February 4- February 11 2001

How to rejuvenate old PCs by Alessandro Cancian It is a well-known fact that, most of the time, PC obsolescence is not due to a lack of processor speed, but rather to technological advances taken as a whole, which make using a PC simpler and simpler. As far as my needs go, my two-year-old Compaq performs more than adequately. Performance apart, my envy for my wifes iMac stands. Maybe because of those USB and FireWire ports, but mostly because my PC looks as old as the Pyramids in comparison. Having to use parallel or serial ports to connect printers, scanners, mouse, etc., then having to resolve IRQ conflicts, and turning my computer on and off every time a new device gets activated, is truly outdated. Then theres something about digital camcorders, which I love because of my passion for creating short movies. My wife, however, does not dig the idea that I would use her computer for my masterpieces. The purchase of a new computer would be the simplest solution to my problems, but sometimes a small upgrade is enough to give new life to a machine still very far from retirement age. In my case, the solution came from Belkin. The California-based company recently introduced a PCI card that can add some USB and FireWire (IEEE 1394) ports. Card installation took about 10 minutes, the time needed for unscrewing the case cover, unpacking the card from the box and securing it into the last PCI slot available on my Compaq. Et voila! After restarting,installing the drivers and other software bundled was a breeze. The CD supplied with the card led me step-by-step through the entire process, and in very little time my "old" PC turned into a modern Hub where almost everything can be connected. The Belkin FireWire/USB combo card adds three 400 Mbps FireWire ports (2 external, 1 internal) and two 12Mbps USB ports to the users computer, occupying just one PCI slot. In simpler words: todays two hottest technologies in one product. During testing the card worked perfectly, without any glitches, with all the devices I tested it on. The first gadget I connected was a Belkin USB BusStation, the perfect hub able to increase the number of USB ports available. That was a good move, because in no time (just by installing some drivers) the mouse, digital camera, and printer were ready for use. The USB ports performed well with all the devices connected, in some cases leading to a notable increase in data transfer speed, e. g. my digital camera. After setting up the various gadgets, came the turn of the heavyweights: the digital camcorder and a FireWire hard drive, ideal for storing movies that up until the previous day seemed inseparable mates of the Ruby iMac. Bulls eye! Both the HD and the DV camcorder were immediately recognized by the software bundled with the Belkin product. The ultra-fast interface, FireWire, allows transfer of massive files at the highest speeds achievable without loss or deterioration of the data. Thanks to features such as Plug-and-Play, peer-to-peer, and hot swap, FireWire ports represent the ideal solution for connecting devices requiring high transfer rate such as HD, DV camcorders, and scanners. Of the three ports available, the internal one, perfect for hard drive connection, was useless in my case due to a lack of space inside my computer. The combo card comes bundled with some interesting software from MGI, a Richmond Hill (Ontario) based company. VideoWave III is, in fact, an easy to use video-editing package allowing production of short movies using images captured with the digital camcorder. Having a rather intuitive interface, VideoWave is a product well-suited to a consumer market. Should someone need more professional tools, Adobe Premiere is the software of choice. In addition to VideoWave, the installation CD also includes PhotoSuite III SE, a photo retouching program. The Belkin board is perfectly compatible with Win 98, 98SE, ME and 2000 (a Mac version is also available) and needs a Pentium processor of at least 266 MHz in order to work properly. A FireWire cable is present inside the selling package; too bad theres no equivalent for USB, but aside from this insignificant detail the $109 (U.S.) card is the easiest and cheapest way to "rejuvenate" your "old" computer. For further information please visit www.belkin.com

 

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