It Pays To Look After Your Laptop Battery Follow These Tips

Laptop computers are common now, most people have them to take to school or when they travel for work. Theyre useful and easy to move with. What is also common is to see someone clambering to get a place to charge a laptop battery.

That news report due tomorrow morning may all of a sudden be lost if you dont find an electric outlet inside thirty seconds... Or that slideshow you have created (but carelessly forgot to save) may disappear if your laptop battery is not recharged.

Follow these simple guidelines for trouble free computing.

1, Discharge your battery by playing a DVD movie or something else that Consumes a lot of power. Even when you discharge the battery your laptop has A protection circuit to stop the battery draining to a critical level. Dont worry this all happens in the background. When fully discharged plug it back into the mains for a full charge.

2, Never try and charge your battery when its only half discharged, this will cause the battery not to charge properly.

3, If your laptop is connected to AC supply, then the battery should be removed from the laptop. This is because heat damages li-ion batteries, if your laptop puts out a lot of heat near to the batteries (and most smartly designed laptops dont) then you should remove it when youre not using it.

4 ,Never never use a battery charger from a different make of laptop. different makes and models have different voltage settings and connection ports, so you will most likely do major damage to your battery. If you value your laptop/notebook only use the manufactures supplied charger.

5, If your laptop came with a supplied software for monitoring your battery consumption, make sure you are familiar with it as it may save you a lot of battery recharge cycles if configured properly.

6, Always try and keep your laptop on a flat surface, if you have the laptop on your lap most of the time you can inadvertently stop the air flow through the computer, which can increase the battery temperature and damage it.

For more tips and useful information on laptop batteries and how to get the most from your laptop computer please visit http://www.laptop-fix.info

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vincent_Moore

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7 Questions You Need To Ask Before Buying A Notebook Computer

By: Sabir Rizvi

If you are planning to purchase a notebook computer, then there are seven key questions that you will need to ask yourself. Doing this will enable you to arrive at the kind of quality notebook that best suits your purposes and current budget.

1 - How portable, how powerful?

The issue of size and weight will determine how easily you will be able to carry around your notebook computer. After all, one of the reasons why you may have decided to purchase a notebook computer in the first place, is most probably based on the issue of portability. You will need to strike a balance based on your needs and requirements between ultra-portables and desktop replacements. The former offer very small-sized and light weight computers but will often sacrifice a number of items in achieving this. For instance they will tend to get rid of optical drives, among other items that may be important to you. With desktop replacements they will usually tend to be heavy and bulky making them a little difficult to carry around.

2 - What should be the processor speed and type?

The processor speed will contribute heavily to how fast you will be able to accomplish tasks on your notebook computer. If your notebook is meant to be mainly a web browser, with word processing and maybe a DVD player, then any processor that has a speed of 1 GHz or more should work. However if you have in mind a desktop replacement then you will need a high-end processor of 1.6 GHz or higher.

Secondly the type of processor is an important consideration too. Processors based on Centrino technology consume less power and yield improved battery lifetime.

3 - What Screen size, what resolution?

It is important to check the resolution of the screen on the notebook you are purchasing. Everybody would like a larger screen but some large screens have such a high resolution that it is counterproductive and makes the reading of standard fonts difficult. You will also have to remember that the larger the screen the heavier and more difficult to carry your laptop computer will be.

4 - Should the notebook have a convincing optical drive?

In laptops nowadays, the choice of optical drives is important. Laptops have these days been turned into portable DVD players with the DVD-ROM or CD-RW/DVD combo drive. They can even be plugged into a home theater system. The problem is that many ultra-portable laptops quite often lack an internal optical drive to save on space.

5 - Do you require redundant ways to access the Internet?

Ability to connect to the Internet is a key feature. You should be careful to look for systems that include a built-in 56 Kbps modem and Fast Ethernet. If you wish, you can go further and look for a computer with an integrated 802.11 b/g wireless adapter because locations with hotspots for connectivity are rapidly and constantly growing.

6 - How long would you be away from the mains on average?

A portable computer with less than two hours of computing time on a single charge is a big waste. You should look to get a system with at least 3-4 hours of battery life.

7 - What Warranty options should you be looking at?

Because laptops are moved around a lot, they are much more likely to break down. Many people make this mistake with laptops because we hardly follow up on the warranty for PCs. Remember that laptops are different because they take much more abuse on the go. So you should ensure that you get at least a one year warranty from the manufacturer.

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How to Choose a Gaming Laptop

Laptops traditionally have been a no go area for gamers. However, in recent years times have changed, from a business man play toy in the 1990s the next generation of gaming laptops have the raw power to cope with the most hungry of 3d gaming and graphic intensive software applications.
With the obvious advantage of unique portability the gaming laptop is certain to gain a big slice in the gaming hardware market in the next few years with many PC users opting for a more versatile approach to playing PC games and the booming market of online games. Technology is changing even month by month but by reading the guide you should be able to grasp the basic understanding of what you should be looking for when choosing a gaming laptop.

Processor Power
The engine of any laptop. The processor or CPU is one of the most vital components of a gaming laptop and you should be looking for a duel core processor, expensive yes but will stand you in good stead in the forthcoming months. If you cannot afford a duel core then a minimum of a 1.8mhz processor is what you should be looking at.

Random Access Memory (RAM)
Often overlooked and forgotten about, RAM combined with the processor is pivotal in a gaming laptop. The bottom line is if you have a cutting edge CPU but only 256mb of RAM or even 512mb then you are seriously limiting your gaming laptop performance. Go for at least 1mb of RAM and even better for the all important frames per second count get 2mb.

Graphics Card
This is where you have a decision to make. The big difference between a laptop and a desktop PC is the upgrade ability of your graphics card. In your desktop it is easy to upgrade your video card but inside a laptop it is difficult and often needs a pc engineer to carry out this process. Most standard laptops come with a onboard graphics card and you must expect to pay for a top end card such as a Radeon or Geforce.

Screen Clarity
Wide screen is recommended for gamers but do not compromise on screen quality. 17inch screen will help with those long gaming sessions and a good tip for when you are looking at laptops is to use the machine for a few minutes to see if your comfortable with the clarity and image quality of the laptop screen.

Battery Life
With raw graphic power busting out of your laptop you will need make sure your battery is up to the job. Lithium-ion battery that lasts up to 5 to 6 hours is ideal if your are looking to use your machine away from a wired power source.

Gaming laptop prices
Expensive. There is no point hiding this fact, if you compromise on CPU, RAM or video card then you will not have a gaming laptop at all, just a regular laptop with some costly components inside. Expect to pay nearly a third more for your gaming laptop compared to a normal spec machine.

Source: Free Articles

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How To Optimize Your Laptop Battery

Now the main problem which comes with most of the laptop users is of the battery backups that it provides. Many of the laptops which are in the market are good enough to provide you with the maximum battery life but this is not so with most of the brands. Usually they provide a bit lower battery backups than the rated ones. Now what to do to have an optimum backup for your battery. Here are some of the basic things or tips which you should follow in order to make your battery give you with the most backup time.

1.

First of all go for the proper checkup or the life of the battery. This can be done by having software installed on your laptop which constantly monitors your battery and provides you the feedback. Most of these softwares are freeware or are incorporated with the factory setup disk. This will help you in having a proper check of your battery life if it is delivering the right power or not.

2.

Never try to manually remove and short the battery ends. This will make your battery discharge totally at one time leaving the battery damaged casing a severe discharge. This is the most dangerous conditions and must be avoided.

3.

Never always discharge the battery before plugging in the power supply because this will lower the battery life as well. Discharging it completely and then charging it must always be avoided.

4.

The next thing one could do in order to save a lot of battery power is to go for Hibernate option for the laptop. This is most useful for the Laptop in case of battery saving techniques.

Always follow the above mentioned techniques so as to make your laptop work very well giving you the maximum battery backup having the most life of the battery as well.

Victor Pradel is the administrator of The Laptop Support Community, where you can find many useful content about laptop help , troubleshooting and repairing.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Victor_Pradel

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How To Protect And Beautify Your Laptop

Getting a laptop can be a rather big investment and after sinking your money to invest in a laptop, I am sure you will want to protect it from scratches and other forms of damages.

Fortunately, there is a cheap and great way to invest in the protection of your new and old laptop:

By investing in a good laptop skin.

A laptop skin is a decorative piece of vinyl with an underlying adhesive layer. The adhesive layer ensures that the laptop skin stays fastened onto the laptop cover. A good adhesive layer will usually allow for easy and clean removal of the laptop skin from the surface of your laptop.

In general, laptop skins have good scratch resistance qualities making them ideal for protecting your laptop from fresh scratches. They come in different finishes, with lamination and varnish being the most common finishes.

Also, because of the injection of certain chemicals, some high quality laptop skins can even withstand extreme heat and cold, radiation and chemical corrosion. They are even resistant to tear, water and sunlight-fade.

Good quality laptop skins typically employ the latest in high resolution image technology to render photo-realistic image quality and exceptional color density, therefore you can not only protect your laptop but also beautify it. Imagine being the envy of all the on-lookers when you are using your chic-looking laptop with a great-looking laptop skin on your laptop.

Laptop skins sold in the market typically only cover the laptop cover while protective keyboard covers are sold separately. Also, do note that the lamination layer in some lousy quality laptop skins may come off within 6 months. Therefore, it always pays to invest in a good quality laptop skins such as garskins.

If you are looking to protect your laptop or give it a new look, www.GarSkins.com provides great laptop skins for both your laptop exterior and your internal keyboard for only one affordable price.

Donald Lim is the technology editor at Nu Edge Technologies. He is also an Internet Marketing Coach who owns countless web sites such as SecretsOfAchievers.com, InternetIdiot.com etc. You can subscribe to his free newsletters at http://www.donaldlim.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Donald_Lim

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How to fix video problem on HP laptops

How to fix video problem on HP laptops:
In this post I explain how you can fix a known video problem on some HP laptops without actually taking it apart. Most likely the fix is not permanent but this will buy you some time, enough to backup personal files or even use the laptop until you get a new one. There is no guaranty this fix work 100%.
Here are some HP models affected by this known video failure problem: HP Pavilion dv2000, dv6000, dv9000, tx1000 tablet PC, Compaq 700, v3000, v6000 and probably some others.
If you know more models, please mention them in comments after this post.

CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM:

As I know, the video problem somehow related to NVIDIA chip located on the motherboard. Overtime the NVIDIA chip separates from the motherboard and the laptop video fails.

SYMPTOMS OF THE PROBLEM:

When you turn on the laptop, all LEDs light up but there is no video on the laptop screen or external monitor. The laptop screen remains completely black and blank. The cooling fan spins as normal, on some models it stars spinning right away on other models after some time.
I found this trick mentioned by Walliot (comment 85) in this post. This trick called “towel fix” and used to fix “no video” issue in xbox360.

HOW TO FIX:

1. Remove laptop battery and hard drive.

2. Plug the AC adapter and turn on the laptop. Make sure the laptop is actually on, all LEDs should work.

3. Wrap the laptop with towels so all air intakes are closed.

4. Keeps the laptop wrapped in the towel for about one hours.

5. Unplug the AC adapter from the wall the let the laptop cool down (do not touch it for a while).

6. Unwrap the laptop and try tuning it on.
I didn’t really believe that this trick might work and tried it just because of curiosity but… IT WORKED!!!!
LAPTOP #1. HP tx1000 Tablet PC.

First, I tried this fix on a failed HP tx1000 Tablet PC.

I didn’t have paper towels at work but I had plenty of bubble wrap.

I closed the laptop in a tablet mode (with hard drive and battery removed), plugged the AC adapter and wrapped the laptop properly in bubble wrap.

After that I just waited for about two hours and unplugged AC adapter from the wall.

Waited for about 30 minutes and tried turning it on.

Success!!! The laptop started with video.

I just couldn’t stop and tried the fix on another failed laptop.
LAPTOP #2. HP Pavilion dv6000.

This is a different model with very similar failure symptoms. It turns on, all LED lights work but there is no video.
This time I didn’t something extra. To make sure there is no cool air coming into the laptop though bubble wrap, I closed all air vents with sticky tape.

After that I turned on the laptop from AC adapter (again with hard drive and battery removed) and wrapped the laptop base with bubble wrap.

The laptop was running like that for about 60-70 minutes but then I noticed that all LED lights went off. Not sure what happened, maybe the laptop overheated too much and shut down on its own. Anyway, I didn’t touch it for about 30 minutes and let it cool down.
My fix was successful again! The laptop turned on with video and booted to the desktop.

HOW THIS FIX WORKS:

Here’s my understanding of how this fix works.

When you run a laptop wrapped in towels (bubble wrap in my case), it gets very hot because there is no air circulation inside the heatsink. The heatsink and GPU (NVIDIA chip) run so hot that it melt solder between the chip and motherboard and the video chip gets resoldered to the motherboard.
Now I have to test for how long this fix last.

RELATED POSTS:

In one of the previous posts I explained how I fixed failed video chip by backing the motherboard in an oven.

In one of the following posts I explain how to reflow failed NVIDIA graphics chip with a heat gun.

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How to reset Canon MP258

In previous post I wrote how to fix error 5200 on IP2770 and now I want to share how to reset printer canon MP258. Indications that appeared first is "Absorb Full" and error code "P07" on LCD Panel. To solve that problem you may need to try these steps below :

1. Turn the printer off and let power cable plugged
2. Press and hold stop/reset button, then press and hold power button too
3. Keep pressing power button, then release stop/reset button, press stop/reset twice in the state of the power button is pressed
4. Release power button and stop/reset simultaneously
5. The printer will proceed a while,  then on LCD Panel will appear "0"
6. Computer will detect new device but just ignore it
7. This situation shows the printer in service mode and ready to be reset 

Download the software resetter mp258, by clicking here

1. Enter two sheets of paper
2. Run Canon MP258 Resetter
3. Click "MAIN" then the printer will proceed, MP258 will print one sheet
4. Click "EEPROM CLEAR"
5. Then Click "EEPROM" and the printer will print the result of MP258 reset
6. Turn the printer off by clicking Power button
7. The printer is ready to work again

That is tutorial from me, good luck and hopefully useful....

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Laptop is dead How to troubleshoot the problem

Laptop is dead. How to troubleshoot the problem.:
In this post I’ll explain how to troubleshoot a dead laptop and find the problem. The following troubleshooting tips are not model and brand specific, they should work for most laptops.
Let’s take a look at two different scenarios.
Example 1. The laptop is absolutely dead.

When you plug in the power adapter and press on the power button, there is no signs of life at all. The laptop will not make usual noises, LEDs will not light up, the fan will not spin, the screen is blank and black, etc… In short, the laptop is dead.
What you can do in this case?

1. Make sure the wall outlet is working and the laptop DC adapter is getting power from the outlet. Try another wall outlet.

2. Test the laptop DC power adapter, make sure the voltage output is correct. You can test the DC power adapter with a voltmeter.

3. Let’s say the DC adapter is fine and the adapter outputs correct voltage. In this case unplug the power adapter from the laptop, remove the battery, wait for 1-2 minutes, plug in the adapter and try turning on the laptop again.
OK, you tested the adapter and it’s bad. If you decide to replace the original DC adapter with a generic one, you’ll have to follow this rule:

The voltage output on your new adapter has to be exactly the same as on the original adapter. The amperage on the new adapter could be the same or higher.
If nothing helps and the laptop is still dead, apparently the motherboard is fried or there is a problem with the DC power jack. It’s possible the DC power jack is broken and the motherboard is not getting any power from the adapter. In this case you’ll have to disassemble the laptop and replace the power jack. Check out this guide for fixing laptop power jack.
Example 2. When you plug the DC power adapter and press on the power button, the laptop starts making normal noises, the LEDs work properly but noting appears on the screen. The laptop will not start.





First of all, take a closer look at the LCD screen. Look at the screen under bright light. It’s possible that the image is still on the screen but it’s very faint. If that’s the case, check out these tips for troubleshooting laptop with backlight failure.

If there is no image on the laptop LCD screen, test the laptop with an external monitor. Connect an external monitor to the VGA port on your laptop and turn the laptop on. You can toggle video output between the internal LCD screen and external monitor by pressing Fn and F4 keys simultaneously on HP laptops, Fn and F5 keys on Toshiba laptops, Fn and F7 keys on IBM laptops. Other laptops may use different key combinations.
Let’s say the external monitor works fine but the internal LCD screen has no image at all. If that’s the case, your problem could be related to the LCD screen or the video cable. Also, make sure the video cable makes good connection with the motherboard and the LCD screen. Try reconnecting, reseating the cable.

In my case, both internal and external monitors were absolutely dead. Neither of them had image. That means the problem is not related to the LCD screen or the video cable. From my experience I know that this problem could be related to the laptop memory.

Try reseating the memory module, maybe it’s not making good connection with the memory slot. Try cleaning contacts on the memory module with pen eraser. Try moving the memory module into another slot. Try replacing the memory module with another known good module, it’s possible that your original module is dead.

If you have two memory modules installed you can try removing them one by one, it’s possible that one of the modules is bad. Try installing different memory modules into different memory slots.
In my case reseating, swapping the memory module didn’t help. I was pretty confident that my problem is not memory related and I moved on.

Try removing battery, hard drive and DVD drive and turning on the laptop without these components.

Also, try turning on the laptop with an external monitor when the video cable is unplugged from the motherboard. If the laptop start with video on the external monitor, apparently there is something wrong with the laptop display panel.

In my case removing the hard drive and DVD drive didn’t help. Unplugging the video cable didn’t help either.

I continued taking my laptop apart piece by piece and tested it after each step.

I removed wireless card, modem, disconnected the keyboard but it didn’t help.

I still wasn’t able to boot the laptop with video on the external monitor.

Finally, I disassembled the laptop and removed the motherboard.

On this picture you see my final test. The motherboard has been removed from the base and I assembled basic barebone system on my bench.

1. Motherboard. Like on most laptops, in my case the video card is integrated into the motherboard

2. CPU with heatsink and cooling fan.

3. Known good memory module.

4. The power button board witch I need to turn on the system.

5. Working DC power adapter.
Still cannot get any video on the external monitor. The system turns on, the cooling fan starts spinning but there is no video.
At this point I’m 95% sure that the motherboard is dead. CPU failures are not very common, so it must be bad motherboard.

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How To Check Laptop PC Hardware ID

1) What is Hardware ID???
    Ans : Its the Hardware Identification Number.
             Its unique and specific for that model only.

2) Why should we even bother to check the hardware ID???
     Ans : Because, Hardware ID can determine which
     driver we need to install in order to make that
     hardware running.

How to check??? 

Note: This guide is made under Windows 7 OS. Should be the same with Win XP OS.

Procedure
Open Device Manager (Windows Button + R) then type "devmgmt.msc" and press Enter. You should see Device Manager Windows as shown below.

Follow screenshot below to check Hardware ID.

Hope This Helps!

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Steps to overcome problematic wireless

It caused by variety of problem from only wrong setting until wifi is broken. If you have problem with your Wifi, you can try to solve it using these steps:

1. Check whether you have turn on the wireless button

The indication of wifi on, the indicator lamp is lighting. If you have pressed the wifi button but the indicator lamp does not on or there is no wifi icon in the lower right corner, maybe you have not Installed  the driver yet. So, please install your driver first.

2. Turn On the Wireless Zero Configuration

If your wireless button is on and the wireless icon appear but it can not detect network, it maybe you have not turn on the Wireless Zero Configuration yet. If you want to turn it on  follow this instructions  below :
- Click Start Menu - RUN - type services.msc.
- Looking for Wireless Zero Configuration - right click - Properties

- Change Startup Type to be "Automatic" - OK

Back to Wireless Zero Configuration menu again, then right click Wireless Zero Configuration and choose Restart to turn on the Service Wireless Zero in order to be able detecting Network around you.

3. Clean Network Residual
If your wireless is able to detect Network but It can not connect to the Network, You may need to Clean Network Residual. Remove detected Network from your network list until the name of those network disappear. Then try to connect again to your network.

4. Reinstall Your Operating System
Reinstalling Operating System can be a solution if your OS is not stable anymore and can be caused your network trouble.

Tips above are simple solution to overcome your network problematic. If you have tried those steps above but your network is not be better, It may your network card is broken and need to be changed.

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Spilled Water On Laptop How To Clean It

Spilled water on laptop, how to clean it, when you spill water or a liquid on your laptop, the first step is to stop using the laptop immediately. Turn off the laptop, unplug the power adapter and remove the battery. The laptop should be disassembled as soon as possible and all internal parts should be inspected for liquid damage. Water or liquid spills on laptop can be very devastating and is capable of causing extensive damage to the laptop. For a step by step guide on how to take apart or disassemble a laptop click here. Take the following steps to solve the problem.

Step 1

Now remove the keyboard and take a closer look underneath it and search for water or liquid spills.

Step 2

Also check the motherboard for water or liquid spills.

Step 3

If there is liquid spill on the keyboard or motherboard, get a clean soft cloth and wipe the liquid spill on the keyboard and motherboard, when wiping the motherboard you have to be very careful to avoid damaging very small components on the board.

Step 4

If you find any corrosion on the motherboard, you can clean it with a toothbrush and 91%-99% isopropyl alcohol.

Step 5

Ensure that the motherboard and all the internal component of the laptop is completely dry before testing it.

Step 6

When the laptop has been confirmed to be in good working condition, follow the same process to assemble the laptop back.

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Toshiba’s New Qosmio is Sure to Please Entertainment Fans

The latest edition to the Toshiba line of laptops was released earlier this month, and it incorporates a high end design that is sure to make both gamers and movie lovers quiver with delight. Both the Toshiba Qosmio X770 and X770 3D were released at Computex, and each comes with updated graphics, memory, and processing capabilities.
The Qosmio X770 is vying to be the best gaming laptop now on the market. The new laptop boasts either the Intel Core i5 or i7 CPU and comes standard with Nvidia discrete graphics, and not just any Nvidia graphics, but the new and highly regarded GeForce GTX 560M graphics which offer movie watchers and gamers a clarity they aren’t used to finding in a laptop. To make their entertainment experience more enjoyable, the Qosmio also provides users with Harman/ Kardon speakers and a subwoofer and sound enhancement technologies.

The Qosmio X770 also affords buyers the options to include a Blu-Ray player or Bluetooth 3.0 within their laptops.
Other features that place the Qosmio ahead of recent competition, and that come standard with these laptops are:
• USB 3.0 connectivity
• 1.5 GB dedicated solely to video memory
• 8 GB of RAM
• 1 TB of hard drive storage
For those more interested in streaming or watching the latest movies on their laptops, there is also a 3D version of the Qosmio. The 3-D version comes with Nvidia 3-D vision technology with a 120Hz 1080p display and a pair of wireless active shutter glasses, a Blu-ray player, and 3DTV output, and both it and the non 3D version come standard with a massive 17.3 inch screen.
Both models are also relatively affordable considering the newer technologies that are to be incorporated into both. The Qosmio X770 starts at only $1,199.99 and the X770 3D will start at $1,899.99. The affordable prices allow entertainment lovers to purchase the new laptop without having to sacrifice indulging in the latest games or movies.

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