http://www.bootdisk.com/ 204 January 2005
The BootLIST Welcome to the 204th Edition of The BootLIST
INDEX
1) Wireless-B Or Wireless-G?
2) Ink-Jet Printer Cleaning
3) Make Icon Labels/Words Transparent
4) Power Supply Voltages And HDD Replacements
5) My PC Now Turns Itself On At Night
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1) Wireless-B Or Wireless-G?James L. asks - I plan to purchase a Wireless Router and Wireless Adapter. So what is different between Wireless-B and Wireless-G?
Toolman Tim says:
G is faster. B is 11mps, G is 54mps, IIRC. If it's for broadband Internet, it's likely to be moot. Both are faster than most ISPs will upload to your system. If you plan on sharing files locally, faster is better.Dan D. adds:
Another side benefit is that G equipment is backwards compatible with B equipment - so, if you have a laptop with a G card, you'll still be able to connect to both G and B networks should you ever roam.
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2) Ink-Jet Printer CleaningMohog wrote - How do you clean inkjet printer heads? Mine keeps getting clogged and running the cleaning utility many times doesn't seem to do anything.
*** Personally I use the head cleaning fluid that comes in the kit with the floppy disk cleaners I use. Other folks swear on using Windex ie a window cleaner [ammonia and water]. Wet your Q-tips and go to work. I'd venture to say that any tape head cleaning fluid [denatured alcohol] should work for cleaning printer ink.One thing I've found to be VERY useful is to also clean out the "self cleaning" hardware in your printer. Open the cover and your cart should go to the middle. Look to the right where the cart is parked during nonuse and you should see a wire or flexible rubber blade, perhaps some small wells, or perhaps several sponge type contraptions. Clean all that out as you'll likely see lots of partially dry ink there.
You'll also most likely see lots of ink where it shouldn't be ie on the plastic around the self cleaning assembly. In other words, you can clean the cart but then it may just grime up again with almost dried ink when it goes back to park and you're back to square one. So, clean the docking station as well. You'll need a half dozen or so Q-tips aka cotton swabs.
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3) Make Icon Labels/Words Transparentshaggy inquired - Can I make my desktop color transparent so the desktop icons don't have a color when they sit on top of my custom wallpaper? For instance, I have a picture of my puppy as my wallpaper, but the desktop color is still blue, hence the words beneath the icons still have a blue background. How can I make it transparent so only the letters appear for the icons, not the blue color?
Greg said:
Control Panel | System | Advanced tab. Click on performance settings. On the Visual Settings tab, enable "use drop shadows".Alex N. suggests:
You can make the background of the labels for the icons invisible at Control Panel - System - Advanced - in Performance click Settings - and in the panel (near bottom) check Use drop shadows under icon labels on Desktop.Ramesh adds:
Desktop icons and icon labels may not display background transparency or the drop shadow effect in Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP:http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=305117
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4) Power Supply Voltages And HDD ReplacementsPower Supply Reference Sheet posted by Thor
Here are the ATX allowances for power supply voltage spec deviation:
+12V DC output +/- 5% (11.4V to 12.6V)
+5V DC output +/- 5% (4.75V to 5.25V)
If measurements show that the voltage deviations are outside the ranges specified above, then it's time to get a new power supply.
*** A digital portable voltmeter is about $20 which you can find in almost any hardware store. You want the one with the pointed contacts not the clips to test the 4 pin connectors. OK the point of all this is that lets say that you had a hard drive gone bad or are called to fix somebodies else's pc where their hard drive has gone bad and in both examples the drives were relatively new or even just a year old.Reminder. Be sure to get a DIGITAL meter. ie not the kind with the needle display.
Before I risk putting in a new $100 drive I ALWAYS test at least the +5 volt line that would plug into the hard drive. Yes, I'll often find that in systems where the hard drive seemed to fail prematurely within a year that the +5 volt line is reading 5.35 or 5.4 and in that case I'm NOT going take the chance and toast the new hardware. In this instance/example a new PS is a must in my opinion. Note that as power supplies fail the voltage on the five volt line goes up and that's one of the killers of HDDs.
Many bios's also have a voltage reporting section but it's still nice to have the meter as your FIRST opinion. Popular places to find it in the bios is either on the chipset or power page. Use the BIOS as your SECOND data point, if at all.
Let's go through an example on how to do this. Your meter should have a red and a black probe so you can stick them in the 4 pin power connector. The wires are colored as follows:
Red | Black | Black | Yellow
The Red wire is +5 volts. The Yellow wire is +12 volts. Both black wires are ground. With the pc on, put the red probe in the red hole and the black probe in the black hole and read the voltage. Healthy pcs will generally show perhaps 5.05 or 5.11 volts which is fine and well within the tolerance. If you test the 12 volt line you will generally find it OK even if the 5 volt is outside the tolerance. Which is why I said the five volt seems to be the one that really matters when dealing with failed drives.
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5) My PC Now Turns Itself On At NightTomBoy56 inquires - Hi there I just signed up for cable internet and my hubby put in a Router and it works perfectly. My problem is we have three computers in the den and I swear I shut mine off at night but when I wake up its on. Nobody says they turned it on but this happens every night since. Why?
*** Wake on LAN is often Enabled by default in the bios. In other words, now that you are on a network with your router any network activity can cause your pc to boot up. Yes, even though you shut it off even with the power button it's still on internally and waiting. So, go into your bios and Disable Wake On LAN.LAN = Local Area Network
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