Tip of the Month - June

The Number 1 Tip For Prolonging Laptop Life…..

First of all big apologies for the lack of “Tip Of The Month” over the past few months. It’s been incredibly busy here and it would be handy if God were to invent a 36 hour day. I’m going to stick my neck on the line and say that it feels as though the Recession is loosening it’s grip, although if you’re in Finance or Construction you probably think I’m talking out of my *#@*.


Recently we hooked up with an excellent Motherboard Repair Company who have a lot of electrical engineers and more diagnostic equipment than we could dream of. We’ve been noticing a big increase in the number of Laptops coming here with Motherboard problems. For those of you ( like me ) who aren’t technically obsessed, a Motherboard is the main Circuit Board of a Laptop from which all other components run. It’s the engine room. Thus we decided we needed a really good business partner in this specialist field of repair.


During a guided tour of their organised and industrious premises I was told of the number one cause of Motherboard failure. The BGA ( Ball Grid Array ) is a part/s of the Motherboard that sits under the Processor and other important chips. It’s also the number one area of failure. Why? Heat! Heat kills the soldering in this sensitive area and it takes a very sophisticated piece of machinery involving X-Rays to fix these problems.


I was even more surprised to learn that bad Laptop cooling design was the underlying cause. So no matter how sexy your sleek Laptop looks if it hasn’t got a well designed internal air conditioning system you’d better make sure you help keep it cool yourself. Using on your Duvet which blocks the vents is a big no-no. When you buy a Laptop make sure it’s got big feet underneath which helps the airflow, and make sure you read all of the customer reviews beforehand. Look at buying a Laptop Cooling Tray which sits underneath your machine and uses ultra quiet fans to boost the airflow into and out of the Laptop. Don’t use it in the Kitchen while cooking your Sunday Roast. Think of it as a little slab of ice that needs protecting.


Lastly I have been told by these experts that the new style of ultra-small Netbooks have a big overheating issue. They simply don’t have the internal space to have an effective cooling design. The ones with Sold State hard drives are the worst apparently so try and buy one with a traditional magnetic disk hard drive if you must buy a Netbook!


At our Laptop Drop-In-Centre in Wandsworth we can take your machine apart, remove all the dust from the cooling system, check the fan operation and carefully scrub clean all internal components for only £138.00 Inc VAT. This makes your machine run like it has just come out of it’s original box and will ensure a prolonged life. Unless you then drop it, of course.


And lastly to the good news; Based on our own statistics and those of our Motherboard repair partners there is one clear winner in terms of Laptop reliability: ASUS. Not the prettiest Laptops but the best Motherboard and internal cooling design. Function over form if you like but a wise investment in our opinion……


Look forward to next month’s Tip, time permitting!


All The Best,


Mark.