Foreign particles such as dust, pet hair and dander, cigarette ash, and residue can cut the life of your laptop short. If left unattended, these particles can affect the performance of fans, causing the components to overheat. And we all know what comes after that. If you want to get your money’s worth from your laptop, you’ll have to keep it clean.

Cleaning your laptop should be done at least once a year, as part of your maintenance program. Don’t worry, you won’t have to spend a dime hiring a computer technician or a specialist to do this. Just check your user’s manual and follow these quick tips:

What You’ll Need

Aside from time, patience and steady hands, you’ll need a few cotton swabs, compressed air, cleaning solution, and a soft cleaning cloth, like your old cotton shirts.

Cleaning the Exterior

Use a soft damp cloth to clean the casing – make sure it’s damp, not dripping wet. And use a cotton cloth, keep away from scratchy or abrasive cloths. Also, stick to mild cleaning products for this task, and remember to spray it on the cloth first. Never spray the cleaning agent directly onto the surface of the computer.

The Cooling Vents

You’ll need a can of compressed air and cotton swabs for the cleaning vents. Just be careful not to spray too hard as you might get liquid on the fan blades. Use the swabs to keep the fans in place while you clean it. Don’t spin the fan while cleaning or you could cause it to over spin.

I/O Ports

The I/O ports should only be moved after the vents have been cleaned. Use the swabs to wipe away larger chunks of accumulated dirt. You may use compressed air as well, just be careful not to blow dirt into the ports.

Display

Turn off your laptop before cleaning the display, this way you see dirt more easily. Use non-abrasive cloth such as cotton cloths or pre-moistened wipes – never tissues or paper towels – to clean your display. When using a cloth, you will need a monitor cleaning solution. Steer clear from amonia-based cleaners as these solutions leave a mark – more specifically, they leave a film on the display. If you can’t get monitor cleaning solution at your local computer shop, you can make your own by mixing one part water and one part isopropyl alcohol.

Keyboard

You can use compressed air to get rid of dirt stuck between the keys on your keyboard. If your user’s manual allows you to remove the keys for cleaning, then do so. You can take them all out and wash them with mild cleaning solution and a old toothbrush or cotton swabs. Just make sure you don’t lose a key and you put them back in the right place.

Like they say, prevention is always better than the cure. Sure, you can always clean your laptop – in this case, you must – but it would be much better if you kept it as clean as possible. You can do this by always keeping it away from food and drink. Make sure your fingers are also clean before you start working, or you’ll transfer residue on your laptop. And when not in use, try to keep it in a computer briefcase or any sort of protective covering.

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You wouldn’t have to clean your laptop if you keep it in a computer briefcase and use personalized coaster sets to keep drink away from it. If you must, a pink Swiss Army knife makes the cleaning process fun. Visit ExecutiveGiftShoppe.com today.

The laptop screen is a delicate part of the laptop computer and apparently the most expensive part of the laptop computer. Lets take a closer look at the laptop computer screen, why it is essential to take care of the laptop screen and how exactly can you safeguard the screen. Before that, let me brief you on the anatomy of a laptop screen. Laptop screen is made of Liquid Crystal display or LCD as we better know it. LCD compositions comprises of individual transistors at each pixel (the minute dots that form images on the laptop screen). Laptop screens could have as many as 1,500,000 pixels. Every pixel is known to have an individual liquid crystal/ transistor combination. Even if a single combination is damaged you might have a permanent black mark on the laptop screen. This seemingly small black spot will not make your laptop unusable. However, if you happen to physically damage the laptop screen through scratch marks or abrasions you will lose much more than one pixel.

Laptop Screen Care Tips: -

Cleaning Laptop Screen – Use a computer buff to clean your laptop screen. These are very handy and can also double up as mouse pads. One of the best laptop screen protector, buying laptop buff does not burn a hole in your pocket. Even if you have oil or dirt marks, computer buff will take care of it in a single swipe. Also, finger prints are also something which are clearly visible on the laptop screen. Avoid touching the laptop screen. Avoid use of paper towels or rough cloths to clean; this might worsen things rather than resolving them.

Laptop Screen Protection Shield – Use laptop screen shields also known as laptop bullet proof shields to safeguard the sensitivity of your laptop screen. Laptop protection could not get any better. We know how tough it would be to deal with scratch marks on laptop screen. Avoid using alcoholic cleaners if you are not sure of the amount to be used. Some cleaning liquids need to be diluted with water before use. Besides, certain laptop cleaning liquids use ammonia that spoils the screen and makes it brittle and yellowish in color.

Laptop Physical Damage – Other than cleaning and protecting the laptop using computer buffs and laptop computer shields, you ought to know that simple poking could also damage the laptop screen. For instance, if you are making a laptop presentation never use pointed objects like pencil or pen to point out something on the laptop screen. If you find it difficult to use the mouse cursor, change the size or shape of the mouse cursor from the Control Panel.

The best way to safeguard your laptop computer and laptop screen in particular is to use it with care. Laptop repair could cost much more than the laptop maintenance and laptop care. Apart from the laptop screen protection, you also need to ensure the laptop exterior is not damaged. For this you can use laptop skins which are available in the market. You could even get a variety of it now. Many companies like HandStands have now come up with numerous laptop accessories like laptop bullet proof shields and computer buffs that help you in this endeavor. All you have to do is pick one!

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Keeping your laptop safe from online threats requires some preventative and active controls. Follow these general tips to keep your laptop and the valuable data safe and secure.

1. Install Anti-virus Software

Anti-virus software is designed to identify, neutralize and eradicate viruses that can harm your laptop, destroy your data, or exploit vulnerabilities that give spammers and fraudsters access to your accounts and personal data. Choose a good quality, anti-virus program such (Norton Security, Karspersky Security, or Webroot Security. Be careful when you download a program and make sure it is from a reputable site that you trust or go to the manufacturer’s website. To be effective, update the anti-virus software regularly to get the latest virus definitions (best practice is to set it up for automatic updates-this way you will not forget and always will be protected). Most commercial anti-virus programs have the automatic update feature and we recommend that you use it. For your convenience, schedule scans to run when you are not using the laptop, because the resources it takes to run a scan can slow you down your system.

2. Step: Turn on the Firewall

A firewall protects your notebook from Internet traffic entering in or information leaking out. You can use two firewalls (Hardware) and stack them up to increase the security level. Also the level of traffic allowed should be set to “recommended” or HIGH if you so please. There are software firewalls that can be also used such ZoneAlarm and Webroot Firewall, but while anti-virus software scans emails and files, a firewall acts as a guard dog, keeping your system safe from unauthorized entry. It also blocks communications to and from your laptop. To ensure the highest protection, it’s best to use both a firewall and anti-virus/spyware software.

3. Install Anti-spyware Software

Spyware and adware can cause a variety of things like annoying pop-ups and browser crashes, the installation of unexpected toolbars or icons, redirects to inappropriate sites, keys that don’t function, random error messages, browser freezing and sluggish performance. These types of malware are installed on your computer without your consent, and can monitor and in some cases control your laptop. To lower the risk of infection, use anti-spyware and adware software such Norton Security, Karspersky Security or Webroot Security Essentials. We recommend using at least two different programs for broader security and coverage.

Tips for safer surfing the WWW:

• Use a firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware software and keep it up-to-date
• Keep your operating system, browser and other software up-to-date and patched
• Don’t open email attachments or click on an email link from unknown senders (“Use Common Sense”)
• Scan all email attachments and downloads with anti-virus software
• Don’t download and install programs of unknown origin or innapropriate sites
• Disable Java, JavaScript, and ActiveX if possible
• Scan and Backup critical data often to CD/DVD or External Hard Drive (USB-SATA)
• Perform regular maintenance on your computer like disk cleanup, defragmentation, and system scans
• Create a boot disk in case your computer is damaged or compromised
• Protect your PC-Host file with security essential software or by editing policies correctly.

For more information on laptop Service, laptop repair, Notebook Repair Services, notebook service, laptop Motherboard Repair visit : http://service.ztronics.com

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Use and maintenance of laptop batteries

1. Activating a new laptop battery

Generic manufacturers is a new notebook for the first time in the boot with a battery should be 3% of electricity consumption at this time, should not use an external power supply, but the battery’s power than is used up, until the shutdown, and then add Power charge. And then also to the battery charge after the exhaustion of power, charging time must be more than 12 hours, repeated three times to do in order to activate the battery.

2. Exhausted after the electricity charge and avoid charging laptop batteries time is too long

Whether the use of notebook lithium or Ni-MH electric power, it must be exhausted before sufficient power (electricity consumption of less than 1%), which is to avoid the best way to the memory effect. Li-electric memory will have the same effect, but its memory effect than Ni-MH only a small number, only to use the full power of the battery after charging it to be. Part of the charge, could lead to discharge the battery inside the batteries of different chemical properties, so the battery performance will back down.
Recommendations on the battery every few months to carry out a deep discharge the battery in order to optimize performance. This is accomplished through use of battery-powered, the battery capacity has been used to 0% (this time the system will automatically enter standby or hibernation state, according to the BIOS settings in different). And then connected to the AC charger has been full of up to 100%.

3. As far as possible to reduce the use of the number of laptop batteries

The number of battery charging and discharging a direct bearing on the life of each charge a battery to retire a step forward. We proposed to make full use of external power supply, the use of an external battery power will be removed. If you often several times a day in Plug Power, and notebook computers equipped with a battery, battery on the greater damage. Because each access to external power supply is equivalent to charging a battery, battery on the nature of the Zheshou.

Ni-Cad batteries suffer from what’s called the “memory effect”. This means that if a battery is continually only partially discharged before re-charging, the battery “forgets” that is has the capacity to further discharge all the way down. To illustrate: If you, on a regular basis, fully charge your battery and then use only 50% of its capacity before the next recharge, eventually the battery will become unaware of it’s extra 50% capacity which has remained unused. Your battery will remain functional, but only at 50% of its original capacity.

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After using for months, the battery get weak and cant fully discharge. Also in this situation the laptop battery’s 76% even less in work.Now we need to Calibrate laptop battery. I found a note about recondition laptop battery from HP manufacturer’s handbook. Surprisingly, it offered some really helpful laptop battery calibration and maintenance tips, which I’d like to share with you:

Calibrating a Battery Pack

When to Calibrate laptop battery
Even if a battery pack is heavily used, it should not be necessary to calibrate it more than once a month. It is not necessary to calibrate a new laptop battery pack before first use. However, make sure that the battery pack is fully charged, especially if it is the only power source.

Calibrate laptop battery pack under the following conditions:
? When the battery status display seems inaccurate.
? When you observe a significant change in normal batteryrun time.
? When the battery pack has not been used for one monthor more.

How to Calibrate laptop battery
To Calibrate laptop battery pack, you must fully charge, fullydischarge, and then fully recharge the battery pack.

Charging the Battery Pack

Fully charge the battery pack when the notebook is in use. To charge the battery pack:
1. Insert the battery pack into the notebook.
2. Connect the notebook to external power through an AC adapter. (The battery light turns on.)
The battery light turns off when the battery pack is fully charged.

Discharging the Battery Pack

Disabling Hibernation
To fully discharge the battery pack, disable Hibernation temporarily.
To disable Hibernation:
? Select the Power Meter icon on the taskbar or access Power Options > Hibernate, and clear the Enable Hibernate support check box.

Discharging the battery Pack
After the battery light turns off, which indicates that the battery pack is fully charged, begin discharging the battery pack.

To fully discharge the battery pack:

1. Select the Power Meter icon on the taskbar, or select Start > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > Power Options > Power Schemes.
2. Write down the 3 settings in the Plugged In column and the
3. settings in the Running on Batteries column, so you can reset them after calibration.
4. Select the drop-down lists and set all 6 options in both columns to Never.
5. Select the OK button.
6. Disconnect the notebook from the external power source, but do not turn off the notebook.
7. Run the notebook on battery power until the battery pack is fully discharged. The battery light begins to blink when the battery pack has discharged to a low-battery condition. When the battery pack is fully discharged, the power/Standby light turns off and the notebook shuts down.

Recharging the Battery Pack

1. Connect the notebook to external power and keep the notebook connected until the battery pack is fully recharged and the battery light turns off.

?You can use the notebook while the battery pack is recharging, but the battery pack will charge faster if the notebook is turned off.


2. Select the Power Meter icon on the taskbar or select Start > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > PowerOptions > Power Schemes.
3. Reenter the 3 settings you wrote down for the 3 options in the Plugged In column and for the 3 options in the Running on Batteries column.
4. Select the OK button.

Now you already Calibrate laptop battery

The article is from : http://www.eastwoodzhao.com/maintaining-and-calibrating-a-laptop-battery-pack/
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