Hardware Upgrade Tip of the Day #35


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Hardware Upgrade Tip of the Day

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*1. HOME NETWORKING--PART 1 OF 6          
  
The latest generation of home networking products delivers data 
transfer speeds of 10 to 11 Mbps. This rate is an order of magnitude 
better than the initial home network products, which ran at 1 to 2 
Mbps. These speeds make it even more tempting to create a home network 
for playing multiplayer games, sharing an Internet connection, or just 
sharing devices such as printers within your home. I'll pass along 
some tips about high-tech home networking products over the next few 
days. 

First, don't assume you'll get exactly the data transfer speed in your 
own home network that you see written on the product box. There is no 
standard for assigning a speed rating to these home networking 
products, though initial testing shows that most of the new products 
do come close to their claims. If performance is important to you, 
read independent competitive reviews for the latest speed test of home 
networking products. For wireless products, remember that the 
placement of PCs in your home, where they must sometimes communicate 
through ceilings and floors, may affect their overall network 
performance.  In general, you should get throughput fast enough to 
play digital music files stored on the furthest PC on your network.


*2. HOME NETWORKING--PART 2 OF 6          
  
So far the two most effective communication technologies in home 
networking products remain phone line and wireless. Your choice really 
depends on the layout of your home. If you have few walls (or floors) 
between the computers you want to connect, then wireless is probably 
your best bet. Wireless home networking solutions give you the 
flexibility and freedom to move about the room, especially with a 
notebook computer you can run off a battery. However, if your 
computers are far apart, you should check into phone line-based 
networking gear. In a phone line-based scenario, it doesn't matter how 
far apart the computers are, as long as each has access to your phone 
line via wall jacks. 
        
        
*3. HOME NETWORKING--PART 3 OF 6          
  
Many people mistakenly believe that phone line-based home networking 
products will somehow disrupt their phone service. Not so--these 
products use a higher frequency than voice, so your computers will 
communicate "behind the scenes" over your phone line even when you are 
making or receiving calls. You can answer a telephone call, have a 
conversation, and hang up--all while transferring files between your 
home PCs over the same line. And you can't hear any type of computer 
noise in the background when you pick up your telephone handset.


*4. HOME NETWORKING--PART 4 OF 6          
  
Expect to spend between $80 to $180 per PC when you connect several in 
your home. The price range depends on whether you use wireless (more 
expensive) or phone line-based (less expensive) technology. You'll 
also spend a little more for the PC Card adapters for adding notebook 
computers into your home network. With home networks, it's best to 
start with just two PCs. All home networking solutions offer two-PC 
kits that include everything you need to connect two systems. After 
you've gotten through the installation and have seen what your home 
network can accomplish, you can always add more PCs to your network 
down the road. All home networking solutions also offer single-PC kits 
so that you can add just one desktop or notebook to your home LAN.


*5. HOME NETWORKING--PART 5 OF 6          
  
How fast is your home Internet connection? Most home networking 
products support 56-Kbps modem connections, which you can share across 
all the PCs on your network. However, few currently support the faster 
cable or DSL connections now rolling out across the country. Read the 
fine print on the product boxes, or ask a salesperson whether a 
particular product supports cable or DSL if you have these types of 
connections in your home.


*6. HOME NETWORKING--PART 6 OF 6          
  
Are you reluctant to open up your PC? Then you may need to look around 
for the very latest home networking products, which use USB ports to 
connect your PC to the phone line or to a wireless 
transmitter-receiver for home networking purposes. All older home 
networking products (and many still on the market) use PCI add-in 
boards for home networking. With these boards, you must operate on 
your PC by removing the cover to complete installation.


*7. USB 2.0 SET TO ARRIVE          
  
PC upgraders beware: Your interface options for peripheral devices 
will soon become more complicated. At this month's USB 2.0 Developer's 
Conference, hardware makers discussed plans to introduce products 
based on the new, faster USB (Universal Serial Bus) 2.0 specification 
in the last quarter of this year. The USB 2.0 spec supports data 
transfer rates of 480 Mbps, much faster than the current USB 1.1's 
12-Mbps rate. Keep in mind that FireWire currently supports a 400-Mbps 
data transfer rate. Thus choosing between a FireWire and a USB 2.0 
interface for your next high-bandwidth peripheral, such as a video 
camera, may turn into a real mind-boggler.


*8. WHY YOU DON'T NEED THE FASTEST PROCESSOR--PART 1 OF 4          
  
What was hard to imagine a few years ago has happened. The latest PC 
CPUs run at 1GHz (or 1000MHz). Both Intel, with its 1GHz Pentium III, 
and AMD, with its 1GHz Athlon chip, have broken through to the next 
level of speed. The question you must ask yourself is--do you need a 
PC with such a fast chip? Over the next few days I'll pass along some 
things to consider if you're thinking about buying one of the latest, 
greatest, and fastest PCs. 

First, know that you always pay a premium for a PC with the fastest 
processor available. Call it the "early adopter" tax. Generally, 
selecting the latest processor will add $300 to $500 over the price of 
a similarly configured system based on the next-fastest processor.


*9. WHY YOU DON'T NEED THE FASTEST PROCESSOR--PART 2 OF 4          
  
Most benchmark tests that rate the speed of new central processor 
units (CPUs) are really artificial in their measurement approach. Even 
the so-called application-based benchmarks that measure performance 
using off-the-shelf software do so at an artificially high 
speed--quite unlike the way you would work. Thus, you should take all 
performance evaluations of new processors with more than a grain of 
salt. You probably won't notice the difference between the fastest and 
the second-fastest (or even the third-fastest) processor in your 
everyday work.


*10. WHY YOU DON'T NEED THE FASTEST PROCESSOR---PART 3 OF 4          
  
Performance bottlenecks that have nothing to do your CPU plague your 
PC. Typically, a PC will max out the speed of the CD-ROM drive, the 
hard drive, or the USB bus before it reaches the limit of what the CPU 
can do. Thus, as an upgrader, you should always weigh the potential 
performance improvements you would see if you bought a particular 
faster component, like a hard drive, rather than a new PC with a fast 
CPU. Think about the work you do and what PC devices might be holding 
you back performancewise.
