Below are some computer tips and tricks available here on our website. With these tips, users can increase their productivity on their desktop/laptop and make their overall computer experience a lot more enjoyable and stress free
CPU Temperature Monitoring
Have you ever wondered why your laptop/desktop gets too hot to touch or is acting slow? Here are some of the main reasons for this: Dust build up, thermal paste is dried out like cement, virus build up, screen brightness at full max. etc. Here is a good article to read to gain some insight on how to keep your laptop/desktop running cool
Liquid Damage
So what happens when you spilled coffee, tea, water, soda, or even beer onto your precious laptop, cell phone, or any other electronic by 'accident?' Are you like 'it's just a little bit, it still works.' Even if it is just a few ounces to 1/4 of liquid spill, it can still damage the electrical components on your devices. Once liquid hits the device try to turn off the device immediately and unplug what ever devices you still have plugged into the laptop (charger, USBs, display ports, etc.) Once it is powered off just let the device sit there for a while. DO NOT turn it back on because otherwise you will do more serious damage to the device. If you have a laptop let it sit like a tent and see if the liquid will at least drain out. If your laptop is a convertible such as moving the display more than 120 degree angle then let the laptop sit on a flat surface at a 180 degree angle (upright or upside down depending on where you spilled liquid on the laptop) and see if any liquid will drain out. After about 30 minutes to an hour try to wipe off any left over liquid residue with a paper towel and a small amount of rubbing alcohol. Still DO NOT turn on the laptop/device. Bring it to us and we will inspect the device and clean up any left over liquid residue with the proper tools at our shop. 70% of time the device can be saved depending on how much liquid got into the device and what people usually do after they spilled liquid
Almighty Power Button
What happens when we press (one second) or hold down the power button (more than one second)? What most of you don't know is holding down the power button (at least 7 seconds) to shut down your computer can actually do some harm to your PC/MAC. But if you press the power button for one second you are telling the computer to go to sleep or go into hibernation mode depending on what you have set for your power settings. You are probably asking yourself what type of harm. Well let me explain what i mean by that.
Let's just say you are typing up some important documents, excel spreadsheets, or making a presentation on powerpoint. Or how about surfing the internet and you want to bookmark or want to keep a particular site opened up. Next, you want to shut down your computer because it is the end of the workday or its bed time. A few hours later or next morning you turn on your laptop/desktop and you suddenly get an error message such as "You shutdown your computer because of a problem" or "Diagnosing your PC/Preparing Automatic Repair - Your PC did not start correctly" on your laptop/desktop/PC/MAC. The reason for this is you didn't shut down your desktop/laptop properly or just a simple power failure. Your computer's hard drive/solid state drive (depending on what your device has) gets scrambled/messed up (software) and your hard drive/solid state drive tries to figure out what just happened. Just follow the on screen prompts and hopefully your laptop/desktop will boot up properly. Remember your operating system and files are all stored on the hard drive/solid state drive NOT the motherboard.
You should always shut it down properly by navigating to the windows startup or apple icon and click 'shut down.' Let it shut down fully before you close the lid or unplug the charger (if your battery level is low). If for some reason your computer is completely frozen (which means you can't use the touchpad/mouse and keyboard then you have no other choice but to hold down the power button to shut it down. DO NOT do this on a consistent basis or else you will severely damage the hard drive/solid state drive (software/firmware) and that means you have to reinstall/factory restore your operating system or sadly replace the drive (hopefully your files can still be recovered)
Swollen Battery
You probably have heard or seen batteries swell up like a balloon. What do you do? Here are a few things to keep in mind or be cautious about:
Laptop batteries are usually (99%) placed down by the track pad/touchpad area. You will notice that the touchpad will pop up and sometimes you can still use the touchpad and other times you won't be able to. Another thing to notice is when your laptop is placed on a flat surface, the laptop wont sit well because the bottom case is starting to pop and sometimes screws are missing because of this.
Battery life will start to decrease because of the swollen battery. Can i still keep using the laptop? Yes and no. Generally not a good idea because you may never know when the battery might explode. Get it replaced as soon as you can. But once you get the battery removed from the laptop you can still use it. It will be treated like a desktop basically. Don't unplug the charger from the laptop because it will shut down instantly. ALWAYS shut it down properly within the operating system. Go to the Windows/Apple logo, look for the power icon (Windows) and then click 'shut down.' Wait for the LED lights to shut off completely (it can take a while depending on the speed of the laptop so be patient), then unplug the charger and go about your day
Data Backup
How often do you backup your data such as photos, documents, music, etc? One a week? Once a month? How about never?! There are two forms of backup. One is the Cloud such iCloud (Apple), OneDrive (Windows), Carbonite, DropBox and so on. The other type of backup is using an external/USB drive.
With the Cloud you don't have to worry because it is a service model in which data is transmitted and stored on remote storage systems, where it is maintained, managed, backed up and made available to users over a network -- typically, the internet. Users generally pay for their cloud data storage on a per-consumption, monthly rate.
Going back to the first question i asked above it is very important to backup on a weekly basis otherwise something bad could happen to your laptop/desktop/tablet/smartphone. For example what if you spill liquid on your device by accident? Now what. Hopefully computer repair shops can clean it up and get it back up running again. If not then a data recovery shop can repair it. If all else fails then all of your precious pictures, school papers/thesis, and others are completely gone.
What type of backup device should i get? There are two well known type of backup devices. First one is the famous USB thumb drive. The other is an external drive. There is the Hard Disk Drive (moving mechanical pieces inside the drive that reads and writes your data) and there is the Solid State Drive (electronic components that reads and writes your data. Both work well but IF you accidentally drop the Hard Disk Drive then you might run the risk of losing the data (moving mechanical pieces. Whereas the Solid State Drive if you drop it then you don't have to worry too much because it is all electronic components.
I highly suggest getting the Solid State Drive (even though it will be a bit more money than the traditional Hard Disk Drive). Also, the SSD is a lot faster, secure and more reliable than the HDD. I myself have two Solid State Drives for my backup (personal and business use). Remember ALWAYS backup your data.