I work in computers and quite often people come to me with computers to fix. You can understand why they do this due to the fact if they took it to a shop, they would be charged a good chunk of money. For some time now I have been told people “I do not fix computers” outside of work and for good reason, quite often people wanted to pay the lowest value for the most amount of work. Recently I took on a laptop to fix, a Compaq CQ61, maybe I felt sorry for the guy and maybe I thought it was an easy fix – how wrong I was.
Posts tagged laptop
Why not to fix Laptops at home
HP 6715B Laptop Slow Boot
I have an HP 6715B Laptop which is powered by the AMD Turion 64 X2, features the ATI’s Radeon Xpress X1250 and one of the great features of this 15.4 inch laptop is the fact the display runs at 1680 x 1050 which is equivalent to a 20″ display right. Now the Laptop is getting on a bit these days and HP laptops in my own experience tend to suffer badly with mainly the graphics failing. My Problem is that upon switching on the Laptop, the BIOS Screen with sit there for a good while, maybe 5 minutes or more? Once it got past that it booted and worked fine.
Locate your Dell Service Tag
If you work in a company that has a lot of Dell computers and you are tasked with going around to get all the details, this is easy enough for the desktop as this is located in an easy to get at place but Laptops in docking Stations are a real pain. I came across this Utility which will not only display the service tag and the Express code (needed when you call up dell support) but also a link to the drivers and the warranty pages.
Dell Latitude XT2
While hybrid laptop / Tablets PC’s are nothing new, they seem to have resurfaced with everyone wanting the portability of a Tablet PC but giving the full power of a normal laptop. Dell currently make the Latitude XT2 and while this is by no means the cheap option, it may be the very device you are looking for. Unlike the Apple iPad which runs iOS or the Samsung Tab which runs Android – this laptop is quite normal in that it runs whatever operating system you want to install on there such as Windows 7 or Linux for example.
Dell Inspiron 15 (N00N5321)
Recently a friend of mine finally decided to buy a new laptop after his 6 year old P4 model was not working out for him and asked my advice on what to buy. There is quite a few options open to people out there and some people might not recommend Dell for whatever reason. The handy thing with this person is I already knew what he was looking for in a new laptop and getting the thing to run faster and better would be done by myself.
Fixing computers for friends and family
I have worked in I.T. for most of my working life and basically people expect you to fix there computer for them – either for free or very cheap indeed. As well as fixing computers, we also have the on-demand computer expert when they are buying something, such as a Laptop or a Printer for example. It might start off with just the odd person but eventually you can be sitting with 3 Laptops to fix when in reality you should be doing something more productive. How does it build up and why are computers different from says cars for example?
Multi Boot with the IcyBox
If you recall, I bought myself the Icy Box External SATA holder and for most part I used this as a means to add extra drives as required (mostly 2.5″ models) for storing data. As this device operates with eSATA (as well as USB) – this means it can be as fast as a normal internal harddrive. I pondered on the thought of having various operating systems per drive and by selecting this on bootup – I can indeed boot into another OS without ditrubing my present system
Cutting Costs
Just the other day I sat there and questioned as to all the little gadgets I buy and of what use they were and was I in fact just wasting money blinded by flashing lights and whizzing noises as I walked around the stores? Why do I have so many computers lying around doing nothing for example, these been the previous main used machine but since moved into second place due to a newer model sitting in the main spot. How many times have you seen a device and thought “that would be great for …..”
Prey – Recover that Stolen computer
![el-otro-gran-condor-chileno[1]](http://www.liquidsilver.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/elotrograncondorchileno1.png "el-otro-gran-condor-chileno[1]")
Prey is a lightweight application that will help you track and find your laptop if it ever gets stolen. It works in all operating systems and not only is it Open Source but also completely free.
Guide to buying a Laptop
Your in the market for a new shiny laptop but are not 100% sure what you need to look for in the waves of models the local store are showing you. Why are some more expensive then others, why is there so much choice between even the same makes of laptop and how can you buy something that is going to last you a while? Read on to find out my own views on what to look for when buying a laptop.
