Say Hello to Dr Puter. (pcpitstop.com)

Member Name: Tray0098

Product:	pcpitstop.com
Date:	28/11/02 (1744 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free, Free antivirus, Fixes internet speed good!

Disadvantages: Slow at busy times, Hard to find Tweaks, Can be a little too ' techie '

PC Pitstop is a great resource site for solving your PC problems. I've been using the site for well over a year now, and it is often my first port of call when my trusty old machine starts to suffer with those irritating little problems that ultimately can lead to the pain of having to restore to factory settings.

The Tests

The site offers several diagnostic tests to run on your PC, to evaluate the general performance levels of your sysem. On your first visit to the site, it is worth taking the time to join ( for free! ), as you can then view your previous test results on subsequent visits.

PC Pitstop works by installing several DLL files on your computer, which run when you give them permission by clicking the security certificate. They are fast to download, and small in size. Once you have clicked OK on the certificate, the test you have selected will begin.

You can choose to do a full test on your machine, which identifies your computer and its configuration, what software and hardware you have, memory, BIOS version etc etc....it gets to know your machine as best it can! It then tests how well your machine is working, looking at lots of different things, such as security, write / read to disc speed, free RAM, Bandwidth speed, monitor and video acceleration tests...the list is endless, but trust me, it's pretty thorough. The whole process should take betwwen 2 and 4 minutes, depending on your machine.

If you prefer, you can choose to run a single test, to check disk health, active x conrols, bandwith speed, general internet settings etc.

The results for both the full test and the single tests are displayed using a flag system : Green for good, no problems, Yellow for minor problems, Red for Oh deary Deary me! Fortunately, if a problem ariises, there is always advice on what action to take, and often a utility to fix it there and then ( Free of course! ) I have found the explanations of the problems and
fixes pretty simple and easy to understand.



Other features...


The site has a very active user forum if you get stuck with any of the tests or interpreting the results.

There are several ' tweaks ' to maximise your internet connection...mine is as fast as it should be, and then some!

It is a great resource for anyone wanting to learn more about thier machine, how to maximise the performance and maintain it.

The site also has a full online virus scanner, that can do either a quick scan or a very thorough full scan ( every file on your hard drive job! ) It is powered by Panda, virus sigs are updated on a regular basis, and yes, it's free!

There is also an option to pay for live technical support, but as I haven't had to use this feature, I wouldn't like to comment.

Summary: