Replacing Hardware: Know your Video Slots!

Few things can be as easy as replacing hardware. For example; you may notice that the onboard (which means it is welded to your motherboard and isn't separate) video on your computer is kind of jerky, or that your favorite game seems to have problems displaying certain graphics.

So, you think, I need a new video card!

You go, you buy a video card and you plug it in? Right?

Well, not exactly. In the past few years we've seen about 5 different slot configurations for video cards. There was PCI, then AGP, then PCI Express and then the different KINDS of PCI Express. It can get very confusing.

It's important to know what type of slots you have on your motherboard before you run out and invest in a new card.

Video Cards are usually at the top of the board of slots and they usually are a little different configuration.

Sometimes, the manufacturer will print on the motherboard what type of slot it is. Most of the time, they won't. You can write down the numbers from the motherboard and google them, which will likely help in determining what type of slot interfaces you have. Or you can google your Computer Make/Model to find the configuration information.

Next, you want to make sure you are getting the right amount of Video Memory. This is what allows games to swap graphics quickly, so the more memory you have, the better a game will load. 256MB is a passable amount today, but 512 MB cards are popular, and 1 GB cards are now becoming more accepted. A gig? Of video memory?

Games today require more and more. And games lead the innovation. Someday, normal programs will demand more video memory too, as the customer demands more and more innovation. Sure, it might be overkill for now, but someday, you'll like the extra kick.

So, you think you have the correct card, you plug it in and...nothing happens.

Well, your computer likely is configured to use the onboard video. In order to change that, you might have to go into your BIOS and change it. What's that? That's the splash screen you see when you boot up. There may be some kind of software setting you have to make to say "Don't use the onboard video, use the card I just put in."

Once you do that, you still aren't done.

The card, even when it starts displaying the video of your operating system, might need drivers to really display the video as it was intended. That means finding the drivers or loading them from the CD that the card came with. Don't have the CD? They are almost always available online, and you already know, from my previous article, how to find a driver. It might be hard to go online using a less than optimal video setup, but it's almost always just inconvenient to navigate the pages at a low resolution.

Newer video cards have big fans on them to disperse heat. Having lots of room for air flow is something to consider as well. If you have a very small form factor desktop, that means that there aren't many slots, everything is squished together, and upgrading components will be hard. This is why I almost always recommend the larger tower style desktop machines. They aren't as pretty, but they are very easy to tweak.

If you have the video card in, and it seems to be working, but occasionally will flake out, it's likely an air flow problem. One way to handle this is to remove the cover off of one side. It's low tech, it's not pretty, but it works.

Another way is to upgrade your fans. That's a task for another day.

How to Troubleshoot Sound

So, the computer my nephews are using doesn't have sound. This is often something that is forgotten about on a reinstall of Windows. It is because Windows doesn't have a lot of the specialized sound drivers that are needed for the internal sound cards. It is...in my opinion...kind of annoying.

First....check your cables. Green cable from the speaker goes into the green jack in the back of the machine. Also, check THE entire back of the computer for other sound cards. Sometimes, you have two places to plug in the cable, and you are plugging them into the wrong one.

Next, check to make sure, in the lower right hand corner of your Windows, that your sound isn't simply muted. It looks like a speaker and if you click it you should be able to adjust the volume.

Next, go to Start, Control Panels, System, Hardware, Device Manager.



Click on Sound, Video and Game Controllers.

There should be stuff here. If not, check in Other Devices. Are there unknown items in Other Devices? If so, chances are one of them is your sound card.

So, you have to make it understand that it is not just an Other Device and is actually a sound card. How do you do that?

You get the driver. If you have an internet connection, you can go to the manufacturer and look up the model number. In my nephew's case, they do not have an internet connection so they'll have to do this on their Mom's computer and transfer the data using a USB memory stick.

So, in my nephew's case, the computer is a Dell Dimension 2400. (I think).

If I go to the http://www.dell.com/support and click on Drivers & Downloads, tell it what model you have and you'll see a page come up with your specific drivers. Not ever manufacturer is this good about finding their drivers.

Click on Audio. Look not for the Patches and Upgrades, but the Driver. Download it. In my nephew's case, copy it to the USB key to take it to the computer, or just run it to open the setup program for the audio driver. It should find it and install the driver, thus moving it from "Other Devices" in the Device Manager to Sound, Video and Game Controllers.

It may want to reboot. And that is how you fix sound on a Windows machine.

My nephew told me he wanted my job.

This weekend, I was asking my nephews what they wanted to do when they grew up. Last time I asked, my 13 y.o. nephew said he wanted to be a plumber. Now, he wants my job.

So, we started his training. I showed him how to replace and upgrade RAM himself.

I showed him how the cover came off, and I showed him where the slots were and how the RAM chips have slots that match the slots.

"So, do you think you can put in some if I sent you an upgrade?"

He said yes. I ordered the RAM from newegg.com and I'm shipping it directly to him.

The easiest way to learn is to do.

Something Technical about DSL

Okay okay. Something technical.

A question I get asked a lot is how to get high speed internet. I don't know every possible thing about high-speed internet as we have a fabulous LAN at work that I don't have to do much to make work. Someone else takes care of that.

And I know about my own high-speed internet at home because I set it up and I fix it when it breaks.

I can't really answer questions about someone else's network.

But...

I can tell people how it looks and how it works....

For example: DSL.

DSL works over your existing phone lines. Your existing phone lines use 2 of the four wires in your phone cable. (Sure, take out a phone cable and look at it. I'll wait.)

The other two aren't used unless you have a DSL converter in the jack. Then all 4 are in use; two for your phone and two for your internet. And they don't interfere with each other, usually.

The cable from the phone jack with the converter plugs into the DSL converter box (aka cable or dsl modem) and the network cable that comes out can be plugged into the network connector on the back of your computer.

Or...you can plug it into a wireless access point to allow you to use your laptop without any cables. Or...you can attach it to a router to allow you to have multiple computers connected.

And that's DSL.

Knowing your Stuff

People coming to a tech god or goddess are coming because they think you know more than they do.

But one thing is certain; no one person can track the amount of technical change that occurs on everything technical all of the time. If someone comes go me and asks a question that I don't know the answer to, I'm the first to say that I don't know. Why? Because I don't want them to think that I know everything either. It puts the asker and the tech person on equal footing and it helps relate to each other.

However, a tech person must know where to find out things they need to know. Not just Google either, which can be an excellent tool. Manuals, drivers, troubleshooting pages online, tools on CDs which run tests that can identify problems; all of these things can help you identify if it is a bad fan making that noise or something worse.

If someone asks for my opinion on something like a camera or a computer, chances are good that I've never heard or it or don't know how it is different from any other thing out there. But what do I do? I look at the reviews. I examine the specifications. I compare what I DO know to this new product. And then I give my opinion.

So, it's not what you know, but instead what you CAN know.

Don't be afraid to try

When I interviewed for my current job, I was asked how I learn things. I replied "I learn things by trying them and seeing what happens. There's a lot to be said from learning from your mistakes."

That was the right answer.

A tech person is often confronted with puzzling situations. Most tech people with fiddle with it, with a little of a theory of "why" in mind, and fix it.

There's the shotgun approach to troubleshooting, where you try everything under the sun to fix something, but it will just waste time. I suggest a more directional troubleshooting. If something is wrong with the network connection, start with your network components. 90% of the time the problem is the cable anyway, so start there. You'll find your answer quick enough.

But don't be afraid to get your hands dirty and see what happens. You can always restore it to the way it was. (Because you've created a backup, because you are careful and responsible, right?)

How Do I Get Your Job

This blog is my attempt to help out those who have an interest in working in the computer field, and the knowledge to do so, but haven't been successful in getting hired doing it. I get asked how to get into this field all of the time.

I work for a large group of people in a tower, and I manage technical support requests and web instruction and consultation for them.

Sound like something you'd like to do? Read on.

My degree is not in computer science. This is not a bad thing. I rarely have to do anything that they'd teach in a computer science curriculum. In fact, most people in my kind of position have nothing to do with this. If you have a computer science degree, you are likely able to do programming and more advanced work than I do.

When I started in this field, I took a pay cut to work, answering phones, for a technical support call center. This is one of those giant cubicle based phone farms. There were a limited number of ways to troubleshoot the product that we were handling (dial-up networking).

The technical support farm that I worked on had a phone tree of suggestions. When you call a technical support farm, they are likely following a web page like a flow chart.

It doesn't take a lot of computer knowledge. In fact, when I started, I didn't know much. The company that hired me was panicking because they had received a large contract with a major dial-up provider and didn't have enough people to answer the calls. I knew about basic computer stuff (mostly Mac) and I was hired to do PC support. They had to teach me everything about Windows.

And I sucked up as much as I could. I wasn't a good tech support person. My phone calls took too long. I didn't often fix the correct problem. I was more likely to try to keep the person on the phone and work on the problem until it was corrected than try to get them off the phone quickly.

This doesn't mean that this skill isn't valuable. It's a customer service skill, and that is really what I look for in a potential employee. I don't care if they have a lot of experience, but I do look for an ability to related to the person with the problem and an ability to do what it takes to make the person happy, no matter what the cost.

That's why I'm called the Angel of the Tower.