2 Dell 1525 Repairs, sound card

Had a couple of customers come in yesterday with broken 1525 Dell Inspiron laptops with very similar problems. The first customer's computer was the worst with the entire top portion of her computer separated from the bottom. It looked like someone had broken the laptop over their knee like a stick. The second one was very similar as the back of the right hinge had separated from the LCD cover behind the screen. Been seeing a rash of 1525 laptops with the same problem lately. Easily fixable, just a bit odd.

Last customer came in with a desktop that was having an audio card problem. Computer is 8-9 years old but still runs, just no sound. Should be an interesting one to diagnose.

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

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

Recent Work

Had a couple of computers that needed a new screen come in today. Also did some work for a vet clinic to upgrade their computers to meet the minimum specs. Some of the computers were not upgradeable so I had to replace them with some more modern computers. Customer couldn't have been happier, now they want me to replace the old personal computer in the back office. Picked up another customer too and became their sole IT person for their psychology office. Been a busy month and I certainly can't believe it's October. Christmas is less than 3 months away, wow. Try contacting us if you need some help for some gift ideas.

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

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

Columbus Laptop Repair - Grand Opening

Well we just had our grand opening last weekend. We had a lot of traffic both from previous customers and new customers passing by. 4 people dropped off laptops for service and we handed out a lot of business cards to potential customers.

Currently working on a couple of Toshiba's with cracked screens and some software issues. One customer just bought the computer on Saturday and their grandson somehow got a virus on the computer. since it was still fresh out of the box the most economical solution for this customer was to do a factory restore.

I'm really busy with laptops I got from over the weekend and am playing catchup on computers right now but I guess that's a good problem to have.

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

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

Columbus Laptop Repair - Dell Latitude LCD, Toshiba Satellite Data Recovery

Had 2 customers come in. The first customer went to a local laptop repair shop and was given an estimate of nearly $400 to replace his LCD screen on his Dell Latitude. He then called me to get a quote and I gave him a much more economical price to replace his screen. He had some trouble getting his laptop back from the previous repair shop but immediately came to me after getting it.

The second customer had a Toshiba Satellite laptop that stopped turning on suddenly. After a short diagnosis and finding out how old the laptop was I advised the customer that it was more economical to recover what data could be recovered and invest in a new laptop. Sometimes this is the case and I will always be honest with my customer when it seems we reached that point. I'll have more later this week if you're following.

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 - Virus, spyware, bad lcd

A customer contacted me about an issue with their computer. It was only displaying in 4 & 8 bit colors. When I received the computer I saw that they had no antivirus and no spyware protection. I installed both (AVG free edition and Malwarebytes) and saw hundreds of infections. In addition, several critical windows processes/services had been disabled from the infection. After removing all the issues I reenabled the windows services that were disabled and began updating the computer to the latest revision. The customer originally came in with a burnt out lcd screen and computer running really slow and will leave with a computer that is running like it just came from the store.

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

Broken MacBook, Burnt out LCD and Bad Power Connector

Had 3 laptops come in this weekend. The first laptop that needed repaired was a Dell that would turn on for 5 seconds before the screen went dark. More than likely this is an issue with the inverter going bad. If the LCD lights were going bad (white's on screen look pink on bootup) then the screen is probably at fault.

The second laptop was a Mac Book. The customer had dropped it and bent the frame. The disk for reloading the operating system was stuck in the superdrive as a result. The computer did not operate correctly and every attempt to reload the OS failed. More than likely the superdrive was damaged in the drop and will need replaced. A new bottom frame will probably be needed as well unless I can bend the aluminum frame back into it's original shape.

The third laptop is a Dell that had the LCD lights actually have a bad solder connection and was sparking across the terminals. This melted some of the plastic on the LCD and caused the screen to go dark. I am going to replace the inverter along with the screen on this because I'm afraid the inverter may have been damaged drawing too much current as a result of the sparking inside the LCD.



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

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

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