Hardware Tips: Keep the Juice Flowing Smoothly to Your PC

Kirk Steers
From the April issue of PC World magazine

You wouldn't think to look at them, but PCs are picky eaters. They subsist on a diet of uninterrupted, precisely regulated electricity. Provide too little power, and your system behaves erratically or completely blacks out. Provide too much, and its tiny circuits--each 1/400th the width of a human hair, or thinner--are permanently fried. Here's how to ensure that your computer is properly nourished.

The biggest threat to your PC's survival is a sudden increase--or spike--in the amount of electric current flowing to it. Normally, your PC's power supply controls the flow of electricity from the wall socket into the system. But a fallen power line or nearby lightning strike can easily overwhelm the power supply and send a mortal surge of electricity coursing through your motherboard.

Safeguard your computer with a high-quality surge protector. Expect to spend at least $20 to $30; cheaper models probably won't provide the shielding your machine needs. The surge protector should meet the Underwriters Laboratories' UL 1449 specification (most will state this on their packaging).

If your area is prone to electrical storms or other power fluctuations, get a surge protector with an indicator light to confirm that the unit is working properly. Many surge protectors lose their ability to guard against excess current after a single high-voltage surge. Since the unit still provides power to your PC, without an indicator light there's no way to know whether the device has lost its ability to fend off surges. Note that some surge protectors, such as Kensington's $40 SmartSockets tabletop unit, have an audible alarm to indicate when a surge has damaged the unit.

Don't forget your phone lines: Your modem and telephone are just as vulnerable to power spikes as your PC is. You can buy a phone-line protector separately or as a feature of your surge protector.

Providing too little voltage to your PC can be as bad as providing too much. A sudden absence of power can trash unsaved data or damage important system files, both of which can be devastating to a business. To avoid these pitfalls, install an uninterruptible power supply. When the power goes out, a UPS provides sufficient operating current to your PC (usually no more than 10 minutes' worth) for you to save your data and properly shut down the computer. UPSs often come with software that automatically does this for you if you're not around.

Many UPSs cost less than $100. American Power Conversion offers a wide selection of affordable power-protection products, including the $40 Back-UPS ES 350VA (see FIGURE 1).

But don't pinch pennies. A UPS must be able to meet your PC's power needs. Before buying, check the UPS's specifications for maximum running time and wattage values, and compare them with your PC's wattage requirements (see next page). And be wary: Some UPS vendors state the run time for a "half load," or half the wattage load listed in the specs. Rarely are all the components of a PC running at full speed concurrently, so a UPS vendor's claim to keep your PC running for x minutes is based on a PC's usual power load, not its rated maximum.

How many watts does your system use? Some PCs are power-hungry beasts, especially if you've added a second hard drive, a CD-RW drive, more memory, or other extra hardware to your system's original configuration. To calculate your computer's wattage needs, add up the individual wattage requirements for all its components, including the motherboard, expansion cards, optical drives, and hard drives. Your PC's documentation should provide some of these numbers, but FIGURE 2 lists the typical wattage values for common PC components.

Once you have a total for your PC, add a 30 percent safety factor--multiply your calculated wattage by 1.3. Make certain the UPS you buy is capable of providing this level of power to your system for a minimum of 6 or 7 minutes.

And while you're calculating wattages, confirm that your PC's power supply is capable of providing sufficient wattage to your PC. With luck, the power supply's wattage rating is indicated on the back of your PC. If it isn't there, open your PC and look on the power supply itself (see FIGURE 3). Note that many power supplies include their maximum wattage in their names, such as the pictured PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 ATX-PFC, which is rated to 510 watts.

An overwhelmed power supply may not be able to keep adequate current flowing to your PC's components, and that can mean error messages, strange behavior, or even system shutdowns. But instead of those obvious signs of trouble, an overworked power supply may just pump extra heat into your PC, speeding up the system's aging process and pushing your PC's components to an early demise. If you suspect your power supply may be about to give up the ghost, replace it. PC Power and Cooling is a good source for quality power supplies.

Here are common power-problem warning signs:

A dead PC: You flip the power switch and get nothing--no fan noise, no hard disk noise, and no image. If your PC is plugged in and the wall socket is live, you probably need a new power supply.

No fan noise: If your power supply's fan stops, check for obstructions like dust or paper. If it won't start, replace your power supply immediately.

The smell of smoke: If a burning odor is coming from your system, there's a good chance it's your power supply. Open your PC and sniff around for the source. If the cause isn't obvious, shut the PC down, wait several minutes, and then restart.

Noisy hard disk but no picture: If this happens when your PC isn't in a power-saving mode, electricity may be reaching the hard disk but not the motherboard. Check inside your case to see if the power connector attached to the motherboard is loose. Otherwise, you may need a new power supply--or a new motherboard.

I just bought a new CD-RW drive, and I've found that my original CD-ROM drive won't read some of the CD-R and all of the CD-RW discs I've burned. (It seems to read gold- and black-colored CD-R discs, but not silver-colored ones.) Do you know of any hardware or software settings that can correct this?

Ian Moore, Pensacola, Florida

This isn't a problem with your settings; it's a result of the design of CD-R and CD-RW media. CD-RW discs reflect only a fraction of the light that standard CD-ROM or CD-R discs reflect, and all but the latest CD-ROM drives lack the sensitivity to accurately read them. Chances are, your current CD-ROM drive isn't up to the task. And unfortunately, neither are most people's CD-ROM drives, so don't count on using CD-RW discs as a means of passing data to others unless they too have a CD-RW drive.

CD-R discs are easier to read than CD-RW discs, and many CD-ROM drives can read them easily. But not always. CD-R discs are still far more delicate than your garden-variety CD-ROM disc. Rough handling and excessive exposure to heat or sunlight can quickly render a CD-R disc useless, whether blank or filled with data.

Some CD-ROM drives work better with certain brands of CD-R media. It used to be that discs made with a gold reflective coating (but not necessarily with a gold color) were of higher quality than discs using other reflective coatings, but this is no longer the case. There's no surefire way to determine what brand of CD-R will work with a given CD-ROM drive.

You'll usually have fewer problems reading recorded optical media with a CD-ROM drive made by a first-tier vendor such as Plextor or Hitachi. Check with the manufacturer of your CD-ROM drive or system for a recommended brand of CD-R media. In the end, however, finding what works best with your CD-ROM drive is a matter of trial and error, so don't buy a giant spindle of blank media until you've run a few test burns.

If you're lucky, you'll never need to use your Windows CD-ROM. But if you ever have to add or reinstall hardware, or replace a corrupted system file, that disc is essential--and if you don't have it handy, you can end up wasting lots of time. Save trouble by copying all of the .cab files (compressed Windows files) from your Windows CD to a folder on your hard drive. Name the folder after the disc's Product Key. Then in the future, when Windows asks you for the Windows CD, just point it to that folder.

You can reach PC World Contributing Editor Kirk Steers at kirk_steers@pcworld.com. We pay $50 for published items. Click here to view past Hardware Tips columns.