Q: Yesterday I built a desktop computer from parts that I’ve acquired over the past few years. While installing software today, I noticed that the power source wasn’t plugged all the way into the video card, so I pushed it in more tightly, and bam: The computer suddenly shut off, and it won’t turn back […]

(This is the fourth in a series of posts covering information taken from my latest book, Upgrading and Fixing Computers Do-It-Yourself For Dummies.) Let your computer double as a TV set by adding a TV tuner — a gadget that pulls in a TV signal, letting you channel surf and watch shows on your monitor. […]

A: When writing information to your hard drive, Windows usually breaks the files into pieces, stuffing them into whatever empty space it can find. When retrieving a file, Windows rummages for those scattered pieces, which takes a little time. To speed things up, Windows includes a disk defragmentation program: The program gathers up all those […]

(This is the third in a series of posts covering information taken from my book, Upgrading and Fixing Computers Do-It-Yourself For Dummies.) Many Windows XP programs run fine under Windows 7, but a few oldsters refuse to adjust to the new world of Windows 7. To help your old Windows XP programs keep gasping along, […]

(This is the second in a series of posts covering information taken from my latest book, Upgrading and Fixing Computers Do-It-Yourself For Dummies.) What do you do with your old computer once you’ve bought your new one? With a little creativity, you can salvage a lot of it. That makes you a recycler in the […]