computers

Ed wants to upgrade his desktop to make it run faster. He also wants to tune it up. Leo says it's a good idea. Give it a good cleaning/dusting, reseat the thermal paste, put an SSD drive in it and maybe add more RAM. Just a little tune-up and it'll work fine for years to come.

Dave wants to know more about the flashing lights box behind Leo. Leo says that computers in the 70s had switches, and the blinking lights would tell you when the software switches were enabled correctly. The irony is that the box behind Leo is run on a Raspberry Pi, which is hundreds of times more powerful than the box it's emulating. We've come a long way since then. 

Dave built his first computer. Leo says it's a great project for someone who wants to learn about computers. But you have to be your own tech support. 

Gloria wants to know if buying a computer on the home shopping channel is a good buy. Leo says that it's usually an older model that is underpowered and even may be discontinued. It's usually the same models seen at big box stores like Costco. If she can send it back, go to Costco instead. Gloria can save more for the same model. But Gloria got a good price that's within the price range for that model. She could even go to Dell.com and find out if she got a good deal, and maybe get a better price for a refurbished model. Is it secure? Leo says yes.

Gloria's Windows 7 computer "went out" recently. It seems to be stuck in a boot loop. Rich says a software update may have broken your computer. Rich suggests going into safe mode and see if it will boot up. Use the F8 key when it's booting up. If it does, then that indicates a corrupted driver. Maybe a video driver. You can also bring your computer into a nearby Microsoft Store and they will run diagnostics to see what's going on. But with Windows 7 reaching End of Life in January, it's time to think about getting Windows 10. Rich also recommends looking at a Google Chromebook.

Mike wants to know if he can use more than one monitor on his computer. Leo says that most modern-day computers do support multiple monitors and both Windows and macOS support it natively. But the computer has to have more than one display port or HDMI port to do it. Most do out of the box these days.