Tech Tip Daily

I can’t recall how many times I’ve been on a customer site and needed to print something, only to find that the printer was some obscure model that used a driver only obtainable from some password protected website in China, that just so happened to be down.  After talking with a coworker, he brought me in on a little secret – the HP LaserJet 4 driver will almost always work (and it’s included by default in all recent versions of Windows)!

Reluctantly, I tried it.  To my surprise, it really did work.  While using this “universal print driver” doesn’t always yield the best and most correct formatting options, it almost always prints a readable page and can be very useful in a pinch.

To select the HP LaserJet 4

• When given the option to select a model for your printer, choose ‘HP’ in the manufacturer window and then select ‘HP LaserJet 4′ in the printers window.

In my experience, the HP printers tend to do a better job with this trick (obviously) but I’ve had success with Konica Minolta, Canon, Dell, and a host of other brands.  I wouldn’t recommend doing this for anything too important, because as mentioned, formatting and margins can sometimes become an issue.  But for that quick print of a reference document, it sure comes in handy.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!

So believe it or not, this problem actually happened to me…this morning. As I usually treat my computer akin to a newborn infant, I was completely shocked.

Of all problems ever encountered with computers, this is definitely on the top 10 list. 50% of the time, the solution involves plugging the machine in, or perhaps ensuring the user is pressing the correct button. The other half of the time, it involves a bit more troubleshooting. In my case, the solution was in the very last place I looked.

Reasons why (and solutions for when) a computer won’t turn on:

1. As mentioned, make sure the machine is plugged in. You’d be surprised how often a coworker or a loved one uwittingly unplugs a device to use the outlet for something else, forgetting to plug the original cord back in. Also, make sure the outlet has power. Try plugging something else into the same outlet.
2. Make sure you’re pressing the right button (usually bigger than the rest, often has “POWER” written near it, sometimes a circle with a straight line protruding out the top of it)
3. If the computer is plugged in and the outlet has power, try unplugging the machine for a few seconds, press the power button a few times to drain any residual current, then plugging it back in. Often times, I’ve seen the motherboard “hiccup”, where it just simply needs to be deprived of power for a little. If this works, I would suggest checking your hardware, and perhaps replacing your motherboard (it’s either broke or garbage).
4. If steps 1-3 check out OK, unfortunately it’s time to open up your case. Unless you’re comfortable with computers, I would not advise going past this point. Instead, take the machine to a trusted friend or pc repair center (and point them to the remainder of this article! – wink)
5. Once disconnected and opened up, take some time to clean the machine out. I recommend getting a can of compressed air. It’s usually a good idea to take the computer outside when you do this, unless you enjoy narcotic fumes (seriously, don’t breathe this stuff). Make sure to clean out all of the little corners and inside of the fans. Be especially sure to clean out the power supply (the big metal box located at the top or bottom of the rear of the case). Sometimes, dust buildup can do weird things on transformers and transistors. Take the machine back inside, put the cover back on (as a safety precaution – you don’t have to screw it back on) and try again. If it still doesn’t power on, it’s time to examine the power supply.
6. Reseat the memory. Often times, memory can be the culprit for a host of computer problems. Take each stick out, and carefully put it back into the slot, ensuring that it is placed correctly and completely.
7. 

   ATX Psu Pinout - Courtesy of pinouts.ru

   If you have a power supply tester, now would be a great time to put it to use. If not, there are a couple of things you can do to verify the integrity of the PSU (power supply unit). In most circumstances, a faulty PSU will simply fail to turn on. You can narrow the problem down to the power supply by shorting out two pins in the 24V connector (shown in the image above – this connector is typically the largest one on the cables). I used a set of tweezers between pins 14 and 15, although a piece of wire or anything else metallic should work. PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN PLAYING WITH POWER! Although I’ve never had any problems doing this, there’s the potential for some real damage (to your equipment and yourself) if you don’t take the necessary precautions. The power switch on the case controls a motherboard-generated short on these two PSU pints. When shorted, the power supply will send current to the PC through all of its connectors. When you short these pins, if fans start spinning and lights start coming on, you know that the power-on capability of the PSU is working (although any other combination of problems could exist – such as faulty wires or connectors). If there is no sign of change or power during the short, then it looks like it’s time to get a new power supply. Make sure that you get a power supply adequately rated for your hardware (eXtreme Power Supply Calculator).

8. Assuming the power supply came on when shorted, there are a few possibilities to consider. The first is a bad power switch. Follow the wires from the switch to the motherboard. They should meet at a small, black, plastic plug. Disconnect the plug from the motherboard and take a screwdriver, shorting the two pins that were connected to the plug. If things begin to turn on, you have a faulty switch. If not, continue on.
9. You might have faulty connectors or wires on your power supply. Begin to test each of the plugs. The best way to do this is to purchase a power supply tester (follow the link earlier in the article). If you’re simply to cheap for this (I understand), take a component such as a fan (with a 4-pin molex connector) and test it on each plu…You know what, I’m not even going to bother. Just spend the money to get a power supply tester. The time you’ll save in troubleshooting will be well worth the few bucks you spend. If something doesn’t test ok, buy a new PSU. If everything checks on, move on.
10. A faulty component could be causing a power disruption in your system. Disconnect all devices in the system from the power supply, and begin re-connecting them one by one, starting with the motherboard (make sure you plug in both connectors – most modern motherboards require two plugs, the standard 24V that you tested earlier and a smaller 4-pin connector). Also, make sure you’ve reconnected your power button to the motherboard from step 8 (this will make powering on much easier). Hopefully, the bare bones setup should power on. If it does, begin adding components until it doesn’t work. There you have your faulty device. If even the most basic setup won’t power on, continue.
11. You may have a bad motherboard. Try switching out with a friends or a spare you might have. If you take it to a local PC repair shop, they should be able to test it for you as well. Or you could always just buy another one.
12. Last but not least, check your PC power cable. Yeah, that little black cord running from your computer to the AC jack in the wall. This happened to be my issue. Using a different cord fixed the problem right away. Who would have thought, huh?

As far as I can tell, this list covers just about anything. If I’ve left something out, leave a note in the comments. If you’ve followed the list and are still having problems, I would suggest taking the machine to a professional (but for the love of humanity, not the geek squad). Or you can post a comment here and someone will try to help.

That’s all! Thanks, and happy computing!

So after taking a few days for a break, I’m finally back (hey, it’s hard work running this site by myself).  I’ve talked in quite a few posts about my experiences with Vista.  Overall, it’s been fairly pleasant, especially after reformatting.  I’ve had few compatibility issues.  One that’s really bugged me though is the inability to easily print to a Netgear PS121 print server from Vista.  With the many machines I’ve got in my house, I’ve always preferred direct network printers instead of sharing them from a single machine.  Besides, my Vista desktop is doing enough as it is, the last thing it needs is to share a printer.

The software included with the print server includes an installation package for Windows XP.  This sets up a network printer connection to print to the server.  Unfortunately, the install file is incompatible with Vista.  In addition, adding the printer like most network printers doesn’t work…exactly.  While this is how you begin the process to install the printer, there are a few additional tweaks required to get it to work.  I’ll start from the beginning. Before you begin, ensure that the print server is powered on and connected to both the printer and the network.  You may wish to do some preliminary configuration on the print server, such as setting an IP address and name for the device.  The default IP address is obtained from DHCP, most likely from a router if this is installed at home.  Check the documentation that came with your router or modem for instructions on checking the DCHP allocation.  Alternatively, you can download Angry IP Scanner and do a port scan on your local subnet for all machines with port 80 (http) open (essentially, this checks for all devices on your network that have a web page – the PS121 does).  Despite all of this information, you will need the ip address for your print server to set up printing.

To print to a PS121 print server with Vista:

1. Go to Start->Control Panel
2. Open “printers”
3. Right click and choose “Add printer…”
4. Select “Add a local printer”
5. Select the bubble next to “Create a new port:” and then choose “Standard TCP/IP Port” from the dropdown.  Click Next
6. On the next page, enter the ip address of your printer (e.g. – 192.168.1.20) in the “Hostname or IP address” field.  The port name will be automatically generated (you’ll need to remember this for step 14).  Choose “Autodetect” for the device type.  Click Next
7. Windows will now attempt to find the device.  In all likelihood, it won’t find anything and you’ll have to wait a minute or two while it searches.  This might be avoided by selecting something different instead of “Autodetect” in the previous page, but I haven’t tested this.  When it finishes searching, ensure that the bubble next to “Standard” is selected and “Generic Network Card” is displayed in the drop down.  Depending on the make and model of your machine, this might display something different.  It’s probably a safe bet just to click Next at this point
8. On the next page, select the manufacturer of your printer, then choose the printer model from the box on the right.  There are a wide variety of different models available in Vista.  If yours isn’t listed, choose “Have Disk” and browse to the location of your print drivers.  These can be obtianed from the manufacturer’s website.  Once selected, choose next
9. If it asks which version of the driver to use, select “Use the driver that is currently installed (recommended)”.  Click Next
10. Type a name for your printer (you can probably leave it as the default).  Also, check the box if you would like it to be set as the default printer.  Click Next
11. Select whether you would like to share the printer on your network
12. Click Finish (don’t print a test page just yet, we’re not done)
13. In the printers window (which should still be open), right click on your newly installed printer and select properties
14. In the window that appears, click the “Ports” tab and select the port with the name consisting of the IP address of the PS121 (or whatever you named the port to in step 6).  Click “Configure Port”
15. In the “Protocol” box, select “LPR”
16. In the “LPR Settings” box, enter a queue name of “P1″ and check the box next to “LPR Byte Counting Enabled”.  Click OK

And you’re set.  With as lengthy of a process as this is, I would recommend printing a test page to check your settings.  To do this, go back to the printer properties (step 13) but instead of going to the ports tab, click “Print a test page”.  I’ve not had a problem getting this to work.  If you have any issues, leave a comment, and I or someone else will try to help you out.  Alternatively, you can try searching around on the internet, although I’ve found very little coverage on this little topic.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!

Out of all of my recent acquisitions, my “coolest”, by far, is the 8gb flash drive.  Aside from high-definition DVD rips and a few “miscellaneous” files on P2P sites, I now have the capability to store at least 1 of the largest files in existence; a DVD rip (Ok, so I realize this statement consists of very little truth).  But still, 8gb of data is pretty cool.  And almost right away, I had use for it.  I needed to get a video file from computer A to computer B.  This file just so happened to be a 5.3gb, 720p version of the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Olympics (legally obtained, of course).

When I went to move the file from my PC to the thumb drive, I received an error stating that the file size had exceeded the available space on the destination.  “What?”  For a short time, I was completely confused, checking the properties of the drive to make sure that they hadn’t mislabeled/mispackaged a smaller drive in an 8gb container.  Suddenly, I remembered that the drive was formatted with the FAT32 file system.  Silly me…

In reality, it was by complete chance that I had remembered this, let alone learned it in the first place.  The quick “down and dirty” is that while this thumb drive was formatted in FAT32, it was unable to store files larger than 4 gigabytes, as this is a limitation of the FAT32 file system.  The science behind this is largely irrelevant but you may still find it through a simple google search.  Basically, the solution entails reformatting the thumb drive to the NTFS file system so that you can store larger files.

To format a drive as a different file system:

1. Open “My Computer”
2. Find the drive in question and right click it, selecting “format”.
3. Under the “File system” section, click the arrow in the drop down box and select your desired file system (NTFS, in this case).
4. Click “Start” at the bottom of the window.
5. A window will notify you that the operation has completed successfully.  Following, you may close the windows and copy your file.

It’s important to note that there are a few disadvantages to NTFS.  By nature, NTFS requires more “write” operations to the drive.  This results in slower performance of the drive, and in the long term, minimizes the life of the drive (Flash memory can only be written to a limited number of times).  The other disadvantage is that other operating systems don’t natively support the NTFS file system as much as Microsoft (some can only read but are unable to write).  Best practice would be to reformat the drive as FAT32 once you have used it for it’s large-file purpose.  Otherwise, with the price of flash memory as it is, you could probably leave it without any major problems.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!

Where graphics performance was once determined solely by processing power, it’s recently become a matter of numbers. With technologies like Nvidia’s SLI and ATI’s Crossfire, it’s not a matter of necessarily how big your video card is, but how many you have that counts. There’s no doubt about it that SLI has been a huge success. Benchmarks are now higher than ever.

However, there’s a caveat to consider. What isn’t advertised on the front of that 9800 GTX box is that two or more video cards running in SLI don’t officially support dual monitors – At least not from the manufacturer. I found this out when building my latest PC and I was crushed. I’ve used dual screens for 4 years now and I couldn’t imagine life without it. The “official” solution is to disable SLI when using dual monitors. Who has that kind of time?

A simple search on the SLI Zone forums shows a number of people who share the same frustration. Thanks to member FredrikMH, Dual monitors while in SLI are possible through a simple list of steps – And a few requirements.

To accomplish this, you’ll need:

• 2 Nvidia SLI-supported graphics cards (for a list of cards that support sli, click here)
• 1 PCI (Not express) graphics card.  I used an 8600GT.  A quick note, while you shouldn’t spend $250 on a card that solely supports a second monitor, if you ever plan on running visualizers or playing video on this screen, you’ll need a halfway-decent card.  Don’t go shopping in the bargain bin at tiger direct (this also means you’ll need a spare PCI slot on your motherboard – This might work on a 3 slot PCI-E motherboard, where only two cards are running in SLI).
• Vista (some people report problems doing this in XP – try at your own risk)

I’ll remind you again, this isn’t officially sanctioned by Nvidia.  So try this at your own risk (I don’t take responsibility if you fry your brand new video card – or any part of your computer for that matter).

Note: While I refer to the “third” card (PCI) throughout this article, this should work with any SLI configuration, including tri or quad setups.

How does it work?  The SLI-enabled cards power the main screen (as intended).  The third card powers the secondary monitor.  The problem is that when you enable dual monitors on cards running in SLI, the SLI is disabled.  SLI works (essentially) by dividing the processing requirements of the main display among the graphics cards.  For example, if you have two SLI cards, each only has to work on half of the main screen.  This means one card can display half of the content much faster than if it had to power the entire display on its own.  If dual monitors were allowed on cards running SLI, the concept would bust as each card would be taxed by 1 monitor.  The trick is to bring a third card into the equation after the fact.  By letting the third card power the second monitor, the SLI-enabled cards can wok on the main display (the one running the games).

The steps:

1. Start by installing all cards into the computer (including drivers).  Drivers can be downloaded here.  Connect your main display to the first header of your top SLI card (typically will be the top-left most DVI port on the back of your machine.  Connect your second (and third, if you want) monitors to your PCI card.
2. Disable the third (PCI) card in device manager.  Right click on ‘My Computer’ (or ‘Computer’ in Vista) and click ‘Manage’.  Select ‘device manager’ and expand display adapters.  Right click on the PCI card and choose ‘Disable’.  Select yes if a confirmation box appears.
3. Restart your machine
4. After the machine restarts, go into your Nvidia control panel (Start Menu->Programs->Nvidia Corporation->Nvidia Control Panel->Control Panel) and enable SLI.
5. Restart your machine
6. Some people report that at this point their PCI card that they disabled in step 2 was automatically enabled.  Mine wasn’t.  If yours isn’t, do so now by following the steps from #2 (and selecting enable).
7. Right click on your desktop and select ‘Personalize’.  Choose ‘display settings’ from the window that appears.  You’ll see a visual representation of your screen capacity.  Select the display labled ‘2′ and check the box ‘Extend the desktop onto this monitor’ below (follow the same steps for a third monitor – display ‘3′).  Hit OK at the bottom of the window.  Your screens will flicker and you’ll be good to go.  Make sure to select ‘OK’ in the confirmation box that appears or else your settings will revert.

After doing this, you’ll be unable to make any changes to your SLI configuration without first disabling the PCI video card in device manager.  In addition, you won’t be able to really “know” if SLI is in fact enabled – As far as Vista is concerned, it isn’t.  However, have faith, as it really is working.  If you “have to know”, download GPU-Z to find out (it will say enabled or disabled at the bottom of the window).

For the original post at SLI Zone (with pictures and helpful posts), click here.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!