Laptop Spillages – How to handle liquid damage
I often see laptops that get brought to me at Ross-IT that have been subjected to an unwanted bathing in some form of liquid, the majority of people when i asked them what they did after the spillage said the first thing they did (other than panic of course) was to get some form of cloth and try and soak up the liquid. Then shortly after their laptop cuts off never to be turned on again, this is because usually the liquid has made its way onto the motherboard and shorted out a circuit. Now you would think that is bad enough right, how much worse can they get? Well if your poison of choice happens to be a fizzy drink like Coke or worse alcohol the damage doesn’t stop there, the problem with these liquids is that they will also corrode the circuit board after the inital short circuit, which makes repair even harder and normally more expensive.
Below i am going to give you a few simple steps to remember, so if you are ever subject to this happening you can reduce the risk of completley ruining your laptop altogether.
Step 1 – Remove Laptop Power Cord + Power Off
Yes if you have your laptop conected to its charger remove it straight away, the first thing you need to do is kill off the electrical supply and this is the first step to doing so. Once the power cord has been removed the next step is to manually turn the machine off as quickly as possible seconds count here, so no messing about push and hold the power buttong until the machine turns off, don’t simply push it once and allow it to shut down as this will take to long and shutting down using the start>shutdown option in the OS will take even longer!
Step 2 – Remove the Battery
The next step is to remove the batery as this holds charge, and could also cause a short circuit. by removing the baterry you are eliminating the chance of the motherboard blowing a fuse. The quicker you do this the better, the idea being if you are quick enough you ca do this before any liquid makes its way through to the motherboard, however this does depend on the design of the laptop and the amount of liquid that has been dumped onto it.
Step 3 – Place face down
Although this may be pretty obvious as to why you should place it face down, im going to briefly explain why, by placing face down you are helping to stop the liquid finding its whay onto the motherbaord, obviously this will depend on the laptop design but the rule remains the same. If your laptop does not extend fully like the one in the picture you could for example hang it off the edge of your bed with the keyboard face down on the bed and a couple of books to weigh it down. You can to speed up the process put your laptop somewhere warm and dry such as an airing cupboard this will speed up the time it take to dry out.
So hopefully after reading this brief article if you ever spill liquid onto your laptop you will have a good idea of what to and what not to do. once it is fully dry can take a few days! you can either try and power back on, or i would recommend taking it into your local computer shop. Here at Ross-IT we specialise in laptop repairs in Colchester and are more than willing to take a look for free.
Laptop or Tablet which is best for you?
The Golden question, one that i am asked all too often, there a number of things you need to take into consideration when you are confronted with this decision, and i am going to list them all below.
- What are you hoping to use the laptop or tablet for?
- Have you ever used a tablet before?
- Direct comparison between the two products
These would be the main points that need to be covered, which i am going to do my best to in this article, thus helping you to make an informed decision with as little a biased view as possible. I mean lets face it, we all have “that friend” who swears blind that Apple products are the best thing since sliced bread with little or no evidence to back the claim up, now i’m not hear to say here nor there but what i am saying is, it is easy for this sort of influence to cloud your judgement and effect what you decide to purchase. So i am going to try and keep this as un-biased as possible, so if you did decide to go out to a store and purchase one, you are less likely to be suckered into the “technical” jargon that may be thrust upon you when you enter your local IT wholesaler.
What will your Laptop or Tablet primarily be used for?
So, what are you going to be using your new laptop or tablet for? Are you just looking for something that is capable of surfing the net, and doing the basics such as checking your emails, maybe a bit of Facebook, or eBay. If this fits your bill then a tablet is definatley a viable option for you. Whereas if you were hoping for something a little more demanding such as playing the latest 3D games, or if your into photoshop which is a tool for photo editing which would be considered as demanding by most users standards. Then you are going to need to opt for a laptop over a tablet, even though with every new release of tablets they are getting more graphically advanced with increased CPU and RAM i seriously doubt they will ever be marketing towards photoshop or anything that demanding as much as i would love to be proved wrong.
Have you ever used a Tablet before?
Well have you? It is very easy to get drawn into the hype of the adverts on TV such as Apples ad for their new iPad 4 which to date is their most powerful tablet yet. They are especially good at marketing their products and i have chosen them as an example partially because of this, and the fact they are markert leader in terms of tablet sales, but also the other reason i personally own the iPad 4. For those of you that have never used a tablet before i strongly suggest you do before you go online and buy one, you can do this by trying out a friends or going to your local Apple store and play about with the iPad’s on display. You may find that beneath the glitz and the glam of the TV adds that you simply just can’t get on with a touch screen device, also another gauge for this would be if you have a smart phone that has a touchscreen and you are ok with it, you will probally cope with a tablet.
Laptop or Tablet – Direct comparison
A brief overview of the two will show you that you can pick up a new iPad direct from apple for around the £400 mark, which coincidentally is around the same price you can expect to pay for a low to medium spec laptop depending on the make and model. It all boils down to screen size , touchscreen or traditional mouse and keyboard, would you prefer to have a 10″ screen to look at that you can physically interact with “touching” or would you prefer a 15.6″ (normally) standard screen with a full size QWERTY keyboard. Obviously you can get the attachment for a number of tablets that allow you to in effect bolt on a small keyboard, for those of you that dont want to type up emails on a screen. As well as the above portability must also come into question, a 10″ tablet is going to be much easier to carry about that a full size laptop, especially if you want something you can use on the tube or the bus, a tablet would be much easier to use in these conditions.
In conclusion i think that if you are just looking for something that does the basics, and you want to go for a touchscreen and don’t mind using the screen for typing then a tablet would be your best bet. For those of you that need something with a bit more power, to cover that gaming addiction you have, or passion of photo editing then a laptop would be best for you. It is worth taking into consideration that i personally have yet to se a tablet come down with a virus, whereas laptops are frequently being infected, it does not mean to say that in the near future hackers and the like will start targetting tablet devices as they are becoming more and more popular. I have both a laptop and a tablet and i fully utilise them both and respect the, for what they can do and use them appropriatley , but i am also aware of the limitations that come with a tablet and even though they are designing more inovative apps on a daily basis it is quite obvious that a tablet is not a replacement for a laptop, not yet anyway!
Link to my previous Article: https://rossitblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/to-anti-virus-or-not-to-anti-virus/
Welcome to my first how-to article, here we are going to cover the need for Anti-Virus, pretty silly topic to cover I hear you say, well not really considering on the number of computers that I see come into Ross-IT on a daily basis that have no protection on them what so ever! Not even windows defender enabled. It is absolutely critical to have some form of Anti-Virus on your computer regardless of whether it is a fully paid subscription or just a free basic protection form of Anti-Virus, or you will be booking your computer in for virus removal sooner than you think!
Free or subscription?
This is another common question that I am asked by customers and friends alike, shall I shell out £30, £40, £50 for a full subscription of Anti-Virus or should I just stick with the free version? I have seen computers with even the most expensive Anti-Virus programs fall victim to a virus, 9 times out of 10 it comes down the user being sensible in what they are choosing to download and install on their computers. Bypassing your Anti-Virus to download some cracked software or games will do exactly that bypass your security by telling it, that the program is safe and allowing it access to your system. So I am a firm believer that a free Anti-Virus is usually just as good as the paid subscription the main benefactor being that all of the updating is automated leaving less for the user to do, with a few other added bonuses such as instant messaging and email sorting. So if you think that is worth shelling out the subscription price for then the paid version is for you.
Which is Anti-Virus is best?
Another common question, which Anti-Virus is the best, which will offer me the best protection? As I have just covered previously that the majority of the time it is down to the user that viruses are getting through your protection it really boils down to which you prefer, or which you are used to, there are a few major companies such as Norton, McAfee and AVG that you generally find pre-installed on your new PC or laptop these are the few that most people have heard of for that reason (good marketing on their end) so people tend to use them. I work on the basis that they have all been around for quite some time so they cant be useless or they would have gone out of business a long time ago. I would suggest (if you’re that bothered) have a look at them and see which looks best for yourself, they all have a main control panel and are pretty easy to use, I use AVG FREE purely because I am quite sensible when it comes to clicking on links that I should leave alone, and all of the other add-ons that included in the paid for versions tend to slow down a computer so just the basic is what I prefer so it won’t dent my computers performance. But overall the decision is yours, they are as stated all pretty much as good as each other just choose what you are used to and pick free or subscripted accordingly.
Ross-IT Blog 