11 ways to fixWhether you're 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. 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 notebook's 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 we've provided solutions for getting your laptop back up and running with minimal effort.
1. Overheating
Symptom: Computer crashes, freezes
Solution: Clean out air vents, put filtered material over the inhalation vent, or update BIOS
Overheating 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. Don't place one over the exhaust vent, as that's where hot air is supposed to flow out of the system quickly. If the cloth doesn't work, you may want to update your system's BIOS, which controls the laptop's 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.
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2. 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.
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