Archive for November, 2009
Fixing Sound Card Problems
This video tutorial offers a step-by-step guide on how to troubleshoot various sound card issues. Everything from sound not working to sound not performing right, drivers problems, IRQ conflicts and more.
How to Install a CD / DVD Drive
This video explains how users can install a DVD Drive into their computer. This is useful if you plan to upgrade your old dvd drive or to replace a defective one.
How To Clean A CPU Fan
A CPU fan is a small fan located above your CPU’s heatsink. This fan provides constant air flow inside your computer so that your CPU would not overheat and damage itself. In due time, the fan would have accumulated dust and dirt. This short video shows users how they can safely clean their CPU fan.
How To Remove Viruses From an Infected Computer
Removing Viruses from your Computer
This video shows users how they can effectively and safely remove computer viruses from an infected PC using free antivirus programs from the Internet.
How To Clean Your Keyboard
Cleaning Your Computer Keyboard
This short video tutorial shows how users can simply and effectively clean your computer keyboard from all of that accumulated dirt and dust.
How to Clean Your Computer Mouse
This short video tutorial shows users how they can properly clean their computer mouse for better performance.
DVD Decoders and Drivers
Almost all newer computer models come with a DVD drive capable of reading or writing to DVDs. These can be formatted for data storage, audio files (similar to CDs) and video (which includes full length movies). The newer versions of Windows include an application called Windows Media Player that can playback DVDs; that is, if the correct DVD drivers are installed.
What Do DVD Decoders and DVD Drivers Do?
DVD decoder drivers are an integral part of the DVD playback system because the amount of space needed to store a movie in raw video form is more than is available on standard DVDs. When video files are stored, they are compressed using MPEG formatting. These files must be decompressed by the DVD decoder driver before playback is possible.
Getting the Correct DVD Drivers
DVD drives come from a variety of different manufacturers. The formats they use to read or write DVD data are standard across the platform, but each one is slightly different from all the rest. This means that you need the correct DVD drivers for the DVD drive you are operating.
Most DVD drivers are pre-installed on the computer system at the time of manufacture to match the DVD drive being installed with the system. In most cases, everything is compatible and all the parts work together. There are rare occasions that can lead to problems, however, that must be identified and fixed to make the components work.
Any time you put a DVD or other media into the drive, a prompt should come up asking for the action you wish to take. Sometimes, you may tell the system to play a video and instead of doing so, it gives you a message that you do not have a compatible DVD decoder driver installed. This may mean that the driver for your system has been damaged in some way. If you have recently installed a new DVD drive, you may not have the correct driver installed to operate it.
You can easily check this by opening Windows Media Player (or a compatible DVD application) and selecting the Options button on the Tools menu. There should be a DVD tab visible. If not, you do not have a compatible DVD decoder driver installed. You should be able to install the correct driver with the disk that came with the drive or by downloading it from the company website for the manufacturer.
Sometimes, the display settings on the computer may not be compatible with the DVD player or driver. If reducing the resolution on the display or setting the video acceleration to zero allows the DVD video to play, you may need a newer version of the DVD driver to operate at optimal settings.
Another potential trouble spot for DVD’s is that they are normally programmed to play only in certain regions. The variation in the encoding can prevent them from working with your system. You may be able to change the DVD region on your system through the control panel, but be warned, there is often a limit to the number of times this setting can be changed. The computer will often display a countdown when this is the case.
What is Windows 7 Device Stage?
Knowing Windows 7 Device Stage
This video tutorial shows you a new feature in Windows 7 called “Device Stage”. This feature provides a simple centralized management tool for all connected external devices to perform driver management, device management, and more.
Managing Driver Signing Quick and Easy
How To Manage Driver Signing Quick & Simple
For Server Administrators, this video tutorial provides an easy way of administering and managing device driver signing on your Windows Server 2003 Server machines. This is done to prevent any corrupt, damaged, or unrecognized drivers from being installed into servers that may cause blue screen of death problems or stop code errors.
DirectX 9 Driver Download
DirectX enables computers that run on Windows applications to play games as it has many multi-media elements to it. There are three parts to the driver that control visual as well as audio effects. In addition, DirectX also has three dimensional possibilities for animation effects in Direct 3D. There is also DirectDraw that handles visual effects as well as DirectSound that handles audio.
Updating DirectX Drivers
There have been many versions of DirectX drivers released throughout the years. DirectX 10 is the latest and it comes with Windows Vista. For other Windows operating systems, such as XP, you can install earlier versions of this driver. You can do this by going the Start menu and typing “dxdiag” in the search box. Press enter and you will see the System” tab. You can see the version you are using by clicking System Information.
The DirectX driver is designed so that it is compatible with games that run on later versions for which they were written. You may run into problems when you are running new games on older versions of DirectX. If you show that you have versions 9.0, 9.0 a, b or c, you can find that you have incompatibility and errors occurring that will say that the dynamic link library cannot be found. You may also find that you have no sound or even come across a blank screen when running these programs.
The best option is to update your DirectX drivers so that you have the most recent version of the driver installed on your computer. This will enhance the performance of your game playing and will most likely get your games to run properly.
Driver Downloads
The latest version of DirectX for those who are not using Windows Vista is the DirectX 9.0c. This was released in November, 2008. It will work on Windows XP but not Windows 98 or ME. If you are working on those systems, the latest version of the DirectX driver is version 8.1. You cannot update the DirectX driver if you are using Windows NT.
To update DirectX drivers, you can download version 9 by going to Microsoft’s website and installing it so that it overwrites the prior version that you have in your computer. Once you install this, you will not be able to remove the diver. You should have a restore point that will enable you to revert to a working version if you find that you install the wrong version of the driver. Make sure that you are working on a version of Microsoft Windows that is genuine if you are to install driver downloads onto your computer.
You can install a driver download of DirectX 9 without saving any files. If you have any other computers on your network, you should also download drivers to each of them.
If you install DirectX 9.0c, it will download all of the files into one package. You can then update the drivers on all the machines much easier. Once you download the package of files and create a restore point, you can double click on the Direct X package and put the files into your temporary folder. After you have completed this process, you must then run DXSETUP.exe that will complete the installation process. After you are finished with this, you will then have to restart your computer.
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- Audio Drivers (5)
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