Ways to Fix Your Laptop. Whether youre a frequent flyer or you just take your notebook from room to room at home, your portable gets subjected to a lot more punishment than desktops do. With this in mind, notebook manufacturers construct their systems to stand up to everything from violent jostling to occasional spills. Despite their relatively hearty constitutions, laptops are often quick to show signs of wear and tear and not just on the outside. XBbtg/0.jpg' alt='How To Install Windows 7 On Dos Laptop Batteries' title='How To Install Windows 7 On Dos Laptop Batteries' />Any one of these issues can cost you time and money in not just lost productivity, but on tech support calls and shipping labels as well. Thankfully, your notebooks ailments can often be cured with a quick fix. To pinpoint the most common problems, we picked the brains of senior technical support officials at Alienware, Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba. And weve provided solutions for getting your laptop back up and running with minimal effort. Overheating. Symptom Computer crashes, freezes. Solution Clean out air vents, put filtered material over the inhalation vent, or update BIOSOverheating can rob your laptop of performance and often cause a host of hiccups, such as system crashes and freezing. Every computer generates lots of heat, but laptops are especially susceptible to overheating due to their small size and lack of ventilation. Excessive dust can clog air vents and deprive your system of cold air to cool off the CPU. You can often solve overheating issues simply by cleaning out these air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner. To prevent further dust buildup, place a piece of filtered cloth, say from a Swiffer, over the inhalation vent. Dont place one over the exhaust vent, as thats where hot air is supposed to flow out of the system quickly. Just when you thought you could chitchat with authority about USB standards at your next dinner party, a new one comes along to shake everything up again. The latest. Hardware. Servers, storage and various appliances are cloud computings building blocks. If the cloth doesnt work, you may want to update your systems BIOS, which controls the laptops hardware. Most manufacturers offer an installation file that updates BIOS files automatically, which often address heat management. Just make sure that your notebook is connected to the power supply when updating the BIOS. MORE Laptop Interactive Buying Guide. Slow Hard Drive. Symptom Excessive program load times, slow file transfers. Solution Disk defragmentation. Disorganized information on your hard drive can sap performance because the computer requires more time to sift through data fragments and bad sectors on the drive. This problem can be cleared up easily but not especially quickly defragging can sometimes take hours using the built in Windows tool called Disk Defragmenter. You can access this program through the Programs menu in the Accessories or System Tools folder. Simply click the Analyze button to see if your disk drive requires defragmenting, and then click Defragment to begin. Other options include the free Power Defragmenter, and Diskeeper 2. Home edition, 4. Pro, 9. Burp Offline Activation. Pro Premier, which offers more features like complete automation, real time defragmenting, and Invisi. Tasking technology, which allows Diskeeper to run in the background without draining resources. Battery Wont Hold a Charge. Symptom Your notebook runs only a few minutes when unplugged. Solution Battery replacement. Over their lifespans, lithium ion batteries can lose the ability to hold a charge. After a few years, some batteries will last only a fraction of the rated runtime. Replacing a battery is relatively simple most pop out from the bottom or back of the laptop. Many retailers, however, charge hundreds of dollars for a new battery. Sites like batteries. For example, a Dell Latitude D6. Li ion battery costs 1. Dells Web site and 8. The company even offers a two year warranty and 4. Need More Memory. Symptom Sluggish performance when using multiple applications, hangups, excessive bootup time. Solution Upgrade your RAM, try a Ready. Boost enabled USB drive. If your laptop takes a long time to boot up, you may want to conduct an audit of your startup programs. To do this, place your cursor over the icons in the taskbar at the bottom right of the screen. If you rarely use any of these programs, right click and disable them. To take more control over what programs load when you boot up, download System Suite 7 Professional 5. Should you need to purchase a new memory chip, Kingston www. Crucial www. crucial. Web sites for determining which products are compatible with your notebook. You can also try www. Vista users can use the new Memory Diagnostics tool in Windows Vista just type memory into the search bar, and the OS will scan your physical memory for problems and advise replacement, if necessary. Vista users might also want to pick up a Ready. Boost enabled USB drive from the likes of Corsair, Kingston, Lexar, or San. Disk. These devices can improve some programs startup times by using free space on the USB drive as a temporary memory cache. .Prn Viewer. Hard Drive Failure. Symptom Loud clicking sounds whenever the computer accesses data from the hard drive. Solution Online backup sites, replace hard drive. Obviously, the best defense against a hard drive crash is a good backup solution. These days, plenty of options abound, but among software solutions, we like Norton Save Restore 2. If youre going to back up your data online, go with Mozy. GB, and 4. 9. 5 per month unlimited, which backs up your system automatically and tracks changes in the background without hogging precious system resources. Even if you go the online route, a hard drive failure will bring your notebook to its knees. Fortunately, a number of tools can test your drive for problems. Hitachi offers some in the support section of its website www. If hard drive replacement becomes necessary, be sure to back up as much data as possible and then switch out the hard drive. You can find step by step directions for the replacement procedure on most manufacturers support sites. For instance, Lenovo goes the extra mile with videos showing the replacement process type replacement movie on www. If you want to preserve the data on your old drive and make switching to a new one as painless as possible, we recommend Apricorns EZ Upgrade Universal Hard Drive Upgrade Bundle. Available in 4. 0GB, 8. GB, 1. 00. GB, and 1. GB capacities, and ranging in price from 1. The package includes cloning and backup software, and it lets you use your old hard drive for backup purposes assuming it still works. Bad Keyboard. Symptom Missing or Loose Keys. Solution Replace keyboard. Keyboards get the brunt of abuse on any laptop, either from typing or spilled coffee. As a result, keys can often become dislodged or worn out. Thankfully, laptop makers provide quick online guides for replacing keyboards on their support pages simply type keyboard replacement into the search bar or check the manufacturers knowledge base. For instance, Toshibas Ask Iris document database provides hardware replacement guides. To remove the old keyboard, youll typically just have to remove some screws from the bottom of the laptop and unlock the keyboard with a button or snap mechanism, which secures it to the frame. Replacement keyboards are usually covered under warranty or can be purchased relatively cheaply. Dell, for example, sells them for 1. The company also offers plastic keyboard protectors for 1. Web site. Compu. Coveroffers keyboard protectors for a variety of other laptops. Cant Connect to Wireless Network. Symptom No Internet connection, frequent time outs while Web browsing.