Laptop Advice

Its not fair. Why did my laptop hard drive just die? What causes a hard drive to die or break?

These questions are often asked at our workshop. The hard disk is like a cd rom, you know the type you put your music on. One day you play your cd the next it starts to jump one day it may not play at all. The hard disk is very very dense and can hold thousands more songs than your cd. Imagine it like a big cupboard to store files on. Now take a look at your laptop. What are the only parts that are moving inside. Your cd rom spins around doesnt it.

Your hard disk however spins at 5400 revolutins per minute and sometimes runs for 10 hours a day. Its doing loads of work it gets hot and the arm inside that reads your data moves soo fast that if you opened it up and looked at the arm moving you would be shocked as it moves very very fast. Opening the disk exposes the hard disk to dust and ruins the data so best not to open it.

The electronics work long hours and after a couple of years they just tire out. The main reason a hard drive dies is becuase of suffering a knock. Imagine hitting your cd rom player against the wall as its spinning. The shock causes the data arm inside to lock up and the hardware starts to tick. This is known as a ticking hard drive. How on earth can you get the data back. You have a problem you might want to take the disks out of your hard disk put them in another hard disk and get the data. The problem is that opening the hard disk exposes the disk platter to dust and 1 tiny particle of dust could wipe out thousands of files.  If you want to make your new hard disk last a long time , handle the laptop with care. Dont drop it knock it or work it to death.

For more advice on laptop data recovery click here

The IBM x200 is just about the best laptop you can buy. The little laptop is wickedly fast. Very very very strong and shock resistent. You can pick it up with one hand (not advised with some laptops) and is one of the most robust laptops you can possibly buy. You can fit this laptop in your briefcase it is perfect for the commuter. Yes this laptop is a bit expensive but if you want a small laptop that will last you many years, this laptop is one of the best you can buy.

       This laptop is also very light. Its made of carbon fibre and this makes it light and strong. It is pure quality. When you click to search for wireless networks its wireless signal is soo strong you imagine you could connect to your friends wireless connection 2 streets away. We cannot fault this laptop at all. Some will fault it especially if you like a large screen, the x200 screen is only 13.3 inches.

We had to repair one of these in our workshop as it had serious liquid damage. When we opened this laptop we saw it was put together very well. It had plenty of protection in fact the protection against damage was incredible. In 15 years of laptop repairs this laptop was one of the best protected laptops against drops and spills we have ever seen. This laptop is 10 out of 10 The max. 

What a good looking little laptop. However this laptop is at the moment causing many customers a lot of grief. The problem is that this georgious looking laptop just overheats way to easilly. The graphics card is a BGA chipset and is moulded into the motherboard. You CANNOT remove it and replace it. ( You can on the xps 1770) If under warranty the laptop motherboard will have to be replaced. Dell has good technical support and will send an engineer who will replace the board for you free of charge. The headaches occur when you are out of warranty. Then you will need to take your laptop to a respected company like www.DellLaptopRepairs.com to have it repaired. This company is based in London and have seen this problem many times.

The way to repair this is to have the graphics card re-fluxed. This means using a machine or hot air gun to push flux under the graphics card chipset and make it sit properly. This needs to be done by qualified Engineers who know how to cool your board to stop warping and overheating as some novices have been known to blow the chipset. This reflow work however is not an exact science and even skilled engineers can some times overheat the chipset. This laptop is not for games. I know you will probably read that it is, but when you have seen so many of these graphics cards overheating like i have i would not reccommend a laptop for games.The overheating problem often occurs becuase of using this laptop for high end games or for using programs like autocad that push the graphics card hard.  Never use this laptop on the bed as covers often block the fan causing overheating. Some engineers will force the fan to stay on permanently in order to make it work like a desktop computer and have the fan spin constantly. This is often a good idea as it cools the laptop down well and on the dell website you can even download some software that controls the fan. This problem can be fixed you just need to take it to a well respected company for an efficient repair.

After a rigorous search of internet webistes. We have come up with a list of the best laptops to buy.

1.                                    Panasonic Toughbook
2.                                    IBM
3.                                    Packard Bell
4.                                    Dell
5.                                    Sony
6.                                    Acer
7.                                    Toshiba
8.                                    Fujitsu Siemens
9.                                    Packard Bell
10.                                    Advent
11.                                    Medion

These laptops are based on  a seacrh of how consumers have rated thier product after purchasing. Also considered is the amount of rewards the companies have won regarding thier laptops. We have also contacted companies for laptop repairs and asked those wich laptops they repair the LEAST.

On a sony vaio press f1 or f2 on start up to boot into recovery press f10

On a dell press f2 to enter bios setup

On an ibm lenovo press f1 even before you turn it on to enter the bios

On a panasonic press f2 to enter the bios

On a Toshiba press esc or f1 to enter the bios

On all other press f2