Upgrading a Current Computer System

The current computer system specifications are this:

- AMD Athlon X2 4600+ 2.4GHz (Socket AM2)
- Retail- AMD Athlon X2 Approved CPU Cooler
- Asus Vintage V3-M2V890 Barebones System
- Crucial 2GB PC2-5300C4 Dual Channel Kit (2x1024MB)
- Western Digital 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache- HP RM345i 16x DVD-ROM (Black)
- On-Board VIA Graphics
- On-Board 5.1 Audio- Integrated Gigabit LAN

The upgraded system is this:

- AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000 3.00GHz Dual Core CPU
- AMD approved cooler
- Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
- Award winning OCZ 2GB PC2-6400 CAS4 (2x1GB) Dual Channel Kit
- 500GB Western Digital Enterprise 16MB Cache SATA-2 Hard Drive
- NVIDIA 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) DirectX 10 Graphics Card
- Samsung 20x DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black)
- Black Sony Floppy Drive
- Antec 650W Next Generation Power Supply

From the starting system to the upgraded system, there is a huge difference in performance. For a start i have upgraded the processor into a 3GHz dual core cpu instead of a single core. It also has an approved AMD cpu cooler as well which will help to keep the system running cool and running smoothly. It has a massively upgraded motherboard which supports DDR2 ram which is much faster than DDR ram. This will also help massively in computer performance. It has a larger hard disk so that more things can be installed and stored on the machine. It has a high powered graphics card in the machine which will also help drastically improve the performance of the computer. Having a built in graphics card is not very good and usually they are very slow. It also has a DVD drive in the computer instead of nothing. This is good so that you can install programs and use cd's to transfer data. It does have a floppy drive but this has been superseeded by every other data transfer and so doesn't really contribute to increased performance. It also has a powerful power supply so that the parts in the computer are powered and can be upgraded if you wanted to.

The Range of Utility Software

Utility software is a type of software designed to speed up the performance of your computer. Utility software has been installed along with windows in the more recent operating systems. For example:

Disk Defragmenters - This is where the program takes pieces of files that are scattered across the hard disk and puts them into a logical order so the hard disk runs faster.

Virus Scanners - This is a program that checks for viruses and spyware in some cases on a machine. This program has to be up to date because new viruses are comming out everyday.

Norton Utility - This is a downloadable product which is an antivirus and firewall. It also has ulitity software installed with it in which you can do many system maintenance things with.

Reliability and Performance Monitor - Lets administrators view current system reliability and performance trends over time.

Logical Disk Manager - A logical volume manager developed by Microsoft.

System Restore - Allows the system to be put back to a previous state in time.

Windows System Assessment Tool - This is a windows benchmarking tool that analyses the graphics and memory etc.

Registry Editor – Edits the windows registry.

Software Maintenance

Disk Defragmenting

By using the defragmenter, you are aligning the information in logical order. This saves hard drive space and increases hard drive performance.

Disk Cleanup

By using the disk cleanup, you get rid of a lot of temporary files that could be slowing your system down.

Virus Scanning

A virus is a program that can be downloaded onto your computer or network from the Internet. Some can be harmless, but most others are programmed to destroy your system, delete files and disable startup programs like an anti virus. By using a virus scanner you prevent these files from being downloaded and remove them from your system before they can do anything.

Removing Programs

Removing software from your computer using the Uninstall utility can speed up system performance, it frees up disk space and the registry.

Selecting a Computer with a £2500 Budget

My final task is to find some computers with a £2500 budget. The computer needs to be able to run Microsoft products, DTP programs and Multimedia programs. The computers will also need to be able to run DVD's as the company may use them as videos in meetings.

The first computer is shown below.

- AMD Athlon X2 4200+ 2.20GHz (Socket AM2)

- MSI K9N Neo V3 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

- OCZ 2GB (2x1024MB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit

- HP DVD1040i-B 20x DVD±RW IDE Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black)

- ATI Radeon 3870 XT 512MB GDDR4 HDTV/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express)

- Western Digital 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache- Antec NSK4480 Case- Antec 380W PSU
- £349.00 or £410.08 inc VAT

This is a good value computer and it is very cheap for a good quality pc. If you need money for another few computers then you can buy more of the same computer. The price is only £410 inc VAT. You can also buy more products for multimedia programs, Microsoft products, DTP etc. The computer has an AMD Athlon 4200+ processor which is fast and can run most programs easily. It has 2GB RAM and a powerful graphics card. (An ATI Radeon 3870 XT 512MB) It also has a DVD drive so you can view business DVDs on a full screen projector for example.

The second computer is shown below.

- AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.20GHz (Socket AM2)

- Asus M2R32-MVP Crossfire (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

- Geil Ultra 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit

- NEC AD5200 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)

- 2x ATI Radeon HD 3850 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) in Crossfire Configuration

- Western Digital 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache

- Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case- Antec TRIO 550W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU
-£499.00 or £586.33 inc VAT

This computer is a lot better than the other computer above. This computer would be brilliant for multi tasking and running lots of programs at once. For example you could easily run Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Dreamweaver and Photoshop. Again this computer isn't very expensive for such a good computer. At only £586.33 you can buy another few computers and then have some money left over for printers etc.

The third computer is shown below.

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 GO 2.40GHz Quad Core CPU

- Intel approved cooler

- Intel Chipset (Socket LGA775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

- 3GB DDR2 PC2-6400 800MHz (2x1GB & 2x512MB) Dual Channel Kit

- 1TB 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA-2 Hard Drive Configured Raid 0 (2x500GB configured in Raid 0)

- NVIDIA 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) DirectX 10 Graphics Card

- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Gamer 7.1 Sound Card

- 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)

- DELL XPS420 Gamers ATX Case- DELL Next Generation Power Supply

- Software included, Roxio Premium 9.1, English Windows Vista Home Premium, English Microsoft Works 8.0 (Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Outlook Express, Powerpoint Viewer) (With Recovery CD), English Adobe Reader 7.0.8 (No Recovery CD), Dell Support 3.4 (No Recovery CD), UK Internet Service Provider - Tiscali (w/CD), English McAfee 9.0 Security Centre 30 Day Trial Version (No Recovery CD)

- 4 Year Business XPS Premium Hardware Support

- Base Warranty - 1 Year XPS Premium Hardware Support (incl. Gaming and On-Site Support)
- £849.00 or £997.58 inc VAT

This computer is by far the best computer shown. With a quad core processor, 3GB RAM and NVIDIA 8800 GTX graphics card, it can do everything that the computer above can do and more. This computer will be able to pretty much anything that you want it to do. This computer won't need to be updated either when new parts come out as the parts are very good.

Which Computer is Best

Looking at these 3 computers choosing one that is best is tough. But i think that the best computer is the 2nd one i have talked about. This is because it is not bad and it is not the greatest computer around. It is a good computer that is able to run all the programs that the manager will need in his office. It will also be able to print and scan in documents easily and not drag the performance of the computer down. You are also able to buy a few more of the same computer incase there are more managers that need to do the same thing i.e. print, scan run DTP software etc. You can also burn to cd's fast as the cd rewriter is 52x speed. This is the fastest speed that you can get, and again while you are burning the cd the performance of the computer shouldn't be affected as it is a very fast computer. Unlike the more expensive computer you will only be able to buy 2 of them. And the first computer isn't the best for running multiple programs with. This is why i believe that the second computer is the one that should be chosen to buy.

Introduction

The charity ‘Techno for Tanzania’ is run by a group of Tanzanian businessmen to recycle aging and discarded computer systems for use by children in village schools in their home country. They have collected a number of old PCs, fully and partially working and not working at all. They have also collected spare components and devices, such as power supplies, disk drives, graphics cards and internal memory. Some new systems components have also been donated by local computer companies. The charity is asking for volunteers to work with their own experts to use these materials to create working systems, of various specifications, for shipping to the children in Africa. There will be a small payment for young people who volunteer. The charity will need some notes of explanation as to what has been done in terms of repairing, upgrading and checking the systems. The notes will be electronic and will preferably take the form of a blog, updated as required, and containing a mixture of text and graphics. Your work will mainly involve checking equipment by performing some software utility and routine maintenance tasks, and producing explanatory notes. I may also be required to add various devices to a refurbished system. Occasionally a member of the charity’s directors may ask me to demonstrate some of the activities you have undertaken. I may also be asked to apply your knowledge and expertise in evaluating and justifying the selection of computer systems for specific types of work.

Deleting a File and Emptying the Recycle Bin

To delete a file you can either right click on the file and press delete, or you can press the delete key on the keyboard when you have the file selected. A message will appear after saying are you sure you want to do this and here you press yes. Screenshots of this are shown below.

Now to fully delete the file you need to remove it from the recycle bin. To do this you right click the recycle bin icon which is on the desktop and press empty recycle bin. This will remove the deleted file from your computer. Screenshots are shown below.

Creating a Folder

Creating a folder is really easy to do in windows. All you need to do is to find the area where you want to create the new folder then right click, and press new then folder. All you need to do then is to rename it. The screenshots below show how to do this.

Copying a File and Pasting it to a Different Directory

In order to copy a file, you need to right click the file and press copy. Alternatively you can press ctrl + c. This is a quicker way of doing it. A screenshot is shown below.

The next thing you need to do is to find a directory that you want to paste the file into. To do this you can right click and press paste. This is a quicker way of doing it. A screenshot is below.

Depending on how fast your computer is the next screen may not happen.

The next screenshot is the file in a new directory.

Running a Disk Defragment

In order to run a disk defragment, follow the screenshot below.

When you load the program the following screen will appear. All you need to do is then press Defragment and the process will begin. This will take a while depending on how big your hard disk is.

The screenshot above shows the defragment starting. It analyses the disk first before it starts to defragment. When it has finished defragmenting the hard disk then the analysis of the defragment will appear. This screenshot is shown below.

Running a Disk Cleanup

A disk cleanup clears temporary files and things like the cache. To run a disk cleanup follow the screenshots below.

This is where you would find the disk cleanup location.

This is the program running and finding the files it can cleanup.

This is the menu where you can select the files you want to cleanup or delete. By removing the items it can make the pc run faster.

This is the program removing the files you want.

Windows Updates

In order to run a Windows Update, all you need to do is go to http://www.update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us. Or go to http://www.microsoft.com/ and search windows updates in the search box, the first result will be the windows update link. Alternatively you can click on the Control Panel in the start menu and then click the Security Center icon. This has the windows update link on it.


When you have clicked the link, you will be asked what updates you want to install after windows updates has checked your computer. The screenshot below shows what happens when the website checks your computer for updates.

The time it takes to check your computer varies on a number of different things. A slow internet, lots of updates and a slow computer can all lead to a lengthy time to check. The screenshot below shows how the computer automatically updates when the selected updates have been downloaded.

This is the computer downloading and then installing windows updates. Some windows updates are big and can take a while to download and install. On the new service pack windows released the windows updates are installed as the computer is shutdown or restarted.

Installing Service Pack 2 for Windows (SP2)

To install Service Pack 2 all you need to do is to download the installer from windows and agree to anything that Microsoft asks.

When you download the installer double click the icon to run the program. The following screen will appear.

This is the program extracting the files for the installation to continue. After this has done a new screen will appear.

This is the first screen that appears. It just says welcome and a message recommending you what to do. The next screen is shown below.

This screen is the agreement screen asking you whether you want to agree to install the update or not agree to update. After you select agree you press the next button and the next screen will appear.

This is the installation of the update. The installation can take a varied amount of time depending on your system spec. Just give the installation some time and it will finish. After it has finished you have to restart your pc. It will ask you to do this.

Instead of loading windows straight away. It will go onto this please wait screen and will finish the updating. When the computer loads it has finished updating.

Installing a Firewall

Installing a Firewall on pc's is very easy. Generally all you need to do is press next all the time and it will install fine.

Here i am going to explain how to install Zone Alarm Firewall on a computer. First of all you need to download the free version of Zone Alarm from http://www.zonelabs.com/. When you have done this double click the .exe file and it should then open.The first screen you will see is this:

The first screen you will see is this:

The first thing that will appear is where the program will be saved to. To change the directory press the 'Browse' tab and select a directory. Then press the next button to continue.

On this screen you will need to put your name and email address into the boxes so that you can get onto the next screen. You can then untick the boxes if you want to. Press the next button to continue.

On this screen all you need to do is to agree to the agreement and then press install. The program will then start to install. You will see something like this appear next.

This is the program installing. Depending on your computers speed it should either install quickly or slowly. The program isnt that big so it should install quite fast. After it has installed you will see this screen.

This is just a survey screen, you can choose wether to fill it in or not. Press Finish to continue. The next screen you will see is below.

This is the final screen and you can choose wether to turn on Zone Alarm security straight away or load it some other time.