Sterling Creations

How To Diagnose and Fix an Overheating Laptop http://www.howtogeek.com/67660/how-to-diagnose-and-fix-an-overheating-laptop / Links and other information useful for screenreader users inserted by Dan. One of the most common issues with aging laptops is overheating, something many people aren’t sure how to fix. We’ll help you figure out what’s causing the heat and how to keep your notebook functioning at a lower temperature. Overheating computers can cause a lot of problems, from seemingly random blue screens to data loss. You might not even know that it’s the root of your issues, and before you know it you have a burnt-out motherboard on your hands. Let’s go step by and step and see how to deal with overheating computers. We’ll be dealing primarily with laptops, but most of the same principles apply to desktops as well. Find the Heat Source Air Flow and Heat Transfer The first thing you need to do is figure out where the heat is coming from. No air flow means no heat transfer, so figure out where the air vents are. Are they blowing hot air, or is there barely a breeze, even when the fan is overtaxed? 1. Most commonly, an accumulation of dust in the vents and fans through the cooling channels will be culprit in restricting air flow. Cleaning it out will work best. a. Turn your laptop upside-down and look at what you’ve got. b. Unscrew the fan doors and you should be able to lift out the fan and clean everything with a can of compressed air. c. If you find that a fan is spinning erratically, you may want to try lifting the sticker off of the axle and putting a drop of mineral oil to keep it going. d. You can also try to look up the part number from your laptop’s user manual or by searching your laptop model number online. Once you have that, you can find replacements pretty easily on eBay and the like. 2. Dying Batteries There are plenty of different types of batteries, and many different schools of thought on battery maintenance and life span, but one thing that seems pretty unanimous is that batteries aren’t meant to be stored at 100% or 0% capacity. I know plenty of people who buy laptops and always keep the charger in, never actually using the battery. You can definitely expect to kill your battery’s health this way, since you’re essentially storing the battery when it’s full. Bad batteries don’t just give out really quickly, they can generate heat. You can buy replacement batteries pretty easily online, even for laptops that are four years old. You just need to know what model your computer/battery is. If you can’t find one, you may consider using your laptop as a desktop and remove the overheating battery completely from the equation. 3. Persistent Overheating If you’ve taken the air vents and battery out of the picture and you’re still having problems, then you might have a more persistent heat issue. Sometimes a dusty hard drive can cause heat problems and data loss. Some laptops just “run hot,” even without a major load on the CPU. Try cleaning out these areas as best you can before you move on to another solution. a. Dust under the processor and RAM doors to get rid of any dust and debris. b. If you’ve got a netbook or a laptop without compartments underneath, things might be more difficult. You should be able to find instructions for getting the back off so you can clean things properly. Lighten the Load If your computer’s heat is related to how much data the CPU chugs through, you might want to manage your processes better. You can use the Windows Task Manager to see what’s most intensive, then use Autoruns to see all your startup processes and trim them down. Read the article found at the link below to learn how to complete this process. http://www.howtogeek.com/79803/see-all-processes-during-windows-startup-usin g-autoruns/ If using a screenreader, when accessing the above link, press the letter h once to reach the start of the article. You can also change the order of the startup processes that are necessary. The staggered loading of software will help balance your processor’s load. An article explaing this proceedure cn be found at the link below. When using a screenreader, press the letter h once when reaching the page to reach the start of this article. How to Control the Order of Startup Programs in Windows http://www.howtogeek.com/52043/how-to-control-the-order-of-startup-programs- in-windows/ You can install and run Process Explorer to see the files that each process has open and its associated CPU usage over time. This program can be found at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653 When reaching the link shown above, pressing the letter h if using a screenreader will land the cursor on a heading entitled ” Process Explorer v15.40″ Three lines below this heading is a download link. Mouse users will find a link entitled ” Download Process Explore This can help you decide what to get rid of and what to spare.” We’re also big fans of CCleaner, which allows you to clean history and cache files as well as manage your startup applications quickly and easily. The program can be found at the link below. http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER If using a screenreader, press the letter h once when reaching the URL shown above. The cursor will be placed on a heading entitled ” Ccleaner” Arrow down four times to reach the download link. Mouse users will find a “download” link just above the “by now” link. You can free up some much needed space that way and get a little more efficiency out of your OS. If you want to keep an eye on the temperature of your laptop, I recommend Core Temp for Windows. The program is free and can be found here. http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ When reaching the URL shown above, do the following to reach the correct download. 1. Press control plus the letter f. 2. Type in the next line exactly and hit enter. Core Temp 1.0 3. Arrow down once to the download link and hit enter. 4. You will be presented with other add ons through the installation. Just say no to them. 5. You may also be asked to update your browser as happened to me. It’s an extremely light-weight app that won’t pressure your CPU, but lets you keep an Core Temp isan extremely light-weight app that won’t pressure your CPU, but lets you keep an eye on your internal temperature. You can tell it to display the temperature when it’s in the system tray. One of the best features is under the Options menu: Overheat Protection. Here, you can define a temperature that will trigger your computer to Sleep, Hibernate, or Shutdown. Core Temp also works as a Windows Gadget, though if you’re overheating from CPU-intensive processes, I’d turn Desktop Gadgets off. Another thing you can do is turn that fancy Aero interface off, An article explaining how to achieve this is found here. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-aero-on-windows-vista/ If using a screenreader, press the letter h once accessing the URL above to land on the start of the article. and you can create a shortcut to quickly toggle it if you can’t live completely without it. An article entitled ” Create a Shortcut to Enable/Disable Aero Transparency in 7 / Vista” explaining how to achieve this action is found here. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/create-a-shortcut-to-enabledisa ble-aero-transparency-in-vista/ If using a screenreader, press the letter h once accessing the URL above to land on the start of the article. If you’re using Linux instead, you might want to consider a more spartan distro. I’ve personally had a lot of success with Crunchbang; This program can be found here. http://crunchbang.org/ If using a screenreader do the following to get the program. 1. Once reaching the URL above, press control plus the letter f. 2. Type in the line below and hit enter. Download 3. You are placed on a page with varying downloads for Crunchbang. a clean install leaves me with Openbox as a window manager, a nice dock, and some nice desktop effects, along with only 80MB of RAM usage. It’s based on Debian, so there’s a good amount of compatibility with software. If you run Arch, you might want to try ArchBang instead, which is the same thing but built on Arch instead of Debian. This program can be found here: http://archbang.org/ Behavior Changes Laptop owners have a lot of luxury by not being tethered to a chair and desk. We develop a lot of habits, like browsing in bed, that can actually work against of computers. A lot of laptops are designed with their air vents on the bottom for some ridiculous reason, so setting it down on soft bedding or carpet for prolonged use is a bad idea. You’d be surprised at how quickly the heat can build up. If you this is a habit, you might consider investing in a laptop stand to keep the air flow unobstructed. CoolLift Laptop Stand If interested, visit the page below to buy one online. If none of the above methods helped cool your laptop sufficiently, you might consider using a cooling pad, There are several available at Wal-mart, Staples, or Best Buy. The authors of this article recommend the “coollift laptop stand” found online at Amazon.com. the direct link is below. http://www.amazon.com/HandStands-Cool-Lift/dp/B00028VKLI/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8 &qid=1310107510&sr=8-10 The fans will help direct cool air into the underside vents of your laptop. Some even come with USB hubs and other bells and whistles. If your vents are placed on the sides or elsewhere, but the bottom of your notebook is still really warm, you can try out a thermal (passive) cooling pad. Targus Thermal Cooling Pad That can be found at Amazon.com . These are soft pads filled with special crystals that are designed to conduct heat away from the source. You can find thermal cooling pads in smaller sizes, too. I used a 9″ one for my old netbook and it did wonders for me. Sure, these will make your laptop less mobile, but if it helps with overheating then at least you’ll have a laptop that runs. Repurpose It If you can’t use it as a laptop anymore, consider repurposing it. The compact motherboards fit great inside of older and smaller computer cases and cardboard boxes. These kinds of rigs are great for in-drawer HTPCs, closet-servers, or under-the-desk mounted workstations. You’ll have to be a bit more careful if you leave the guts exposed, but depending on the room, it can cut down on dust problems. You can also regulate air flow a bit better and mount some standard computer fans in clever places, like in the back and sides of the drawer or desk. Another idea is to try running a very light-weight version of Linux, and use it for something that isn’t very CPU-intensive, like a file server. The lack of processor-heavy tasks will keep the temperature low, but you can still get some use out of it. And, if you’re only ditching the battery, then you can leave things inside the case and stick it on a shelf as a head-less (SSH and command-line only) server. The possibilities are endless! _____ I hate seeing machines go to waste. My last project took a seven-year-old overheating Dell Inspiron 9100 and turned it into a cool-running under-the-table HTPC. Consult our guide to diagnosing and fixing an overheating laptop for help with cooling down a hot laptop.]]>

Can Dust Actually Damage My Computer? http://www.howtogeek.com/126956/can-dust-actually-damage-my-computer/ Thousands of hours per year of fan-driven air movement combined with electrostatic charges make computers veritable dust magnets. Is all that dust simply a nuisance or is it actually harmful? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser-a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-drive grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Holy Sheet poses a question about dust and computer hardware: During the last few days, my screen froze a couple of times. After opening the chassis I discovered plenty of dust beneath my mother board. I wonder if that can cause short circuits. Can neglecting to spring clean your PC damage it? Let’s investigate. The Answers SuperUser contribute Daniel R. Hicks offers some assurance and insight on the matter: Dust is a problem from the standpoint of blocking fan vents, or, if deep enough, actually insulating parts, causing overheating, but unless it contains substantial amounts of corrosive or conductive material (in which case you shouldn’t be breathing it), it won’t damage the electrical components (beyond any overheating damage). What could happen, in some circumstances, is condensation inside the box, mixing with dust and creating a conductive sludge. This would generally only occur if you bring the box in from an extremely cold environment (below 0C, roughly) into a humid indoor environment. The protection from this is to wrap the box tightly in plastic before bringing it indoors, and leave it wrapped for a couple of hours, while it has time to warm up. Fellow contributor EdH offers some field experience to corroborate the previous assessment: No way. Unless it over heats. Trust me, I have cleaned server motherboards deployed in Afghanistan for months with inches of dust caked on, still running fine. And as long as you keep them cool, they will survive. Now, optical drives. That’s a different story. While you’re at very little risk of a dust blanket shorting out your hardware, heat is the eternal enemy of computers and a good cleaning will help keep things cool (and extend the life of your computer in the process). For more information on how to clean your computer and peripherals safely and effectively, check out the following resources: 1. How To Thoroughly Clean Your Dirty Desktop Computer http://www.howtogeek.com/72716/how-to-thoroughly-clean-your-dirty-desktop-co mputer/ If using a screenreader, when arriving at the link above, press the letter once and the cursor will land at the start of ” How To Thoroughly Clean Your Dirty Desktop Computer.” 2. Why You Should Never Vacuum Your PC, http://www.howtogeek.com/57870/ask-how-to-geek-why-you-should-never-vacuum-y our-pc-converting-books-for-the-kindle-and-controlling-multiple-computers-wi th-one-keyboard/ If using a screenreader, when arriving at the link above, press the letter once and the cursor will land at the start of ” Why You Should Never Vacuum Your PC.” 3. How to Thoroughly Clean Your Keyboard (Without Breaking Anything) http://www.howtogeek.com/65073/how-to-thoroughly-clean-your-keyboard-without -breaking-anything/ If using a screenreader, when arriving at the link above, press the letter once and the cursor will land at the start of ” How to Thoroughly Clean Your Keyboard (Without Breaking Anything)”]]>

rob.schifreen If you’re at your PC or laptop right now, you’re probably looking at a screen that’s set quite bright. Probably with a blue tinge, and a colour temperature of around 6000K (if you’re into such things). Such settings are great during the day, as they match natural sunny daylight. But as the day fades to dusk, and the colour of the natural light fades to a more yellow hue, your PC screen stays the same. Which can irritate your eyes, hinder your ability to relax at night, and generally affect your mood. Which is where a really neat piece of software comes in. It’s called F.Lux and, in a nutshell, it changes the colour of your PC screen automatically in line with the time of day. As I write this, for example, it’s 8pm where I live, and dark outside, so my screen is rather yellow and reminiscent of incandescent lighting. Tomorrow morning it’ll be back to sunlight shades again. I discovered this program a couple of days ago when a friend of mine posted on Twitter that this software had, literally, saved his eyesight. That’s a recommendation if ever I heard one. F.lux is free, and is a 0.5 MB download from www.justgetflux.com for all recent versions of Windows. It’s free of malware and other nasties, according to Web of Trust and VirusTotal. When you first start, you’ll need to program in your location. Once that’s done, just sit back and enjoy computing without the eye strain. And if you ever need to revert back to natural colours temporarily, such as if you’re editing a photo, there are options to handle that. You can choose to disable the software for an hour with just a couple of clicks. If you’re a heavy nocturnal computer user, give this a try. http://www.techsupportalert.com/files/images/pc_freeware/hot_finds/flux.jpg]]>

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-record-calls-iphone/ In a time where our phones can order pizza, hail cabs, and detect our heartbeats, you’d think it’d be easy to record a phone call. Unfortunately, it’s not. Despite what you may think, recording calls isn’t as easy as pressing a button on your iPhone, so in order to get it done you’ll need to install an app. There are tons of these littered across the App Store and the Web , and while many of them promise crystal clear recordings and nonexistent pricetags, very few live up to these claims. To help you pinpoint the right app for your needs, we’ve scoured the Internet in search of the best call recorders and offered up a quick overview of our favorites in the paragraphs below. Here’s how to record calls on an iPhone: **Record Incoming Calls If you’re looking to record an incoming phone call, your best bet is using Google Voice. Like all of Google’s products, Voice is completely free. The only caveat is that Google doesn’t allow you to record outgoing calls – only incoming ones. This makes it rather inconvenient if you’re hoping to record any conversations that you yourself need to initiate, so if you need to record an outgoing call, skip to the next section of this page. To start recording incoming calls with Google Voice, you first need to set up a account. This is extremely easy – just head to voice.google.com and follow instructions. Once your account is up and running, the next step is enabling call recording so you can actually record and save stuff. Here’s how that’s done: 1.) Go to your Voice homepage. 2.) Click the gear icon in the top right or tab to this choice and hit enter. Then select Settings from the dropdown menu. 3.) Click on the Calls tab. 4.) In the Call Options section, check the box that says Enable Recording. Once you do this, you can record incoming calls by pressing 4 on your phone’s keypad during the call. This will trigger an automated voice to notify both parties that the call is being recorded. To stop recording, simply press 4 again or end the call. After you stop recording Google will save the conversation to your Voice inbox, which is where all your recordings can be found/listened to/downloaded. **Record Outgoing Calls When it comes to recording both incoming and outgoing calls, you’ll need something other than Google Voice. Unfortunately there aren’t too many free options out there, but if you don’t mind shelling out a few bucks, your range of choices widens substantially. We’ve tested out quite a few call recorders, and based on what we’ve seen, here are your best options in each category: Free: Call Recorder by NoNotes.com https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/call-recording-by-nonotes.com/id522637615?mt =8 If you’re only looking to record one call, this app is probably your best bet. After you download it and sign up for a NoNotes account, you get 30 minutes of call recording for free each month. If you go over this monthly limit you’ll need to purchase additional minutes, but the good news is NoNotes offers a variety of different pricing options . If you only need a little bit more time, you can pay 25c per additional minute, or you can buy in bulk at get 100 minutes for $10. As an added bonus, NoNotes also offers low-cost transcription services, which are ideal if you’re recording an interview. **Pay-per-minute: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/call-recorder-intcall/id521680097?mt=8 NoNotes is a good option, but if you’re looking for cheaper pay-per-minute rates, IntCall might be a better choice depending on the country you’re calling to. Additional minutes can be purchased for $5, $10, or $20 dollars, and the cost per minute varies in each country. We definitely advise checking out the price list before you buy anything, but most countries can be reached for .10 or 0.20 cents per minute, which makes this a bit more of a bargain than the pay-per-minute plans offered by NoNotes. The only downside is that it works through a VOIP line, so you need to be connected to a Wi-Fi network in order to use it. **One-time payment: TapeACall Pro https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tapeacall-pro-record-calls/id577499909?mt=8 If you don’t mind shelling out some money up front for a good app, spring for TapeACall Pro. For just ten bucks, you get an unlimited amount of call recording time, regardless of who or where you’re calling. It works a bit differently than the other two listed here – you initiate a recording by placing a call to whoever you want, putting them on hold for a moment, then opening the app and hitting the record button. Once you do all this, the call is merged and stored with a remote recording service. When you’re done recording, you can access the stored audio file right from your phone.]]>

does this well, displaying the battery’s approximate wear level, the capacity it was designed to have, and the capacity it currently has. You can find this third party tool at http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/battery_information_view.html An example of Battery Info View’s results can be seen in a screen shot at the http://www.howtogeek.com/172362/how-to-know-when-its-time-to-replace-your-la ptops-battery/below link. in the above mentioned screenshot, we see that the battery was designed to hold 86,580 mWh of energy. However, the battery’s current capacity at full charge is only 61,261 mWh. In other words, the laptop’s battery only holds 70.8% of its original capacity when fully charged. Some batteries may display more information, such as the number of charge and discharge cycles they’ve been through. Calibrating Your Battery How to Calibrate Your Laptop’s Battery For Accurate Battery Life Estimates So you’re using your laptop and, all of the sudden, it dies. There was no battery warning from Windows. (I will post an article on “how to Calibrate your battery”on Friday October 11.) The information above may not be completely accurate if your battery requires calibration. For example, we had a battery that reported it was almost dead. Windows warned us that it was time to replace the battery and the battery appeared to be at 27.7% wear level according to its reported capacity. After we calibrated the battery , Windows stopped warning us and the battery’s reported capacity went back up to 70.8%. The battery didn’t actually gain any additional charge, but the calibration helped the battery’s sensor actually detect how much capacity was in the battery. If Windows says it’s time to replace your battery, be sure to calibrate it first before checking its actual wear level. If you don’t, you may replace a battery that’s still in good enough shape. That would just be a waste of money. Why Your Laptop’s Battery Capacity Declines Batteries need to be cared for properly – they’re a critical part of our mobile devices and battery technology. Laptop batteries decline due to a number of factors. Heat, usage, age – all of these things are bad for batteries. Batteries will slowly die no matter what – even if you put your battery in a closet and never touched it, it would slowly lose capacity due to age. However, if you never use your battery – say you use your laptop at your desk most of the time and it gets rather hot, which is bad for the battery – removing the battery can certainly help prolong its life. To make your laptop’s battery last longer, read the explanation of battery life myths and facts to be posted on Friday October 11 2013, to know what works and what doesn’t. Replacing Your Battery If your laptop has a user-serviceable battery – that is, one you can remove on your own – you can replace your battery fairly easily. If your laptop doesn’t have a user-serviceable battery, you’ll need to contact the laptop’s manufacturer so they can crack your laptop open and change its battery for you. Assuming you have a user-serviceable battery, you can order a replacement battery for your laptop model online. Don’t just head to eBay and buy the cheapest third-party batteries available – buy official batteries from a reputable company. Aftermarket batteries are often built on the cheap, with cut corners and insufficient testing. They can be dangerous – a cheap, counterfeit, and improperly designed battery could literally go up in flames. There’s no point in obsessing over your battery’s capacity, it was designed to be used, after all, but it’s something to keep one eye on. If your capacity is dropping more quickly than you’d like, that may be a sign that you should be treating your battery better. Perhaps you’re exposing it to too much heat if you leave your battery in while playing demanding, strenuous PC games on your laptop.]]>