Questions and Answers

BACKUP:
Q1. Advantages and disadvantages of ZIP drive vs. hard drive vs tape drive for backup. How should they be useful in a home computer?

A1. To determine the best approach for a particular setup, its important to understand the volume of critical data. Tape is well suited for large drive backup and recovery, in general can restore a whole drive, is relatively low cost, but is takes a lot of time to restore the drive. ZIP disks are fast, can retrieve data quickly, but only store 100/250 megabytes. If the volume of data is within this range, then this is a very suitable backup medium. Hard drive backup is usually more expensive, is not used in industry, but is fastest in recovery (plug in the backup drive). Incremental backups are much harder to do with hard drives, not so with tape and zip drives.

Q2. Are there programs under Windows that do a full hard drive backup?

A2. Yes, generally these are available with tape drive products. W98 comes with a backup program originally written by Seagate. The full featured version of that program, "Backup Exec", is now a Veritas product. UltraBak is another backup product name.

Q3. How often should a business do a complete and total backup.

A3. Most pundits suggest doing a full backup every week, with incremental backups every day.

CDROM:
Q4. Which is considered better - cd writer drive or cd rw?

A4. Today's modern writing drives can handle both the CD-R and CD-RW formats; therefore buy the drive that does both and that gives you the greatest flexibility.

Q5. Oak Technology Corporation: a> well known? b> reliability of the Delta CD-ROM? c>capability of the Delta CD-ROM (his reads some CDs by PC Mag. but not all).

A5. Oak technology makes most of the IDE CDROM drivers used today. They also make CDROM hardware. (Not familiar with the Delta CDROM device... however if a given CDROM (not RW or R) can be read by some drives and not others, it may be an alignment probem on the questionable drive especially if the drive is rated at 12X or higher. Some 8X drives have been known to have speed problems. If the drive is 2X, the CDROM may have been cut for 4X speed and that will create a problem.

Q6. What type of DVD do you recommend?

A6. DVD technology is still changing and evolving and you may want to reconsider a purchase. Besides, other than watching movies, there is no DVD imperative today. Software distributions are still CD-ROM (or sometimes floppy) based. It may be better to wait. However, if you insist on buying one buy a drive rated as generation III. Manufacturers such as Sony, Toshiba, and Mitsubishi are among the family of good drives. Best bet, buy a DVD player for your TV set and enjoy it.

Q7. CD-R, CD-RW, vs Zip compare capacity and cost.

A7. CD-R has a capacity of about 620 Mb of data and costs $1 to $2 a piece. CD-RW has a formatted capacity of about 500 Mb, acts like a disk drive, and costs about $8 a piece. Zip disks cost $14 for 250 Mb / $7 for 100 Mb.

CHIP TECHNOLOGY:
Q8. Will smaller silicon wire produce more resistance and electrical current flow?

A8. The smaller the wire, the greater the resistance and the smaller the current flow possible. But by reducing the voltage, then the current demands are also reduced.

Q9. Why is 256K on-die cache faster than 512K cache?

A9. Technical Answer: On-die cache is built into the processor chip and runs at the internal clock speed of the processor. Off-die cache is built on the Pentium II/III mounting substrate, and runs at 50% of the processor speed. If the memory circuits are the same, the on-die runs twice as fast as the off-die cache. Overall performance of 256K on-die is about the same as 4 times as much cache running at half the speed.

Practical Answer: The answer also depends on the number of applications you run at one time (run, not just load and have them sit there minimized), the size of those programs, and how much the code has been optimized for efficient use of cache. For a typical single application use, the smaller, but faster on-die L-2 cache will yield faster results almost every time. For intensive multi-tasking/multi-concurrent application use, the larger slower L-2 cache will perform better.

Q10. How much memory space can a Pentium II address?

A10. About 4 gigabytes.

MOTHERBOARDS:
Q11. Please explain "Slot A" architecture.

A11. The Slot A architecture is the way the AMD processor cartridge communicates with the motherboard. Its the way AMD defined the pin connections and timing signals.

Q12. Is the PII or PIII interchangeable with the Celeron on the same motherboard?

A12. The Pentium II, III, and many Celerons use the Intel Slot 1 architecture. Accordingly they are interchangeable on Slot 1 motherboards. Other Celerons use the 370 pin plastic pin grid array of connecting (466 and higher are only PPGA socket 370) to the motherboard via a socket called 370 for the number of pins in the matrix. PPGA Celerons cannot be plugged into a Slot 1 motherboard except with a riser card that converts the socket 370 pins to the Slot 1 pin layout. Note: Intel appears to be moving all future processors to the PPGA socketed form factor and moving away from slot form factors.

Q13. What effect shoud adding a scanner have on my choice of motherboard or vice-versa? What about Ethernet card?

A13. With any current production motherboard, none. Scanners come in 3 flavors: USB, Parallel, and SCSI. If using SCSI, get a SCSI motherboard or a plug in card. Some motherboards come with built-in ethernet capability, therefore a card may not be needed. In general there are no issues with these peripherals and motherboard selection.

Q14. What's "double decker" in ATX motherboard?

A14. Never heard of it.

Q15. I'm using all IDE drives in my system, can I run a CD recorder on the floppy controller? do I need a bigger power supply?

A15. CD recorders require an IDE port or SCSI port to run (depending upon the recorder). They cannot run on the floppy controller. To add the recorder perhaps you can remove the old CDROM drive, or add a 3rd controller and add up to two more IDE devices, provided you don't run out of interrupts.

Q16. Can an ATX motherboard fit in a case that supported an AT motherboard or is a new case needed?

A16. ATX motherboards require a special power supply and back-of-case cutout and in general cannot work in older style AT cases. Some AT cases may be able to support ATX motherboards but these are rare.

Q17. Is there any motherboard that supports AGP 4x?

A17. Some of the very latest motherboards will support AGP 4x, especially the ones using the Intel 820 chipset.

Q18. What is Socket?

A18. A way of connecting a processor that uses pin grid arrays to the motherboard.

Q19. Do Dell and Gateway use standard motherboards and other standard items?

A19. Gateway most often uses "standard" items, but they quickly change over short time frames. Dell sometimes uses their own unique devices.

Q20. How do I configure 5 EIDE devices on todays modern motherboards?

A20. Add a third IDE controller either as a stand-alone card, or as part of a sound card that can drive a CDROM.

I/O PORTS:
Q21. What do I need for a firewire port?

A21. You need firewire only if you have firewire peripherals. Although the PowerPC series from Apple support firewire, support in the PC community has not emerged.

Q22. USB vs SCSI what peripherals should be USB and what peripherals shoud be SCSI for a new PC.

A22. A lot depends on what you want to do. Scanners come in both varieties; USB devices include mice, keyboards, and modems; SCSI devices are generally drive oriented such as hard drives and CDROM family devices.

Q23. How do you determine which level of SCSI card one should buy?

A23. Again it depends on the drives you're selecting and you need to match these. In general SCSI III should be selected as this is the newer "standard."

Q24. Please explain types of parallel port, speeds, bidirectional

A24. Parallel port technology supports five modes of operation: Forward direction only Compatibility Mode "Centronics" or standard mode; Reverse direction only Nibble Mode 4 bits at a time using status lines for data; Hewlett Packard Bi-tronics Byte Mode 8 bits at a time using data lines, sometimes referred to as a "bi-directional" port; Bi-directional EPP Enhanced Parallel Port- used primarily by non-printer peripherals, CD ROM, tape, hard drive, network adapters, etc.; and ECP Extended Capability Port- used primarily by new generation of printers and scanners.

The original type printer driven port is called SPP or Simple Parallel Port. This performes a one-way data transfer from the PC to the printer. Signals tell the computer that the printer is ready to accept another byte and also tell the computer that an error occurred or it is out of paper. Next came the EPP (Enhanced Parallel Port) and ECP (Extended Capability Port). Here not only would data go from the computer to the device (usually a printer), but would also allow byte-data to flow from the device to the computer. In this way the computer could transfer data in both directions, particularly useful for such devices as scanners, ZIP drives, tape drives and other devices. Modern motherboards implement SPP, EPP, ECP, ECP+EPP together. Consult details of IEEE standard 1284 for additional details.

Q25. Explain the advantages of USB over other methods of connecting peripherals.

A25. The primary advantage of USB over other methods of connecting is the conservation of IRQs. USB requires one and permits several devices to use it, whereas connecting each device separately requires 1 each. Also, next year, the speed of USB connections will increase and surpass parallel and serial device data transfers.

SOFTWARE:
Q26. What programs are available to check for Y2K capability?

A26. All modern motherboards (more specifically the BIOS software) are Y2K OK and should say so on the box. However, the operating system is a much greater issue with respect to Y2K compliance. Similarly, application program versions, data design and use are also significant issues.

You can also find an assortment of Y2K test programs on ZDNet.

Q27. Are all Intel, AMD and Cyrix processors compatible for ALL software applications?

A27. Because you included the qualifier "ALL", the answer is no. Variations exist between the processors most often showing themselves in games. Especially with the newer technologies, the differences may be exaggerated by the different extensions they make to MMX technology and subtle features of the different instruction sets and cache performance. Popular games or programs should have a Intel and an AMD version or most likely a version that would run on both with the installation program putting in the required features for the particular processor. Given the much smaller popularity of Cyrix processors, you need to check first before buying the game/application.

Q28. How do I confirm hardware components in a newly purchased computer (e.g. is the Pentium chip a 550 or a 450?)?

A28. There is an assortment of software available all with greater and lesser degrees of accuracy. The most powerful one found to detect chip characteristics is WCPUID by H. Oda. (version 2.4 is on the Build Team Disk). Others like SYSCHK (also on the Build Team Disk) also provide various internal configuration and performance reporting. Buying from a reputable vendor is also a great source of protection against someone remarking or overclocking and selling you a lesser component at the higher price.

Q29. If your Windows 95 operating system can only reach safe mode when booting up, what is the best way to correct it?

A29. You need to resolve why the system only boots to SAFE mode. Start by removing all but the minimal components needed to operate and let Windows 95 discover and reinstall the other components. Also, it may be necessary to physically remove all but the most essential components, remove them from Windows 95 too, and then add them one at a time. If Windows 95 is corrupted, you may need to erase the hard drive and start the installation process all over again.

Q30. What is Winstone 98?

A30. Winstone 98 is one of many benchmark tests evaluate the performance of a processor and motherboard. It exercises different parts of the process and comes up with a performance metric that can be compared with other results for other processor/motherboard combinations.

MODEMS:
Q31. Why DSL only if within 3 mile for phone center?

A31. The actual physics of the signaling, and the round trip loop time affect the distance. Additionally, as the distance increases, the digital signals degrade (attenuate) and they become more difficult to work with. Reports are that some of the newer technology can traverse about 20,000 linear feet from the telephone central office (and I live 25,000 from the central office but get 50+ kps on my modem).

Q32. What is the fastest internet access speed? Cable modem vs ADSL vs fiber optic vs DSL

A32. Cable modem will probably offer some of the best access speeds available (at least until a lot of people are connected on the same LAN segment). Cable access is not point-to-point like telephone systems, its shared bandwidth. ADSL, which comes in several flavors, offers speeds up to 8 mbs (on the down link), while DSL offers better symmetric speeds. Fiber optic connections offer the potential of much higher access speeds but at an extraordinary cost to connect. However, Internet access speed is only one measure. A more critical measure is throughput. It doesn't do you or your computer any good to have very high speed access, but still have to wait for slow servers on the ISP or even distant end. Sometimes a 14.4 modem offers better throughput than the fastest ADSL connection.

Q33. What is USR?

A33. US Robotics was the name of a modem line, famous for the X2 50 kps protocol. The company was purchased by 3COM several years ago.

VIDEO CARDS:
Q34. Clarify a video card/ adapter/ and a video controller.

A34. All the same...just different ways of saying the same device.

Q35. What is the best video technology for use in photo scanning and editing?

A35. For photo editing, the bigger the screen, and the smaller the dot pitch the better. A lot of video memory is also a good thing. To handle the math of altering photos, a fast processor is also recommended.

DRIVES:
Q36. Can 250MB ZIP read 100MB ZIP disks?

A36. According to the Iomega literature the 250 MB zip drive can read but not write 100 MB ZIP disks

MEMORY:
Q37. What is CAS-1, CAS-2?

A37. The major differences between SDRAM and conventional DRAM is synchronized operation, burst mode, and mode register. SDRAM uses a clock input for synchronization whereas the DRAM is an asynchronous memory module. DRAM uses two clocks, RAS# (Row Access Strobe) and CAS# (Column Access Strobe). Each operation of DRAM is determined by the timing phase differences between the two clocks while each operation of SDRAM is determined by the reference of commands and operations referenced to a positive clock edge. The burst mode is a very high speed access mode utilizing an internal column address generator. Once a column address for the first access is set, following addresses are automatically generated by the internal column address counter. The mode register receives the desired system conditions and in turn controls the SDRAM operation accordingly. (http://www.abit.com.tw/english/techterm/index.htm)

Access to the memory is governed by the delays between column strobes. A CAS-2 rated memory requires a 2 clock delay and CAS-3 requires a 3 clock delay. Clearly the longer the delay, the "slower" the memory. Typically CAS-3 memories are suitable for 100Mhz operation and CAS-2 memories are suitable for 124 Mhz operation.

Never heard of CAS-1 but it may emerge for 133 Mhz memory.

Q38. What is the price of 256Mb PC-100 memory?

A38. As of July 1999, approximately $250. But this is changing drastically due to worldwide memory shortages and memory manufacturers going out of business. Others limiting production to reduce inventory and inflate demand. Production lines are also shifting to other types of memory such as RAMBUS and PC-133 versions of SDRAM contributing to the PC-100 shortages.

Q39. Can a 486 be speeded up with additional memory?

A39. Any computer system can get a performance kick by adding additional memory, up to a limit provided the memory can be used by the applications and the OS. However, the processor itself doesn't gain any advantage. As long as the processor can access everything directly from cache (the fastest) or from main memory (not quite as fast), that's a tremendous advantage. If the processor has to access a hard drive, even one with a fast throughput, that is at least 1000 times slower than memory access.

PRINTERS:
Q40. Pros and Cons of different printer types.

A40. Dot Matrix are granular, slow, and very mechanical. Ink jet offer much higher resolution, are fairly inexpensive, and have less ciritical part movement; ink jet technology has really matured, especially color. Laser offers the best resolution, is more expensive, but is much faster. Color laser is just coming into its own for workgroups, still too expensive for the home.

Q41. Are off-brand inkjet printer cartridges that you get at computer shows OK to use? What about refill kits?

A41. According to the manufacturer's literature (not entirely unbiased) only the manufacturer's new or recycled cartridges protect your warranty. You can buy name brand cartridges at computer shows that are brand new and should pose no problem in your printer (watch the date codes). You can also refill some cartridges, but sometimes it doesn't work. And if you ruin your printer, you can't claim warranty.

SCANNERS:
Q42. Are there scanners that can feed in multiple pages so you can quickly scan in lots of hard copy stuff? If so, cost, brands, web sites.

A42. Yes, Fujitsu has been making them for years as have others. But don't expect to pay $125 for them. More like a few thousand dollars.

CASES:
Q43. For a variety of external devices, how many bays should the computer have?

A43. External devices go outside the case, so bays don't come into play. Floppies, floppy-like drives (ZIP, LS120, etc), CDs, CR writers, tape drives typically mount inside the case and thereby require a form of external access. (ones that provide visible access) and are the external bays. Hard drives can be located in internal bays or mounting positions. Count the number of external devices you think you will expand to, then add another 1 or 2. Also, consider at least 1 additional internal bay for hard drive expansion.

Q44. Do Dell and Gateway use ATX form factor cases?

A44. Yes. Almost all desktop computers today use the ATX form factor.

Q45. Is a minitower case a significant negative factor?

A45. No, most people like them for their compact size. Since space is limited, a mini-tower may not be right for everyone. Also, frequent access to the inside may be easier on a mid or full tower than a mini-tower. But most commercial desktop computers come in the mini-tower form factor.

SOUND:
Q46. What is a wave table vs. FM synthesized for sound cards.

A46. FM synthesis techniques generally use one periodic signal (the modulator) to modulate the frequency of another signal (the carrier). These techniques are very useful for creating expressive new synthesized sounds. However, if the goal of the synthesis system is to recreate the sound of some existing instrument, this can generally be done more accurately with digital sample-based techniques. Digital sampling systems store high quality sound samples in digital memory, and then replay these sounds on demand. These sample-based synthesis systems are often called "wavetable" synthesizers (the sample memory in these systems contains a large number of sampled sound segments, and can be thought of as a "table" of sound waveforms which may be looked up and utilized when needed). Follow this link for additional details.

Q47. If I can plug my PC into my television, can I plug my PC into my stereo?

A47. In general the output of sound cards can be routed to a stereo system. Care should be taken to make sure the right output (from the sound card) is plugged into the proper input section of the (pre-)amplifier. I wouldn't directly drive high quality stereo speakers from a sound card, there may not be sufficient power.

OTHER:
Q48. Please elaborate on Drivers and Servers.

A48. Drivers are pieces of computer code that link the I/O device to the operating system. Servers are centralized computers that provide an assortment of services for connected computers, such as: file services, print services, access to databases, encryption, backup, and web pages.

Notice: The above answers are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of CPCUG nor the CPCUG Build Team. They may not even be the right answers.

Last Updated: 13 Sep 1999