Busy repairing laptops as usual

It's been really busy lately and I know that I have not put a recent blog of what's going on so I'll just talk about what I'm working on right now. I had an Acer come in with a bad motherboard and will be working on replacing this. Had another motherboard replacement on a Sony Vaio. Ended up skipping on this one since the board costs over $400. Recommended the customer buy another laptop. Was able to find a tested motherboard from a vendor I frequently use for $225. This one ended up being dead on arrival. Have 3 laptops that needed data recovery on it and then Windows reinstalled, actually it was 4 but I returned the Dell to the customer already. The other 3 laptops are a Dell, Gateway and Compaq. Forgot about another Thinkpad that I'm waiting for a motherboard to come in for and another Dell that needs a new LCD replaced. Been a little busy lately. A customer called me about Personal Antivirus attacking her computer so I'm doing the research on that as well. Outside of that, just routine cleanings, virus removals and computer tutoring. Hopefully, I'll be able to blog more once I get some of this work taken care of.

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

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

DC Power Connectors, Bad RAM & Bad Hard Drive

Had a few computers come in this week... Oh, before I forget. I now have a drop off location at 1933 East Dublin Granville Rd, 43229. It's inside the UPS store and they have work authorizations readily available when you drop it off and will contact me. If you'd like to contact me yourself about your laptop my number is 313-9901.

Back to the computers, one was a Dell D600 that the customer had used while in school and had developed a bad DC power jack on the laptop side. All the customer wanted was data(photos, music & documents) taken off the hard drive. In return, I got to keep the laptop to repair and resell as a refurbished laptop.

The next laptop also had a bad power jack and is a Gateway. Same fix, order the part and resolder after removing the old one. Took a couple of hours as usual but was back up and running in no time.

The computer with bad RAM kept having problems starting up and was actually showing a hard drive failure when doing diagnostics. Replacing the RAM solved the issue and after an operating system reinstall, the computer was like new.

The last computer had the hard drive just die. I'm attempting a data recovery on this one and will try to do what I can but data recovery is never a guarantee. I will be putting a new hard drive in this and loading the operating system and returning the laptop. I'm crossing my fingers on the hard drive recovery.

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

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

Hijacked Computer & Bad Hard Drive

Had a client yesterday that had laptop and desktop issues. Both computers were Dell machines. The laptop had been hijacked by an application that had installed itself and prevented the user from doing anything after booting into windows. This is the 3rd customer that I've seen have this problem this week. The program stated that the computer was infected and that 30+ infections were found and if you did anything it shuts down the application you try to access. It's a front for getting your credit card number and doing even worse damage than was done to the laptop so be very careful if you have this. Each computer behaved a little differently and took different measures to remove the application.

The desktop was a no brainer. I used a USB stick that had an operating system(Ubuntu) loaded on it and was able to make sure all the hardware worked. When trying to install an operating system on the hard drive though, the hard drive just spun and made no progress. After further testing in my office it was verified the hard drive went bad.



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

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

3 laptops

Recently had a customer come all the way from Mansfield with 3 laptops that he needed assistance with. 2 of the laptops are HP DV6000 models that have different problems with them. His exact words were "found you on the net - was looking for the Toshiba laptop warranty repair place off polaris but you seem well recommended", pretty cool.

The third laptop is a Toshiba and has some problems with overheating.

1 HP has an issue with the power button, still trying to narrow that one down. The other has problems getting past POST(Power On Self Test). Will be looking at that one soon.

Had 2 customers recently have a pop up on their screen when booting into Windows that says they have some virus on their computer and that it is being removed/quarantined/locked down by an antivirus program that they did not install after the Windows splash screen disappears.

The first computer I saw this on had Windows Vista and was salvaged after opening task manager, killing the process, uninstalling a program that had installed itself and rolling back Vista to a month before the attack.

The second computer had XP Home and was not so lucky. Task manager was inaccessible thanks to the attack and the program hid itself when booting into safe mode. On top of that, the Add/Remove programs was disabled. Probably could've targeted specific points and eliminated the problem but it would've taken much more time and labor doing this approach rather than backing up the data(scanning backed up data for infections of course) and blasting the operating system.



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

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

Upgrade, hinge replacement & LCD Replacements

Yesterday I worked on 3, no 4 different computers. The first computer was a Dell workstation that was a replacement at a veterinary clinic for a computer that failed. It had Vista business premium on it and needed connected to a Windows 2000 server managed network. On top of that there was some proprietary software that needed loaded and some backup software. Interesting situation and was kind of fun to do rather than the hinge replacement on the HP and the LCD replacments on the Toshiba & the Dell laptops.

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

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

Interesting Development

Things have been kind of interesting over the last few weeks. I promised to get back to this and so now I am. I've had multiple Gateway laptops, Toshiba laptops, HP laptops, Compaq laptops, Dell laptops and Sony Vaio laptops that I've been working on. The list of these included 5 screens that needed replaced, 1 DC power connector that needed fixed, 1 keyboard that was non-functional, a motherboard replacement, a bad hard drive and data recovery job, and several operating system reinstallations. Oh, and can't forget the 2 upgrades that people needed. The first upgrade was a bigger hard drive but retaining the operating system(Thank you Clonezilla!) and the upgrading the RAM to 2 gigabytes from 1 gigabyte. That was a gateway. The second upgrade will take place from now and will run over the next few weeks. I'm upgrading an entire network from hardwired computers to wired computers. There are bound to be issues such as what I dealt with last night in the transition. Last night I was trying to configure a router and did not realize there was something already set to a 192.168.1.1 IP on the network. It took me a call to tech support to figure that one out. I feel so ashamed. In any case, it's been a busy week and this week isn't looking any better. I have setup a dropoff location while I'm at work in case any of you need to drop a laptop off during normal business hours. If you need to know the address, feel free to contact me @ laptop.repair@gmx.com and I will gladly tell you where that is. Hopefully I'll have more of a chance to update this more often but it is getting difficult as my business is getting busier and busier. In anycase, it's sunny outside and I'm going out. Cheers!

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

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

Been real busy

Last month has probably been the busiest month I've ever had hence not putting in a blog recently. There have been a slew of laptops that have had broken screens, bad dc connectors and fresh windows installs needed. The conficker virus scare also has contributed to a few of the problems I've been seeing. The biggest part of the busy schedule was my first major upgrade for a customer that needed the whole fleet of computers on their network upgraded.

This has been a major drain on time but at the same time very beneficial. I'll try to post more at a later time.

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

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

Hard Drive Recovery & Freezer

Ok, this is one of my favorite stories of data recovery. I did this about a month ago and it's always a blast (when it works). I have seen this in the past and it works about 25% of the time. I had a customer that had a hard drive that had stopped spinning. This is different than other hard drive failures that create a clicking sound on the hard drive. If the hard drive is clicking you're probably looking around $1000 to get your data back, if the data recovery company can get the data. This story is different as the hard drive makes no sound at all.

The theory behind this is that the freezer cools down the hard drive bearings and makes them contract and while the hard drive is running it keeps it cool too. Hard drives run very hot and bad hard drives run even hotter. The steps to this are as follows.

1. Buy the exact same hard drive and make sure the firmware sticker on the drive matches whe bad one.

2. Replace the electronics on the bad hard drive.

3. Make sure you have some sort of hard drive enclosure that will plug into the USB and a hard drive that is big enough to copy the data to.

4. Stick the hard drive in the freezer for 24 hours.

5. Pray, pray pray and then plug the USB cable into the computer.

6. If the drive starts spinning get your data off as fast as possible starting with the most critical files and then the second most critical and so on. For windows I like using the unstoppable copier from http://www.roadkil.net/ and Apple has their own version of data recovery. Above is a picture of the data recovery done recently.

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

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

HP Laptop, HP Netbook, Apple MacBook Pro

Been about a couple of weeks since my last blog here in Columbus, Ohio. Been really busy, here's of the highlights of some of the laptops I've worked on since my last blog.

A traveling comedian was here in Columbus and had an HP netbook that was bogged down with some viruses and spyware. Not really sure how I feel about netbooks yet. They're great for quick lookups on the internet and fit in the purse or bookbag but but so do most of the smartphones on the market. The have a large solid state drive on them but don't expect them to be as powerful as their larger laptop counterparts. Kind of limited on storage so if you're looking to keep music, video or pictures on them you may want to consider external storage mediums when you purchase one. In any case, a quick loading of Ad-Aware & AVG and several Windows updates later this guy was back in business and telling jokes.

The next customer had an Apple MacBook Pro that had met with root beer and believe it or not the laptop won. This particular Apple laptop had 4 wide electrical tape covering the bottom of the entire keyboard tray protecting the motherboard against anything spilled into the laptop. The customer was very fortunate that Apple had designed this laptop so well. That being said, it still took almost a complete disassembly of the laptop to clean up all traces of the frosty beverage. Be careful if you eat or drink around your laptop, they don't like to get wet.

The last laptop I'll be talking about was a mess. This customer had taken her laptop to Geeksquad and contacted HP support about it. I've had many customers have regrets about this very type of thing because they think they're going to get great support and they have no way of knowing if the guy or gal behind the counter or on the other side of the phone is someone just out tech school our an experienced IT consultant with many years of experience. In my experience with customers, it's usually the former based on them coming to me after the service provided to them. In any case, this customer had quite a few issues going on with her laptop. She initially had called me because she couldn't print or get on the internet through Internet Explorer. Upon closer examination, I had found that the customer service she had contacted before had used remote login programs to access her computer and had failed to remove software or instructed her how to do so when finished. I also had found that they had disable several critical system processes that prevented her computer from updating Antivirus, Antispyware and Window's update. The system event log files I examined showed many, many conflicts with the Remote Login feature that was installed. The customer service had also installed many, many startup programs and screwed up her printer drivers by doing a partial install of her printer software and telling her to shut the computer off in mid stream. NEVER shut off a computer in the middle of installation of anything, especially hardware. There are many, many things happening accessing window's system files and you are guaranteed to screw things up. I managed to get her computer up and running to a tolerable condition in my opinion. I also asked when her business would have some downtime so that I could do a complete system restore on her computer since there were many other issues going on and I still could not get the USB controllers to behave properly. In short, just because you have a warranty with your laptop and wherever you bought it from does not mean they're going to fix it or make things better. I'm not trying to sell myself but I let my work speak for itself, give me a call and I'll give you an honest and fair assesment of your computer. Happy Easter everyone.


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

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

Vundo Virus & DC Power Connector

A previous client contacted me about a problem they were having with a DC power connector. The connector had been fixed previously and something had happened where it was damaged again. The computer was an Acer Aspire and they're generally pretty easy to dismantle. The DC power connector was on a separate circuit board so disconnecting it after the motherboard was exposed was a cinch. The real cost in repairing a DC power connector is not really the part, but in the attention to detail while dismantling the laptop. There are many screws that are not the same, many wires that have to be routed a certain way and reconnected on reassembly. In addition, the person repairing your computer has to be aware of any electrostatic discharge as this may cause problems on your motherboard. Also consider the removal of the bad power connector. This takes careful desoldering techniques so no traces are damaged in the process. Finally, there has to be adequate solder joints when putting the new power connector in and careful attention is necessary so the new connector does not overheat and melt and you start all over again. So when you see the pin on your laptop power connector is loose and you wonder why you're dishing out some serious cash for this repair, keep in mind all that has to be done to do this. Most other places around Columbus are asking for way higher than what I charge. I'm not looking to get rich, don't get me wrong because that would be nice, I'm just trying to make a living and I enjoy working computers.

Another laptop I received was infected with the vundo virus. It's been attacking quite a few computers lately including my server at home. You can attempt to take care of this yourself or you can have me do it. Right now, because I'm seeing so many with this problem I'm offering a $65 flat rate for it if you have it until April 31st. If you want to try yourself, please go to "http://forums.techguy.org/malware-removal-hijackthis-logs/406823-solved-trojan-vundo-virus.html" and follow the instructions carefully. I take no liability for any lost data or for your laptop getting worse from a performance point of view. If the problem is being caused by some other problem, I'll let you know that too and give an estimate on costs. To give you an idea on costs for viruses, I have never charged more than $300 for the fix and most virus removals have fallen in the average of $130-195.

That's all for now, enjoy and hope you can find a solution for your problem on this blog or with my services.

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

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

Dell, Gateway & HP Laptops

Recently had a customer that dropped a Dell laptop. This was a previous customer that originally had a faulty hard drive when the laptop was dropped. The hard drive was replaced but when the laptop was returned the customer called back describing a problem with the laptop battery not charging properly. After repeated visits to the battery store for this problem I made a visit to the customer's house and determined that the motherboard was also damaged when the laptop was dropped. After replacing it, the battery started charging properly and the customer was happily reading blogs until 3 am.

The next laptop was a Gateway that had a bad DC power jack. This one was an easier fix than most since the motherboard did not have to be removed. The power jack was on a separate daughterboard that was connected to the motherboard by a pair of wires. A complete disassembly was still necessary to inspect the damage. Was able to turn this around pretty quick since I had a DC connector on hand and the customer needed the laptop back since she used it for everything.

The last laptop I have right now belongs to a guy in showbusiness which is an HP Pavilion that has a damaged LCD screen. Most HP, Compaq's and Gateway laptops have different model LCD's for the same model laptop so I had to bring the laptop in to the office and partially disassemble it to look at the model # on the LCD before ordering. Found the LCD and should receive it in the next couple of days and will pop the new one in and get the laptop back to him.

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

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

Compaq 6100 & Gateway Tablet Laptop

Couple days ago I talked about a Compaq 6100 laptop that had startup issues. Did some further diagnostics on tthis one and it ended up not being a startup problem at all. Compaq is notorious for using a power cord that terminates in a connector with a v-prong at the tip that narrows as it goes into the barrel. This is a terrible design as this gets more flex than a typical barrel connector and eventually breaks off in as little as 3-6 months after purchasing the computer. The symptoms were very similar to a bad bootup since most batteries on modern laptops have a low power protection mode that mimics a bad motherboard. Read the previous blog from March 12th for more info. In any case, looks like this customer is just going to need a new power cord and she'll be back in business.

Picked up another laptop on Friday and currently working on it. Looks like the multiple drivers were corrupted and the system wouldn't even boot into Windows anymore. Examined the hard drive by using Crunchbang Linux on an external thumb drive and was able to rescue much needed files and then wipe the hard drive clean. The customer couldn't even use system restore because it looks like the MBR(Master Boot Record) was corrupted too. After the format of the main partition containing Windows was wiped clean the MBR was corrected and then finally the system restore worked properly and was able to reload itself on the computer.

Sold a refurbished computer to someone too that wanted Linux loaded on his machine. Had good taste in my opinion... was wanting a T42 Thinkpad. Thinkpads have and will always be good computers to do practical business stuff on, not the best for gaming but good all-around for everything else.


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

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

Multiple Laptops

Picked up a Compaq 6100 which was not booting correctly. Think this is the same problem that I saw with a Compaq a few months ago that ended up being returned to the factory for a motherboard replacement under a recall. For anyone reading this blog, save yourself some money and check with you manufacturer first to see if you qualify for a free repair. Again, my goal is to get your computer back to you... yeah, I have to make a living but there's lots of laptops out there for me to fix.

The next computer was from a previous customer that had a hard drive go bad. She had a bad DC power connector go bad on the same laptop. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do to prevent this aside from being very gentle when you plug/unplug your connector. The manufacturers use very little solder when making laptops and eventually it will wear out.

The third computer I looked at yesterday was also a previous customer but a different laptop. It looks like Norton somehow corrupted his TCP/IP Stack. Easily fixable. Symptoms of bad TCP/IP stacks usually are clean antispyware/antivirus detection checks and no connection to internet. Pinging usually ineffective and not able to directly connect via ethernet cable to router, routers, modems, etc.

Fourth computer is a replacement computer for someone who had a bad LCD screen on an old computer. I have a vendor that has refurbished computers and I was able to get her a new laptop for the price of what it would've cost her to replace her LCD. The replacement was a 1.13 GHz Thinkpad T23 and she was overjoyed since it was an improvement over her old computer. All in all, it was a busy day. Stay tuned for more blogs.

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

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

Windows Live OneCare Issue

Received a laptop from a client this weekend and he was having a problem with his computer shutting down or locking up all the time. He was running Windows XP, SP3 with all the latest updates and Windows Live Onecare which is an antivirus-antispyware-firewall all rolled into one. There were other applications running on it but the problem was centered around OneCare. Previous antivirus programs were installed on his computer before including Norton 360 and AVG. These programs were uninstalled but working remnants of these applications which included antivirus products were still on it. Antivirus applications run in the background and if there are 2 antivirus programs working they will conflict with each other and cause your system to halt. After disabling and uninstalling the remnant antivirus applications, the computer quit locking up and everything was stable.


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

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

2 DC Power Connector Problems

Yesterday I received a call for an HP computer after a customer had called other laptop repair shops in town and did not receive a response from any of them. The customer was very satisfied with the quick response and pickup of her laptop. In addition to having a bad dc power connector she requested a new key that was missing. One cool thing that I provide for my clients is pulling necessary data that they need to use while their computer is being worked on. This customer requested a couple of folder off here desktop be emailed to her so she could continue work on her other computer.

The other computer is a Dell Ispiron, not sure of the model right off hand but it also has a bad dc power connector. Most of the newer dells use a better dc power connector that has a shield around it that helps hold the connector together with a center pin. Most of the time it's just the center pin that needs resoldered and that's the case with this one.

I don't see either one of these laptops taking more than a couple of hours and hope to knock them out this upcoming weekend.



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

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

Busy, busy, busy.

Today was one of those days, busy, but definitely a good problem to have. Had 5 people contact me regarding laptop repair. The first customer had a cracked LCD screen on a Gateway W350A. The next customer had a more challenging issue for an Acer Aspire 5670. Her fan was failing with itand could not find a replacement anywhere. It took about 40 minutes and a lot of searching vendor's inventories but I found what I believe is the only in the US. Hers shouldn't be too difficult to replace. The next one is a Dell 6400. Another broken LCD screen. The 4th one today was a Compaq Presario with a bad LCD screen. Finally, the 5th one today was another Compaq Presario with a bad inverter. Whew... what a day. Think I'll be busy for a couple days.


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

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

Dell Latitude, Compaq Presario, Gateway

Today I picked up a Dell Latitude(has broken LCD) from a customer who did all the right things. He backed up his hard drive data, checked to make sure his computer worked with an external monitor and kept the laptop meticulously clean. In his case there was an accident and the entire computer's screen looked like a work of art when powered up. There were spidercracks all over the screen and it displayed black and white spots all over the screen with some rainbow colors sprinkled throughout. Typical LCD replacement if I've ever seen it.

The Compaq presario had met a similar fate but you could still see half the screen. Being a 17 inch display the price was going to be a little higher than the Latitude described before.

The Gateway is a completely different story. This was not in good condition at all. The laptop was given as a gift from the owner's Mom. The battery was dead and there was a virus on the computer. Batteries are notorious for dying prematurely if you use the laptop as a laptop. What do I mean? Plug in whenever you can. Batteries in laptops have a certain amount of times that you can recharge them before they go bad. The new MacBoook pro's are able to be recharged 1000 times before being replace. The competion, about a 3rd of that. Use your laptop like a desktop as much as possible and use the battery for backup power alone and you'll extend the life of the battery to a much longer time and when you do need the backup power, it'll be there.



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

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

Toshiba parts, LCD Compaq Presario & DC Power Connector

Today's kind of been a busy day for calls. One person contacted me about getting a battery & a hard drive cover for a Toshiba Tecra 8200. The next call was about an LCD on a compaq presario that had cracked and he needed it replaced. Later on in the day I received a call about replacing a DC power connector. Looks like my weekend is getting pretty packed.

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

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

Compaq Presario 1800 & Bad Hard Drive

Had a couple of customers today. One customer stood out in my mind as I have had problems with inverters for different customers. She had the typical symptoms where the laptop would be fine until it had remained powered on for a few minutes and then the screen would go dark. For this type of failure it could be 2 different issues. The giveway that it is either of these issues involves using a really bright flashlight shone at an angle to the screen. If you see a faint image then it means you either have a bad backlight in the LCD or the inverter is bad. The backlights are made to last a really long time and unless you noticed your screen was pink on bootup the problem lies with the inverter 99% of the time.

Well enough about that. The other customer had a bad backup hard drive. It was very necessary for the customer to have it as his business files for taxes were all on it. This time it was completely unrecoverable without having a clean room. To properly fix this it would mean disassembling the hard drive and putting new reading heads and stepper motors into the drive. This kind of cost can be in the $500-1500 range and has to be done in a clean room. While this is expensive nothing can be too expensive to replace documents, pictures or any other special memories on your hard drive so please consider some sort of backup plan for your data.

Keep posted for other laptop & computer related problems. Peace out

Ben Martin

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

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

Computer Upgrade & LCD replacement

Recently an embroidery company contacted me with a request to upgrade his computer. He is currently using an old 486 computer that is connected to embroidery equipment that is just as old. This will be a fairly involved upgrade as all of his backup files are on floppy disks and all working files are saved to his hard drive on the 486. There can be no downtime as this is his business and with baseball season right around the corner embroidery business is about to reach it's peak period. This is a very critical upgrade since it is not a matter of if the hard drive is going to fail, but when. With a computer that is over 12 years old and used every day, it could happen anytime. I'll be posting more on this job as the day's progress.

The other computer that I was contacted about was a Gateway E475M that needed an LCD replaced. This one is a pretty straightforward repair and I don't imagine seeing any issues with replacing it. The story behind this one is pretty typical. Laptop was just sitting ther minding it's own business until a dog decided it would look better sitting on the floor so the dog assisted. The LCD broke and then the owners called me.



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

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

Dell Inspiron Laptop

Recently I repaired a Dell Inspiron Laptop. This one had a virus. The user had attempted to remove the virus himself to no avail. It took 5 hours but eventually I was able to remove the trojan virus that had embedded itself in several parts of the registry and even backup restore points the user had created. It's no wonder he couldn't remove the virus since every time he would reboot the computer would be reinfected from one of the backup restore points. After this windows would finally allow the computer to update itself. In addition, there were quite a few things slowing the computer. One of the biggest problems I saw was he had 2 antivirus programs running. I removed both, one was non-updating and the other I've never heard of, and installed AVG Antivirus from www.download.com. After this and a couple of tweaks the laptop sped along doing what it needed to do for the user. Another job well done.

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

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

Acer Aspire & Thinkpad T43

Okay, the problem with the Acer Aspire is an easy one but as with all the other DC power jack repairs I've done it's very time consuming and attention to detail is very necessary so that no screws are left behind.

The other computer on the other hand has been a little more interesting. It's an IBM Thinkpad T43. I'm pretty sure I talked about it in a previous posting. Aside from the LCD issue and the dead bios battery the software has been a little challenging. For one, defragment(which I strongly recommend!) was not able to run. The fix for this time was easy. I ran a checkdisk on each of the two hard drives and rebooted the computer so the checkdisk could be thorough. After rebooting defragmentation was now allowed and all was well with the world. On top of that there were a lot of problems with background programs starting up and good ol' CCleaner(www.ccleaner.com) came to the rescue again. Many, many Window updates later the laptop was zipping along nicely and booted up pretty quick too.

Now I know this is a laptop blog but I've got an interesting case for a desktop issue this weekend that a friend referred me to. The problem was this; a newly built computer was having trouble when turning the computer on. One symptom of the the problem was that it would take successive pushes of the power button to turn the computer on. More than likely what is happening is that the power supply, while rated @ 650 watts, can't handle the startup of all the devices in the system. It may be able to supply 650 watts when up and running but not from a cold boot. The solution, research, research, research. Don't buy a $300 motherboard, $250 processor and then buy a $20 power supply. Anyway, that's my desktop helping for you, I'll try to keep those to a minimum.



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

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

IBM Thinkpad T43

Hey all, just received an IBM ThinkPad T43 that has a few issues with it, mostly software. It starts up very slow and responds to commands even more slowly. I think this is a good example where Ccleaner will come in handy to track down different unnecessary applications starting up in the background. The Thinkpad is also having an issue remembering the date. This is something controlled by the bios and means the lithium battery connected to it(not the main laptop battery) is failing and needs replaced. Sometimes you get lucky and it's accessible through a small panel on the bottom somewhere. That's not the case with the T43 since I have to remove the keyboard to get to it. Always be careful since the battery is connected to the motherboard and touching the motherboard has the potential to cause ESD damage to it. Since I will be removing the laptop keyboard anyway to remove the display to replace a failing lcd, it's going to save the customer some money while I do 2 things at the same time. The real costly item here is tracking down the issues slowing down his computer. Thinkpads are always fun to take apart since they are built so well. I love looking inside these things.

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

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

Gateway W322

Well this has been a first. I received a call from a customer today for help with a Gateway W322. This was a mid-range laptop; fairly decent specs and certifications so I was fairly surprised when I found that it had just quit on him. He was using it at the airport just before boarding and when he arrived in Columbus, Ohio it just stopped. Black screen and no fan or hard drive spinning. The only sign of life on this thing were a couple of LED's on the front that were lit up. Voltages were all good, very little dust inside, hard drive was in good shape and was even able to pull some data off of it. It's like someone just pulled the motherboard out and left the power supply board inside. While investigating replacing the motherboard I found that not one of my vendors has this motherboard. It's like Gateway built this for two months and then just quit. All after market parts for this thing are fans, ram and lcd screens. Not one motherboard. I unfortunately had to tell him prior to diagnosing his laptop that there was little to no hope of finding a replacement motherboard if the diagnosis pointed to that. My recommendations for him were to pull data off of the drive and buy another laptop. I suggested he buy a refurbished laptop but for his purposes(gaming) he needed something with a little more power to it. Right a good benchmark to determine a high end computer is if the computer is using bio-metrics of some sort. These computers usually employ additional testing in the certification process and can be mid-range($600-700) to high-end($1500-2000) latpops. This was what I suggested for him and one diagnosis fee later we went our separate ways. What a bummer, I hate leaving customers with big, broken paperweights. Where's the fun in that?


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

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

Cold Weather & DC Power Jacks?

I'm not sure what's going on lately but there seems to be a rash of bad DC power jacks. I have had 4 different customers with bad DC jacks. I can only blame it on the cold weather. It's always interesting repairing these because the laptop has to be completely disassembled just to get to the jack. While repairing one of these I came across a laptop running the beta version of windows 7. Kind of interesting, it looks a lot like Vista.

The other laptop I repaired this week was one that kept eating hard drives. This laptop was in a very dirty condition. I blasted it with canned air and swore I saw a mouse run out of it. I can't stress enough how important it is to keep the vents and fans clean. I still have to run a diagnostic on this laptop but I am pretty sure, from prior experience, that the temperature on the hard drive should be lower after this cleaning.

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

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

Unhappy customer from Geak-squad

Okay, so I found another Geak-squad unhappy customer(actually they found me) who was charged big bucks to have drivers downloaded onto their computer. I know, I know, the spelling is incorrect for that company that works out of Worst Buy, I don't want to get in trouble for inappropriately using their name. Anyway, in addition to the driver issue above, they never diagnosed the original issue which was what caused 2 hard drives to crash and burn. The longer I'm in this business the more disturbing it is that people are being taken advantage of. I understand the technicians need experience and they should get it by taking jobs like working at Worst Buy but the senior guys need to catch this stuff and get things fixed right.

It was really sad because this particular customer has a husband who is out of work and they need the laptop to assist him in finding a job through the internet. Now, for the 3rd time they have a bad hard drive and have no idea why. It is a Dell computer and I'm pretty sure it's either a user environmental issue or it needs a good solid cleaning. In anycase, we'll get this figured out and shouldn't cause too much of a headache for anyone.

Another customer contacted me about a DC power jack on another HP. Shouldn't take too long on this one either.


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

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

Failure

Well, it happens. I ended up not fixing a customer's computer. I took in someone's laptop that had viruses, spyware and such. It was a Pentium 3 Gateway with 2000 loaded on it. Well, in the the midst of it the LCD light went out. This computer was about 5-6 years old and I advised the customer that it wasn't worth dumping the money into. I didn't charge the customer because the laptop was not finished being repaired. The total cost for it would've equaled out to the price of one of the refurbished laptops I sell. The refurbished laptop would've been a step up too, from a hardware point of view. I guess I'll just wait and see if they want to purchase a refurbished one or if they want to dump the money into the old one.

The other laptop I worked on this week was another DC power jack. Must be something about the cold weather. I was up until 1 A.M. working on that one. It was another Gateway. What is about Gateway laptops right now?

I have a couple of other laptops that I'm working on right now too. Both are Dell laptops. One has a bad LCD and the other has some missing key's. The retainers are usually the weak point on the missing key's. I've seen everything from someone overusing certain keys to cat's pulling them off for the fun of it causing these to come off. I'll post more stories as I hear them. Stay tuned.

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

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

Current Activities

Well, it's been a while since my last blog. Been having to postpone something since we lost our contractor and I had to do all our repairs ourselves.

Well since the last blog I've had a couple of laptops that I've been working on. The first was someone who found me on http://www.google.com/. It was another customer with a power jack that had went bad on them. This particular repair is on a gateway and was broken when a dog chewed through the power cord and tugged the power cord out of the laptop.

The other problem is a repeat problem from a customer who had a Compaq motherboard issue. I thought it might've been a memory issue but when I replaced the memory modules with new ones the problem persisted. HP said the laptop is still under warranty so I will return this to the customer for him to return it and get it fixed again.

That's all for now, hopefully the next post will be sooner than the last one.
BRM Laptop Repair
3171 N. High St.
Columbus, OH 43202

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