TROUBLESHOOTING OF LAPTOP

Fixing Common Laptop
Problems
Liquid Spills on Laptop
I have repaired many Laptops
exposed to accidental liquid
spills. This is a recoverable
condition in most cases. It is
most important to respond to
the cleaning up process
as
soon as possible (before
corrosion or internal soakage
occur)! Liquid intrusion can
cause the following types of
laptop damage:
Short circuit due to
conductive nature of wet
liquid (problem may clear as
liquid dries)
Short circuit due to dried
liquid residue
Corrosion occurs (particularly
volatile with some acidic soft
drinks - Coke)
Electronic components
damaged by above short
circuits
Immediately when a spill occurs,
turn off the laptop, invert the
laptop and leave the unit
upside down (drainage) for at
least 20-30 minutes. Then,
remove any attached leads,
remove the power unit and
battery, and allow the unit to
air-dry overnight.
To remove any liquid
residual:
Have someone
remove the keyboard assembly
and perform additional cleaning.
It may help to use cotton buds
and distilled water to remove
any contamination. Where
corrosive side effects may be
suspected (with coke), gently
rub any suspect areas with a
cotton bud dampened with CRC
or WD-40. Dry the treated
areas so that only a light film
of the WD-40 anti-corrosive
solution remains. While the
keyboard is removed, use a
bright light and magnifying lens
to inspect areas where the
liquid made contact.
Laptop randomly turns off
This is often due to:
AC power adaptor sensing an
overload of power drain
Overheating processor due
to a build of internal dust
(clogged fan)
AC power adaptor not able
to sustain normal power
needs (faulty power
adaptor)
Battery overheating, due to
internal battery fault, or
charging levels
Intermittent short circuit or
open connection (check
condition of power leads)
On older Laptops, the most
common reason is poor cooling.
Try going somewhere air-
conditioned and see if that
helps. Inspect the areas near
the internal cooling fan; see if
there is a build up of dust
fibres. Easy way to check this;
with the unit running, feel the
flow of air from the cooling
outlet(s) - is the airflow very
low? If yes, and the unit is at
normal operation temperature,
this may indicate the internal
cooling system is partially
clogged.
Troubleshoot Laptop LCD
Video Display problems
Here are some tips and tricks
for troubleshooting and fixing
laptop video problems. Video
issues are very common within
portable computers and with
the following tips you should be
able to detect and eliminate
basic laptop video problems.
Laptop LCD screen has a
faint image or is very dark
Look closely at the laptops LCD
screen, and see if you can see
a very faint image. If you can
then it is possible that the
Laptop's LCD lid close switch is
stuck in the closed position. In
this mode the backlight stays
off, even with the LCD lid open.
This is to conserve power when
the laptop is ON with the LID
closed. Check the LCD lid close
switch. It is a small plastic pin
located close to the back LCD
hinges. Try tapping the lid
switch a few times to see if you
can turn on the screen
backlight. If that does not help,
then I would suggest to replace
the FL inverter board.
Laptop LCD screen is solid
white colour or garbled
Connect an external computer
monitor to the laptop. If the
external monitor display is fine,
then you have a problem with
the Laptop LCD screen or the
LCD cable connection. If the
external monitor image is the
same as on the Laptop LCD,
then it is likely to be a faulty
integrated onboard video, this
means replacing the
motherboard of the Laptop.
A typical Laptop LCD display
assembly
The above simplified block
diagram illustrates the basic
components that are involved
on a Laptop LCD video display
problem.
Connector Locations 1 -
2 - 3:
Video data is sent
from the motherboard
through to the LCD screen
at connector 2. The video
cable also feeds voltage to
the FL inverter board at
connector 3.
FL inverter PCB
Locations 3 -4:
This
section converts the low
voltage DC source
(connector 3) to high
voltage AC (connector 4),
as required to energise
the backlight bulb. If the FL
inverter PCB is faulty, the
LCD screen will appear as a
very dim image on the
Laptop display screen.
CCFL (backlight bulb):
When the backlight bulb is
working, you can see the
image on the LCD screen.
With some Laptops, the
backlight bulb is a part of
the LCD screen assembly
and needs to be replaced
with a complete LCD screen
assembly. It requires a
specialized Laptop repair
workshop to replace the
backlight bulb.
Laptop Lid close switch:
This switch is a small switch
(mechanical or magnetic)
that is located close to the
rear display hinges. Most
laptops will either
hibernate or operate in
standby mode when the
LCD is closed. This is
achieved by interfacing
with the Laptop's BIOS
power management
software. In turn this is
linked to the Windows
operating system.
Laptop is slow and
continually shows Internet
popup's
The Laptop is very likely
infected with spyware. Spyware
is software that hides on your
computer and attempts to
collect information about your
activity on the internet.
Spyware is sometimes
transferred to your computer
when you download 'unknown'
free software or when you link
to free music Internet
programs (KaZaA, Limewire,
BearShare, etc). The best
method to remove and further
prevent spyware is to use
Spybot. Please read my
Spyware Software Help Page.
Laptop is frozen, no
response to keyboard or
mouse, cannot Shutdown
With most Laptops I have seen
that this will happen from time
to time! The easy method to
solve this problem is:
1. Disconnect the laptop
power cord
2. Remove the battery from
the laptop
3. Wait a short while (10
seconds)
4. Replace the Laptop
battery into the unit
5. Reconnect the Laptop
Power cord
6. Turn the Laptop on
The Laptop will start normally
and be fully operational. If you
were working on a Microsoft
Word or Excel document at the
time of the problem, then you
may find that the data has
been auto-recovered for you.
In this case, you will be
automatically prompted to view
the last document you worked
on when you open the
Microsoft program.
Troubleshoot Laptop
Hibernate and Standby
problems
Power management options on
laptops sometimes to cause
problems. Hibernate and
Standby modes are power
saving modes of operations to
battery powered laptops.
Hibernation is a procedure by
which the working state
(contents) of your work is
stored to disk before the
computer goes into hibernation
or standby. When the Laptop is
woken up, you are restored to
the exact place you were
before. Standby and
Hibernation use a low power
consumption mode, with enough
power to preserve the content
of such memory. This means
that Laptop computer can
wake up without a full restart
and loss of work.
Laptop does not wake up
from Standby or
Hibernation
Here are my tested
suggestions:
Give it time - some older
Laptops may take up to 30
seconds to wake up - fully
Some Laptops have special
keys or buttons for 'Wake
Up' - read the manual
Press and hold the Laptops
power button for five
seconds or more. Some
Laptops are configured to
Suspend or Hibernate with a
press of the power button.
Holding the power button for
5+ seconds will usually reset
and reboot the Laptop
As a last resort, remove the
laptop battery and the
power cord, wait 30 seconds,
replace the batteries and
reconnect the power cord
Now that the Laptop is
operational, you should
research the underlying
problem. Typically, such
problems arise from a
disagreement either between
the power management
features of the Laptops BIOS
and Windows.
A conflict with the Laptops BIOS
power management and
Windows power management is
the most common cause of such
wake-up failure. Try different
settings in the BIOS to see if
that might solve the problem.
Look to see if the Laptops BIOS
is configured to suspend the
computer, and how it compares
with the value configured in
Windows. In most cases let
Windows control the power
management.