How an old computer can be used. Old computer: what can you do with it? Turning your PC into a media center

If you have an old computer and you do not know where to put it, read our article, perhaps you will find a new option where to use it.

A huge number of people at least once wondered what to do with an old computer? It's a pity to throw it away, and there seems to be no need to leave it. It only takes up space, but to the point of it ... A large number of cars lie idle on shelves, mezzanines, in basements and garages waiting for their new meaning of existence ... And in this article we will tell you about the ways to use old cars. Many methods are described on the Internet at various sites, but we will try to combine all these methods in one article, and share our own experience and the experience of our clients in using old hardware. So let's start with the most common ones:

Method one: Make a donation. Yes yes exactly! What is rubbish for you can bring happiness to others. Many orphanages and schools would not refuse to accept an old computer as a gift, because funding for such institutions is very meager, and it is unlikely that there are modern computer classes there. Surely a little searching on the Internet, you will find a similar institution not far from you.

Method two: Present. It is not much different from the first, the only difference is that you can give the computer to your friend, or submit an advertisement in the newspaper - I’ll give the piece of iron to good hands :) And surely someone will answer you.

Method three: Sell. True, you will not help out a lot of money, but still :)

Method four: Leave for experiments :) This is a way for those who like to tinker with old hardware and software. Install various untested software, no matter what clogs the main computer with all kinds of garbage. It can also be left to perform long-term tasks, such as downloading large amounts of information on the Internet. And the old man can also be used as a buffer machine for checking flash drives and hard drives for.

Method five: Use as a firewall, i.e. put between the network and the main machine. You can install on it, for example, Linux and enjoy the security of your own system.

Method six: make of it file server... If you have more than one computer at home, you can connect the veteran to them over the network and store files on it, which you will have access to at any time and from any computer on your network.

Method seven: Perform distributed computing on it. This means that your old computer can serve the benefit of modern science! To do this, you just need to become a participant in projects [email protected] or [email protected] and maybe it is with the help of your computer that we find out the answer to the question - Is there life on Mars :)

Method eight: Make a media center out of it. For example, one of our clients put his old Pentium II in a garage, and now, while repairing a car, he listens to music, and if necessary, reads repair books on it, and by connecting a portable 3G modem he also goes online without leaving the garage.

Method nine: You can make a TV out of it. If it has a TV tuner, it can be used as a TV, as well as record various programs, films, serials. One of our clients, for example, connected an even older Dendy console to his old man, you can use Sega or Sony PS, it doesn't matter, the main thing is an unforgettable experience from long-forgotten games.

Method ten: But this is for gourmets. You can disassemble it into parts and make some crafts on the topic of nano technologies from them. Or try your hand at moding. For example, some of our specialists make keychains from a non-working processor and many like them, they get unusual keychains :)

Method eleven: Turn the old system unit into a toolbox.

Method twelve: This is your own way :) You can think of many more uses for your old trusty computer.

And no matter how many applications you come up with, one thing can be safely asserted, even a good old computer - a veteran can be used with benefit, and not rot away somewhere in the basement as unnecessary ...

External DVD drive with USB

2 DECT cordless phone becomes a baby monitor

3 The router becomes a repeater

4 Turning your monitor into a computer

Computer at the lowest price

5 Search for extraterrestrial life

Research support

6 Turning your PC into a media center

Entertainment Center Complete Kodi installer for maximum functionality

If your computer is already quite old, in general, it is 5-10 years old or even more, then it is highly likely that it will no longer work with the same performance that it was producing at the time of purchase. It is possible that he has become very slow and the whole process of working with him will only annoy you and you will regularly swear to yourself and say “Damn! Yes again hung !!! Got it out! " at the moment when you need to quickly do something and suddenly the system hangs up tightly ... Or just one simple action (for example, opening text document from the desktop) will take you about a minute or two, while it should take 5 seconds at most. And the most unpleasant thing is the sudden termination of the work of any program, where you have been doing work for a long time without saving, as a result of which you lose everything that you managed to do!

What is the reason? There can be many reasons. But in general terms, all of the above is united by the fact that your computer is already old or simply has not been serviced for a very long time: it has not been cleaned of dust, the thermal paste has not changed, it has not been checked for viruses, errors on the hard drive have not been fixed, and has not been executed yet a series of regular maintenance tasks.

Therefore, in this article, I will tell you, based on my experience (more than 4 years) in the IT field, what you can try to do in order to return your old computer, which may have been out of service for a year or more, to more or less normal performance!

Well, firstly, if the computer is already more than 5 years old, then I can say with confidence that it is time to update it :) An old computer is, in principle, completely pointless to upgrade (that is, to change accessories for new ones). Because if we replace, for example, the motherboard, you will also have to change the processor, because the old processor will no longer fit modern circuit board... The next step is to change the RAM, as it may not fit your modern motherboard either. For example, about 4 years ago, DDR2 memory was actively used, now DDR3 and even DDR4! Each of them is not backward compatible with old boards, which means that you cannot connect old type RAM modules to a new motherboard and vice versa.

You can read more about the purpose of all computer components in the article:

Also, you will probably have to replace the power supply unit with a more powerful one, and in the end, in this way, it can come to replacing even the hard disk and CD / DVD drive, in some cases (if your drive is quite old and is connected to the board via IDE connector) :) It turns out that upgrading old computers is useless!

Therefore, if your computer has lived for 5 years or more, buying a new modern computer would be an excellent option. I have already written a number of articles on the blog about how to choose a computer. You can select it for individual components, or completely assembled and even with an installed operating system, which will be a good option for beginners.

However, buying a good modern computer to replace an old and slow one is, of course, expensive. A computer for work and study can be bought for 15,000 rubles, but the price of a good high-performance computer for games and work with "heavy" programs (for example, professional graphics, video editors) will already be around 50,000 rubles, if not more. ... to periodically replace the old computer with a new one, so that there are no slowdowns, and just to keep up with the times, not everyone has.

And, of course, there are options to speed up your old computer so that it starts to work at least a little in a new way and does not annoy as before :)

What can you do to speed up your old computer?

I want to say right away that I will not include overclocking of its various components, for example, increasing the processor frequency, to the concept of "Speed \u200b\u200bup a computer". Overclocking computer components is always associated with some kind of risk, because you can damage the component!

I don't think this is a useful and necessary idea for beginners. You could consider this option in the event that you don't care what will happen to your computer, and you are ready to take the risk :)

And here is what I propose to do in order to somehow try to speed up your unproductive old computer:

Cleaning system unit (housing) against accumulated dust... If the computer has been used for a very long time, for example, more than a year, then most likely a lot of dust has accumulated inside the case. It is especially important that dust accumulates not only in the case itself, but also in the fans of the processor and video adapter, as a result of which they can begin to overheat. And if the processor overheats, then its performance can significantly drop.

Personally, I had this when they bought me the first computer and, one might say, I had no experience in maintaining it. I was afraid not only to clean the case myself, but even just to open it :) I even remember that then the processor cooler was so clogged with dust that the computer began to shut down due to overheating and we took it to the service.

So, if you have been working on a computer for a long time and have never cleaned it inside the case, then I would, first of all, look under the cover of the system unit and assess the degree of dustiness :)

As a rule, if the computer has been used for a long time, then the fans will definitely be clogged with dust, which must be removed from them! How to do it? In fact, there are many options, who will think of what. But first of all, you need to disconnect the cooler itself from the motherboard (if you take the cooler for cooling the processor as an example). After the cooler is disconnected, it will become much more convenient to clean it. For this, the most the best way, in my opinion, will be the use of a special can of compressed air. Such a can allows you to easily knock out dust and pieces of dirt from hard-to-reach places... This is how it looks:

There are many firms producing such cylinders, and the price can vary anywhere from 400 to 1000 rubles (I am guided by Moscow prices), depending on the capacity and manufacturer. I regularly use such cans to clean computers, it's convenient! Otherwise, you have to get the dust from the fan with improvised means, for example, a toothpick :)

Having cleaned all fans without fail (on the processor, on the video card, on the walls of the case, if any), you should clean the entire computer case. If there is no compressed air, then you can use a simple vacuum cleaner with the smallest attachment.

Do not forget that this whole procedure applies not only to stationary computersbut for laptops too! Laptops are also clogged with dust and sometimes even much more. They are much more difficult to disassemble in order to thoroughly clean them. Beginners may not even take up this business, because it's still okay to disassemble it, but then collecting this laptop and not forgetting to connect and screw it on - it may not always work out right away even with a person with experience. If you need to clean your laptop, it would be very good to have instructions for disassembling your particular model. Without instructions, you can mess up very much: do not connect something, not connect correctly, break off. You need to look for the instructions on the Internet, because no one ever provides them with a laptop. Enough in search query Google to indicate something like this: "asusn75s disassembly instructions." In this case, "asusn75s" is the manufacturer and model of the laptop, which you change, respectively, to yours.

And after the computer is cleaned of dust, you can proceed to the next step ...

Replacing thermal paste between the processor and the cooling system (radiator and cooler)... If you begin to notice that the computer is running slower, then you should pay attention to the processor temperature and if it is higher than the permissible values \u200b\u200b(about 70 degrees or more under load) then this is most likely a problem with cooling. You can check the temperature using various programs, for example Aida64 and CPU-Z, and also check the temperature in the BIOS.

About what BIOS is and what it is for, read the article:

And the first thing that comes to mind in this case is that the fan above the processor does not work or the thermal paste has dried out. With the fan, I think everything is clear. First, the BIOS subsystems of modern motherboards are often able to signal an inoperative fan. Secondly, you can simply turn on the computer in a semi-disassembled state and check if the fan is working. If suddenly the fan does not work, then buy a new one! :)

If all the fans are working properly, then it may be due to dried thermal paste. Thermal paste is a special substance that conducts heat from a cooled device to a device that removes this heat. A cooling device means a processor, and a device that removes heat means a radiator and cooler. Thermal paste is smeared on the processor and only then a cooler is put on top of it! If you do not apply thermal grease, the processor will overheat very much and, probably, the computer simply will not turn on, or it will constantly turn off due to overheating.

This point can even be called a continuation of the previous one, because if you removed the processor cooler to clean it from dust, then you definitely need to apply a new layer of thermal paste to the processor, while completely removing the old one. And even if there is simply nothing to clean from dust in the computer, and your processor overheats at the same time, given that the fans are all in working order, then it would be time to replace the thermal paste with a new one. And in general, if the computer has been working for a couple of years and during this time the thermal paste has never changed, then it would be time to replace it.

Thermal paste can be purchased at any computer store, and it is usually sold in special syringes or tubes:

There are many manufacturers of thermal pastes and each has its own taste. Opinions are very divided. For example, I like thermal paste from Zalman, Arctic. Sometimes I take KPT-8 as an alternative.

Before you apply new thermal grease, be sure to wipe off the entire old one to leave a shiny CPU surface! To remove dry thermal paste from the processor surface, you can use a thin flat screwdriver, and when the main layer is removed, the remains can be wiped off with ordinary napkins. The main thing is to clean everything thoroughly!

Then you should apply a new thermal paste and here some people overdo it. Very little thermal paste should be applied, 2-3 match heads in size! Then the thermal grease should be evenly distributed over the entire central area of \u200b\u200bthe processor surface with a very thin layer, using some kind of flat tool or, for example, an unnecessary plastic card :) As a result, the thermal grease should be applied in such a way that the heatsink is tightly attached to the processor. , and the thermal paste only filled the unevenness between the two surfaces! Those. it will be wrong if you apply a rather thick layer of thermal paste, and as a result, the cooler will "sit" on this layer of thermal paste, and not on the processor itself, adhering tightly to it.

It is important that the cooler with the heatsink are securely fixed above the processor, fit very tightly to it and do not dangle! Otherwise, no normal cooling will come of it ...

After you have completely cleaned the computer from dust and changed the thermal paste, we will finish with the hardware (i.e., the hardware of the computer). Subsequent actions will already concern the software shell, which we will now consider.

Checking the system for viruses... Part of the work of returning an old computer that has been out of service for a long time to higher performance has already been completed. But, it is not at all necessary that the previous steps taken will immediately give a tangible result.

The problem may additionally lie in the operating system itself, and not only in the computer hardware. One of these problems is the infection of the system with all sorts of viruses, spyware, trojans. If you are using an operating room linux system or Mac, then such a deep virus infection does not threaten you. But this cannot be said about Windows :) In the technical school, where I used to work in the IT department, employees from the administration could have computers out of service for a year and become infected with viruses to such an extent that it was simply impossible to work with them. Also, home users may not maintain their computer in any way for a long time, which sooner or later will lead to the computer becoming very unstable, some visible symptoms of infection appear, or just the processor, memory will start loading for no reason.

The most vulnerable to viruses, if you take latest systems Windows was WindowsXP. It got infected very easily and without antivirus it was extremely risky to work on it. More recent systems - Windows 7, 8 are much less susceptible to infection, even if you work on them without using antivirus. In such systems, a defender is already built in, which, although very weak, can still protect from something.

So, I am leading to the fact that you need to check your system for viruses. For this you will need antivirus program as a bootable version. There are many antiviruses, as you know. Some of them, which I tried on myself and considered worthy for protecting the computer, I briefly described in the article:

What needs to be done?

You need to take a bootable (preferably!) Version of one of the antiviruses in order to scan the entire computer not from the most likely already infected Windows system, but even before starting its shell. As a rule, any antivirus has downloadable versions and you can download them for free directly from the official website of the antivirus. For example, for Kaspersky, the bootable version of the antivirus is called "KasperskyRescueDisk":

Dr.Web has a similar utility called "Dr.WebLiveDisk":

If the computer has not been very well maintained for a long time, then I recommend checking it for viruses even with any 2 anti-virus products, for example Kaspersky and Doctor Web (whoever likes what better).

You will need to download boot version the selected antivirus from the official website, then write it to a disk or flash drive and boot your computer from the burned disk / flash drive. How to write an image of a program to a disk or a USB flash drive, read the article:

And all that remains is to run a full scan of all your hard drives computer, deleting at the end of it all found muck from the computer :)

System optimization (cleaning the registry, unnecessary garbage, fixing errors)... After the system has been checked for viruses, and all threats have been removed from the computer, it's time to start cleaning it from a programmatic point of view.

To optimize the system, I will immediately adjust a number of actions aimed at increasing the speed of your computer, and more specifically, Windows. And here are these actions:

• Cleaning the system from garbage - removing unnecessary folders, files, old updates, restore points and more;

  Cleaning the registry from irrelevant entries and compressing it;

  Checking hard drives for errors and fixing them;

  Defragmenting hard disk partitions.

All these steps should be taken in order to improve the performance of your system!

I talked in more detail about optimizing the system and ways to improve its performance in a separate article:

What do you need to do specifically?

You need to install one of the system optimization programs. To do this, you can use the article above, or install something from what you know about yourself. There are many programs for optimizing the system, among them there are both paid and free, but the functionality in each of the programs is approximately the same. It may differ only in the presence of some additional functions. I am personally the largest set useful functions found in the program "AVGPCTuneUp", which, unfortunately, is paid. But there is a 30-day trial period, which will be more than enough for you :)

After you install the program, use it to clean the registry, compress the registry (if any), clean the system from unnecessary files and folders, cleaning browsers, shortcuts, system cache and various programs, restore checkpoints, checking all hard disk partitions for errors, defragmenting hard disk partitions (those indicated by the program). Some functions may not be in one single program, but in this case, just install 2, because after cleaning the system, I still recommend deleting them.

After completing the steps to optimize the system, you will most likely improve the quality of its work, and this, as a rule, is noticeable immediately after a reboot! Well, of course, it will only be noticeable if Windows has been seriously cluttered, and the hard drives are already full of errors.

On this I have listed, perhaps, all the points that will help return your system to normal life. If suddenly you thoroughly cleaned the computer from the inside of dust, replaced the thermal paste, destroyed all viruses, carried out a full system optimization, and as a result did not notice any tangible effect in the form of an increase in performance, then all that remains to try is to reinstall Windows.

Sometimes the system can be just in a terrible state and no optimizers can help, no matter how hard you try. In this case, rather than messing around for a very long time, it is easier to reinstall the system from scratch. At the same time, do not forget to copy somewhere all your documents, photos, videos and, in general, everything that in no case can be lost! To copy the data I need, I usually use large external hard drives (1-2 TB), which are connected to a computer via USB. Also for this purpose, it is quite possible to use online storages, such as Yandex-Drive, Google-Drive and others. The main thing is that there is enough space in your account.

Read more about what online storage is in a separate article:

After all important data has been copied somewhere, perform a clean reinstallation of the system. Clean means not updating, namely reinstalling from scratch, with formatting all hard drives!

Probably on a new installed system everything will be much faster ... After all, you completely wipe out all hard drives and the system will be like new. However, you will have to reinstall all the programs you need, configure everything again for yourself and copy back all your files and folders (from the place where you saved them). But all this is already the last step that should be performed if all the previous methods of increasing the speed of your old computer have not helped.

Well, if neither cleaning from dust and replacing thermal paste, nor the subsequent reinstallation of the system with a new one helps you, then the situation is apparently already completely hopeless and means that it is time to replace the computer with a new one ... If you want to work with comfort, then it is worth it, of course , allocate about 15,000 rubles for this business and buy yourself a brand new computer for office tasks.

That's all. I hope my advice will help newbies get their old, out of service computers back to a higher speed :)

Thank you all for your attention! Have a nice day, good mood! Until next time;)

1.Turn it into a TV tuner.

Many modern TV tuners, such as the Hauppauge WinTV GO-Plus, only require a 100 MHz CPU to play the TV signal in real time. But, in order for you to be able to record a video stream, you need a more powerful processor - about 700 MHz. But you can save your favorite shows in DVD quality, and you can use scheduled recording. All tuners are provided with software necessary for recording. Most likely you will want to watch TV programs not on the screen of an old monitor, but on your TV, then take a look at the ShowShifter tuners (priced at about £ 30) and SageTV (about 40) - they are designed so that they can reproduce the signal on a TV ...

2.Help to find a cure for cancer.

Grid computing is probably the most philanthropic use case for an old PC. Some scientific projects require huge computer resources, so your old man can help scientists analyze DNA strands in order to find cures for diseases such as cancer, or process data coming from satellites scanning outer space in search of extraterrestrial life.

3. Sell it.

Old computers quickly lose their value, so if you have something to sell, you shouldn't delay. If you have a rare piece of computer innards, you can put it up for an online auction (for example, eBay). There is a chance to help out for old equipment even more than it really is.

4.Give it.

Why not give this PC to your beloved great aunt? It doesn't matter that he cannot play video in high definitionbut it can handle web browsing, displaying digital photos, and running office applications just fine. For a beginner, this is exactly what is needed to delve into the intricacies of modern technology.

5. Recycle it.

According to research organizations, the manufacturer uses 240 kilograms of fossil fuels, 22 kilograms of chemicals and 1,500 liters of water to make one monitor! 1.8 million tons of e-waste is released into the environment every year.

To help protect the environment in some way, take your old PC to your nearest electronics recycling center.

6. Deceive the thief!

Place a 10-year-old, coffee-splattered, age-yellowed PC with a proud 486 sticker somewhere in the most prominent place in your home. If a thief sneaks into your house (we hope this will never happen, smiley), he will first of all grab this "relic", and will not even think that he was impudently deceived.

7. Make it a music center.

Even an old processor is capable of losing digital music in WMA or MP3 format. And even a small hard disk will fit a lot of music tracks. If we add to this and powerful speakersthen you will get a real music center. And if you are using an ancient laptop, then this is generally great. By the way, you can make music play with one press of the power button. To do this, install Windows Media Player (WMP) to autorun, create a new playlist with all the songs on your PC, then set WMP to random play.

8. Donate to them.

We live in the 21st century, but there are still millions of children who have never seen a computer. Donate your old PC to any school, although, in principle, it doesn't matter where, the main thing is that it can be used later. There are even special organizations that accept old computers for charity.

9.Use it as a game server.

If you like to play multiplayer games with friends, then it is preferable to use your own server, this will eliminate connection delays and evil moderators.

10.Use it as a test machine.

If you often encounter a virus threat, then use an old PC as a testing machine. It can be used as a tool for downloading email attachments and programs from the Internet. Can be installed on an old computer various programs, so it will be possible to evaluate the benefits of them before installing on the main PC and to avoid cluttering the system.

If you have already figured out which PC you would ideally like to buy, then you may be faced with the question: what to do with the old system? You will not be able to give it away as a purchase of a new one, and the sale will often require more effort than it is worth. If you just want to throw your computer away, then, quite realistically, you will also have to pay to take it away. Is a 3 or 4 year old PC really no use? No way! Here are some ways to keep your old computer useful for longer.

Why not save it?

If your old computer is too slow, consider adding more RAM. Upgrading PC memory is simple and still relatively cheap (although not quite the same as a few months ago). This can often be quite effective in improving performance, especially if your old PC has less than 128MB of RAM. For more information on upgrading memory, refer to the page find.pcworld.com/29751 .

Another way to breathe new life into an old system is to reinstall Windows and your existing applications. Co windows time accumulates all sorts of errors and glitches, which reduces performance. After reinstalling, do not forget to rewrite all patches available for your OS from the site windows updates (windowsupdate.microsoft.com).

If you are still determined to get rid of your computer, then consider donating it to some charity. Here are some tips on how to prepare the PC you decide to present.

Find out if your computer will be a welcome gift. Any system with pentium processor or newer is quite suitable for giving. However, first, call the recipients to find out if there are any special restrictions or rules, and do not forget to inquire about the organizational side of the matter: delivery, parking, unloading, etc.

Complete the gift. Also pack with the PC the keyboard, mouse, instructions and manuals, software disks and disks. When the system is complete, it will be easier to deal with it, and the benefits from it are much greater than from incomplete.

Clean everything up. It will be a special courtesy if you wipe and clean the outside of the given computer. Delete all your personal files as well. This can be done with a program like Norton SystemWorks 2002 or simply reformatting hard disk... By the way, in the latter case, do not forget to reinstall the operating system on it, otherwise the recipients of your gift may have to pay for the license.

Fill out everything in writing. Ask the charity for a receipt for your gift - it will be useful to you and her if you need a report. Check that the receipt contains the date, name and model number of the PC and all the hardware that came with it.

"Green" car

If no one ever wants to get your old PC and monitor, don't just throw it in a landfill. The monitor contains poisonous lead, and the processor unit also contains some mercury, lead and cadmium.

Do yourself and all life on the planet by handing over your worn-out computer equipment to a certified recycling organization. For this you may be required small feebut if you consider that then you will not harm the environment, then it is worth it.

Before sending your old PC on its last journey, cover your expenses with a little looting. Some of the PC components are easy to remove and may come in handy in the future.

Why not install the old one hDD to the new system? it the simplest way transfer existing files and folders to another computer. There are special "migration" software packages that will allow you to make such a transfer without opening the computer case, but they are somewhat expensive for a single use. By the way, keep in mind that operating system Windows XP itself is capable of handling many of the tasks of transferring files and folders. An old hard drive can also serve as a very fast platform for reserve copy... Detailed step-by-step instruction for installing and removing a hard drive is available at find.pcworld.com/29760 .

Don't ditch your old PC's graphics card, if you have one. (In many low-cost systems, the video adapter is integrated into system board.) Sometimes, in difficult times, a spare graphics card even helps out. Again as described in find.pcworld.com/29762 , a second graphics card allows you to connect to new car two monitors.

You might also want to keep the old system modem. If you are using DSL, cable or some other high-speed Internet connection and your system does not have an analog modem, then installing the latter as a backup in the event of high-speed service failure will be invaluable.

As for such spare parts as network and sound cards, floppy and CD drives, the likelihood that they will be useful to a very busy PC user or, conversely, to someone who sits down at a computer from time to time, is not so great, however by keeping them, he will save some money if he ever decides to assemble the computer himself.

We play computer detective

I upgraded my system with new components and programs, and increased the amount of RAM. Now at all windows startup I get error messages, and when the programs work, they all freak out possible ways... I think the reason for this is some of my additions. How can I isolate the source of the problem without deleting everything?

Ian Moore, pc. Montana

Discover incompatible programs and hardware drivers that contain errors are aided by a handy utility called the System Configuration Utility. To open it in Windows 98 / Me or XP, select Start, Run and type msconfig. On the "Startup" tab in the window that opens, the programs that are automatically launched when booting Windows... If you turn off the functions next to them, you will cancel their launch.

Start your search for the source of your problems by disabling all programs that automatically start at startup windows work... To do this, on the "General" tab, turn off the function in the "Load startup items" item (in other windows versions the name may be slightly different). Reboot the system, and if the problems go away, then you at least know that one of these programs was to blame.

In order to catch the criminal, reconnect the "Load startup items" option, restart the PC, open the "System setup program" again, click on the "Startup" tab and connect the programs one by one, activating the functions for each of them. After connecting each of the programs, reboot, and when you see that problems begin to appear, then it means that you have found the source of the conflict.

If this exclusion process does not help, try doing the same with the lists on the System.Ini and Win.ini tabs. These settings are relics of the dark past windows days 3.1. They are rarely used now, but some old hardware and software may need them. And if so, then they are the main candidates for the role of troublemakers.

Plug the jaws of your modem

Sometimes I go online in the middle of the night. When my modem connects to it, the sharp sound it makes wakes everyone in the house, and especially annoys my dog. Is there some way to make the modem shut up?

Peter Hall, San Diego

Judging by the many messages I receive email, a lot of people - and dogs! - little by little go crazy with the annoying call of analog modems acting on the nerves. Fortunately, there is an easy way to silence most of them.

For many external modems, you can adjust the volume of their sound in hardware - move the knob on them to the position corresponding to the minimum sound. In the case when an internal modem is installed in the PC, do the following. In Windows 98 and Windows Me, open the Control Panel and double-click the Modems icon and then the Properties button on the General tab. After that, you may see a slider that adjusts the volume of the modem. For Windows XP, open the Classic View of the Control Panel, click once or twice (depending on the system) on the Phone and Modem Options icon, select the Modems tab, make sure the modem is selected, and click the Properties button.

If the volume control is not listed in the modem properties, tell Windows to use the AT command sequence, which automatically mutes the modem on every connection. (The AT command set is the de facto standard for controlling modems.) To do this in Windows 98 and Me, open the list of properties of your modem as described above and select the "Connection" tab. Then click on the "Advanced" button and in the window of additional communication parameters in the "Initialization string" column enter the sequence atm0 (the last character is zero, not the letter "O"!). In Windows XP, click on the Advanced Communication Settings tab and enter the sequence atm0 in the Additional Initialization Commands field.

Kirk Steers. What Should You Do With Your Old Computer? PC World, September 2002, p. 166.

What's in a name?

That's all, if you purchased an unnamed modem, graphics card, or any other hardware and you need to find a driver for it. Most hardware manufacturers provide the ability to write off drivers for older hardware, but you need to know what you are looking for. Fortunately, you can probably rip the mask off your unnamed equipment thanks to the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) identification number that is affixed to many different devices... So head to the address find.pcworlf.com/29763 to see if your mysterious piece of hardware is found in the FCC ID database.