IT Admin

A little preparation goes a long way. We show you how to avoid the most common tragedies to befall a PC user—guaranteed!

Stop whatever it is you’re doing. We know your time is valuable, and what you’re about to read could save you hours, if not days, of damage control. What could be so important? Your work documents, for one thing. And then there’s your entire digital collection of family photos cataloguing every birthday, vacation, and other special occasion over the past several years. Common PC pitfalls don’t just affect your digital files, either. Should disaster strike—say a power surge or a hacker attack— you could be looking at hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars of damaged hardware—or even worse, damage to your good name and credit if someone manages to steal your identity.

Are you thoroughly spooked yet? You needn’t be, not if you follow our nine-step guide to disaster-proofing your PC. On the following pages, we show you how to prepare for everything from acts of God to hacker attacks, and every other mishap you’re likely to encounter as a power user. And if you’re an old pro who already knows how to disaster-proof your PC, then treat this as a checklist of things you know you should be doing, but probably aren’t.

1. Back up Your Data

With a modicum of effort you can save yourself a whole lot of heartache

You hear it being preached all the time, but most of us wait until it’s too late before learning the value of maintaining a backup solution. Yet the longer you go without one, the more likely it is your hard drive will give up the ghost at the most inopportune time. Unlike solid state drives (SSDs), which are still too expensive to serve as a high-capacity storage solution, hard disk drives (HDDs) rely on the pinpoint precision of moving parts. Over time, wear and tear can take a toll on an HDD’s motor, but that’s not all that can go wrong. To prevent the read and write heads from damaging a drive’s platters, a thin layer of lubricant about 1nm thick is applied to the surface. Once it wears off, things can quickly come to a screeching halt, sometimes without warning. In addition, faulty firmware, a busted controller, accidental bumps, sudden power loss, and just plain bad luck can spell doom for your delicate drive.

Without a backup system in place, recovering data becomes tricky at best. Some users have reported temporarily bringing a hard drive back to life by sticking it in the freezer for 15 minutes, but this is a long shot. Replacing the controller board might also do the trick; however, that won’t do you any good if the platters are scratched or the read/write heads are worn. The only option left is to ship your drive off to a costly data recovery service, and that can set you back thousands of dollars—ouch!

To prevent being caught with your pants down, you need a backup solution. A common misconception is that a RAID 1 setup negates the need to back up your data, but nothing could be further from the truth. RAID 1 mirrors your data across multiple drives, which is good for drive failures. But if files are deleted, whether accidentally or as the result of a malware infection, they’re deleted from all drives.

The best strategy for backing up your data involves a secondary hard drive, either in your PC or in a USB enclosure, and an automated software solution. Most hard drive makers offer some kind of all-in-one solution, like Western Digital’s My Book and Seagate’s FreeAgent series, but you can accomplish the same thing with any ordinary hard drive and the right software. We’ve had great results with True Image 2009 ($50, www.acronis.com), which allows us to schedule full or incremental backups, or to take a snapshot of an entire partition through a user-friendly GUI.

Acronis’s True Image sports a slick interface that makes it easy to create an image of your entire system, or just the data you specify.

There aren’t any complicated steps here—just click the Back Up icon and follow the prompts. Feeling frugal? SyncBack (http://www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/freeware-hub.html) will accomplish the same thing for free, minus the ability to image your entire drive. You can choose to duplicate your data on another drive, through a network, or even to an FTP server.

SyncBack offers a boat-load of configuration options, most of which are unlocked by choosing Expert mode. Best of all, the program’s free!

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2. Take Your Data Off-Site

A backup plan for your backup plan

No one likes to sit around and think about life-altering catastrophes such as fires, floods, or earthquakes—and far be it from us to be harbingers of doom. We hope it never happens, but the cold reality is, no matter where you live in the world, bad things happen to good people. Should you be one of them, the least of your worries will be the saved games you’ve lost, but there’s no need to compound the stress of disaster with the loss of all your family photos, email contacts, engineering blueprints, and whatever else you never anticipated losing (after all, you were backing up to a secondary hard drive, right?).

Anticipate it now by supplementing your routine backup solution with an off-site backup contingency plan. There are a couple of ways you can approach this. The first is to put your data in the “cloud,” which is really just a metaphor for the Internet. In this case, we’re suggesting that you upload your data to a server hosted in another location. The upshot is twofold: By having your files backed up to a remote location, you can rest easy knowing they will be safe even if your home isn’t, and you can access your files whether you’re at work, home, or elsewhere.

To get started, register an account with Mozy (free, http://mozy.com/home) and download the executable. Mozy is free for home use and provides 2GB of online storage, which should be more than enough to store your mission-critical documents, various email contacts, and other odds and ends. The idea here isn’t to back up your entire movie collection to the cloud—that could take days, or even weeks, on a typical upstream connection—so be selective and treat this as a virtual safe deposit box for your most valuable files. If 2GB still won’t cut it (and it may not if you upload a bevy of high-resolution photos), then you can subscribe to Mozy’s unlimited plan for $5/month.

Can’t figure out where Outlook stores your emails and contacts? Mozy knows right where do look, and will even back up your browser bookmarks.

Mozy’s installation wizard holds your hand through the initial setup. The first few steps ask you what types of files the program should zero in on, as well as what type of encryption method to use. The recommended 448-bit Blowfish is overkill for most users, but it doesn’t hurt to stick with the default option. Switching to expert mode gives you fine-tune control over how Mozy operates, such as the ability to throttle bandwidth during specified time periods, set up a schedule, and plenty more.

Saturating your Internet connection’s upstream can bring things to a crawl. Counter this by throttling Mozy’s upload bandwidth during times when you’re most likely to be accessing the web.

The second approach to off-site backups simply involves physically storing your backup drive somewhere safe, like a bank safe deposit box. This requires a bit more work because you’ll need to retrieve your drive any time you want to add to or update your files, but you’re also not relying on someone else’s hardware to keep your top-secret documents both safe and secret. You’ll have to decide for yourself if the added security is worth the additional hassle.

3. Keep Malware at Bay

Trojans and dialers and worms, oh my!

The next time you park your car, why don’t you roll down the windows, leave the keys in the ignition, and toss your wallet on the dashboard? Go about your business, and if everything’s as you left it when you return, then keep repeating this routine. Sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it? It is, and if you’re surfing the Internet without any form of malware protection, then you’re taking the same risks with your PC. Hackers continue to develop increasingly sophisticated code designed to harvest your personal information (e.g., your bank login credentials and credit card numbers), which they then turn around and sell to the highest bidder. In less-severe cases, performance-hampering malware can drag your PC to a crawl, inundate you with pop-ups and redirected searches, corrupt your files, and inflict all kinds of other annoyances. To prevent any of these scenarios from playing out, you should install an antivirus program.

Whether you opt for an all-in-one paid security suite or prefer to roll your own free security package is entirely up to you. In our most recent antivirus roundup, we examined 10 of the most popular AV apps from both camps to help you weigh the pros and cons of each. To summarize, we found Symantec’s Norton Internet Security 2009 ($70 3/PCs, www.symantec.com) and ESET Smart Security ($60, www.eset.com) to work best for comprehensive protection, and we favored Avira’s AntiVir (free, www.free-av.com) for a cost-saving, bare-bones approach, although Avira has since added antispyware scanning to its free AV app. Whichever route you choose, be sure to install only one antivirus program, as these integrate tightly with your OS and can conflict with one another. And if you’re attracted to the promises of a program we haven’t reviewed, do your research before running the installer. Though an unknown AV app may seem innocuous, you might actually be installing malware masquerading as a legit program. It’s OK to be narrow-minded and stick with reputable vendors; and don’t ever trust an unexpected pop-up trying to sell you security by claiming it found infections on your PC—11 times out of 10, these are scams.

Hey, we’re as surprised as you are, but Symantec’s Norton Internet Security 2009 offers all-in-one protection without the bloat we’ve come to expect from Norton.

We don’t recommend you make a habit of downloading suspicious files, but every now and then you might encounter a file that seems so suspect you’re not even sure you trust your AV program’s clean bill of health. You can solicit a second opinion from a free online service called Virus Total (www.virustotal.com). Once you upload the fishy file, Virus Total will analyze its makeup with the aid of up to 40 antivirus and antimalware scanning engines, then list the result of each one. While not fool-proof, Virus Total updates the scanners regularly with the developers’ latest signature files, making the chances of an infected file slipping through the cracks highly unlikely.

Installing 40 AV apps on your PC would be nothing short of a nightmare. Instead, upload a suspicious file to VirusTotal.com to have it checked out by more than three dozen scanning engines.

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4. Your Power Supply Matters

Trying to save a few pennies on a PSU could cost you dearly

You might be tempted to grab the least expensive power supply with the highest wattage rating you can find and call it a day. After all, a PSU won’t make your games run faster or MP3s sound better, so why bother spending any more than you have to? Take it from us, a higher-priced PSU can be worth every bit its weight in gold, and here’s why.

The hotter it gets inside a PSU, the less power it’s able to produce. Some manufacturers take advantage of this by rating their PSUs at a much lower temperature than what they will ever see inside a case. For example, a unit rated for 600W at a chilly 25 C might only be capable of 450W at a more realistic 40 C to 50 C. On top of that, knock off another 100W or so if the label represents a peak power rating instead of continuous. But wait, there are even more ways of double-dealing. Some manufacturers will skimp on their PSUs’ internal components­­—a practice that’s often associated with lower-weight units. While this helps the manufacturer cut costs, you’ll pay dearly for it with voltage fluctuations that can damage your components, cause intermittent reboots, and lead to premature failure. Suddenly, that bargain-basement unit doesn’t seem like much of a bargain anymore. You can avoid all this by biting the bullet and paying more up-front for a reputable brand, such as PC Power & Cooling, Corsair, and Seasonic, to name just a few.

Take the guesswork out of determining what size PSU will keep your system humming along. OuterVision’s online eXtreme PSU Calculator (http://extreme.outervision.com) analyzes your parts and does a good job of estimating how much power your system is likely to pull. Likewise, both ATI and Nvidia maintain a list of CrossFireX-certified (http://game.amd.com/us-en/crossfirex_components.aspx?p=3) and SLI-certified (http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html) PSUs. As a general guideline, shoot for 550W to 600W for a midrange build, and 750W or more for a fully loaded rig. Pay particular attention to how many amps are rated for the +12V rail, as this is where today’s systems draw the bulk of their power from.

We don’t like leaving anything to chance. By using the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator, we can get a pretty good idea of what size power supply we’ll need for our next build.

After choosing a reliable PSU, consider investing in an uninterruptable power supply (UPS), otherwise known as a battery backup. Should you lose electricity as the result of a thunderstorm (or any other reason), your battery backup takes over long enough for you to save any documents you might have been working on. A quality UPS will also offer power conditioning to insulate your system from voltage spikes, line noise, and brownouts.

Choosing a UPS is a little different than picking out a power supply. Most battery backups come with a volt-ampere (VA) rating, with an 800VA unit being roughly equivalent to 540W of output capacity. This will be enough to provide up to about 15 minutes of backup power for most systems. A 1,500VA unit will keep you up and running even longer—anything higher is overkill for just about any desktop system. If you’re still unsure what size you should look for, play around with APC’s UPS selector (http://www.apcc.com/tools/ups_selector/index.cfm).

A surge protecor won’t prevent your PC from turning off if there’s a power outage. For that, you need UPS. Some UPS software will even save open documents and shut down your system automatically before the battery runs out.

5. Practice Safe Computing

Without constant vigilance, the Internet can be a dangerous place

We’ve found that the best recipe for avoiding most problems you’re likely to encounter consists of one part common sense and two parts safe computing habits. Installing an antivirus application isn’t a free pass to go romping around the web willy-nilly; you still need to exercise some sound judgment. Start by being selective in which websites you visit. Stay away from the seedier sides of the web offering up warez, keygens, and other illicit downloads, as they’re not only morally unsound, but also dangerous. Also avoid unknown sites that try to install ActiveX controls or toolbars.

Avoid clicking suspicious links, especially if they show up in an email. Hackers have become really adept at sending out legitimate-looking emails claiming there’s an urgent matter with one of your online accounts, such as a Paypal dispute or a discrepancy with your banking institution. Once you click the link, you’re taken to a fake website that looks and acts just like the one it claims to be, but there’s nothing innocent about it. The sole purpose of these sites is to harvest your personal information, including your username, password, credit card numbers, social security number, and anything else you’re fooled into divulging. Typos and bad grammar serve as dead giveaways that someone’s trying to dupe you, but it’s not always that obvious.

You also need to be wary of email attachments. As sophisticated as today’s attacks have become, malware writers know the easiest way to spread a virus is still by email. Live by the rule of thumb that if you weren’t expecting an attachment or don’t know who it came from, don’t download it. And if you were expecting an attachment, scan it with your antivirus software before opening it.

Use different passwords for different sites, and make them hard to guess. You should use a combination of letters and numbers to make a password impervious to brute force dictionary attacks, but nothing so complicated that you won’t remember it and thus feel compelled to write it down. (For more ideas on creating and storing strong passwords, check out our How-To “Hack Your Dropbox”)

Make it a habit to periodically check for software updates, and whenever possible, configure your programs to check for updates automatically. By keeping your software patched, hackers will have a harder time exploiting your machine and will move on to easier targets. If you’re not updating your software, then you are the easier target.

Don’t be tempted into turning off Automatic Updates to avoid nags to reboot. A secure PC more than makes up for the minor inconvenience.

And finally, set up a separate account for any guests or kids you might have, and then restrict their permissions. Only you should have administrative control over your Windows installation. In both XP and Vista, the option to do this is found in the Control Panel under User Accounts. In XP, create a Limited account for anyone else who might use your PC, and in Vista, create a Standard User account.

One of the problems of being a power user is that others usually aren’t as savvy as you. You might not be able to change that, but you can set up limited user accounts for anyone else who uses your PC.

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6. Set up a Virtual Machine

Experiment all you want without putting your rig at risk

Virtual machine (VM) software allows you to run another operating system on top of your existing OS, thereby giving you access to a secondary PC without the costly hardware investment. It does this through a combination of tapping into the host PC’s existing resources, such as the CPU and RAM, and providing its own abstract hardware, such as a virtualized motherboard and videocard.

There are several advantages to setting up a virtual machine, the primary one being the ability to experiment with software without the risk of mucking up your system. Being a beta tester keeps you on the cutting edge of software development, and with a VM installed, you never need to worry about a poorly written program thrashing your pristine installation of Windows. You’re also given the freedom to explore potentially dangerous applications that might be laced with malware. However, there’s a caveat: Some virus strains can now recognize a VM and lay dormant until installed on the host PC, so it’s best to leave any suspicious files on the VM.

A virtual machine works just like a real PC, so if you’re having trouble installing Windows (or Linux), go into the VM’s BIOS and double-check the boot order.

You can also use a VM to learn a brand-new OS and explore different Linux distributions without the hassle of dual-booting, or to set up a legacy OS, like DOS, for revisiting old games. Maybe you want to test out your programming acumen, or simply have an alternate OS in place for troubleshooting. In short, there are a lot of things you can do with a VM.

For best results, you’ll need a PC with at least a 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM. You’ll also need a separate license for each OS you plan to install, but you don’t need to pay for VM software. We like Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007 (free, http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=04D26402-3199-48A3-AFA2-2DC0B40A73B6&displaylang=en) for its easy setup, although it lacks USB support and other features found on VMWare’s Player and Server packages. Microsoft should be putting the final touches on Windows Virtual PC by the time you read this, which will remedy its shortcomings and add a ton of new functionality.

Depending on what you plan to do with your VM, you can allocate more or less RAM from your primary PC. Allocate too much, however, and your PC could become lethargic.

After installing Virtual PC 2007, you’ll need to set up your VM. It’s here where you’ll allocate resources to your VM, and you’ll want to be careful not to go overboard and adversely impact the performance of your main PC. We typically set the amount of RAM to one-quarter the total installed, putting a ceiling at 1GB. When setting up the virtual hard disk, set aside anywhere from 10GB (Linux) to 50GB (Vista) or more, depending on how you plan to use your VM. Once you’re finished, your VM will act like a separate PC, complete with its own BIOS. Put your Windows or Linux installation CD/DVD in your optical drive, start up the VM, and install just as you normally would. Once you’re finished, apply any security updates, just as you would on your main PC, and then start experimenting. If you manage to mess up your VM, simply start the process over from scratch—no harm, no foul!

7. Configure Your Router, the Right Way!

A vulnerable router is an invitation to all sorts of abuse

Your home security is only as strong as its weakest link, and oftentimes that’s the router. Wireless routers have made it possible to share a high-speed Internet connection with multiple PCs without having to run a mess of cables throughout your home, but if you haven’t secured your Wi-Fi connection, you’re inviting anyone into your network that is able to pick up your Wi-Fi signal. The danger goes far beyond just saturating your bandwidth; those leeching off of your Internet connection can intercept data packets and sniff out login information, lift files from your PC, or share copyrighted material over your IP address so if the authorities come knocking, it will be on your door.

To avoid such unpleasantness, you need to lock down your wireless signal. Most router settings can be accessed by typing 192.168.1.1 into your browser (consult your router’s manual if this doesn’t work). You’ll be prompted for a username and password, and unless you’ve already set one up, type admin for both fields (again, this may vary by router).

Once inside your router, look for an Administration tab and enter a more secure password. If your router gives you the option of changing the username, go ahead and do that, too. Next, head over to the Wireless section and put in a unique SSID. Then look for a Wireless Security subheading and select the strongest encryption method your hardware supports, which for most modern builds will be WPA2 (if your hardware supports only WEP, consider upgrading to a more modern router, as WEP is easily cracked). When entering a passphrase for WPA2, use a combination of letters, numbers, and even symbols, and make sure it’s at least eight characters long. Alternately, you can use one of the many passphrase generators found via a Google search. Keep this information handy, as other PCs in your home network will ask for it when attempting to connect for the first time.

The now ironically named Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) will only keep casual war drivers at bay. With the right tools, that script kiddie next door can break through WEP and start serving up illegal files through your IP.

If you’re particularly paranoid about stumbling onto a phishing site not already blocked by your browser, you can replace your ISP’s Domain Name System (DNS) servers with OpenDNS (www.opendns.com), a free, ad-supported alternative with added security. Whenever you type in a web address, DNS translates the URL into the actual IP address. OpenDNS’s name servers maintain an actively updated list of known phishing sites, and can recognize common misspellings that could potentially redirect you to a harmful site. To configure your router to use OpenDNS, follow the site’s instructions for whichever make/model router you own.

Above and beyond protection from phishing sites, OpenDNS’s Dashboard lets you configure various security settings and filter Internet browsing, like blocking known porn sites.

The last thing standing between you and an Internet-borne attack is a firewall. Most routers come with a built-in hardware firewall, but it’s a good idea to supplement this with a software firewall. Both Windows XP (SP1 and later) and Vista include a software firewall already installed and turned on by default, but if you want to add outbound protection to the mix, you’ll need a third-party solution, like Comodo (free, http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/download_firewall.html) or ZoneAlarm (free, http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/zonealarm-pc-security-free-firewall.htm).

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8. Get in Tune with Your System

More often than not, there are signs of impending disaster, if you know where to look

Whether you’re a professional race car driver or a power user pushing your PC to the limit, it’s imperative you become one with your hot rod. By doing so, you can pick up on subtle nuances that would otherwise fly under the radar and predict problems before they happen. But you don’t need to rely on your instinct alone.

Are those new videocard drivers helping or hampering performance? You’ll know if you first establish a baseline for comparison. Benchmarks aren’t just for bragging rights, they can also serve as helpful diagnostics and clue you in when something is amiss. Futuremark’s 3DMark Vantage runs your GPU through a series of 3D gaming tests, while its PCMark Vantage analyzes your system as a whole (both free, www.futuremark.com). Run both of these and refer back to your scores whenever you make a change, be it new hardware or a driver update. See our online benchmarking guide for a list of even more free benchmarks that will tax various subsystems of your PC.

Benchmarks are a handy way of monitoring your system’s health. We like PCMark Vantage because it runs a variety of scripts intended to stress all the major components rather than focus on a single piece of hardware.

To ensure your rig doesn’t overheat and blow up (figuratively), get in the habit of monitoring temperatures. SpeedFan (free, www.almico.com/speedfan.php) will help you do this and can even adjust your system’s various fan speeds based on the temperature of your components. SpeedFan also comes with a S.M.A.R.T. tab, which reports the health of your hard drive and can sometimes be useful in predicting when a drive might be on its last legs.

By using SpeedFan to monitor your system’s temperatures and dynamically adjust fan speeds accordingly, you can run a quieter PC without overheating your components.

If you find that your temperatures tend to run high, there are a number of different ways you can lower them. Most third-party CPU heatsinks offer far better cooling potential than the stock units AMD and Intel provide. In most cases, you get what you pay for, so don’t expect to slap a $5 cooler on your Core i7 and unleash a new level of overclocking headroom—it won’t happen. Switching to a high-performance thermal compound, like Tuniq’s TX-2 or Arctic Silver 5, can also shave off a few more degrees. For case cooling in general, be sure you have enough fans in your system. You should have at least two 12cm fans, one in the front to pull air in and one in the back as an exhaust. If it’s an option, add another exhaust fan on top. Some cases even come with 20cm or 25cm side-panel fans, giving your entire setup a blast of cool air.

Finally, investigate any sounds that are out of the ordinary. A failing hard drive will often make a clicking or grinding noise shortly before it stops working completely, so if you hear this, back up any important data right away. If your system suddenly seems quieter than it used to be, check to see that one or more fans haven’t stopped spinning.

9. Keep a PC First-Aid Kit

In case of emergency, you should keep handy a repository of spare parts that can address a PC’s most common points of failure

1. Cables

If you’re lucky, hardware that appears to be faulty might really just need a new cable. We’ve seen it happen. You should keep an assortment at your disposal, including SATA, IDE, Ethernet, and USB cables of various sizes.

2. Optical Drive

There are many symptoms to a failing optical drive, including slow performance, corrupted files when installing Windows, or the inability to work at all. Keep a spare drive around for good measure.

3. Hard Drive

Grinding noises coming from your PC are never a good thing, and usually mean your hard drive is about to go belly-up. Keep a spare hard drive within reach for emergency backups and troubleshooting.

4. Thermal Paste

Over time, your thermal compound may dry up and lose its ability to transfer heat. Always keep a tube of thermal paste on hand, whether you’re applying a fresh coat or installing a new heatsink.

5. Boot Disc

If your system suddenly refuses to boot, you only need to panic if you didn’t have the foresight to create a boot disc. Use this to get into your system to retrieve files, clean up malware, and fix other issues.

6. Screws and Standoffs

We don’t know why we end up with fewer screws than when we first started, but we always do. Keeping a supply of various-size screws and standoffs solves this problem so we can focus on the task at hand.

7. USB Hard Drive Adapter

Whether your motherboard is fried or you’re trying to move your desktop files to a notebook PC, migrating data is made a million times easier with a USB hard drive adapter.

8. Thumb Drive

Thumb Drive With the price of flash media plummeting, there’s no reason not to keep a spare thumb drive around. Use it to transfer files in a pinch, store diagnostic utilities, or even as a bootable drive.

9. CMOS Battery

CMOS Battery A faulty CMOS battery can cause your system to forget the date and time, refuse to boot, display quirky error messages, or lose your BIOS settings. Thankfully, these tiny batteries are ultra cheap and a cinch to replace.

10. Arcticlean

Some thermal-grease cleaners leave behind a nasty residue as a result of perfumes and other foreign substances that have been added. ArctiClean doesn’t and it works better than isopropyl alcohol at breaking
down thermal paste and pads.