Laptops Usage Problems

Executive Summary about Laptop Problems by Zulekha Alam

Laptop Problems

Modern day Laptops operate on very fast microprocessors that generate a lot of heat. This heat mainly escapes out of the bottom of the laptop but ventilation efficiency is reduced when the laptop is placed on a solid surface or on your lap and the ventilation holes get plugged. A hot laptop is less trustworthy and an overheated system is likely to fail.

Laptops work best at temperatures ranging from 95-104°F (35-40°!). Not only is a hot laptop unpleasant to use in your lap but also the heat from some laptops can be enough to cause superficial skin burns, right through your clothing! Besides being uncomfortable to use, laptops can even reduce the fertility in case of males. Researchers have concluded that working with a laptop placed on the thighs raises the skin temperature significantly. The sitting position required to balance a laptop can raise scrotum temperature by as much as 2.1 degrees Celsius. A common practical solution to this problem is to place the laptop on a table or desk. Resting wrists against the edge of a laptop cab easily induce hand and arm pain similar to repetitive strain injury.

Common Problems With Laptops & Some Solutions - Liquid Spills, Cooling, Power & LCD Display Screen

Executive Summary about Laptop Problems by Peter Bowey

Fixing Common Laptop Problems

Liquid Spills on Laptop

I have repaired many Laptops exposed to accidental liquid spills. Liquid intrusion can cause the following types of laptop damage:

• Short circuit due to conductive nature of wet liquid (problem may clear as liquid dries)
• Short circuit due to dried liquid residue
• Corrosion occurs (particularly volatile with some acidic soft drinks - Coke)
• Electronic components damaged by above short circuits

Possible Solution: Immediately when a spill occurs, turn off the laptop, invert the laptop and leave the unit upside down (drainage) for at least 20-30 minutes.

To remove any liquid residual: Have someone remove the keyboard assembly and perform additional cleaning. It may help to use cotton buds and distilled water to remove any contamination.

Laptop randomly turns off

This is often due to:

• AC power adaptor sensing an overload of power drain
• Overheating processor due to a build of internal dust (clogged fan)
• AC power adaptor not able to sustain normal power needs (faulty power adaptor)
• Battery overheating, due to internal battery fault, or charging levels
• Intermittent short circuit or open connection (check condition of power leads)

On older Laptops, the most common reason is poor cooling.

Troubleshoot Laptop LCD Video Display problems

Here are some tips and tricks for troubleshooting and fixing laptop video problems.

Laptop LCD screen has a faint image or is very dark

Look closely at the laptops LCD screen, and see if you can see a very faint image. If you can then it is possible that the Laptop’s LCD lid close switch is stuck in the closed position. Check the LCD lid close switch.

Laptop LCD screen is solid white colour or garbled

Connect an external computer monitor to the laptop. If the external monitor display is fine, then you have a problem with the Laptop LCD screen or the LCD cable connection..

A typical Laptop LCD display assembly

This is a simplified explanation of the basic components that are involved on a Laptop LCD video display problem:

• LCD Connector: Video data is sent from the motherboard through to the LCD screen. A video cable also feeds voltage to the FL inverter board on the LCD panel
• FL inverter PCB: This section converts the low voltage DC source to high voltage AC, as required to energise the backlight bulb. If the FL inverter PCB is faulty, the LCD screen will show a very dim image on the Laptop display screen
• CCFL (backlight bulb): When the backlight bulb is working, you can see the image on the LCD screen. With some Laptops, the backlight bulb is a part of the LCD screen assembly and needs to be replaced with a complete LCD screen assembly. It requires a specialized Laptop repair workshop to replace the backlight bulb
• Laptop Lid close switch: This switch is a small switch (mechanical or magnetic) that is located close to the rear display hinges. Most laptops will either hibernate or operate in standby mode when the LCD is closed. This is achieved by interfacing with the Laptop’s BIOS power management software. In turn this is linked to the Windows operating system

Laptop is slow and continually shows Internet popup’s
The Laptop is very likely infected with spyware.

Laptop is frozen, no response to keyboard or mouse, cannot Shutdown

The easy method to solve this problem is:

• Disconnect the laptop power cord
• Remove the battery from the laptop
• Wait a short while (10 seconds)
• Replace the Laptop battery into the unit
• Reconnect the Laptop Power cord
• Turn the Laptop on

Troubleshoot Laptop Hibernate and Standby problems

Power management options on laptops sometimes to cause problems. Hibernate and Standby modes are power saving modes of operations to battery powered laptops.

Hibernation is a procedure by which the working state (contents) of your work is stored to disk before the computer goes into hibernation or standby.

Laptop does not wake up from Standby or Hibernation

Here are my tested suggestions:

• Give it time - some older Laptops may take up to 30 seconds to wake up - fully
• Some Laptops have special keys or buttons for ‘Wake Up’ - read the manual
• Press and hold the Laptops power button for five seconds or more. Some Laptops are configured to Suspend or Hibernate with a press of the power button. Holding the power button for 5+ seconds will usually reset and reboot the Laptop
• As a last resort, remove the laptop battery and the power cord, wait 30 seconds, replace the batteries and reconnect the power cord

Now that the Laptop is operational, you should research the underlying problem. A conflict with the Laptops BIOS power management and Windows power management is the most common cause of such wake-up failure.