Computer hardware information

Computers have become an important part of our lives. For most people it is the source of their livelihood. They conduct all their business with the help of the computer and the internet. So when there is a hard drive failure, it is normally time to worry.

How can you be sure your hard drive has crashed? Could it be something else? If it is a virus that is causing the trouble then you could try running your anti-virus software and fix the problem. Most Anti-virus or Anti-spyware programs will let you scan your drive when you first boot your computer. Each one is a little different so you may need to find documentation or call the maker of the software.

What are some symptoms?

The obvious sign of a mechanical failure is the sounds you hear. If you hear grinding, clicking or scraping sounds or even a whirring sound when you are starting your computer, you can be sure that your hard disk has crashed or is ready to. The sound could be a result of the read write head trying to read information from the hard drive. Read write heads are part of the hard drive that moves back and forth to access information you have stored on your hard drive.

Other things that may keep your computer from booting:

Don’t always blame the hard drive. Check the ribbon cable that goes from the mother board to the pins on the hard drive. Also check the power connector that comes from the power supply. Be sure they are secure and properly connected.

If the operating system does not load up and you are getting error messages then the software on the hard drive is causing problems. Error messages usually mean there is something wrong with the file structure of the operating system on the hard drive. The registry can also be corrupt.

These are some of the indications that your hard drive has crashed. If it has crashed due to a hardware problem you could replace the hard drive with a different one. This will help you determine if the old drive is really bad or not. Do not try this if you don’t have experience.

Things to do just in case:

Many people don’t back up their data. To minimize the possible loss of data, backup regularly. There is software available which will help you do backup and data recovery. If there is physical damage then you may not be able to recover all your data. Recovering data from a crashed hard disk needs professional help. If you haven’t backed up your data it is hard to expect to ever get it back again.

Further tests may be necessary to find the real problem in some cases. Leave this for the experts if you don’t understand how to do it. Professional recovery can be very expensive.

IBM made the first video card in 1981. It was called Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA). The card was only capable of displaying one color and had 80×25 text-only display, with a 4KB memory.

Video cards are hardware pieces that generate the images you see on your monitor. Without this you could not use the software you have, because you could not see the images to work it. The CPU sends applications to the video card, and the video card decides how to use the pixels to make the correct image appear on the monitor. There are 4 parts that make up a video card.

#1- Motherboard connection- The motherboard gives the power and data to the video card.
#2- Processor- The ability to generate geometric calculations (GPU) to produce the picture.
#3- Memory- The data that the GPU produces is temporarily stored on RAM. The RAM sends it to the Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) to convert image to analog signals that the monitor uses to display the image.
#4- Monitor connection- The video card is connected to the monitor to receive all images sent.

Three other names for video cards are: Graphics Accelerator Card, Display Adapter, and Graphics Card. From the year 1981 to 1987 three other standards of video cards were presented to computer users.

*Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) 640×200 graphic mode display, 16 colors, 16KB memory
*Enhanced Graphic Adapter (EGA) 640×350 graphic mode display, 16 colors, 256KB memory
*Multi-Color Graphics Adapter (MCGA) 320×200 graphic mode display, 256 colors

Video Graphics Adapter (VGA) was produced in 1987. It contained 720×400 text-only display, 640×480 graphic mode display, 256 colors and a 256KB memory. Companies like S3, Cirrus Logic, and ATI soon possessed the same capabilities as VGA. Not wanting to be out done, they made the Super VGA (SVGA) with 1024×768 resolutions, 256 color mode and 2 MB video memory. New improvements continued to be made until 1995 ,when they thought they had reached the top, 2D and 3D cards were created. They were released by Creative Matrox, S3 and ATI. These cards were based on the SVGA, but with the addition of 2D and 3D capabilities.

NVIDIA dominated the video card market between 1999 and 2002 with their version, the GeForce video cards. They went from 32MB in GeForce to 128MB in the GeForce 4. Their leadership was soon taken away by ATI in 2006 when they introduced Radeon Video Cards to the computer consumer.

There are several leading video card producers such as: NVIDIA, ATI Technologies, 3Dlabs, Matrox Graphics, SiS Inc., ABIT Ltd., Aopen, ASUSTek Computer, Gainward (CardExpert), LeadTek Research, MSI Inc., PNY Technologies, and Sapphire Technologies.

OEM cartridge stands for original equipment manufacturer cartridge. An OEM cartridges are original cartridges manufactured by the original brand manufacturer. An OEM cartridge comes in almost all the brands like HP, Dell, Canon, Lexmark, Epson, Brother, etc. The printing quality of these cartridges is the best as they are the original ones manufactured under their brand names.

A compatible cartridge, on the other hand, is the one which is not manufactured by the original manufacturer. These cartridges may be remanufactured ones or new cartridge. They work the same way as original cartridges. Their quality of print is the same or even better than the original cartridge. The special feature of these cartridges is that they are priced at relatively lower prices and that the reason these cartridges have become popular among consumers. Buying compatible cartridge can be very much advantageous than buying Original Equipment Manufacturer cartridge.

OEM ink & toner cartridges are priced normally. On the other hand, compatible ink & toner cartridges are priced at almost one-third of half the price of the original cartridge. Purchasing compatible cartridge is much cheaper than purchasing an OEM cartridge. This makes you save money which you can spend on buying an additional compatible ink cartridge.

The cartridges that we buy should be well compatible with the printer you have. Almost all the printers are compatible to these cartridges. There are very few printers which are not compatible with these cartridges. If the cartridge is not compatible to the printer, then you may run into loss as the cartridge you purchased will not work with your printer and will go into waste. While, on the other hand, OEM cartridge is also compatible to all the printers.

As it is said, recycle and remanufacture in order to make the environment safe. Compatible cartridges are remanufactured cartridges which does not let the used cartridges go into waste and re-uses it thereby, adding to the healthy environment. By purchasing compatible ink or toner cartridge, we help reduce the amount of solid waste getting disposed off into landfills.

Compatible ink and toner cartridges print an equal or even more number of pages than OEM cartridges. This happens because most of the time, OEM cartridge is not filled to capacity. Compatible cartridges, therefore, offers the customer a two-fold advantage, both reducing the cost per page and per cartridge.

Compatible cartridges do not void the warranty of your printer. Most of the consumers are under the impression that using compatible cartridges would void the warranty of the computer. Although this is not true….. Using compatible cartridges never voids the warranty of your printer.

Many of the retailers or superstores offer various discounts and discount coupons on compatible toner & ink cartridges. As this compatible toner & ink cartridges are not manufactured by the original manufacturer, it is offered on a range of discounts by the retailers and other superstores. The original OEM cartridges do not necessarily be on sale for discounts. The Original cartridges are manufactured by the original brand name which is expensive. So, OEM toner & ink cartridges may or may not be with discounts.

Original cartridges are manufactured by their original manufacturers. So they would be available readily with their brand manufacturers while compatible cartridges are manufactured by other manufacturers, so they would be available with other retailers and superstores.