80 Plus Certificate on PSU: Meaning and Advantages

Amongst the many confusing labels and terms in the world of computer hardware one is very commonly come across and more commonly ignored even though its something that can help you save your money and i mean a lot of money! The 80 Plus certificate on Power Supply Units or commonly called as PSU.

The 80 Plus label is all about the efficiency of your PSU, it is an indication to the consumer to how efficient and reliant the power supply unit actually is. A 80 Plus certified module means that it';; deliver at-least 80% efficiency to the consumer with Bronze, Gold, Silver and Platinum as a sub rating varying from 81% to 89%!
As the work of a PSU is to convert the AC supply from the wall socket to DC supply for all the components in side your rig to consume and work, it wastes some power in this whole process. Hence a higher efficiency is always desired from any PSU with the efficiency being determined by the simple formula of:
Efficiency= DC power/AC power

Lets take an example if your PSU is giving 250W as an output to your PC and withdrawing 350W from the main supply then its just 71.4% efficient! And yes local vendors have the same statistics on their PSU that is the reason none of them come with a 80 Plus sticker on them, another reason why I don't encourage nor recommend cheap PSU to all you guys.

Why should you buy a 80 Plus PSU?
The certified SMPS or PSU have basically two advantages in general:

• Higher Efficiency
• Low heating issues

The power supply unit with higher efficiency results in low electricity bills. Using the same exaple as above if you replace that module with a 80% efficient unit, you'll be pulling out only 312.5W from the main wall supply saving 37.5W. In the long run that is if you use your PC at a stretch like for a day or a couple of days this saving becomes noticeable and ultimately pays off for the higher inital cost of purchase. So buy only a 80 Plus certified PSU.
In general from efficieny point of view the certificates are:
Platinum > Gold > Silver > Bronze > Standard

The second advantage is that of less heat dissipation. In my first example we are dissipating a 100W as heat while in the second one we come down to just 67.5W which gives us a  37.5% decrease in the total heat produced by the Power Supply Unit. Everyone knows that cooler a computer better is its performance, so if your PSU is cool that eliminates on component to worry about for producing heat and then adding fans to cool it down. This is directly helping you in reduced cost of additional fans and expensive cases if you are on budget.
Apart from these two a cooler and efficient PSU also means that you'll have a safer system with a stable output and supply to your components and also prevents the wall socket from burning at high loads.

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Troubleshooting WiFi Connection Problems

Wi-Fi is the most wonderful home convenience—except for when it isn’t. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a mental checklist on hand for common issues that might be causing the problem when your Wi-Fi checks out.
Everybody has their own favorite way of handling Wi-Fi problems, but here’s mine.

Reboot: The Basic Solution

The simplest reason is often the most likely cause of problems. If your router’s lights are not displayed in the usual order, turn off your router, wait five to fifteen seconds, and turn it back on again.  
This is also a good time to ensure that all your cables are connected correctly. As an alternative to simply switching the router on and off, first try disconnecting it from the power source. Now take out the cord that feeds into your router from the wall to deliver your Internet connection, such as a TV cable, ethernet cable, or telephone cord. Wait a few seconds and power the router on. Then wait another five seconds or so before connecting the Internet cable to your router again.  

Its Hot!

During this time you should also check to see if your router feels particularly hot. If it does, your router might have an overheating problem. Check to see that your router isn’t up against an obstruction that could be blocking its vents.
Maybe you placed it on another piece of tech that also heats up, or perhaps the router’s on a rug where it can’t properly cool down. Routers, like PCs and gaming consoles, are complicated electronics that need room to breathe.

Signal Drops

If your connection starts dropping only in a part of the house where the signal once came through loud and clear, there are a few things you can check. First, if your router has physical antennas make sure they are pointing straight up for the best possible coverage area.

If your router is near a possible obstruction like a metal filing cabinet, move the router to another part of the room or try elevating it a bit more.
Finally, you might try changing your router’s channel as other routers around you may be muscling in on your home network’s signal.

Lights and everything is good----Still not working

Your router’s lights show everything is working properly, but you can’t see your Wi-Fi connection listed on your laptop or smartphone. What gives?
Did you rename your router to something more personal like NoFreeloading? If so, your hardware may have been reset without you realizing it. This can happen due to a random anomaly, a firmware bug, curious children, or even your ISP.
Look at the bottom or the back of your router for a sticker with its original name—called the “service set identifier” (SSID)—such as LINKSYS WRTXYZ. Don’t forget to note the original password that’s also on the sticker.
Now check the Wi-Fi connections listed on your device. Is your router’s original name there? If you see it, connect with your original password. If that works, then login in to the admin panel and then change your router’s name back to whatever snappy title it had before. Just don’t forget to change the default password as well.
More security minded folks may prefer to use a PC to connect to their router directly with a cable and reset the name from there. It’s entirely possible that you’re router is not the only one named NETGEAR in the vicinity.

Reset: Yeah its scary

If all else fails, you may have to reset your router to its default settings. This should always be the last resort since resetting a router can have unintended consequences. Some connections, for example, may need to be reset on your service provider’s end—requiring a call to your ISP. Resetting your router will also wipe out any personalized settings you had, such as your SSID, control panel password, and network connection password.
Look for a button on the back or underside of your router. Typically these are small holes that contain a button within that requires a paper clip or some other small instrument to press. Once you’ve hit the reset button, wait a few seconds before releasing it and see if that fixes your problem.
If all else fails, you may have a hardware failure on your hands.

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Guide to buy a used Computer or Laptop

You just came across an ad on the internet about a desktop PC or a laptop on dirt cheap price an all the specifications enlisted fit perfectly to your needs and requirements. Of-course you want to buy it but wait! there can be issues with the machine, well if not in reality then at-least you are having apprehensions regarding the same.
So today I'll give you a brief & simple guide on how you can buy a decent laptop or desktop for your self that is either used or well just not seal pack new. Just read the points below and you'll be all good.

The Configuration:

This is the most important point, if this is all right then other points can be managed even. Most of the times the seller is either unaware of the exact configuration of the laptop or is misguiding you. This case is mostly observed in assembled desktop computers.
To overcome this problem by downloading a small and free software called Speccy, keep it in your flash drive and just install it on the system that you are about to buy. It will give you the detailed information about the machine instantly from as big as the amount and brand of RAM, Hard Disk and processor to as small as the temperatures that its working on!
You can choose any other software you like as well for the same purpose.

Softwares:

If the machine comes with an original software like the Windows OS or any security software like an anti virus or any other premium software, the price is likely to go up. So its better that you make sure if the softwares are original or not by checking their activation keys and even keeping them with yourself for future use.

The Connectivity Ports:

Every machine be it a laptop or a desktop comes with a range of connectivity ports such as USB ports, Audio Jacks and even HDMI ports. You should make sure that all of these are working in proper conditions. Carry along a pen drive with you for checking the USB ports, a headphone with mic preferably for the jacks and most important try to switch the ports to the monitor from the existing one to another. For example If the desktop is using VGA port then use the HDMI instead to see if its working or not.

Power Supply Unit or Battery Packs:
In desktop the PSU or the power supply unit is vital for proper functioning. Check which brand PSU is installed in the machine by removing the side panel and see if its a good one or not. Make sure that if you want to upgrade the configuration soon the PSU can provide you the extra power. While running the computer you shouldn't feel as if the PSU is failing.
In a laptop you should remove the pack to see if its of the same brand as the laptop or not and check for proper battery backup along with no leakage or damage to the battery pack. The charger should also meet the ratings of the battery even if its of the same brand.

The screen:

Its a very expensive and vital part of a laptop so just make sure its working properly. See for any haze, dead pixel on the screen or a strange line passing through the screen. You can do this easily by putting up a white wallpaper on the desktop, it will reveal any strange dot on the screen instantly.

Body Condition:

Check the frame and body for cracks, dings, or surface damage. They are easily found at the corners of the laptops and at the sides or front of the desktop cabinet. The laptop screen on opening should not be making any screeching sound as it can indicate a damaged screw or a loose display strip. Any gap shouldn't be there in the body be it a laptop or a desktop.
Check the keyboard and track-pad for signs of heavy use, wear, or any broken keys. Press every key from all the alphabets to all the numeric to check if they all work properly or not.

That's all, if you see a tick mark on all these above mentioned points then the laptop or desktop is worth buying of-course if the price is right. Id you think that I've missed out on any points or you need any help regarding the same then feel free to leave a comment.
You might also want to read on how to keep your laptop clean and on the uses of an old laptop

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Nvidia GTX 960: Specifications Reviews and Benchmarks

Nvidia recently launched its mid range and much awaited graphic card belonging to the latest Maxwell architecture family the GTX 960.
Pretty much like its bigger cousins the GTX 980, GTX 970 and the GTX 780Ti the GTX 960 is also based on the latest and very competent Maxwell architecture that gives it a tremendous possibilities and efficiency. It's built on an all-new GM206 GPU, which is made using a 28-nanometer lithographic process. Inside this GPU you’ll find just what you’d find in a GTX 980, but halved – 1024 CUDA cores, 64 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 128-bit memory interface that addresses 2 GB of GDDR5 memory that’s placed elsewhere on the PCB.


This memory runs at an effective speed of 7010 MHz, meaning that it pumps out a bandwidth of about 112.2 GB/s. The GM206 GPU runs at 1126 MHz as a base frequency, but will boost up to 1178 MHz using Nvidia GPU Boost 2.0 when the thermal headroom is available. The 128-bit memory bus appears to be quite narrow, but the GTX 970 and GTX 980 have already proven that the Maxwell architecture is able to do more with less resources, so let’s hope the pattern continues here.

The graphics card has a TDP of just 120 W, which enables it to pull all the power it needs from just the PCI-Express slot and a single 6-pin PCI-Express power connector. Means you'll need just a 400W and above standard PSU to run this card in all its glory. The efficient architecture allows Nvidia's board partners to opt for switching off the GPU's fans when it is running idle or under a low load. Such a technology isn’t only helpful to reduce idle noise levels, but also to reduce dust buildup inside the card.

Being Maxwell means that the 960 comes with full support for DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) and MFAA (Multi Frame Sampling Anti-Aliasing). DSR causes the card to render games at a higher resolution (in this case at 4K) and then downscales them to the resolution you are playing at (1080p or 1440p). It really elevates the visual fidelity of games and makes for a very enjoyable experience for one and all. MFAA is a take on Super Sampled AA and manages to give great results thanks to the previous NVIDIA driver update. It is based on a Temporal Synthesis Filter with coverage samples per frame and per pixel. Simply put, the card is able to generate results akin to that of 4X MSAA for the computational power required for 2X MSAA. In other words, you get double the performance at half the power. The card also ships with DirectX 12 support, thus making sure that it has no trouble powering through games for the years to come.

The ASUS Strix OC version was bench-marked with two of the very popular games in the market and the following results were seen.
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag (1080p Ultra settings 8xMSAA)

ASUS GTX 960 OC: 43 FPS

MSI Twin Frozr 780: 54 FPS

Gigabyte G1 Gaming 970: 56 FPS

Reference NVIDIA 980: 63 FPS

Far Cry 4 (1080p Ultra Settings 8xMSAA)

ASUS GTX 960 OC: 29 FPS

MSI Twin Frozr 780: 42 FPS

The ASUS Strix Direct Cu II GTX 960 or even the base Nvidia GTX 960 is by all means the ideal card for the budget oriented gamer. If all you want to do is play games at 1080p at 60 fps and are willing to dial down the anti-aliasing, look no further than the GTX 960. This is the card that will end up in all the “Console Killer” PC builds, as it delivers a superior gaming experience and can be easily incorporated into an INR 45,000 build.

The reference card will go on retail at INR 16,490 in India with the ASUS Strix OC version will be INR 19,500.

I give it a 8/10

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How to know if your Power Supply Unit (PSU) is failing

You have recently started facing a lot of odd issues with your computers and none of them are performance related but related to some very basic functionality such as turning the PC on or off.
If you are in this bracket then you might be facing a malfunctioning or at worst a dead Power Supply Unit or PSU, these days Switch Mode Power Supply or SMPS are used aswell.

First thing first how will you identify if its related to your PSU or not? The answer is simple if you are facing any of the issues below then you migh be in a need of a new replacement unit.

• System start-up failures or lockups: If your PC is not booting up even if you have pressed the power button with the monitor etc powered on or the boot up process halts/freezes mid way then you need to check your PSU for sure.
• PC takes a long time to shut down or Boot up: A noticeable change rather increase in the time that your system takes in booting up or shutting down is a very strong indication that the power unit is the culprit.
• Spontaneous rebooting or intermittent lockups during normal operation.
• Memory Errors: Your system shows memory allocation or process execution error multiple times quite frequently even during day to day work.
• Hard Disk Drive (HDD) fails: If you experience a total freeze and have to shut down the system by manually pressing the button followed by a no red blink of the LED on the cabinet then your HDD just stopped spinning telling you that it didn't receive the power required hence your PSU failed.
• Fan is not spinning: The fan just stopped spinning along with a over heated PC! That's a real bad news, shut it down quickly and get a new Power Supply for yourself.
• USB devices are not working: Especially those that rely on the USB port for power like an external HDD or a cell phone and even memory cards. Also you may experience a sudden freeze of operations on your system when you plug in these devices.
• Electric shocks that are felt when the case is touched
• BIOS beeping codes detected: This you'll face during the booting process when the computer POST, it'll beep multiple times and finally boot up or it might not even showing that their is insufficient power.
• Smoke: You see a little or lot of smoke coming out of your system that's an indication of over heating and a faulty power supply can strongly be the root cause.

All these symptoms indicate strongly to a faulty power supply in your system, so if you are facing any of these then do put your PSU/SMPS on the troubleshooting checklist.
Always choose a good PSU/SMPS for your system so that it stays stable and can power all your components. I hope this article served your purpose, for any other query or to add something more to this article that I might've missed upon ,do leave a comment.

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How to Clone a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or Solid State Drive (SSD)

So you've just got yourself a shiny new SSD to replace your HDD as storage for your OS for fater booting aswell as faster execution of any application. Or you might have well got a new HDD/SSD to replace your old dusty storage drive.
But the big problem is of reinstalling the whole Windows and all the applications including your work softwares to your big game setups that resided peacefully in your by  default "C:" partition. Its obviously very tedious to do all that again but wait I'm here to solve this problem and save your precious time so that you can simply plug and play your new hardware.

The easiest solution to this is to Clone your primary hard disk and that also your system partition onto your new drive before starting to use it. Cloning copies the complete contents of one drive—the files, the partition tables and the master boot record—to another: a simple, direct duplicate. Imaging copies all of that to a single, very large file on another drive. Simply speaking your computer will feel as if its the same old drive even tough its the new and faster drive that you just bought.
For cloning we need to have a third party software to aid us in this process, there are plenty of them out there and most of them are free and most reliable as-well. Today I'll use Macrium Reflect as its compatible with all the brand's drive regardless of the company or type.
Note: Before you attempt to clone your hard drive or SSD, we highly recommend backing up all your data first. In addition, make sure the drive you are cloning to has enough storage space to take all the cloned data. For instance, you wouldn't want to try and clone a 2TB HDD on to a 256GB SSD now would you?

Step1: Plug it in

Before we do anything you need to plug your new HDD or SSD into your PC either via the USB port if you have the adapter and cable or you can connect it simply as a slave disk along with your existing drive through the SATA connector. 

Now boot up your system and proceed to the next step.

Step2: Download and install Macrium Reflect

Macrium Reflect is available here
Download and install the software on your system.

Step3: Important and Sensitive

Open up the software and click on Clone this disk…after this you'll see the option of choosing the source drive and the destination drive, the source drive is the drive that you want to clone preferably the windows partition and the destination drive will be your new drive that you plugged in. Make sure that you choose both the drives correctly and cross check it once selected as you might end up copying the wrong partition or in worst case a blank drive onto the system partition!
Once you have double checked that you have selected the correct destination disk, click “Copy selected partitions.” Macrium will ask if you wish to perform a “forensic” or “intelligent” sector copy. “Forensic” will copy every single bit on the hard disk, regardless of whether or not it’s actually in a used sector. “Intelligent” will only copy the disk sectors actually in use. We recommend you select the intelligent sector copy and tick “Verify File System.”

Click OK and you'll see the drive being cloned and that's it. It will take time depending on how much data you are cloning, ranging from minutes to  hours. So go around and make yourself a cup of coffee in the mean time.

Step4: Finishing touches

When you’re done, there’s one thing you’ll likely notice immediately: the partition copied in a 1-to-1 ratio to the new disk which means if you’re upgrading from a 120GB SSD to a 512GB SSD there will be a whole lot of unused space. Don’t worry, we can fix that easily enough. Simply click on the “Cloned Partition Properties” beneath your freshly cloned disk.

There you can click the “Maximum Size” button to automatically resize the existing partition to utilize the full amount of available disk space.

Much better! We didn’t spend all that money upgrading to a nice spacious SSD to leave the partition unexpanded. At this point, with your disk cloned and your partition expanded, it’s time to test out the new drive.

Step5: Reboot

After the cloning process is over just restart your PC and press F8 on your BIOS screen to enter the boot menu and change the boot priority to the new HDD or SSD that you've just cloned all your data to. This will make it your primary drive for booting up and make the old storage as a slave drive.
Now when the Windows boot up simply you can go to My Computer and see that all your files are copied and working from the new storage, now you are free to format the old partition on your old disk and free up that space.

Well that was all I guess you got your data cloned and your system running at a much faster pace than before and yes you definitely saved up a lot of time and hassle.
If you have any query regarding the same or want to add something to the article feel free to drop a comment.

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Removing the side panel helps you keep your PC cool?

More than often I come across people who simply remove and keep aside their PC side panel from the cabinet thinking that it'll help them keep their desktop cooler and quieter hence increasing its performance and life span.

This is more commonly observed in India and other equatorial countries where the temperatures are too high especially during summers. Yes, I know either you are looking at your own open case right now or thinking of one of your acquittance who has some arrangement in practice right now!
The big question is, Does removing your side panel helps you keep your computer cool?
Let me explain and help you out with this very general issue today. The basic principle of a case or a cabinet is to create either positive or negative air pressure inside itself. Both have pros and cons, and there's tons of disagreement over optimal fan placement, but the point is: bring cool air in, heat it up, and get it out. When you remove the side panel, you disrupt the intended airflow of the case—whatever it may be—and also invite more dust to settle on your components. So it's not recommended.
If your system runs significantly cooler with the side panel off—except in some very specific situations I might not have anticipated—your case and its fans are either designed poorly or working poorly. I tested my PC at home with the case on and off, and the difference was negligible (everything was well within safe ranges with either configuration).
So, while removing the case panel won't be catastrophic, it counteracts the intended cooling solution of your case, and even if it works without the panel, there's the dust problem. If you really want that open air look, then yes, you can safely run a caseless computer. The natural convection can keep a test bench PC within safe temperatures, assuming the room is kept reasonably cool. There's still the dust, though, and I'm very anti-dust.
If you have a case, you're best off leaving the panel on and letting it work as intended. And if you're having serious overheating problems, then look for the real issue. It could be a problem with your CPU cooler, your PC may need a cleaning, the fans may not be operating properly or are obstructed (cable management is important!), or your case may just have terrible airflow (sorry).
Is a good case too expensive with all the bells and vessels like cable management, lots of fans installation options? No! take a look at these cases if you want, they are well within budget and can do anything you want them to.

Well that solves the issue and puts yet another general practice in the myth bucket! As for the image above, thats just a show off your components don't ever run them as such.

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