Steve's PCs

The green capacitor looks fine, but the black one is bulging at the top and has probably failed.

"Bad caps"

Electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard can degrade or fail. The good news is that the failure is usually identifiable. For a whole lot more detail, go to Badcaps.net.

It is possible to repair the motherboard, but I'm not aware of anyone in New Zealand providing that service, so I replace the board. It's a big job:

• A suitable motherboard has to be found and fitted
• other components, such as memory and processor, may have to be upgraded to work with the new motherboard
• the operating system sometimes needs to be reinstalled so that it will accept the motherboard
• updates to the operating system then need to be re-applied.

Failing hard drives

This can be a small job - just transfer the data from the old drive to a replacement drive. But often the data can't be retrieved without a lot of difficulty. Programs, settings, documents, email and photo can be irretrievably lost. A failing hard drive is fairly hard to identify without diagnostic software, but if you notice unusual noises from your computer - particularly "ticking" sounds -- it's not a good sign.

Memory problems

Your computer's memory shouldn't fail -- after all it has no moving parts -- but it can and does cause problems. Memory failures can can all kinds of problems -- corrupted files, unstable programs, and the failure of your computer to start up -- but a diagnosis and replacement of faulty memory modules is easy. Simply run a thorough memory test on each memory module, then test all of them together to ensure they co-exist. Replace any module that doesn't work on its own, or doesn't work with the others. I use Memtest86 but I'm sure there are other equally good memory testing programs around.

Keep in mind that if a memory test failure may not mean that the memory is bad. The motherboard may be failing. Test the memory in another computer, and test known good memory in the suspect motherboard to pinpoint where the problem may be.

The standard way to get phone and Internet is to pay a company like Vodafone for "home phone and broadband". The "home phone" part is what used to be known as "line rental". Its technical name is Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), and it's been around for over a century. The advantage of a "home phone and Internet" package is that the phones, faxes and extension jack-points in your home all work just fine, provided you use a line filter in each of the occupied phone jacks around the house. Also, because this is a very common set-up in New Zealand, it's easily fixed if anything goes wrong. However, the service may be more expensive than some alternatives.

Xnet Fusion

I've recently set up an alternative system for a client - Xnet Fusion:

Xnet Fusion is a standalone Broadband Internet connection and a digital voice phone service without the old fashioned telephone line!

With Xnet, New Zealanders are no longer required to pay for an analogue phone line in order to get a Broadband connection. Starting from $69.95 (incl GST at 15%) per month, you will get a full speed broadband connection and digital voice phone line. A second digital phone line is only $11.50 per month.

Equipment costs can be quite high. The latest all-in-one device is about $400. I bought what I needed on TradeMe for $120. It didn't include wireless Internet capabilities because my client had no need for that. Set-up was surprisingly straightforward.

The main disadvantage I can see is that you no longer have multiple phones around the house. You basically have to "make do" with one portable phone. And you lose your phone service in a power cut. But then most ordinary phones won't work in a power cut.

It seems it is possible to modify the phone wiring in your house to distribute the new VOIP phone service to existing phone wall sockets. Check out the section Using VoIP as line 2 in How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home.

Orcon Genius

Orcon has a very similar service. I have no experience with it, but you can read an impartial description on Consumer NZ's very useful TelMe website - Home phone alternative.

I've had a couple of recent requests to improve the reception of a wireless network. It was a chance for me to catch up on wireless technology and find suitable solutions. There are a number of things that can be done to improve wireless network. I'll run through some of them:

• Wireless networking has improved somewhat over the last decade, so if your equipment is quite old and the signal doesn't get from one end of the house to he other, you may have to consider updating it. Wireless-n equipment with multiple aerials (MIMO) can offer a big improvement.
• Likewise, if you're using a USB wireless adaptor with a tiny inbuilt aerial to connect a desktop computer, consider replacing it with a PCI wireless card that has a decent aerial on it. Your connection will be a lot better.
• Try to place your wireless router/access point in a central location. That way, the signal has less distance to travel to get to all users.
• Try to place your wireless router/access point in a location away from objects that will absorb or reflect the signal. Some of those objects are large bodies of water (no, not lakes; I'm thinking more of humans, trees and hot water cylinders) and solid walls or roofs (gib and timber walls are OK).
• Most standard wireless aerials are omni-directional, and they're easy to orient. Make sure all aerials are sticking up vertically if everyone is on the same floor. The strongest signal from a vertical aerial is a horizontal one, so all aerials should be side-on to each other.
• If you're using wireless to connect to a single upstairs computer, angle both aerials so they're side-on to each other.
• If you're connecting to a single other computer you can buy directional aerials which concentrate the signal in one direction. You can even modify a standard aerial by fitting it to a dish to do the same thing.
• But if you are having problems connecting two desktop computers wirelessly, consider a more low-tech solution of running ethernet cable.
• You can buy longer aerials that are a screw-on replacement and provide better broadcast and reception.
• You can buy a signal repeater/extender that does just what the name implies and sits in a suitable location to extend the signal out to a distant area, or to what would otherwise be a blind-spot.