I have a few questions which may seem a bit stupid but ah what the heck.

1. If I have hardware drivers already installed on my system how can I find out what the name of the drivers hardware is? [ Example if I had a geforce video card and lost the drivers that came with it how could I find out? ] ( While im on my computer )

2. How can I tell if my motherboard can have a video card that is not Onboard?

3. How can I make my bootups / startups faster?

4. How safe is buying PC hardware online and where should I buy it? ( Im in Canada if it matters )

5. Is it possible to change my Startup image and if it is then how could I go about doing it ? ( right now it says compaq in red lettering )

Thanks for any help someone can give me.

Dunno exactly what ur asking here. It says on the card. If u dont wanna look on the card look in ur display properties.
Well, it should say somewhere in the motherboards specs. And if it has an agp slot then obviously it can take an agp graphics card (pci cards arent worth bothering with anyway)
Enable quick boot in the bios. In xp theres something else u can do thats supposed to speed it up a bit but i cant remember what it is.
Dunno about canada, try google. Its generally safe tho.
Yes. If u use 2000/xp use this: www.bootskin.com
In 98 make a bitmap (.bmp) file that is 256 colours and 320x400. Rename it logo.sys and put it in c:\ (or whatever ur hd is)

For question 1, find your device manager. If you're using Windows 9x, right click My Computer, and select the Devices Tab. In 2000/XP, I think you right-click My Computer, but select Hardware tab, and click the Device Manager.

In the window you get, is a list of all the hardware installed in your computer, sorted & nicely laid out. Selecting an item and hitting properties gives you information about the name of the component, it's driver version etc.

Q2: As SGNM said, you gotta check the manual or open up your PC nad see if there's a brown AGP slot. Any motherboard can takea PCI card, but I think they're out of date. Any modern motherboard will have a AGP slot. You could also find the name of the motherboard, and surf the net for it's specs.

Q3 is a toughie, startup time depends on many things, speed of PC (obviously) but also what OS your using, and what program you're loading on bootup. More than likely you don't need everything that's being started. There's plenty of free applets on the net which will look in the registry & allow you to stop certain programs starting up, speeding up the bootup.

Q4 online purchasing is quite safe, as long as you follow some guidelines. Make sure the site you're using is well known, you might want to look for a address & phone number to check it out. Only send credit card details on a secure page, one with a yellow padlock on the bottom right of your browsers window, and aa URL starting with https:. Your credit card covers you for purchases over a certina amount too, so don't be too concerned.

GF

Thank you both of you all of my questions have been answered. As a treat I am offering both of you 2gb webspace / 25gb bandwidth free. just add my msn support@skorne.com if your interested.

A good utility for listing specs is Sisoft Sandra. Download it here - http://www.sisoftware.net/

Sweet, i added u (signum04@hotmail). Cheers mate.

I am using a computer with the following configuration
AMD X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+
3.01 GHz, 2 GB RAM
Windows XP Service Pack 2
HDD 640 GB SATA

I expect a good performance with the above configuration but when using the same system especially using flash movies on internet and seeing movies the CPU Usage comes to near 100 % and system hangs for 1 or 2 seconds then it returns normal for 5 sec and repeat the same hang for 2 sec. This repeat for all the time.

Can you help me to overcome this crisis?
Is it a hardware problem?
Is it the consequence of any virus attack?
what should I do now to overcome this problem?
Please help me

You failed to mention what type of video card you are using. If you are using onboard video, there's a chance that it simply can't keep up w/ the conversion of the movie; it will be offloading some of the processing to the CPU itself.

You might have to update the video drivers. I remember reading a few months back about a similar problem on Tom's Hardware Guide or Ars Technica (some technical site but I don't remember which one). If Flash movies are the culprit, then make sure you have the latest version from Adobe. If normal DVDs are a problem, just make sure you have all the latest drivers and software updates for your system. If you're having issues w/ downloaded movies, e.g. xvid, avi, or dvix, then ensure your movie player software is up to date or try a different player, such as VLC.

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