Roughly, what percentage of the heat inside a case is generated by the PSU? Have manufacturers tried to move the PSU to a stand-alone external unit to reduce cooling requirements inside a case and/or provide more room for other stuff inside the case? These questions arose because I was looking at...

An ad at newegg got me curious. AS much as possible in layman's words, what is the difference between Western Digital's black performance series of desktop hard drives and their gold enterprise series of hard drives. newegg had a shell shocker deal today for a WD Black 2TB Performance Desktop...

I have a MS ergonomic keyboard (PS/2) I've been using for quite a few years now. Until a few days ago, it worked as expected. However, now the OS (Win 8.1 Pro 64-bit) does not recognize it. I have not changed my hardware nor have I added/removed any software. My USB mouse works. When I enter...

graphic card/SATA III questions 1. Have graphics cards improved so that they don't block adjacent mobo slots? 2. Are there expansion cards for PCI slots that provide internal SATA III connectors? 3. What's the correct search term to use? 4. Will such a SATA III expansion card transfer data...

While troubleshooting a new HD, I just ran into a new problem of which I'm not sure where the problem is. When I press the on/off button for the pc on the front of the case, I see it start to light up but within a fraction of a second, it shuts down is the best way I can describe it - does not...

I'm thinking about buying a USB 3.0 external hub for my pc. I'm looking for one that has about an 18 to 20 inch cable length and will use the older 3.0 USB connectors (Type A ???). Are there any hubs being made that fit those conditions? Who is making them? The ones I saw at newegg look to have...

Given some recent problems with my pc, I've started daydreaming about moving all my HDDs (all are SATA) from inside the pc case to an external device. Please keep in mind that I don't have a solid handle on the right words to use. I've seen at least two types of devices - an enclosed box to put...

newbie questions he Do internal SSD cards require a constant uninterrrupted supply of power to maintain the data stored in it? What about external SSD cards? I just saw an ad for a portable SSD (Crucial 500GB X8 Portable SSD - Up to 1050 MB/s - USB 3.2 - USB-C, USB-A - CT500X8SSD9) that...

Hi, Does anyone have comments about the quality/reliability difference between WD Black and WD Blue? Their ads say the Blue line is for everyday perforamnce and the Black line is for power computing. Usually, whne I buy an HD, I choose "power computing" on the assumption that those should be more...

FYI - OK, I found out more about the micro-USB connectors. I talked with LG Electronics Service department about the problem I had. The smartphone I have has a micro-USB size B port. The Canon digital camera has a size A port and therefore are not compatible with each other. The LG rep also...

Are manufacturers playing games with us - again? I have a Canon digital camera and an LG smartphone. Both of them came with their own microUSB to USB cable to connect the microUSB port on the device to a USB port on another device, Because the cords look the same and product descriptions say...

I got an old pc that I'd like to play around with, maybe as a DOS platform for some of my old games or for seeing if I could use it to watch OTA TV programs with a USB TV tuner card I have. The mobo is an ECS PT800CE-A mobo populated with 2 Gb RAM (maxed out). and a GeForce 5200 video card. I...

my nephew gave me an old pc (ECS PT800CD-A, 2Gb RAM , old P4 CPU, AGP GeForce FX 5200/128MB) to experiment with and do with as I like. The pc included a DVD, floppy drive, phone modem card and sound card. The pc did not have a hard drive. I bought a Western Digital WD1003FZEX (1TB HD SATA) and...

As an FWIW, I tried posting this at Tom's Hardware Group but their site wasn't working right, so I'm posting it here. Perhaps someone has experience or knowledge they can share. Thanks. John ... I want to build a second general purpose (NOT GAMING) pc for use at home; I already have a primary...

I've decided to build a new pc around the Intel i3-6100 CPU. I'll use the pc as a second computer for web surfing and light gaming (solitaire, Baldur's Gate games, Morrowind and maybe Oblivion), no video editing and no FPS games. At the moment, I intend to use some flavor of Linux for the OS and...

I was reading an ad for the NZXT H440 STEEL Mid Tower Case. Part of the ad said "Next Generation 5.25-less Design". It had no 5.25" drive bays and AFAICT all the drive bays (2.5" and 3.5") were internal, no external. That was a bit of a surprise to me - no 5.25" bay and no external bays. My...

All of the parts for my new build (Intel i3-core 6100 CPU, ASUS BM150M-A/M.2 mobo, 8GB RAM, etc., Ubuntu 16.04.01 LTS) arrived last week, and I've been spending my time putting everything together. It's proved much more frustrating than the previous pc's I've put together (about one every...

Just a generic question. How are vertical SSDs mounted inside a computer case? Do they require a new case or can they fit in an older case? Do they require special mounting hardware? I'm seeing more of them offered for sale. I've never owned one before, so I'm having trouble visualizing where...

I'm in a quandary, I'm interested in replacing some of the HDs I have (they're around 5 years old now) or at least having a new one on hand as a spare for when needed but want to be figure out if it makes sense to shift to portable HDDs from internally mounted HDDs. My current uses are email, web...

Within the last few weeks, the screen will go blank literally for a second or two when I'm using my pc. I'll be at a web site, and all of a sudden the screen blanks (turns dark), no error messages. A second or two later, the image reappears as if nothing had happened. AFAICT, there is no...