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All latest Motherboards today, 486/ Pentium / Pentium Pro etc.,ensure that upgrades are easily obtained by incorporating the system BIOS in a FLASH Memory component. With FLASH BIOS, there is no need to replace an EPROM component. Once downloaded, the upgrade utility fits on a floppy disc allowing the user to save, verify and update the system BIOS. A hard drive or a network drive can also be used to run the newer upgrade utilities. However, memory managers can not be installed while upgrading. Most pre-Pentium motherboards do not have a Flash BIOS. The following instructions therefore do not apply to these boards. If your motherboard does not have a Flash BIOS (EEPROM) you will need to use an EPROM programmer to re-program the BIOS chip. See your dealer for more information about this. Please read the following instructions in full before starting a Flash BIOS upgrade: A. Create a Bootable Floppy (in DOS) •With a non-formatted disk, type the following: format a:/s •If using a formatte...

Partitioning involves creating logical units on your hard drive that are then addressed as different drive letters. Not only does it help to organize your data (program files on one drive, games on another, documents on another) but also to speed up your PC. This is so because the drive head has to move a lesser distance for accessing data within one partition. You can also have different filesystems and OSs on the same hard drive. Partitioning can be done using ‘fdisk’ in DOS/Windows 9x or ‘disk management’ in Windows 2000/ NT/XP. We will describe the procedure for fdisk, since disk management is GUI driven and the basics otherwise remain the same. While several other commercial packages like Partition Magic are available, these utilities (fdisk, computer management) are bundled with their respective OSs. You need a bootable floppy with fdisk.exe, format.com, and sys. com utilities. Before starting, decide how many partitions you want to create and their sizes. You can create one prim...

Ever wondered just what that enigmatic name means? Gaming and multimedia applications are some of the most satisfying programs you can get for your PC, but getting them to run properly isn’t always as easy as it could be. First, the PC architecture was never designed as a gaming platform. Second, the wide-ranging nature of the PC means that one person’s machine can be different from another. While games consoles all contain the same hardware, PCs don’t: the massive range of difference can make gaming a headache. To alleviate as much of the pain as possible, Microsoft needed to introduce a common standard which all games and multimedia applications could follow – a common interface between the OS and whatever hardware is installed in the PC, if you like. This common interface is DirectX, something which can be the source of much confusion. DirectX is an interface designed to make certain programming tasks much easier, for both the game developer and the rest of us who just want to sit d...

This is an easy way to get to the folders on your system without having to open a Windows Explorer Window every time you want to access files. I find it very useful to have this feature as it allows me to access my Folders and Drives immediately and saves me a lot of time. This works in Windows XP: 1. Right Click an empty spot on your Taskbar (Between your Start Button and your System Tray). 2 . Click Toolbars. 3 . Click New Toolbar. 4 . A Small Window will Open that allows you to pick the folder you wish to make a Toolbar. If you want to access your Desktop Without having to minimize all your windows. Just Pick Desktop. If you want to access ONLY your My Documents Folder, Select that. Any folder will work for this. 5 . Click OK. The New Tool bar will appear at the bottom of your screen next to your System Tray. If you find this to be not useful, Repeat Steps 1 and 2 and then check click the Toolbar you created that has a check mark next to it. And it will disappear.

First, create a shortcut on your desktop by right-clicking on the desktop, choosing New, and then choosing Shortcut. The Create Shortcut Wizard appears. In the box asking for the location of the shortcut, type shutdown. After you create the shortcut, double-clicking on it will shut down your PC. But you can do much more with a shutdown shortcut than merely shut down your PC. You can add any combination of several switches to do extra duty, like this: shutdown -r -t 01 -c "Rebooting your PC" Double-clicking on that shortcut will reboot your PC after a one-second delay and display the message "Rebooting your PC." The shutdown command includes a variety of switches you can use to customize it. Table 1-3 lists all of them and describes their use. I use this technique to create two shutdown shortcuts on my desktop—one for turning off my PC, and one for rebooting. Here are the ones I use: shutdown -s -t 03 -c "Bye Bye m8!" shutdown -r -t 03 -c "Ill be back ...

Getting used to using your keyboard exclusively and leaving your mouse behind will make you much more efficient at performing any task on any Windows system. I use the following keyboard shortcuts every day: Windows key + R = Run menu This is usually followed by: cmd = Command Prompt iexplore + "web address" = Internet Explorer compmgmt.msc = Computer Management dhcpmgmt.msc = DHCP Management dnsmgmt.msc = DNS Management services.msc = Services eventvwr = Event Viewer dsa.msc = Active Directory Users and Computers dssite.msc = Active Directory Sites and Services Windows key + E = Explorer ALT + Tab = Switch between windows ALT, Space, X = Maximize window CTRL + Shift + Esc = Task Manager Windows key + Break = System properties Windows key + F = Search Windows key + D = Hide/Display all windows CTRL + C = copy CTRL + X = cut CTRL + V = paste Also don't forget about the "Right-click" key next to the right Windows key on your keyboard. Using the arrows and that key...

Computer viruses are everywhere ! This guide will show you how to stay alert and how to avoid getting infections on your computer. Having an updated virus scanner is only a small part of this, there are many ways that you can prevent having viruses other than a virus scanner, as it will not always save you. Types of viruses There are many type of viruses. Typical viruses are simply programs or scripts that will do various damage to your computer, such as corrupting files, copying itself into files, slowly deleting all your hard drive etc. This depends on the virus. Most viruses also mail themselves to other people in the address book. This way they spread really fast and appear at others' inboxes as too many people still fall for these. Most viruses will try to convince you to open the attachment, but I have never got one that tricked me. In fact, I found myself emailing people just to make sure they really did send me something. It does not hurt to be safe. Worms Worms are differe...

Tutorial Objective This tutorial talks about anything about the virtual memory and how much virtual memory you need for your system. Tutorial Introduction & Background Today application is getting bigger and bigger. Therefore, it requires a bigger system memory in order for the system to hold the application data, instruction, and thread and to load it. The system needs to copy the application data from the HDD into the system memory in order for it to process and execute the data. Once the memory gets filled up with data, the system will stop loading the program. In this case, users need to add more memory onto their system to support that intense application. However, adding more system memory costs the money and the normal user only needs to run the the intense application that requires the memory only for one or two days. Therefore, virtual memory is introduced to solve that type of problem. Terminology & Explanation There are two types of memory, which are as follows: * S...