Easy As MY PC has a lineup of 3 gaming computers and step-by-step guide. For this review, I compared the Gaming Kit Level 2 that they had to offer and a similarly configured one from Cyberpower and what you would save if you bought them off Newegg.com. For the sake of brevity, I did not factor in Monitor, keyboard and mouse prices.

Here are the specifications

WHAT DOES THE NUMBERS MEAN

You might be surprised to find that Cyberpower’s grand total price is lower than Easy As My PC. But that’s because Cyberpower offers a cheaper M9 VI1000BWS Thermaltake Case ($84.99) while both Easy As My PC and Newegg(for this review) offers the pricier Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS ($144.99) Case. If Cyberpower had the Armor Series Case, it’s grand total would stand at $1,477. That’s just $65 dollars more than Easy As My PC and $134 pricier than Newegg’s . I also got an additional $65 worth of mail-in-rebates from Newegg. That brings the price even lower to $1,278 when I bought from Newegg.

THE VERDICT

If you are building a new PC but don’t have the know-how to assemble your own PC, then I would definitely suggest going with Cyberpower or a similar vendor. The $65 dollar is well worth over having to build your own PC. Besides, Cyberpower ships with a bunch of free softwares and you get tech support from one central place. Even if you do decide to custom build your PC, I would suggest going with Newegg and plunk down the extra $134 for a better graphics card or a dedicated sound board. Newegg occasionally has mail in rebates, so you might get a better deal than I did.

WHO EASY AS MY PC IS FOR

Easy As My PC is aiming towards a niche that doesn’t have the skills and knowledge to build their own PC. If you want the fun (and the pains) that comes with building your own PC, you should definitely head to Easy As My PC. They offer a range of  easy-to-read printed and online guides. No guide is more than 10 steps long and is generously illustrated with helpful photos and diagrams. View a sample guide on how to install RAM on your computer.

One of the most important (and often overlooked) component in a gaming rig is it’s power supply unit (PSU). If you have dual graphics cards set up in SLI or Crossfire or a high-end processor, then a good PSU is a must.

IF YOUR PC IS BEHAVING STRANGE

Often, a slow and unresponsive PC is the sign of a failing power supply. If your PC is sluggish or locks up for no reason, and you’ve done all the virus and diagnostic checks, then a faulty power supply is the most likely cause. Swapping out the old one for a new will resolve the problem and you’ll also notice a boost in your performance.

DASTARDLY PC

One weird problem that I’ve been facing with my PC is that it’s performance dropped dramatically for no good reason. It would lock up often and take a long time to resume what it was doing. And the load on the processor would suddenly jump to 80 or 90 per cent! This is usually the work of a virus, so I ran all sorts of scans but my PC came out clean. I use an up-to-date firewall and antivirus program so an infection was unlikely. I ran memory and hard-disk diagnostics but no errors were found. The culprit? My aging 400 Watt power supply. I quickly switched it for a new Thermaltake 420W and everything returned to normal.

OTHER SYMPTOMS

Tracking down a problem to a power supply can be tricky. So, here are the most likely symptoms:

• Any power-on or system startup failures or lockups
• Spontaneous rebooting or intermittent lockups during normal operation
• Intermittent parity check or other memory-type errors
• HDD and fan simultaneously failing to spin (no +12V)
• Overheating due to fan failure
• Small brownouts that cause the system to restart
• Electric shocks that are felt when the case is touched

There are also some obvious clues that should lead you to suspect a faulty power supply. These include:

• A system that is completely dead (nothing happens when the system is turned on)
• Smoke
• Circuit breakers popping when the PC is turned on

Source: Techrepublic

GET THE RIGHT WATTAGE

Often, the main problem is that you’ve exceeded the load of your existing power supply when you added something new. So, check the wattage of your PSU and make sure you don’t exceed it!

BUYING A NEW PSU

If you’re shopping for power supply units, then one place I’d recommend is Newegg.com – it has a wide range of brands and the customer service it unbeatable. I’ve bought mine from there.

RELATED ARTICLES:

How To Get a Faster PC For Free and Do More in Less Time
Get rid of Adwares, Spywares and Viruses Once and For All
How to play online games with a slow internet speed

PSSTT…. Liked this article? Then subscribe to the Gamers World Bangladesh Blog Feed/Newsletter to get even more amazing tech articles delivered straight to you!

There are mainly two ways (as I have categorized) that you can make a PC faster. The first involves system maintenance (in order to maximize your computer’s efficiency) and the latter involves overclocking. Overclocking is not for the faint of heart (or the inexperienced computer user) but if done successfully, can result in a significant performance boost. I will discuss more on overclocking at the end of this article.

SYSTEM MAINTENANCE

You would be surprised about how much hidden power lies untapped in that dusty PC of yours, so I guess we should better get working on that.

1. De-fragment your hard drive: As you use your PC on a day-to-day basis the end result is that your system files become scattered all over your hard drive. This is known as fragmentation and can result in slow performance as Windows looks all over the place for a file. So the first thing you need to do is de-fragment your hard drive. Use Windows built-in hard disk defragmenter [START>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter] and click on analyze. It will advise you on which drives to defragment. You should see a modest boost in performance once you have defragged your drives.

2. Clean the temp folder: As you browse the internet and perform tasks on your PC, junk files and other stuff gets stored in your temporary internet files and internet files, respectively. You could manually delete them [C:\WINDOWS\Temp] or use a free tool such as ccCleaner [DOWNLOAD LINK] to do the job for you. Not only will this free up your disk space but you should also see some performance boost.

3. Run a spyware/adware scan: Spywares, adwares and viruses are notoriously known to make your PC slow down to a crawl (as if they didn’t already cause much harm). Use Lavasoft’s Adaware and AVG’s Free Antivirus to eliminate those nasties and you will notice an improvement in system stability and performance. In the future, it is better to prevent your computer from getting infected in the first place. I discuss more of it at How to get rid of Adwares, Spywares, Viruses and other malicous content once and for all.

4. Update your drivers: Update your video card driver – Nvidia and ATI are constantly releasing new drivers to squeeze the last drop of performance out of their video cards. If you are a gamer, then you might notice a significant improvement in your game’s framerate.

You might also want to check out PC STAT’S 99 Performance Tips for Windows XP

OVERCLOCKING

All of these tips will help you to utilize your computer’s full potential. But if you are looking to gain even more performance for free – and who doesn’t want that? - then you should consider overclocking. Still be warned that overclocking might void your warranty and you might even end up with a fried piece of silicon!

1. Video card: One of the easiest to overclock is your video card, in which case a software does it for you. If you have an ATI video card, then download ATI Tool. Use Nvidia nTune if you have an Nvidia card. One tool that I use to overclock my Sapphire Radeon graphics card is Trixx – it automatically detects the “safest” overclocking limit and saves it as a configuration. You can load that configur ation when you want improved performance out of your card or return to “normal” or even “lower” performance! If you want to take video overclocking seriously, then I recommend reading PC STAT’S Beginner’s Guide to Overclocking the Video Card.

2. Processor and motherboard: Now this is what overclocking is really about. Most modern processors, motherboard and RAM can be overclocked to a certain degree. But it requires trial and error. One superb guide to overclocking for beginners can be found at PC STAT’S Beginer’s Guide to Overclocking the CPU, Motherboard and Memory. Overclocking is a science in itself and will require not one, but many posts to successfully nail it. You could try searching around google and forums for tips. But remember that overclocking means more heat so you have to ensure that your PC is properly cooled. You might even consider water-cooling for serious overclocking (and that’s not a joke!).

Here are some overclocking resources to get you started:

Overclocking Forum – Overclocker.net
Google – Overclocking Resources
Google – Beginner’s Guide to Overclocking

Overclocking tool:

ATI Overclocking Tool
Nvidia nTune (overclocking tool)
Sapphire Trixx

Benchmark tools:

PCMark05
3DMark06

Recommended Reading:

PC STAT’S Beginner’s Guide to Overclocking the Video Card
PC STAT’S Beginer’s Guide to Overclocking the CPU, Motherboard and Memory
PC STAT’S 99 Performance Tips for Windows XP

RELATED ARTICLES:

How to get rid of Adwares, Spywares, Viruses and other malicous content once and for all
Online Gaming for the least fortunate

Thanks for reading these tips! Email me your thoughts and comments and your favourite techniques and they might even end up here too!

Discuss this post at our forum.

All of us Bangladeshis have known it and longed to try it out, that is, online gaming – the major step forward for video games. But every Bangladeshi knows that to attempt such a feat is a complete suicide, with net speeds in the mere single digit kilobytes per second and webpages that take forever to load, online gaming is nothing but a luxury to behold. But we’ve known it and seen it – the likes of World of Warcraft with over seven million subscribers, many of us have dreamed to divulge in this far-away treasure.

But take heart people! It seems that online gaming is not so far away from our grasp. Today, I will give you some advice on how to play online games even on slow net connections, right now, right here! I’ve had my own experiences as a successful online gamer in Bangladesh and here is what I’ve learned to get you up and running.

1. Turn off bandwidth zapping programs: You would be surprised at the increase in your net speeds. Turn off windows automatic updates, your antivirus/firewall updates, etc. during the time of your online play. Look for background apps that require an internet connection and give them the boot – you want to squeeze out the last frop out of your bandwidth. Just remember to turn you updates back on again!

2. Do a spyware/adware scan: No, this isn’t your routine security maintenance. All of these notorious programs call back to its creator at the expense of your bandwidth. So, eliminate them!

3. Choose a server closest to you and with the least ping: While inside a game lobby, choose a server that is closest to your location. This reduces the time that it takes for the data to travel and, ultimately, reduces lag. Most games automatically clalculate the time required and displays it as “ping”. So choose the game server with the lowest ping.

4. Don’t play shooter/action games: Try games, such as racing and strategy, which are still playable under lag. I personally don’t recommend playing fps games as lag will constantly get you fragged and pwned – no matter how good you are.

5. Play at off-peak hours: Usually this time is after midnight when more people are sleeping than surfing. So less people are on your ISP’s network and, therefore, you will gain a lot of increase in speed. In a couple of times playing online at off-peak hours, lag was virtually eliminated!

6. Switch to a better ISP: It is a common fact that different ISPs provide different speeds at the same price (see my post “The Search for a better ISP” at http://www.gamersworldbd.com/2006/08/search-for-good-isp-fed-up-with-worst.html). So you could get an increase in your net speed by just switching your ISP and you will still be paying the same. One ISP that I particularly recommend is Sirius Broadband. Not only do they have a dedicated gaming server for local play, but they also offer a meaty 128 kbps connection at an affordable price. Note: I was NOT paid by Sirius Broadband to write this post.

If you take care to follow these guidlines that I have mentioned, I’m sure that you will be gaming online in no time. But that also means you gotta own legal copies of your favourite games (sorry, pirated games do not work online). A good and immensely popular online game that I recommend is Savage. It is an interesting blend between strategy, action and roleplaying, so check it out at http://www.s2games.com/savage/downloads.php. And it’s only 150 MB in size!

I hope this helps. Just leave a comment below to let me know how it turned out. You can also share your own tip. If you have a 360 and do make it online, then make sure to invite me to yout game. My gamercard is TUSHAR451. And happy online gaming everyone!