PC Computer Hardware – Daves Computer Tips

How To Check Your SSD’s Health

Jim Hillier — Tue, 05 May 2026 05:49:32 +0000

Unlike HDDs, SSDs give little to no warning that they are about to fail, so it’s important to periodically check your SSD’s health status. Some manufacturers provide a dedicated tool that supports their own brand – e.g., Samsung Magician – but if you don’t have such a tool, there are alternatives. CrystalDiskInfo is portable freeware that provides a comprehensive report of your drive’s health…

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How To Correctly Diagnose RAM Problems

Marc Thomas — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 04:10:58 +0000

RAM stands for random access memory, and to you and me, it’s the memory modules we have in our computers. Unfortunately, most laymen who are not familiar with RAM confuse PC memory with hard disk space, and I could write a book about the number of times I’ve heard my customers say “My PC is running out of memory”, when what they really mean is that they are running out of disk space.

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Which PC Brands Rate Best For Customer Satisfaction

Jim Hillier — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 04:11:13 +0000

ASCI (American Customer Satisfaction Index) has completed a study to ascertain which PC brands rate best for customer satisfaction. ASCI incorporated a variety of factors to come up with an overall customer satisfaction rating, including: Acer came out as the worst brand for customer satisfaction, with HP coming out on top as the best: (Credit: ASCI) A score of 81 is the median…

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How Many Computers Do You Own?

Marc Thomas — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 04:48:51 +0000

First, let me make it clear that I’m not being braggadocious here, but I am curious about how many computers people use in their households, be they Windows, Linux, or Apple-based. In my recent experience, I’ve found a shift to more mobile use, and many of my customers are moving away from laptops and desktop computers. Even the younger generation, for whom I’ve built gaming PCs…

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Fixed – Printer Only Prints Test Page And Nothing Else

Marc Thomas — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 06:01:30 +0000

Yesterday I went to a customer’s house to fix a printing problem, which initially had me scratching my head. Her PC had recently been upgraded by her nephew to a Ryzen 5 32GB of RAM, NVMe, and an RTX GPU, which struck me as unusual at first, being a household PC. She then told me that her hobby is photography, so that made sense. Neither her nephew nor her son, who both work in technology and PCs…

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Will Copilot+ PCs Become The Only Choice?

Jim Hillier — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 05:01:53 +0000

Will the day come when traditional PCs are no longer available, and Copilot+ PCs then become the only choice? This is a question that I often ponder, and with a certain amount of trepidation, I might add. While our politicians seem unable to learn from history, it’s to history I turn when seeking a possible answer. If history has taught us anything, it’s that newer technology usually…

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No Power On Gateway PC

Terry Hollett — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 06:12:38 +0000

After a winter storm, we had a power outage that lasted almost 20 hours. Not good in an apartment with only electric heat. No lights, no heat, can’t go online to complain to anyone. 🙂 I previously wrote about someone’s computer not turning on after a power outage. The fix was to unplug the computer, hold down the power button for 30 seconds, plug it back in, and turn it on.

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What Has Been The Greatest Advancement In PC Specs?

Jim Hillier — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 08:05:31 +0000

When you get to my age, looking back at the history of PCs owned, it’s amazing just how much PC specs have advanced over the years. My very first PC was a TRS-80, which loaded programs via tape cassettes. The programs were written in BASIC, a language I eventually mastered, and each was volume-sensitive. So I kept a list of programs, each marked with the optimal volume for loading successfully.

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Some Motherboard UEFIs Are Injecting Software Into Windows

Marc Thomas — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 05:01:52 +0000

Following my article about BitLocker encrypting the OS drive on my Asus laptop without my consent, I began to delve deeper into what was really going on with my one-year-old Asus TUF Gaming A16 laptop. My findings will surprise you. Having solved the BitLocker issue, I was curious about other software that was installed without my intervention, so I looked at Armoury Crate and My Asus…

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What’s The Oldest Tech Hardware You Still Use?

Marc Thomas — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 05:01:16 +0000

Shiny Thing Syndrome (STS) is a hard condition to shake, and I’ve been collecting computer hardware since the early ’90s. Some I’ve kept and some I’ve regrettably sold. Not all my vintage hardware is in continuous daily use, except for one. I’ve had this case since the early ’90s and have been lugging it around ever since. Originally, it housed an Intel 486 and a tiny hard drive with…

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ASCOMP PC Internals Overview & Giveaway

Richard Pedersen — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 07:51:15 +0000

This contest has now expired. Winners will be notified by email. Congratulations to the Winners and Thank You to everyone who participated! ASCOMP has kindly offered our DCT readers a chance to win one of five licenses for their PC Internals program. These licenses are currently each valued at $24.90 (US). A limited free version is also available for personal use and evaluation.

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This Is Why “Gaming” Adds So Much To The Price Of Hardware

Marc Thomas — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 05:23:40 +0000

Gaming is an expensive hobby, not only for the price of games but also rising costs of hardware. We are all aware of Microsoft’s questionable stance on Windows 11 requirements, and the same is happening in AAA games. For example, DOOM: The Dark Ages and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle require an SSD and a hardware-capable ray tracing GPU. I can understand the SSD requirement because everything…

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Dead NVMe Boot Drive In Sony VAIO Laptop

Marc Thomas — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 05:01:05 +0000

Last week, a customer brought a four-year-old Sony Vaio VJFE54F11UAR model laptop to me that wouldn’t boot to Windows and instead went directly to the BIOS. Upon further investigation, it was found that no NVMe drive was installed. I then booted from a WinPE rescue pen drive, and no disk was present, so I opened up the laptop. I was surprised to find a brand of NVMe I had never seen before…

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New Windows 11 Auto-Repair Feature

Jim Hillier — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 04:02:33 +0000

Microsoft has added a new feature to Windows 11 that has the ability to automatically repair a non-booting system. This new feature is called “Quick machine recovery” (QMR) and, while it’s available in all Insider builds, I believe the general release is still in the process of rolling out. So, if you haven’t gotten QMR yet, don’t worry, you should be getting it soon. QMR is a cloud-based…

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