This sounds a little strange at first, don’t you think ? I really had to investigate the matter further, let us check out what this is all about. The Australian PC World revealed the new Blue-Ray drive about three weeks ago on their website.

“Sony cautions that additional software and hardware is required for playback of commercial movies on Blu-ray Disc (BD-ROM) but the company didn’t specify exactly what is required.”

No one was sure what that ment at that time - until today. Cdfreaks report that Sony’s BWU-100A Blu-ray drive will not play Blu-ray movies which is exactly what Sony ment when they gave this statement to PC World.

continue reading "Sony’s first PC Blue-Ray drive won’t play Blue-Ray Movies"

Automatic Acoustic Management is a feature of most modern hard drives which reduces the seek noise at the cost of performance. Most hard drives have this feature disabled but it is possible to enable it using a tool like silent drive which runs on Windows Xp and 2000 only. Please note that silent drive is only working with IDE drives at the moment and that the gui is in german.

Run silent drive after unzipping the 18K freeware to a location on your hard drive. It should automatically detect your IDE drives and display the drives current setting, it will most likely be disabled. To silence your hard drive you would select the
leise (silent) switch, mittel (medium) means a balance between performance and noise and laut (noisy) means maximum performance but more noise. Click on seek-test after you changed the setting to hear how noisy your hard drive is.

continue reading "Silence or Speed up your Hard Drive"

A Beginner’s Guide to What Goes on Inside that PC published by extremetech a few days ago tries to explain the components of a personal computer without the “geek” language. It aims at a audience that did not have the time or desire to understand how a pc is working. The eight-parts article begins with an introduction and goes on by encouraging everyone to take a look at their own pc. (After saving all work and the like). It would be a good way to print the article to be able to read it and look at the turned off computer at the same time.

After explaining most of the elements of the pc and giving a basic understanding of the connections between those elements the article shifts to an in depth tutorial of the following elements: the case, the motherboard, input and output devices, cooling, putting everything together. All in all it´s a great way to start reading on computer hardware to get a rough first image how a pc works.

continue reading "A Beginners Guide to the PC"

Are you planning to purchase a new computer in the near future ? You are also someone who builds the computer on his own, someone who does not rely on retail computers that might have parts that are not the quality you demand ? The gotfrag price guide might be a good starting point if you answered both questions with yes.

Seven different systems are introduced ranging from budget system to high end systems. Except for the budget system which uses an AMD cpu all other categories present a INTEL and an AMD system. Next to the budget system (500$ - 700$) resides the entry level systems (750$ - 1100$), the mid range systems (1200$ - 1500$) and finally the high end systems which start at 1900$. Helpful as a starting point. Unfortunately there is no explanation why the mentioned hardware was chosen.

continue reading "Computer Building Price Guide"

Is it a good idea to look at online marketplaces like eBay to find a (used) notebook ? Is it a good idea to buy a used one or should one go for a new one ? Buying used ones has some advantages over new models: The price will be considerably lower, even if the used one has been purchased just a few months ago. Prices for last generations notebooks drop fast, even more if they have been used already.

You normally get no warranty whatsoever unless you purchase it from an merchant who sells his goods at eBay. This may be a disadvantage to some but it could also be seen as an advantage. Not many people would open up the notebook and take a look inside to maybe replace parts if there is still warranty on the notebook. For example if you purchase a used one that has a hard drive with 20 gigabytes of space you could try and replace it with a bigger one.

continue reading "Buying used notebooks"