Computer question

[Jackman]

I want to remote / hide my computer tower upstairs in a closet space and have my screen keyboard and mouse downstairs , sounds easy enough just need really long cables , is there something I am missing on this idea , is it doable opinions please ....

[Rick Prentice]

It wouldn't work for me. I've noticed with all the computers I've had, that when the light's blinking(telling me the computer is performing it's duty) I had better wait till the light quits before I start tapping the mouse. If I wait my computer runs smooth and doesn't freeze up. I'd be running upstairs all the time checking to make sure things were still working properly soon as things didn't seem quick enough downstairs.

My .02 Rick

[Jackman]

I am lucky cause this computer never freezes, occasionally it real slow just close browser and reopen and it works fine, we have space issues too much clutter the computer needs to go into hiding....

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

I am lucky cause this computer never freezes, ....

Famous last words. What about turning it on? or do you just put it on standby? also what about putting in a cd to run data for a program, or to make a back up. Read the technical section of your manual/ info, I believe there is a limit on how long the video cable can be. Maybe the keyboard and mouse cable too, if they are USB. but not sure. Before you do it, put a notebook beside your keyboard, and for at least a week make a note of every time you need to touch the tower. That will be a trip up and down the stairs. for an old man like me, I can put up with the clutter. What about building a small cabinet or divider to hide it where it is?

[Mike in Louisiana]

I don't know very much about computers but my Daughter has a laptop and the modem and mouse have a a box next to my computer and she goes all over the house and outside with the laptop and both can be used at the same time. I don't see why it wouldn't work for you if you have a laptop.

[Rudi]

Jack:

You cannot remote a screen and mouse. Not possible. I am not sure how long extension cables can be before inherent signal loss will degrade the signal from the computer to the monitor or mouse to computer. I have run mouse and video cable extensions about 20 feet and that is about as far as I think is viable. Since most towers are usually less than 12"x18"x24" the amount of space you will free up is negligible plus you have to take into account cooling as well as ventilation/dust control. Computers require air movement to keep the CPU's on the mainboard, video card and other peripheral cards cool. Otherwise you will end up causing high heat situations that will burn up the CPU's. Also, dust etc., do not contribute to a computer's wellbeing but can act as a heat trap and lead to CPU failure as well.

A better solution would be to see if you can make a shelf or something underneath the desk to hold the tower which will give you more desk space. Aside from that.. not a lot of options I guess. BTDT -- sometimes puters can be vexing when it comes to space. I had to build some of mine into my racking.

[bear10]

I have run an extension cable for the monitor 50 ft so I could watch my video pictures on the big screen. don't know how far you can extend the mouse.

[Jackman]

I hear ya all, its not about the tower size and space its the whole darn mess takes up, I have a antique office desk with a folding top that can hold a screen ,key board and mouse the tower sitting along side this antique looks all wrong so I want to hide it , antique office desk is down stairs and there is only one closet downstairs , upstairs has three closets so that were the crazy idea came from , the lap top like Mike in Louisiana mentioned is a good idea maybe just trash the home PC its getting old anyway got to think on that one since it would cost a lot more than long cables...

[Into Tractors]

Is it doable? To a degree yes, but worth it, not really. You can get a wireless mouse/keyboard set (Logitech makes some good ones) but the signal range may not be strong to go that far. You can get fairly long VGA cables, as well as keyboard/mouse cables (if the mouse and keyboard use PS/2 connections), but the problem you will run into is that the video signal will be degraded. I have installed overhead projector systems for the base that connected to computers, so the users could display the computer screen onto a large screen, but we had to purchase and install VGA video amps to boost the signal thru a cable that was approx 50' long, and the price of the amp was not cheap.

I'm with the other Mike, if space and the mess is an issue, I would consider getting a wireless router connected to your internet feed, then buy a laptop with the appropriate card and you can roam all over the house as you wish.

One thing I'll mention is that with most laptops, I find the screens and keyboards to be to small to my liking, and since I have BIG hands a real keyboard makes a difference to me. If you do decide to go with a laptop, as with most of us price is a big factor, but I would highly suggest that you take the time to try and do a hands-on test of some at a store so you can get a feel for the screen size and keyboard, as you may find out later you aren't happy with it if you were by chance to just buy one online sight unseen. Another thing you might want to keep in mind is that if you have a fairly nice TV at home, and if it has the correct video inputs, you might in fact be able to connect your new laptop's video output to it. Might not think now it's something you would not want to do, but if you have a digital camera and take pcitures or videos with it, by planning ahead with your laptop purchase, that would give you the ability to view photos and such on your TV for you and others to watch, or you may find yourself using you large TV as a computer monitor at times?

[Rudi]

Jack:

I am kinda in agreement with both Mike's. I am sitting here in my living room about 30 feet away from my computer working on my laptop (wireless) .. that is the answer. That way you can put your computer upstairs and out of the way (just don't close it up in a closet that doesn't have ventilation) and use the computer to set up the router and wireless. Then you can have all the mobility that you wish.

[Jackman]

You all correct laptop is the answer so last night I went shopping , I need a system that works good but does not cost a too much, I surf web , kids do I tunes and I also run Quick Books Pro , I might do a lap top for the family and and a small slim line tower for the Quick Books program, currently I have two separate full size PC's and two printers just to keep the Quick Books safe from viruses , this time I want to run one PC and one printer or one lap top and one PC I know that sounds confusing but I am paranoid about screwing up a business program from a web virus...

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

Running a good antivirus in the high security mode is pretty effective. There are a lot of them out there, and you will get as many opinions as you will if you ask about oil brands. I runt the Norton/Symantec internet suite with very good results. Some people claim it slows down their computers, but I have never noticed that problem. If you run it in active mode it even warns you if a site you are entering is a reported attack site and asks if you want to proceed. In the 15 or so years of using Norton the only problem I have ever had was when I ignored the warning because I needed a manual form that site. BIG mistake. It also prevents the add programs as well as blocking the tracking programs. I also have Addaware and Spybot installed, but since I have had the Internet Suite installed, they have not found anything that Norton missed.

Since you use QuickBooks seriously, I assume you back it up every few days or oftener. If not, I strongly suggest you do it.

[Rudi]

Jack:

John has nailed a lot of the problems that I have seen in over 15 years of building/repairing and of course reformatting/recovering data/removing viruses/trojans/malware etc form folks who did not listen to what I told them.

Like John, I used to run Norton Systemworks as it was the premiere suite available for all OS's. However back in oh say 2003 Symantec changed how Systemworks was structured and added a lot of GUI's to the system which substantially increased the size of the program to a point where systems that normally could handle Norton no longer were viable platforms. Norton is still a HUGE resource hog -- all you have to do is bring up Task Manager to see how much of the system resources Norton uses. The two largest resource hogs have to be Windows OS and then right behind it - Norton.

I remember when Bill Gates said 10 meg hard drive 640 kbs or RAM was all anyone ever needed. Now puters with less than 2 or 3 gigs of RAM are unable to adequately operate. So other Anti-virus suites are needed and there are some good ones out there.

My preference is for Iolo's System Mechanic Pro -- for a number of reasons. The A-V component is pretty intuitive, great updates and it catches pretty much everything that is out there. I have not had a serious virus attack in probably 6 years now. What makes Iolo better than Norton is the System Mechanic side of the suite which offers a complete toolkit to manage your computer including Memory Mechanic which actually will restore ram which has been allocated, utilized and then released back into the pool. No other program aside from RAMBooster does this. RAMBooster is not supported in the newer OS's although I still use it on my Wn98SE puter.

Esset is another good as is Kaspersky. As a side note, Kaspersky was up until about 3 years ago an integral part of Iolo's product line although it was a temporary collaboration as both companies were building up their own suites.

A must have just for insurance is to have some dedicated Anti-Malware programs. The ones I recommend now (Ad-Aware is off the list because of conflicts with a number of major A-V suites) are Malwarebytes, SUPERAntiSpyware and most importantly,SpyBot Search & Destroy. Sometimes they don't pick it all up, but between the A-V suite and these dedicated anti-malware programs it is pretty good protection.

However, like our Cub -- computers need maintenance. If you don't run the programs, they don't do their jobs/do them effectively. We make it a rule here in the house to run all of our A-V/Malware tools at least once per week.

As for laptops, I/we have owned a number of them over the years -- from 286's to the latest laptops on the market from Dell, Toshiba. IBM/Lenovo and Acer. By far and away the best on the market has got to be Toshiba. Also, Toshiba offers as an option in their warranty coverage for accidental damage. AFAIK no other company does this. The Toshiba is one of the best laptops on the market and the addition of this warranty makes it a no-brainer for me. Don't ask why I know this stuff. btw, probably the best laptop on the market has to be a Panasonic Tough Book - but with a starting price in the 3 grand area -- pretty much way too rich for most budgets.

I am currently running a Toshiba Satellite P-300 with about 3 gigs of ram and Vista as the OS. I prefer XP Pro but Vista is beginning to grow on me -- and I assume I will upgrade to Windows 7 at some point.

of course all of this is JIMHO.

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

Rudi, does Norton show up under another name than Norton or Symantec in task Manager. I don't even see it in task manger. Firefox and Thunderbird are by far the biggest memory users I am seeing.

[Rudi]

John:

Going from memory .. nav.exe, sym.exe and other variations .. I haven't loaded the new one yet .. so I googled Norton Systemworks in Task Manager and these are some of the entries that are linked to Norton SystemWorks. Now mind you there are other processes that may/are used by Norton such svc.exe, lsass.exe, various .dll files and other OS root files.

NOPDB.EXE
nvsvc32.exe
NPROTECT.EXE
NAVAPSVC.EXE
NISUM.EXE
CCPXYSVC.EXE
CCEVTMGR.EXE
ccApp.exe

Here are some of the Norton SystemWorks program files entries but not all.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccEvtMgr.exe
C:\Program Files\Norton Personal Firewall\NISUM.exe
C:\Program Files\Netropa\Multimedia Keyboard\nhksrv.exe
C:\Program Files\Norton Personal Firewall\ccPxySvc.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VS7Debug\mdm.exe
C:\Program Files\Norton SystemWorks\Norton AntiVirus\navapsvc.exe
C:\Program Files\Norton SystemWorks\Norton Utilities\NPROTECT.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\nvsvc32.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\NORTON~3\SPEEDD~1\nopdb.exe

You can download and run Process Explorer - Microsoft's TechNet supports this utility. Download, extract and put an icon in your QuickLaunch bar so you can use it to determine what processes are running, and if you hover over each entry you can see the parent program that the process belongs to or was activated by the program. This is another one of the tools in my arsenal and this one is a keeper