Customize Your Computer Hardware

Customize Your Computer Hardware

This week I have more of my special tips and tricks, this time concentrating on hardware tips for all computer users.
1. Get rid of bad vibes. Put your computer where it won't be subject to vibration, shaking or accidental kicks. They can mess up your hard drive. If it's on top of your desk, make sure your desk can't rock (even slightly) from side to side or front to back; prop up any short legs if you need to. If it's on the floor, make a solid platform out of concrete blocks covered by a velvet cloth or an old sheet, whichever looks better.
2. Keep it cool. Don't cut off the flow of air to your computer. Depending on the design, your computer draws air in through vents in the front, sides or bottom. Keep everything at least an inch away from obvious vents. (Bonus tip: If your computer starts running hot, don't take off the case in an attempt to give it more airflow. That usually diffuses the air too much. Instead, find out why it's running hot and get it fixed.)
3. Save electricity. Modern computers are able to hibernate (go into deep sleep) after a period of inactivity. Look for a setting (in the Control Panel or in the computer's System Preferences) for power-saving adjustments. Hibernation is a good idea for families who use an always-on Internet connection, too, because it takes computers offline and thereby shields them from intruders.
4. Kill the old mouse. The best kind of mouse uses a red light beam and has no moving parts. Optical mice, as these designs are called, can't get messed up by dirt and cat fur. Do yourself a favor and replace the old gummy-ball critter with one that can't get cruddy. (Bonus tip: Just plug the new mouse in and forget the installation software that comes with it. You don't need it.)
5. Take the bus. If your computer uses more than two USB devices, buy a powered USB bus to take the load off your computer. Plug the first device into your computer and the others into the bus. Be sure it's a powered bus; non-powered ones simply add more of a drain. (USB is what modern computers use to connect the mouse, printer, digital camera, scanner and sometimes the keyboard.)
6. Save the screen the real way. Screen savers don't do much saving of your screen. They're fine for entertainment, but they keep your monitor running at full power and waste money. A much better idea is hidden away in the energy-management settings of your computer. If you took the advice in No. 3 to turn on hibernation, you might have seen an additional setting that puts your monitor to sleep after a few minutes while your computer is still running. This keeps the monitor slightly warm and ready to spring back to full power in a second or two. (Bonus tip: Why not simply turn the monitor off entirely? That's fine if you'll be away all day, but letting it go to sleep is gentler on the monitor's internal parts for on-again, off-again use.)
7. Let your drive spin down. If you have to turn your computer off and back on immediately (when it locks up, for example -- are you listening, Windows users?), wait 30 seconds after turning it off before you turn it back on. That gives the drive (or drives, if you have more than one) plenty of time to finish spinning and park their heads before they get the wake-up jolt. Otherwise the heads could damage the drive surface.
8. Light your way. Make sure your desk lamp (or whatever you use for lighting) shines only where you need it -- on the keyboard and mouse -- and not where it can cause glare. You'd probably be surprised to learn that most of us have too much light shining on our computer work area; your eyes don't need any extra light to see what's on the screen, and they don't need as much as you might think to see the keyboard and mouse. (That's done mostly by feel.) Everything on your screen looks more natural if you turn down the room lights.
9. Power up. If you have a new Windows PC or Macintosh, the on/off button probably isn't what you remember from the good old days. When your computer is running, giving the power button a quick tap probably won't turn off the machine. It might put the computer to sleep or it might do nothing at all. This isn't evidence of total incompetence from computer makers -- there's enough evidence elsewhere, so let's not hit them with this oddity!. More likely, it's evidence that you haven't read your computer manual.
Just about all new computers have smart power switches. Listen up: When the computer is off, pressing the power button turns it on. When the computer is on, holding the button in for at least seven seconds turns the computer off; giving the button a quick press might make the computer go to sleep or perform another power-saving feat. (You can select what happens in many computers in the Control Panel or in Preferences.) Go look in that manual; it should tell you more.
Why did the computer industry change things? To keep you and me from messing up our computers. On an old-style computer, pressing the power button usually zaps everything and messes up files unless the operating system is already shut down.
10. Splurge protection. Resist the temptation to buy an expensive surge protector. They're usually no better than cheap ones, and those cheap ones aren't much good anyway. Instead, get an uninterruptible power supply -- a UPS, which keeps your computer running on a big battery if the power goes out.
But be sure to get a continuous UPS and not a standby UPS. Reader Jim Stead points out that my original article failed to explain that a cheap UPS is likely to be a standby model, which does NOT provide surge protection.
Ready for a secret that just about nobody knows? An uninterruptible power supply isolates your computer from the wall current by running your computer off a battery ALL the time, not just when the power goes out. The battery is recharged all the time except when there's a power failure, and that's when it starts to run down. You get 20 minutes or more to shut things down yourself. So, since your computer is never actually plugged into the house current, it can't get any surges.