Laptop Guy Laptop and Computer Repairs Call 01702 331202

In the summer months you might have noticed your laptop fan making more noise than usual. This is because dust and lint gets wedged between the fan and the heat sink and the airflow becomes limited. This can cause the laptops components to overheat and the fan spins faster to compensate for bad airflow.

This overheating will reduce the performance of the laptop and it’s battery charge and could also reduce the laptops lifespan. I recommend cleaning out the heatsink every 6 months or more on all makes and models and desktop computers not just laptops.

This is a Toshiba 17″ Laptop with a smashed LCD screen. On this model I had to remove some screws from the base and three screws from inside the battery bay before the bezel could be released.

I’ve changed the way I display the photo’s.  Click to enlarge them they will open in Lightbox. If you hover over the middle right or left side you get an arrow which will goto the next step (photo).

Here I have a DC Jack to replace on a Gateway MA7 Laptop, there was no power to the laptop and the battery would not charge. These symptoms can also indicate a faulty AC Adapter so this was tested before any work was carried out on the laptop.

To replace the DC Jack you need to remove the motherboard from the laptop completely, this is a long and complicated process and alot of screws to account for. It takes me 2 hours to complete the DC Jack repair on a laptop so allow yourself more time if this is your first attemp.

If you do not not have a desoldering iron station I do not recommend you attemp a DIY repair.

Desoldering the DC Jack

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One of my clients has a Sony Vaio desktop computer; he calls me and tells me that no USB ports are working. On the phone I diagnosed it to be a driver issue but once I got to visit my client it turned out to be the motherboard. I uninstalled the USB drivers from device manager and restarted the Sony PC and still no USB ports were working.

I took the PC back to my workshop and run Knoppix a live Linux distro and still no USB. I called my client and told him he needed a new motherboard and cost of repair will be £150 + plus a requested memory upgrade from 256MB to 2GB the total was £230. He decided it was too old to start spending money on it and asked me to make him a new computer.

The Specification of the new Computer Build

• 22" TFT Monitor Fujitsu Siemens AMILO L 3220T Full HD 1920×1080
• AMD Phenom X4 9650 2.3GHz Socket AM2+ 2MB L3 Cache
• Corsair 4Gb (2×2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 XMS2 Memory CL5 (5-6-6-18) 2.1V
• 1TB Hard Drive Samsung EcoGreen F2 SATAII 32MB Cache
• CoolerMaster Elite 333 Black Case
• Coolermaster eXtreme Power 460W PSU
• LG GH22NS40 22X SATA DVD±RW/DL/RAM Black Bare Drive
  
• ASUS M3N-H/HDMI AM2+ Motherboard
• GeForce 8300 Socket onboard graphics
• 8 channel audio
• 12x USB Ports
• VGA / DVI / HDMI
• Logitech Black Wireless 1500 Rechargeable Desktop – USB/PS2
• Microsoft Windows Vista 64Bit Home Premium licence and media
• Windows 7 Free Upgrade Offer Form (Released 22nd October)

Today I received the new 17″ screen to be fitted into a HP DV9500 Laptop. The process of replacing the LCD screen fairly easy but it’s diagnosing it’s the screen which it the hard part.

This laptop came to me with two lines on the screen and then the backlight would fail making the screen dark and unreadable. Possible causes are LCD screen or screen cable the only way to tell is by connecting a working LCD Screen. I connected a cracked screen from a previous repair and the screen was not showing the same symptoms as the original one.

A Phone call to my supplier and 24 hours later I receive the new 17″ LCD Screen. The Photos below show the fitting process.

Step 1 New LCD Screen

My first blog on repairing a laptop is on a HP DV6000 laptop. The owner called and said the laptop has a noisy fan and asked if I could fix it. Of course I can fix it as long as I can get the parts. Cost of repair was agreed at £80 and I collected the laptop within the hour.

Once I got it back to the workshop (Home) I had to strip it down to the motherboard. Alot of laptops have a large cover to take off the back which reveals the heatsink and fan HSF but not with the the HP DV6000.

It doesn’t take long to open the laptop and with the newer HP laptops like this HP use minimal screws to hold it all together although there are nuts to undo on this model before the palmrest can come off.

Well on with the photos, I took these photos during the the rebuilding of the laptop but I guess you can start in reverse to undo one.

Step 1 HP DV6000 Parts

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