Thursday, February 24, 2005
FUNNY :: Unix Humor
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Thanks Micker!
(If you aren't all 1337 and stuff, you can translate that mess here.)
Read more!
Thanks Micker!
(If you aren't all 1337 and stuff, you can translate that mess here.)
Read more!
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
WINDOWS :: How To Secure Your Windows Box By Thinking Like A Linux Nerd
Oh my God. The sky is falling. Again.
Word among the pasty-faced representatives of the seedy underbelly of the Internet has it that there's a wonderful new exploit ready to make the rounds, for those of us running Windows XP, ANY version.
This little monster hides itself on your system, and could do any number of things, depending on which mutation of the original you have the misfortune to pick up. What it does isn't half as bad as the fact that even if you discover something amiss on your system, you're unlikely to ever find it and whack it dead. This new exploit allows a bug using it to hide itself as part of the "kernel", the very heart of Windows itself. Hiding this way, you will never see it's process running in the process manager (ctrl-alt-del), and there isn't an anti-virus or anti-spyware solution in existence that can detect and remove it, because for all intents and purposes, once it's on your box, it's PART OF WINDOWS.
Sounds scary, right? Sounds like more doomsaying by Microsoft-bashing weirdos, right? Well, it is, and it is. This time, they're right. Want to defend against it before it has its way with your hard drive? Start thinking like a Linux nerd. That's right, you heard me.
Now don't freak out just yet. I didn't say you had to start actually *running* Linux, just think like the users do. How to do that? Stop using your machine as an Administrator.
"But wait," someone says, "I'm not running as Administrator, I'm running as Stinky Wizzleteats," the voice in the back proclaims proudly.
Here's the thing, if you can do whatever you please in Windows, without it ever once griping about permissions, you ARE using the system as an Administrator, and that's dangerous. One of the reasons Linux is so secure is that, used properly, the average user is logged in as just that: a user. In Linux, a regular user doesn't have permissions to install things at random and move files anywhere he/she pleases. It's an inconvenience, but consider this: if the user himself can't install arbitrary software, then a website being accessed by that same user can't either! This concept is the crux of what will save the common Windows installation from getting hosed hard when the user least expects it.
Most Windows XP users are playing around on their machine, using the standard login that's setup for them when they bought the machine from the store, or using the standard account setup provided with a fresh Windows install. These accounts are Admin accounts, giving the user, and any website he views full install/remove capabilities. Up until now, that's been an acceptable risk to most people.
Now, however, it's the difference between keeping your important stuff, or surrendering it all to a mysterious mass-deletion or forced formatting of the drive.
The consequences are horrendous for continuing to use our Windows XP machines they way we have grown accustomed to, but the rewards for changing that a little bit are many. Here's what you need to change, and how to deal with it from here on out:
1) Using the machine as you usually do, open the Control Panel, then open the User Administration section.
2) Create an account with a unique name that you will recognize as being an admin account. (You can't use Admin or Administrator, unless you installed Windows yourself and know the core admin password)
3) Give the new account Administrator priveleges.
4) Create a password for the new account. I suggest a password with shifted numbers in it. So "2124" would become "@!@$". This makes it hard for outside would-be hackers to "brute-force" your password by throwing a dictionary at it, because those weird characters don't exist in everyday words.
5) Now, logout of your current account and login to the new Admin account.
6) Go back to the User Administration panel, and change your old account's permissions to User.
7) Now logout of the Admin account and go back to the regular old account.
This procedure will force you to click the icon for your account when you first start the machine, and if you set one, enter a password. Logging in using this method will be a little frustrating at first, since you won't be able to install new programs without first jumping over to the Admin account, but thanks to Windows XP fast user switching, it's pretty painless to do. You will also run across certain instances where you will be forbidden from moving files to critical areas, like the Windows, Program Files, and C:/ directories for example. You will still have complete and total access to all secondary drives and partitions though.
"Why in God's name did I ever do this," you're asking now, "this is such a pain in the butt to use!"
Well, yes, admittedly, it takes a little more effort to do a few things that you used to be able to do without a second thought. However, the shortcomings are extremely few, and the benefits this usage model offers far outweigh any minor inconveniences. Now, even if you're still madly in love with Internet Explorer, and won't listen to anyone tell you how crappy it is, you will be able to surf mostly worry-free now.
Bear in mind, this method won't stop some of the spyware and adware and viruses from getting onto your system, so be sure to continue to protect yourself with the programs you've always used to eliminate them. (You DO use those programs, right?)
But now, the truly nasty ones, the ones that do their best to destroy your precious files or make changes to important Windows files will be unable to do their thing. You rule, you lucky sop you.
//Edit//: Okay, you know what, I tried this method out for a couple of weeks, and it just got to be too much of a pain in the ass. I won't blame you if you go back to the old method of using Windows. The problem appears to be that for about 3/4 of the important functions that you will likely be attempting to use every day, Windows forces you to switch users over to the Administrator account, instead of simply asking you to login in using the Admin password, like Linux/Unix normally does. Since Windows DOESN'T do this, trying to secure your system by using it like a Unix box introduces more frustration than you may be willing to deal with.
Read more!
Word among the pasty-faced representatives of the seedy underbelly of the Internet has it that there's a wonderful new exploit ready to make the rounds, for those of us running Windows XP, ANY version.
This little monster hides itself on your system, and could do any number of things, depending on which mutation of the original you have the misfortune to pick up. What it does isn't half as bad as the fact that even if you discover something amiss on your system, you're unlikely to ever find it and whack it dead. This new exploit allows a bug using it to hide itself as part of the "kernel", the very heart of Windows itself. Hiding this way, you will never see it's process running in the process manager (ctrl-alt-del), and there isn't an anti-virus or anti-spyware solution in existence that can detect and remove it, because for all intents and purposes, once it's on your box, it's PART OF WINDOWS.
Sounds scary, right? Sounds like more doomsaying by Microsoft-bashing weirdos, right? Well, it is, and it is. This time, they're right. Want to defend against it before it has its way with your hard drive? Start thinking like a Linux nerd. That's right, you heard me.
Now don't freak out just yet. I didn't say you had to start actually *running* Linux, just think like the users do. How to do that? Stop using your machine as an Administrator.
"But wait," someone says, "I'm not running as Administrator, I'm running as Stinky Wizzleteats," the voice in the back proclaims proudly.
Here's the thing, if you can do whatever you please in Windows, without it ever once griping about permissions, you ARE using the system as an Administrator, and that's dangerous. One of the reasons Linux is so secure is that, used properly, the average user is logged in as just that: a user. In Linux, a regular user doesn't have permissions to install things at random and move files anywhere he/she pleases. It's an inconvenience, but consider this: if the user himself can't install arbitrary software, then a website being accessed by that same user can't either! This concept is the crux of what will save the common Windows installation from getting hosed hard when the user least expects it.
Most Windows XP users are playing around on their machine, using the standard login that's setup for them when they bought the machine from the store, or using the standard account setup provided with a fresh Windows install. These accounts are Admin accounts, giving the user, and any website he views full install/remove capabilities. Up until now, that's been an acceptable risk to most people.
Now, however, it's the difference between keeping your important stuff, or surrendering it all to a mysterious mass-deletion or forced formatting of the drive.
The consequences are horrendous for continuing to use our Windows XP machines they way we have grown accustomed to, but the rewards for changing that a little bit are many. Here's what you need to change, and how to deal with it from here on out:
1) Using the machine as you usually do, open the Control Panel, then open the User Administration section.
2) Create an account with a unique name that you will recognize as being an admin account. (You can't use Admin or Administrator, unless you installed Windows yourself and know the core admin password)
3) Give the new account Administrator priveleges.
4) Create a password for the new account. I suggest a password with shifted numbers in it. So "2124" would become "@!@$". This makes it hard for outside would-be hackers to "brute-force" your password by throwing a dictionary at it, because those weird characters don't exist in everyday words.
5) Now, logout of your current account and login to the new Admin account.
6) Go back to the User Administration panel, and change your old account's permissions to User.
7) Now logout of the Admin account and go back to the regular old account.
This procedure will force you to click the icon for your account when you first start the machine, and if you set one, enter a password. Logging in using this method will be a little frustrating at first, since you won't be able to install new programs without first jumping over to the Admin account, but thanks to Windows XP fast user switching, it's pretty painless to do. You will also run across certain instances where you will be forbidden from moving files to critical areas, like the Windows, Program Files, and C:/ directories for example. You will still have complete and total access to all secondary drives and partitions though.
"Why in God's name did I ever do this," you're asking now, "this is such a pain in the butt to use!"
Well, yes, admittedly, it takes a little more effort to do a few things that you used to be able to do without a second thought. However, the shortcomings are extremely few, and the benefits this usage model offers far outweigh any minor inconveniences. Now, even if you're still madly in love with Internet Explorer, and won't listen to anyone tell you how crappy it is, you will be able to surf mostly worry-free now.
Bear in mind, this method won't stop some of the spyware and adware and viruses from getting onto your system, so be sure to continue to protect yourself with the programs you've always used to eliminate them. (You DO use those programs, right?)
But now, the truly nasty ones, the ones that do their best to destroy your precious files or make changes to important Windows files will be unable to do their thing. You rule, you lucky sop you.
//Edit//: Okay, you know what, I tried this method out for a couple of weeks, and it just got to be too much of a pain in the ass. I won't blame you if you go back to the old method of using Windows. The problem appears to be that for about 3/4 of the important functions that you will likely be attempting to use every day, Windows forces you to switch users over to the Administrator account, instead of simply asking you to login in using the Admin password, like Linux/Unix normally does. Since Windows DOESN'T do this, trying to secure your system by using it like a Unix box introduces more frustration than you may be willing to deal with.
Read more!
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
HARDWARE :: Why The F&@# Won't My PC Start Up?!
We've all experienced it at one time or another. Sit down to your trusty PC, hit the power button, and everything spins up, but nothing else happens. Or worse yet, nothing happens at all. Or worst of all, it's already running, and suddenly everything shuts down with a rude and quite spiteful pop from the speakers as the screen goes blank and the drives and fans spin down.
It's scary, it's frustrating, and dammit, it's just not fair! Well fear not, here's an easy-to-understand guide to help you get started with troubleshooting the problem. We'll approach the problem from the three different ways you could experience it.
Everything's roses, and then POP
This is the most scary failure most users experience, because it's not just a simple error popping up on the screen, where it might be possible to recover and continue as if it never happened. One minute you are working on your machine, happy as a clam, and the next minute, *pop*, it's all gone. The screen is suddenly off, the speakers click, and everything just generally goes away without so much as a "kiss my butt". The first thing you should do at this point is remember to NOT PANIC. This type of failure seems pretty dramatic, but more than likely, everything's fine, and will require a fairly simple procedure to repair.
1) Look around the room at other electrical devices. Are they still working? Could the power have gone out in the room? In the whole house? If it's off in just your room, it's probably just a tripped breaker. If you have 3 power strips plugged into each other, and all the outlets are full, that's probably the issue. Spread out the power plugs a bit. Plug a power strip into separate outlets around the room, and if you need more in one location, get a bigger power strip with more outlets available. If your rig tripped the breaker, that's a pretty serious indicator that you could cause a fire if you continue with things as they are.
If power is out throughout the house, then DUH, it's probably due to failed electrical service to your house. Call a neighbor and check on their power. Chances are that they are in the dark too.
On another note, take note of what happened just before the system went down. Did power go low for a moment (brownout)? If so, get thine posterior with your PC to the nearest computer shop. Brownouts are the #1 killer of power supplies. After the Great US Blackout of 2003, computer repair stores' workloads went through the roof with power supply replacements. Sometimes whole systems had been nailed by the brownout immediately preceding the final loss of power. Brownouts are the best reason to turn up your nose at all the pretty surge protectors, and go with a nice UPS (uninterruptable power supply) unit instead. These units not only provide beautiful, reliable surge supression, they also fill in the "missing" power during a brownout, thereby saving your computer's keister. You can get a good UPS from APC for as little as $49.99.
2) Check the power strip the computer itself is plugged into.
It's possible the surge protector (you ARE using a surge protector and not just a power strip, right?) is doing its job and cut out when it got a jolt through the house's power lines.
It's also important to remember that unless you paid stupid amounts of money for a really nice surge protector, you should replace them every couple of years. They DO wear out, and can start tripping out for seemingly no good reason. The reason is that the surge detection element in the protector can get worn down from carrying power, and can start getting oversensitive, detecting even the slightest variation in power, and tripping out when there really wasn't any threat.
If you did buy a nice, higher-end surge protector, congratulations, it just saved you some serious trouble. Wait a few minutes before resetting the surge protector, just to be certain that all the spikes have made their way through the electrical system. After that, it should be safe to turn off the power supply on the computer (or unplug it altogether if you don't have a power switch on the power supply itself), and reset the surge protector. Bring your system back up and watch it closely for any ill effects.
Incidentally, it's not all that unreasonable to believe that the stupid cat just walked on the surge protector's power switch, turning it off. Unless you don't have a cat, in which case you should be giving the dog the old fish eye. Stupid dog.
3) Is the computer itself doing anything weird?
"Weird" could mean anything out of the ordinary such as:
- Both power and HDD access lights always on, even though the system is completely offline
- Nothing happens when you hit the power button
- The power light comes on for a moment, then goes back off
In all of these cases, it usually indicates that your computer's power supply has just taken a dump on you. Shuffled off the mortal coil. Pushing up daisies. Dead. In this case, it's probably no big thing, unless, that is, you happen to be lucky enough to have one of those Dell, Compaq, HP or Gateway computers that uses a proprietary design for the power supply. For the rest of you, it's a little easier. In either case, get your butt (and your computer) to your local mom and pop computer store and see if they can help you. If you know what time it is on the street, (and in your pc's case), then shamble, strut and otherwise hightail it to your local computer parts supply store for a replacement. You bigbox (Dell, Compaq etc) folks might want to take your computer to the store for a double-check on the power supply design anyhow. Some are open to easy swaps, others are a royal pain. Power supplies range in price from $19.99 to $119.99 and up. I suggest you dig deep and buy the best you can afford, unless you enjoyed the shock of your system giving you the finger in such a glorious fashion, and look forward to experiencing it again. Soon.
4) Was there a nice *pop* and burning smell from the computer itself?
Yep, definitely the power supply. This isn't all that uncommon with some of today's cheapie computers and cases, unfortunately. It usually isn't fatal to the guts of your machine, but I recommend having it checked out thoroughly anyhow. You can never be too careful with your (expensive) baby.
Just hit the power button and...wtf?
Uh oh. The damned thing worked just last night. What happened? Okay, so you sit down, hit the power button on your computer, expecting it to make some whirring noises and beep happily before getting down to brass tacks and setting to the task of booting up. But nothing happened at all. No pretty lights. No reassuring whirring. Not even a freaking happy little beep! Here's what you need to check:
1) Is power working in the room? The house? The surge protector?
Read through the above situation to work through possible causes with house and surge protector power.
2) Does switching the PC power supply off/on have any effect?
Sometimes a PC's power supply can get a little skittish and trip out, thinking it got too hot inside. Resetting it like this can sometimes get it up and happy again. It's also possible that if you have a cheap and/or old surge protector (or worse yet, just a simple power strip) the computer might have gotten kicked in the crotch with a power spike, and killed the power supply (and possibly worse). Take the poor system to your local computer store for a diagnostic check. You could just replace the power supply, but in this case, you could have more damage than that on your hands. A power surge can not only kill a power supply, it can sometimes go right past it and nail the other internal components as well. Have your machine professionally checked out, so that way, if anything's going to blow afterward, it happens right there where the replacement parts are sold.
3). Did you hear a *pop* and smell something burning the first time you hit the button?
Damn. Extremely bad timing, but this, again, is usually nothing more than the power supply telling you where to stick it as it proceeds to go all nuclear on your butt. Not usually fatal to the computer, but semi-violent power supply deaths such as this have the capability to kill other important (and potentially more expensive) things inside the case. Have the PC checked out for additional damage, and see about a new power supply. Again, buy the best you can afford to avoid dealing with this situation again within the system's foreseeable future.
Power on... are you on yet?
This situation can be confusing. You turn the computer on, and you get the effect you've come to expect: pretty lights, whirring and... wait, where's the beep? Where's all the gibberish on the screen while it counts the megabytes of memory I put in there? What does "No VGA signal found" mean on the screen? Uh oh. This is potentially more serious than a simple power supply failure. This situation could also go like so: power on, pretty lights, whirring noise then everything shuts right back down. We'll go over potential causes.
1) Power supply
Yes, that power supply could be getting ready to get all medieval on you. Some power supplies can get weak as they get older, or more specifically, the thermal relay that protects the power supply from overheating gets weaker, making it more sensitive. Sometimes a power supply gets delusional in its old age, thinking its getting too hot when it really isn't but shutting down anyway. A power spike or brownout can also cause the power supply to get flaky like this. In this case, replacing the power supply should be all that's needed.
2) Motherboard
Oh crap, now it's getting technical. Well, actually, it's not all that bad. At least, not as far as you can take it while sitting in your room with your poor PC all opened up on the floor. Unless you have a lab full of electronics testing equipment, replacement parts, and the know-how to use it all, the best you can do in this case is a visual inspection. Look at the tops of all those little tower-thingies sticking up from the motherboard. Those are capacitors, and the tops of them should be as flat as day-old beer. If you see any that are bulging or cracked on top, the motherboard is toast. There's nothing you can do about it, except to replace the motherboard. It happens sometimes, thanks to the global push for cheaper technology. Your only potential saving grace is the warranty on the motherboard, IF it's still under warranty.
Also check for burns or scorching on any of the power connectors leading to the motherboard. If you see anything unusual, take the PC to a repair shop. Burned plugs are signs of possible deeper damage.
Bad board. BAD board!
3) Processor
Absolutely no way to test this possibility, other than to replace the processor with another compatible chip. The only way you can identify a bad proc is to pull it out of the machine, and look for burn marks. If you see any, you can usually relax, secure in the knowledge that you just found the problem. Overclocking nerds see this problem more often than any of them will admit.
Mmm mmm mmm... Toasty!
4) Storage drives
This includes optical drives, as well as hard drives, floppies and Zip drives. Sometimes a drive can fail so badly inside, that they send weird power fluxes back up to the power supply. When this happens, the power supply never sees the "power good" signal that it normally waits for from the motherboard before it lets everything fire up completely. To test for this, unplug ALL of your drives, then plug in the main boot drive, and turn the system on. If it boots, turn off the computer and plug in the next hard drive, and repeat the process until you find the offending piece of crap... I mean hardware. If you find a drive that's causing this problem, whatever you do, DO NOT think that it will ever go away on its own and suddenly work again. You could end up with a cute little teeny tiny FREAKING FLAME OF FIRE spouting from the board of the hard drive. This can also drive your power supply over the edge, putting you right back at square one. *sigh*
Look, my hard drive's on f.. OH MY GOD!!
Read more!
It's scary, it's frustrating, and dammit, it's just not fair! Well fear not, here's an easy-to-understand guide to help you get started with troubleshooting the problem. We'll approach the problem from the three different ways you could experience it.
Everything's roses, and then POP
This is the most scary failure most users experience, because it's not just a simple error popping up on the screen, where it might be possible to recover and continue as if it never happened. One minute you are working on your machine, happy as a clam, and the next minute, *pop*, it's all gone. The screen is suddenly off, the speakers click, and everything just generally goes away without so much as a "kiss my butt". The first thing you should do at this point is remember to NOT PANIC. This type of failure seems pretty dramatic, but more than likely, everything's fine, and will require a fairly simple procedure to repair.
1) Look around the room at other electrical devices. Are they still working? Could the power have gone out in the room? In the whole house? If it's off in just your room, it's probably just a tripped breaker. If you have 3 power strips plugged into each other, and all the outlets are full, that's probably the issue. Spread out the power plugs a bit. Plug a power strip into separate outlets around the room, and if you need more in one location, get a bigger power strip with more outlets available. If your rig tripped the breaker, that's a pretty serious indicator that you could cause a fire if you continue with things as they are.
If power is out throughout the house, then DUH, it's probably due to failed electrical service to your house. Call a neighbor and check on their power. Chances are that they are in the dark too.
On another note, take note of what happened just before the system went down. Did power go low for a moment (brownout)? If so, get thine posterior with your PC to the nearest computer shop. Brownouts are the #1 killer of power supplies. After the Great US Blackout of 2003, computer repair stores' workloads went through the roof with power supply replacements. Sometimes whole systems had been nailed by the brownout immediately preceding the final loss of power. Brownouts are the best reason to turn up your nose at all the pretty surge protectors, and go with a nice UPS (uninterruptable power supply) unit instead. These units not only provide beautiful, reliable surge supression, they also fill in the "missing" power during a brownout, thereby saving your computer's keister. You can get a good UPS from APC for as little as $49.99.
2) Check the power strip the computer itself is plugged into.
It's possible the surge protector (you ARE using a surge protector and not just a power strip, right?) is doing its job and cut out when it got a jolt through the house's power lines.
It's also important to remember that unless you paid stupid amounts of money for a really nice surge protector, you should replace them every couple of years. They DO wear out, and can start tripping out for seemingly no good reason. The reason is that the surge detection element in the protector can get worn down from carrying power, and can start getting oversensitive, detecting even the slightest variation in power, and tripping out when there really wasn't any threat.
If you did buy a nice, higher-end surge protector, congratulations, it just saved you some serious trouble. Wait a few minutes before resetting the surge protector, just to be certain that all the spikes have made their way through the electrical system. After that, it should be safe to turn off the power supply on the computer (or unplug it altogether if you don't have a power switch on the power supply itself), and reset the surge protector. Bring your system back up and watch it closely for any ill effects.
Incidentally, it's not all that unreasonable to believe that the stupid cat just walked on the surge protector's power switch, turning it off. Unless you don't have a cat, in which case you should be giving the dog the old fish eye. Stupid dog.
3) Is the computer itself doing anything weird?
"Weird" could mean anything out of the ordinary such as:
- Both power and HDD access lights always on, even though the system is completely offline
- Nothing happens when you hit the power button
- The power light comes on for a moment, then goes back off
In all of these cases, it usually indicates that your computer's power supply has just taken a dump on you. Shuffled off the mortal coil. Pushing up daisies. Dead. In this case, it's probably no big thing, unless, that is, you happen to be lucky enough to have one of those Dell, Compaq, HP or Gateway computers that uses a proprietary design for the power supply. For the rest of you, it's a little easier. In either case, get your butt (and your computer) to your local mom and pop computer store and see if they can help you. If you know what time it is on the street, (and in your pc's case), then shamble, strut and otherwise hightail it to your local computer parts supply store for a replacement. You bigbox (Dell, Compaq etc) folks might want to take your computer to the store for a double-check on the power supply design anyhow. Some are open to easy swaps, others are a royal pain. Power supplies range in price from $19.99 to $119.99 and up. I suggest you dig deep and buy the best you can afford, unless you enjoyed the shock of your system giving you the finger in such a glorious fashion, and look forward to experiencing it again. Soon.
4) Was there a nice *pop* and burning smell from the computer itself?
Yep, definitely the power supply. This isn't all that uncommon with some of today's cheapie computers and cases, unfortunately. It usually isn't fatal to the guts of your machine, but I recommend having it checked out thoroughly anyhow. You can never be too careful with your (expensive) baby.
Just hit the power button and...wtf?
Uh oh. The damned thing worked just last night. What happened? Okay, so you sit down, hit the power button on your computer, expecting it to make some whirring noises and beep happily before getting down to brass tacks and setting to the task of booting up. But nothing happened at all. No pretty lights. No reassuring whirring. Not even a freaking happy little beep! Here's what you need to check:
1)
2) Does switching the PC power supply off/on have any effect?
Sometimes a PC's power supply can get a little skittish and trip out, thinking it got too hot inside. Resetting it like this can sometimes get it up and happy again. It's also possible that if you have a cheap and/or old surge protector (or worse yet, just a simple power strip) the computer might have gotten kicked in the crotch with a power spike, and killed the power supply (and possibly worse). Take the poor system to your local computer store for a diagnostic check. You could just replace the power supply, but in this case, you could have more damage than that on your hands. A power surge can not only kill a power supply, it can sometimes go right past it and nail the other internal components as well. Have your machine professionally checked out, so that way, if anything's going to blow afterward, it happens right there where the replacement parts are sold.
3). Did you hear a *pop* and smell something burning the first time you hit the button?
Damn. Extremely bad timing, but this, again, is usually nothing more than the power supply telling you where to stick it as it proceeds to go all nuclear on your butt. Not usually fatal to the computer, but semi-violent power supply deaths such as this have the capability to kill other important (and potentially more expensive) things inside the case. Have the PC checked out for additional damage, and see about a new power supply. Again, buy the best you can afford to avoid dealing with this situation again within the system's foreseeable future.
Power on... are you on yet?
This situation can be confusing. You turn the computer on, and you get the effect you've come to expect: pretty lights, whirring and... wait, where's the beep? Where's all the gibberish on the screen while it counts the megabytes of memory I put in there? What does "No VGA signal found" mean on the screen? Uh oh. This is potentially more serious than a simple power supply failure. This situation could also go like so: power on, pretty lights, whirring noise then everything shuts right back down. We'll go over potential causes.
1) Power supply
Yes, that power supply could be getting ready to get all medieval on you. Some power supplies can get weak as they get older, or more specifically, the thermal relay that protects the power supply from overheating gets weaker, making it more sensitive. Sometimes a power supply gets delusional in its old age, thinking its getting too hot when it really isn't but shutting down anyway. A power spike or brownout can also cause the power supply to get flaky like this. In this case, replacing the power supply should be all that's needed.
2) Motherboard
Oh crap, now it's getting technical. Well, actually, it's not all that bad. At least, not as far as you can take it while sitting in your room with your poor PC all opened up on the floor. Unless you have a lab full of electronics testing equipment, replacement parts, and the know-how to use it all, the best you can do in this case is a visual inspection. Look at the tops of all those little tower-thingies sticking up from the motherboard. Those are capacitors, and the tops of them should be as flat as day-old beer. If you see any that are bulging or cracked on top, the motherboard is toast. There's nothing you can do about it, except to replace the motherboard. It happens sometimes, thanks to the global push for cheaper technology. Your only potential saving grace is the warranty on the motherboard, IF it's still under warranty.
Also check for burns or scorching on any of the power connectors leading to the motherboard. If you see anything unusual, take the PC to a repair shop. Burned plugs are signs of possible deeper damage.
Bad board. BAD board!
Absolutely no way to test this possibility, other than to replace the processor with another compatible chip. The only way you can identify a bad proc is to pull it out of the machine, and look for burn marks. If you see any, you can usually relax, secure in the knowledge that you just found the problem. Overclocking nerds see this problem more often than any of them will admit.
Mmm mmm mmm... Toasty!
4) Storage drives
This includes optical drives, as well as hard drives, floppies and Zip drives. Sometimes a drive can fail so badly inside, that they send weird power fluxes back up to the power supply. When this happens, the power supply never sees the "power good" signal that it normally waits for from the motherboard before it lets everything fire up completely. To test for this, unplug ALL of your drives, then plug in the main boot drive, and turn the system on. If it boots, turn off the computer and plug in the next hard drive, and repeat the process until you find the offending piece of crap... I mean hardware. If you find a drive that's causing this problem, whatever you do, DO NOT think that it will ever go away on its own and suddenly work again. You could end up with a cute little teeny tiny FREAKING FLAME OF FIRE spouting from the board of the hard drive. This can also drive your power supply over the edge, putting you right back at square one. *sigh*
Look, my hard drive's on f.. OH MY GOD!!
In the end, unless you've dealt with these sorts of things before, you're going to be better off getting your system checked out by a professional. Best Buy and CompUSA are okay, but, as I have been saying, your local mom and pop shop will be a better gig, because the folks working there are more likely to be in business because they like doing it, and know what they're talking about. Their service rates are usually cheaper too. Call around, and don't wuss out on asking about their service fees. It's worth it to get your baby humming away happily under your desk, no?
Deadweasel is often everywhere, while being nowhere.
Deadweasel is often everywhere, while being nowhere.
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MULTIMEDIA :: Taking Screenshots Of Videos
Most folks, even the most braindead of twits, have played a video on their computer once or twice in their travels around the web. A few diehard nerds have massive collections of movies and videos on their PC that were downloaded from the Web or ripped from DVDs etc. For the most part, playing a movie on your computer is pretty commonplace these days. Shoot, you'd be hard-pressed to find a computer from Dell or HP that doesn't come with a DVD-ROM drive, at the very least. But what if there's a scene in a movie you've just watched that you simply MUST send off to your best bud on the Intarweb? So sorry, Alt-PrintScreen just doesn't work. Take the screencap, then paste into your favorite image editing program, and all you get is the outer frame of the player window with a black area where the video screen capture should have been. Nerts.
But wait! There's a way around this! You can easily take screenshots of video if you take a couple of steps first. Now, if you have a really slow machine that has a difficult time playing video in the first place, this trick is going to really put your poor 'puter to task. Just remember that before you follow these instructions and then email me with "You jerk! My computer thing just gave me an error and stopped working but I don't know what the error was because I just clicked OK and now it won't work at all!"
In this example, I'm going to assume that you can already play the video correctly. I'm not going to try to walk you through the nightmare of making sure you have the right codecs to play the movie you downloaded, but I AM going to use a downloaded movie as an example.
There are two programs in which this trick is possible, as far as my experience goes. The first I will look at is Windows Media Player 10, which is included with Windows XP. If you're running Windows 2000 or 98, skip to the next program down.
Windows Media Player 10
- On the top toolbar, click Tools, then click Options.
- Click the Performance tab
- Down near the bottom, underneath the Hardware Acceleration options, click the Advanced button.
- In this window, uncheck any checkboxes that are titled "Use overlay". Overlay is a method of speeding up video playback by creating a "layer" for the video window that sits "over" the regular desktop. This is why captured frames come out black when you paste them from the clipboard.
- Click Ok on every button on the way to closing all the windows.
- Play your favorite video, and pause it at the point you want to capture the screen (I would recommend that the video be in fullscreen mode at this point), and hit Alt-Print Screen.
- Open your favorite image editing program (Photoshop, Paintshop, MS Paint etc) and create a new document, then just hit Ctrl-V to paste the clipboard contents to the new document. (In Photoshop, hit Ctrl-N to create a new document that is already sized to match the image in the clipboard.)
That's it for Media Player.
Now, for you other fruitcakes (I'm one of those, thank you very much), there is another program called Video Lan Client for Windows, or just VLC for short. This program is simply badass. It includes nearly every codec you might ever need to play nearly every video file created by nearly everyone on the Web. That's a lot of nearlys. Incidentally, if you try this program, and find the three videos on the web that this program won't play, don't come crying to me, because you likely tried to play a RealMedia or Quicktime file with it, you dink.
So, now you've got this handy dandy quick-like-a-ninja video player program installed. Once again, just trying a quick screen grab as it sits is going to result in more heartbreaking black screen goodness. With VLC, all you need to do is change the shortcut a little bit.
Video Lan Client
- Right click on the VLC program shortcut on your desktop (the little orange and white traffic cone with the little curved arrow at the bottom left of the icon) and click Properties
- In the "Target" line at the top, you're going to add the option "-- nooverlay" to the file path already in there. For example, mine looks exactly like this: "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" --nooverlay
- Click Ok, open your movie with it, and double click the video window to get it fullscreen, hit Alt-Print Screen at the part you want to capture and paste into your favorite image editing program.
Simple as that! Now you can screencap any video that you can play with those two programs. Of course, if you are trying to capture from a DVD, I highly recommend PowerDVD. It's default capture hotkey is "C". Hit the C key at the right moment (or pause the video to make double sure you get it right), then, again, paste the clipboard contents into an image editing program. You can also set PowerDVD to capture directly to a file instead of to the clipboard, so you don't even have to pause your movie. Just hit C until you're blue in the face, or until you run out of hard drive space, whichever comes first.
Happy screencapping!
Deadweasel makes a hobby out of burning earwigs with a magnifying glass.
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But wait! There's a way around this! You can easily take screenshots of video if you take a couple of steps first. Now, if you have a really slow machine that has a difficult time playing video in the first place, this trick is going to really put your poor 'puter to task. Just remember that before you follow these instructions and then email me with "You jerk! My computer thing just gave me an error and stopped working but I don't know what the error was because I just clicked OK and now it won't work at all!"
In this example, I'm going to assume that you can already play the video correctly. I'm not going to try to walk you through the nightmare of making sure you have the right codecs to play the movie you downloaded, but I AM going to use a downloaded movie as an example.
There are two programs in which this trick is possible, as far as my experience goes. The first I will look at is Windows Media Player 10, which is included with Windows XP. If you're running Windows 2000 or 98, skip to the next program down.
Windows Media Player 10
- On the top toolbar, click Tools, then click Options.
- Click the Performance tab
- Down near the bottom, underneath the Hardware Acceleration options, click the Advanced button.
- In this window, uncheck any checkboxes that are titled "Use overlay". Overlay is a method of speeding up video playback by creating a "layer" for the video window that sits "over" the regular desktop. This is why captured frames come out black when you paste them from the clipboard.
- Click Ok on every button on the way to closing all the windows.
- Play your favorite video, and pause it at the point you want to capture the screen (I would recommend that the video be in fullscreen mode at this point), and hit Alt-Print Screen.
- Open your favorite image editing program (Photoshop, Paintshop, MS Paint etc) and create a new document, then just hit Ctrl-V to paste the clipboard contents to the new document. (In Photoshop, hit Ctrl-N to create a new document that is already sized to match the image in the clipboard.)
That's it for Media Player.
Now, for you other fruitcakes (I'm one of those, thank you very much), there is another program called Video Lan Client for Windows, or just VLC for short. This program is simply badass. It includes nearly every codec you might ever need to play nearly every video file created by nearly everyone on the Web. That's a lot of nearlys. Incidentally, if you try this program, and find the three videos on the web that this program won't play, don't come crying to me, because you likely tried to play a RealMedia or Quicktime file with it, you dink.
So, now you've got this handy dandy quick-like-a-ninja video player program installed. Once again, just trying a quick screen grab as it sits is going to result in more heartbreaking black screen goodness. With VLC, all you need to do is change the shortcut a little bit.
Video Lan Client
- Right click on the VLC program shortcut on your desktop (the little orange and white traffic cone with the little curved arrow at the bottom left of the icon) and click Properties
- In the "Target" line at the top, you're going to add the option "-- nooverlay" to the file path already in there. For example, mine looks exactly like this: "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" --nooverlay
- Click Ok, open your movie with it, and double click the video window to get it fullscreen, hit Alt-Print Screen at the part you want to capture and paste into your favorite image editing program.
Simple as that! Now you can screencap any video that you can play with those two programs. Of course, if you are trying to capture from a DVD, I highly recommend PowerDVD. It's default capture hotkey is "C". Hit the C key at the right moment (or pause the video to make double sure you get it right), then, again, paste the clipboard contents into an image editing program. You can also set PowerDVD to capture directly to a file instead of to the clipboard, so you don't even have to pause your movie. Just hit C until you're blue in the face, or until you run out of hard drive space, whichever comes first.
Happy screencapping!
Deadweasel makes a hobby out of burning earwigs with a magnifying glass.
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HARDWARE :: Where's The Plug N Play?
It was years ago, back in the heady days just prior to the release of Windows 95 when the term "Plug and Play" started to become the hottest buzzphrase. Ah wonderful Plug and Play, that most venerable of technologies that would allow a piece of hardware in a PC to be installed with little fuss and muss, eliminating the need for endless nights of driver and IRQ configuration. (Remember good old COM port 4 for modems?) Ostensibly, Plug and Play would kill the endless configuration frustration, and let users forget all about needing to keep driver floppies and CDs handy in case of an emergency reformat job, which was admittedly necessary a little more often than most of us would like.
The problem is that, aside from devices like the reliable Creative Labs Soundblaster cards, true Plug and Play never really materialized. With the SB cards, Windows would recognize the card all on its own, and trigger a tiny program embedded on the card that caused it to configure ITSELF as the system booted up. To me, THAT was what Plug and Play was all about. Today, I think we've all grown a little tolerant of the fact that things never developed the way they were promised, with a very few happy exceptions. Look around at some of the hardware you've likely installed in your system, and look back on what it took to get the device working. If you have Windows XP Home/Pro, chances are pretty good that even though whatever you installed started working right away, you still had to install something from a CD to use it to its fullest capability.
What I'd like to know is, in this day and age, when memory is dirt-freaking-cheap, and technology for permanent hard storage is reaching its maturity, why are the initial FULL set of drivers not installed right on the cards and devices themselves? Why is it I can install a video card and get a so-so display, but to drive that sucker the way I bought it to do, I still have to install the drivers from the CD? Those same video drivers, by the way, are by and large provided as a one-size-fits-all solution by the two major video card manufacturers, NVidia and ATI. Download one 30 megabyte file, get drivers for every card they make, all in one file, and the setup program determines which one you need. 30 megs? How much space would be taken by just the drivers you need? About 3-5 megs. That couldn't be stored and automatically run on first boot, right from the card? Right. In the era of 256MB video cards? Right.
Why didn't Plug and Play ever evolve into what it was promised to be in the first place? Even Creative Labs has fallen off of their previous designs, and their higher-end Audigy cards now require that bane of every user's existence to even get running full-tilt: the driver CD. Of course, I'm not saying anything about extra games and applications that manufacturers are bundling with their devices. I understand that. I just don't understand the need to install stuff after I installed stuff, if you get my drift.
In my main machine, I have two video cards, two sound cards, a combo USB2/Firewire/Ethernet card, and some various sundry integrated devices on the motherboard. Those components alone (whick, ok, make up just about the whole darned system), require me to keep track of no less than 5 CDs. That's not even including some of the application CDs, which in some cases are needed as well. For example, the CD/DVD burning software for my DVDR/W burner. Windows will use it as a regular CD any day of the week, all by itself, but try to burn a DVD? No way Jose'. Not without that extra application you don't. But, like I said, my gripe isn't about the application CDs. It's those freaking drivers.
I can hear most of you already. "You could just go online and download the latest ones anyway, you clown," you're saying, and you're right. Unless I don't have an internet connection handy at the time, that is. It's happened to me a couple of times, and many people don't have the time to wait for all those biggie driver files to download over their dialup AOL connections. The simple fact of the matter is that while Plug and Play has been realized to a very small degree, it is still nowhere near the original vision as put forth by Microsoft, back in those heady days just prior to the release of Windows 95. Now with Plug and Pray goodness!
Deadweasel writes articles on the backs of laden oxen in order to proofread more better.
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The problem is that, aside from devices like the reliable Creative Labs Soundblaster cards, true Plug and Play never really materialized. With the SB cards, Windows would recognize the card all on its own, and trigger a tiny program embedded on the card that caused it to configure ITSELF as the system booted up. To me, THAT was what Plug and Play was all about. Today, I think we've all grown a little tolerant of the fact that things never developed the way they were promised, with a very few happy exceptions. Look around at some of the hardware you've likely installed in your system, and look back on what it took to get the device working. If you have Windows XP Home/Pro, chances are pretty good that even though whatever you installed started working right away, you still had to install something from a CD to use it to its fullest capability.
What I'd like to know is, in this day and age, when memory is dirt-freaking-cheap, and technology for permanent hard storage is reaching its maturity, why are the initial FULL set of drivers not installed right on the cards and devices themselves? Why is it I can install a video card and get a so-so display, but to drive that sucker the way I bought it to do, I still have to install the drivers from the CD? Those same video drivers, by the way, are by and large provided as a one-size-fits-all solution by the two major video card manufacturers, NVidia and ATI. Download one 30 megabyte file, get drivers for every card they make, all in one file, and the setup program determines which one you need. 30 megs? How much space would be taken by just the drivers you need? About 3-5 megs. That couldn't be stored and automatically run on first boot, right from the card? Right. In the era of 256MB video cards? Right.
Why didn't Plug and Play ever evolve into what it was promised to be in the first place? Even Creative Labs has fallen off of their previous designs, and their higher-end Audigy cards now require that bane of every user's existence to even get running full-tilt: the driver CD. Of course, I'm not saying anything about extra games and applications that manufacturers are bundling with their devices. I understand that. I just don't understand the need to install stuff after I installed stuff, if you get my drift.
In my main machine, I have two video cards, two sound cards, a combo USB2/Firewire/Ethernet card, and some various sundry integrated devices on the motherboard. Those components alone (whick, ok, make up just about the whole darned system), require me to keep track of no less than 5 CDs. That's not even including some of the application CDs, which in some cases are needed as well. For example, the CD/DVD burning software for my DVDR/W burner. Windows will use it as a regular CD any day of the week, all by itself, but try to burn a DVD? No way Jose'. Not without that extra application you don't. But, like I said, my gripe isn't about the application CDs. It's those freaking drivers.
I can hear most of you already. "You could just go online and download the latest ones anyway, you clown," you're saying, and you're right. Unless I don't have an internet connection handy at the time, that is. It's happened to me a couple of times, and many people don't have the time to wait for all those biggie driver files to download over their dialup AOL connections. The simple fact of the matter is that while Plug and Play has been realized to a very small degree, it is still nowhere near the original vision as put forth by Microsoft, back in those heady days just prior to the release of Windows 95. Now with Plug and Pray goodness!
Deadweasel writes articles on the backs of laden oxen in order to proofread more better.
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WINDOWS :: XAMPP Makes WebAdmins Kill Kittens
If you're an egghead like myself, you probably find a few things wrong with the IIS webserver that comes with Windows 98/2000/XP Pro. Firstly, those endless security updates and patches are tedious as all hell. Especially if you are security conscious, and don't allow the server to auto-update itself. This essentially creates a welcome mat for hackers looking to take advantage of your open machine, to make it work for them instead, doing such fun things as spam-serving, and zombie ping flooding other hapless victims.
For an IIS admin, updates and patches are a constant full-time job. On top of that, as an IIS flunky, you have to worry about actual administration. Suppose a newly-created website can't be accessed by your potential clients. Does the website have the proper permissions to access the things it needs, such as the ASP engine? For most IIS folks, this isn't much of a problem, since it is usually fairly automated. In some cases, though, once it rears its ugly head, it presents a nightmare from which there is no waking.
Enter Apache, the previously Unix-architecture-only webserver that runs insanely fast, but is a little bit of a pain to configure. Apache can deal with server loads far above what IIS can handle. If you are successful in your webventure, you might get "Slashdotted", wherein your site is featured on a popular tech news aggregator site, (Slashdot.org), and then all hell breaks loose when thousands of nerds worldwide click on your site to see what all the buzz is about. For most webservers, this is a death knell. In this example, there really is no way to keep your site from going down. BUT, if you were running Apache as your base webserver, the chances are very good that your site will stay up longer, thereby giving a greater number of viewers a chance to, well, view your site!
You see, Apache is extremely lightweight in its operation. It uses a fraction of the memory and processor time that IIS demands, leaving more resources free for more important things, like actually getting your website out to the viewers. IIS ties itself to Internet Explorer, naturally. This is actually more closely related to the fact that the Windows operating system itself is closely tied with IE, which itself is a monstrous memory and processor hog. This is how Apache can help your site outperform others running all MS products.
Now, there's one caveat to using Apache. For one thing, like I said before, it's a pain to configure if you're not familiar with Unix/Linux architecture and operating standards. It's also a little difficult to get working with things like Microsoft SQL Server, which is one crucial element for ASP. Not everyone likes ASP though, and for those folks, who usually prefer something like PHP, Apache is for you. Well, Apache as well as some other tools, which, again, can be a little hard to configure properly.
Hard, that was, until XAMPP came along. In the website's words, "XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl." They weren't kidding when they said "easy to install". A couple of clicks, and the whole crazy thing is setup and configured on your Windows machine, without a hitch, without a single burp. By the time you've accessed your configuration page, all of the included tools and utilities are active and ready for you to start coding.
Again, if you are a die-hard ASP fan, this package isn't for you. There are methods of getting your new Apache server to properly run ASP code server-side, but they are outside the scope of this article, and to be honest, would be better served by IIS and Microsoft SQL Server anyway.
So, if you want a website that can outlive IIS in most cases under a monstrous deluge of users, you want Apache and its friends running in the backend. Now, I realize that not everyone is going to be expecting a flood of users of Slashdot proportions, but then again, very few website admins ever expect to get nailed so efficiently. It's best to be prepared, and XAMPP is the boy scout with the biggest Swiss army knife.
Deadweasel is a hardware-hacking Windows guru with more case cuts than IQ points
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For an IIS admin, updates and patches are a constant full-time job. On top of that, as an IIS flunky, you have to worry about actual administration. Suppose a newly-created website can't be accessed by your potential clients. Does the website have the proper permissions to access the things it needs, such as the ASP engine? For most IIS folks, this isn't much of a problem, since it is usually fairly automated. In some cases, though, once it rears its ugly head, it presents a nightmare from which there is no waking.
Enter Apache, the previously Unix-architecture-only webserver that runs insanely fast, but is a little bit of a pain to configure. Apache can deal with server loads far above what IIS can handle. If you are successful in your webventure, you might get "Slashdotted", wherein your site is featured on a popular tech news aggregator site, (Slashdot.org), and then all hell breaks loose when thousands of nerds worldwide click on your site to see what all the buzz is about. For most webservers, this is a death knell. In this example, there really is no way to keep your site from going down. BUT, if you were running Apache as your base webserver, the chances are very good that your site will stay up longer, thereby giving a greater number of viewers a chance to, well, view your site!
You see, Apache is extremely lightweight in its operation. It uses a fraction of the memory and processor time that IIS demands, leaving more resources free for more important things, like actually getting your website out to the viewers. IIS ties itself to Internet Explorer, naturally. This is actually more closely related to the fact that the Windows operating system itself is closely tied with IE, which itself is a monstrous memory and processor hog. This is how Apache can help your site outperform others running all MS products.
Now, there's one caveat to using Apache. For one thing, like I said before, it's a pain to configure if you're not familiar with Unix/Linux architecture and operating standards. It's also a little difficult to get working with things like Microsoft SQL Server, which is one crucial element for ASP. Not everyone likes ASP though, and for those folks, who usually prefer something like PHP, Apache is for you. Well, Apache as well as some other tools, which, again, can be a little hard to configure properly.
Hard, that was, until XAMPP came along. In the website's words, "XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl." They weren't kidding when they said "easy to install". A couple of clicks, and the whole crazy thing is setup and configured on your Windows machine, without a hitch, without a single burp. By the time you've accessed your configuration page, all of the included tools and utilities are active and ready for you to start coding.
Again, if you are a die-hard ASP fan, this package isn't for you. There are methods of getting your new Apache server to properly run ASP code server-side, but they are outside the scope of this article, and to be honest, would be better served by IIS and Microsoft SQL Server anyway.
So, if you want a website that can outlive IIS in most cases under a monstrous deluge of users, you want Apache and its friends running in the backend. Now, I realize that not everyone is going to be expecting a flood of users of Slashdot proportions, but then again, very few website admins ever expect to get nailed so efficiently. It's best to be prepared, and XAMPP is the boy scout with the biggest Swiss army knife.
Deadweasel is a hardware-hacking Windows guru with more case cuts than IQ points
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WINDOWS :: Connecting Your TV to a 2000/XP Computer
One of the neatest things you can do with today's computers is to connect them to a nearby television set. This is the basis behind Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition. They have created an application that, when installed on a PC with the proper hardware, will display an interface that brings all of your media (photos, videos, music etc) together under one access point, and looks equally nice when displayed on a standard monitor, LCD/plasma television, projector or regular old TV set.
For Media Center Edition, there are some standards you must adhere to in order for the program to work, such as specific TV and radio tuner cards, among other things, but there are other programs out there that will do the same job as Media Center, without the price tag or the hardware limitations. Media Portal is one such program. Although a little configuration is needed for this program to work with your hardware, it's a very flexible program, and best of all, it's free!
This article won't cover installation of those programs, but today, I will show you how to get your TV working with your computer, as well as give some tips on the hardware that will let you get away with it in the first place.
One of the first things you will need to have, of course, is a decently-configured PC with Windows 2000 or XP Home/Pro installed. By decently-configured, I mean at least a Pentium III 600MHz processor with no less than 128MB of RAM. If your PC doesn't match these basic specs, you won't even need to worry about reading on, because under Win2K or XP, your machine is already going to be under considerable stress. I don't care what the hardware nerds out there tell you. I've done exactly what I just advised against, and it was great as a basic desktop, but try to pull anything beyond basic email or websurfing, and your PC is likely to give you the finger and proceed to make your life a living hell. You've been warned.
The second thing you will need, and this is key, is a video card that has some sort of TV output. Most cards today provide this functionality in the form of S-Video. The port on the card looks a little bit like one of those round keyboard or mouse connectors, but with a different pin layout.
Other, high-end cards, such as the ATI All-In-Wonder series cards, have S-Video outputs as a matter of course, as well as a host of video input options. Now, at this point, I feel it's necessary to point out that you folks with High-Definition TVs and plasma displays most likely have another type of input called DVI. This connector looks totally different from S-Video, and will let your display act just like a standard PC monitor, rather than having to convert from the computer's standard display format to NTSC. This connector is optimal for tossing your PC's display on your DVI-capable TV, BUT, I'm not going into detail on those connections here. For you folks that have those sorts of TVs, I recommend talking with your local professional video store, or a mom-and-pop computer store. DO NOT go to Best Buy or Circuit City, as the high school kids there barely know their ass from a hole in the ground, and will have you buying equipment you don't need to do something they don't understand how to do in the first place.
Now then, it's a simple matter of connecting a cable, right? Well, yes and no. At this point, you should check your TV or VCR (if you have one connected to the TV) for that same S-Video plug. If you have it, great! You can simply run the cable that came with the video card from your computer to the other port. If you don't have that port on your TV or VCR, you're going to need an S-Video to RCA type converter. You can get this at any Radio Shack for around $20.
Make sure both the TV/VCR and the computer are turned completely off, and use the converter to run from the video input on your TV or VCR, to the S-Video cable that came with your video card. If you have one of the ATI All-In-Wonder cards, you already have the conversion done for you on the output of the card.
For the record, straight S-Video to S-Video connections are going to result in a better picture on your TV, because the signals are all kept separated within the cable, versus RCA, which melds all of it into one wavy, noisy signal. When all's said and done though, if you don't have S-Video input on your TV or VCR, there's not much you can do about it, short of buying a new TV or VCR. Buck up and deal with it man!
Okay, so now everything's plugged in, right? Turn everything on, and get Windows logged into an administrator-level account. Now here's where things can get a little fuzzy. You need to get Windows to send a video signal to the TV, because nine times out of ten, it won't do it until you tell it specifically to do just that.
Right-click on a blank area of the Desktop, and select Properties. In the window that pops up, select the Settings tab at the far top right of the window.
Don't worry if you don't have all those monitors showing up in your settings window. You may have more or less, depending on how you have your system built. The first thing you're going to do is click the Advanced button in the bottom right of the window.
In the next window that pops up, click the Displays tab. Here, you are going to enable the TV output function of your card. This looks different, depending on the video card you have installed, but the selection should be pretty obvious. For ATI All-In-Wonder cards, the TV selection may be grayed out, but if you click the Troubleshooting button, yet another window should popup, giving you option to "Force detection of the TV". Check that box, then click OK, and the TV selection should now be available. At this point, your TV may already be showing a nice mirror of your current monitor display. If it isn't, try clicking the Ok buttons until all the windows are closed. If it STILL doesn't show up, make sure your TV is set to Input or Aux1, or whatever your TV calls its line input. If you are connecting via VCR, make sure the VCR is set the same way (line in, Aux etc).
By this time, you are probably noticing that the picture looks pretty crappy. Well, while it IS possible to touch things up and make them look marginally better, for the most part, this is how a PC looks on a TV. Again, buck up and deal with it. I can promise you it looks much better for movies though.
Now, one last thing remains. Open your display settings dialog again. See that little resolution slider about the middle left of the window? It's probably at 1024x768 or higher. You actually need to slide that bugger down to 800x600. This will make things look a little more legible on your TV screen. You might also need to fine-tune the TV's screen size and position as well. For most video cards, this is done by clicking on that Advanced button, then on the Displays tab, then on the button that represents your TV. This should popup another window that gives you color and positioning controls. Adjust these settings until the screen looks better. Remember, the blurry text effect will NOT go away. That's just how it is for this sort of thing. You CAN diminish the jittery effect, the washed-out coloring, and exaggerated contrast though.
Now, you should be looking at a fairly decent replica of your Windows display on your TV. But wait, there's one more thing you're going to have to worry about. Most likely, you are connecting your PC to the TV so you can watch movies, right? Well, there's one caveat when doing this: Movie playback programs under Windows use this nifty little feature called "screen overlay" when they show a movie on the screen. This helps speed up the display so that you don't get a weird jittery or flickering effect when playing videos on some slower machines. The side effect to this feature is that the video cannot be played on a secondary display. In this case, that means your TV.
"But wait just a cot-damned second," you might be prone to say, "what did I just go through all this song and dance for if I can't play movies on the TV?" Well hold your horses there, son. I didn't say it wouldn't work at all. Just that it won't work YET. That is, until you have done one final adjustment.
Now, if you have purchased your video card in about the last couple of years, or at the very least have the latest drivers installed, the last step involved should be as simple as hitting the Alt and F5 keys at the same time. This should cause your monitor to go dark, and the TV to light up by itself. At this point, NOW you can watch movies on the TV.
There is one last point to make here. If you are like me, and have multiple monitors connected to your computer, either because your video card supports dual monitors, or because you have multiple video cards installed, you are going to have to shut the additional monitors off before the Alt-F5 trick will work. At least, that's how it is on my ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro.
To go back to just using the computer on the monitor, simply Alt-F5 again, and it should come right back to the regular trusty monitor. At this point, it's safe to go back into your display settings window, and ramp your resolution back up to whatever you had it set at before.
There's a possibility that there's a method to permanently set hardware profiles so that you won't have to do all this setting and re-setting every time you want to watch a movie on TV, but that's for another article. Of course, if you're building a Media Center-style PC, that won't matter anyway.
If you have something you'd like to add to this article, or if you have some questions/comments regarding its content, send an email to deadweasel.toplevel@gmail.com
Deadweasel has been working with Windows-based computers for 15 years, and is a co-host of the SDRN Radio Show
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For Media Center Edition, there are some standards you must adhere to in order for the program to work, such as specific TV and radio tuner cards, among other things, but there are other programs out there that will do the same job as Media Center, without the price tag or the hardware limitations. Media Portal is one such program. Although a little configuration is needed for this program to work with your hardware, it's a very flexible program, and best of all, it's free!
Media Portal looks and acts like Media Center Edition, without the restrictions.
This article won't cover installation of those programs, but today, I will show you how to get your TV working with your computer, as well as give some tips on the hardware that will let you get away with it in the first place.
One of the first things you will need to have, of course, is a decently-configured PC with Windows 2000 or XP Home/Pro installed. By decently-configured, I mean at least a Pentium III 600MHz processor with no less than 128MB of RAM. If your PC doesn't match these basic specs, you won't even need to worry about reading on, because under Win2K or XP, your machine is already going to be under considerable stress. I don't care what the hardware nerds out there tell you. I've done exactly what I just advised against, and it was great as a basic desktop, but try to pull anything beyond basic email or websurfing, and your PC is likely to give you the finger and proceed to make your life a living hell. You've been warned.
The second thing you will need, and this is key, is a video card that has some sort of TV output. Most cards today provide this functionality in the form of S-Video. The port on the card looks a little bit like one of those round keyboard or mouse connectors, but with a different pin layout.
Most cards have S-Video outputs
Other, high-end cards, such as the ATI All-In-Wonder series cards, have S-Video outputs as a matter of course, as well as a host of video input options. Now, at this point, I feel it's necessary to point out that you folks with High-Definition TVs and plasma displays most likely have another type of input called DVI. This connector looks totally different from S-Video, and will let your display act just like a standard PC monitor, rather than having to convert from the computer's standard display format to NTSC. This connector is optimal for tossing your PC's display on your DVI-capable TV, BUT, I'm not going into detail on those connections here. For you folks that have those sorts of TVs, I recommend talking with your local professional video store, or a mom-and-pop computer store. DO NOT go to Best Buy or Circuit City, as the high school kids there barely know their ass from a hole in the ground, and will have you buying equipment you don't need to do something they don't understand how to do in the first place.
Now then, it's a simple matter of connecting a cable, right? Well, yes and no. At this point, you should check your TV or VCR (if you have one connected to the TV) for that same S-Video plug. If you have it, great! You can simply run the cable that came with the video card from your computer to the other port. If you don't have that port on your TV or VCR, you're going to need an S-Video to RCA type converter. You can get this at any Radio Shack for around $20.
A simple S-Video to RCA converter is available at any Radio Shack.
Make sure both the TV/VCR and the computer are turned completely off, and use the converter to run from the video input on your TV or VCR, to the S-Video cable that came with your video card. If you have one of the ATI All-In-Wonder cards, you already have the conversion done for you on the output of the card.
For the record, straight S-Video to S-Video connections are going to result in a better picture on your TV, because the signals are all kept separated within the cable, versus RCA, which melds all of it into one wavy, noisy signal. When all's said and done though, if you don't have S-Video input on your TV or VCR, there's not much you can do about it, short of buying a new TV or VCR. Buck up and deal with it man!
The All-In-Wonder Output cords
Okay, so now everything's plugged in, right? Turn everything on, and get Windows logged into an administrator-level account. Now here's where things can get a little fuzzy. You need to get Windows to send a video signal to the TV, because nine times out of ten, it won't do it until you tell it specifically to do just that.
Right-click on a blank area of the Desktop, and select Properties. In the window that pops up, select the Settings tab at the far top right of the window.
The basic Windows display settings dialog
Don't worry if you don't have all those monitors showing up in your settings window. You may have more or less, depending on how you have your system built. The first thing you're going to do is click the Advanced button in the bottom right of the window.
In the next window that pops up, click the Displays tab. Here, you are going to enable the TV output function of your card. This looks different, depending on the video card you have installed, but the selection should be pretty obvious. For ATI All-In-Wonder cards, the TV selection may be grayed out, but if you click the Troubleshooting button, yet another window should popup, giving you option to "Force detection of the TV". Check that box, then click OK, and the TV selection should now be available. At this point, your TV may already be showing a nice mirror of your current monitor display. If it isn't, try clicking the Ok buttons until all the windows are closed. If it STILL doesn't show up, make sure your TV is set to Input or Aux1, or whatever your TV calls its line input. If you are connecting via VCR, make sure the VCR is set the same way (line in, Aux etc).
By this time, you are probably noticing that the picture looks pretty crappy. Well, while it IS possible to touch things up and make them look marginally better, for the most part, this is how a PC looks on a TV. Again, buck up and deal with it. I can promise you it looks much better for movies though.
Now, one last thing remains. Open your display settings dialog again. See that little resolution slider about the middle left of the window? It's probably at 1024x768 or higher. You actually need to slide that bugger down to 800x600. This will make things look a little more legible on your TV screen. You might also need to fine-tune the TV's screen size and position as well. For most video cards, this is done by clicking on that Advanced button, then on the Displays tab, then on the button that represents your TV. This should popup another window that gives you color and positioning controls. Adjust these settings until the screen looks better. Remember, the blurry text effect will NOT go away. That's just how it is for this sort of thing. You CAN diminish the jittery effect, the washed-out coloring, and exaggerated contrast though.
Now, you should be looking at a fairly decent replica of your Windows display on your TV. But wait, there's one more thing you're going to have to worry about. Most likely, you are connecting your PC to the TV so you can watch movies, right? Well, there's one caveat when doing this: Movie playback programs under Windows use this nifty little feature called "screen overlay" when they show a movie on the screen. This helps speed up the display so that you don't get a weird jittery or flickering effect when playing videos on some slower machines. The side effect to this feature is that the video cannot be played on a secondary display. In this case, that means your TV.
"But wait just a cot-damned second," you might be prone to say, "what did I just go through all this song and dance for if I can't play movies on the TV?" Well hold your horses there, son. I didn't say it wouldn't work at all. Just that it won't work YET. That is, until you have done one final adjustment.
Now, if you have purchased your video card in about the last couple of years, or at the very least have the latest drivers installed, the last step involved should be as simple as hitting the Alt and F5 keys at the same time. This should cause your monitor to go dark, and the TV to light up by itself. At this point, NOW you can watch movies on the TV.
There is one last point to make here. If you are like me, and have multiple monitors connected to your computer, either because your video card supports dual monitors, or because you have multiple video cards installed, you are going to have to shut the additional monitors off before the Alt-F5 trick will work. At least, that's how it is on my ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro.
To go back to just using the computer on the monitor, simply Alt-F5 again, and it should come right back to the regular trusty monitor. At this point, it's safe to go back into your display settings window, and ramp your resolution back up to whatever you had it set at before.
There's a possibility that there's a method to permanently set hardware profiles so that you won't have to do all this setting and re-setting every time you want to watch a movie on TV, but that's for another article. Of course, if you're building a Media Center-style PC, that won't matter anyway.
If you have something you'd like to add to this article, or if you have some questions/comments regarding its content, send an email to deadweasel.toplevel@gmail.com
Deadweasel has been working with Windows-based computers for 15 years, and is a co-host of the SDRN Radio Show
Read more!
