Step 2: Defragmenting your computer’s hard drive using Defraggler.

You’ve heard of defragging your hard drive, but this tool is different. It allows you to quickly and simply defragment the important files – Something Windows built-in defragmentation tool doesn’t have.  Also, this tool is made by Piriform, the same authors of CCleaner, so you know the software is easy to use, contains no spyware, and best of all: free.

How to use Defraggler

This step is quite simple. After installing Defraggler, run the program and select your primary hard disk drive (typically, the ‘C:’ drive is selected by default). If you don’t know which drive it is, more than likely the drive you are looking for is the ‘C:’ drive. Alternatively, you could defrag all of the hard drives listed; It won’t hurt anything, and will help in optimizing your computer. Next, its as easy as clicking on the ‘Defrag’ button, and waiting for the drive to finish the defragmentation.

Defragmentation can take a long time, as in hours (depending on your drives current fragmented state). CompuTechs+ recommends performing this action before going to bed, unless you regularly defragment the hard disk drive. Vista Users: No need to use Defraggler, as Vista already has a built-in defragment function.

After defragmentation, you may want to schedule Defraggler to run automatically every week or so. Do this by going to Settings → Options → Schedule, select the ‘C:’ drive and check the ‘Schedule defragmentation for chosen volume’, and set the period to ‘Weekly’ (or your own personal choice. ATTENTION: there is no need to schedule more than once per week). Hit the ‘OK’ button, and lets move onto the next step.

Move on to Step 3: speed up your pc using Spybot Search & Destroy.

So, what does onyx do for your computer or laptop? Onyx is pretty simple yet versatile. It has automated tasks built into the computer software, but you can also add custom tasks if you later decide. For this exercise, we will be limiting our tutorial to only one function of Onyx, the rest you use at your own risk.

How to use Onyx for Mac

1. Download Onyx for Apple Computers
2. Install Onyx
3. Open the Disk Utility (Go → Utilities → Disk Utility), and repair permissions
4. After repairing the permissions,Run Onyx (You may be asked for your password)
5. Next, you will get the S.M.A.R.T status check, this is normal – As well is the Startup Volume Verification.
6. Click the Cleaning button on the Onyx dashboard, and next click Execute
7. Finally, repair your permissions again, and reboot the computer
   

After rebooting with Onyx, do yourself a favor and run the Disk Utility again & repair the permissions again. Then run the Apple Software Update (Apple → Software Update → Select Your Updates, I recommend updating everything). Reboot again, and once again, repair permissions. Then again, check for more updates. Then run the disk util……you get the picture: Repair Permissions →  Software Update → Repair Permissions…..

Well there you have it, a faster mac with more security, and better functionality. Chicago’s CompuTechs+ recommends using Onyx (to a certain extent).

So, your computer monitor is really dark or faint, and changing the brightness (using the ‘Fn’ key, for example) isn’t working. Now what to do? Simple. If you have a multimeter with a KHz option, use that to test the inverter. A cheap multimeter will register the KHz differently; if your multimeter KHz option only goes up to 20KHz, you may get a ’1′ as the result. This means the reading was ‘off the charts’…too high for the cheap multimeter to register the proper KHz. If you are looking for a good multimeter, consider the Fluke 110 true RMS meter, as its KHz rating goes up to 50KHz. The reason we want to test the inverter first is because the cost of inverters is low, so we can rule the inverter defective or not before moving on to the pricey LCD or backlight repair.

Take your multimeter, and set it to the KHz notch on the dial. Now, with the computer on, put the multimeter tips close to where the inverter would be (usually towards the bottom of the LCD housing), about a half-inch apart.