Laptops Arena

With buying a desktop computer comes the need to purchase accessories as well. You need a keyboard, a mouse, some speakers, perhaps a webcam if you want video chatting and so on. But a laptop incorporates all these and within a single system you have them all. Of course, no one tells you that you can’t buy an external mouse or some speakers to increase the music experience and get better sound. But when it comes to the mouse, you can get mouse pads, so you provide a surface that the mouse will stand on correctly and you will manage precise moves. On a laptop computer, the mouse pad is the touch pad and the mouse is actually your fingers. That is how you navigate around, how you open documents, how you double click, and select items and so on. So, when dealing with HP laptop mouse pads, we are actually talking about a touch pad.
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Using the HP touch pad makes it more convenient, because you don’t have to look for the mouse anymore, you don’t have to handle wires of charging your wireless mouse and you can manage things a lot faster and easier with your hands. HP touch pads are comfortable and easy to use, they might not look the same, because models are created differently and with other colors, but in essence they function in the same way. After just a few minutes of handling the touch pad, you will easily get the trick and learn how to use this part of the laptop. Place your fingers on the touch pad and move it around, look at the screen while you are doing this as you will notice that the cursor moves according to your finger’s movements.

Go to an application on the desktop and click on the left button, below the touch pad, to select that application. With the right button, you bring up a drop-down menu with other options. This goes for the right click on the classic mouse. Now place your finger on top in the right corner and drag it down to you. This will allow you to scroll through the page by dragging the finger up and down. You can practice this until you get the use of it. If you are using the HP laptop at home, you can consider getting a mouse and a mouse pad, as there are USB-powered accessories especially for laptops, available in tiny sizes. But if you are outside, on the road, at the coffee shop and so, it is easier to use the touch pad of the laptop and not carry the whole set of gadgets with you.

Moreover, if you are at home, work and you are using the laptop with the mouse and not the touch pad, and you accidentally touch it, some applications can be opened, you can cause the applications or games to stop and it can be very frustrating. But luckily, you can disable the touch pad and you can take care of your work and activities without worrying about this part. There are many HP models that include a disable button above the touch pad. Press the button when you want to disable the touch pad and you will see a red light. If you don’t have that button on your laptop, you can go to Control Panel from the Start menu and see the Mouse section there.

It is always a good idea to check the temperature of your laptop, including the one that comes from the processor. This way you can see if the fan inside does the job right and it is still functioning properly. So, how can I get the CPU temp from my HP laptop? You can easily do it by monitoring the activity of the fan inside. This is done with some programs you can download online. If you use your HP laptop for some intense activities, gaming and processing applications, then you will hear the fan inside making more noise than usual. If your laptop shuts down unexpectedly while you are managing some tasks, it means that it is suffering from overheating and you need to get the problem solved as soon as possible.
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First of all, you can download and install Speedfan, which is available for free for all laptops, including Mac platforms. After the installation is over, click on the icon in order to launch it. It starts automatically, but it takes a few seconds until the program collects the data it needs. A list with temperature will appear and you can see the temperature for the CPU or for Core, depending on how many cores there are. If there is a green check next to the temperature, then it indicates the CPU is running acceptable. If there is a blue arrow, the temperature is below normal and the red flame means the operating temperature is way too high.

And if your computer allows it, you can even control the fan speed with this program. The software is very useful and you can check it each time you hear the fans too loud or after you done playing some games or managing intense tasks. There are also other programs to do this and another one is Temperature Monitor 4.7 and you can check the temperature when the programs are running. Moreover, there is also Core Temp, which has a major advantage, and that is the capability of showing separately the temperature of more than one processor. If you have a dual-core processor inside your HP laptop, you find out the temperature of each processor and not cumulative.Another free program is CPU Temperature Monitor, which is basic and shows the laptop’s temperature, making it easy to keep on your desktop and see from time to time the exact status of your laptop. Take in count that if your laptop overheats constantly and if you suffer from unexpected shut downs often, then an immediate fan replacing must be done, until you risk damaging your internal components and even the motherboard. There are also some useful tips of keeping your laptop cool and improving the CPU temperature.

For instance, keep your HP laptop on a hard surface, because pillows and cushions only hamper the CPU cooling. It is also a good idea to get a cooling stand, so there is an amount of space between the laptop itself and the surface on which it stands, to improve the air circulation.

HP laptop keeps shutting down? There could be various causes that lead to that and in this article you will find out some of them. Once your laptop shuts down unexpectedly, then it could face serious problems and if you don’t take care of it from the start, then the problem can get a lot more serious. And it is simply disturbing, because you might be working on a project, important work and out of the sudden, your laptop shuts down and your work goes down the drain. But let’s see the possible causes, so you will know afterwards what to do to prevent it from happening again.
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First of all, viruses can lead to computer shut downs. In case you don’t have an antivirus, just the Firewall from Windows, then you must get one. There are a lot of companies that sell antivirus software, such as Kasperski, BitDefender, Norton Antivirus and so on. Once you have it installed, periodically search for updates, because new viruses can attack your computer and if your program is not updated, then you can’t be able to track them. Also, scan your computer when you firstly get the software and do it regularly, especially if you enter a lot of websites, you download files from the internet and receive a lot of e-mails with attachments and pictures. And once a virus is detected, removing it is done by the program, so you don’t have anything to do actually. After virus infection, the most common problem of them all is overheating of your HP laptop. To figure out if your system suffers from it, check to see if the keyboard is particularly warm or the other surfaces and listen to the fans to see if they are louder than usual. If you have a powerful processors that generates heat and RAM as well, the motherboard’s defense is to shut down in order to cool everything down. It is inconvenient for sure, but if it doesn’t shut down, then the motherboard can suffer some damages and then you can consider replacing your laptop instead of fixing it.

A solution to this problem would be getting some cooling pads; these are used to sustain the laptop and to provide space between its surfaces and on what it stands. Cooling pads come also with fans, one or two even, and they assure cooling experience. Moreover, if you know you are dealing with a lot of dust, turn off your laptop, use a can of compressed air and just blow air in the laptop’s vents. You could do this once a month and by this, the vents will work properly and ventilate your HP laptop once again. Another problem could be the new piece of hardware you just bought and installed. There could be conflicts with the new configuration and this is why your HP laptop keeps shutting down. To resolve this, disconnect the new piece and see if your system continues to turn off. If not, it means that there are other components that are failing and the most common ones are the processor, memory and the motherboard, along with the power supply. You can take your laptop to a professional and he will figure out how to solve the problem.

Finally, software settings could also be the fault: the Power Settings, so go to Control Panel and see what settings you have chosen there.

How to return HP laptop factory settings? Well first of all, you should know there are two types of system recovery you can do to restore factory settings: destructive and non-destructive. Destructive will format the hard drive completely and then you have to reinstall the operating system and other software you had installed and non-destructive, which means that Windows installation will be repaired and the system files that have been replaced, damages or missing will be restored to the factory settings. Thus, the non-destructive is the one recommended before running a system recovery. Everything is related to software, so you will not need to disassemble anything related to your laptop. Just keep in mind that sometimes the software part can do a lot more damage than the hardware, so be very careful when embarking on this task.
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You need to back up all your important files, either on CDs or DVDs, USB flash drives or so. You can find even 16GB USB flash drives these days, so that should not be a problem. You can even transfer files using your network and then back them up to CD when you have the time and patience. Remove any peripherals out of the HP laptop, such as media drives, USB drives, the USB printer and the AC adapter as well. Shut down the laptop and place the first recovery CD in the optical drive. Change the boot options so that the CD drive is above the hard drive. After that, select the recovery option you want and if you want a destructive recovery, go to Advanced menu option and select it from there, then click Next. If you want a non-destructive one, just click Next from the opening screen. While the HP laptop is recovering to the factory settings, watch for errors, as the laptop waits for your response and this will slow down the recovery process. If the program requests it, you might need to insert the additional recovery CDs.

Furthermore, restart your HP laptop in diagnostic mode in case there are any crashes. You might face these errors when running a non-destructive recovery. In order to get a diagnostic startup, go to Start, then Run and type in the box “msconfig”. Click on the button: Load basic devices and services only and then the Restart button when prompted on the display. You can reinstall any of the programs which didn’t come with the laptop and uninstall the ones you don’t need. If there is no way to get in the configuration utility, turn off your HP laptop and press the F8 key to access troubleshooting and advanced options. Select Safe Mode from the menu and log in as the administrator. This is what you have to do and if you follow these steps correctly you will succeed in the process.

In case you don’t have the recovery CDs, you can order them from HP. These are a lot better compared to those you burn at home. Don’t forget to install an antivirus as fast as you can and also visit Windows Update to download updates, as your laptop will need for security. In any case it is best to save your most important files as it is possible to lose them even in non-destructive recovery.

Do you hesitate among buying a laptop computer or a tablet? Don’t know exactly what to do? What about having those both? You can consider buying HP laptop tx2z and you will benefit of a tablet computer. This is a convertible tablet, because it opens to be a laptop, but it also folds so you can use the stylus and write or navigate around. It comes with the digital pen and this recent models provides multi-touch commands, so you will be surfing around easily and managing multiple actions at once. The starting price of this model is $999.99, but depending on the configuration inside, it can reach higher rates. If you are willing to pay more than $1500 on it, you can have inside the AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual Core ZM-86 processor, 4GB DDR2 memory, 400GB hard drive, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 graphics and Windows Vista Home Premium as the operating system. Because the display has just 12.1”, this is part of the ultra-portable category of laptop computers. You can easily fold the laptop and carry it around, stay connected with your e-mails, browse the internet and do the tasks you would do just like you were in front of the computer at home.
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And what makes this tablet so special? To start with, it is all about design and users will really dig the glossy, titanium finish with the HP imprint pattern; even if you sit at a coffee place or so, you will surely be noticed and in a good way too. The 12.1” display has a native resolution of 1280x800, which is standard and because we are talking about a tablet and not a simple laptop computer, the display is indeed the most important part of it. HP laptop tx2z has dual-mode display, which means that you can use the digital pen to draw, take notes and also use your finger to run applications, to navigate around and browse through your media files. Thanks to the multi-touch feature, you can manage to zoom in and out photos and web pages, rotate pictures, all by using two fingers.

Using the digital pens has its advantages as it helps keeping the screen cleaner, without fingerprints or so. In some occasions you might need to wait a little until the screen receives the multi-touch gestures, as long as you don’t get it right from the first place. The display is situated on a single rotating hinge and the Altec Lansing speakers are on the bottom of the display. Thus, you have three options for holding the screen: keep the traditional laptop-look, use the display only by facing it away from the keyboard or flat it down on top of the keyboard so you have a tablet. As for the screen, it rotates automatically, but there is also a rotate key on the bezel in case you need it. As for ports and connectivity, the tablet laptop provides a VGA-out, headphone and microphone jacks, three USB ports, SD card reader and modem plus Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for networking. A DVD burner is incorporated just in case you need to burn some discs.

For this specific model, there are plenty configuration options, you can go as far as 8GB of memory, 500GB hard drive and you can choose among six different processors.