Long gone, but now back… sort of. :)
Nothing good. If you’re lucky, the CPU will sense that’s something’s very wrong and slow or shut itself down before permanent damage occurs. But with today’s higher-power chips, the margin for error is very small. More likely, after a few glorious and toasty moments, your CPU would give up the ghost in the form of…
If possible, open up the dead PC and remove the drive. Install in a working PC; or externally connect it to a PC with a kit like that discussed here. You can then use the normal apps on the working PC to data-wipe the old drive. If that’s not possible, your best bet is to…
A good externally powered USB hub — that is, one with its own separate power supply — is what you need. The external power is key because USB is fundamentally a data transfer standard, not a battery-charging standard. Charging takes a lot more power than data-transfer; a PC’s built-in USB sockets are simply not designed…
(Answer requested by Dawn Hassell) For most PCs, it doesn’t matter. Most external drives for PCs use standard USB connections, and will work with any PC that also uses standard USB connections. USB cables are inexpensive: a 3′ cable typically costs under $10. If the PC uses proprietary connectors — I’m looking at you, Apple…
Yes, if you’re careful. The main thing to remember is that a spinning hard drive acts like a gyroscope, and will resist any movement from its original plane. Move too much/too fast, and you’ll hear it in whining drive bearings or — worst case — the awful scraping sound of a head crash. But if…
Sure! It usually only takes a few clicks. That “TV tuner” app is usually leftover bit of a previous Win7 or 8 setup that was running the old Media Center add-on. Win10 doesn’t have (or need) a separate Media Center; those old software components do little now except cause upgrade problems. (Geeky aside: That “digital…
(Answer requested by Ellie Williams) Yes, for ordinary use — office tasks, browsing, streaming media, etc. — 8GB is fine for a current-generation 64-bit PC. If you have occasional heavy use that bogs down an 8GB PC, or if you want to build in a little future-proofing, go for 12GB. If you edit hi-res videos, play…
Depending on how you perform the encryption, yes. I don’t recommend whole-drive encryption because the encrypting is effectively part of the operating system. That is convenient, and can work great if the user is careful and knows what they’re doing. But it can lead to lockout issues even if the files themselves would otherwise be…
Yes, absolutely, although the usual rule is 80/20. A li-ion battery is stressed the most during the top and bottom 20% of its charging range; and the closer to 100% or 0% you get, the greater the stress. In other words, charging from 99% to 100% is way harder on a battery than charging from…
(Answer requested by Joshua Sneed) Sure! In fact, you may be surprised how easy drive replacement really is. Often, the hardest part is figuring out how to open the case! <g> Once you’re inside, it’s a piece of cake. You can find appropriate instructions for your system by searching for something like “how to replace…