The Arlington Virginia Computer Repair Blog

All laptops have some form of a power jack.  Whether it’s a traditional power jack that uses a single pin connection to the computer or something more exotic like an Apple MagSafe port, all power jacks may need repair after usage or physical damage.  The most common reason we see owners bring their laptops to use for power jack repair is when the jack refuses to supply power to recharge the battery or power the laptop on.

This is usually at an advanced stage where the only option is to completely replace the power jack.  Today I’ll talk about how one can spot these problems early on and potentially save money on repair costs.   Catching laptop power jack problems early on can also avoid deeper damage to the computer’s case, motherboard or your power supply that can be costly to repair or replace.

Watch out for these signs your laptop power jack needs repair:

1: You have to wiggle your power supply’s connector to get a connection to your laptop’s power jack, and it isn’t stable.  It may flicker or go out, requiring more fiddling with the connection.

2: Only when the power supply’s connector is stuck in to the laptop’s power jack at an angle do you receive power properly.  Other times the laptop will simply not recognize the connection from your power supply.

3: Your laptop’s battery won’t charge, but is less than three years old and was working properly until recently.

4: Cracks have formed around your laptop’s power jack and it is looser than normal.

5: Your laptop’s power jack looks different.  Perhaps a piece of plastic in the middle is missing or it looks like it’s bent or at an unusual angle.

I need help!  My laptop’s power jack is showing early signs of problems.

Any of these tell tale signs can be a big warning signal from your laptop’s power jack, indicating it needs to be repaired or replaced as soon as possible.   When you notice any of these signs you should take action before the issue becomes worse to avoid more costly laptop power jack repairs or replacement of laptop hardware.

If you find yourself in any of the above mentioned situations you will need to find a professional to help repair your laptop.  Arlington Virginia Computer Repair has been in business for 14 years and helped over 10,000 customers resolve their computer problems, including a large amount of laptop power jack repairs.

We are more than happy to help you.  Just give us a call at 703-486-0200, send an e-mail to help@avcr.us or visit our main web site.

Laptop screens are our portal in to the computer.  When these screens act up or break, it can be frustrating, but fear not as there is hope!  Many broken laptop screens are cost effective to replace, giving your computer a new lease on life.

1: Laptop screens are very often physically damaged.  This damage includes cracks, tears, spills in to the screen or damage to the screen’s circuitry.  Unfortunately as laptops get thinner and lighter weight the screens have become a lot less sturdy, so about 3-5 pounds of pressure can break the average laptop LCD screen.  Symptoms of physical damage tend to manifest themselves with tearing on the picture of the screen, black spots or distorted areas.  Spills may show as strange stains on the screen, flickering or no picture at all.

2: Over time laptop screens may give out from wear and tear.  This is especially common on the older screens that used a fluorescent (CCFL) backlight and inverter.  Both the CCFL backlight and the inverter are prone to failure from exhausting their useful life.  CCFL backlights and inverters tend to experience problems within their first 3-5 years.  When an inverter is failing the screen may flicker and then go dark, whereas when a backlight fails generally the warning sign is a pinkish or orange discoloration of the picture that worsens until the screen goes dark.  Logical circuitry on newer LED backlight screens tends to burn out before the LED backlight, so symptoms may vary from a unreliable picture to no picture whatsoever.

3: Manufacturer defects account for a fair amount of screen replacements.  Sometimes if there is an error during the manufacturing process that slips past inspection, that screen can end up in your laptop.  It may not manifest any symptoms initially or it may work poorly right out of the box.  Manufacturer defects usually show up as failure to reliably display an image, flickering, failure to fully brighten or dim, artifacts as well as visual distortion.  If your system is under warranty, contact the manufacturer or the provider of your warranty first to see if the issue is covered.

Many screen issues can be remedied by replacing the screen itself, but other issues, such as a defective cable, inverter, motherboard or video board can be less straightforward.  In the next article we’ll discuss more complex issues that can cause laptop display problems.  No matter what, we recommend bringing your laptop to a professional, as accidental damage can occur fairly easily during a routine screen replacement if proper safeguards are not in place.

Arlington Virginia Computer Repair has served over 10,000 computers and has an industry leading 45 day warranty on all repairs.  We service many Acer, Alienware, Apple, Asus, Compal, Compaq, Dell, Gateway, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba laptops as well as other brands.  Contact us today if your laptop needs help.

That annoying hum inside your laptop that grows louder with time.  Or maybe it’s a persistent clicking or whirring sound from the fan.  Perhaps the  laptop’s fan is not audible at all and instead the computer gets very hot and even shuts itself down.  All of these symptoms could point to a laptop fan failure — and it’s critical to get it checked out.

Why is my laptop’s fan important?

Laptop fans govern the cooling of the internal components.  Should the fan begin to fail then the hard drive, as an example, may sustain damage.  This can result in slow performance, data loss and eventually a hard drive crash.

Heat-related damage is among the worst because it causes additional stress to just about everything that makes your computer function.  Once the interior of a computer begins to heat up to 70C+ serious hardware damage will occur.  This damage will be irreversible if the heat problem is not addressed quickly.

How can I keep my laptop fan working?

Laptop fans should be kept clean and sometimes an intensive clean-up can rectify fan problems before they worsen.  I recommend that my clients clean their laptop vents at least once every few months.  The there are usually at least two vents.  One on the bottom for taking in cool air and another on the side or back for exhausting hot air.

Using compressed air to clean out these vents can be  helpful in reducing dust inside the computer, and therefore increasing airflow.   If you use canned air it’s best to spray in short bursts so that no condensation forms inside your computer.

It’s also advised that when using a laptop that the vents are always kept on a solid, flat surface.  Blankets, clothing and other soft surfaces can cause the vents to not function properly and seriously strain your laptop fan — causing overheating.

What if cleaning it out doesn’t work?

Arlington Virginia Computer Repair can repair laptop fan problems for a variety of brands, including Acer, Alienware,  Apple, Asus, Compaq, Dell, eMachines, Gateway, HP, Sony, Toshiba and other brands.  Most laptops require significant disassembling to access the fan, so we do not recommend people at home try this type of repair unless they are very experienced with the intricacies of laptop hardware.

Please contact us at 703-486-0200 x 3 or visit us on the web.  We’re here to make technology work for you.

All Microsoft Windows XP (and Office 2003) technical support and operating system updates will be officially ending on April 8th, 2014.  This means that if your computer runs Windows XP you should consider upgrading before support ends to avoid complications.

Why is Microsoft ending support?

Windows XP has been a popular operating system since it was released in 1999, but 13 years later Microsoft needs to focus its attention on keeping Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 up to date.  Most operating systems are supported for much shorter periods of time, so this was one of the longest supported operating system releases for any computer.

What does this mean if I run XP?

After support ends Microsoft will no longer provide security updates and bug fixes.  That means your computer will be vulnerable to malware and other forms of exploitation.  Running an insecure computer can lead to your private data being exposed and other nasty consequences.  We highly recommend replacing all Windows XP systems before April 8th, 2014 in order to avoid any problems.

How do I transfer my data?

Most users have documents, pictures, music and sometimes videos.  These files can be transferred by using an external hard drive, flash drive, burning DVDs or uploading them to a cloud-based storage service like Google Drive.  More complex data sets, like Outlook PST files, may require being exported before you can gain access to them.

Once your data is transferred and you’re ready to retire your computer you can recycle it or donate it locally.   If you need help with transferring your data, upgrading to a new operating system or securely wiping your hard drive, please contact Arlington Virginia Computer Repair.  We’re always happy to help!

After my first installation of Windows 8 I was a bit disappointed by the lack of a start button.  After performing some research I found a couple of options.  Of them Classic Shell seems like the best application.  Classic Shell offers the same functionality of the classic Windows start menu button, it’s open source and completely free.  A full list of features is available on the Classic Shell web site.

Installation

Download Classic Shell to a location you can easily find the file.  Install the program by double clicking on the downloaded file and following the instructions on screen.  There is no malware or hidden toolbars in this application so you can choose the default options.

Once you have completed the installation log off of your computer.  When you log on next time you will see the desktop instead of the tile start menu.  The classic start menu will appear on your taskbar’s left side where the start button traditionally would be, and offer a variety of options to further customize your experience.

I recommend clicking on the bottom option to enable all settings and then navigating to the Windows 8 Settings tab.  In there I ticked the option called “Disable active corners” to All so that the screen would not activate the sidebar menu if I navigated the mouse to a corner.  This seems to make the desktop less quirky since we may hit the edges while working with applications.

Further customization

Under the “Start Menu Style” tab there are several options to change the look of your start menu.  I prefer the default, but it’s nice to have these options available if you wanted to revert to a Windows 7 or Windows XP style start menu.

There’s also an option under the tab called “Skin” where it’s possible to change the look of the menu.  Smoked glass is my favorite look.  I unchecked the box called “Reduce Glass Color” as it makes the menu integrate its color-scheme with the Windows theme.

We hope this information helps you get started with Windows 8.  At Arlington Virginia Computer Repair we are prepared to tackle all the issues that come with running Windows 8, so if you run in to trouble us contact us anytime.

I recently upgraded my laptop to Windows 8.  I had initially experimented with the preview release and was impressed by some of the new features, such as speed, security and power savings.  The upgrade cost was only $40.00 which made the switch quite worthwhile.  I was also able to download Windows 8 and install it from Microsoft’s web site, so it was a very convenient process.  No discs and no need to wait for a shipment.

Faster and more efficient

Windows 8 offers a host of improvements and some significant quirks.  In terms of boot up and shut down speed, Windows 8 wins, especially on UEFI compliant (newer) hardware.  My boot-up time went from about 15-20 seconds to 8-10 seconds.  Your mile may vary as this laptop is using a solid state drive, but nonetheless a substantial improvement was realized.  Shut downs are practically instant most of the time unless a lot of programs are running.

Applications also seem snappier, especially when rendering of graphics or fonts are involved.  This is because Microsoft overhauled their font rendering engine and toned down the resource-heavy Aero interface found in Windows Vista and Windows 7.  In addition to that, Microsoft also put a lot of emphasis on efficiency because Windows 8 will be run on tablets.

Battery life should also improve on laptops, as a lot of the improvements take away from some of the heavy lifting processors and video cards have to perform when running Windows 8 vs Windows 7.  This allows for greater energy savings, faster resume from sleep mode and more.

Security is serious business

Windows 8 introduces significant improvements in how memory is isolated to improve protection against malware.  It also adds in a more secure boot process that protects against some of the most malicious software out there.  This means a lot of the current malware in circulation will not be effective in attacking Windows 8.

Microsoft has also made improvements in the security of Internet Explorer in version 10, which should be less exposed to conventional attacks.  In case you do see a malware attack, it’s comforting to know that right out of the box it comes with anti-virus software through Windows Defender (which is actually a re-packaged version of Microsoft Security Essentials).

There are some drawbacks

For many people the new default interface is not ideal.  The menu and lack of a start button on the desktop can be confusing and less than intuitive.   These problems have generated a lot of bad press for Windows 8 as it seems like Microsoft entirely reinvented the wheel in their user interface.  The account system can also be confusing.

Fortunately a number of developers have introduced alternatives to restore the start button in Windows 8, some of which include disabling the entire tile interface and adding back the start menu.  This customization allows users to have an experience similar to previous versions of Windows while realizing the benefits of Windows 8.  Users can also opt for a local account instead of a Microsoft account if they do not want to use the cloud-based services.

Final thoughts

Windows 8 is a solid upgrade and offers a lot of worthwhile enhancements over Windows 7, but it needs some work to be easily usable.  Microsoft should allow users to easily return the interface to the desktop as the default login destination and return the start button to the task bar.  Assuming that users want to completely re-learn how to interact with their computer, rather than letting them customize the experience when they first setup the computer is the biggest problem with Windows 8.

If you need assistance repairing, upgrading to Windows 8 or setting up your new Windows 8 computer contact Arlington Virginia Computer Repair.  We can help make the experience a smoother transition with less headaches.

We hope everyone is preparing for a festive Thanksgiving holiday. We’re giving thanks for all the wonderful customers we’ve helped this year!  It’s been a great year for us and while the year isn’t over quite yet, we hope to help many more clients with their computer repair and data recovery issues in the years to come.

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