Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: MachManX on May 20, 2010, 02:43:16 am
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Even though I consider myself an advanced user, I may as well ask the big question to the other experts around here: Is there a program(s) to keep Windows running as fast as the day you installed the OS after 1+ years of use? And don't give me the "Format and Install" answer, because I already do that. I'm asking about programs that run in Windows.
Sometimes, certain programs you install break functionality of Windows, whether it's the BSOD or super-slow response of the OS. This brings me to my next question: Is there a program(s) that let you restore functionality of Windows to 100% after a program breaks functionality? (System Restore sucks)
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Is there a program(s) to keep Windows running as fast as the day you installed the OS after 1+ years of use? And don't give me the "Format and Install" answer, because I already do that. I'm asking about programs that run in Windows.
- Virus scan (avast!)
- Malware scan (Spybot, Ad-Aware)
- Registry cleanup (Wise Registry Cleaner)
- Pointless **** cleanup (Wise Disk Cleaner)
- Defrag (Smart Defrag)
Those are the things I'd do, and the programs in brackets are what I use. There are other options for each one and I'm sure many of them are awesome too, but those are the ones I've found out to be quite working and reliable.
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- Pointless **** cleanup (Wise Disk Cleaner)
WOO! That made me LOL Hard! :lol: Never knew they had an app for that :lol:
Still, I want perfection, literally as fast as the day it was installed ;)
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- Pointless **** cleanup (Wise Disk Cleaner)
WOO! That made me LOL Hard! :lol: Never knew they had an app for that :lol:
Pointless ****, as in temp files and other crap that tends to pile up on the HDD and isn't actually used for anything.
Still, I want perfection, literally as fast as the day it was installed ;)
There is no perfection in the world. Those things have provided some really good results for me, my family, my friends and certain acquaintances. But if you want your OS to be like it was installed 5 minutes ago, you really have to reinstall your OS and wait for 5 minutes.
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Eh? You want to know the most reliable way of keeping your system at its peak? Easy answer. Think twice what you do. Just like you don't fill your car's gas tank with diesel, or vice versa if you have a diesel car.
If useless left over junk is a virus or malware and a cleaner app is anti-virus app, then the best cure against such junk is not to install them in the first place. Personally I don't give two ****s about any cleaner apps. And usually any performance gain is just a placebo effect. When running such an app really gives a tangible performance improvement, it means you did something wrong. Not even regular defrag gives you the performance improvement you think it does.
Just find yourself the anti-virus and anti-malware app that uses least system resources and is yet effective. MS Security Essentials does both in one package without being bloated or hard on resources. One of the few good things MS has done through corporate buy-outs. http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/
If you're still using XP or older, upgrade to Win7. Or move to linux.
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If you really want to squeeze performance, skip antivirus/antimalware altogether. Get a decent software firewall (or if you aren't moving your computer and are behind a hardware firewall, use that), keep the OS and your programs up to date, use common sense on the Internet and bam: everything works. That's what I do on my netbook. Well ok, I do have Spybot, but I rarely run it, and when I do, it finds nothing.
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Well currently, I simply reinstall Windows + apps like every 5 months or so, depending on how slow the OS has gotten. Just trying to see if there's a better solution than doing the above every 5 months (not that it's a bother to me, but could help less tech savvy ppl I know -- which means they won't be bugging me for a tune-up :no: )
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Been running this machine for around 8 years now. Still as fast as ever. Anti-virus installed but I do manual scans. Spybot again nothing resident loaded. Older version of AdAware also nothing resident (why I don't upgrade it). Simple firewall and that's it. Rest of the rules are don't install crap you aren't going to use or only use once. Don't install anything that isn't from a reliable source. Keep everything that isn't essential from running in the background. Oh and only use IE for updates. Firefox and Thunderbird.
Same rules on my other machines except for special use ones that do have active anti-virus.
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The only way to keep your computer as fast as the moment you install it is to never go on the internet and never install a program.
The problem in most cases is that installing games, utility's, office type programs or any other program is that to work they need to add entries to OS files and additional files to the OS which need to be read whenever bootingthe system in many cases and the related processes need terminating safely while shutting down the system.
Also these entrys and files are in use while the program is starting/running/terminating, this includes all the little icons in the bottom right of your start bar next to the clock and its equivalent in other non windows OS, this all uses memory and cpu and just a few icons down there can make a huge difference, and dont give me the **** about it dont matter on new systems, the load of these programs has increased along with the available resources just like any other program.
In addition to all the mentioned above not all programs terminate cleanly leaving junk in memory and when uninstalled many leave the odd file and file entry in the operating system which still get read wasting memory and processor cycles
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If you really want to squeeze performance, skip antivirus/antimalware altogether.
Not recommended. Recent exploits in Flash have proven that it is not actually necessary to do anything more than browse the web to pick up malware, even with a good firewall and sticking to reputable websites. Anyone running a Windows OS connected to the internet should have an AV package - I recommend Avast or MSE - and a decent router with NAT (and preferably SPI) enabled.
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I'll pause Anti-Virus if I'm running a system intensive program, where every cycle counts, but that's about it, I certainly wouldn't recommend going without them entirely, and they aren't the resource hogs they used to be.
You'll never quite stop the system from accumulating drag over time, all you can really do is try to keep all the plates spinning as best you can, and keep things as clean as possible, but, seeing as I spent until 1am this morning fixing a friends computer whose Registry-Cleaner had managed to clean a load of boot and product-key details off his computer, it's also possible to go too far.
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delete Windows/system32
it will really speed things up.
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The 100% way of keeping windows fast and functional is to not use it for anything.
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Use Norton Ghost or an equivalent (Partimage Is Not Ghost aka PING)... Clean install, get it just the way you want it. Make an image and back the image up to a DVD, dual-layer DVD, or external hard disk. When things go south, restore from the image... 20-30 minutes tops usually, and everything is precisely back the way it was when you created the image. :nod:
EDIT: http://ping.windowsdream.com/
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don't use anything made by symantec. there are free, faster, better alternatives for every single one of their programs. back when i was in the dorms and people would come to me cause their laptops were slow, no.1 solution is to remove whatever norton bull**** came installed and replace it with antivir or avast and spybot search and destroy.
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Norton Ghost is, however, an excellent program. Although ofc you should use the free, open version, PING.
PowerQuest
At the end of 2003, Symantec acquired its largest competition, PowerQuest. On August 2, 2004, Norton Ghost 9.0 was released as a new consumer version of Ghost, which was based on PowerQuest's Drive Image version 7, and provided Live imaging of a Windows system. Ghost 9 continued to leverage the PowerQuest file format, meaning it wasn't backward compatible with previous versions of Ghost. However, a version of Ghost 8.0 was included on the Ghost 9 recovery disk to support existing Ghost customers.
EDIT: I'll second what you said for the rest of Symantec software, however. Absolute crap. :ick:
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I'm surprised nobody has mentioned using virtualization yet.
I have my base computer running Win7 with all the games install, but I only surf the net using a Virtual PC running WinXP.
If the Virtual gets a virus or malware, you simply reboot the Virtual PC and delete changes. (undo disks).
Never have to worry about it slowing down or changing the state, and can stay exactly the same year after year.
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Not recommended. Recent exploits in Flash have proven that it is not actually necessary to do anything more than browse the web to pick up malware, even with a good firewall and sticking to reputable websites. Anyone running a Windows OS connected to the internet should have an AV package - I recommend Avast or MSE - and a decent router with NAT (and preferably SPI) enabled.
Well yeah, but in my personal scenario
That's what I do on my netbook.
The main issues are that
- I want to maximize the time I can go with battery alone
- I don't want any extra programs doing their weird **** in the background, hogging all my Atom power
- I'd really prefer not having to carry a decent router plus a generator/battery for it when I'm on the move. Which is most of the time, when speaking of my netbook usage.
The "desktop" (well ok, a laptop, but the one I never move and that has some processing power) is an entirely different matter and I happily run avast! on it.
Also, an antivirus is yet another program. Programs can have bugs, security holes and whatnot. And since antivirus software counts as a program, it can also have those. We saw a highly invigorating demonstration last spring, where an antivirus *cough*f-secure*cough* was put to test. A file was created. It was constructed so that the scanner would encounter an error while scanning it. After that file (in terms of scanning order), there was an actual malware program. The antivirus was set to scan the files. It scanned the erroneous file and encountered an error. Did the antivirus crash? No. Did it report that there was an error? No. That would be bad business. Who wants an antivirus that encounters errors while scanning. The scanner simply kept quiet and continued its business. As an interesting side effect of the erroneous file, the scanner completely failed to discover that there was an actual malware right after that. So yeah.
don't use anything made by symantec. there are free, faster, better alternatives for every single one of their programs. back when i was in the dorms and people would come to me cause their laptops were slow, no.1 solution is to remove whatever norton bull**** came installed and replace it with antivir or avast and spybot search and destroy.
Replacing the words "symantec" and "norton" with "F-Secure" would produce an equally accurate and true post.
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I also do the Ghost thing but have only ever had to restore after a hardware failure not due to any windows issues. I like to do quarterly and back up the entire drive. Takes longer then 20-30 minutes more like anywhere between 2 and 10 hours but it's worth it.
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i've been running mine for almost 3 years now with no noticeable degredation in performance. i use AVG, spybot, ad-aware, and i have malwarebytes and super anti-spyware, though i rarely use those two. regularly visit windows update, use spybot's immunize, defrag after every major install or driver update. i currently have ad-aware's process protection on but i'll probably turn it off as it has never caught anything as far as i'm aware. semi-regular CCleaner file/registry scans. really the most important thing is just don't install stuff you don't need. check your clicks on the internet, always custom install to make sure they aren't sneaking in bloat. and for the record, i use IE.
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All the programs mentioned are really good and extend the life of the installation by a lot, but there will come a time when it's just too old and clunky and needs to be reinstalled.
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All the programs mentioned are really good and extend the life of the installation by a lot, but there will come a time when it's just too old and clunky and needs to be reinstalled.
My sister is like that. She's had a laptop for like 4 years now with WinXP on it. Original install and loaded down with more crap than it can possibly handle. Everyone tells her that the best and basically only way to change it from snail-slow to decently-fast would be to reinstall Windows. Sometimes, things just get ****ed up. Otherwise, best way would be to create a Limited account and then forget the Admin password; not being able to install anything goes a long way.
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All the programs mentioned are really good and extend the life of the installation by a lot, but there will come a time when it's just too old and clunky and needs to be reinstalled.
I don't agree. I haven't had to reinstall one system of my own due to slowdowns. This goes all the way back to DOS (yea I still have one machine running that). Never had to reinstall any win OS due to slowdowns. Several times due to hardware failure but that is it and those reinstall only went back 3 months at maximum.
Now other people tend to screw their systems up weekly. It's all in the user.
Eventually though all systems will become virtually unusable just due to windows updates. It's almost unbearable to run XP on a P2 or P3 anymore with just a base install, updates to SP3 and basic firewall/anti virus. Just not enough memory on those older systems and they can't be upgraded due to hardware limitations.
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-format your windows partition every 6 months.
-internet explorer is what ive always considered windows' biggest security hole, dont use it.
-if you have a computer you never use, use it for testing new software and general stupid **** (torrents).
-if after evaluating a new piece of software, if it does anything you dont like, dont install it on your main rig.
-dont let anything try to update automatically. modern updates are huge and can easily consume a huge portion of your internet throughput.
-beware of programs you cant exit all the way such as programs with quick launchers. if you can disable those do it, otherwise find an alternative.
-beware anything that runs as a service or installs additional services (usually high end professional programs like max). if you dont need the service you can usually disable it.
-avoid useless programs that dont do anything useful no matter how cute it is. cuteness is evil! it will rape your computer.
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All the programs mentioned are really good and extend the life of the installation by a lot, but there will come a time when it's just too old and clunky and needs to be reinstalled.
I don't agree. I haven't had to reinstall one system of my own due to slowdowns. This goes all the way back to DOS (yea I still have one machine running that). Never had to reinstall any win OS due to slowdowns. Several times due to hardware failure but that is it and those reinstall only went back 3 months at maximum.
Now other people tend to screw their systems up weekly. It's all in the user.
Eventually though all systems will become virtually unusable just due to windows updates. It's almost unbearable to run XP on a P2 or P3 anymore with just a base install, updates to SP3 and basic firewall/anti virus. Just not enough memory on those older systems and they can't be upgraded due to hardware limitations.
Agree 100%. The only windows OS that I have ever had to reinstall on a regular basis was Window ME. I too have never reinstalled my own machine because of slowdowns, nor have I had to do this to any machine in my house. On the other hand, at work, I routinely reinstall windows as a virus removal method (its faster to remove the hard drive, attach it to another machine (which virus and malware scans every file copied), copy the customer data off to a temporary drive (or DVDs and then we can sell it as a backup as well :)), put the drive back into the customer computer, reinstall windows, copy the customer data back, all of which can be done in about 4 hours (depending on how much data needs to be moved) and we know that the virus has been completely eliminated).
Windows ME was never reinstalled because of slowdowns though, it was always because the the OS would start glitching after about 2-3 months. The "reinstall" was done using Norton Ghost, so we would be ready to go in about 30-45 minutes.
Most of the software that "optimizes" you computer is snake oil at best, and destroys the OS's stability (sometimes to the point of making the computer unbootable). The only "cleaning" tool that I use is CCleaner and mostly just to clean up the temp folder at that. But even its registry cleaner (which does not "defrag" the registry) only removes things that it actually knows are safe to remove.
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i never re-install because of slow downs. usually its because of a driver issue or some uninstaller didnt tie up a loose end and left something annoying behind. i know one scenario years ago where i uninstalled a sound card and the driver uninstaller left several icons in the control panel. i could have fixed it with a reg edit, but it gave me an excuse to install a newer os (xp pro 64 i believe).
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So there is really no way for a regular user to keep the speed at 100% unless that person goes to the extremes. Long story short, which I've always known, Windows simply gets slower over time due to regular use. Some softwares you cannot be without these days like antivirus/anti-malware protection. I guess I prefer Mac OSX over Windows when it comes to overall speed over time, though I'm not using it at the moment.
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the real thing it just be careful what you install. never install anything that has given you trouble in the past. if you need to install any piece of software it doesn't hurt to browse through that programs support forums for any common problems or just looking at general reviews of it should give you an idea of what you're installing. when installing it also pays to do the custom installation so you can catch if theyre trying to slip anything under the rug. i often catch installers trying to install browser toolbars or other applications that have absolutely nothing do do with what you needed the program for. you usually can disable those options so it never hurts to continue installing the program. its just something you got to be careful about.
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Setup a password protected admin profile and a standard user account (preferably also with a password). Use the standard user account for everything. You'll learn how windows vista and 7 are fantastic multi-user operating systems and how much of a god send UAC is. It'll also keep your computer pretty damn fresh very easily.
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i myself cant stand to have to punch in a password every time i want to change my screen resolution or update my drivers or generally do something experimental or even stupid. if ids something i want to do then i will do it, and would rather not have the system tell me im a moron. instead i always consider the operating system and its entire partition disposable. since i can spin up one of my custom isos (where ive added any new service packs and drivers for my hardware) off of flash card (im starting to play with network installations as well) and get the os back up to how it was in as little as an hour. its an old skool way of computing but i am more comfortable with it.
granted its not for your typical computer user or even power users (hell ive met admins i didnt trust with an admin account). then again my moms computer runs as an admin account, the whole family uses it with skill levels ranging from total moron to soso power user. the machine has been like that for nearly 4 years, and the only problem its had in that time was that its memory became unseated once. it surprises me that its still working, and id probably go change the account to a regular user if only i wasnt waiting for it to self destruct so i could install windows vista/7.
biggest things ive seen detroy a computer:
-porn
-accessing wares sites (on internet explorer)
-p2p programs
-excessive pirating
-anything cute
-script kiddies doing stupid ****
-angry girlfriends
-exploding voltage regulators
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Add bad capacitors to that list? I just read about this like a month ago while doing some research on why a motherboard would fail. Interesting stuff.
How did this happen?
The reason this problem exists is because of a large-scale industrial espionage foul-up. Some companies decided to steal an electrolyte formula from another competitor. Little be known to them, the stolen formula was incomplete and flawed. They didn't discover this until it was too late and they had manufactured and distributed literally MILLIONS of these flawed capacitors. It was way too late for any kind of recall, and even today, these crappy components are being used in new boards. As I mentioned before, I believe this problem runs much deeper than simply an industrial espionage screw-up, as that incident was exposed years ago, and the problem still exists today. Nowadays, it just boils down to corporate bean counters cutting corners to save money by using shoddy components.
The cause...
This inferior and flawed electrolyte formula was used by a number of component manufacturers that sold to many different, reputable, and well known motherboard manufacturers. This problem isn't isolated to one particular brand of motherboard, and not even isolated to motherboards alone. I won't mention brands, but a VERY popular monitor manufacturer has been plagued with RMA's on some of their monitors that were built using these inferior capacitors. This problem has been reported in computer motherboards, monitors, televisions, radios, and stereo equipment. Through my experiences owning a service center, I've personally seen and serviced a large number of 'high-end' equipment that had prematurely failed capacitors.
More detailed information...
In more technical terms, this is is what actually happens to the capacitor...in the simplest of terms. Think of an electrolytic capacitors as a battery. They are designed to store a charge and release that charge depending on the specific requirements of the circuit. Inside the capacitor there are two metal plates with dielectric material between them, wrapped in paper, filled with acid (electrolyte), and sealed in its housing or 'canister'. What happens is the flawed electrolyte prematurely deteriorates and dries up. When this happens the capacitance value changes, becomes erratic, and can even short completely, which obviously causes the circuit to malfunction. On your motherboard, this results in system instabilities or complete failure of your board.
From a physical standpoint, the capacitor can display a number of symptoms and even have catastrophic failures. Catastrophic failure is a rare phenomenon, but it does happen. The reason is this... A capacitor canister is completely sealed and air tight. When the electrolyte dries it turns from a liquid state into a gas. This gas expands with heat and builds great pressure inside the canister, the theory is the same as a pressure cooker. Of course the obvious happens when that pressure builds too much, and the capacitor will vent. This is what causes the capacitor to 'bulge' or swell up. In a catastrophic failure, the capacitor may actually burst or explode. It can sound like a firecracker going off or sound similar to air escaping from a car tire, depending on how high the pressure has built. A physically failing capacitor has an ammonia-like odor (at least that what I thought it smelled like)... Capacitors that has swollen up are easy to detect, but one that has burst are even more noticeable. It will usually blow from the top and spew its innards throughout your computer case. The innards are mostly paper and any remaining electrolyte, but it sure can leave a mess... Once again, catastrophic failure is a rare phenomenon... It's not dangerous either, as long as you practice common sense safety precautions! If you suspect bad caps, don't put your face near them while the system is powered up, and don't eat the paper or electrolyte that they blow out!
I d e n t i f y i n g - P h y s i c a l D e f e c t s Identifying Bad Caps
Are you wondering whether your board has the bad capacitor plague? Here are some things to look for on your board that are tell-tale signs of bad capacitors. The board in the following photo's is an Abit KT7 Athlon motherboard. This particular board is a rather bad one, yours may not look quite as nasty..
Click the thumbnails in the right column for full size view. The full pictures open in a properly sized popup window, so you may need to disable any popup blockers to view. Don't worry, there is NO advertising on this site!! The item you click on is what's displayed!! No unwanted garbage!
Ok, from looking at those photo's, I'm sure you get the idea. Look for swelling on the tops of the caps, and also along the base of the caps. Take note of the brownish crap oozing from the bases, that is electrolyte . In some cases, you may also catch a whiff of a strange odor permeating the room, and this time it wasn't those refried beans you had for lunch. The smell kinda reminded me of an ammonia-like smell. Whatever it may smell like to you, the aroma is very distinctive!!
You may also notice that the capacitor isn't sitting flush to the board. If they're tilted and pointing in every which direction, that is not normal. The bases of good capacitors will be sitting flush to the board, and the cap should be at a near perfect 90 degree angle (perpendicular) to the actual PCB (Printed Circuit Board). Like I mentioned above, this particular board is one of the worst case scenario's... Beware that not all capacitors will bulge, swell, and burst. They can fail and you would never know by looking at them.
Click for larger images.
(http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/kt7/image001_sm.jpg) (http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/kt7/image001.png)
(http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/kt7/image002_sm.jpg) (http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/kt7/image002.png)
(http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/kt7/image003_sm.jpg) (http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/kt7/image003.png)
(http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/kt7/image004_sm.jpg) (http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/kt7/image004.png)
I d e n t i f y i n g - S y s t e m E r r o r s & S y m p t o m s
Here are some functionality symptoms and issues your system might display if your capacitors are failing. Please note that these symptoms can occur even if your capacitors are not showing the physical signs demonstrated above. This is a rare occurrence, but it does happen. Most of the time, there will be physical signs of failure.
System Faults:
Motherboard fails to POST.
Memory Test Fails.
System randomly and/or constantly reboots itself.
Fails to fully boot (or even install) Operating System.
System randomly and frequently freezes.
Random & frequent 'Blue Screens of Death'
BSoD or hard freeze under heavy drive activity (Either RAID, SCSI, or standard ATA)
CPU temps abnormally higher than usual under typical or less load.
*CPU VCORE & other system voltages are erratic or far out of tolerances.
Resetting the system after a freeze and the system will not repost.
(You have to completely power down then power back up.)
*CPU VCORE & System voltage issues can also be associated with a faulty power supply. Before you decide your caps are bad, ALWAYS try a known good and high quality power supply.
If your capacitors display any of the above symptoms, there's a chance that you've got the plague. The more sporadic and random that the symptoms occur is usually a good sign of bad caps. However, you should double check any and all drivers and other hardware FIRST! Some of these symptoms can easliy be mistaken for other computer problems! Although, if you've already done that and your system is still acting like this, there's a good chance that you may be faced with breaking out the 'ol soldering iron!!
F r e q u e n t l y A s k e d Q u e s t i o n s
QUESTION:
Is my motherboard worth repairing?
ANSWER:
That all depends, but I have to say for the most part YES. For example, the Abit VP6 motherboard. The VP6 is more of a specialized and costly motherboard. The average repair cost for a VP6 is about $50.00, far less than the $150.00+ replacement cost IF you can even find one, and then pray its capacitors are good. If your board is part of a server array or has proprietary characteristics, more than likely it is well worth repairing. Also, many fail to consider all the hidden costs of upgrading their PC's core components. For example, compatible RAM, new CPU, new hard disks, case, power supply, and the biggest bite in the ass, new Operating System. If you're running a legit OEM copy of Windows XP or newer, you must purchase a new license if you change cores, as you will not be able to reactivate the old OS when you reinstall it on the new core. All that can easily add up to hundreds, even thousands of dollars!
QUESTION:
Is my power supply the reason my motherboard has this problem?
ANSWER:
That's possible, but most likely not the true root of the problems. Low-end power supplies can emit what's known as 'ripple', which is caused by poor filtration amongst the PSU's rectifier and regulation modules. Ripple is A/C oscillation slipping through your PSU (Power Supply Unit) to your motherboard's regulation circuits. Motherboard regulation circuits, also known as VRM's (Voltage Regulator Modules), were designed to further regulate the clean voltages from the PSU, not filter out 'dirty power'. Dirty power thus causes unnecessary stress on its polarized component, such as capacitors, ultimately resulting in premature failure. If your board has poor quality capacitors, the faulty power supply just sped up the inevitable, your board would have failed anyway. With ANY computer system, I strongly recommend a sufficient power-rated and quality brand power supply. I can't emphasize this enough!
QUESTION:
I think my computer was struck by lightning or a power surge, will this cause my capacitors to fail?
ANSWER:
Yes, lightning and power spikes are a leading cause of component failure amongst computers and many other electronic devices. However, of you think that lightning has struck your computer, the damage usually goes much deeper than just fried capacitors. I've personally seen lightning destroy motherboards, power supplies, video cards, and most commonly modems.
QUESTION:
My capacitors are not bulging, but my system has become unstable and displaying many of your listed symptoms. Are my capacitors bad?
ANSWER:
It is very possible. The reason the capacitors 'bulge' is because the inferior electrolyte dries, turning from a liquid state into a gas. Since the capacitor is a sealed component, the expansion of the gas from heating will cause the tops and bottoms of the capacitor to swell. Some capacitors in the earlier stages of failure may not swell up (or bulge), but are far out of their tolerances, and have failed all the same.
QUESTION:
If I send my motherboard in for repair, how long will it take before I get it back?
ANSWER:
While turnaround time will vary slightly depending on your type of board, the required capacitors needed for repair, and my current workload, the turnaround time for Standard Repair Service is usually no more than 15 days in-shop from the day I receive it. This includes the cap replacement and full burn-in testing. I you need it faster, I also offer Express Repair Service, which will cut the time down to NO MORE than 4 days in-shop. The full procedure of what I will do to your board is outlined HERE, and pricing is outlined HERE.
QUESTION:
Do you warranty your capacitors against failure after I get my board back?
ANSWER:
Yes, I do offer a limited warranty on the actual components. The full details of this warranty are outlined HERE. I use very high-end replacement capacitors, and to be honest, I've never had a board come back on me with failing capacitors again.
QUESTION:
My motherboard was unstable out of the box when I bought it new. Did I get a new board with bad capacitors?
ANSWER:
More than likely NO, your capacitors are not bad. Before you jump to the conclusion that your capacitors are bad, there are TONS of other factors that will make your motherboard unstable. First and foremost is power supplies! Also make sure you have the latest drivers for everything, and that the motherboard and all your peripherals are compatible with each other. Usually, your board will gradually go from perfectly stable and then become unstable as time goes by if the capacitors fail. Think of capacitors as batteries, they weaken with age. Normal electrolytic capacitors will last for many many years before becoming weak, but when they're manufactured with poor materials, they fail very prematurely, resulting in the headaches that brought you here to read this.
QUESTION:
My motherboard is still under its factory warranty. If I send it to you, will my factory warranty be voided?
ANSWER:
Yes. Although I am a very skilled technician, I am NOT an authorized service representative for any manufacturer. If your motherboard is covered by the vendor in which you purchased it or by the manufacturer, send it to them!! If I service it, the factory warranty will be voided!!
QUESTION:
I sent in my SFX system and noticed that not all of the original Rubycon or Panasonic caps were replaced, why?
ANSWER:
On many of the SFX systems, such as Dell GX and SX 270 and 280 systems, it is not necessary to replace them all. If they used Panasonic or Rubycon caps initially, there's only a few in problem areas of the system that will cause you any issues, those are the ones that will be replaced. I do check the others just to be sure, and if they're the least bit questionable, they are replaced. If your system has Nichicon brand caps, they will all be replaced regardless, as those particular caps are problematic as it is. Rest assured, even if all the caps aren't replaced, I'm confident enough in their performance and my experience that they will pose no problems, and I will cover them under my warranty.
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ive had lots of stuff fail because of ****ed up capacitors. most motherboards these days seem to all use solid state capacitors, which have all but replaced electrolytic caps in computer hardware (cant remember the last time ive seen one on a mobo).
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ive had lots of stuff fail because of ****ed up capacitors. most motherboards these days seem to all use solid state capacitors, which have all but replaced electrolytic caps in computer hardware (cant remember the last time ive seen one on a mobo).
i on the other hand had a relatively old mobo, (Asus A7N8-X) with 12 blown capacitors still in relative working condition (only the integrated LAN failed of all the components)
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That was a really good board, don't expect that to stay that way with swollen and blown caps though.
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after having two $300+ asus mobos fail on me in a row, i decided to never buy mobos from asus anymore. you can get a mobo for half that price that does the same thing.
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i myself cant stand to have to punch in a password every time i want to change my screen resolution or update my drivers or generally do something experimental or even stupid. if ids something i want to do then i will do it, and would rather not have the system tell me im a moron.
Not a very good attitude. You see i can understand turning off UAC when you run as admin. But, UAC is the password prompt that comes up when you try to do something administrative from a standard user account. My guessing here is that you wouldn't be able to use linux with the whole super user thing, because the only thing microsoft did here with UAC was totally rip off the linux super user graphical front ends like gksu and kdesu.
Well, when a virus or hacker gets beyond your firewall and AV (this will happen eventually) you will have guaranteed down time whereas someone like me not running as admin never will. Standard user accounts have a much more restricted permissions set, which means if a virus or hacker does get onto your computer, then they'd need to know your admin password to gain access to system files. Whereas running as admin all the time, something malicious hops on, (and it eventually will) the permissions of the admin account will tell the malicious thing it has access to system files.
You equate yourself running from a standard user account with UAC to being treated like an idiot, whereas i equate anybody running as admin all the time to truly be the idiot.
Here's the other way to look at it since your feeling like an idiot thing is so overpowering. Software gets installed when you approve to be installed whenever you enter a password. The software you don't want installed you don't enter a password and it doesn't get approval and stays dormant until you get rid of it. The only thing malicious that can run in a standard user account is a rootkit. And mind you UAC is a great tool, so much better than XP's runas crap.
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That was a really good board, don't expect that to stay that way with swollen and blown caps though.
i'm not actually using it, gave it off to a "friend" a year ago :p
they had a few blow up during use too, so i was happy in a really... well. schadenfreude i guess.
yes, i'm a sadistic bastard sometimes.
@Nuke, i dont know whats the status of Asus boards these days, but back then when i bought said board it wasnt exactly el-cheapo, and was ranked as one of the more stable boards for Bartons... (AMD Athlon 2800+, real clock 2.02GHz IIRC)
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ABIT ruled back in that day. i took a barton + ABIT nf7 all the way through Far Cry before i needed more juice.
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the answer to the original question is yes
its called hyperos
http://www.hyperossystems.co.uk/
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i myself cant stand to have to punch in a password every time i want to change my screen resolution or update my drivers or generally do something experimental or even stupid. if ids something i want to do then i will do it, and would rather not have the system tell me im a moron.
Not a very good attitude. You see i can understand turning off UAC when you run as admin. But, UAC is the password prompt that comes up when you try to do something administrative from a standard user account. My guessing here is that you wouldn't be able to use linux with the whole super user thing, because the only thing microsoft did here with UAC was totally rip off the linux super user graphical front ends like gksu and kdesu.
Well, when a virus or hacker gets beyond your firewall and AV (this will happen eventually) you will have guaranteed down time whereas someone like me not running as admin never will. Standard user accounts have a much more restricted permissions set, which means if a virus or hacker does get onto your computer, then they'd need to know your admin password to gain access to system files. Whereas running as admin all the time, something malicious hops on, (and it eventually will) the permissions of the admin account will tell the malicious thing it has access to system files.
You equate yourself running from a standard user account with UAC to being treated like an idiot, whereas i equate anybody running as admin all the time to truly be the idiot.
Here's the other way to look at it since your feeling like an idiot thing is so overpowering. Software gets installed when you approve to be installed whenever you enter a password. The software you don't want installed you don't enter a password and it doesn't get approval and stays dormant until you get rid of it. The only thing malicious that can run in a standard user account is a rootkit. And mind you UAC is a great tool, so much better than XP's runas crap.
well when i see your worst case scenario happen, then il think about using the normal account. however in all my years of computing ive never had a system die because of hackers or because of a virus. back when i was a computer tech the old axiom was "99% of all failures are software related", in contrast my last several major failures were hardware related. if im doing something where the likelihood of running into a virus is high, i use one of my less important computers. when those get viruses, i ghost em. now id i did have a catastrophic failure, it wouldn't interrupt my workflow at all, id just use one of the other computers with one of my backup drives. and frankly id probably have more fun fixing my computer than actually using it. :D
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Now, that's the thing i was also pointing out. You wont experience as much down time or problems with a standard user account. But, this is toward the different end of the spectrum because properly password protecting stuff and running as a standard user will keep the malicious **** out, and if not that, malicious **** won't even get a chance to load (unless you made it load on purpose).
In vista i just turned on the firewall, password protected the accounts, and just ran through the forest with no virus protection (the only reason for antivirus in this case would be for cleaning out the files with dormant viruses).
In your case with software failure and hardware failure. I can totally understand that being affected by the hardware problems more often. There's so many brands out there. The one i find to be trustworthy is msi. But, i've had great runs with biostar/bioware? And gigabyte is pretty awesome.
As far as software problems go, the big reason why a lot of people still run xp for stability as opposed to vista/7 (but for the most part i found vista to be pretty stable with sp1 when i had it). And the big reason why i don't run ubuntu (which is a gigantic snapshot of debian unstable), and the big reason i run mepis (based off of debian stable with sufficient backports if i do need a new version of something). Bleeding edge software will leave a bad taste in your mouth (as all of the ubuntu releases ever come about do except for lts's).
You take hard drive images regularly. Cool, you're pretty prepared. That's something i need to do, but mepis doesn't like remastersys.
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If you want your laptop to run fast offline Jeff, one thing I found was to shut down stuff you don't need at the time. 'Cos my XP laptop for killing time on the train is an old 512MB hand-me-down, I put together a couple batch files for that. Gets it down to about 120MB memory utilisation, leaving the rest for whatever I want to do.
I guess with a bit of service tweaking you could do the same thing for any NT-based OS.
Speed up:
net stop "avast! antivirus"
net stop "System Event Notification"
net stop "COM+ Event System"
net stop "Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)"
net stop "Network Connections"
net stop "avast! iAVS4 Control Service"
net stop "Computer Browser"
net stop "Cryptographic Services"
net stop "DHCP Client"
net stop "Distributed Link Tracking Client"
net stop "DNS Client"
net stop "Error Reporting Service"
net stop "Event Log"
net stop "Help and Support"
net stop "IPSEC Services"
net stop "Print Spooler"
net stop "TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper"
net stop "Windows Defender"
net stop "Application Layer Gateway Service"
net stop "AST Service"
net stop "Automatic Updates"
net stop "Belkin High-Speed Mode Wireless G USB Driver"
net stop "DCOM Server Process Launcher"
net stop "Fast User Switching Compatibility"
net stop "HID Input Service"
net stop "Network Location Awareness (NLA)"
net stop "Protected Storage"
net stop "Secondary Logon"
net stop "Security Center"
net stop "Server"
net stop "SSDP Discovery Service"
net stop "System Restore Service"
net stop "Task Scheduler"
net stop "Terminal Services"
net stop "WebClient"
Go back online:
net start "avast! antivirus"
net start "avast! iAVS4 Control Service"
net start "Computer Browser"
net start "Cryptographic Services"
net start "DHCP Client"
net start "Distributed Link Tracking Client"
net start "DNS Client"
net start "Help and Support"
net start "IPSEC Services"
net start "Print Spooler"
net start "TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper"
net start "Application Layer Gateway Service"
net start "AST Service"
net start "Automatic Updates"
net start "Belkin High-Speed Mode Wireless G USB Driver"
net start "COM+ Event System"
net start "DCOM Server Process Launcher"
net start "Fast User Switching Compatibility"
net start "HID Input Service"
net start "Network Connections"
net start "Network Location Awareness (NLA)"
net start "Protected Storage"
net start "Secondary Logon"
net start "Security Center"
net start "Server"
net start "SSDP Discovery Service"
net start "System Event Notification"
net start "System Restore Service"
net start "Task Scheduler"
net start "Terminal Services"
net start "WebClient"
net start "Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)"
Not recommended. Recent exploits in Flash have proven that it is not actually necessary to do anything more than browse the web to pick up malware, even with a good firewall and sticking to reputable websites. Anyone running a Windows OS connected to the internet should have an AV package - I recommend Avast or MSE - and a decent router with NAT (and preferably SPI) enabled.
Well yeah, but in my personal scenario
That's what I do on my netbook.
The main issues are that
- I want to maximize the time I can go with battery alone
- I don't want any extra programs doing their weird **** in the background, hogging all my Atom power
- I'd really prefer not having to carry a decent router plus a generator/battery for it when I'm on the move. Which is most of the time, when speaking of my netbook usage.
The "desktop" (well ok, a laptop, but the one I never move and that has some processing power) is an entirely different matter and I happily run avast! on it.
Also, an antivirus is yet another program. Programs can have bugs, security holes and whatnot. And since antivirus software counts as a program, it can also have those. We saw a highly invigorating demonstration last spring, where an antivirus *cough*f-secure*cough* was put to test. A file was created. It was constructed so that the scanner would encounter an error while scanning it. After that file (in terms of scanning order), there was an actual malware program. The antivirus was set to scan the files. It scanned the erroneous file and encountered an error. Did the antivirus crash? No. Did it report that there was an error? No. That would be bad business. Who wants an antivirus that encounters errors while scanning. The scanner simply kept quiet and continued its business. As an interesting side effect of the erroneous file, the scanner completely failed to discover that there was an actual malware right after that. So yeah.
don't use anything made by symantec. there are free, faster, better alternatives for every single one of their programs. back when i was in the dorms and people would come to me cause their laptops were slow, no.1 solution is to remove whatever norton bull**** came installed and replace it with antivir or avast and spybot search and destroy.
Replacing the words "symantec" and "norton" with "F-Secure" would produce an equally accurate and true post.