PC Memoirs

Normally I don’t write about movies in my blog, but this one is special. Last night I saw a made-for-TV movie called Pirates of Silicon Valley, which tells the story of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and their respective companies, Apple and Microsoft. The movie concentrates on the early history of Apple and Microsoft, specifically the establishment of the two companies, the creation of the personal computer and the beginning of the rivalry between the two.

The movie is based on the book Fire in the Valley: The Story of the Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. Even though the movie didn’t have a big budget and very famous actors – you may have heard about Anthony Michael Hall and Noah Wyle though – it looks great and it’s very interesting. More importantly, it is quite accurate.

It is made partly as documentary – the actors who portray Bill’s and Steve’s friends narrate the history in interview style – and partly as a regular movie. They call this a docu-drama.

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I am considering replacing my desktop PC. My Pentium IV 2.4Ghz system is getting slow and I think I deserve an upgrade. I know, P4 is so old now :), but it has done the job so far. I have also been waiting for Windows 7 to come out, because there was no way I was going to use a system with Windows Vista. This is a great opportunity to upgrade both my PC and the operating system.

I was thinking about getting an all-in-one PC, mainly because they look nice and save space, but at the same time I was not very familiar with these models. I had to do some research. This is what I found out:

Advantages of all-in-one PCs:

• Saves space – All components are in one box, with the monitor. Fewer components to look after.
• Portable – If you don’t have a laptop and you want to take it somewhere else, it’s easy.
• Fewer cables – Since the monitor is integrated into the system, you don’t need the power cable and VGA cable for the screen.
• Some models include touch screen technology. You don’t need to use the mouse all the time.
• Good alternative to expensive Apple iMacs

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When you run the System Configuration Utility, you get an Access Denied error as soon as you make changes and click on Apply.

I had to repair a very troublesome PC that had this error. I wanted to make it load Windows XP faster, so I attempted to run msconfig in the hope of removing a few programs from the startup list. But as soon as I made my selection and clicked on Apply, this message came up: “An Access Denied error was returned while attempting to change a service. You may need to log on using an Administrator account to make the specified changes“. I restarted the PC and logged in as administrator, but I received the same error.

I researched this problem on the Internet and found out that it is probably caused by the HP printer driver HPZ12. Many people have tried the following solution and solved the problem, but I was not so lucky, and this PC was indeed a HP model. However, it didn’t have this particular driver.

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I already wrote a post about possible solutions for laptops shutting down unexpectedly, but this one is specifically for desktop computers.

If your PC turns off shortly after it boots up and it doesn’t let you do any work, you might want to try some of these possible solutions:

1. Boot into Safe Mode with Networking and scan your hard drive for viruses and spyware. It is quite possible that some spyware is responsible for this malfunction. If you don’t have a good scanning program, download Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware. Malwarebytes lets you do a quick scan.

2. Open up your case and see if the CPU fan is working and if the heatsink sits correctly. You might also want to check if there is enough thermal compound between the heatsink and the CPU (check your CPU manual to confirm that your model needs thermal compound). Thermal compund looks like cream and is used to cool down the CPU.

3. Maybe the power supply is faulty. Use a spare one to test this.

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Today I don’t have any new tips and tricks for my readers, but I do have an interesting Web site to recommend. Over at Freeware Mission I found a great post about 10 free programs that can speed up your computer. I hope you will visit Freeware Mission and check out the list.

Here are the programs the writer recommends:

• EasyCleaner
• CCleaner
• Wise Registry Cleaner
• Wise Disk Cleaner
• FreeRAM XP Pro
• RamBooster
• TuneXP
• Advanced Vista Optimizer
• Startup Optimizer
• Memtest86

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