such as AdAware by Lavasoft or SpyBot Search & Destroy. Once these programs are installed, be sure to check for and download any updates before starting your search. Anything either program finds can be safely removed. Any free software that requires spyware to run will no longer function once the spyware portion has been removed; if your customer really wants the program even though it contains spyware, simply reinstall it. For more information on removing Spyware visit this Web Pro News page.
   
•  Remove any unnecessary programs and/or items from Windows Startup routine using the MSCONFIG utility. Here’s how: First, click Start, click Run, type MSCONFIG, and click OK. Click the StartUp tab, then uncheck any items you don’t want to start when Windows starts. Unsure what some items are? Visit the WinTasks Process Library. It contains known system processes, applications, as well as spyware references and explanations. Or quickly identify them by searching for the filenames using Google or another Web search engine.
   
• Remove any unnecessary or unused programs from the Add/Remove Programs section of the Control Panel.
   
•  Turn off any and all unnecessary animations, and disable active desktop. In fact, for optimal performance, turn off all animations. Windows XP offers many different settings in this area. Here’s how to do it: First click on the System icon in the Control Panel. Next, click on the Advanced tab. Select the Settings button located under Performance. Feel free to play around with the options offered here, as nothing you can change will alter the reliability of the computer — only its responsiveness.
   
•  If your customer is an advanced user who is comfortable editing their registry, try some of the performance registry tweaks offered at Tweak XP.
   
•  Visit Microsoft’s Windows update site regularly, and download all updates labeled Critical. Download any optional updates at your discretion.
   
•  Update the customer’s anti-virus software on a weekly, even daily, basis. Make sure they have only one anti-virus software package installed. Mixing anti-virus software is a sure way to spell disaster for performance and reliability.
   
•  Make sure the customer has fewer than 500 type fonts installed on their computer. The more fonts they have, the slower the system will become. While Windows XP handles fonts much more efficiently than did the previous versions of Windows, too many fonts — that is, anything over 500 — will noticeably tax the system.
   
•  Do not partition the hard drive. Windows XP’s NTFS file system runs more efficiently on one large partition. The data is no safer on a separate partition, and a reformat is never necessary to reinstall an operating system. The same excuses people offer for using partitions apply to using a folder instead. For example, instead of putting all your data on the D: drive, put it in a folder called “D drive.” You’ll achieve the same organizational benefits that a separate partition offers, but without the degradation in system performance. Also, your free space won’t be limited by the size of the partition; instead, it will be limited by the size of the entire hard drive. This means you won’t need to resize any partitions, ever. That task can be time-consuming and also can result in lost data.
   
•  Check the system’s RAM to ensure it is operating properly. I recommend using a free program called MemTest86. The download will make a bootable CD or diskette (your choice), which will run 10 extensive tests on the PC’s memory automatically after you boot to the disk you created. Allow all tests to run until at least three passes of the 10 tests are completed. If the program encounters any errors, turn off and unplug the computer, remove a stick of memory (assuming you have more than one), and run the test again. Remember, bad memory cannot be repaired, but only replaced.
   
•  If the PC has a CD or DVD recorder, check the drive manufacturer’s Web site for updated firmware. In some cases you’ll be able to upgrade the recorder to a faster speed. Best of all, it’s free.
   
• Disable unnecessary services. Windows XP loads a lot of services that your customer most likely does not need. To determine which services you can disable for your client, visit the Black Viper site for Windows XP configurations.
   
•  If you’re sick of a single Windows Explorer window crashing and then taking the rest of your OS down with it, then follow this tip: open My Computer, click on Tools, then Folder Options. Now click on the View tab. Scroll down to “Launch folder windows in a separate process,” and enable this option. You’ll have to reboot your machine for this option to take effect.
• At least once a year, open the computer’s cases and blow out all the dust and debris. While you’re in there, check that all the fans are turning properly. Also inspect the motherboard capacitors for bulging or leaks. For more information on this leaking-capacitor phenomena, you can read numerous articles on my site.

  Following any of these suggestions should result in noticeable improvements to the performance and reliability of your customers’ computers. If you still want to defrag a disk, remember that the main benefit will be to make your data more retrievable in the event of a crashed drive.

Reasons Why Computer Crash

Reasons Why Computer Crash

1.FATAL ERROR : The system has become unstable or is busy ,Like “ Enter to return to windows or Press Control-Alt-Delete to restart Your computer. If you do this you will lose unsaved data in all open application. HOW U ?

• Hardware Conflict
  The one reason why window crashes is hardware conflict. Each Hardware device communicates to other devices though an interrupt request channel(IRQ).These are supposed to be unique for each device. Each device will try to hog a single IRQ for itself (printer,scanner etc).
  If there are lot of devices,or if they are not installed properly,two of them may end up sharing the same IRQ number. When the user tries to use both devices at the same time, a crash can happen.
• So ,do Start-Settings-Control panel-System-Device Manager
  Often if a device has a problem a yellow ‘!’ appears next to its description in the Device Manager. Highlight Computer(in the Device Manager) and press properties to see the IRQ numbers used by your computer.
• If the IRQ number appears Twice, Two devices may be using it.
• Sometime a device might share and IRQ with something described as “IRQ holder for PCI steering”, This can be ignored.
  The Best way to FIX the problem is to remove the problem device and reinstall it.
• Sometime you may have to fined more recent drivers on the internet to make the device function properly. A Good resource is WWW.DRIVERGUIDE.COM .If the device is a sound-card, or a Modem it can Often be fixed by moving it to a different slot on the motherboard.
• When working inside the computer you should switch it off,unplug the mains lead and touch an unpainted metal surface to discharge any Static electricity.
• Bad Ram
  Ram (Random Access Memory) problems might bring on the blue screen of death with a message saying FATAL EXECPTION ERROR.
  A Fatal Error indicates a serious hardware problem. Sometime It means a Part is damaged and will need replacing.

But a fatal error caused by ram might be caused by a mismatch of chips .For example ( different Ram ) mixing 70-nanosecond (70ns) Ram with 60ns Ram will Force the computer to run all the Ram at the slower speed.This will often crash the machine if the Ram is overworked.

• So ,the One way is , Enter the BIOS settings and increase the wait state of The RAM.This can make it more stable. Another way to troubleshoot a suspected RAM problem is to rearrange the RAM chips on the motherboard, or take some of them out. When handling RAM try not to touch the gold connections , as they can be easily damaged .
• BIOS SETTINGS
  Every motherboard is supplied with a rage of chip-set settings that are decided in the factory. A Common way to access these settings is to press F2, or DELETE button during The first few seconds of a boot-up.
  Inside the BIOS, care should be taken. It is a good idea to write down on a paper all the setting that appear on the screen. That way, If you change something and the computer becomes more unstable,you will know that settings to revert to a common BIOS error concerns the CAS latency. This defers to RAM .Older EDO(extended data out) .RAM has a CAS latency of 3.newer SDRAM has a CAS latency of 2.Setting the wrong figure can cause the RAM to lock up and freeze the computer’s display.
• HARD DISK DRIVES
  It is a good idea to derangement the hard disk every week or so, to prevent the disk from causing a screen freeze. Go to START-PROGRAMS-ACCESSORIS-SYSTEM TOOLS-DISK DEFRAGMENTER
  This will start the procedure.
• START-SETTINGS-CONTROL PANEL-SYSTEM ICON -PERFORMANCE-FILE SYSTEM-HARD DISK.
  Hard disk will slow down and crash if they are too full, Do some housekeeping on your hard drive every few months and free some space on it. Open the windows folder on the window drive where you install the operating system and find the temporary Internet files folder.Deleting the contents(NOT FOLDER) car free a lot of space. And Also Empty The Recycle Bin

Every week to free more space. Hard Drive should be scanned every week for error or bad sectors,

Go To START-PROGRAMS-ACCESSORIES-SYSTEM TOOLS-SCANDISK

• Fatal OE exceptions and VXD errors
   Fatal OE exception errors and VXD errors are often caused by video card problems.These can often be resolved easily by reducing the resolution of the video display. Go to START-SETTINGS-CONTROL PANEL-DISPLAY SETTINGS
   Here you should slide the screen area bar to the left. Take a look at the color settings on the left of that window. For most desktops, high color 16-bit depth is adequate.If the screen freezes or you experience system lockups it might be due to the video card. Make sure it does not have a hardware conflict. Go to

• Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager

Here, select the + beside Display Adapter. A line of text describing your video card should appear. Select it (make it blue) and press properties. Then select Resources and select each line in the window. Look for a message that says No Conflicts.

If you have video card hardware conflict, you will see it here. Be careful at this point and make a note of everything you do in case you make things worse.

The way to resolve a hardware conflict is to uncheck the Use Automatic Settings box and hit the Change Settings button. You are searching for a setting that will display a No Conflicts message.

Another useful way to resolve video problems is to go to

• Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Performance-Graphics
   Here you should move the Hardware Acceleration slider to the left. As ever, the most common cause of problems relating to graphics cards is old or faulty drivers (a driver is a small piece of software used by a computer to communicate with a device).

Look up your video card’s manufacturer on the internet and search for the most recent drivers for it.

• Viruses
   Often the first sign of a virus infection is instability. Some viruses erase the boot sector of a hard drive, making it impossible to start. This is why it is a good idea to create a Windows start-up disk. Go to

• Start-Settings-Control Panel-Add/Remove Programs
   Here, look for the Start Up Disk tab. Virus protection requires constant vigilance.A virus scanner requires a list of virus signatures in order to be able to identify viruses. These signatures are stored in a DAT file. DAT files should be updated weekly from the website of your antivirus software manufacturer.

An excellent antivirus programme is McAfee VirusScan by Network Associates ( http://www.nai.com). Another is Norton AntiVirus 2000, made by Symantec ( http://www.symantec.com).

• Printers
   The action of sending a document to print creates a bigger file, often called a postscript file.Printers have only a small amount of memory, called a buffer. This can be easily overloaded. Printing a document also uses a considerable amount of CPU power. This will also slow down the computer’s performance.

If the printer is trying to print unusual characters, these might not be recognised, and can crash the computer. Sometimes printers will not recover from a crash because of confusion in the buffer. A good way to clear the buffer is to unplug the printer for ten seconds. Booting up from a powerless state, also called a cold boot, will restore the printer’s default settings and you may be able to carry on.

• Software
   A common cause of computer crash is faulty or badly-installed software. Often the problem can be cured by uninstalling the software and then reinstalling it. Use Norton Uninstall or Uninstall Shield to remove an application from your system properly. This will also remove references to the programme in the System Registry and leaves the way clear for a completely fresh copy.

The System Registry can be corrupted by old references to obsolete software that you thought was uninstalled. Use Reg Cleaner by Jouni Vuorio to clean up the System Registry and remove obsolete entries. It works on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE (Second Edition), Windows Millennium Edition (ME), NT4 and Windows 2000.

Read the instructions and use it carefully so you don’t do permanent damage to the Registry. If the Registry is damaged you will have to reinstall your operating system. Reg Cleaner can be obtained from http://www.jv16.org

Often a Windows problem can be resolved by entering Safe Mode. This can be done during start-up. When you see the message “Starting Windows” press F4. This should take you into Safe Mode.

Safe Mode loads a minimum of drivers. It allows you to find and fix problems that prevent Windows from loading properly.

Sometimes installing Windows is difficult because of unsuitable BIOS settings. If you keep getting SUWIN error messages (Windows setup) during the Windows installation, then try entering the BIOS and disabling the CPU internal cache. Try to disable the Level 2 (L2) cache if that doesn’t work.

Remember to restore all the BIOS settings back to their former settings following installation.

• Overheating
   Central processing units (CPUs) are usually equipped with fans to keep them cool. If the fan fails or if the CPU gets old it may start to overheat and generate a particular kind of error called a kernel error. This is a common problem in chips that have been overclocked to operate at higher speeds than they are supposed to.

One remedy is to get a bigger better fan and install it on top of the CPU. Specialist cooling fans/heat sinks are available from WWW.COMPUTERNERD.COM OR WWW.COOLIT.COM

CPU problems can often be fixed by disabling the CPU internal cache in the BIOS. This will make the machine run more slowly, but it should also be more stable.

10 Power supply problems

>Reasons Why Computer Crash

>

Reasons Why Computer Crash

1.FATAL ERROR : The system has become unstable or is busy ,Like “ Enter to return to windows or Press Control-Alt-Delete to restart Your computer. If you do this you will lose unsaved data in all open application. HOW U ?

• Hardware Conflict
  The one reason why window crashes is hardware conflict. Each Hardware device communicates to other devices though an interrupt request channel(IRQ).These are supposed to be unique for each device. Each device will try to hog a single IRQ for itself (printer,scanner etc).
  If there are lot of devices,or if they are not installed properly,two of them may end up sharing the same IRQ number. When the user tries to use both devices at the same time, a crash can happen.
• So ,do Start-Settings-Control panel-System-Device Manager
  Often if a device has a problem a yellow ‘!’ appears next to its description in the Device Manager. Highlight Computer(in the Device Manager) and press properties to see the IRQ numbers used by your computer.
• If the IRQ number appears Twice, Two devices may be using it.
• Sometime a device might share and IRQ with something described as “IRQ holder for PCI steering”, This can be ignored.
  The Best way to FIX the problem is to remove the problem device and reinstall it.
• Sometime you may have to fined more recent drivers on the internet to make the device function properly. A Good resource is WWW.DRIVERGUIDE.COM .If the device is a sound-card, or a Modem it can Often be fixed by moving it to a different slot on the motherboard.
• When working inside the computer you should switch it off,unplug the mains lead and touch an unpainted metal surface to discharge any Static electricity.
• Bad Ram
  Ram (Random Access Memory) problems might bring on the blue screen of death with a message saying FATAL EXECPTION ERROR.
  A Fatal Error indicates a serious hardware problem. Sometime It means a Part is damaged and will need replacing.

But a fatal error caused by ram might be caused by a mismatch of chips .For example ( different Ram ) mixing 70-nanosecond (70ns) Ram with 60ns Ram will Force the computer to run all the Ram at the slower speed.This will often crash the machine if the Ram is overworked.

• So ,the One way is , Enter the BIOS settings and increase the wait state of The RAM.This can make it more stable. Another way to troubleshoot a suspected RAM problem is to rearrange the RAM chips on the motherboard, or take some of them out. When handling RAM try not to touch the gold connections , as they can be easily damaged .
• BIOS SETTINGS
  Every motherboard is supplied with a rage of chip-set settings that are decided in the factory. A Common way to access these settings is to press F2, or DELETE button during The first few seconds of a boot-up.
  Inside the BIOS, care should be taken. It is a good idea to write down on a paper all the setting that appear on the screen. That way, If you change something and the computer becomes more unstable,you will know that settings to revert to a common BIOS error concerns the CAS latency. This defers to RAM .Older EDO(extended data out) .RAM has a CAS latency of 3.newer SDRAM has a CAS latency of 2.Setting the wrong figure can cause the RAM to lock up and freeze the computer’s display.
• HARD DISK DRIVES
  It is a good idea to derangement the hard disk every week or so, to prevent the disk from causing a screen freeze. Go to START-PROGRAMS-ACCESSORIS-SYSTEM TOOLS-DISK DEFRAGMENTER
  This will start the procedure.
• START-SETTINGS-CONTROL PANEL-SYSTEM ICON -PERFORMANCE-FILE SYSTEM-HARD DISK.
  Hard disk will slow down and crash if they are too full, Do some housekeeping on your hard drive every few months and free some space on it. Open the windows folder on the window drive where you install the operating system and find the temporary Internet files folder.Deleting the contents(NOT FOLDER) car free a lot of space. And Also Empty The Recycle Bin

Every week to free more space. Hard Drive should be scanned every week for error or bad sectors,

Go To START-PROGRAMS-ACCESSORIES-SYSTEM TOOLS-SCANDISK

• Fatal OE exceptions and VXD errors
   Fatal OE exception errors and VXD errors are often caused by video card problems.These can often be resolved easily by reducing the resolution of the video display. Go to START-SETTINGS-CONTROL PANEL-DISPLAY SETTINGS
   Here you should slide the screen area bar to the left. Take a look at the color settings on the left of that window. For most desktops, high color 16-bit depth is adequate.If the screen freezes or you experience system lockups it might be due to the video card. Make sure it does not have a hardware conflict. Go to

• Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager

Here, select the + beside Display Adapter. A line of text describing your video card should appear. Select it (make it blue) and press properties. Then select Resources and select each line in the window. Look for a message that says No Conflicts.

If you have video card hardware conflict, you will see it here. Be careful at this point and make a note of everything you do in case you make things worse.

The way to resolve a hardware conflict is to uncheck the Use Automatic Settings box and hit the Change Settings button. You are searching for a setting that will display a No Conflicts message.

Another useful way to resolve video problems is to go to

• Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Performance-Graphics
   Here you should move the Hardware Acceleration slider to the left. As ever, the most common cause of problems relating to graphics cards is old or faulty drivers (a driver is a small piece of software used by a computer to communicate with a device).

Look up your video card’s manufacturer on the internet and search for the most recent drivers for it.

• Viruses
   Often the first sign of a virus infection is instability. Some viruses erase the boot sector of a hard drive, making it impossible to start. This is why it is a good idea to create a Windows start-up disk. Go to

• Start-Settings-Control Panel-Add/Remove Programs
   Here, look for the Start Up Disk tab. Virus protection requires constant vigilance.A virus scanner requires a list of virus signatures in order to be able to identify viruses. These signatures are stored in a DAT file. DAT files should be updated weekly from the website of your antivirus software manufacturer.

An excellent antivirus programme is McAfee VirusScan by Network Associates ( http://www.nai.com). Another is Norton AntiVirus 2000, made by Symantec ( http://www.symantec.com).

• Printers
   The action of sending a document to print creates a bigger file, often called a postscript file.Printers have only a small amount of memory, called a buffer. This can be easily overloaded. Printing a document also uses a considerable amount of CPU power. This will also slow down the computer’s performance.

If the printer is trying to print unusual characters, these might not be recognised, and can crash the computer. Sometimes printers will not recover from a crash because of confusion in the buffer. A good way to clear the buffer is to unplug the printer for ten seconds. Booting up from a powerless state, also called a cold boot, will restore the printer’s default settings and you may be able to carry on.

• Software
   A common cause of computer crash is faulty or badly-installed software. Often the problem can be cured by uninstalling the software and then reinstalling it. Use Norton Uninstall or Uninstall Shield to remove an application from your system properly. This will also remove references to the programme in the System Registry and leaves the way clear for a completely fresh copy.

The System Registry can be corrupted by old references to obsolete software that you thought was uninstalled. Use Reg Cleaner by Jouni Vuorio to clean up the System Registry and remove obsolete entries. It works on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE (Second Edition), Windows Millennium Edition (ME), NT4 and Windows 2000.

Read the instructions and use it carefully so you don’t do permanent damage to the Registry. If the Registry is damaged you will have to reinstall your operating system. Reg Cleaner can be obtained from http://www.jv16.org

Often a Windows problem can be resolved by entering Safe Mode. This can be done during start-up. When you see the message “Starting Windows” press F4. This should take you into Safe Mode.

Safe Mode loads a minimum of drivers. It allows you to find and fix problems that prevent Windows from loading properly.

Sometimes installing Windows is difficult because of unsuitable BIOS settings. If you keep getting SUWIN error messages (Windows setup) during the Windows installation, then try entering the BIOS and disabling the CPU internal cache. Try to disable the Level 2 (L2) cache if that doesn’t work.

Remember to restore all the BIOS settings back to their former settings following installation.

• Overheating
   Central processing units (CPUs) are usually equipped with fans to keep them cool. If the fan fails or if the CPU gets old it may start to overheat and generate a particular kind of error called a kernel error. This is a common problem in chips that have been overclocked to operate at higher speeds than they are supposed to.

One remedy is to get a bigger better fan and install it on top of the CPU. Specialist cooling fans/heat sinks are available from WWW.COMPUTERNERD.COM OR WWW.COOLIT.COM

CPU problems can often be fixed by disabling the CPU internal cache in the BIOS. This will make the machine run more slowly, but it should also be more stable.

10 Power supply problems