4 broken laptops

Had a few calls from several customers yesterday. 3 were existing customers and 1 was a new one.

The first customer had a computer that was brought into the shop after another company had sold her a defective hard drive. After determining she had a bad drive I told her to go get her money back. She said she wanted to try to install the hard drive herself after getting another one and was going to install the operating system too. What she really needed help with was installing the necessary drivers for her computer and to get the files that she had backed up before the hard drive failed back onto the laptop.

The 2nd customer had a virus on his computer that has been going around since about June of 2009 under a variety of names. Basically, he was locked out of his computer and couldn't run any programs. Been seeing a lot of these.

The 3rd customer brought his computer in a while ago and was running out of space on his computer so the hard drive will possibly need backed up, wiped clean and have everything reinstalled.

The 4th customer had a water spill on his computer and it won't turn on. Could be coincidental that he has a bad DC power jack but unlikely. This will probably take a complete mobo(motherboard) replacement.



BRM Laptop Repair
3171 N. High St.
Columbus, OH 43202
www.BRMLaptopRepair.com
laptop.repair@gmx.com
614-313-9901

Columbus laptop repair - wireless printer sharing

A customer was dealing with a printer issue. The original idea was to have the printer connected to a desktop computer and set up as shared so other computers with access to the network could print to it. The person who originally set up the printer had forgotten to share the printer and set up the correct port for it. The fix took about 20 minutes to remedy. After setting it up I checked if I could print from one of the laptops on the network to make sure everything was working ok.

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

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

Columbus Laptop Repair - Dell Screen Replacement

Slow week so far. Picked up a Dell laptop, about 5 years old, that needed a screen replacement. This failure is pretty advanced. The screen turns pink like the lights are going bad but then cuts to a dark screen a couple of seconds later.

Get the new screen later this week and will replace it turning the computer repair around in about 4 days.


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

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

I picked up 3 laptops yesterday.

The first laptop was a Gateway laptop that has a dc power connector. This will take approximately 2 hours to fix. In addition, the customer was not able to connect to his wireless network so I will have to fix this after the connector was fixed.

The 2nd laptop was a Dell 1521 that had a very pale image on the screen and no backlight. The customer stated that the bottom portion of the screen got very hot and then the light went out. 90% of the time this is an inverter issue and the the other 10% is a bad screen. With the inverter being the cheapest component, this is always the first item to try.

The 3rd laptop was an acer that had a broken screen. I always like hearing the stories about how the lcd screen was broken. I've heard everything from the customer stepping on the computer to it getting hit with every object under the sun. In this case, it was an elbow that took out the screen. A cracked screen is usually indicative of a spider web fracture pattern across the screen and multiple lines and colors not normally seen. Some of the screen still works but regardless it needs replaced.


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

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

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

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