Articles Directory | Free Articles | New Articles Daily | How to Look After Your Laptop, Netbook or Notebook and Save Repair Bills

Your Ad Here

It is apparent that any piece of electronic equipment may be damaged by careless handling or contact with liquids, however, many computer users do not realise how easy it is to render their laptop inoperative or in need of repair. Consideration is given to many of the causes of damage to your notebook.

The netbook screen can easily be damaged if it is distorted or dropped. The notebook should be usable if the damage is minor, however the picture quality will be ruined. If the damage is severe then cracks may perhaps be seen inside the screen often with what looks like ink leaking. This will render the netbook unusable as the display will not be complete. Sometimes the display will be very dim where the backlight bulb has broken, again rendering the netbook unusable. Care must be taken never to subject the screen or netbook to g forces when opening the lid do it slowly paying particular attention to the releasing of the lid catch in order not to twist or distort the lid.

The hard disk can easily be damaged if the laptop is banged or subject to g forces whilst it is turned on. Provided there are only a few bad blocks or hard drive errors Windows will probably run correctly, but as more errors occur the disk drive will slow down, not launch many programs and probably completely fail. When the laptop is turned off the hard disk drive parks its heads, safeguarding against minor g forces, so a severe g force or drop would be necessary to damage the disk drive when the netbook is turned off. Try to avoid moving your laptop when it's running as it is too easy to damage the hard disk by banging or clonking it.

If the keyboard has fluid spilt on it then a number of keys will usually fail; it's not usually possible to remove the fluid so a new keyboard is going to be required. Generally, if more fluid is spilt on the keyboard it will enter the notebook and damage the motherboard as well as the keyboard. In many cases the motherboard will require replacing, however, this may cost as much as the netbook is worth especially if there's other damage. Depending the amount of and where the fluid enters the laptop any other component parts of the notebook could be damaged. Keep drinks away from your notebook!

Pulling the cable from the power pack or tripping over it will often cause the internal power socket to fail. Treat this connector with care because it is expensive to repair or replace.

Dropping the laptop when turned off may damage the plastic case, netbook motherboard, DVD drive or screen and hard disk as mentioned earlier.

Be careful to always shut down the netbook properly, use the Windows shut down feature for this. Do not use the sleep or hibernate function because it does not always completely shut down the notebook leaving the disk drive vulnerable to movement damage. It always takes longer to start the notebook from a full shutdown but has the additional benefit of clearing the RAM such that numerous programs will operate quicker. Just closing the laptop lid shouldn't be used as a method of shutting down the netbook because the setting could be set to merely sleep or hibernate when this is done.

Finally, never shut down the netbook by removing the battery/power supply or holding the power button on for 10 seconds. This must only be used as a last resort after a system crash as potentially disk drive errors could be created by this action.

Always handle your notebook with care and it should function for many years, if you are rough with it then failure is assured.