Q. It probably needs some things replaced (motherboard, fan maybe) as it keeps shutting down and behaving oddly. Anyway I have had this laptop for about 3-4 years and my warranty is up, if I upgrade my warranty and then send it off to be fixed by dell, will they fix it? Or will they refuse since it broke well before I upgraded the warranty? Any help much appreciated!
A. Wow.
Look. Start calling around town, and find the computer repair shop with the cheapest diagnostic fee, and bring it to them. Why? Because I do not believe Dell will allow you to extend the warranty now. I mean, if you purchased a 2 year extension when it was new, that would have made your warranty 3 years long. If you could buy that extension NOW... then it would still be expired, since the warranty starts from the date of the purchase of the laptop, not the date of the purchase of the warranty.
At any rate, since you have already had the laptop 3-4 year, Dell isn't going to sell you the warranty. They aren't stupid. They know you would want to do this to try to make the repair cheaper.
Have you ever cleaned the cooling channel? It's the most common reason why laptops start to act funny after a few months/years.
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?c=us&docid=279891&doclang=en&l=en&s=gen&cs=
A support article from Dell on the topic.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01657439
A support article from HP with some good pictures.
Cleaning the dust from between your fan and heat sink could easily make the unit run better.
Have you performed a factory recovery? You know... backing up all your important data and reinstalling the OS and drivers so it is like it was when it was new? That can go a long ways toward making it run... like it was new.
I don't know why people assume that they just buy a laptop and then use it for years until it runs into the ground. People know you can't do that with a car. Laptops cost almost as much as some used cars, and both laptops and cars need regular maintenance. If you want your laptop to last longer than 3-4 years, you need to maintain it... even if that means taking it to a mechanic (professional computer repair technician) for servicing. Otherwise, you have to expect to replace the unit every 3-4 years.
Look. Start calling around town, and find the computer repair shop with the cheapest diagnostic fee, and bring it to them. Why? Because I do not believe Dell will allow you to extend the warranty now. I mean, if you purchased a 2 year extension when it was new, that would have made your warranty 3 years long. If you could buy that extension NOW... then it would still be expired, since the warranty starts from the date of the purchase of the laptop, not the date of the purchase of the warranty.
At any rate, since you have already had the laptop 3-4 year, Dell isn't going to sell you the warranty. They aren't stupid. They know you would want to do this to try to make the repair cheaper.
Have you ever cleaned the cooling channel? It's the most common reason why laptops start to act funny after a few months/years.
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?c=us&docid=279891&doclang=en&l=en&s=gen&cs=
A support article from Dell on the topic.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01657439
A support article from HP with some good pictures.
Cleaning the dust from between your fan and heat sink could easily make the unit run better.
Have you performed a factory recovery? You know... backing up all your important data and reinstalling the OS and drivers so it is like it was when it was new? That can go a long ways toward making it run... like it was new.
I don't know why people assume that they just buy a laptop and then use it for years until it runs into the ground. People know you can't do that with a car. Laptops cost almost as much as some used cars, and both laptops and cars need regular maintenance. If you want your laptop to last longer than 3-4 years, you need to maintain it... even if that means taking it to a mechanic (professional computer repair technician) for servicing. Otherwise, you have to expect to replace the unit every 3-4 years.
System recovery and hardware partitions, the best options to choose?
Q. I bought a Toshiba laptop from best buy about a year ago. I am a college student and i usually do a full system recovery after every couple of semesters. When i bought the lap top they Geek Squad did all of the initial set up on the computer in the store (for a fee of course). Now that i am running a full restore, i chose the setting where the initial HD partitions were left intact. In your opinion, was this the right choice? In theory, this should preserve what Geek Squad did in the store, right?
A. actually i dont know what you want. if you do a system restore than your system will be back to the restore point. but since you mention of "partitions were left intact" i were thinking that you want to reinstall your windows. if you install new windows oftenly than i suggested you to create a new partition, save your data on other partition and an complete format of drive C:. its better to have complete new windows than recovered one.
How di i fix my laptop?
Q. I dropped my laptop (alienware m11x r2 no disk drive) back in the summer and a day later everytime I turned it on it would go go to a black screen that say "no bootable device.-- insert bootable device and press any key" and so on. I checked in the bios and my hard drive was not detected, so I bought another one and installed it. While the hard drive is detected, the same black screen still comes up. What can I do now???
A. You need to install the operating system. As there is no operating system installed, it has nothing to boot to. All your data including the operating system was on the other hard drive. You should have a license key on the bottom. You either need to get an install disc, or you can contact Dell and get them to send you a recovery disc for a small fee.
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