When you find yourself in need of extra memory, another hard drive, a scanner, or a printer; life just got more complicated. Here are some techniques and resources to cope.
The first step of solving any problem is to gather as much information about the given subject that is available.Many times the part you want for your computer can only be purchased by ordering it.
In the beginning; computer companies misused, abused, and totally disregarded the common meaning of the word "compatible".
Read the companies return policy. Many companies have a re-stocking fee if the part you ordered just is not what you thought it was. Sometimes the new part works fine, but it is not compatible with something else in you computer. You no longer want the part because it does not work. The company you bought it from will charge you a re-stocking fee because according to their tests the part works. Every computer manufacture is required to have one thing that is unique about their computer part in order to call it their own. This unique part sometimes conflicts with some other manufacture's unique computer part. Unless you find the part you want to buy listed as being compatible with the computer part you already own, by a computer reference source that you trust, avoid computer companies with re-stocking fees.
Price Grabber A place to do price comparison shopping.My fear is probably unfounded. I prefer to see things like printers, and scanners in person, before I purchase them.
This is not totally rational, because when I see these items at the Super Computer store, or the computer section of the department store, I have a hard time appraising the quality of the device in question.
I have tried this on many search engines. Yahoo's search engine worked the best.
If screwdrivers bring terror to your heart, coax someone who is either technically inclined, or a computer guru to hookup whatever you finally decided to purchase.
Perhaps all you need to do is upgrade your drivers. The last driver released is usually the one you should be using. Hopefully you saved the manuals or boxes that came with your computer cards and motherboards. You need these for identifying the correct component inside your computer to choose the right files to download. If not don't worry. Freeware programmers wrote some awesome programs to rescue you. The programs below work well as your hardrive. If your hard drive failed before you obtained a printout of what's inside-- start looking for those boxes.
Computer Software and Computers has the latest information about computer and software changes.
CrystalCPUID Freeware program that reports motherboard, bios, cache, chipset and cpu info on your system. Runs from extracted zip file.
SIW (System Information for Windows) freeware tool, that gathers detailed information about your system properties and settings including detailed specs for CPU, Network, TCP/IP, Memory, and Hardware. Lists hardware info under their PCI heading.
Win Audit freeware program quickly identifies all hardware and software installed in your system. Shows details on installed software, license information, peripherals, memory usage, processor model, network settings, startup programs and more.
