You have to:

1. Open the Start Menu
2. Find an empty area and right click
3. Click Properties
4. Click “Customize” next to “Start menu”
5. Click on the “Advanced” tab
6. Click “Clear list” near the bottom right

That’s a lot of steps to complete a simple task. What Microsoft really should have done in this case was just add a link at the bottom of the Recent Documents list, below a separator, labelled as “Clear List”. That way you can clear the list right then and there when you view the Recent Documents menu. Instead of having to click through 6 times through various windows and tabs. I suspect a lot of people don’t even know how to clear their Recent Documents list. They probably just right click and delete each doc listed one-by-one.

Also, for whatever reason, it takes forever to clear the list. Note that the Recent Documents list is just made up of shortcuts to the actual documents. Yet on my PC, with a Q6600 quad-core, overclocked to 3.2 GHz CPU with 2 GB of RAM, the hourglass appears for about 3 seconds before the operation is completed. It’s surprising that such a simple task takes that long. Deleting a bunch of shortcuts is not a resource-intensive operation. It should be instantaneous. I really don’t understand why there’s such a noticeable lag when clearing the Recent Documents list.

I don’t know how it is in Vista, but this is one obvious example of poor user experience design in Windows XP.

Apparently Dell does quite well in the PC gaming market with its XPS gaming systems so you have to question whether they actually needed to acquire Alienware. But what’s done is done anyway. Along with the announcement was that Alienware is coming out with ‘low-cost gaming systems’ which is almost an oxymoron. Gaming PC’s need to be high end so they can handle the latest games. A cheaper gaming PC is really just like any other standard PC you buy. In this case, it’s just branded under Alienware so you think it’ll work great for your games.

It reeks a little of the Vista Capable debacle. People got tricked into thinking Vista Compatible meant the PC they were buying would work fine with Vista, but features are scaled back and performance is mediocre. Hence the lawsuit. It’s kind of the same in this case. You buy a relatively cheaper gaming PC from Alienware (I say relatively cheaper because gaming PC’s typically cost more and have higher premiums) and think that you can run Crysis on high settings. That’s just not going to be the case.

Personally, I would never buy a prebuilt PC ever again. After I built my first PC, it was clear to me that custom self-built PC’s are the way to go. You cut out a huge profit margin PC makers add on to price of the hardware. And prebuilt PC’s like Dell and Alienware use proprietary components making it hard to swap out or upgrade certain components.

New Update

Apparently Dell has stated they are not dropping the XPS gaming line, contrary to what was reported in the WSJ. Oh well. Their XPS gaming line and Alienware are in the same market. I still don’t think this strategy makes sense.

Defragmentation Utilities

Windows has a built in deframentation utility. You can access it (on Windows XP) by going to your Start Menu, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then Disk Defragmenter. There are also commercial solutions available which do a much better job but the built-in Windows defragmenter should be good enough for most people. Two good commercial solutions are Executive Software Diskeeper and Raxco PerfectDisk. I’m currently using an old version of Diskeeper but I’m researching for a newer defragmentation tool and PerfectDisk seems to be a decent solution.

How to Defragment

Defragmenting should be done by itself, meaning you should close all other programs and just leave your computer alone. Sometimes you’ll need to conduct multiple defragmentation runs for severely fragmented hard drives. The time required to defragment depends on how fragmented your hard drive is, the amount of total data on the hard drive, and the amount of free space available.

If you have an aging computer and files/programs seem to take a long time to load, try defragging your hard drive. Also note, you usually need at least a certain percentage of free space on your hard drive for a decent defragmentation run - usually 10%-15%. This is because the defragmenter will temporarily move files around while it puts them back together. It needs free space to do this. You should be keeping at least around 15% of free space anyway. Filling up your hard drive to the brim will also significantly degrade your computer’s performance in general.

I recommend defragmenting your hard drive at least once a month or once a week if you feel like it. Also note that less fragmented hard drives will defragment much faster. So if you defragment often, each run takes less time. I used to leave my PC on 24 hours a day during college and I actually scheduled a defragmentation run every night while I was sleeping. Frequent defragmentation keeps your hard drive in tip-top shape but for most users they don’t need to do this. Like I said, once a month should be sufficient.

Other Notes

Of course, defragging isn’t the answer to all performance problems if you just have an old processor or not enough memory (RAM). On many older computers I come across that are running Windows XP, they only have 512 MB of RAM which isn’t really enough. It might have been a few years ago but nowadays applications just use up more memory. So if you run any kind of semi-demanding applications on XP, things will be slow. Especially on older systems where you have a lot of junk and background processes built up over time. That’s why I HATE programs that don’t cleanly uninstall and remove every component they put into my system. You’d be amazed how much faster your computer runs after you format and do a clean OS install.

(Pictures on Page 5)

Here are the specs of the system:

• Case: Antec Performance One P180B Black (Same as P182, just black)
• Power Supply: OCZ GameXStream 700W
• Motherboard: Abit IP35 Pro
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz (G0 Stepping)
• Video Card: EVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768-P2-N831-AR HDCP
• Memory: Crucial 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit (Micron D9 chips - high quality)
• Storage: (2) Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB SATA 3.0Gb/s
• DVD Burner: Samsung 20X Black SATA Model SH-S203B
• Sound Card: Bluegears b-Enspirer 7.1
• Speakers: Logitech Z-4 2.1
• CPU Heatsink: Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme
• CPU Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5
• CPU/Case Fan: (2) Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2b OEM
• Anti-Virus & Firewall: Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0

I bought Windows XP because Vista has too many issues with driver and application compatibility. And I bought Kaspersky because it’s a high quality security suite that doesn’t use too much system resources (unlike Norton and McAfee). Two things you definitely want are a reliable OS and good security software that you can update on a regular basis.

This is going to be my first multi-page post. I’m going to chronicle my build online and I hope this helps out others interested in building their own PC. I’ll update this post as I go.

First up is preparing the CPU and heatsink …

High Quality Parts

I’ve done a lot of homework on all the individual parts I’m putting into the system and it’s going to be a relatively high end PC. I’m a very heavy user on both the professional and personal fronts so I’m not skimping. I’ll post specs later when I actually buy up all the parts and finish building it (I’m still deciding on a few of the components).

Monitor Upgrade

I’m also getting new monitors. I currently have a 19″ LCD which I’ve outgrown - I really feel I’d be more productive if I could have a quick view of 2 or more applications at once. I was really torn between getting one big LCD (27″ or 30″) or dual 24″ LCD’s. Mainly because I like looking straight ahead at the screen, aligning my keyboard stance with my view. With 2 screens I’ll either be looking towards the left or right but I guess I’ll adapt. I might set up the monitors asymetrically and have one straight ahead and other one off on the right, but I’ll decide that when the time comes.

Video Card Running Too Hot
I figured the video card was probably running too hot or maybe it’s just about to crap out due to old age. I downloaded some utilities to monitor various temperature sensors in the PC and the video card seemed to be running kind of hot while idling (~70°C). At load, it was probably going up to 80°C-90°C, causing it to crash. I never monitored the temperature on a regular basis so I didn’t know what to make of it. My feeling was just that 70°C seemed a bit high for idle temperature. The ambient air around the card was also at around 70°C so that seemed problematic.

I did some Googling and found out that my particular card does tend to run hot but that generally it’s okay. That didn’t help since my card was in fact crashing.

System Cleaning
I thought I’d give my computer a thorough cleaning because I had decided to either replace the video card heatsink/fan or the entire video card. When I removed the front panel I discovered that the 2 large front grates were completed caked in a disgustingly thick layer of dust! Overall the system was really dirty too. Dust covered everything but this was expected since I had not cleaned it in a long time. But to have a thick, solid layer of dust completely blocking the intake grates kind of surprised me because the square holes in the grate are rather large (almost 1cm diagonal) so you’d think dust would blow right through.

There’s actually an internal fan near the intake grates that pulls in fresh air and blows it on the video card to cool it down. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out if I clean off the intake grates to allow proper airflow, this should cool down the video card and entire system overall.

Holy Crapload of Dust, Batman!
Cleaning took me nearly the entire afternoon and almost 3 cans of compressed air. I removed all the parts and air dusted them all off. Then I meticulously wiped down all non-circuit surfaces with a damp cloth. The Dell Dimension XPS Gen 2 happens to have a lot of custom plastic molding inside so I washed all of them along with the front panel. Man, I gotta say there was a LOT of dust up in there. I’m talking giant mutant dust bunnies.

Video Card Running Much Cooler Now
Well now, my video card is idling at 49°C which is over 20°C lower than before. I’ll put it under load another time when I’m free but it should be okay. I’m still going to purchase some new case fans because my current ones are just too loud. When I build my new box in a month or two, this one’s getting inherited by my mother and she’d like it to be quieter. I’m going to buy a new video card heatsink/fan too because the current one is still a bit wonky.

Conclusion
Hopefully this wasn’t too boring. Everyone should clean their PC periodically. All you need is 1 or 2 cans of compressed air (air duster). Then just take your PC outside, open it up, and blast out all the dust. Also defragment your hard drives periodically, keep your OS updated (i.e. Windows), and always run updated anti-virus/firewall software. You do all these things and you’ll extend the life of your computer much further.

P.S. Have a great 4th of July, everyone!

New PC System in 2Q 2007
I might pick up a USB flash drive for now to backup only the most important files. I’m saving up to purchase a new computer probably some time in the second quarter of 2007. Why then? Well, Intel’s new generation of Conroe-based processors (publicly known as Core 2 Duo) have just come out, which feature large power-consumption and performance improvements. By then AMD’s response will have come out and Intel’s own processors will have gone through a few iterations. Not only that Windows Vista is scheduled to be released sometime in January of next year and there are rumors that it may be delayed even further so I’m waiting until 2Q 2007 or whenever Vista does ship.

Need a More Powerful System
I’m going for a very high performance workstation. Even though my system right now works relatively well (P4 3.2ghz w/ HT, 1gb ram), I’m still seeing some slowdowns. When I’m working, I have a lot of programs running at once and I’m going to need serious performance to work more efficiently. I usually have Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Firefox (w/ a LOT of tabs open), Opera, Internet Explorer (3 versions), CuteFTP, Notepad, Windows Explorer, Calculator, Windows Media Player, and a couple of other things open all at once. Needless to say this is really taxing on the system. Sometimes I see a very low amount of available RAM.

Even though I just bought a new 19″ LCD a month and a half ago, when I buy the new system next year I’m probably either going to get an even larger screen (30″?!) or get a dual-screen setup. With the number of apps I’m running and all the multitasking it would be easier if I just had more screen space.

PC Gaming
Although I do a lot less gaming nowadays, I’ll still fire up Counter-Strike or some other recently released game in my downtime every once in a while. So this system will double as a gaming platform as well. Another thing the system will definitely have is an improved cooling system. My current PC (Dell XPS 600 Gen 3) is like a jet engine, especially now in the summer. This thing is LOUD and it blows out so much hot air, it raises my room temperature a noticeable amount. I’ll likely look into some type of liquid cooling system and other noise suppression products (quiet fans, sound-proof padding).

Finding the Right Balance Between Price/Performance
I’m not sure if I’ll build this system myself or just order a configured system from Dell or another vendor. We’ll see. But you can tell this is going to be a relatively high-end, pricey system (I’m hoping I’ll have enough money for this by then). I think if you buy a high performance system at the right time, it lasts you a while without upgrades. You have to find that sweet spot where you’re not really an early adopter anymore and the prices have come down a bit but there’s still a ways to go before next generation technologies come up. I would never buy a budget PC, system performance gets left behind way too fast. I hate waiting for the stupid hourglass icon on the screen; I just don’t have the patience. I will gladly pay more for that thing to disappear as quickly as possible. Time is money! A minute there, a minute here, it all adds up.

Here are the specs:

Dell Dimension XPS
- Pentium 4 3.20 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 1 MB cache with HT Technology
- 1 GB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
- 80GB Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
- 256MB DDR ATI Radeon™ 9800 XT
- Sound Blaster Audigy™ 2 w/Dolby 5.1
- 16X DVD-ROM Drive
- 1.44 MB Floppy Drive

That Radeon is going to be a gaming monster. I’m getting ready to play a slew of new games. Can’t wait till Doom 3 and Half Life 2 come out. And I can start playing CounterStrike again! I’m probably going to add a DVD-RW drive soon. Waiting for prices to come down. I’m always bargain-hunting. Also because after buying this computer, I literally have no money.

It’s an awesome deal because I’m getting a system that normally costs around $2200 for only $1250. I got a Dimension XPS system. I’ll get into the specs when I get the computer.

I bought the computer I’m using now 3 and a half years ago. Although I put in a memory and hard drive upgrade 2 years ago, it’s really starting show its age. A few months ago my computer started freezing up when I played video games. Sometimes music will turn all weird for a few seconds. Sometimes it wouldn’t start up correctly. And lately, I’ve been getting a lot of crashes, which rarely happens. Part of the reason why this system has lasted so long is because I maintain it really well. It’s all about proper maintenance people! You’d be surprised how much performance is lost because of improper maintenance. So yea, I’ve pretty much squeezed every last drop from this computer. I guess it deserves to retire. I can’t wait for my new system!