Do you own a computer? Well I guess most of you do or you wouldn't be looking at this site, unless your are using one at the office, rented one or borrowed one from a friend. Computers are great, they open up a whole new world to us, especially if they are connected to the internet.

Recently I have been seeing people complaining that their computers are taking a long time to start up. Some blame it on microsoft windows, others on the bios, that mysterious operating system that loads before windows. The problem is that many times it is neither of these things and is caused by something completely different, that an un experienced computer user may never guess. It can be caused by a device you have hooked up to the computer. If you have what is known as a USB connection and have several devices plugged into it, one device can be malfunctioning or just in the wrong state. What I mean by that is if you have something like a mini recorder hooked up to the computer and it is on, the bios could take a loooooooooong time to try and figure out what is happening with it. It is best to always have these types of devices in the off position while the computer is starting up. Another thing that can cause you to have extremely slow startups is a bad sector on you hard drive. Run the disk check program once in a while to check for them. You can get to this program by pressing the right mouse button and selecting properties. You will see tabs in the box. Click on the Tools tab. Under Error-Checking, click on Check now. You will probably have to reset the computer before the checking takes place, but you will be notified if that is the case. I usually select the option to have the errors fixed automatically. This little tip can save you time in the long run. The best way to find out what device might be causing your computer to load slow, is by taking out all the USB plugs and restarting the computer. If it starts up much faster then you know that a USB device is causing the problem. If this is the case, plug in each one individually, restarting the computer each time until you find the offending device. Once it is found, you can try it in different ways such as off and on. If it still offends both ways, it could be the cable or the device that is bad. This method also works for hotwire and any other devices that are plugged into your computer in any other way.

There are so many computer horror stories out there and so many people have no where to turn to fix a problem that they don't understand. You would think that the big name computer companies would be able to always help them, wouldn't you? Let me tell you something about one of those companies that will remain nameless. I contacted the company by chat and got a representative. I told him the model number of my computer that I had purchased from them, the operating system I was running and the number of the mother board in the machine. I thought that this would be necessary, because I wanted to update the bios. Remember the bios is that mysterious operating system that comes on before windows. He told me that an update was available. When I got to it, it said it was for a different model number motherboard. The motherboard is the main board in all computers. Everything is connected to it, in one way or another. I got back to him and explained the problem. Basically what he said was he couldn't help and to go the site of the manufacturer of the mother board. There are several things wrong with this statement:
1. There is no name on the board and it doesn't come up when you read the board with a utility.
2. How can the builder of your computer not have a bios upgrade for it?

When I finally found out who manufactured the board, I went to their site and in bold letters I saw the statement, "We don't support third party computers, you have to contact the builder" . Secondly I looked on the site for a bios for the board and there was nothing for that model number or even the model number that the builder had given me. I got back to the builder's website and explained this to them and was told there was nothing that they could do, which really ticked me off and I told them that I would never buy another computer from them and they said okay. Well to make a long story short, it turned out that when you look at the number on the mother board it is a different number than what the company that built the computer calls it and the bios upgrade that the company had was correct. Now I ask you, how is anyone supposed to know that? Why couldn't the people in the tech depart have told me that and saved me all that trouble?

I am not the only one with horror stories concerning computers.

One of the great things about having your own website is that you can complain about things like this. One poor guy had purchased an extended warranty from a well know computer company and his laptop failed. He called the company and was put on hold for an extended period of time. Finally a tech person got on and began to ask him questions. He was instructed to disassemble part of the notebook, but it wouldn't start. The company representative promised to call him the next day, so the guy cancelled his business appointments and waited. When he didn't receive a call back, the man called the company and guess what, he was put on hold for a very long time? He was told that no tech person would have told him to ever take the computer apart. He complained and was promised that a company representative would call him right back. Again he had to call customer service and this time they told him that there was a problem with the mother board in his machine and there was no replacements available for it. Can you imagine being told that basically your machine is broken and we know you paid a lot of money for an extended warranty but we can't fix it? The next day while he was on the phone with the technology department, a messenger came to his door with a box of parts from the company. He told the tech guy who replied that they had no record of anything being sent out. They told him to open the box and tell me what the parts were. He opened the box but didn't know what parts were in it, but there was NO MOTHER BOARD. He had been told that a repairman would arrive the next day. When he didn't, he called the company again and was told that this was unrealistic, no one told him that. He demanded to speak to a supervisor and the supervisor told him it was not unrealistic and the repairman should have been there. While all this was going on the poor guy had to leave the country on business and figured he would solve this on his return. These companies have a system where a trouble ticket number is issued and people are taken in turn. When he came back he called the company and was told that his ticket expired and that he would have to start all over again. Guess what, the guy finally gave up and was out the price of a laptop and an extended warranty.

It isn't only some of the tech departments of computer makers that are seriously flawed, there are many software vendors that have these departments that are just as bad. What kills me is when you have a problem and the person that you reached doesn't understand you and you don't understand them. Supposedly they are speaking english, but you would never know it. One famous Anti-Virus company has their support in India and that is okay, just make sure that the people are fluent in the english language before putting them on the phone. This person bought their anti-virus suite and installed it and that is when all his problems started. Programs that he had been using for quite awhile, stopped running and he would get mysterious resets and freezes. He called the company;s tech department and reached a service person. The person asked him to explain the problem at least that is what he gathered, it was hard to understand this person. As he tried to tell the person what was wrong, there were a lot of whats and please repeats, but he did his best. The service person told him that the install disk was faulty and they would send him an updated version. He thanked him and waited for the disk to arrive. I have heard this excuse many times in my life and very seldom has it ever been true. Anyway the disk arrived and he installed it and it seemed to install properly, but now he was having more problems than ever. He decided to uninstall the suite and start over He installed it again and for some reason it continually updated, making the computer unusable. That was it, he removed the software and reformatted his drive and installed windows again along with all his software except the anti-virus suite and switched to the AVG anti-virus program and everything is now running fine.

All one has to do is get on the internet and read some of these computer horror stories to realize that most of the companies that are building computers and creating software just don't care about the individual. I am not saying all, because I have dealt with a couple that were genuinely trying to help. I remember one software company that spent hours with me and actually solved a problem. It turned out that some obscure setting on a program somehow got turned on and a certain code had to be typed into a command line interface to turn it off. It must have happened at the software house and was completely unexpected, that is why it wasn't found right away. This forced the company to have to redo all their program cds, but since they were so helpful to me, they learned what the problem was and it was now easy for them to help others. So sometimes being efficient and understanding is its own reward.

I think that the best thing a person can do is learn about their computers, in case something goes wrong. The problem is that it takes time to do this. I am not saying that you will become an expert and know how to fix everything, but what I am saying is that some common problems may then be noticed and corrected without you having to endure those calls to the computer manufacturer, which seem to take years off of one's life.