Tag Archives: laptop

CD drives (laptop style). Some people don’t know how to use them!

Computer Aid Posted on by

Its funny how I (and other techs like me) can take apparently simple technological devices for granted.

I had just sold a used PC to a lady that wanted it configured for her children.

I assume they were adult children, as she wanted the system installed and configured for them, before she “returned to England”.

Anyway, the system was a small Dell computer (ie smaller than a full tower).

Of course, with such a small system, you usually don’t get a full-size CD/DVD drive, but a laptop style drive. Ie you push the eject button, and the small tray only pops out half way. You then need to pull the tray out all the way, snap the disk onto the central spindle (so the CD stays where it should), and then you push the tray back into the drive.

I simply assumed that everyone has seen and/or used these type of drives before, but not this time.

I got a call from this lady, saying that the CD would not eject.

I’m thinking: I ejected it just an hour ago… It couldn’t have failed so soon!

After a few more questions, I figure out that she opened the CD tray (since the PC was vertical, so was the CD drive… not horizontal like most CD drives), put the Microsoft Office CD “into” the tray and then closed the tray. And now the CD is trapped inside the drive.

After even more questioning, she says that she just placed the disk lightly into the tray, the same way she would with her past PCs

Then I realise she didn’t “click” the CD fully onto the spindle, and the CD came loose once the drive tried to spin up the CD…

So now the CD is loose inside the drive, and its probably jamming the tray and/or the eject mechanism.

And the customer insists she did nothing wrong, and that I sold she a PC with a “very fragile” CD drive.

So I get her to lay the tower flat (so the CD drive/tray is horizontal), and to try ejecting it again… but that also doesn’t work.

As a last resort, I ask her to find a paper clip, straighten it out, and to carefully push it into the tiny “eject” hole near the eject button.

She say she will call back, once she finds a paper clip, and tries it out.

I also suggest that she gently shake main PC (while the power is off).

She doesn’t sound very happy when I give her the worst case scenario: replace the drive with a similar one, and dismantle the “broken” one, in order to get the CD out.

After about an hour, she calls back and says she managed to get it open.

I once again ask her to make sure the CD is clipped in firmly, before closing the tray.

cleaning overheating laptops that have a separate video card

Computer Aid Posted on by

Nowadays, many laptops have dedicated video cards from Nvidia and ATI.

Its a good idea if you want to play graphics-intensive games on your laptop, or if you need the video power for other reasons.

However, I’ve also noticed that many of these laptops don’t have their cooling system designed properly, which dramatically shortens the life of the laptop.

Here is an example of what a normal laptop CPU fan and heat sink might look like:

but when you add a high speed Graphics Processor (GPU), then it needs to be cooled as well as the CPU.

Ideally, the components will be arranged, so that 1 heatsink is used to cool both the CPU and the GPU.

But you get problems when laptop makers decide to take an existing laptop design, and just “bolt on” a GPU, giving it its own heatsink, but using the same fan to cool both heatsinks… placing one heat sink behind the other… so that the air leaving the first heat sink, then goes through the second heat sink.

What happens now, is that dust gets trapped at the entrance of both heat sinks.

This means that blowing compressed air into the heatsink exhaust vent won’t really clear much dust.

In particular, the dust thats “trapped” between the 2 heat sinks will just be pushed from the second heat sink onto the first one (and eventually back onto the second one during normal operation).

In these cases, the only way to clean the cooling system on these laptops, is to open the bottom of the laptop case, and pick away at the dust “by hand”… a slow, dirty and nasty job!

Overheating laptop

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’ve had a few laptops recently, which have had varying degrees of overheating problems.

The most severe I had seen, was a CPU failure… The PC just wouldn’t switch on, despite my cleaning the CPU heat sink.

Other laptops had varying problems, like shutting down after just 20 minutes.

In some cases, it very easy to prevent the problem: while the laptop is off, blow some compressed air into the CPU exhaust vent.

Here is an example of what a laptop fan and heat sink might look like:

The heat sink is the set of cooling fins on the right.

The problem is that as the fan blows air across the fins, dust builds up at the “entrance” to each small “tunnel” created by the cooling fins.

As more dust accumulates, less air flows through.

Eventually no air flows through, and both the CPU and the heat sink, get hotter, until the CPU shuts down.

So blowing air in the reverse direction, means that the dust can get pushed out past the fan itself.

But in some cases, its actually better to take the casing apart, in order to clean the fins properly.

And here is where some laptops are better than others: some will have a flap under the laptop, which allows you to easily access the fan and heat sink.

But others (often Toshiba) force you to dismantle the entire laptop, in order to clean the cooling fins.

The next article will be along similar lines: cleaning overheating laptops that have a separate Video card (eg Nvidia and ATI cards).

Some laptops are just not worth fixing

Computer Aid Posted on by

A customer dropped off a laptop at the office.

It seemed ok at first. Just a noisy fan and a slow startup.

Well I take the fan out, clean it, but its obvious that it has shifted, and is constantly rubbing against the casing…

It only has 256Mb RAM, so it will be slow to start… but it seems to run like it only has 128Mb RAM… much slower than I would expect.

I then notice that some keyboard keys are not “springy”… they stick and feel like someone has spilt a sugary drink over the keyboard…

And the “trackpad” also doesn’t work well.

I’m also suspecting that the extra slowness might be due to other hardware faults, and / or a malware infection.

At this point, I decide its time to stop.

To fix all the problems, will take time to get replacement parts, a lot of time, and cost the customer more than getting a new “netbook”.

So I call the customer and arrange to get the laptop back to her.

Its funny, but I feel disappointed when I don’t fix a problem… I know I can fix it, but I still have to abandon the work just because of the cost.

Laptop with no sound

Computer Aid Posted on by

Sometimes, I really like the simple problems.

This has only happened to me 2 or 3 times, but it can test your troubleshooting skills.

Laptop plays no sound.

Depending on the laptop manufacturer, the control panel sound options are either not muted, or its muted, and the mute tickbox is greyed-out (and cannot be un-muted).

Updating drivers has no effect.

I eventually do what I should have done very early on: carefully examine all the buttons and switches along the front, sides, and top of the laptop.

I usually find a front or side button (annoyingly camouflaged black-on-black, with either black writing, or writing that is slightly raised), that will quietly mute the sound (or worse, directly disable the speakers, so that windows is none-the-wiser!).

Its also possible to mute using blue “Fn” button, but thats usually a lot more obvious.

laptop dials and switches

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’ve had a customer call me on 2 occasions, to fix (amongst other problems) two laptop problems (first was no sound, the second was no network access).

In both cases, the solution obvious (if you know what to look for).

The sound hardware all looked fine, until I realised the laptop had a difficult to see volume dial at the front… just turn the dial, and the sound is back!

The wireless network wasn’t working due to the wireless switch (on the side of the laptop), being in the “off” position.

Luckily I didn’t waste much time looking for a phantom problem, and solved the problems quickly.

old laptop RAM is difficult to find

Computer Aid Posted on by

This is a problem that doesn’t have a good answer.

Over the past 20 months, I have been asked a few times, to upgrade the RAM on a laptop.

The age of the laptops can vary from 1 to 6 years old… Yet I often find it difficult to get RAM that will work correctly (unless I do a lot of forum trawling, looking to see if laptop X will work with RAM Y).

A case in point is a Compaq laptop (maybe 3 years old)… It had a double sided DDR SODIMM ram card (PC2100, 266MHz)… nothing extraordinary.

I happened to have a single-sided 128Mb PC2100. I understand that the days of single-sided and double-sided RAM cards died with the older SDRAM standard… But I could be wrong.

I try the 128Mb RAM, and it works great.

The customer wants 512Mb RAM (I can’t find any 256MB RAM), so I get a used 512Mb SODIMM (double sided, PC2100). But when I try it, it just doesn’t work! (no other RAM: black screen, with other RAM: the 512 is not detected). I take it back to the supplier, and it tests OK.

As luck would have it, I’m looking at upgrading another laptop, and the memory works in that one. Phew!

I can only think of one main reason (and maybe a few related reasons) why the RAM didn’t work: the laptop is designed with a maximum allowed RAM (or RAM socket) size… which seems crazy to me… why artificially limit the expansion capabilities of a laptop?

And there have been countless times when I get what should be compatible RAM, and it doesn’t work (but works in a different laptop.

I’ve never had this much difficulty with ordinary PCs… so why are laptops so difficult?