A step by step guide to preventing the need for laptop repair

So you’re here to learn about laptop repair. Now it may be a cliché, but understanding a device or a subject, or even a person, can prevent all manner of complications. This very same principle holds through for laptops as well. If you understand how your laptop works, even to a reasonable extent, you can prevent all manner of issues and problems with it, and even repair it occasionally when the need arises.

This article is all about how you can care for your laptop. It will give you insight into the basics of laptop safety, and will be the first step to helping you to repair your laptop should the need arise. Before we go any further, I’d just like to say here that if you would like to learn more about the basics, and indeed, about the advanced techniques of laptop repair, you should seriously consider buying one of the excellent books available online on the market.

And now let’s go on to the basics of preventing the need for repairing your laptop. A lot of people run to their local technician when they notice a slump in the performance of their laptop. They may notice that their laptop takes longer to start up, or to start certain programs, or generally gives a lower level of performance than it used to when they first bought it. However, the simple fact is that performance issues are among the easiest to resolve in any laptop, or indeed, in any computer. Performance issues are caused by a small number of problems, and when you understand the problems that can occur and their causes, you can deal with performance issues fairly easily.

One of the things that cause performance issues in laptops is a registry that is too full. The registry is an area in your hard drive that carries operating data for the different programs that you use. Over time this registry can become full of data, including data from now defunct programs that you no longer use. This is because Windows, like a careful housewife, never throws anything away, and this flaw can actually cause serious performance issues. Often enough, simply reinstalling Windows on your computer can resolve this issue.

Another cause of performance problems is not defragmenting your drive. We won’t go to details here, but you should run disk defragmenter regularly on your drives to optimize performance. A third thing that can degrade performance is storing all your files on the desktop. Since Windows always loads the desktop at startup, this can cause serious issues with performance, and this is something you should know when you think of laptop repair.

Usual issues that owners encounter when they attempt laptop repair

While there are all sorts of laptop repair issues that the owner of a laptop might encounter, there are also preventive strategies that a laptop owner can use to prevent damage to the laptop in the first place. One of the most common issues that the owner of a laptop encounters is overheating.

While desktop PCs have their own share of problems with cooling, in the case of laptops these problems are only accentuated by how compactly the various components of the laptop are fitted together. Often enough, a careless owner will use a laptop while sitting on a bed or on a similar soft surface, that not only provides insulation, but which also has a tendency to seal the cooling vents of the device.

This is a practice that is little short of disastrous, and it can result in permanent damage to your laptop, and even in a fire hazard. It’s absolutely true – fires have been caused by laptop owners who carelessly left their laptops on a bed in such a way that the cooling vents were sealed shut, causing the device to overheat to such an extent that it set fire to the bedclothes and blankets.  This is just the sort of thing that can result in you paying massive laptop repair charges, if the laptop is even repairable at that point.

As you can see, carelessness with a laptop can be very expensive indeed. A laptop is a delicate mechanism, and knowing how to use it is absolutely crucial. Careless use of your laptop can result in the complete destruction of the device, or at least in you having to pay hundreds of dollars in laptop repair charges.

Another common issue with laptops is connected with the power supply. PCs never have any issues with power except in the rare case where main power actually goes down. However a laptop, which commonly runs on battery power, can develop issues related to the life of the battery. Generally speaking, issues with battery life are all linked to the fact that a laptop can only be charged and used a certain number of times before its battery becomes unusable. Therefore it follows that one principle of preserving battery life is simply to depend upon the battery as little as possible.

The simple fact is that you will extend the life of your battery considerably if you run the laptop off AC power as much as possible. The more you use the laptop off AC power, the less you will charge and recharge your battery, and the longer it will last. Maintaining your device well is really the first principle of laptop repair.

Some things you must know if you want to go in for laptop repair

Knowing about laptop repair is important. There are a good many advantages and disadvantages to using a laptop. The advantages are easy enough to enumerate. Laptops offer supreme mobility and a compact size that a desktop cannot match. On the other hand a laptop is much harder to upgrade, if it is not downright impossible to do so.

However, there are other disadvantages to a laptop as well. For one thing, the very compactness and miniaturization of a laptop makes it difficult, if not impossible to repair, at least by a user. The user who carelessly opens his laptop without knowing much about it might well be left with stray screws that he has no place for when he tries to put it back together again.

My point is that you should not attempt laptop repair without some basic idea of what you’re doing. On the other hand, it’s not hard to acquire some basic knowledge of laptop repair that will serve you in good stead. There are lots of tutorials and some very good books available on the internet that can give you a basic working knowledge of laptop repair.

Watching some of these tutorials or reading some of these books could well be considered a long term investment, because it will give you a knowledge base that you will be able to draw on for years to come, and which will save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in the long run.

You mustn’t think that just because all the components of a laptop are integrated into such a compact mass, that it is impossible to repair. This is not so, and laptops are actually not much harder to maintain or repair than a desktop PC. It’s just a question of knowing what you’re doing. Knowledge, in this case, as in so many others, is power.

If you know what you’re doing, you can solve most issues that arise with a laptop quite easily. You might require some specialized tools to repair your laptop properly, but acquiring these tools can really be considered a long term investment too, because you will continue to use them for years. Purchasing a good book on laptop repair, and the tools you need are together an investment that will last you a lifetime.

Of course it takes a little effort to begin with, but that’s something that you will never regret because it will potentially save you hundreds of dollars in laptop repair fees.

The core philosophy of laptop repair

More and more people these days are interested in learning about laptop repair. This is not nearly ideal curiosity, but rather, merely recognition of the fact that the price of repairing a laptop is spiraling out of control. What with technician’s charges and the cost of parts, a person interested in repairing a laptop is left with the kind of bill that no one in their senses is really interested in paying.

That’s why we’ve seen a definite interest in laptop repair arise in recent years. Motivated by an unacceptable rise in prices, people all over America are turning to do it yourself books, kits and training courses that specialize in laptop repair, and their attitude makes perfect sense. After all, why should a person pay an exorbitant fee to an over-rated technician to do a simple job, when with a little training and information, they can just do the job themselves and save themselves a lot of money.

With people themselves adopting this attitude, it’s no wonder that the amount of courses out there have proliferated, and choosing between them can sometimes be a bit difficult. The key to choosing the right training course for you, is to select one that is recommended by a source you trust. Additionally, you can do some research about a course you are considering online, and see what other people are saying about it. If the reviews you find are generally good, you know that the course will be worth your while.

The first principle of laptop repair is, strangely enough, to check whether your laptop needs repair in the first place. A lack of performance, for example, can often be caused by too many background programs loading when your system boots. There are a good many programs on the market that can help you control what programs load at startup. As before, before buying any of these programs, you should do a search on the net to what people are saying about them. If the reviews are good, one of these programs might be worth investing in. As you can see, a good many issues with your laptop can be handled without any technical assistance at all, and indeed by merely using the right software. It is far better to learn to handle such laptop repair yourself, because it can obviously save you a great deal of money in the years to come.

The basics of laptop repair- installing and configuring a hard drive

When your hard drive crashes you are faced with a number of laptop repair choices. The first thing you have to ascertain is whether the crash is due to a physical malfunction or due to a simple corruption of the hard disk.

If the malfunction is due to a simple corruption, you should have few issues in getting the drive up and running again. The first step in such a case is to recover your data. You should this before anything else, because many of the methods used to recover your drive might destroy your data. There are lots of recovery software on the market today that can recover the data from even a corrupted hard drive.

You will need to slave your hard drive on to a friend’s computer and install the recovery software onto his computer. Then you can simply recover your data. Once your data is recovered, we can concentrate upon restoring the functionality of your hard drive itself. The first thing to try if your hard drive is corrupted without physical damage is a simple format of the drive. In many cases, the format will restore the drive, and will allow you to reinstall the operating system and copy your data back onto the drive. If this doesn’t work there are good many tools on the market that can help correct these more serious issues.

However, if none of this works you must assume that your drive is not possible to recover. You are now faced with the choice of taking the drive to a laptop repair center, or of replacing the drive all together. Many people would opt for a combination of these two options. That is to say they would take the drive to a service center, and if the technician assured them that the drive was irrecoverable, they would then choose to replace the drive altogether, but to do the installation themselves.

If you decide to replace your drive you should be aware that it’s perfectly possible for you to carry out the replacement yourself. First of all, of course, you need to acquire a new drive that is compatible with your laptop. Now consult the user manual or service manual for your computer, which is easily available from most manufacturers’ websites. Following the instruction carefully, remove the old drive from your computer and put the new one in its place. Remember to be especially careful when disconnecting the main connector of the drive. After the drive is installed you will need to configure the wires to accept it, and then to reinstall your operating system. As you can see, laptop repair for a failed hard drive is not that hard to handle.

Just how easy is laptop repair?

I notice that a lot of people go in for professional laptop repair when it’s absolutely not necessary to do so. I can understand taking a laptop in for repair if it has a serious problem, such as, for example, a crashed hard drive that you need to recover crucial data from. But even in this case, so long as there isn’t actual physical damage to the hard drive, you’d be surprised at how easy it is to recover the lost data yourself.

There are all sorts of easy to use and highly efficient data recovery software available today. These software can help you to recover data from a formatted or corrupted hard drive, or even data that has been deleted by mistake. I personally know of people who have recovered the entire contents of their hard drives using these software, after the contents of their hard drive were maliciously deleted by an acquaintance. Imagine the surprise of the person who deleted their drives when the owner recovered his data and was back to work on his computer within an hour.

All this just points to the kind of tools that are available to the average user today. The recovery software that I am talking about, for example, is so easy to use that just about any computer user could use it. There are all sorts of similar tools available to users, and even the hardware today has been made so modular that the replacement of individual parts is completely effortless. Under such circumstances, paying a computer tech a small fortune to do a simple job that you can do yourself makes absolutely no sense.

The best thing that you can do is to learn the simple basics of laptop repair and to then repair your laptop yourself whenever possible. You’d be surprised at just how often it really is possible to repair your laptop yourself. The number of cases in which you actually need the services of a highly qualified technician to repair your laptop is negligible. And under such circumstances the amount of money that you can save is enormous.

When people come to me for advice about repairing their laptops, I always tell them to just buy a good book on laptop repair online. Most laptops today are manufactured in China and this means that most of them basically operate upon the same principles. This means that one good book on laptop repair can tell you everything you need to know about how to repair any modern laptop.

Which is best for laptop repair - do it yourself or a professional service?

If your laptop has recently suffered a catastrophic failure, or even if it just has something minor wrong with it, you are left with the question of whether to repair the fault yourself or take it in to a laptop repair specialist. Many people might think that there is no choice here, and that only a repair specialist is capable repairing a faulty laptop, but as it turns out, that’s not quite true, because just about anyone with some reasonable technical skills can repair a laptop.

This becomes especially attractive considering the prices that professional repair agencies charge for their services these days. If you absolutely must choose a laptop repair agency, do a search online, and try to choose an agency that has been in business for some time. Do a google search of the agency’s name, and see what people are saying about them. The internet is a great resource these days, and when people have a bad experience, the first thing they tend to do is to go and post about it on the net, so the internet is a wonderful place to find out about the competence (or otherwise) of an agency that you are thinking of dealing with.

But often enough, where laptop repair is concerned, it’s not even necessary to go to any agency. Most laptop repair tasks are simplified by the fact that all computers today, including laptops, are made to an extremely modular design that facilitates easy repair. There is absolutely no need to pay a repair agency to do a job that you can essentially do yourself.

Choosing between do it yourself repair and a repair agency is easy. Simple jobs like replacing a keyboard, LCD screen or hard disk, can easily be done by a person working at home, and without much specialized equipment. A set of special, miniaturized screwdrivers is about all that you would need.

However, if your laptop has suffered a catastrophic failure you may need to send it to a repair specialist. If the laptop has fallen on the ground or has had liquid spilled on it, or if you need to recover data from a physically damaged hard drive, a repair station is really your best bet. Even if you go in for professional laptop repair, remember to first do some research on the net, and to get quotes for the particular job you have in hand from different repair agencies.

Tools you might need for laptop repair

You’d be amazed how many people hesitate before trying their hands at laptop repair. If you’re a person who isn’t intimidated by computers, and if you own a desktop PC, the chances are that you don’t hesitate to put your own hands to the job when something goes wrong with your PC. On the other hand, if you own a laptop and something goes wrong with it, the chances are that you’ll turn it over to a technician, even if you happen to be reasonably competent technically.

Now I don’t know the reason for this mystique that seems to surround laptops, but a great many users who are otherwise technically competent seem to have a singular hesitation when it comes to laptop repair. The simple fact is that if you are reasonably competent at do it yourself jobs, you should not hesitate to repair your laptop. Laptops these days are built according to very modular principles, and often enough repairing them means no more than removing one faulty part and replacing it with a new one, a job that a child might conceivably be able to do. With the proper guidance, there is absolutely no reason why you should not be able to repair your laptop.

You can start with simple things like replacing your laptop’s keyboard when it becomes worn out, or replacing your laptop’s LCD if it happens to crack. These are fairly simple jobs that just involve replacing a modular part. Replacing a laptop’s hard drive also falls into this category. However, once you are more experience you could conceivably handle more difficult jobs as well. Learning to repair laptops can save you a good deal of money, as many service centers charge a good deal for laptop repair.

Many service centers have a considerable charge just to look at your laptop, with no guarantees as to whether it can actually be repaired or not. Under such circumstances, learning even the basics of laptop repair can save you a good deal of money. It’s even possible that if you become good enough at laptop repair you might even be able to earn through it. Most laptop repair tasks are not difficult, and need little beyond a jeweler’s screw driver set.

However, as you become more advanced, you may find that you need more advanced tools as well. One of the mainstays of the advance repair specialist is the soldering iron, which allows you to bridge broken or disrupted circuits. There are a great many soldering irons on the market, but make sure you purchase one that’s meant for minute work, the kind that’s most useful in laptop repair.

The basics of laptop repair - dealing with sticky keys

Most people don’t think about laptop repair until they actually began to suffer a malfunction. Perhaps you were typing at your laptop’s keyboard some night and suddenly noticed that the keys on your keyboard began to stick, resulting in lines of characters appearing in the middle of your text. If this has happened to you, there’s no need to worry about it. Replacing a laptop’s keyboard may not be as easy as replacing a desktop PC’s keyboard, but it’s not that difficult either.

You may not have known of this before (or perhaps you did), but most of the electronics goods on the market today are all made in China. This means that no matter what company claims credit for your keyboard, it still means that it was made according to the same manufacturing norms. This means that all keyboards use more or less the same principles, and therefore are all relatively easy to replace.

The first step in laptop repair is to turn off the power. I know it seems rather silly to mention this, but, on the other hand you’d be surprised at how many people try to repair their laptops without powering down the devices first. So make sure you not only switch off your laptop, but also unplug the AC power cable as well.
Another thing it would be nice to have would be the user manual for your laptop. User manuals are not something that manufacturers keep secret, and it is possible to download most service and repair manuals right off the manufacturer’s website.

Since, as I said earlier, most of the keyboards are made in China, just about any user manual can help you with repairing your laptop. Of course it’s best to find the manual that deals with your particular brand of keyboard, but if you can’t, just about any manual for a current make of keyboard will do.

Now you need a replacement. Ebay is a great place to buy a replacement for your keyboard. You’re your replacement arrives, all you have to do is fit it to your laptop. There’s a panel underneath your laptop dedicated to the keyboard. This is the panel you have to remove. You’ll find a trim piece situated in between the keyboard and the screen, you’ll need to remove this very carefully. Be careful not to damage the clear plastic. After this carefully disconnect the keyboard and replace it with the new one. That’s all it takes to replace a laptop’s keyboard, and most laptop repair jobs are just as easy.

Repairing your laptop with your own hands – a basic guide

In this age of modular computers, laptop repair is easy-at least if you know exactly what you’re doing. Many of the components of a laptop, including even the motherboard and RAM, and even the hard drive, are completely modular and can simply be detached and lifted out of the laptop. This makes laptop repair a very simple job, just so long as you make sure that you understand the manual. Another thing that you should do when repairing your laptop is to carefully make notes about where each thing goes as you dismantle the device. It’s better to be safe than sorry, and it is impossible for anyone who is not a qualified technician to remember where all the intricate parts, screws and components that make up the average laptop go.

If the connector within the laptop uses specific settings, you need to make careful notes of those settings as well. A set of precision tools, such as jewelers or watchmakers use, can also only be helpful. Remember that most parts that fail within a laptop require a simple replacement, and if you can manage to do this yourself instead of hauling the laptop over to a professional, you can save yourself a considerable amount of money in technician’s fees.

It’s specially recommended that you go in for this considering what I already described of the essentially modular nature of laptop components. Why should you pay a technician to do a job that essentially consists of no more than simply undoing one or two and catches, and lifting out one component and replacing it with another. This is essentially what much of laptop repair today consists of.

Let’s discuss in brief different aspects of laptop repair that a user should commonly be capable of. One thing that can cause problems with booting your system is a faulty RAM chip. This is easy to handle, and usually just involves replacing the RAM.

There is a panel underneath the laptop that gives access to the RAM, and you will need to unscrew this panel. Beneath, you will find the RAM, held in place by two clips. Release these clips, and the RAM will come up in your hands, after which replacing it is a simple enough matter. Replacing your hard drive or optical drive is a similarly simple process. Consult your user manual for details and remember what I’ve said about taking careful notes when you try your hand at laptop repair and disassembly.

How knowing the right laptop repair tricks can help you to optimize your computer

So what’s the secret behind successful laptop repair? One thing that’s absolutely true about most PC users is that they tend to acquire a degree of competence with their PC that is directly proportional to the number of years that they use the device. Most PC users who have used a PC for some years are perfectly capable of handling most of the minor issues that arise with the PC.

They would never think of calling in a technician to handle some minor problem that they can easily handle themselves. Sadly enough, this level of competence is not seen to extend to laptop users. Even a person who has used a laptop for some years will hesitate over trying to repair some minor problem such as a crashed hard drive himself. But there is really no need for this hesitancy, since both laptop and PCs work on essentially the same principles.

One of the simplest issues that can arise with a laptop is a simple degradation of performance, and this is something that absolutely does not require professional laptop repair. If this happens to your laptop, the chances are that your operating system’s registry is too full. The registry of your operating system is a place where every program that you install on your computer makes an entry. These entries remain even after you uninstall the programs, and, as your operating system tends to load all these entries into memory at startup, useless entries for programs you have already uninstalled can serious degrade performance.

There are many ways to handle this issue. There are, for example many registry cleaners and programs for optimizing your system on the market today. But preferable to any of these is a simple reinstall of your operating system. There is no need to format your hard drive when you reinstall your operating system. A simple reinstall without formatting your drive is quite adequate to clean your registry.

Another issue that can arise with a laptop is a virus infection. Like an overloaded registry, a virus infection is best handled by a simple re-install of the operating system. Yes, there are many good anti-viruses on the market today, but most antivirus software is better used in a preventive capacity, that is, you use it to prevent your system from acquiring a virus in the first place. If your system has already acquired a virus, your best course of action is to simply reinstall the operating system, and then to reinstall your antivirus software and update it before you install any other program. As you can see, laptop repair can sometimes be a matter of software, rather than hardware.

How to go about laptop repair when your laptop experiences a disastrous failure

You’d be surprised at how many people are intimidated at the thought of do-it-yourself laptop repair. They tend to assume that a laptop is far more complex to repair than a desktop PC. But actually, this is not necessary true. Laptops today are produced on the same modular line as desktop PCs are, which means that while there are some problems with your laptop that would indeed be difficult to fix, most other problems are actually very easy to handle.

For example, liquid spilled into a laptop results in multiple short circuits and system failures, and this is not easy to fix. On the other hand, something like a crashed hard drive or a keyboard or LCD screen replacement takes little or no specialized skill. The key to making laptop repair economical is to handle those elements of laptop repair that require little technical skill yourself, and to leave the more serious issues to the experts.

Just what you would do, in fact, with a desktop PC.
So just what level of technical skill does it take to replace your laptop’s hard drive? Almost none. All you have to do is to open your laptop, unplug the faulty component from its connectors, and then close the laptop again. It is really so simple a job that a ten year old child could probably do it after having seen someone do it once. However, there are some things that can make the task of repairing your laptop a little easier, and one of these things is having the right tools to hand.

Having some jeweler’s screwdrivers can be extremely useful because such a tool allows you to maneuver easily in the compact confines of a laptop. These screwdrivers are generally a good deal smaller than normal screwdrivers, and this makes it much simpler for you to reach those tiny and difficult to reach screws within your laptop.
Sufficient lighting is also a key to the successful repair of your laptop, so make sure you have a small and easily maneuverable lamp to hand that will provide you with illumination at any angle that you might require. Try to arrange a work area that allows you sufficient room in which to work, and which is also free of static electricity. This last point is especially important as static electricity can severely damage some of the components of a laptop. Acquire these tools, and never pay a laptop repair technician to do some simple job like replacing your laptop’s battery ever again.

Things that can make laptop repair a necessity

So what exactly does make laptop repair a necessity? While a laptop is built to fairly sturdy specifications, there are still so many things that can go wrong with it. This is because the level of miniaturization involved is so major that when something does go wrong, it is not as easy to fix as in a desktop PC. Most users of desktop PCs are reasonably competent at repairing their computers if something happens to go wrong. This is because computers these days are so modular that fixing them is relatively easy.

When laptops first came out this level of modularity was not at first evident. Another thing about laptops is that even though they are just as modular as desktops today, they are still so miniaturized, that issues with them tend to be more serious. For example, if you were to spill a cup of coffee on the keyboard of your desktop PC, you would hardly be overly concerned. The most that could happen in such a case would be that you would have to replace your keyboard.
On the other hand, if you were to do the same thing to your laptop, the worst that would happen in this case would be you having to replace your laptop, or spend a fortune on laptop repair. You notice that the mishap is far more serious in the case of the laptop. The same thing applies if you happen to drop your laptop. A person will rarely, if ever, drop their desktop’s cabinet. The most that might happen is that they might drop their keyboard, and if they were to do so, it is highly unlikely that any damage would occur. On the other hand, if you were to drop your laptop, the chances are that it would possibly never work again.

The moral of the story here is that laptops are delicate, sensitive things that must be treated right if you want them to last for any reasonable length of time. If you were to really drop your laptop, or even soak it with a cup of coffee, and if it were to stop functioning, the chances are that you don’t have the skills to repair it, and the best thing that you could do in such a case would be to take your laptop to the nearest dealer or laptop repair specialist.
On the other hand, some issues with your laptop, such as a non-functional hard drive, can easily be repaired by anyone with some basic technical skill, and doing so can save you a reasonable amount of money at laptop repair.

Do it yourself laptop repair techniques for changing the hard drive of your laptop

Many people look at a laptop as a confusing device, and indeed are rather intimidated by the thought of any do-it-yourself laptop repair. But in reality a laptop is only slightly more complex than a desktop computer, and in many cases, it can be just an easy to repair. If you need to replace the hard drive on your laptop, for example, there is no need to pay a technician a premium to do it for you.

It is quite possible for a reasonably technically competent person to repair a laptop himself or herself. Generally speaking, if you wouldn’t hesitate to repair your desktop PC, you shouldn’t hesitate to repair your laptop either. When laptops first came out there was a certain tendency among laptop manufacturers to build a mystique around their products. If something went wrong with a laptop, such as, for example, a hard drive needing replacement, the customer was encouraged to turn the laptop over to a professional repair specialist, or to ship the laptop directly to the company.

These professional repair specialists would usually charge a small fortune for repairing the device. If the device was within the warranty period, the company would replace the drive for free, but often enough the user would be unable to use their machine for quite some time in any case. However, attitudes have changed, both on the part of big companies, as well as of users.

The manufacturers have simplified the components of the laptops so that laptop repair is now fairly easy, and users, on the other hand, also seem to be less intimidated at the thought of repairing a laptop on their own.
The size of most laptop drives is standardized, most of them being no more than two and a half inches thick. There are some ultra portable drives that are a little slimmer than this, but by and large the two and a half inch drives are the industry standard for laptops today. Remember to only buy a laptop drive that is compatible with your laptop drive controller. Laptop designs for SATA drives will have a slot controller, while certain laptops have a special connector that is unique to them.

Now, you should disconnect the power from your laptop and place it face down on a table. There will usually be a panel at the back or on the side that will give you access to the drive itself. This panel will be held in place by either a cache or by screws. Release the cache or the screws, and remove the panel, and then replace the hard drive according to the manufacturer’s instructions. And pay nothing to the laptop repair professional.

Laptop repair: The secrets of how to replace your laptop battery revealed

Before we go into details of laptop repair, and of how to replace your laptop’s battery, we should first probably discuss what would be the optimal time to replace it in the first place. Now, a good many things can act to shorten the life of a battery. The environment, humidity, or even the simple action of time, are all factors that demand consideration, and any or all of these things can reduce the life of your battery.

One thing you need to know is that any laptop battery can only be charged a certain number of times. The number of times a laptop battery has been charged affects its usefulness far more than almost any other factor. You can effectively lengthen the life of your laptop’s battery by running it off main power whenever this is possible. Otherwise, your laptop’s battery can be charged around five hundred times before it starts losing effectiveness.

Another thing that affects battery life is the kind of laptop you have, and what sort of power drain your laptop places upon the battery. A laptop that places a severe strain upon a battery’s resources will considerably shorten the life of the battery. A normal battery, with a reasonable drain upon it, should last you anything from between one and a half to two years. Ultimately your battery will be able to maintain the computer for shorter and shorter periods, and when this happens it is obviously time to change the battery.

The first thing you need to do when you attempt laptop repair of this sort, is to check what sort of battery your computer uses and to purchase a replacement that is compatible. Now, obviously, the first step is to power down your laptop. Once your laptop is powered down, also ensure that the AC power connection is disconnected. If you use an internet connection with your laptop, as most of us do, you would be well advised to disconnect it before you start to replace your battery. The battery will usually be held in place by a simple cache. Release this cache to slide the battery out of its compartment.

Be careful never to touch the contact points of any laptop battery with your bare fingers. Doing so can seriously reduce the efficiency of a battery. Now remove the new battery from its box and slide it into the battery compartment, making sure that the cache snaps back into place. That’s all it takes to replace a laptop’s battery. It’s a simple enough job that you absolutely must not pay a laptop repair technician to do it.

Changing your hard drive and other aspects of laptop repair

The very term laptop repair seems to make many people hesitate. The average person seems to think that laptops are the holy grail of computing, and thus must not be repaired by hands unsanctified by a technician’s professional course. But the simple fact of the matter is that in most cases of laptop repair, the technician’s professional course is just a device to help him take money from you. Most laptops today are extremely modular and rather elementary to repair, and to pay a technician to repair them in most cases is a blatant waste of money that can be better spent in taking your girlfriend out to dinner (just an example). Don’t give the technician money that can be better spent on the people you love. Instead, enhance your girlfriend’s (or wife’s) devotion to yourself by learning the arcane secrets of laptop repair.

But jokes aside, much of laptop repair is really quite elementary, and it’s a waste of money to pay someone else to do something that you can just as easily do yourself in a few moments. A corrupted hard drive, for example, can make your system non-functional. If there isn’t physical damage to the hard drive itself, formatting the drive will usually correct this problem. On the other hand, if physical damage is an issue, then replacing the drive may be your only option. None of this requires a technician. On the other hand, if you have critical data on the hard drive that you absolutely must recover, than it is best to turn the drive over to a technical specialist.

A hard drive is usually easy enough to replace. It is usually situated under the keyboards of most laptops. All you have to do is to remove the requisite screws and the keyboard will come up on its carriage. After this, replacing the hard drive is fairly elementary. Carefully unplug it from the connector making sure not to damage any of the pins. Once the hard drive come off you could test it if a friend is willing to lend you his laptop for this purpose, or if you happen to own a second laptop.

If the hard drive tests out on the second laptop the problem is more technical, and probably requires specialized expertise, and you should take the laptop down to your nearest service center. If the hard drive does not work on the second laptop, a simple replacement is all that is needed. Just buy a new hard drive, making sure that it is both compatible, and that it will fit inside your laptop, and put it in place of the spoiled drive. Where replacing a hard drive is concerned, laptop repair isn’t difficult at all.

How to choose between the laptop repair services available to you

If you have a laptop that has some issues you might well be confused about which laptop repair service you should go in for. Laptop services range from the inexpensive to the truly exorbitant, and you may wonder whether it is quite safe to choose a cheaper service over a more expensive one.

The answer to that question is that services differ. Not all cheap services are necessarily run by incompetents, and not all expensive services will necessarily be worth your while. Remember that many companies, including the laptop companies themselves, often charge more than they should for laptop parts and laptop repair services.

But this makes searching for a good laptop repair facility all the more confusing. The first step to understanding which laptop repair facility will work best for you is to understand your laptop itself. When you understand how your laptop works, you also will understand to a reasonable extent what it might take to repair it, and this knowledge will give you the ability to perceive whether the charges being applied for the repair of your laptop in a particular instance are reasonable or not.

As with everything else on the planet, knowledge is the key to power here as well. Understand the problem you have with your laptop thoroughly, and the chances are much lower that anyone will be able to ‘put one over you’ when it comes to repairing it. You might even find if you learn enough, that you become able to handle the most basic areas of laptop repair yourself. For example, some simple jobs like replacing the LCD screen or the keyboard of your laptop could certainly be done by even a person with a very basic knowledge of the inner workings on a laptop.

Why pay anyone to simply replace the screen of your laptop when you can just as easily do it yourself? The internet is a great place to learn new skills, and this applies to laptop repair as much as to anything else. You should be able to download detailed illustrated tutorials on different subjects of this nature, for example, on repairing or replacing your laptops LCD screen, or on replacing your keyboard. Go for an illustrated tutorial on laptop repair, if it is at all possible, or, even better, check out youtube videos, which are both highly detailed, and which have the advantage of providing you with step by step instructions on laptop repair.

Having the right tool on hand can make laptop repair very much easier

Laptops are becoming increasingly common in today’s world, and with that comes a need for more laptop repair services. Whereas even a decade ago, a laptop was a relatively rare thing, these days every university student has one. However, this doesn’t change the fact that laptops are still more expensive than a desktop to maintain or repair. That’s why a lot of people with basic technical skills choose to repair their laptops themselves. This isn’t hard to do if you have some knowledge of what you’re doing, and, of course, if you have the right tools to go about repairing your laptop with.

However,  you need to be very careful, because the average laptop is considerably more complex than your average desktop PC in terms of miniaturization, and consequently, in how difficult a repair job can become. You mustn’t think that just because you’ve repaired desktop PCs in the past, that you are necessarily qualified to repair or disassemble a laptop.

If you’ve never tried your hand at laptop repair before I’d advise you to take a good look at the schematic diagrams of the model that you’re using. These are sometimes included with the manual. If they are not, you can often find a good many schematics online. Read the schematics and see whether they make any kind of sense to you. If they don’t, you would be well advised to leave the repair of your laptop to the professionals. On the other hand, if you can understand what the schematics say, there is a good chance that you will be able to conduct various kinds of repair that your laptop may require from time to time.

Now, there are many tools on the market that claim to be able to resolve software issues and problems. My advice would be to leave most of them alone. All you really need to protect your laptop is s good antivirus, like AVG, for example. If you have performance issues in the long run, any computer expert will tell you that a simple reinstall of your operating system is likely to solve them far more quickly and reliably than most of the software available on the market. Where hardware repair is concerned, remember that repairing your laptop will involve dealing with highly miniaturized systems that requires tools that are actually capable of working on that scale. These tools include special grippers and extensions, as well as a soldering iron and soldering wire, which can all be invaluable in laptop repair if you know what you’re doing.

Maintaining your laptop’s keyboard, and other aspects of laptop repair

Some aspects of laptop repair can be very simple. Maintenance of your laptop’s keyboard often includes simply being able to stick back keys that come loose from it. This, by itself is not very hard to do. However, this is only the most basic level of laptop maintenance. What do you do when something goes wrong with your laptop’s keyboard in a more serious manner? In an HP laptop, for example, you may want to replace your keyboard if it loses too much functionality.

Laptop repair of this sort isn’t at all a complex process. The first step, obviously, is to turn off the power to your laptop. Now, turn the laptop over, release the battery, and remove the battery from the laptop. Most batteries have a simple clip release, but some batteries actually have screws holding them in place. If this is the system on your laptop, simply unscrew these screws, and you’re good to go. By doing this you will expose that portion of the inside of your laptop that contains the RAM. This section will usually has a cover over it, which might have two or more screws to hold it in position. Simply remove these screws and lift off the cover.

Now remove the other screws that hold your keyboard in place. When all the retaining screws of the keyboard have been released, use a flat screw driver to lift the keyboard out of the laptop. Remember not to pull it completely out of the laptop. There is a very short cable connecting the keyboard to the laptop and if you pull it out all the way, this cable might be badly damaged. Underneath the keyboard, you will find a connector. You’ll need to release this connector to release the cable. Once the cable is released, you can remove the keyboard completely.

After this point, replacing the keyboard is very easy. All you have to do is reverse the previous steps. Start by attaching the cable of the new keyboard to the connector. Then slowly put the new keyboard into position and gently slide it into place. After this, reattach the retaining screws behind the keyboard. Replace the different components in the same order in which you removed them, ending by placing the battery back in position. That’s all that it takes to replace a keyboard. As you can see, it’s a job that anyone with a basic level of technical skill can do. If you can do a job like this yourself, you can save yourself a great deal of money on laptop repair.

A simple do it yourself guide to laptop repair

Just what is it that makes laptop repair today easier than it used to be? One nice thing about most computers today is that just about every component within them, from the hardware to the software, is modular. Most parts can easily be replaced, and this with the very minimum of skill. This system is a big advantage to most computer users, because it means that computer repair has been made very much simpler than it otherwise would be.

In nine cases out of ten, computer repair merely involves locating which part of the computer is malfunctioning, and then replacing that part. In most cases, this is an elementary procedure. It’s just the same with the software. In most cases, malfunctioning software, or even a virus, merely calls for reinstalling the operating system to solve the problem, an operation so simple that even a child can accomplish it. My point is that computer and laptop repair have been greatly simplified, and repairing a laptop is no longer a task solely for professionals.

So long as you have some basic technical skills it is perfectly possible for you to repair your laptop on your own. Of course, the kind of problem that your laptop is experiencing must also influence your decision as to whether to repair the laptop yourself or hand it over to a professional. If you have a hard disk, for example that has suffered a disastrous failure, it would be foolish to fiddle with it yourself. In such a case, it will really be preferable to hand the device over to professionals who would at the very least recover your data.

When there is physical damage to the hard drive, there is absolutely nothing that you can do to repair it and the more that you play around with the damaged hard drive, the higher the level of damage escalates, and the less data that will be ultimately recoverable from it. Minor issues, however, such as replacing a component of the computer that might be malfunctioning, are perfectly within your capabilities. You need to be very careful, though, that you do not void your device’s warranty. If your device is within its warranty period, I would strongly advise you to leave the repair, no matter how simple it might be, to the manufacturer. If on the other hand, your laptop is past its warranty period, you may choose to repair it yourself. If the problem seems to be too complex for you to handle, try to find a laptop repair service in your area whose rates are reasonable.

Laptop repair: A do it yourself guide to replacing your laptop screen

It is a depressing fact of life, of course, but it is nevertheless true that laptop repair costs very much more than servicing or repairing a desktop computer would. Why this is so is not always clear. It is true, of course that laptop components cost more than desktop components. Another thing that might be influencing price is the fact that laptops still seem to be considered part of the upper income or luxury niche.

When your laptop’s LCD cracks in half (and you’d be surprised that how often that happens), you might hear a technician tell you that it will cost you anything between a few hundred to even a thousand dollars to replace it. If you think this is highway robbery, it probably is. The good news, however, is that you don’t have to give in to it. It’s perfectly possible for you to replace your laptop’s screen on your own, with the help of some handy tips and a little basic guidance.

If you have dropped your laptop the first thing you need to do is not replace your screen, but to ensure that the rest of the laptop is actually working properly. Have a friend lend you his monitor, and connect the monitor to your laptop through the VGA port. Now boot up the laptop and see if it is working properly. If it boots up, all is well, and you only need to change the LCD. However, if your laptop has problems booting up, the chances are that is has been seriously damaged, and you should probably consider getting a qualified technician to look at it.

If you have dropped your laptop, and the screen did not crack, but now simply refuses to work, the chances are that the inverter is spoiled. The inverter is a tiny board that generally powers the lighting of your LCD. If you have even a basic level of technical skill you shouldn’t find this board any problem at all to replace, and since it usually cost less than a hundred dollars, replacing the inverter can save you a lot of the money you would otherwise pay for laptop repair.

Now, carefully remove the back panel of your LCD. Doing this will allow you to ascertain the part number of your LCD screen. Getting a replacement for it shouldn’t be a problem, but make sure you don’t go straight to the manufacturer. It is much better to source spare parts for laptop repair online, such as from ebay, for example.

Techniques that can help you to become proficient at laptop repair

It’s important to know something about laptop repair. Almost everyone who has ever owned a laptop has had a problem with it at some time or another. These problems can range from something as simple as a damaged LCD to something as complicated as a laptop that has suffered the results of a serious power surge, or one that has had liquid dropped on it. The important point with laptop repair is to first of all understand the level of laptop repair of which you are capable.

 If you only know the basics, and suffer a disastrous systems failure, you should have the sense to leave it to the experts. However minor repairs of your laptop can certainly be done by you personally. One important aspect of laptop repair is what I call ‘preventive medicine.’ Keep your laptop safe so that it does not come to harm. When you’re not actively using it, you should pack it away carefully in its case. There are heavy-duty cases available for laptops that can protect them from all but the most serious accidents, and you should seriously consider investing in one of these.

Remember that preventing an accident from happening to your laptop is far preferable to repairing it thoroughly after the fact. Another aspect of this sort of ‘preventive medicine’ is buying a good screen protector for your laptop’s LCD screen. LCD screens tend to scratch easily, and this damage is often not reversible. Protecting your LCD with a good LCD screen protector is a major step towards preventing any issues from arising with it at a later date. After all, I’m sure you’ll agree that investing in an LCD protector is preferable to having to replace a badly scratched LCD very much sooner than you might otherwise have had to.

If you suddenly find your laptop running a lot slower than it used to, an overloaded registry may at the root of your problem. While there are a great many registry cleaners out there, what I would personally recommend if you’re having performance issues with your computer, is that you reinstall you laptop’s operating system. Windows, for example, often tends to overload the registry, and after a period of a few months or a few years, a registry that is overloaded in this way can certainly cause performance issues. Reinstalling the operating system is a simple task that almost anyone who has spent any time around computers can accomplish, and doing so will completely clean your system not only of an overloaded registry, but also of any viruses that may have infected it. These are some of the most basic principles of laptop repair and maintenance.

Some tips to help you with laptop repair

People are usually intimidated by the whole thought of laptop repair because a laptop is such a miniaturized and complex device. Even a person who is quite competent with desktop PCs is likely to become worried when something goes wrong with his or her laptop. But there is really no reason to worry at all because there are a lot of strategies that can help you to get your laptop working again in next to no time.

 If you intend to repair your laptop yourself, however, you need to be careful of static electricity. This can be a good deal more important than you might at first think, because static electricity can cause a good deal of damage to the insides of your computer. Now this might be a little obvious, but I’ll mention it anyway. Remember that it is important to backup all of your files before you attempt the repair of your laptop. Some important points to bear in mind if you’re thinking of repairing your laptop yourself are, firstly, to not disassemble it anymore than you need to.

Remember that a laptop is a complex device and you should not disassemble it unless you are confident that you can put it together again. The crucial point to remember here is never to disassemble any portion of your laptop without good reason. Remember that laptops are constructed so that much of laptop repair can actually be done without disassembly. Another adjunct to this is to remember to carefully store any part that you remove from your laptop during disassembly.

This insures that, should you run into any problems, an expert will be able to help you to put your laptop together again. Another issue which may seem very minor, but which is nonetheless crucial when opening your laptop is to keep track of the screws. Make sure you don’t lose any of them. Keep them in a safe place, and if possible store them in a way in which you will be able to remember which screw goes in which location.

Remember that a laptop can use screws of different sizes and it is essential for you to remember which screw goes where. You also need to remember, or preferably, note down details of the various connectors within your laptop. Remember that these details can also be found in your laptop’s manual. Despite the fact that this information is available in your manual, you should nevertheless take notes as you go about your laptop repair, as this can prevent issues and complications from arising later.

Why you should learn about laptop repair

People seem to think that laptop repair must necessarily be difficult. I can understand this attitude, because laptops are such complex devices, and so compact, that it’s quite natural to feel a little intimidated at the thought of trying to repair one of them oneself. However a wise man once said that much of fear is illusion, not reality, and this principle certainly applies to laptop repair.

Yes, laptop repair seems difficult, but this is only to a person who doesn’t know much about it. To a person with some knowledge of laptop repair, repairing a laptop can be easy, amusing and even fun. Yes laptop repair can become a hobby, or even a source of income for you. It’s just a question of acquiring the initial knowledge and everything else more or less falls into place beyond that point.

 As a matter of fact there’s almost nothing that can go wrong if you put your hands to repairing your laptop. This is because you have countless resources at your disposal. I would suggest that you commence your mastery of laptop repair with a good online training course. This will give you a solid, basic knowledge of laptop repair that will make all your subsequent efforts seem easy. If you ever find that knowledge falling a little short you can always bolster it by reading up on the internet, downloading tutorials, or watching you tube videos.

As I said, there are so many resources at your disposal that you absolutely cannot go wrong. One nice thing about taking a good course is that it will not only clue you in to the basic and advanced concepts of laptop repair but will also give you a clear idea of the tools you need to get the job done right. This is important because laptops have a lot of complex and extremely small parts and you might find working with your hands alone extremely clumsy and time consuming.

Besides, if you have the right tools, you also reduce your chances of making a serious error or mistake. With the right tools, the complex and intricate job of repairing a laptop becomes much easier. Some of these tools include various tools usually used by jewelers, such as very small and easy to manipulate screwdrivers. There are also some extension tools that allow you to reach difficult places, and which include grippers that allow you to hold extremely small objects. These can help make laptop repair easier.

All about Laptop repair

Knowing something about laptop repair can really be essential. When you own a laptop, and have used it for some time, it is always possible that something may go wrong with the device. As with any mechanical device, the chance of a failure occurring increases with the amount of time you use the device. In the case of a laptop the fault may not always even be mechanical. The software installed on your laptop could become corrupted, or your system could become infected with a virus.

Any or all of these things could cause a malfunction in your system. That’s when you need reliable people to turn to who specialize in laptop repair. Some of the reasons your laptop could be malfunctioning include actual damage to the LCD screen. LCD screens are delicate objects which can become damage if the laptop is dropped. In case on an accident the LCD can crack or even break into pieces. However this isn’t hard to repair. All that is required is a simple replacement of the LCD, and your system will function as well as ever.

This sort of simple replacement-repair hardly takes any time at all and you can have your laptop back to work on within twenty four hours or so. If your laptop is dropped, the case of the laptop itself can also become damage. This usually also involves a simple and easy replacement of the case itself. If the keys on your keyboard happen to be sticky they can usually easily be cleaned by a technician. Alternatively, you could probably even do it yourself. Be careful, though, that you don’t void the warranty by mistake. These are all minor issues.

A more serious problem can occur if you happen to empty a large container of liquid on your laptop, instead. This is admittedly a serious issue. If this happens you need to shut of the power at once, and take the laptop to your dealer or laptop repair specialist. It’s actually quite possible to repair a laptop even after an accident of this sort. And always remember that even if the laptop is not repairable it’s certainly possible that a qualified technician will be able to recover your crucial data from the device.

These are some of the issues that the average laptop owner may encounter. If you encounter any of these issues, remember that they are common enough problems, and usually easy to handle. Just contact your local dealer or laptop repair specialist and you have your laptop working perfectly again in no time at all.