Crysis

As new big-name titles come out, both ATI and Nvidia tend to react quickly. ATI will sometimes release a hotfix for its current set of Catalyst drivers, whereas, Nvidia will release beta ForceWare drivers with optimizations for the new game. Download and install them as necessary.

If you do install new drivers, make sure to properly uninstall old ones first. Today's drivers uninstall cleanly, so you don't need special driver uninstallers these days. But it's still safest to uninstall old drivers before installing new ones.

Meanwhile, it's important to keep up with game patches for all of your games. This is no longer a curse specific to PC gaming; even console games are afflicted with patchable bugs these days. Check each of your games' support sites regularly for patches, and keep an eye on game news sites like Blues News for patch announcements.

Out of Contact

Everything that has electrical contacts is subject to some sort of failure caused by dust, dirt, corrosion, or wear and tear. This includes everything from expansion cards to flash memory cards, from batteries to USB peripherals. I was reminded of this recently when my PlayStation Portable suddenly stopped seeing its inserted Memory Stick Duo. I turned the unit on one day, and it couldn't find any of my litany of photographs, saved games, or movies.

I did what any normal person would do: I broke into a sweat and panicked because I hadn't backed up the thing in ages. I'm halfway through Jeanne D'Arc, for Heaven's sake, and I really don't want to start over.

PsP Memory Stick

Then I thought about it for a moment, turned off the PSP, and popped out the Memory Stick Duo. Although I couldn't see any sign of corrosion on its contacts, I cleaned them anyway.

You can get a special contact cleaner from an electronics store, or you can use a simple, clean pencil eraser to work off any gunk, corrosion, finger oils, or whatever else might have built up on the gold electrical contacts. Then I reinserted it, powered up the PSP, and everything was right with the world.

I don't know why it hiccupped, but cleaning the contacts never hurts. Contact failure can result in all kinds of symptoms, depending on the electronics in question. For instance, a graphics card in poor contact with the motherboard might not allow the computer to POST, or it might behave oddly and cause visual artifacts. Poor battery contact can cause a device to stop working altogether.

To ensure good electrical contact, never touch the (usually gold) contact plates or pins on anything, ever. And don't get anything on them. This includes memory modules, batteries, and, yes, Memory Stick Duos

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