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TECHNOLOGY ADVICE YOU CAN TRUST
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PC Hardware
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AGP’s strength is its ability to process
texture maps. Certain 3D games and a

AGP 8X cards to come out?
Evan Nathan, Dallas
absolutely not.
Applications that take
full advantage of AGP 8X transfer speeds
are at least a year away. Other improve-
ments to third-generation AGP graphics
cards should enhance graphics perfor-
mance, however. FIGURE 1 shows the max-
imum transfer rates of the AGP versions.
KIRK STEERS
HARDWARE TIPS HARDWARE TIPS HARDWARE TIPS
A Cool Breeze Keeps Your
PC’s Innards From Frying
biggest temperature changes occur when
you turn your system on and off, so leave
your PC on but use its power-manage-
ment functions to keep its innards as cool
as possible when it’s idle. When you turn
on your computer in a really cold office,
let the system warm up for 15 minutes
before saving anything to its hard drive.
Listen to your fans:
Your PC keeps cool by
blowing a constant stream of air through
its case. The primary air mover in most
PCs is the power-supply fan, although
some systems have an additional ventila-
tion fan built into the case. Even in rela-
tively clean offices, dust can accumulate

dark days of winter have
you dreaming of tropical beaches, sunny
deserts, and the inside of your PC? You
read right. The climate inside your com-
puter can rival that of Death Valley in the
summer, and triple-digit temperatures
are bad news for your hardware.
Most desktop PCs run comfortably
when their internal temperature is be-
tween 60 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
(Check your system documentation to
find your PC’s exact range.) Internal tem-
peratures over 110 degrees can stress del-
icate circuits and electrical contacts,
which may substantially shorten your
computer’s life. Hard drives are especial-
ly vulnerable when the temperature goes
up: Data transfers slow down, and data
written to the disk is more likely to be lost.
Here’s how to beat the PC heat.
Avoid ups and downs:
Sudden changes in
temperature are just as harmful to your
PC’s circuitry as high temperatures. The
HERE’S HOW
FIGURE 1: FASTER AGP rates speed up tex-
ture maps but won’t help most applications.
DOES YOUR CURSOR sometimes appear
and disappear, move in the wrong direc-
tion, or change size and shape? It could

A UTILITY FOR
CACHE MANAGEMENT
AN OLD AGP CARD
IN A NEW AGP SLOT
ial or parallel port often requires a com-
plicated configuration. USB avoids the
hassles of setting and juggling IRQs and
other resources. One IRQ covers all the
hardware attached to each
USB port. USB peripherals
have fewer compatibility
problems than peripherals
using serial or parallel ports.
Speed:
A USB 1.1 controller
transfers data at up to 12
mbps, or about four times
faster than the speediest
parallel port and 100 times
quicker than a serial port.
While that won’t affect the
performance of a mouse or
joystick, it makes a big dif-
ference with printers, scan-
ners, and other data-hungry peripherals.
Portability:
All USB devices can be hot-
swapped, which means that you can plug
a piece of hardware into your PC, or un-
plug one, while your system is running.

ison. (Not to say that leeches and a good
suit of armor don’t come in handy every
now and then. But, hey, enough about my
personal life.) Judging from all the e-mail
I get about problems with parallel and
serial ports, a surprising number of you
still aren’t aware of just how great USB is.
And with USB 2.0, the spec gains even
more advantages. Here’s a rundown on
why you should be riding with USB.
Ease of use:
USB just works better. Peri-
od. Getting hardware to function on a ser-
peripherals at one time. All the devices
connected to a USB 1.1 controller have to
share its 12-mbps bandwidth. If you need
to run multiple devices that eat up more
than 12 mbps, you can use a PCI adapter
card to add a USB controller to your PC.
Belkin sells a USB 1.1 PCI adapter card
for $39 and a USB 2.0 version for $59.
Easy linking:
If you’ve ever tried to chain
together two devices—such as a printer
and a Zip drive—you know it can be a real
nightmare. USB allows any device to be
connected to any other USB device that
has a built-in hub. So you’ll never have to
crawl under your desk to reach the back
of your PC when attaching a peripheral.

cache, where it can retrieve the data
faster than it can off a hard drive. Stor-
ing the right amount of data in the cache
can improve your PC’s performance.
Outer Technologies’ $10 Cacheman is an
excellent shareware utility that lets you
conveniently monitor memory use and
control your cache settings. Go to find.
pcworld.com/17641 to get the download.
SPEND YOUR CACHE WISELY
If you buy a self-powered hub, make
sure it provides a full 500 mA to each
port—some don’t. To check, divide the
hub’s total amperage rating (found in its
documentation or on the power supply)
by the number of ports. For example, a
four-port hub should provide at least 500
mA per port, or 2 amps total.
If your PC originally shipped with
Windows 98 or later, it almost certainly
has a set of working USB ports. Look on
the back of your PC for two narrow, rec-
tangular openings. If you have an older
system without USB, an adapter card
should get you up and running. (Using
USB on systems running Windows 95 is,
at best, problematic. If that’s what you’re
using, consider an OS upgrade.)
Many PC peripherals now support the
USB 2.0 specification. USB 2.0 devices

data rate
(mbps)
CommentsSPECIFICATION
USB 1.1
USB 2.0
IEEE 1394
(FireWire)
12
480
400
Supports low-speed (up to 1.5 mbps) peripherals such as mice and keyboards, as well as
printers, scanners, and other medium-speed devices.
Also called High-Speed USB, the new standard is fast enough to support external hard
drives, CD-RW drives, and other high-speed peripherals.
Popular spec for digital video cameras; will allow direct connection of IEEE 1394 devices
(such as a DVD player to a TV) without the signal having to pass through a PC.
USB VS. FIREWIRE DATA RATES
ket sometime this spring. You can add
USB 2.0 functionality to your system now
by using one of the adapters mentioned
above. But before buying a USB 2.0 prod-
uct, check with the vendor to confirm the
availability of USB drivers for your oper-
ating system. As I write this, USB drivers
for Windows XP are still unavailable, and
drivers for Windows 98 and Me aren’t
always included with USB products.
ANY AGP PORT IN A STORM?
MY BROTHER JUST gave me his
old Pentium III PC minus a graphics

inserting a 1X/2X card to avoid incorrect-
ly inserting it into the AGP Pro extension.
Often these extensions come with a cover
to prevent this, but the covers can fall off.
Also make sure your graphics card and
motherboard support the same operating
voltages. The original AGP 1.0 spec called
for motherboards and cards that operate
at 3.3V, and the AGP 2.0 spec added sup-
port for operation at 1.5V. If your old
graphics card operates at 3.3V, you’ll need
a motherboard that supports 3.3V AGP.
Likewise, a card that runs at 1.5V needs a
corresponding AGP slot.
Fortunately, many motherboards come
with ‘universal’ AGP slots that support
either voltage, and many of the latest
graphics cards support both voltages as
well. Not all setups do, however. A few
motherboards out there run exclusively at
1.5V and won’t support the older 3.3V
cards. Check with your motherboard and
graphics card vendors to determine your
hardware’s precise requirements.
Kirk Steers is a PC World contributing editor.
Reach him at [email protected].
Hardware Tips welcomes your tips and ques-
tions and pays $50 for published items.
HERE’S HOW HARDWARE TIPS
ឣ

If you have an older system, keep in
mind that powerful new PCs are cheaper
than ever. If a CPU upgrade costs more
than $300, you may be better off spend-
ing a little more for a new PC.
Here’s what you need to know about
your PC before you buy a new CPU:
What’s your old CPU’s name?
Use Intel’s
Processor Frequency ID Utility to identify
the company’s CPUs. Go to find.pcworld.
com/11880 to download the program.
What’s your PC’s chip set?
The chip set
your motherboard uses determines what
types of CPU, RAM, hard drive, and other
hardware will work with your PC. To dis-
cover what chip set your PC uses, look in
your system’s manual or download and
run a hardware diagnostic program such
WWW.PCWORLD.COM OCTOBER 2001
198
if you think
you can feed your need
for PC speed without investing in a whole
new system, simply by replacing your old
CPU with a newer and faster one, you’re
right—probably. A CPU upgrade can be
a cost-effective way to boost PC perfor-
mance, but it’s not for everyone. Any

133 MHz. The motherboard multiplies
that frequency to drive the CPU. For ex-
ample, a Pentium II-233 CPU typically
runs on a motherboard with a 66-MHz
FSB and a multiplier of 3.5. The same sys-
tem can run a Pentium II-266 CPU if you
change the multiplier from 3.5 to 4. But
running a Pentium II-400 CPU on that
system would be a waste: With an FSB of
66 MHz and a top multiplier of 4, the old
machine can run no faster than 266 MHz.
What is the voltage?
If you’re adding a
standard CPU rather than an upgrade
processor, make sure your motherboard’s
CPU voltage matches the voltage needs of
your new CPU. Some motherboards sup-
port multiple CPU voltage settings, but
many older boards don’t. Check your
manual to be sure of what you need.
Kirk Steers is a PC World contributing editor.
Hardware Tips welcomes your tips and ques-
tions and pays $50 for published items.
HERE’S HOW
FIGURE 1: KNOW YOUR motherboard attach-
ment type before you buy a CPU upgrade.
IF YOU FREQUENTLY use a removable
storage drive—such as an Iomega Zip or
Jaz drive—you can speed up data writing
to the drive by enabling write-behind

Slot 1 or Socket 370
Slot 1 or Socket 370
Socket 370 (PPGA or FC-PGA)
Socket 5 or 7
Socket 7 or Super 7
Slot A
Socket A
Socket A
WHAT’S YOUR SOCKET?
IntelAMD
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