Laptops Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Computer Repair & Technology Services

Posted on July 29, 2015May 3, 2018 by brad — Leave a comment

Dell Inspiron 3541 Virus Removal

Virus Removal Needed

We had a patient this week, a Dell Inspiron 3541 laptop that needed our virus removal service. The notebook was brought in by an ASU student that desperately needed to get the machine back up and running to complete her homework assignments. Her mom, who lives in California, found us on Google by typing in “Avondale az pc repair” and found our impressive customer satisfaction rating at 4.9 of 5 stars! She also loved our 5-day guarantee and $120 flat rate. She mentioned that our $120 flat rate service was much better than Office Max’s $165, non-flat-rate and referred us to her daughter.

The laptop was actually in great physical condition and was brand new to the customer. There were only 3 problems that she wanted to be resolved; 1. Viruses, 2. Windows 8 Tiles, and 3. Cannot watch DVD’s

Viruses

The viruses were self-inflicted from clicking questionable links on the internet and in an email. The virus attacked her antivirus software and took it out of commission. We removed the no longer functioning Antivirus software and put on a Free program that auto-updates and scans and is much better than what she was using. We also used our bag of tricks to remove everything from the system. In fact, we left some tools on her desktop in case she runs into another issue in the future.

Windows 8

Windows 8 really isn’t a problem. Sure she didn’t like the tiled start screen and start button hiding underneath it, but Windows 8 is actually a great operating system. Tomorrow Windows 10 will be released (hopefully). She qualifies for the free upgrade but will likely hold off until she has us upgrade it for her. In the meantime, we installed a program called ClassicStart that automatically skips the tiled start screen and changes the Start button back to the Windows 7 style functionality. Yay for Windows 10 going back to a classic start button style.

Can’t Watch DVD’s

While Netflix, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Pandora, and all other streaming multimedia source are gaining popularity but there are still some that want to play their DVD’s or CD’s on the computer. This is fine, except that Microsoft doesn’t include DVD player software that will do this for you. We installed a free player for her and trained her how to use it.

Recommendations

We recommend a SSD hard drive and an online backup solution be put on all systems; however, they were not entirely necessary for what she uses her computer for. Other than that the repair was quite easy and she had the laptop back in ~24 hours. Now that is service!

What’s wrong with your PC? How can we help?

Posted on May 13, 2015May 4, 2015 by brad — Leave a comment

Dell Inspiron E1705 Issues

Dell Inspiron E1705 with Multiple Issues

This Dell Inspiron E1705 had so many issues when it came to us. The customer knows the laptop is old and he should probably just replace it with a new laptop. We think the sentimental value is more than the value of the laptop itself.

The laptop was overheating and shutting down to protect itself. We found that the CPU fan failed and was no longer spinning. We decided to replace the CPU and GPU at the same time as well as the BIOS battery. The parts were less than $10 total.

After we replaced the parts we dealt with the operating system and software updates.

The customer purchased Windows 7 from Discount Mountain Software and had a legitimate license key. Unfortunately, the company sent the wrong media download link and the wrong version of Windows 7 was installed by the customer and the would not activate. The company is ranked “F” at the BBB and were completely unresponsive to any requests we made via email and phone.

Fortunately, we had the correct media that matched his purchased license key. We were able to reinstall the OS and get it activated with Microsoft to get all the security updates available.

The computer is in “as-good-as-new” condition and the customer is very happy with it. A solid state hard drive would be the next step to restoring this laptop to faster than new conditions.

What old laptops do you have sitting around that are ready to be revived?

Posted on April 1, 2015March 31, 2015 by brad — Leave a comment

Toshiba Satellite L305-S5958 Laptop Repair

This week a customer dropped off a Toshiba Satellite L305-S5958 laptop that has truly seen better days! The laptop wasn’t charging because of a broken DC jack. The jack was shattered into 4 or 5 pieces and even severed from the harness and bottom shell. My guess is that someone dropped the laptop perfectly onto the charging cable while plugged into the jack or they stepped on it; who knows?! You can see the DC wire harness here with the severed positive and ground cables that are supposed to connect to the jack itself.

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After pulling apart the laptop, we noticed that it desperately needed a new bottom shell. The bottom shell that we ordered came with the wire harness and DC jack for ($10); score! DC jack repairs are much easier when a harness is in the mix. These jacks simply plug into the motherboard with a 4-pin connector as opposed to unsoldering and resoldering a new jack directly to the motherboard. The old bottom shell had cracked plastic all over and was missing the rubber feet too so it was well worth the replace.

We did a few other repairs to it at well. Some of the keys were missing or stuck down. We decided it was best to just order a brand new keyboard for $10.

The laptop could still use a new battery for $15 and a new screen bezel that has a hairline crack in it but other than that it is ready to go! As usual we removed 30+ viruses and optimized the system for best performance.

Our customer watched YouTube videos on how to perform Toshiba Satellite L305-S5958 laptop repairs but admitted it was more difficult that it looked and decided on us.