Laptop Repair Log, 12/29/08

Today was more of a typical day. It began with a usual software issue with Vista Home edition. I've been running into a lot of these ever since Vista came out. The problem I came across today was a laptop that could not login to the primary account. The error messages coming up were Group Policy Client Service Failed - Access denied. The Group Policy Client Service is a new service that was started with Vista. The most common fix for this is to start the computer up in Safe Mode using the default F8 on boot-up. This will bring up a Windows selection screen to allow you to enter safe mode. From there login as the administrator erase the non-working profile or create another profile with administrator privileges and login. If you decide to erase the non-working profile, reboot the computer into safe-mode again and create the profile you erased. There's a log of technical stuff going on in the background but this should solve 90% of these types of failures.

The other laptop repairs today were hardware related. The first was a DC power jack replacement and the other was a broken LCD. The DC power jack will require a complete tear down of the laptop, carefully desoldering the bad one and soldering the new one in. Both of these are fixable and I was able to find parts for it. Both laptops were Dell computers so the parts were readily available.

That's all for today, stay tuned for what I run into tomorrow.
BRM Laptop Repair
3171 N. High St.
Columbus, OH 43202

www.BRMLaptopRepair.com
laptop.repair@gmx.com
614-313-9901
Columbus, OH 43229

Group Policy Client Service Fail

Merry Christmas

Hi everyone,
It's been a wonderful Christmas and I was excited to get some new DVD movies and games I will be enjoying on my laptop computer. It looks like I will have to upgrade my own laptop because I had to lower some of the video settings on a new game in order for it to work properly. In any case I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and got lots of techno-goodies. That's all for this blog, stay posted for more.

BRM Laptop Repair
3171 N. High St.
Columbus, OH 43202

www.BRMLaptopRepair.com
laptop.repair@gmx.com
614-313-9901

Yesterday I had a chance to help a customer locate a used Mac. I've discovered quite a bit about Apple products since I started this business since most of my dealings have been with Windows before the business started. I would definitely recommend purchasing a newer Mac(ie. MacBook) vs. an older one (ie. G4) because of the incorporation of Intel chips. In addition to that the older Macs are still better feature-wise than some of the new Windows computers that claim to have good photo editing software. I had to recommend a MacBook, not the Pro version, but the lower end one for his music and picture needs.

The other customer I had over the busy Christmas shopping weekend was someone having trouble with an HP laptop intermittently not displaying anything on the screen. Sounds like an easy fix but the intermittent issues are always a little difficult to find. Doesn't sound like a motherboard issue but there has been a run of HP products lately with wierd failures like this. About a 1.5 months ago I had one where it would randomly shut off. Traced it down to the motherboard and ended up saving the customer some serious cash when I found out there was a recall on his specific model. Just an FYI laptop users, check with your manufacturer for recalls, you never know what you may find out! Yes, even if it means no business for me I'm interested in getting you up and running again. I like fixing laptops and providing low costs for customers, it makes me happy and it's pretty challenging.

BRM Laptop Repair
3171 N. High St.
Columbus, OH 43202

www.BRMLaptopRepair.com
laptop.repair@gmx.com
614-313-9901

BRM Laptop Repair bloggin debut

Well, hello blogging world. My name is Ben and I am the owner of BRM Laptop Repair in Columbus, Ohio. I have been relying on word of mouth and google searches to aid my customers in finding me, a reputable laptop repair shop. Now I'm officially into the blogging world and look forward to gaining more customers and posting some of the daily things I'm up to as well. I provide laptop repair at competitive prices and after hours since I spend all day tinkering with electronics as an electronics hardware engineer with a company called Nivis. I have had BRM Laptop Repair open officially for 9 months now and have seen great success in servicing laptops for insurance agencies, IT departments, engineers, banks, realtors, payroll departments and many, many residential customers that live, work and worship in the Central Ohio area. Personally I have been fixing and repairing desktops and laptops(notebooks) for Macs and Window users for 15 years but definitely see a trend towards laptops and desktops going away hence starting up a niche in laptop repair. I have seen all types of problems from viruses, spyware, OS reinstalls, data recovery issues, many hardware problems and hardware upgrades. I have seen many other problems but I could go on forever on laptop issues. Recently I just reached agreements with a Colorado based data recovery group that specializes in data recovery from any form of electronic media in any partition format(Window, Linux or Mac). I am very excited about this as I have limited resources here in Columbus and at points have had to turn some customers to competitors because the damage was too severe to the hard drive. I can now provide even better services for my customers with damaged hard drives. In any case to give you an idea of what I did this past week(Hopeful to update more often than every week!) I have sold one used laptop, recovered data off a laptop that had liquid spilled on it, revived an old laptop that the customer thought for sure was done for(spyware, viruses and a bad DSL connection) and provided some training for that same customer, and found a power adapter for a MAC user. Kind of a slow week. Next week will be even slower I'm sure with Christmas right around the corner but after that begins the new year with new laptop problems. Merry Christmas everyone and a Happy New Year!
BRM Laptop Repair
3171 N. High St.
Columbus, OH 43202

www.BRMLaptopRepair.com
laptop.repair@gmx.com
614-313-9901
Columbus, OH 43229