kelston

Couple of questions:

1) Do most of you keep some sort of barebones system available to utilize to swap in/out parts to test hardware functionality? If so, what would it contain to maximize it's usefulness for say your own system + your friends' systems?

2) Suppose, hypothetically, that you narrowed down a hardware issue to either the processor or motherboard. Also suppose that you do not have a spare processor or motherboard. Is there a way, personally (as in, you don't take it to CompUSA/Best Buy/etc to have them run tests), to accurately determine which one is at fault given to obvious, visual issues (ie Your processor isn't burned)?

3) Suppose you did the whole performance thing and had two separate hard drives, one for the O/S and the other for your programs and whatnot. When you reformat the O/S, it also obviously resets the registry and all programs installed on your "program drive" is no longer known by your O/S. Is there a way to restore these or do you reformat it all when you do the 2 or 6 month reformats?

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Judas

1) Just an extra PSU/Motherboard and CPU and maybe some ram will generally cover it all (specially IF they are all off the same socket and specs), Usually a CPU/Ram/PSU isn't going to be the problem, but it's handy to have them, The other stuff swapping will do the trick.


2) That's a bit of a dilema, even for general computer stores to diagnose. Without either a motherboard that'll fit the chip or vice versa, they'd have to rely on a different product that basically helps boot the motherboard up even without a CPU being installed, these gadget however are not cheap at all. Some motherboards have bios beep codes OR more recently, i've noticed MSI shipping motherboards with quad Code LEDs, using this tool you can generally find the culprit. BUT, usually, you can fire up a motherboard without a CPU even in it (FANS spin, just no beeps, no nothing usually else happens), if the fans spin without the cpu and don't spin or fire up with the cpu, that's usually an indicator that the cpu is bad. Just not always.

3) you COULD do a full registry backup, but that MAY not be wise as it's somewhat defeats the whole purpose of a "clean install".

IMO, when it comes to doing fresh wipes and reinstalls. I setup most machines that have 2 hardrives with 2 partitions on the primary hardrive which contains C: for windows and program files, D: for games. On the secondary drive i put a 5gb E: Partition dedicated to Swap file for best overall performance and less fragmentation, and F: for other files (or more partitions if you which to seperate document files, video, music, etc.)

Everything downloaded, saved usually ends up the on the secondary drive. That way when the next fresh install is done, only the primary drive needs to be wiped, leaving all your saved docs, downloaded files, anything you need to keep intact on the 2ndary.

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CDsDontBurn

1. yes i do. The only thing i do not have are spare CPUs and MoBos. Most of my testing can be concluded simply by swapping out gfx card and RAM to determine a MoBo of CPU issue.

2. If testing has determined that it is either a CPU or MoBo issue, i would then take my computer to a friend's house who has the same socket CPU to test my parts in his machine. That would be the alternative to taking the machine to a repair shop of any kind.

3. As for having an OS drive and a program install drive, you can simply create a shortcut to the *.exe file of the program back onto your desktop. Sure, the program won't be there under Start > All Programs any more, but it should still work. I've done it before.

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Judas

CDs, alot of the more elaborate programs REQUIRE Registry entries that the game installs WHILE being installed, while some will work, generally most will not.

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PangingJr

many installation of Windows-based programs generally involves adding files and information to the program's folder and other folders, these other folders may hold files that are shared with other programs, Programs also may write information to .ini or registry files in the Windows folder.

you can ruin your Windows installation if you entered the information from an old registry backup.
however, this is all depends on many things. but, in short, i suggest you reinstall all your programs again.

Zelig

1) I don't keep any spare stuff for testing specifically, I'd rather have spare money to use, instead of spare hardware I use seldom, but I have enough spare parts and different machines that I can swap stuff around as needed when I need to.

2) Answered already.

3) Certain programs I'll back up registry entries for, when the programs aren't updated anymore, and the registry entries aren't likely to change. (ie. UT2K4, also happens to be my only game which won't run fine without installation). I tend to mostly use light-weight programs which don't rely on registry information that doesn't get re-created on run in order to function, so when I reformat, I never have more than 10 programs or so to install, most of which are tightly integrated to the OS/browsers. (java, flash, anti-virus, etc.)

Regarding page file usage, if the initial/maximum sizes are both set to 4095MB, no fragmentation will occur, regardless of how drive assignments/partitions are set up. You'll see better performance if the page file is on a physical (partitions are irrelavent to page file speed, they can actually hinder performance because of the extra physical distance from the other data being accessed on the drive) drive with minimal other disk access, which usually happens to be a drive other than the OS drive. Windows automatically uses the page file on the less frequently accessed drive, so it's possible to simply create a 4gb page file on each physical drive, no fragmentation will occur and Windows will use the fastest one as needed.

That's how my computer is currently set up, I don't bother partitioning anything, my optical and hard drives already run up to I:.

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