Hardware

If you are experiencing speed issues with your CD or DVD drive, here are some tips that might help:

1. Make sure that you use an 80-conductor data cable and that it is fine.

I had an issue earlier today where my microphone was not being detected on my semi-new Windows box. The system uses a Gigabyte motherboard with onboard Realtek audio. All drivers from the driver CD had been installed. But my microphone and front panel input options in the Windows Volume Control were all greyed out.

I am not sure what the exact solution was, but I did all the following things:

Unlike Linux where updates for both your hardware and software are taken care of neatly, Windows usually requires some manual labour when it comes to keeping drivers for your hardware up to date. This niche can be filled through the use of Driveragent, a service that checks your present hardware setup and recommends appropriate updates.

I had an issue today where I was stuck with a non-functioning board and 3 power supplies. I couldn't get any response from the board regardless of which power supply unit I was using. However, while the board was new, the power supplies weren't and I really had no way to isolate the issue between the two. Rather than messing with any of my working systems, I wanted to test the PSUs without having to connect them to a motherboard.