How to find out how much RAM your motherboard supports

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One of the reasons why PC sales have slumped, at least in my opinion, is the fact that many users do not see the need to upgrade their systems as often as before.

Back in the days, upgrading the processor from a 486 to a Pentium, or a Pentium to a Pentium II, was a huge deal, as were upgrades to system RAM (128 Megabyte for the win), or the video card.

Today, upgrades do not yield those high performance gains anymore. Sure, it is nice if you install a new video card to get even more frame rates out of games you play, or a faster processor to convert those media files faster, but all in all, the gains are not as noticeable as before unless you are updating a very old system.

The mobile sector is currently were PCs were a decade ago. Innovation is fast and advancements in processing power, battery life and other technologies justify a faster upgrade cycle. This too will eventually slow down.

Back to PCs.

RAM is not expensive anymore, with 4 Gigabytes of RAM available for about $40 right now, 8 Gigabytes for $80, and 16 Gigabytes starting at $150.

Performance will jump if you have less than 4 Gigabytes in your PC while you won't notice such a visual jump in performance if you already have 4 or 8 Gigabytes and want to upgrade them to even more RAM. It may be worth it nevertheless, for instance if you do a lot of real-time work on the PC, or work with huge files all the time.

Motherboard information

If you are like me, you do not know the model of the motherboard that has been built into your PC. I did assemble the PC myself, but it was some time ago and my memory is not the best anymore.

If you know the model, skip this step. If you do not know it, we need to find it out exactly as it will reveal to us what the motherboard supports.

Some motherboards may not support more RAM than is already installed, while others may limit the maximum memory or types that you can install, which you need to know before you head out and buy too much of it.

You can use Speccy or any other system information program to display the model of the Motherboard.

In my case -- the screenshot above -- it is a Gigabyte P55-USB3 motherboard.

Finding out how much RAM your PC supports

Now that we know the motherboard model, we can use it to look up information. What we need to know are the specs in regards to memory.

To be precise, how much RAM the motherboard supports and which types of RAM it supports.

You have two options for that:

1. Search for the model number

This is my preferred choice. I type the maker of the motherboard and the model of it in a search engine of choice. This should display the support page for that model on the manufacturer's website, where all relevant information about it are displayed.

To take my Gigabyte example: I landed on this page and had to click on Specification to find out about the memory specification of that motherboard.

1. 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory (Note 1)
2. Dual channel memory architecture
3. Support for DDR3 2200/1333/1066/800 MHz memory modules
4. Support for non-ECC memory modules
5. Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules

It told me that the board was supporting a maximum of 16 Gigabytes of DDR3 2200/1333/1066/800 MHz RAM.

2. Crucial

If you cannot find such a page for the motherboard that you own, you may want to try Crucial's suggestion tool instead.

Tip: You can also run the memory suggestion tool on your Windows PC

You need to enter the manufacturer, product line and model of the motherboard in a form on the main Crucial website to receive recommendations for memory, Solid State Drives and internal hard drives on the next page.

What may be interesting here -- besides the recommendation -- is the list of specs on the left. It displays the supported memory types, maximum memory and slots available to you, so that you end up with the same information that the manual search yielded.

You do not have to make a purchase here on the site though, as it makes sense to compare prices before you make any buying decision.

Display detailed information about the strength of SSL connections in Firefox

 0

Web browsers like Firefox display all kinds of information about SSL connections (when you are connecting to https websites).

Firefox indicates different types of secure connections in different colors and with different icons, and provides you with options to look up additional information about the connection with a couple of clicks.

Here you can view the certificate for example, and look up connection details that highlight the strength of the cipher among other things.

The information and handling of secure connections can be improved in several ways through the use of extensions. There is HTTPS Everywhere for example which enables you to force secure connections and can be configured to warn you when the encryption is weak.

Safe on the other hand visualizes secure connections by painting the window border in a different color to indicate this.

Calomel SSL Validation

The Calomel SSL Validation extension on the other hand grades secure connections in Firefox. Instead of just highlighting that you are connected securely, it computes a security score for the connection using the data that is exchanged to establish it.

The score is based on the following parameters: Perfect Forward Secrecy, Key Exchange, Bulk Cipher, Message Authentication Code and Certificate Hash Type and Key Length.

The extension adds an icon to Firefox's main toolbar that indicates the connection strength in color. You can click on the button to display detailed information that you see on the screenshot above.

The final security score is displayed here -- 84% in the example on the screenshot above -- and how each individual parameter that was rated attributed to the score.

It highlights in addition to that whether the certificate is verified, the class of it, the url host and common name.

While it is not possible to change the rating by yourself, you can change quite a few other related features in the preferences.

The security tab allows you to restrict certain cipher related features. You can force the browser to only allow a certain setup, for instance a minimum of 128-bit strenght with Perfect Forward Secrecy, to enable TLS v1.2 and 1.1 only, or to disable OSCP checks.

Again, if you want to find out more about these preferences, check out the author's homepage to do so. All options are explained there in detail.

The other tabs offer other interesting options that are not necessarily security related. Here is a short list of useful preferences that you find here:

1. Cache only to RAM, not to disk.
2. Disable DNS Prefetch, Geo Location Reporting and sending of referrer information.
3. Anonymize the user agent.
4. Disable animated gifs and ads.
5. Disable popup tooltips.
6. Enable spell-checking on all text boxes.
7. Disable the internal DNS cache.

Verdict

The Calomel SSL Validation extension provides you with a rating for a site's secure connection strength. Even if you do not agree (fully) with the rating scheme, it can prove useful as you can still look up information about the https connection with a single click of the mouse.

Plus, you get all the other preferences in addition to the extension's main feature. Heck, some may even install it just for moving the cache to RAM.

VSDC Free Screen Recorder lets you record any part of your desktop

VSDC Free Screen Recorder lets you record any part of your desktop

There are a couple of situations where you may want to record part of or all of your desktop on video. Maybe you want to create a tutorial for others and upload it to YouTube when it is done, or record a video or audio stream for safe keeping, or just a video for your new web service.

Whatever the reason may be, the search for a suitable program to make that recording may take longer than expected.

The core reason for this is that there are not that many free solutions available, and while you can spend a couple hundred Dollars on Camtasia Studio for one of the best recording solutions on the market, free software gets the job done as well.

A recent entry to the niche is VSDC Free Screen Recorder. As the name suggests, a free program for the Windows operating system that you can make use of to record any part of your desktop, and yes, that includes full screen.

VSDC Free Screen Recorder

The installation should not pose any issues -- there are not any third party offers included in the installer right now -- and the program interface itself is streamlined as well to make things as easy as possible.

In fact, you can start recording right away with a click on the button to get started. The program uses the recommended settings in this case.

If you want more control, or at least check what those default settings are, you may do so in the same interface.

The first screen lets you select the desired output video format. It can either be native PCM or a custom MPEG4 format by default. You can change that selection with a click on the Settings button here as it displays a menu where you can select any installed video or audio codec for use in the recording.

Note: The output directory change does not seem to work right now. While it is possible to select a different location, recordings will still be saved to the default save directory (in the My Video folder).

Now that you have configured the video and audio format, you may want to switch to the video and audio sources tab to configure those settings as well.

Here you can select the monitor you want to record -- handy if you use a multi-monitor system -- whether you want the cursor to be visible in the recording, and if you want to use overlays. These overlays highlight whenever you click the left or right mouse button, and also may add click sounds so that viewers know about mouse activities.

The audio settings let you pick one of the connected capture devices and audio input levels.

Once you hit the start recording button, you will notice that a transparent rectangle is displayed on the screen. It depicts the recording area, and you can use the mouse to change the frame to customize it  and make it fit perfectly.

The small icon in the middle of the rectangle is used to move the recording frame around in case you need to position it on the screen before you start the recording.

You can enable drawing options while you are recording. This lets you paint on the screen, e.g. display lines, text, or rectangles which can be useful to visualize certain screen elements.

Verdict

I ran into no recording troubles during tests. The output quality was great and the program delivered exactly what I wanted to achieve.

The recording directory bug is the only issue that I noticed, and it is likely being fixed soon by the developers so that you can pick a custom directory for the video recordings.

VSDC Free Screen Recorder is one of the easiest to use free desktop recording applications out there for Windows. Highly recommended.

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How to turn off the Hangout History

 2

Google is hard at work at making hangouts, the company's chat product, more appealing. Hangouts were previously only available on Google+, but they have since then expanded to other products and even replaced some like Google Talk in the process.

Google users can now use hangouts on Google+, Gmail, and mobile devices for example.

When you start a hangout, its messages will automatically be saved to the history, so that you can access them again at a later point in time. This not only includes textual contents, but also pictures as they will be saved automatically as well.

One issue that some users have run into recently is the 1000 photo limit for hangouts. It means that you cannot send anymore photos to people once you reach that limit. You may get the "Message not sent. Touch to retry" error when you have reached that limit.

The limit seems to be per-contact, so that you can still send photos to other users which makes the issue even more puzzling to solve.

Google's recommendation is to either turn of the Hangout History, or to delete photos that have been sent in the past.

Turning off the Hangout History

There are other reasons for turning off the history. Maybe you do not want it to be recorded on your computer for privacy reasons.

Note: The history is hangout specific. If you turn it off for one hangout, it is still turned on for others.

To turn off the hangout history, open the relevant hangout on Google+ and click on the options icon in the interface once it opens up.

Here you need to uncheck Hangout History to disable the feature for that particular hangout.Make sure you click on the save button to apply the change. Here you can also access the archive. Note that a notification is displayed in the chat window when you modify the history setting.

To turn off the history on Android, tap on the menu button of the device and select Turn history off from the context menu to do so. Here you can also access the archive.

Messages that are exchanged while the history is turned off will only be visible for a short time in the hangout window before they are deleted automatically. The history may still be recorded by other participants of the hangout depending on which client they use.

Side Tip: Saved messages by the feature can be accessed with a click on the chats label on Gmail, or with a search on the Gmail website. This is only available if the History feature is turned on.

How to remove LiveUpdate.exe from your computer

How to remove LiveUpdate.exe from your computer

 10

I check all running processes regular on the computer systems that I use to make sure that the system is safe and that nothing slipped by the defenses.

While that works well, I usually spot processes started by third party programs after installation. Most of the time, they are not needed at all and waste only system resources.

I noticed the LiveUpdate.exe process recently on a Windows PC and was not really sure what to make of it at first. I immediately thought of Windows Live, but since I never heard of the executable before, it was almost certain that it had nothing to do with Microsoft's service.

It is thankfully relatively easy to find out more about a process running on your system.

What is LiveUpdate.exe

The first thing that I usually do is open the Windows Task Manager with Ctrl-Shift-Esc, right-click the process in question, and select properties from the context menu.

The location of the service on the system is displayed here, so that I know its folder location and as part of this usually also the program that installed it on my system.

Note: The process LiveUpdate.exe only shows up if you select to "Show processes from all users" in the Task Manager.

If it is a service, you can get similar information by loading services.msc on your system using the run box or command prompt. The process in this case was a service, and the Services Manager revealed additional information about it.

I knew now that it was created by the software company IObit, likely to power the updating of company products on my system similar to how Firefox or Google Chrome are handling the updating.

Now that I knew that, I started to investigate the matter further. I noticed that I did not have any IObit products installed on my system anymore, which led to the conclusion that LiveUpdate.exe was a leftover that -- for whatever reason -- was not removed during the uninstallation of the last IObit product that made use of it.

Disabling  and removing LiveUpdate.exe

Since there was no IObit program left on the system, it did not really make that much sense to have the updater running in the background at all times.

First thing I did was to change its startup type from automatic to disabled in the Services Manager. I also made sure that the service itself was stopped.

Next thing I did was to delete the service. I have explained how this is done on the linked article. Here is a quick rundown of the commands:

1. Tap on the Windows-key and type cmd.
2. Right-click cmd.exe in the results and select Run as Administrator from the context menu.
3. Type sc delete LiveUpdateSvc and tap on the enter-key.
4. This removes the service from Windows.
5. You should receive a [SC] DeleteService SUCCESS message.

I checked that the service was indeed deleted, and proceeded to its directory on the system:C:\Program Files (x86)\IObit\LiveUpdate.

I deleted the full directory, and the IObit directory as well, since no products of said company were installed on the system.

It is very likely that you will find orphaned keys in the Registry that point to Live Update. You can run a search for them if you want, but they should not cause any issues on the system. It is alternatively possible to run a program like CCleaner to find orphaned files in the Registry.

What you need to know about Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSHD)

 3

Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSHD) are a combination of a Solid State Drive (SSD) and a platter-based drive (HDD). The main idea here is to combine the speed of the SSD technology with the storage space of the HDD, so that you are getting the best of both worlds.

The main question here is obviously when using SSHD drives makes sense, and what you need to take into consideration before you buy a drive for your system.

While SSD prices have dropped significantly in the past, the Gigabyte to Dollar ratio is still everything but good, especially when compared to conventional hard drives.

Samsung's excellent 840 EVO Series with 250 Gigabytes is for instance available for $165.99 currently on Amazon, while Seagate's Barracuda 3 TB HDD for $118.55. If storage would be your only criteria, you would make a much better bargain buying Seagate's drive.

A hybrid drive that combines an 8 Gigabyte SSD with 1 Terabyte of HDD storage on the other hand is available for about $100. While you get less platter-based storage and less Flash memory storage, you get to use them both in a single drive.

Most SSHD solutions on the market combine 64 Gigabyte SSD technology with 512 GB or more HDD storage and 8 GB of Flash Drive cache.

Solid State Hybrid Drives FAQ

The following FAQ looks at common questions that you may have in regards to hybrid drives. While I can't promise that it will answer all of your questions, it is likely that it addresses main concerns and issues.

If there is something left out, let me know in the comments.

Are SSHDs as silent as SSDs?

Since hybrid drives are a combination of different drive types, that is not the case. While the SSD-part is still as silent as it gets, the platter-based part of the SSHD is however as noisy as other platter-based hard drives.

If you want a silent system, SSHDs are not an option.

What about mobility?

If you drop a laptop with a SSD inside, you can be sure that this won't impact the drive or the data on it (provided that you do not throw it off the Empire State Building). Impacts may however render conventional hard drives unusable as they are not as shock-resistant as SSDs.

The same is true for hybrid drives.

How fast are SSHDs?

Most Solid State Drives are way faster than conventional hard drives. Hybrid Drives on the other hand are not. Depending on the model, you may notice improvements when you are launching applications, booting the system, or performing other read operations.

You will however notice that write operations do not really benefit from the SSD cache, and that data needs to be on the SSD-part of the drive to benefit from faster access times and loading times.

Companies like Seagate have developed algorithms like Adaptive Memory Technology to determine which files benefit the most from being cached on the Solid State Drive.

Since most hybrid drives come with 8 Gigabytes of cache currently, it is fair to say that data will be frequently shifted around and replaced on the drive, and that it is unlikely that you will get all your important data cached by it permanently.

Note: To see improvements in regards to operating system boot times, you need to have booted the OS at least once before that kicks in. So, first boot will be comparable to HDD load times, but consecutive boot times will be between HDD and SSD boot performances.

All in all it is fair to say that you will see improvements over conventional HDDs, but not as much as if you would be using a Solid State Drive.

Generally speaking, if you want the biggest (noticeable) performance increase, the SSD is the way to go. If that is not an option for whatever reason, SSHDs may be an option as they speed up some operations on the system.

What are the benefits of SSHDs?

Besides what has already been mentioned in the article, SSHDs offer other benefits over other single-drive or multi-drive solutions.

One being that they are easier to install. Since you only have to handle one drive, you can't really do a lot of things wrong during installation of it or setup of the operating system. In a multi-drive system, you need to make sure to install the operating system on the correct (faster) drive for example, while there is no such obligation in regards to hybrid drives as they are accessed as single-drives.

Should you buy a SSHD?

There are situations where your computer may benefit from a SSHD. This is a great option if you only have space for one hard drive and need both speed and capacity. So, replacing your notebook's slow 512 GB platter-based hard drive with a 1 TB hybrid drive will be very beneficial to the overall performance of the system. It is also a solid option if you are on a budget.

On desktop PCs, it usually makes more sense to buy a SSD drive and a storage drive that is platter-based provided that you have enough cash for that option. While that is the most expensive option available, it ensures that you get maximum performance and enough storage at the same time.

Depending on how you use your computer, you may find a 64 GB SSD sufficient. I personally would pick at least a 128 GB drive, especially if you are using Windows. You can get Samsung's 840 EVO 120 GB drive for about $100 currently for example, and pay another $100 for a 2 or 3 TB drive.

SuperCache Express uses RAM to boost load and write times of cached data

 8

There is always something that improves the performance of computer systems further. If you use a regular hard drive, you can migrate to a solid state drive (SSD) for faster loading times. And if you already use such a drive, you may use multiple SSD for even faster performance, or use a caching solution like SuperCache Express instead.

Note: SuperCache Express is not a free software. The desktop version costs around $80 currently. A 14 day trial version is available that you can make use of to test it though.

The basic idea behind SuperCache Express is to use the RAM of the system for caching. This works best if your PC has a lot of RAM, 2 Gigabytes is the minimum, with 4 or more GB or RAM recommended.

Depending on which operating system you use, you may use up to 95% of the available system RAM for caching. On 32-bit systems, you are limited to 50% of the available 4 Gigabytes (except for Windows XP where you may use up to 75%) while you do not have that limitation on 64-bit versions.

SuperCache Express Review

Installation

The installation is quick and will install a system driver on the PC. A restart is required afterwards before you can start using the caching solution.

Configuration

SuperCache is not enabled by default, and you need to activate it on at least one of your drives before you can make use of it. To do so, start the application, right-click on a drive, and select Cache from the context menu.

Here you need to click on Start to enable the caching. This opens the configuration screen where you can allocate memory to the cache.

Side note: If this is not the system drive, you can also enable Deferred-Write Mode which helps reduce write bottlenecks on hard drives by deferring writes to the drive.

Once you have made your choices here, the cache is automatically used to speed up read operations on the system.

It needs to be noted that this benefits data that is already in the cache the most. If you start Firefox or Google Chrome for the first time after enabling the cache, you may not notice that much of a speed improvement when you compare it to starting the programs without the caching enabled. It may still be noticeable, depending on the speed of the hard drive on the PC system.

When you start the programs for the second time though on the system, you will notice near instant loading times. The same is true for data that you load in programs. And those near-instant loading times are independent from the speed of the hard drive installed on the system.

Benchmarks

How fast you can go? Check out the following benchmarks (using AS SSD Benchmark)

1. Caching not enabled

2. Caching enabled, first run

3. Caching enabled, second run

Mirror Mode

SuperCache 5's Mirror Mode feature mirrors an entire partition or volume in RAM, so that the data is available on the drive and in memory. This works obviously only if the PC has enough RAM installed for the feature. This works well with smaller sized Solid State Drives and even smaller disk partitions that you create for that exact purpose.

Considering that you can install up to 192 Gigabyte of RAM on a PC running Windows 7 64-bit, and up to 512 Gigabyte on a 64-bit version of Windows 8, you may be able to mirror a full SSD using the mode.

Note: Depending on which edition you use, you may not make use of that much RAM on the system.

Verdict

SuperCache Express can speed up the loading of cached data significantly on the system, which makes it very interesting for desktop users who run PCs with a lot of RAM that are not rebooted often.

You may especially benefit from it if you have to load data regularly from hard drives and notice that they are a bottleneck that slow you down.

Is it worth the requested $80? For most end users this can probably be answered with a no. If you use applications regularly that benefit from faster loading times, or are a competitive gamer who wants an edge over other players, then you may want to download the trial version of the application to see if it helps you achieve that goal.

JavaScript Popup Blocker for Chrome takes care of popups on sites like LiveTV

 7

The majority of modern web browsers come with popup blockers that take care of several common types of popups that you may run into on the Internet.

You may encounter sites and services that use different techniques to spawn popup windows in the browser that are not blocked by the default popup blocking mechanics.

One basic example are popups that are launched as soon as you click anywhere on the site.

These popups are usually created using JavaScript and while browser extensions such as NoScriptmay help as they prevent JavaScript from being run by default, they may also limit the site's functionality at the same time.

JavaScript Popup Blocker

Chrome users can install the JavaScript Popup Blocker extension which adds advanced popup blocking capabilities to the web browser. While there is no guarantee that it will take care of all popups that you may run into on the Internet, it takes care of several annoying forms of popup windows including popups that are spawned when you click on a page element on a website.

The extension displays an icon in Chrome's address bar that highlights the number of popups that it has blocked on the active website.

You can click on that selection to see all those popups, which can come in handy if you need to open one of them. Some websites use popups for certain features, such as downloads, and if you block them, you won't be able to use those functionality.

A site that bombards you with popups is the live streaming website Livetv which not only uses them to launch the player window, but also to spawn a lot of popups regularly while you are watching the stream.

You will notice that the Chrome extension blocks the streaming window popup on the site as well, but that is easily fixed by launching it manually with a click on the extension's icon and the selection of the right blocked popup window from the list.

Popups are not spawned anymore in the player window and while you will still see lots of ads, it is less annoying than having to deal with ads and popups on the site.

JavaScript Popup Blocker ships with options to whitelist websites, so that popups are allowed on those. You can use wildcards * when you add websites, which may be useful for sites that use popups for part of their functionality.

If you do not like the "block all" approach of the application, you can alternatively switch to a blacklist only setting. Here only popups that you have added to the blacklist are blocked, while all others are allowed.

Verdict

JavaScript Popup Blocker is a handy extension for the Chrome browser that gives you better control over popups in the browser. The whitelist approach is probably best for the majority of users, as it blocks all popups except on pages that you have explicitly whitelisted in the options.

Since it is possible to open any blocked popup window with a click on the extension's icon, you are not losing any functionality in this regard. And if you run into the same blocked popups regularly, you can easily whitelist them to make things more comfortable for you.