Spilling any kind of liquid unto a laptop is bad thing because it might cause serious damage to its motherboard circuit or if not immediately and properly cleaned. Your system circuit breaker might even blow off if you still have the power cord plugged in. you might even get electrocuted if this happens.  It is important not to waste any time to take action on this kind of dilemma because if you do, chances are you will be buying a new laptop sooner than expected.

There are ways on how to salvage your laptop in an event of a liquid spill. But you must have proper precautions. If you haven’t opened up a laptop yet, it is advisable that you do not do this at all. Take it to a professional instead and fast. Remember, do not panic. Panicking might cause you to do things that might do more harm than good. You must have the appropriate tools to do this, and one of these is presence of mind.

1) Shut the laptop off. If the power cord is still plugged, unplug it immediately. Remove the A/C adapter after the spill. If the liquid combines with electricity the device might short out. So, removing the power and the battery is the most important and immediate thing that you have to do after the spill.

2) Remove any external devices attached to the laptop.

3) Prevent the liquid from traveling further down to the machine’s sensitive parts by gently tilting it to one side.

4) Use lint-free paper towels or any absorbent material to dry as much liquid as you can.

5) Gently remove the keyboard wipe down the affected areas with a static free towel and protect yourself from static discharge. Swab affected areas with rubbing alcohol until it is clean. Don’t use gasoline or acetone to clean computer parts.

6) Let it dry naturally for 24 to 48 hours. Never use hair dryer because this will cause static problems and might fill your laptop with more contaminants such as dust.

7) Finally, reassemble your laptop and see if it is still working. If in case it doesn’t get your hard drive and test it. It might still work with other computers.

Remember that the best cure for any unfortunate incident is prevention. Keep liquids away from your laptop as much as possible. You can never be too careful with your laptop. But if you have done the unthinkable of spilling liquid onto your laptop, please contact us for help.

The post How to Clean your Laptop with Liquid Spilled on it appeared first on Laptop Repair Service.

Globe trotters are advised to travel light; that is to bring only the essentials and leave heavy and/or pricey items at home. By following this advice, you won’t be constantly panting while carrying your luggage and worrying as to having your valuables snatched or stolen that you don’t make the most out of the travel. This, most of the time, means you have to leave your laptop– which is usually heavy and may costs some hard-earned bucks– at home. Because of this, travellers tend to run to internet cafes for some computer access, like checking their E-mail, search some places to be visited, transfer pictures from their cameras and other computer stuff they need to do at once.

Though it is practical to just spend some time at internet cafes than tugging along your not-so-handy laptop while travelling, it is also quite unsafe. These cafes are primarily put up for profit, and most of the time, owners find it costly to have it maintained very well, so more often than not, computers in the internet cafes are very welcoming towards hosting a variety of threatening computer viruses.

The infected computers may not be much of harm when you are only to check your E-mail and stuff, but you should think twice about using your credit cards online or surfing through confidential sites. It is because there is a big probability that the viruses could be recording or hacking your passwords or other account information. These computers could be quite slow and tend to crash most of the time, so online search may require a considerable amount of patience, but still, you’re good.

By the time you need to plug your camera or portable memory stick (or external hard drive) is when the threat would surface. The common computer viruses in these establishments are most likely to target and infect these gadgets as soon as you plug the devices to the virus ridden computers. Typically, the viruses may be harmless to your photos, but that is not the main problem. What should worry you is when you are then to plug in your camera or USB drive to your personal laptop or computer back at home. By the time these devices have been recognized by your laptop, the viruses will infect and ruin your computer instantly.

The Solutions

1) Of course, there are ways to avoid these problems, well, aside from actually abstaining from renting computers from internet cafes. If you are to free some memory in your camera by having the photos saved in another location, you can just ask the internet shop owner to transfer the photos from the memory card of your camera to a compact disk. After that, you may then format the memory card in your camera, thus deleting everything in the memory stick including the virus and making it safe to be used again.

2) You can also opt for a non-Microsoft operating system for your computer since most computer viruses are fond of computers running Microsoft operating systems. There are lots of available alternatives nowadays which are less at risk of being attacked by computer viruses. These operating systems may let you clean and delete infected files from your portable storage devices.

If you are nonetheless using a usual Windows PC or laptop, you could greatly benefit from installing a number of layers of reliable security. You should have a reasonably updated anti-virus program, so make sure that you have installed all the available updates.

Just running an anti-virus program may no longer be sufficient to ensure that your computer is protected. As the available anti-virus programs become more and more efficient in guarding computers, computer viruses are seemingly having their way to being a step ahead in terms of sophistication and shrewdness that one computer virus can actually disable your defenses or make it look like it is still running while you are very much exposed to infection.

Don’t lose hope. There are some anti-virus programs that offer added layers of defense and can automatically obstruct unfamiliar programs from executing. These additional attributes are very effective in blocking the viruses that you may catch from using computers in internet cafes.

Prevention is always better than cure. So, just like how taking vitamins and observing proper hygiene while travelling would do well to your body, your computer can also get a lot from simple precautionary measures.

If you are unable to get rid of the virus in your laptop, you can consider us. Contact us for assistance.

The post Avoiding Bringing Home Computer Viruses from Your Travel Overseas appeared first on Laptop Repair Service.

Most of laptop batteries are yielded from lithium ion or Li-Ion. On the average, a Li-Ion battery lasts about 300 to 500 discharge-recharge cycles, or perhaps 2 to 3 years, whichever comes first. Battery life is affected by power level, environmental settings and charging habits. As the battery gets older, it will hold less and less charge and will eventually deteriorate, whatever precautions you may observe.

Though having the life of you battery coming to an end is inevitable, you may still do something to prolong its longevity. So, before your notebook’s battery life come to an end, you can do 5 easy tactics to extend the useful life of you batteries. These are: (a) keeping them away from too hot or too cold environment; (b) having the proper charging-discharging habits; (c) exercising the battery; (d) using the right charger; and, (e) benefiting from the use of Power Management Applications.

Too much heat and cold may not only kill you batteries but may also affect the health of your laptop as a whole. Exposure of batteries to extreme temperatures surely kills the batteries. Refrain from leaving the laptop under direct sunlight or inside a stuffy compartment in a closed car. Also, never leave you laptop inside extremely cold places like the fridge. If you are not to use your batteries for quite a long time, see to it that it is about 40% charged before removing it and storing it in a cool place preferably at room temperature.

Li-Ion batteries differ from Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cad) batteries in the sense that Ni-Cad is known to have charge memory while Li-Ion batteries don’t. It is best therefore for Ni-Cad batteries to be fully discharged first before charging. Since Li-Ion batteries do not have such type of memory, it is not necessary to discharge fully before recharging. Actually, it is best NOT to have it discharged all the way down; since completely discharging the battery adds up to stress and reduces battery life and thus be avoided. Partial discharge and more often charging in between uses may actually help in prolonging the battery life.

It is also not good to leave your batteries dormant for quite long. Though it is fairly safe to often use laptops while they are plugged to a power source, batteries not used are just like batteries used incorrectly. It may need to be used from time to time so as to maintain its performance. Also, it is not advisable to keep a fully charged battery attached to the laptop while using an external power source since the high temperature brought about by running a laptop on a power grid affects the performance of the batteries.

As much as possible, use the original equipment to charge the battery since the volume of energy that is introduced and consumed over each charging cycle will actually affect the life of a Li-Ion cell. Fast chargers can actually reduce battery life.

Lastly, Power Management Applications can actually do your batteries better if set at the right functions. These applications with battery maintenance functions are mostly with most laptops purchased. If you are working on extended AC mode, there is a “long life” function which you can select and the battery will be charged to about 80% capacity only. However, if you are going for a travel, you may apply the “full charge option” before travelling to charge your battery to 100% capacity.

The average Li-Ion battery may only have about 2 to 3 years to live, but with simple care, one may actually get the most from them and even prolong their life.

But of course if your laptop battery is not usable, you can contact us to find suitable battery for your laptop.

The post Easy Ways to Use Your Laptop Batteries Longer appeared first on Laptop Repair Service.