FAQS! FACTS! FAX! 111 (28/05/98)

OVER THE HILL

I invested in a Pentium P60 system in May 1995 and, after much procrastination, finally decided to upgrade the processor with an Intel Pentium Overdrive. I now find that I have missed the boat by about two months as Intel have discontinued the Overdrive processor for earlier Pentium systems. Do you have any suggestions as to where, at this late date, I might acquire a suitable Overdrive processor?

Allan M Flett

A

Whilst the P60 Overdrive is no longer being made -- it is a different configuration to later Pentiums -- we managed to track down several companies with stock remaining. The cheapest one was from Choice Computers, who are asking £135 (including VAT), for the P60 to P120 conversion. However, a more satisfactory solution might be to replace the motherboard and processor together. It costs about the same but you will end up with a faster and more capable PC. Pentium motherboards cost from around £60 upwards, Pentium class processors, like the Cyrix M2 166MHz cost roughly the same. There are also plenty of bundle offers in the computer magazines; Choice currently advertises an IBM P200 MMX processor and motherboard for just £148, including VAT. Replacing a motherboard is not a difficult job -- it's only marginally more complicated than a processor upgrade -- and there are plenty of easy to follow DIY guides in your local computer store.

Choice Computers, 0800 0730730

FLIGHT OF FANCY

I have just purchased Flight Simulator 98 and am very pleased with it except for the image display rate which is slow on my machine. Would it help to add a graphics accelerator card, bearing in mind that I only have a 486 DX PC, (running at 66MHz) to speed up the display rate, or would it be a waste of money. I would be grateful for your opinion.

Geoff Plumtree

A

Your set up (assuming it also has the necessary 16Mb of memory) is the minimum configuration for Flight Simulator 98; it works, but only just... Upgrading the graphics card is not going to make a lot of difference. The bottleneck is your 486 processor, which is really struggling with such a demanding piece of software. The only solution is a faster, more up to date PC.

MORE WINDOWS?

To get a larger viewing area, is it possible to connect two screens to a 486 PC running windows 3.1? What hardware or software would be required? If it's not possible, are there any other possibilities to avoid getting a bigger monitor?

Tony Blacker

A

Mac users may be excused a wry smile as they already have the facility to use multiple screens. PC users will have to wait for the launch of Windows 98, which supports multiple video cards. That will make it possible to work on two or more monitors simultaneously. For example, you could have your E-mail window on screen, and work on a word-processor document on the other. Seeing the mouse pointer move off the side of one screen to appear on another is a very strange sight. In your case, however, the only answer is to get a larger monitor, or a new PC, capable of running Windows 98.

WORDS OF WISDOM

A. Richards of Whitney writes in 'Fast For Word that he has trouble using the mouse to highlight text, which extends beyond the current screen area. This used to drive me to distraction too. Then I discovered the 'highlight' shortcut keys (shift and down-arrow), which for some reason

is much more controllable.

Neil Haughton, Reading, England

A

Thank you to everyone who wrote in with this very useful tip. In defence of our somewhat more complicated solution, it was also intended to make it easier to control the movement of a block of text, once it has been highlighted, and dragged to another location.

CLEAN START

When installing new programs one is often faced with the instruction to 'Close all applications. I have four programs that largely work in the background: Nuts and Bolts, Oil Change, Clean Sweep and Dr. Solomon's HomeGuard. Within these, some parts can be turned on or off but others will be keeping an eye on things quietly.  Does the aforementioned warning mean that one must uninstall all these before trying to install the new program?

Ken Evans

A

No and that would defeat the object of programs like Clean Sweep, which is designed to monitor new installations, so they can be properly uninstalled. The Close All Applications dialogue box is suggesting that you exit all open programs running on the desktop, as these could interfere with the installation process. Before you start make sure that the taskbar is empty, and double check by pressing Alt plus Tab; if anything appears close it down.

SPACE, THE FINAL FRONTIER

Help please! My hard disk is nearly full only 40 megabytes of free space remaining. What is my best and/or cheapest option - new hard disk or a Zip drive?  Is either option easy enough for the techno semi-literate?

Lynne Lanigan

A

A new hard disc may be unnecessary, or at least you might be able to put it off for a while longer by deleting unused programs and files. You could also compress the data on your hard disc drive. Both Windows 3.1 and 95 have compression utilities built-in, which can increase the capacity of your hard disc drive by between 50% and 100%. To access DoubleSpace in Win 3.1, exit Windows and at the command prompt type 'dblspace' and follow the on-screen instructions. Windows 95 uses DriveSpace 3, you will find it located in the Windows 95 directory, or you can get to it from Windows Help. Fitting a Zip drive to your machine will allow you to relocate large or seldom used files and folders but these measures are only temporary solutions and in the end you will have no option but to install a larger disc drive. It's not difficult but unless you've got some screwdriver time under your belt it's best left to an engineer or someone who has done it before.

SCAN PLAN

Further to your comments in F!F!F! regarding the use of a 'through-port', to connect a scanner and a printer via the parallel port, I have been trying this for two months without success. The printer output is never other than nonsense. My scanner vendor has tried to help but without success whereas the printer manufacturer has offered no assistance whatsoever ('the problem lies with the scanner'…). Have you any suggestions? The problem would appear to be due to software conflicts. Are there drivers, which might help? Is it possible to install a second parallel port?

Michael Pearson

A

Resolving this kind of software problem can be a nightmare. It's always worth checking the printer and scanner manufacturer's web sites, to see if they have come up with any solutions. On-line conferences and forums can be a very good source of information too, try posting your query in a few relevant newsgroups. In the end however, a second parallel port is probably the quickest and simplest option. You will need an interface card (about £15 from most PC suppliers) and a spare ISA slot on the motherboard.