Laptops Arena

Let’s talk about Compaq laptop repair. Why Compaq? Well, before it was taken over by HP, the Compaq laptop models were really problematic machines. This company has made some pretty unhappy customers. Now, their products have improved ever since HP took over the company but there still are some problems that may come up, just like in the case of any laptop in this world.
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When we refer to Compaq laptop repair, we are thinking of all kinds of problems that may come up with these laptops. We cannot write an article that explains how to repair any damaged part in just any Compaq laptop so we’ve made some research and we are going to show common problems on some Compaq laptop and how they can be fixed. For instance, it is possible to replace one single key on you Compaq Presario 2500 keyboard (you can do this on many other laptop models as well). The shape of the white hinge which is right under the key is very important and it may be different from one model to another. In our case, the white hinge has a centered round hole in it and 2 other holes, one is bigger and is shaped like a square and the other is smaller and it has a rectangular shape. Place the hinge so that the squared shape is on your right side. The left side of the hinge (the smaller one) needs to go over a metal hook which is located at the base of the keyboard, where the missing key is.  You can place it there from a 45 degrees angle. Next, the hinge has to be stretched so you can connect to the right metal hinge at the base of the keyboard. When this white hinge has been connected to these two metal hooks, it is now in the right place and you can start placing the missing key. Align that key and press firmly as all four corners will produce a clicking sound. There you have it; you’ve replaced a key on your Compaq Presario 2500 keyboard.

If you have ever had any kind of motherboard problems and need to substitute this component with a new one, here is some information that can guide you through this process. We have read that this method can work for the following laptop models: HP G50, HP G60, HP G70, Compaq CQ50, Compaq CQ60 and Compaq CQ70.  The first step to dissembling your laptop is by removing the battery. Also make sure that your laptop does not have the power adapter plugged in so no electrical power is running though the machine. We don’t want any unfortunate accidents. You then have 3 main covers that you want to remove: the wireless cover, the memory cover and the hard drive cover. Now we have 3 screws which are keeping hard drive attached to the laptop. Remove them. This will disconnect the hard drive from the motherboard. To “get rid” of the memory you need to remove both of the memory modules. When you get to the wireless card, you will notice that there are two antenna cables which need to be removed first. After disconnecting those 2 cables, you have 2 screws that you need to unscrew so you can remove the wireless card from the laptop.



The DVD optical drive is connected to the laptop with the help of only one screw. After you have removed that screw, you can gently pull the optical drive away from the laptop. Next you have to remove all the screw on the bottom of the laptop (I counted a total of 15 screws left but this number may vary according to your laptop model). Next, you have to disconnect the CMOS battery cable to detach it from the motherboard. Next step is to lift the keyboard. This can be done easily but you have to be cautious not to cause any damage or cracks into the keyboard. You can start from the top and the keyboard can then easily be detached from the bottom by lifting it up. Underneath the keyboard there is a cable connector (right above the touchpad). This connector needs to be unlocked or else you cannot remove the keyboard. There is a white locking clip which needs to be moved towards the display about 3 millimeters in order to unlock the cable. Pay attention because the locking clip has to remain attached to the connector base. Then you can release that cable which now allows you to completely remove the keyboard.



The power button connector cable will be revealed after removing the keyboard. The cable that needs to be removed is blue. Next you can remove the plastic cover that surrounded the keyboard. On your left side, where the keyboard used to be, you will see the black video cable and the webcam cable. Disconnect both of them. On the upper right corner, you can see the wireless antenna cables. Pull them carefully though the opening located in the top cover. Now you must remove the 4 screws that are securing the display hinges so you can remove the LCD from the laptop. Above the touchpad, there is a small blue cable. That is the touchpad cable which also needs to be disconnected. Next, you should have about 4 screws that are keeping the top cover assembly into place. You guessed it! Those go off as well. The top cover assembly needs to be gently separated from the base of the laptop. Be careful with cracks. You can use something like a credit card to split those 2 apart but be careful with sharp object or you may end up scratching the laptop.



The left speaker is secured by one screw which needs to be removed as well. The motherboard is now revealed (and you’d better have but all those screws and cable in a container because losing them is not indicated – you do have to put this laptop back together again). There are 4 screws that need to be removed from the motherboard, as well as 4 cables that need to be carefully disconnected. Now you can remove the motherboard from the notebook’s base. The cooling fan cable needs to be disconnected from the motherboard. Here, we have another 4 screws that are keeping the cooling assembly attached to the motherboard. Remove them as well. After you have removed the cooler, it is time for the final step. The power jack may not be soldered to the motherboard and this saves up some time for you. The power jack cable can be easily unplugged from the motherboard and you can substitute it for a new one. Now you can use a new motherboard and to out everything back together, just read this article from bottom to top.

The skins you have on your laptop is not only a way to protect you lid from scratches, but it’s kind of a personal item that tell a little bit about who you are. If you have a skin with hearts, you are most certainly a romantic person. A person that is passionate about cars, will certain pick a skin with a beautiful sports car. Me? I like laptop skins with animals. I’m crazy about animals and if I had a big house with a big yard I’d probably make a zoo out here. In the mean time, I have to settle for one of these awesome laptop skins with animals that we are going to show and describe in this article.
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On www.lapjacks.com we found some of the nicest animal laptop skins that you could feast your eyes upon. The big category is named “Animals and Nature” and it has 5 subcategories: Wet and Wild, Big and Powerful, Cute and Cuddly, Plants and Flowers and Small and Deadly. The Wet and Wild subcategory has amazing pictures with aquatic animals like dolphins, sharks, turtles, fish, jellyfish and so forth. The pictures are incredible because a shark is definitely not something you see every day and if you come across one while scuba diving the first things that comes to your mind will surely not be “oh, let me take a picture of those huge jaws”. If you have seen the movie “Finding Nemo” you are going to love the laptop skin with fish that look exactly like our fishy hero: small, orange and with huge white stripes. There are also some snap shots of star fish and some amazing under water images which are bound to look beautiful on the lid of your laptop.

The name of the Big and Powerful subcategory said it all: just imagine which the biggest and most powerful animals are. Here we have the majestic lion, leopards, elephants, zebras, orangutans, polar bears, and the whole African deal of wild animals which inspire fear and a bit of admiration. One thing that does not fit here is that brown cow. Well, it is a big animal but it’s not that powerful. Let’s face it, the poor cow would never stand a chance in front of a lion or a leopard. Here comes the old time favorite: the Cute and Cuddly. I expected this category to be filled with puppies, kittens, bunnies and chicks (as in the hen’s baby, not girl chicks) but we do have some unusual guests like tiger cubs, baby elephants, lion cubs and penguin families. Nevertheless, they are all adorable and make a nice sight for those that love animals. The Plants and Flowers subcategory provided only pictures of static nature and landscapes, so we are leaving it for discussion in another article. The Small and Deadly subcategory contains… small and deadly animals. In fact, they are all insects and reptiles (and a fish). Here you will find laptop skins which are less pleasant but still provide interest for some people: we have a rattlesnake, a tarantula, a pit viper all curled up on a pencil, a piranha and even an underwater alien (some people sure do have a wild imagination).

Another website that has some nice laptop skins with animals is www.laptopboom.com. Even if we could only find 25 skins in the Animal category, each and every one of these skins is beautiful and impressive and somewhat cute.  If you have a cat at home, you are going to love the first skin which represents two white Persian kittens in a basket. They are absolutely adorable and one of them was even looking at the camera when the photo was taken so it’s as if he was looking straight into my eyes. One of these skins also shows a beautiful giant white lion while he’s… yawning? Who cares, that beautiful white fur may have the ladies thinking it’s time to buy a new furry winter coat. One laptop skin shows two very cute SharPei puppies, one of them is yawning and the other one is sleepy. By the way, did you ever notice how these puppies look like bath towel? Amazing! Another laptop skins shows 3 tiger cubs which are so cute they almost look like kittens. And to think that when they grow up they become dangerous predators… one could never tell from their innocent figure.



Our last choice for this article is www.laptopskins.org.uk. I’m guessing that this site has been recently released because even the total number of the laptop skins available here is way too small. We browsed the animal category but we could only find 4 laptop skins. However, all 4 of them would look really nice on our laptops. The first one was the chimp laptop skin. Personally, I’m not a fan of monkeys, but these critters look awfully nice. The cheetah cubs laptop skin definitely caught my attention. I am a fan of everything that has to do with these big cats like tigers, cougars, pumas or cheetahs.  They have these cute faces that look like sleeping pussycats. If you are a true animal lover, there is no way you won’t love this skin as well. Go ahead and buy one now because from what I hear they are selling out like hot pancakes. The sleepy dog laptop skin is a classic and it’s available on many other laptop skin websites. However, true animal lovers still go “OOOOHHHHH!!!” whenever they take a look at this cute puppy which is taking a nap. This type of skin in a best seller no matter if the laptop owner is young or old. In the end, we all love animals.



Last but not least, we have the jaguar skin. This is an animal imprint and it does not actually show the jaguar. It only shows the skin with all the brown and black dots. Come to think of it, I’ve seen a lot of ladies that wear clothes with jaguar imprints so this laptop skins could match their outfits. Don’t you just love animals?

When it comes to laptop repairs most of us think we are specialists and go “Heeey, I don’t have to take this to a technician. I know exactly what’s wrong. I can fix this myself.” This is the attitude than can damage your laptop even more. Ok, I may have over reacted, in some cases where the problems are minor; you can fix the laptop yourself as all you need are screwdrivers and a couple of other materials that you probably have lying around the house.
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If you ever attempt to fix a problem that your laptop has you need to be a patient person because you may be dealing with fragile components that can easily be damaged if they are handled improperly. Let’s see some examples of laptop repairs that you could handle on your own at home. Let’s assume you have a laptop. For the sake of this article, let’s also assume it’s damaged. Imagine that you turn on your laptop and after a few seconds, before logging into Windows, the computer shuts down. This could be cause by a number of problems. Maybe the power adapter is no longer working and the laptop does not receive the necessary electricity flow therefore it can only stay turned on for a couple of seconds due to the battery which is dead. It could also be an overheating problem. Laptop also shut down when the temperature gets too high in order to prevent severe damaged. But one thing that you may not think of is that the laptop has a hard drive problem.

Normally, when a laptop has a hard drive failure, this failure manifests itself in different manners and definitely not by shutting down the laptop. In the article that we have read, our “repairman” started off by removing certain parts from the laptop and when he ended up by removing the hard disk and turned the laptop on, the operating system finally started (please note that he has a Linux CD in the drive or else it was impossible to log into the operating system with no hard drive inside the unit). When he put the hard drive back into the unit and tried to boot the system again, he got the same problem as before. In conclusion: there was a hard disk failure. After installing a new hard drive, the problem was solved.



Let’s see if you can fix your laptop if there is a problem with a power cord. We found one user whose laptop kept shutting down when he touched the power cord. The LED that indicates the battery is charging also kept going on and off. Here there could be a problem either with the power jack or with the power adapter. If you want to fix this problem at home you are going to need a multimeter. This will help you test the intensity of the power that runs though the power adapter. If the power is constant and there are no interruptions, this means the problem is somewhere inside the laptop, probably with the power socket. The next step if obvious, you must test the power socket inside the laptop.

To do this, you have to dissemble the laptop. There should be no problem, especially if you have the manual and if you don’t, all known manufacturers like Dell, Toshiba, HP and so forth have online manuals available for most of their models. You have to remove the DC-IN harness from its location the motherboard and after that you must plug in the power adapter. Now, test it with the multimeter just like you did in the previous step. Wiggle the power cord and if you notice any fluctuation or interruption in the power voltage shown on the multimeter, you have found the source of your problem. You could replace the old and damaged harness with a new one and then test it again. In some cases, this power socket is soldered directly to the motherboard and if you remove, you have to solder the new one back where the old one was located. There are articles on the internet that can guide you through this process.



What do you do in case your computer is running to slow? It’s simple: defragment the hard drive. When the information stored on your hard drive is spread and disorganized, it can slow down the speed of the hard disk. Windows has a tool which is called Disk Defragmenter and which can take up to several hours to complete the re-organizing process.

But what should you do if you have stuck pixels? Although it may sound funny, you can massage the stuck pixels away. A stuck pixel will usually remain green or red. You can use any type of soft material and start rubbing the area around the damaged pixel in a circular motion. Surprisingly, this could fix the pixel and bring it back to its initial form. Pressure can illuminate the pixel and fix the problem.



When you downloads appear to be slowing down and the pop ups just… pop up in an excessive manner, you could be experiencing spyware infestation and even a virus. The solution is very simple: use antispyware and antivirus programs. In some cases, antivirus cannot handle keeping the files protected because the virus already managed to spread into your laptop and it has infected most of your files. Computer viruses are just like a disease: the sooner you discover them, the less damage they can produce. In this case, it is recommended you delete all the files by formatting your laptop and reinstall your operating system. In the more fortunate cases, Norton Antivirus manages to keep your laptop protected. The thing I don’t like about this application is that it eats up a lot of RAM but I guess it’s a small price to pay to keep my laptop protected. Norton 360 is easy to use because the interface is user friendly. The Norton suite includes a firewall option so you can create a barrier between your laptop and nasty internet threats.  There are also software programs which are available for free but they do have their weaknesses (see Ad-Aware and Spybot).

Continuing our saga of important laptop parts, we are going to speak about laptop coolers and laptop cooling pads. As you already know, overheating has been a problem with some laptops in the best as it is still a problem with certain models. This is one reason why netbooks have weak components inside, to prevent overheating. Because netbooks are smaller, their units are also smaller. Powerful components like top of the line processors and graphic card generate a lot of heat and high temperatures inside a small laptop could severely damage the internal parts.
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When you have a powerful laptop, they are exposed to serious heat problems. This means that you can’t use the laptop on your lap because of the high temperature and it also shortens the life of your notebook. You may have noticed that the longer you keep your laptop up and use it, the more its temperature it’s going to rise. This is because the interior fans of laptop cannot handle the heat output generated by the laptop’s parts. Fans need cleaning because dust often gets though the air vents and the more dust is accumulated, the slower your fan is going to be. You must take laptop heating very seriously if you want a laptop which you can actually use for the next year.

Try not to put your laptop next to other things that generate heat. The first think that came to my mind was our very own bodies. They generate heat and when the laptop is not on a flat surface, the air vents could be blocked therefore preventing the circulation of the cool air. One thing which is important for you to know is that when the laptop battery is charging, it’s also producing heat. This is why I recommend you take out the battery from the laptop whenever you keep your laptop connected to a power outlet. Most people don’t pay attention to the stuff that lies on the desk to close to the laptop and they usually block the air vents. This means that hot air is retained within the unit and this leads to serious heating of the laptop. Make sure that there is nothing blocking the vent so that air can come out.



A great new solution for cooling your portable friends is the laptop cooling pad. The cooler pad is also known as a chill mat and it is considered to be an accessory for laptops. I say it should be a MUST! The cooling pads reduce the overall temperature of the laptop especially in cases where the fans can’t handle the pressure. Just like a mouse pad, you place the cooling pad underneath the laptop because the bottom is always the part that heats up first and then spreads the heat in the rest of the laptop. There are 2 types of cooling methods: active and passive. Passive cooling usually uses some cooling crystals that eventually turn into gel in time. If the laptop does not generate any heat, the gel turned back into a solid material. In the mean time, active coolers use air and liquid to redirect the heat away from your laptop. There are cooling pads that use a power adapter but we prefer those that use the laptop’s power to run and they are connected to the unit using one of the USB ports. It’s better this way because you may not have an extra power outlet in handy to plug the cooling pad in and you may not have a power outlet at all around you.



Laptop cooling pads work in different manners. Some of them can draw the heat from your laptop while others can blow cool air into the notebook. Depending on the model of the cooling pad, you can adjust the speed of the fan or it can stay the same as there may be only one standard speed. You should know that those coolers that are connected to the USB ports have one big disadvantage. An USB port can only supply the cooling pad with 2.5 watts of power and the consequences are obvious.



You have to be really attentive and weigh the pros and the cons of the cooler you want to buy. Don’t joke around with laptop heat because it damaged the internal parts of the laptop. You could be attracted to certain cooling pads are pretty and colorful and they match your laptop’s looks. Pay more attention to their functionality rather than their appearance. Think about where you use this laptop. Do you carry your laptop around a lot? Could you carry the cooling pad along with the unit? Can you use the cooling fan when you place the laptop on your lap? Will it be comfortable? Is it too heavy? You must answer these questions before “Is it going to look good under my pink Dell?”

Customer reviews are always a good way of researching a certain products. Which is best to tell you if a product is good: the salesman that has to bring profit to the company or the customer that has already used the product and it can tell you how it works? Look at all the functionalities that are available for the cooling pad you want to buy. Just like I said, some can be connected to one USB port and you can even attach other peripherals with the help of the cooling pad. Some pads have on and off switches so you can turn them off when the laptop is turned off as well. Other laptop cooling pads will stay on for as long as you keep them plugged into the power outlet.



This covers about all the important things you should know about laptop cooling pads. They are especially indicated if you have a monster laptop, bigger than 16 inches because big laptops have powerful components and therefore generate a lot of heat. Remember that a cool laptop is a laptop that is going to be functional for years to come.

In our past articles we have spoken a lot about gaming laptops, cheap laptops, colored laptops and other categories for your portable friends. We thought it would be interesting to approach a different subject so this article is about the best laptop computers for music production. Believe it or not, not just any laptop is good for people that work in the music industry. A laptop has to meet certain requirements because it has to run certain programs.
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There are certain steps that you have to follow when you are hunting down the best laptop computer for music production. Just like we always advise you, before you buy a laptop, think about what you need it for. Think of a list of programs and features that your laptop must have. Do you need Bluetooth? Should it have a card reader? Maybe you need a VGA port? Remember to thinks about how much RAM and disk space your laptop should have. This way, you won’t regret the choice you’ve made. Remember that audio production programs will require a generous amount of RAM in order for them to run properly so don’t be cheap when it comes to your business laptop’s memory. If you already have an idea of what programs you need to run, check the internet to see what are the requirements of these programs and then you can search for them in your laptop finding quest. You could also calculate about how many tracks you must store on your laptop and then see the total amount of space they will occupy. It is recommended you choose a laptop with lots of free disk space because it’s always easier to work with files that are already on your computer, rather than messing with external hard drives, flash memories of DVDs.

Speaking of DVDs, make sure your laptop has an optical drive, preferably a DVD burner. In the music production, there is no more working with demo tapes. Now you have put tracks on CDs or DVDs. Another very important component of a good laptop for music production is the sound card. Normally, these kind of laptops always have good speakers and sound systems attached to them because no matter how good your laptop is, the sound is much better when you use external high quality speakers. There are gaming laptop, like Toshiba Qosmio and Alienware that have some pretty nice sound quality. This is because they have 4 integrated speakers and a subwoofer. Always keep in mind what the requirement are and if you want to save some money, don’t choose laptop with feature you are not going to use, because these add some dollars to the total price. If you do have some extra money which you are willing to spend on your laptop, add as much RAM and disk space as you can. You’ll thank us later.



Now, from what we’ve read and researched, there are 2 main laptop producers that have suitable models for the music production (please note that they are not the only ones but the other manufacturers generally have only one model that is suitable). The first one, is without a doubt, Apple. Unfortunately, an Apple is not a laptop that everyone can afford so if you really want one you could check out some refurbished deals. For example, a 15 inch Apple MacBook Pro is priced around $2300 if you want a unit which has some pretty awesome specs. For this amount of money, you will get a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 and 4 GB of DDR3 RAM. If you read our previous article about laptop memory, you saw that DDR3 offers a better transfer rate. The graphics card is an nVidia Geforce 9600M GT with 512 MB of dedicated video memory. You probably don’t need such a powerful graphics card for a music production laptop so if there is a chance to save some money by choosing a weaker video card, we recommend you do so. The total capacity of the hard disk is 500 GB which is excellent for your laptop because you can store as many tracks as you like in there.



The speakers of this laptop are ok but don’t quit the idea of having some high quality sound system attached to the laptop. One downside with Apple laptops is that they always have a few number of ports and connections no matter what the size of the laptop is. The important ports on this 15 inch Apple MacBook Pro are 2 USB ports, a Mini Display port, a FireWire and an SD Card slot. 2 USB ports is a very small number for a 15 inch laptop but this is how Apple always sacrifices the number of ports and connections in order to make thin and light laptops. Personally, I think there are better laptops that could be helpful for music production much more than an Apple can.



Another wise choice for this business seems to be the Lenovo Think Pad T61 (or so the user reviews say). This laptop has a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 and 2 GB of RAM which can be upgraded to a maximum 4 GB (and we strongly recommend that you upgrade). The graphics card is the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 which is a weak video card but suitable for a music laptop. Unfortunately, the hard drive has a storage capacity of only 100 GB which we consider insufficient free space for storing music files. You could check and see if you can choose a bigger hard drive or you can buy an external one.



You should really be aware that there are many more laptop models out there that can be suitable for music production. Remember to make a list of the specs that your laptop should have and we guarantee that you’ll find at least 10 good models to choose from. The Apple and the Lenovo we wrote about in this article are two examples. We have chose to write about them because users have reviewed them positively as laptops suitable for music production.