Laptop Hardware Breakdowns & Maintenance Tips

Laptop Cooling

Manufactures build laptops for company sales and profits, they do not build laptops for longevity. Manufactures market/advertise these laptops for what consumers are looking for, which is style, lightweight and the convenience of mobility. What I'm trying to say here is,, laptops or any computer should not be mobile, for they will not last very long. But that's ok, because the manufactures also understands once you purchase a laptop you'll become "hooked on" the convenience of, the "need" of, and the mobility laptops. They also price the hardware components much higher on laptops, because they make more money when you buy a new laptop. For that is there sales, and company objective as I see it.

95%of the computer repairs that come to PCTech are laptop repairs:

Cracked, damaged, broken laptop LCD screens: Just in the last 3 months, approx 40 laptops came to PCTech for repair estimates from customers within a 20 mile radius of Augusta GA. I run a Google Adwords campaign, within the same radius of my area shows a high amount 200++ per month on average for the following search queries: "laptop screen", "laptop screen repair", laptop lcd replacement", "cracked laptop screen"

Reasons: Manufacture defect in LCD lid design (thin & lightweight), accidental damage, laptop mobility. Some of these laptops lcd lids are so lightweight, they flex, twist, torque the screen a bit when closing the screen lid by the corner only, resulting in a cracked screen = "accidental damage from the manufacture, not covered under warranty.
Other frequent reasons I hear from customers are: "stepped on it,, "sat on", "dropped it", "tripped over power cord pulling it off the table"

Failed Hard Drives: Hard drives in laptops I find also have a very high rate of failure. Just in the last month 15 laptops hard drives replaced. Maybe over 100 in the the year from laptops. Maybe 5 desktop hard drives replaced in the last year.

Reasons: Mobility of laptops, heat - lack of proper cooling within the tight compartment of the laptop, accidental damaged caused by user, lack of proper use & maintenance by the user. Hard drives do not like excessive HEAT, and hard drives do not like to be bumped, or dropped around. Another strike against laptops.

Anyone who owns a laptop who does not backup there important data on a regular basis, your setting yourself up for a big mess. Hard drive failure can happen at any time. Data recovery is not cheap, and is not guaranteed especially by cheap methods. Your data, your "stuff", your work, your whole life on that hard drive can be lost. 1 in 20 clients that I ask, say they do backups. If the data that you have stored on your computer is "so important to you",, why don't you back it up? Any hard drive will fail at one time or another, but laptops hard drives fail much quicker than desktop systems.

Laptop Motherboard Failures: Also a very high rate of failure over desktop systems.

Reasons: Manufacture design, excessive heat due to lack of adequate cooling, lack of proper use & maintenance by the user. Use a laptop on your bed, couch or even on your laptop blocks the very small cooling vents off on the bottom of laptop, which generates more heat inside of the laptop. The #1 reason for computer hardware failure is heat, the internal hardware/electronics do not like heat,,, another strike against laptops in general.

Internal DC Power Jack Connector: The worst design, very common weak spot on Windows based laptops

Reasons: The internal DC Power Jack Connector is a very small, very important part on the laptop, break it, and your laptop is out of action once the battery runs out. Normal use, or accidental damaged caused by one to many hard tripped over power cords, a hard yank on the power cord will eventually loosen or break the power connection internally on laptops. Resulting intermittent battery charging, nom power at all by the power adaptor at all, and a "no power on", dead laptop. The DC Jack is repairable at approx $135, full laptop dis-asembly is required, if the DC Jack has damaged or shorted out the motherboard..... your basically in for a new laptop.
A GREAT investment for any laptop owner, after repairing MANY DC Jacks on laptops, is a small device, and a that I designed to protect this fragile DC Jack on laptops can be found here: Laptop DC Jack Protector Cord Lock

Tips To Help Maintain Prolong The Life Of Your Laptop:

Be gentle, very gentle with your laptop, the electronics and hardware inside are very sensitive and delicate.

Do not sit your laptop on the floor, or chair, or couch, for you are asking for trouble! Do not drop your laptop, do not step on, sit on, or put anything on on top of the laptop. The screen is very delicate!

When closing the laptop, close the screen lid by the middle of the lid OR by both corners. Grabbing it by one of the corners can flex, torque, twist the lid and LCD screen panel inside, breaking, cracking the screen.

Do not use your laptop on a your bed or couch. The material conforms around the laptop bottom suffocating the laptop from cooling properly.

Do not leave your laptop on overnight, remember it does not cool properly to begin with.

Purchase a USB cooling pad for your laptop. This elevates the laptop, and has a USB cooling fan which circulates cool air to the bottom of the laptop, it's heat source.

Run a disk cleaner, defragment the hard drive periodically and keep it virus free. A virus infected, fragment hard drive has to work much harder, more work means more heat that the hard drive generates.

Do not spill anything on or close by your laptop, this will create major problems also. If you do, turn your laptop upside down, you want to get that liquid away from the inside of the laptop, and DO NOT TURN IT BACK ON. Take it in for service to have the laptop checked.

And last but not least, for your own sanity, and piece of mind, that "so important data" that you were going to back up, that you just have not got around to backing up, that you thought will be there forever and ever on your laptop............................. BACK YOUR IMPORTANT DATA UP today, before you regret it!

Tips When Looking For A New Laptop, If you Must:

Look for a laptop that is built sturdy, has some weight, that might take a bump or drop better then others. Do not let the light weight style, theme, the name, or the "bells & whistles" that attract you to the laptop fool you!

If the laptops are on display, and turned on, lift the laptop up, and put your hand on the bottom of the laptop. Does it feel hot just sitting there on there counter at idle speed on the underside, with nothing intensive running? While you are under there, check the cooling vents on the bottom, are they large enough to properly cool down that laptop? Run your hand over the keyboard from left to right, do you feel heat thru the keyboard area.............. if you do move on, you are not interested in that laptop.

Grab the LCD lid, is it so thin does it flexes the screen? Slowly close it by one of the corners, does the lid flex or twist a bit? If it does, move on, your not interested in that laptop either. Last Christmas I was in Walmart here in town, they had 8 laptops turned on, and on display, they were also chain lock to the counter for security. 5 of the 8 laptops they had on the display counter, turned on had cracked screens,,, I don't think they fell off the counter, I think they cracked from customers moving or closing the lid.

And if you find the right laptop, and they offer an extended warranty, find out what it covers, and take it for the maximum length.

In general, to sum it up here, laptops are VERY delicate machines that are not designed very well to really last. IF you take very good care of it, follow regular maintenance, follow user maintenance practices (keeping it cool), and keep your fingers crossed, it might just last you ok.