How to fix BIOS problems ?

When viewing externally, a laptop would usually be a simple rectangular box. However, when you try to take off the sides of the laptop, you would find that there are a lot of different parts which make up the computer. Therefore, you should be careful when you use the computer because if there is any problem with the computer, you could hardly find the source of the problem.

Among all the parts of the computer, one of the most important parts would be the laptop motherboard. The motherboard has a lot of dedicate capacitors and circuits which enable the computer to work. All of the parts of the computer have to be connected to the motherboard in order to function. Therefore, many people would say that motherboard is the soul of the computer and when the motherboard has problem, people have to work hard to solve the problem and conduct laptop motherboard repair. Otherwise, they would have to replace the motherboard with a new one.

In fact, one of the common problems about the motherboard would be the BIOS setting. Sometimes, some virus or bad programs may try to change the BIOS settings of the computer so that the computer would not be able to function. The corresponding laptop motherboard repair work is simple. In order to fix this problem, people could try to remove the battery on the motherboard. This type of laptop motherboard repair would work in most of the time because the silver battery provides the electricity for the motherboard to keep the BIOS setting and when the battery is taken away, the settings would be restored as the original default settings.

However, people should not try to take the battery out of the penal for a long time because it would make the settings of date and time change.

from http://techknowbits.com

10 Windows 7 Registry tweaks

10 Windows 7 Registry hacks and tweaks

Windows 7 needs far less of the sleeves-up shuffling about that its predecessors demanded for smooth operation.

It works, and it works well. But that doesn't mean you can't use the Registry to add nifty features or change the settings to your liking.

Here are ten things you can do with the Windows 7 Registry. Just type regedit in the usual search box and hit [Enter], then follow our tips.

1. Personalise IE8

Bought your PC from an overzealous manufacturer that's gratuitously branded Internet Explorer with its own na

me? Just want to add your own custom touch in place of the default 'Windows Internet Explorer'? It's easy.

In the registry editor, navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\Main' and create a new string value. Name it 'Window Title', with the space. Then just double-click it and enter your desired window title in the field.

2. Stop Snap

Aero Snap is arguably a very useful feature – we say arguably because, as we're sure you've noticed, it often decides to kick in and glue your windows to screen edges when you don't want it to.

If you're not finding the Snap feature useful, then you might as well turn it off . First, navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Control Panel\Desktop'. There are a number of settings you could customise here, but the one that you're looking for in this case is called 'WindowArrangementActive'. The value should be 1 – change it to 0 to make this feature inactive.

Alternatively, just make sure you never venture too close to the edge.

3. Change stacking behaviour

This particular tweak is perhaps of questionable usefulness, but we thought you'd like the option to try it anyway. If you don't like the thumbnail display when clicking on taskbar buttons, then you can change the action and force Windows to open the last opened window of the stack instead.

To do this, open 'HKEY_ CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\Advanced' and create a new DWORD value. Rename it LastActiveClick and set its value to 1 to switch this mode on.

Should you change your mind, you can always go back and delete the key or set it to 0 to revert back later on.

4. Quicker taskbar previews

Are you bored of waiting the couple of seconds it takes for the graphical previews to pop up when you hover over icons on the taskbar? Or would you rather they took longer to appear?

The choice is yours. Go to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced' and create a DWORD named 'ExtendedUIHoverTime'. Now double-click to open it, click the 'Decimal' radio button, and then change its value to the number of milliseconds you'd like the process to take. The default is 400ms.

5. Change other delays

Stay in the same key (Explorer\Advanced) and you can tweak a couple of other timings.

Add a 32-bit DWORD into the mix named 'DesktopLivePreviewHoverTime'. Switch this to decimal in the same manner as before, then change the value data field to alter the number of milliseconds it takes for the Aero Peek function (minimise all windows) to kick in when you hover over the icon on the right of the taskbar.

Alternatively, do the same with a DWORD called 'ThumbnailLivePreview HoverTime' to alter how long it takes for the windows that are associated with taskbar thumbnails to come to the front.

6. Speed up menus

Make menu items automatically drop down a lot faster with this tweak. Go to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Control Panel\Desktop', right-click 'MenuShowDelay' and click 'Modify'.

Now change the current string value to something like 100 – hey presto, near-instant menu appearance.

7. Stop space checking

Free up a tiny shred of system resources. Go to 'HKEY_ CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer', create a new DWORD called 'NoLowDisk SpaceChecks' and set its value to 1 to switch off disk space checking.

8. Move the kernel

If the Windows Kernel is in memory, it will run slightly faster than it would if it were on your hard drive. Hunt out 'DisablePagingExecutive' within 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management'. Change its value to 1.

9. Change the name

Bought a second-hand machine? Then you might want to alter the name of the registered owner. Go to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\', double-click on the 'RegisteredOwner' key and then change it.

10. Boost speed

There's one tweak that will make every hover action much faster, from tooltips to the Start menu. Navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Control Panel\Mouse' and tweak the 'MouseHoverTime' value. A word of warning, though: never choose 0 – it's completely unworkable.

By PC Plus

Forget XP and Vista, Windows 7 is your new OS

Consumers and business customers are moving past Windows XP and Windows Vista, with Microsoft noting that Windows 7’s adoption rate is through the roof.

The Redmond company even has the numbers to prove it, with Rich Reynolds, general manager of Windows Commercial Product Marketing at Microsoft underpinning the fact that 240 million Windows 7 licenses have already been sold to date.

But there are additional statistics coming from third-party sources, all illustrative of a consensus, the most successful operating system in history continues to sell like hot cake.

Net Applications is crediting Windows 7 with a market share of 18.33% at the end of October 2010, with XP having dropped under the 60% mark to 58.92%, and Vista down to 12.93%.

It is clear that end users are dumping XP and Vista and upgrading to Windows 7. And Microsoft expects this trend to continue in 2011, especially considering the increase in the number of PC units for next year.

“There are 1.2 billion PCs in the worldwide ecosystem and PC sales have rebounded with Windows 7 as a key driver. According to IDC, there was 4.15% global PC unit growth in 2009, with nearly 17% growth expected for 2010, and sustained growth continuing at a rate of nearly 13% in 2011,” Reynolds noted.

In 2011, hundreds of millions of PCs will all come preinstalled with Windows 7, more than doubling the number of licenses that the software giant will sell in2010.

Microsoft is currently building Service Pack 1 and there’s already some talk of the company’s next moves in the client and server space as far as Windows is concerned, but with little effect on customers, and especially businesses.

83% more IT managers will deploy Windows 7 within a year, according to Forrester. “IDC shows that nearly all enterprise companies (89%) surveyed are moving forward with their Windows 7 plans within the next 24 months. And 64% of them are already deploying Windows 7 or have plans to migrate in the next six months,” Reynolds added.

“SMB growth has also been notable - the number of desktops and laptops running Windows 7 has increased nearly 500% since the beginning of the year.”

Most important, customers are happy with the move they made. The Redmond company underlined the fact that Windows 7 has a 94% customer satisfaction rating, and this percentage pretty much speaks for itself.

Contributing to a high level of satisfaction is also a drop in costs. For businesses this is extremely important as they continue to pay for any new technology. But the Total Cost of Ownership for Windows 7 is down compared to previous versions of Windows, and even with rival operating systems.

“We’ve done extensive internal studies with several companies to get a better idea of actual TCO, including British Airport Authority (BAA), National Instruments (NI), City of Stockholm, Baker Tilly, City of Miami and Getronics,” Reynolds stated.

“The average savings is $140 per PC per year and the average ROI is 131% in just over 12 months. We’ve also seen very specific TCO data related to deployment with an average savings of $12-61 per desktop.”

In addition to low TCO, enterprise customers will also benefit as far as Return on Investment is concerned. “BAA business value analysis expects an ROI of 102%, an IRR of 65%, and a payback period within 15 months. Anticipated benefits include IT cost savings of $268 per PC per year and user productivity increases to 14 hours per user per year,” Reynolds explained.

Windows 7 SP1 is expected in the first quarter of 2011, but there’s really no reason to wait, and as the numbers above clearly indicate, customers aren’t waiting at all.

BY : http://news.softpedia.com