However, when something is wrong with your system, the beeping you hear at bootup actually means something. So listen to the beep sequence, because from that you can determine the type of problem.

The beep codes do vary between BIOS manufacturers, so once you establish the beep code, you can just do a quick search on your type of BIOS to find the error.

Here are the Phoenix BIOS beep codes and their meaning: 

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It can be quite difficult (if not impossible) to repair an Outlook PST file. It certainly can’t be done manually. Oversized Outlook files can generally be recovered, but for everything else we recommend a third party Outlook repair tool – some of them really do a great job and saving your email can be priceless.

If you have any Outlook PST problems, try this free trial to fix your PST files.

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A USB peripheral pretty much just sources power from your USB port and in some cases it sources way too much power which will lead to your USB port burning out and becoming useless. With the amount of these ‘toy’ being used around the world at the moment its amazing that we haven’t heard more about the potential danger of these things.

If you do run a USB peripheral you can check exactly how much power it is running in both Windows XP and Vista. To do this you must;

• Open your Control Panel
• Click Device Manager
• Go down to Universal Serial Bus Controllers and open it
• Right click on the first ‘USB Root Hub’ and select properties
• Click the Power tab
• Here you will see the power being used in your USB ports

You will see your peripheral under attached devices and the power it is using. You will also see at the top of the tab the total power available for your hubs.

Basically all you need to check is that your USB peripherals are not going close to or exseeding your total power available. If this is happening you must take out your USB peripheral immediately and find an alternate power source otherwise you will burn out your USB hubs.

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Over time it is common for users to experience problems with Windows Media Player. Errors can be specific or they might be increased slowness, frequent crashes, freezes and blue screen problems.

As your computer becomes cluttered and the Windows Registry fills up, it is common to experience a variety of the problems listed above. The fastest and easiest way to fix these problems is by keeping your registry clean and uncluttered. This means removing corrupt entries, deleting invalid entries and fixing existing entries.

The problem is that the Windows Registry is very difficult to edit and should only be touched by an expert. Luckily there are some great programs out there that will clean your PC registry and fix the majority of errors.

You can try a free scan here. It will detect any current PC errors and registry problems on your PC.

Well unfortunately, SP1 is also known to break various programs that you may have installed on your system. This probably comes as no surprise and is always a good reason to hold off on updating too early.

For those of you that may have already updated to Vista SP1, or if you are thinking about updating, we have provided the link below which gives details on all the programs broken by SP1.

Programs affected by Vista SP1

If you have seen any other programs breaking or acting funny under SP1, please let us know.

Windows Media Player cannot play the file because there is a problem with your sound device, such as a sound card or sound controller. You might encounter this error message for one of the following reasons:

• Your sound device is in use by another program. Quit other programs that might be using your sound device, and then try to play the file again.
• Your sound device is not functioning properly. To troubleshoot the problem, see the “Sound Troubleshooter” topic in Windows Help or refer to your sound device’s documentation.
• You do not have a sound device installed on your computer. Install a sound device, and then try to play the file again.

RAM (Random access memory) is a type of computer data storage. It takes the form of integrated circuits that allow the stored data to be accessed in any order, i.e. at random. The word random thus refers to the fact that any piece of data can be returned in a constant time, regardless of its physical location and whether or not it is related to the previous piece of data.

This contrasts with storage mechanisms such as tapes, magnetic discs and optical discs, which rely on the physical movement of the recording medium or a reading head. In these devices, the movement takes longer than the data transfer, and the retrieval time varies depending on the physical location of the next item.

ROM (Read-only memory) is a class of storage media used in computers and other electronic devices. Because data stored in ROM cannot be modified (at least not very quickly or easily), it is mainly used to distribute firmware (software that is very closely tied to specific hardware, and unlikely to require frequent updates).

In its strictest sense, ROM refers only to mask ROM (the oldest type of solid state ROM), which is fabricated with the desired data permanently stored in it, and thus can never be modified.

I hope that clears up some RAM and ROM issues you have Jane.

The most common types of problems will occur when your computer is down to very low resources, which can either be a low amount of RAM, or a low disk space. These conditions are very common, and generally result in your computer running very slow. This can easily be fixed, all you have to do is defrag your hard drive, and get rid of some programs and files that you no longer use or need.

Almost all types of computer diagnostic software can find and fix just about any problem that you are having. It normally starts off with a BIOS examination, and goes on from there. PC diagnostics
software can determine a lot from the BIOS, from the common settings to those that have a major impact on both boot up and performance.

No matter what you do, you should never modify or tamper with the BIOS settings, as it can lead to serious problems. If you do plan to modify or mess with your BIOS, you should always create a backup first, just in case something goes wrong. The BIOS settings can be very tricky, although they are responsible for a lot to do with your computer. If you have never been in the BIOS before, you really shouldn’t be modifying anything inside of it.

Many of you who are new on vista will be reading this and thinking that their computer must be faulty as none of these games exist, well they do. Microsoft conveniently installed all the games on your version of Vista, they just didn’t turn this feature on.

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