So what do you get with the GA-G31M-ES2L motherboard for this small amount of money? Well primarily you get a good solid motherboard that is designed to provide a high quality foundation for a decent computer system as well as allowing simple and cost efficient upgrades in the future.

The GA-G31M-ES2L is a micro ATX motherboard and has an LGA775 socket that supports a range of processors including Core 2 Duo, Core2 Quad, Pentium Dual Core, Celeron 400 sequence, Celeron Dual Core. It has two memory banks that are able to support up to 4GB of DDR2 SDRAM. Ideally you should use both slots of the RAM to take advantage of dual channel memory addressing. So if you were looking at putting in 2GB of RAM, you would be far better putting 2 x 1GB rather than one stick of 2GB!

Connecting your devices should be no problem with this motherboard. It has connectors for 4 x SATA drives and one older ATA connector. Usually only having one IDE connector isn’t such a problem as one cable can run two drives,(assuming that you set the jumper settings accordingly to master and slave). As USB devices are so popular these days you will have 8 slots available to use.

The Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L has onboard graphics, sound and Ethernet.  This makes it easy to start building a computer system on a budget with the view to upgrading sound and graphics at a later date if required.

Some may say that having only two PCI slots is not enough but generally these days, it is more than enough with more and more items being run off USB.

For the price, it really is difficult to criticise this board. Sure, if you a looking for the absolute cutting edge computer system that has the latest graphics and the fastest CPU then this board will not be for you but the chances of you looking for a board within this price range would also be unlikely!

To summarise, if you are looking for a decent motherboard upgrade ant a more than decent price the Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L motherboard is really an inexpensive and ideal solution that will fulfil the requirements of most, if not all, standard computer users.

The most important question will be how come this occur? All things considered – your pc wasn’t slow when you got it? Actually, at the time, your laptop or computer was quite quick! Exactly where did it all go awry?

Usually the answer why your laptop or computer may be particularly sluggish is straightforward – not enough resources. This is what I mean:

The majority of people using an older pc are going to be using Microsoft Windows xp as their operating-system. When XP initially was launched almost all computers had been provided with 256mb Ram. Even up to a number of years back 256MB of RAM had been provided in the entry level computer systems. That wasn’t a problem – certainly the computer would certainly run slower than it’s potential but it really would still work okay.

What people do not comprehend is stuff has improved – and considerably with regards to the computer. The growth regarding broadband internet has meant your laptop or computer must be safeguarded when accessing the web. Most people are now experienced with the fact that they need safety if they are going online. What people don’t understand is the applications that are shielding you have expanded in size and resource needs. A couple of years ago your average Norton Protection would have been less than half the size and demand less than 50 % the quantity of Memory it will these days. If you consider your original Laptop or computer had been running on the limit before, it is apparent to see why it now might be struggling.

Another larger resource requirement that has occurred recently is the Automated Microsoft windows update of service pack three. Soon after this update was introduced many people complained their computers had slowed and ground to a stop. This really is yet again on account of safety revisions and advancements within Windows xp which need extra resources to perform.

Fundamentally, 256MB Memory for XP seriously isn’t ample. 512MB and you’re simply even now battling. 1GB is ideal however the more the higher. Up to 2GB.

Right now there is actually simply no means around possessing these kind of protection programs and updates – you just need to increase your memory within your pc and provide it a totally new lease of life. You’ll be astonished just how much this little chip will make this sort of big impact on the usability of the computer.

Memory prices do fluctuate greatly depending on the exchange rate however at the time of penning this write-up you can upgrade your computer to 1GB of Ram for approximately £25 or perhaps less. This makes a huge difference for the speed of your machine

You can usually verify just how much Ram is on your pc using the following procedures:

1. Check if there is a sticker label on the front of the Computer – it commonly informs you!
2. Right click on your my computer image on the desktop and head to properties. You should certainly see the ram listed here.

JBO Solutions is a great online personal computer shop which specialises in excellent, branded cheap computer memory together with a complete selection of additional computer solutions

One of the great things popping up all across the internet is the use of voucher codes, discount codes, or coupon codes.  If you do not know what these are read on as they could save you money!

The internet is fiercely competitive and  any online merchant will want to get you to their store rather than that of their competitor. To do these they have several tools. There are promotions, special offers, cheaper prices and voucher codes.

Promotional voucher codes are often just a group of letters or numbers or a simple word that you can enter at the given store at point of checkout to give you additional money off or perhaps an additional free gift. Stores have realised this is a powerful tool to give them an edge over their competitor.

So how do you find these discount codes? Well firstly you could use sites like Component Compare or similar where a whole collection of different voucher codes can be found. If you are looking to buy something from a store simply type into Google

“storename + code”

“storename + discount code” etc

If you are looking for a specific product then it is always wise to do the same thing before you buy.

“productname + dicount code” etc

The only problem with searching on Google is that often the codes will have expired. Some stores only offer these deals perhaps for one or two days. By the time Google gets to listing them they have expired so it is wise to find a site that collects these codes, subscribe and stay up to date!

Things have been a litte quiet around here recently and this is due to a lot of online commitments that seem to grow daily.

It’s been a quiet time for JBO Solutions this Christmas and with most of the UK worrying about the impending doom of the media hyped credit crunch, it is no wonder why things seem to be slowing down so much.

Interestingly, in these times of financial hardships there are often some great deals to be had – check out Component Compare  – the computer price comparison site – here you will find the lowest UK prices on a host of computer components, and electronics. These prices just keep falling as competition to beat the credit crunch continues.

As well as the above JBO Solutions are pleased to maintain their relationship with SIIG – bringing you these quality components at the best UK prices including SIIG Firewire Cards, Serial Adapters and Ports.

This year we hope to bring many new computer related articles for you to enjoy as well as the latest information from the computer world.

Have a great new year and look forward to you visiting us again soon.

Comparing prices in the Uk has become popular. The competition is fierce and consumers want value for money. You would think that the more stores that opened would be best for the consumer.

I do agree with this, however, you can have too much of a good thing. No one wants to be having to check 50 stores pricing, delivery costs, reputation etc just to get a cheap hard disk – this is where sites such as ComponetCompare.com do the work for you.

If you know what component you are looking for then simply head over to http://www.componentcompare.com and input the name or product code. You will then see a list of all your favourite stores and there stock levels as well as their charge including delivery. Couldn’t really be simpler.

If you are looking to buy a gift but unsure what to get – simply browse through the categories to give you ideas, knowing you will get the best deal.

Check it out!

Phishing comes from the word fishing (believe it or not!) and is a type of Internet threat that tries to con you into providing personal information. You may have had emails yourself saying that you have an important bank message waiting for you or similar.

The people that set these up are generally pretty clever – even the most savvy Internet user can fall for them. Take for example an email I see a lot – “you have a new message at your bank” – now in the past it has been known that if you have a message from your bank, they will not just send it via email, due to confidentiality, they will alert you that you have a message by email and then ask you to log into your secure Internet banking to see your email.

So the Phisher sends an email to you to say log into your bank to view this message and provides a nice link that says “Click her for HSBC” or similar – either way looking totally innocent. You then visit a page that looks identical to HSBC’s login page and input all your details to log in – you have just given all your details to the Phisher – there was never a message for you and you now run the risk of having money taken from your account.

So what can you do about this? Well the first important thing is to check the address you are going to when clicking a link: hover over the link below and look to the bottom right of your screen – it should tell you that the link is http://www.jbosolutions.co.uk

Here is a link

So you can feel pretty safe that this is going to take you to JBO no problem. Most of the fake links would go look something like this:

A Fake link 

 OK so I added the word badness into the link, but it could be anything which means it is not part of JBO at all – so do not trust it. If in doubt just visit the link by typing it in manually, searching via Google or accessing it from one on your favourites.

Now here is another trick they use that can be very clever and you have to watch out for it. Check out this link:

Can you spot it?

Notice the I has been replaced by a character 1 – this applies to l’s as well so be extra vigilant here – One that nearly got me was paypal and paypa1 – see how similar they are – I hate to think how many people unwittingly put in their details on this scam.

The safest way to be sure is never follow a link in an email.

Here are some of the top emails that have recently been going out – so watch out for these and don’t become a victim of Phishing!

Reactivate your account

Update your billing information

You have a new alert

Your AdWords account is on stop

Submit your payment information

Update your billing information

The list goes on………………………..

Compatible with many well known brands, inkrite replacement toners are an ideal choice. Brother, Canon, Epson, HP, Lexmark, Minolta, Oki, Panasonic and Xerox are just some of the top named brands that Inkrite make compatible toners for.

So how do they do it? Well they reuse outer shells from existing toner cartridges to save on cost. Their quality control ensures these printer toners provide at least equal but often better quality that the OEM equivalents and their no quibble guarantee backs this up.

So how good is the quality?

Inkrite toners are designed to be used in any supported Laser Printer.

The high development standard means that Inkrite can also be used in the same printer, in unison, with an original toner.  Other printer toners manufactured or restored to a lower standard can have too broad a range of particle sizes which can effect your printer’s life cycle and can lead to distortion of  images and colours to an unacceptable level.

With the current age of digital imagery and everyday reliance on printers,  hardware  costs have come down considerably and buying a laser printer is often well within the scope of the small office or even home use. Of course, the main costs come from the toners you need to purchase which is why finding a decent supplier that can provide quality at low prices is a must.

 Click Here to view the full range

Yes it is possible. Some buildings, certainly some older buildings are made from such thick stone that wireless signals can not get through. Even if they do get the signal through to your computer then the performance can be severely intermittent.

There are several other building types or locations that wireless routers will not function correctly or at all. So what is the solution?

Manufacturers, Devolo have a pretty decent solution to this wireless problem. Their dLAN system allows you to utilise your home electricity supply to share your connection to these areas that wireless signals cannot reach.

The dLAN works on a simple principle. For this example let’s assume that standard wireless connectivity does not work at your premises. You currently trail a wire from one room to the next joining up your router to your laptop – far from convenient. Here is what you can do about it. Firstly you would need to connect your router to a dLAN adapter. This then plugs into a standard three pin plug socket. You are now sharing your connection across your home or office via your mains power circuitry. You now have a couple of options depending on your circumstances.

Assuming wireless technology does not work full stop at your property then you will need an ethernet bridge adapter. Plug this into a socket in the room with your laptop. You can then plug the ethernet cable into the dLAN and into the laptop – you are now successfully connecting to the internet without a wire through your house.

A neater option in using the dLAN is to still utilise standard wireless technology. In the room you are using your laptop plug in the wireless dLAN plug. This will then convert your wired signal into wireless within that room, so for example, if you could not usually get a signal because the walls were too thick, the problem is no longer there simply because the transmission is being sent from within the same room.

You can have up to 15 dLAN adapters running at any one time. This makes things extremely simple to set up a huge wireless network if required.

You may be wondering about security? Well all the dLAN devices have an encryption called DESpro. This is very simple to set up utilising a password. You can configure this very easily using the software provided. This will ensure that only intended people can connect to your network.

Visit JBO Solutions for a full range of competitively priced Computer Components and Wireless Networking Hardware

Setting up a wireless network can seem daunting but is not really an overly difficult job. There are two main types of wireless router and you need to ensure you select the correct type for your connection. If you have a cable modem, using NTL or Virgin Media then you need a DSL wireless broadband router. Your existing modem stays in place and the wireless router connects to this and shares your connection wirelessly.

If you use the more common dial up type broadband then you will need to ensure you buy an ADSL wireless router with a built in modem. This will replace any existing modem you may have and connect up to the internet for you and share the internet connection wirelessly.

To get things up and running is relatively simple – for Virgin Media you would run the install CD, plug the cable from your modem to you computer into the wireless router, then the supplied cable back into your computer. This usually will automatically set up the router. You will often be prompted to set up an ID for the router and a password for security – this is essential and I will talk more about this in a moment. Once this has been done you can either leave the wired connection in place or start using the router wirelessly.

For the ADSL modem the steps are similar but you plug you phone line into your computer. You will need to have your user name and password and will also be prompted to set up an ID and a password for security purposes. That’s it!

Wireless Security

I think it is important to discuss wireless security at this point. It’s often easy to select the option to set up security later and then never do anything about it. With a wireless router you are sharing your internet connection, you may even be sharing you files and folders on your network. This means that with access to your wireless connection, someone could access your computer.

Your wireless router will give off a signal called an SSID – this identifies your network. Anyone in range will be able to see this, and everyone will be able to see whether your connection is secure or not. Access to your internet connection in just a double click away and with the range of wireless technology increasing, your whole street may be able to pick this up.

So what can be done about this? Well there are several options to protect yourself. The simplest way it to set up the security from the install CD. You will usually have a couple of options.

WEP – Stands for Wired Equivalency privacy – It gives standard security although can be exploited by hackers who know what they are doing. There are usually two options here – 64 bit or 128 bit encryption. This is just a bunch of numbers and letters that you need to input when connecting to the router from your device. The 128bit is more secure but a pain to type out!.You would use WEP if you intend to connect a device, wirelessly, that doesn’t support the following security.

WPA - Stands for Wifi Protected Access – This is much more secure than WEP and is advisable to use. WPA2 is also now available but you need to ensure that your equipment that you intend to connect to the router will support this. Often an option to select both WPA and WPA2 is available so it will use the most suitable for your equipment. Sometimes, though not often these days, you will see WPA-PSK which simply means passkey – this allows you to enter a password to use rather than long unmemorable characters. Generally this will now be a supported function of standard WPA/WPA2.

So you are now transmitting your signal securely – time to connect up your device. Lets assume for this example that you want to connect a laptop to your wireless router so you can use the internet anywhere in your house. If your laptop has wireless functionality built in then ensure the wireless is turned on. This can be a dedicated button or slide switch on or around the side of your laptop, or possible a dedicated function key. In the bottom right hand corner of your screen there is a little icon that represents your wireless connection. If you are unsure, hover over each icon and it will tell you what it is. Most likely you will find that a box will automatically pop up telling you that wireless networks are available.

If you do not have a laptop with wireless functionality then you will need to add this. Wireless can be added by purchasing a wireless USB adapter that plugs into a USB port on your computer.

Within the wireless network interface you will see a list of all the networks available. Within this list should be listed your network – the name you entered on setup (the SSID) will identify which network is yours. Double click this and you will then be prompted to enter your WEP or WPA key (often to be entered twice which is annoying if you have the mega long 128 bit WEP activated!).

That’s it – you are done and you should now be able to connect to the internet – next time you restart your computer you will automatically be connected to the wireless network.

The above is a very basic setup of your wireless router though will be more than adequate for the average user as well as being adequately secure. should you wish to see what others functions are available then you can generally  access the router configuration by typing in an IP address into your browser. Where you could normally type and address such a www.website.com type the IP address of the router. This should be listed with your documents for the router. Belkin for example will almost always be, by default, 192.168.2.1

Within the configuration panel of your router you will find plenty of options to configure your router manually.

A hard disk or hard drive is an internal component within your computer where all your files and folders including your operating system is stored. Without a hard disk your computer will not function. If you are unfortunate for your hard disk to fail then you need to know how to go about changing it for a new.

There are several ways that hard drives can fail. As a general rule then will not totally stop working without some kind of advanced warning. Perhaps clicking noises, warning errors often appearing or regular crashes at random intervals. Apart from the clicking noise, the other two symptoms I have provided could in fact be down to several hardware or software computer problems.

If you are certain that your hard disk is faulty then you need to obtain a replacement. In a desktop PC this is relatively straight forward – with a laptop it may be more specific to the product so speak with the manufacturer first.

Firstly you need to identify the type of hard disk you have. There are two main types – PATA and SATA. SATA hard disks are relatively new so if your PC is a number of years old then it most likely is not SATA. PATA is more common and has the typical 4 pin power plug along with a standard IDE cable – the same that connects a standard CD/DVD ROM drive. SATA connections are much smaller – almost a third of the size of the IDE connection.

If your drive is SATA then plug in and away you go, PATA you will need to ensure that you set the drive to master mode – this is usually done by a little bridge on some pins at the end. There should be a chart to illustrate which pins to bridge. As a rule most will come set as master.

Once you have made your selection then you need to go and buy the hard disk. As well as the type of hard disk you require, there are options on speed and buffer size as well as, of course, size. The faster speed hard disk with the highest buffer is what you should aim at within your budget. Size of course is your own personal choice but go larger than that you think you will need. Most of the time for an average user, the smallest of drives will provide adequate space.

Once you have your disk you need to turn off the power to your computer and unplug any cables. Open up the case and clean out any dust within your computer case. Carefully remove the existing hard drive for it’s mounts. This generally accomplished by undoing screws but computer cases can vary.

With your new hard disk installed you can then run your restore CD or operating system disk and begin the procedure for reinstalling. Be prepared for this to take some time – usually a minimum of an hour.

If you were unfortunate enough to not have a backup of your data then it may be possible to now go about recovering data from the faulty disk. If you are unsure about doing this then it is far safer to ask an expert.

For a full range of competitively priced computer products please visit

JBO Solutions