10 pieces of hardware you should replace rather than repair
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Wednesday, 14 August 2013
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Most often computer hardware
stops working, or just becomes unstable and as we all know will happen from
time to time—we have to decide whether to replace it, have it repaired, or just
continue to manage with it. Repairing such hardware or managing with it will
nearly always be the cheapest solution, at least in the short run. Replacement,
however, will usually provide a good opportunity to upgrade. In fact, given the
rate at which the various technologies behind computer hardware are advancing,
unless you replace something a week after you buy it, you may almost be forced
to upgrade.
Following are a few items
which, if replaced (and generally upgraded), can provide excellent benefits,
from an enhanced user experience to additional compatibility, greater
longevity, and stability for the whole system
Monitor
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A stand alone computer cannot deliver its
functionality that much without a monitor apart from a server. Monitors
rarely make it all the way to the stage of completely not working, because we
replace them when they start to fade. If you replace a monitor that's more
than a few years old, the new will likely not much resemble the old.
Any reluctance you may have had to switch from the
giant 50-pound cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor to a slim and featherweight
liquid crystal display (LCD) should be gone by now. The gap in performance in
terms of color rendering and refresh rates between CRTs and LCDs is very
small. Unless you’re a graphics designer who needs a multi-thousand dollar
large screen CRT, the benefits of size, weight, power consumption, and less
eye fatigue that LCDs enjoy will far outweigh any small performance
advantages of a CRT. With the exception of the extremely high and extremely low
end markets, it’s quite hard to find a new CRT monitor anyway.
If you were already using an LCD that’s a few years
old, when you replace it you’ll enjoy those leaps in performance that the
LCDs have made in the last few years.
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Hard drives
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The hard drive is the prominent component which is
mostly tend to failure. It’s easier to cope with the loss of the much more
expensive processor or video card as long as we still have our precious data,
so your first instinct is to try to repair it. But if you’ve been practicing
good backup habits, you can actually come out of the situation better off
when you replace the old drive with something bigger and faster.
The “giant” 250-GB hard drive of a few years ago is
no longer so large. Today, you can get 1-TB (1000 GB) for less than 70
dollars. In addition to being much, much larger, newer hard drives will
generally be Serial ATA II (SATA II), which has a maximum data transfer rate
of about 300 MB/s as opposed to SATA I’s 250MB/s and the older Parallel ATA
(PATA) rate of 150 MB/s. SATA II is fairly new, so many motherboards don’t
support it. But even if yours doesn’t, the SATA II drives generally have a
jumper that can put them in SATA I mode.
TIP: Right
now, most SATA II hard drives ship with this limiting jumper in place by
default, so if your board does support SATA II, be sure to change the jumper
before you install the drive.
CD/DVD
drives
If you’re still using an old drive and it
finally gives up the ghost, you’ll probably be glad it did when you replace it
with a DVD/CD RW combo drive for less than 50 dollars.
The
Power supply unit
One of the most overlooked pieces of computer hardware
is the power supply unit (PSU). Computer enthusiasts often brag about their
blazing fast processors, top-of-the-line video cards, and gigs upon gigs of
RAM, but rarely about their great PSUs.
The truth is, the power supply is the last thing we
should skimp on when choosing components for our system. If a computer’s brain
is its processor, its heart is the power supply. And having one that is worn
out, underpowered, unstable, or just generally cheap can be a major cause of
hardware failure.
Every computer’s power requirements are different, but
a good minimum for a modern PC is 450 watts. Some systems, especially those
with multiple high-end video cards or lots of add-on cards and peripherals may
require a PSU rated at 800 watts or more. Replacing a failing or inadequate
power supply can make a previously unstable system stable.
Fans
Over the decades computer have become more powerful,
reason why they become hotter. Gone are the days of a passively cooled Pentium
100; now we have fans on our massive CPU heatsinks, on our monster video cards,
and on intake and outtake vents to our computer cases. All of these fans are
playing important roles by keeping our computers safely cooled, and we should
try to ensure that they continue doing so.
In fact fans are one of the few parts that when
replaced will not usually be replaced with something better. But they deserve
mention because:
• As one of the few moving parts in our system, they
are one of the most likely to actually break.
• When they break, it’s likely to pass unnoticed or
not cause much concern.
Surge
protector / UPS
This
hardware component is also essential and its importance cannot be over
emphasized. A surge protector can be a stand-alone power strip, but one is also
built into virtually every uninterruptible power supply (UPS). The surge
protector guards our devices against spikes in energy that occur in our
circuits at the home or office, usually due to lightning or the powering up of
high-powered devices, such as hair dryers or refrigerators. Repairing a surge
protector would be difficult and expensive at best; replacement is almost the best option
It
can be tricky to know when it’s time to replace a surge protector, because the
component inside that diverts excess power from surges to the ground simply
wears out with repeated use. However, there is often no interruption of power
or other indication that it’s done. You may still have juice but not be
protected. The cheapest protectors may wear out after fewer than 10 small
surges, while the better ones can last through hundreds. The safest thing to do
is to get higher quality protectors but still replace them occasionally.
Video
card
The video card is one of the most important elements
in the performance of your system and overall user experience. Even though it
is also one of the priciest components, there are two good reasons to replace
it should your old one bite the dust.
First, video cards are one
of the components that are being improved upon seemingly every day. Just like
with CPUs, a video card that’s two years old simply isn’t as fast as a current
one and won’t have the newest features (such as support for DirectX 10).Also,
the video card is the number one hardware stopgap as we migrate to Vista.
Manufacturers just aren’t providing new Vista-compatible drivers for lots of
their old video cards. This means that many of us will have to replace our
video cards whether they are broken or not, if we plan to switch to Vista.
Flash
media reader
All kinds of devices use flash cards these days:
cameras, MP3 players, even cell phones. These small devices let us take our
data anywhere easily. Since it seems as if every device uses a different format
of flash media, most of us have all-in-one type card readers. If the reader
breaks or gets lost (which seems to happen a lot), there are two excellent
reasons for upgrading to a newer model instead of trying to repair the old one.
First, many old card readers are USB 1.1. The newer
ones use USB 2.0 instead, which is 40 times faster. This is more than
enough reason to replace an old reader, even if it's not broken.
Keyboard
Since so many of us spend hours every day banging away
at them, it’s important to have a keyboard that’s comfortable and efficient.
And since we use them so much and often so brutally, it is no wonder that they
break often. Keys come off, get stuck, or just get really dirty. When these
things happen, you should usually go ahead and replace the keyboard rather than
live with the hassle. Today’s keyboards have new, handy features. Some have
built in user-defined macro keys for often-repeated commands; some can fold up
for easy transportability; some have built-in ports so they can double as USB
hubs. There is a keyboard with some unique feature to suit nearly anyone’s
needs.
Motherboard
and processor
Replacing the motherboard is always the most involved
upgrade. Since it usually means “starting over” with a clean installation of
the operating system, lots of people are reluctant to change to a newer board
even when the old one gives up the ghost, preferring instead to replace it with
the exact same model, thus avoiding having to wipe the OS. However, since a
motherboard upgrade is the most involved, it also can give the widest range of
benefits.
First and foremost, replacing the motherboard usually
gives us the chance to upgrade to the latest processor technology. Today, you
can get the benefits of a dual or even quad CPU setup with only one processor,
thanks to multi-core technology, in which more than one processing core is
placed on a single wafer. In a multitasking or multithreaded environment, this
effectively increases your computer’s performance by a factor of two or four.
Additionally, upgrading the
motherboard gives you access to new technologies for other components. PATA and
SATA I hard drives (and optical drives) can be upgraded to SATA II. AGP video
cards can be upgraded to PCI-E. USB 1.1 ports become USB 2.0. The list goes on
for virtually every component. Sometimes, even though it can be a pain,
starting over can be the best thing.
it
is my belief that this training guide have benefited you in one way or
the other, you can always check more guides from our blog
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