My laptop has crashed - again...need to buy new system. Any recommendations for reliable system for use w/ OOBling and Puma III?

Lisa,

Never let a virus or fake virus make you get rid of
a computer.


There are simple fixes for most of the attacks / viruses
but you have to know how to handle them.

There is a virus going around now called
Smart HDD and it slams your screen with
fake windows virus infection warnings.


Always have more than one user on your
computer because if these viruses take
over your screen and hard drive you will
have a hard time clearing them off if you
don't log in under another user name on
your computer.

You can open your system under the second
user name and then run virus scanning software
and also go to the official Microsoft Security site
and have a free scan done of your system.

I could go into detail but having a computer
online is always being open to a virus and there
are people constantly working on fixes to get
your system running properly.

One key action that you are able to do to bring
your computer back is to do a system restore
to a previous date. It is simple to do and will
let you work on getting rid of anything harming
your system.

If your hard drive is getting full then I suggest
a free cleaner called C Cleaner from Piriform.

This will clean up unwanted cookies and give you
more space on your hard drive. It WILL make you
log back in to forums and sites you need a password for
but it is a time tested cleaner for any system.

I have been using C Cleaner for some time after
reading great reviews and just watching Youtube
videos will slow your system down.

Without going into the tech side of it you can
really get your system running close to new again
if you take a few steps in the educating yourself
about how your system works.

Hi Lisa,

I agree with the above comments.

Laptops..I use it for a backup, traveling, portability in my home, etc, but not as my workhorse. They take a lot more punishment then a normal PC because of their portablility. The most common issue with laptop failures is overheating and drive crashes. Depending on how old you laptop is, it might be time just to wipe it out and start over. I like to do this every couple of years. Over time we install a lot of "test" programs, printers, etc that we don't use years later. This can cause slowness and other issues as time goes on. On top of that once you get some malware, viruses, etc, you try to clean it up and end up unistalling important system files, and bam, it seems that you need a new PC/laptop.

I would do 2 things:
1) Pick up a new PC and as they mentioned above and use if for work. Install the software and printers you need and not all the fluff you don't.

2)Back up your files from the laptop, if you can get it running to a thumbdrive or external drive. Once you've done that, look for the recovery disks that came with it, or a version of Windows that you still have laying around...XP or 7...probably not Vista.

3)Reinstall the software on your laptop and install the software, printers, and anything else you want. This way you can get some work done, and play around with the other software.

4)Restore your backup files from the thumbdrive or external drive to the laptop and new PC.

Additional tips:
1)If you don't have a recovery CD and only a Windows installation CD, install Windows and all the drivers. If comfortable enough, use a mirroring software such as Ghost, Acronis, etc and make a backup image of the installation. Next time something happens, re-imaging the laptop will only take about 10 minutes.

2)If you have you PC on a router, think about picking up a little NAS(network attached storage) for about $100 or so. You can decide if you need it to be a reliable back up such as a RAID device or a simple single drive used for a second place to store and share your files. I prefer a NAS over a USB drive simply because all the PCs on my network have access to this device and it's always available on the network. Your PC can access it, along with your laptop.

As for which PC to buy, that's a tough one. Some people like to simply pick up a dell, HP, etc while others like to custom build their PC. This depends on your experience or if there is someone who can help you. Some people think that building a PC is cheaper, but it's usually not. You can get great deals on Prebuilt PCs all over the place. Whatever you do, get a good graphics card since you'll be doing you graphic design on this PC. RAM is so cheap nowadays so get a good amount. Of course try to find a newer CPU/Motherboard. Intel or AMD is fine, but many people have a preference of what they like...I think both preform well. Hard drive drives are like RAM, very cheap. Most offer anywhere between 320GB-3TB. If you'll have lots of graphics, get as large as you can afford. Just remember the bigger the drive, the more data you can lose. Backup, backup, backup!

I hope some of this helps!