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