David L. Farquhar, computer security professional, train hobbyist, and landlord
If you’ve built a few PCs, or repaired a few PCs, you have some idea how important the power supply is. If you buy any old tin box that fits, you can probably expect to run into some problems. Here’s some advice on buying power supplies, including reliable power supply brands.
Do AC adapters go bad? The answer surprises many people, but the answer is yes. The question, then, is how to lengthen their life expectancy and what to do if they do eventually go bad.
An 8086-series microprocessor, the 8088, powered the original IBM PC. Its direct descendants power PCs to this day. Not only that, they power modern Macs too. This was always controversial, especially running Mac OS on Intel chips. Why? What are the disadvantages of the 8086 microprocessor?
My UPS started squawking one Friday evening, the tell-tale sign that the battery was dead or dying. When that happens, it’s time to either replace the UPS battery, or replace the entire UPS. Hopefully you can just replace the battery. Here’s how to replace your UPS battery.
Some SSDs, particularly Western Digital and Sandisk-branded drives, have the words “3D SSD” on the label. This isn’t purely a marketing term. But what is a 3D SSD, exactly?
There was a big dustup a while ago about power failures killing SSDs. It turns out that when this happens, you can usually fix it. If your SSD died, here’s how to recover or fix your dead SSD in 61 minutes using the power cycle method.
Yes, it really does take 61 minutes to revive a dead SSD, but you only have direct involvement for a few minutes. The rest of the time, you can do something else while you wait for the drive to do its thing.
You can get used 8440p laptops pretty cheaply because HP Elitebook 8440p overheating is rather common. Symptoms of overheating include unexpected reboots, shutting down, and bluescreens.
The problems with the cooling system are unfortunate. They have nice keyboards and they’re easy to work on, so they’d be nice laptops if they didn’t overheat so much. Here’s how to improve their cooling so you can get a bargain.
I finished a modernization project where I replaced all of my 100-megabit gear with gigabit-capable gear, including my cabling and router and access points. But after I replaced my last 100-megabit switch, I found we had two Windows 7 desktops refusing to speed up. Here’s how to fix a gigabit card only connecting at 100mbps.
First, if you know you’re not connecting at gigabit, you probably already know how to do this. But if not, here’s how to check your network speed in Windows 10.
USB flash drives are pretty much a necessity these days. They’re far more convenient for moving files around than optical discs, and they make good backup devices. But not all USB flash drives are created equal. Here’s what to look for in a USB flash drive.
Here’s a tip: I don’t just use USB flash drives for transporting data and backups. I like to keep a modest-sized USB flash drive plugged into my router, turning it into a small NAS. It gives me a convenient, reliable place to back up data from any of my computers.
There are any number of methods out there for cleaning copper contacts, but some of them are safer than others. Here’s my favorite method to thoroughly and safely clean copper contacts. It’s very thorough, safe, and cheap.