Would it be worth the cost to have a broken laptop refurbished? This is a question that is presented to many people once their laptops develop an issue, typically with hardware. It is definitely possible to make refurbished laptops just as good as new in the sense that all components as well as installed software are running fresh like they were when they originally left the factory.

If a customer is faced with this question it would be pretty obvious that the actual cost of the parts and labor to deal with the broken laptop would be the first order of business. Would the laptop be worth $200 or less when compared to one that is already working? Some of the hardware components within a laptop are especially expensive and will often be the main cause of the customer choosing to not go the way of fixing or replacing them. The cost of labor will always be a significant factor as well.

The reality is that to properly refurbish laptops which require complete disassembly is going to be significantly more time consuming than other minor projects. This in itself will greatly affect the labor charges. When used laptops under 200 dollars are capable of fully replacing the broken laptops in a much cheaper manner, the solution is usually pretty predictable. Nobody is looking to spend more money than what is necessary.

While every situation is different, we will often recommend to customers that they should look at having their important data transferred to the replacement laptop from the old one. There are some instances where the actual hard drive from the old laptop can be used in one of the cheap laptops under $200 that is a replacement however this is not really a good method in all cases. Basically the issues with tracking down all the drivers and the pesky issues with the operating system in doing this kind of a procedure simply ads more time the labor costs anyway. Luckily there are much quicker and long term better approaches.

Tags: broken laptops, cheap laptops, laptop tech tips, laptops under 200, refurbished laptop, refurbished laptops, used laptops

There are instances where it is necessary to dismantle a laptop computer to some degree, and sometimes it is necessary to completely disassemble the laptop. The need to do this will be based on what needs to be done, usually to troubleshoot or replace a component. For instance, if you are going to replace a MacBook logic board then you will likely have to go very deep into the disassembly process on any of the model variations. There are however some laptops which are what we refer to as "tech friendly" because they are a breeze to work on compared to some others out there.

Typically this kind of work will be done in a shop, or repair depot, on a workbench with all of the necessary tools and components at hand which are needed to perform the troubleshooting as well as the repairs. However when working in the field as a laptop technician, there really are no limits to where you might find yourself having to disassemble a laptop computer.

Basically if you have the parts, and you are under contract to fix computers onsite, then you will not always have the luxury of a workbench and endless tools and parts. These can be the instances to hope that you do not have to work on too many of the more unfriendly designs that are out there. These can include older laptops as well as newer ones. Price does not come into play here. Most of the laptops under 300 dollars are pretty easy to work on just like some of the more expensive models are as well. If you back to the mid to late 1990's, then a lot of the designs were tough to work on. This does not mean that they were bad designs actually many were really well constructed. Yet over the years more streamlined laptop designs have become much more common in all price ranges.

In all reality it is probably not a good idea to perform any major laptop dismantling on your own. A lot of people have some knowledge of working on different electronics and such, but there are typically a ton of various screw sizes as well as little pieces which must be placed just right in the whole scheme of things when it comes time to putting all the components back together again. Taking everything apart is not necessarily easy, but putting them all back the way they need to be, and then having the refurbished laptops actually power up with everything working after the fact leaves basically no room for error whatsoever in most cases.

Tags: laptop tech tips, laptops under 300, logic boards, macbook, macbook logic board, old laptops, refurbished laptops

Occasionally computer users discover that Flash content on the web does not display as expected in their web browser of choice and at this point they may simply need to make sure that they have actually installed the correct version of the Adobe Flash Player. One example is that you are unable to view YouTube movies on your laptop computer. This can occur on new or refurbished laptops as this will be a third party application issue not relevant to the computer hardware.

We often use a specific process which will typically resolve this particular laptop performance issue. You may even find that you can view Flash content through Firefox but not Internet Explorer. This also helps narrow down the cause as well.

Keep in mind that there are various versions of the Flash player which are available for free download from Adobe. The thing you want to make sure of at this point is that you happen to be getting the correct version for your browser. For example if you are using Internet Explorer on new or refurbished laptops under 200 then you would want to be sure to download and install the version of Flash which is specifically designed for Internet Explorer. If you are using Firefox then you would need to get the version designed for Firefox and so on.

Sometimes users will have an issue where despite the fact that Adobe Flash appears to have been installed on the laptop they are unable to view flash web content on sites such as YouTube for example. In reality the application may not have properly installed itself and a common cause for this situation is that the security software installed on the laptop may have interfered with the proper installation of Flash. The Flash program will appear to be installed, which it is to a point with no error messages, yet it will not function correctly due to an overall incomplete installation.

If it is verified that the correct version of Flash for the particular web browser being used on the refurbished laptop is indeed acquired, here are the steps which we will often use in order to resolve this issue.

• We will download the Adobe Flash Player uninstall tool from this location: http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/current/uninstall_flash_player.exe and then run the tool on the laptop.
• Once the tool has ran we will restart the laptop and then temporarily disable any security software running on the laptop. We will then install the proper version of Adobe Flash onto the laptop.

This is a common way that laptop technicians will attempt to resolve the issue when YouTube movies won’t play and of not being able to view Flash web content on a computer. Also, the security programs will need to be re-enabled after this process.

Tags: laptop error message, laptop performance, Laptop Tech, laptop tech tips, laptops under 200, refurbished laptops

The most common reason for laptops under performing to be running slowly in the computer hardware realm is simply a lack of having a sufficient amount of memory, especially in these days of resource intensive operating systems. Memory is RAM (Random Access Memory) and it is not hard drive space which is a common misconception among many computer users.

Hard drive space is permanent storage while memory is temporary storage, aka volatile storage. Data permanently stored on the hard drive is for example your pictures, your Word documents, your spreadsheet files, and things of this nature. The data stored in memory is the computer programs themselves for example, and they only need to be there when they are actually running. Once you turn off or reboot your laptop everything in memory is removed hence the term temporary storage.

Windows 7 and Vista laptops by design are in a much more resource intensive operating system environment than previous Microsoft operating systems such as the preferred Windows XP. The additional features, especially the graphic enhancements commonly referred to as eye candy require your computer system to meet additional system requirements meaning the hardware within your laptop such as memory and the processor.

One of the main points to be sure you cover is to have at least 1GB of RAM (system memory) installed in your laptop if you plan on running Windows Vista or later on it. This operating system will run on 512MB of memory as is stated in Microsoft’s recommended requirements which is different than the minimum requirements to actually install.

However laptops with Vista and only 1GB of RAM which is double the recommended requirements is going to handle not much more than very basic computing duties such as email, web surfing, basic office apps, etc. After this you will notice a very prominent reduction in overall responsiveness of your laptop computer, especially with any multitasking going on.

When you compare this to Widows XP which has a recommended requirement of 128MB of memory and a minimum requirement of 64MB, you should use the rule of thumb that in order to do the very basic computing duties you should have at least 512MB of memory.

Most refurbished laptops under 200 dollars for example have a decent amount of memory in them already as it is becoming rarer these days that there is an insufficient amount of memory in a laptop. As a matter of fact memory has become so inexpensive that people occasionally buy more than they actually need for what they do with their laptop computer.

Just because you can get an operating system installed and running on the minimum system requirements or the recommended system requirements does not mean that your laptop will be much fun using. The purpose of these requirements is to let the user know what the basic starting point is and certainly does not address overall performance.

We have seen many laptops under performing running Vista on only 512MB of RAM and the user suffers through such a slow and non-responsive computing experience. This does not have to be this way we will always inform them. A simple RAM upgrade will improve the speed and responsiveness of the newest cheap models as well as the laptops under 300 dollars making life much less frustrating.

For example running Windows XP on a laptop with only 128MB of memory which is the recommended system requirements will be a painfully slow computing experience and to run it on the minimum system requirements will basically be unbearably slow.

Tags: laptop performance, Laptop Tech, laptop tech tips, laptops under 200, operating system, refurbished laptops, vista laptop, windows 7 laptop

Occasionally there are instances where a customer is having intermittent issues with their laptop and they admittedly are at a loss as to why. This is a very good time to have a laptop technician look into the matter because in all honesty, the intermittent issues can be the toughest to diagnose and resolve.

Some people have issues such as this which are related to the hard drive. One key component for anyone is to keep the important stuff backed up by all means. Quite often the aforementioned intermittent laptop issues are going to be related to the hard drive. This is true of refurbished laptops under 200 just as it holds true for a brand new model. In our experience most hard drives provide many years of life, but as with any product produced there are always those which seem destined to be bad straight from the factory. Most of these luckily enough are going to fail very rapidly, and thus under warranty in most instances.

Some customers will have questions about RAID systems and this is fine in some cases. We have had business owners specifically request custom builds which use RAID, but for laptops the best bet is a constant and reliable data backup strategy. Even if the intermittent issues set in, as long as the information is retrievable then the computer hardware is an easily solved dilemma.

Tags: laptop hard drive, Laptop Tech, laptop tech news, laptop tech tips, laptops under 200, refurbished laptop, refurbished laptops

If you ever find that your laptop computer will play sounds in some applications but not in Windows Media Player you may find these laptop tech tips may help you to resolve the issue. You may receive a laptop error message such as "Windows Media Player cannot play the file…" or even "You do not have a sound device installed on your computer…"

This situation can be caused by several reasons and is often due to a conflict with the file. Other times it may be that the sound card is not working as it should due to the drivers not being installed properly.

Occasionally there may be an issue with the compatibility of the current version of DirectX and your version of Windows Media Player.

Check and make sure that the drivers are properly installed for your sound card or device. Make sure that these drivers are not missing or corrupt in the Device Manager. Try to reinstall the most recent drivers for the device by scanning the Windows Update web site or by going directly to the sound device's manufacturer's web site. Occasionally a simple driver update can fix the issue on laptops under 300 dollars just as well as on more expensive models.

Of course in order to do the above you will have to verify that a sound device does exist within the laptop. If one does exist yet it is somehow corrupt you should still be able to address the issue through the Windows Device Manager.

I have found that sometimes another program will be using the sound card or device at the same time and is actually preventing Windows Media Player from accessing it. Try closing all other programs currently running on your laptop computer and then attempt to play the file again in WMP.

If these laptop tech tips do not resolve the issue you may want to check and see that the version of Microsoft DirectX installed on your laptop computer is compatible with your sound card or device. You can download the most current version of DirectX by going to the Microsoft website and then you will be able to install the latest version. These laptop tech tips are often part of what we use to troubleshoot this particular situation and we hope that they may come in handy for you as well.

Tags: laptop error message, Laptop Tech, laptop tech tips, laptops under 300