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Lap Top Repair


Dougie Do'ins
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Anyone recommend a good place for a lap top repair ?

 

Mine started making clicking and beeping noises last night. It attempted to repair it's self but couldn't. It gave the option for a factory reset which I did but it's still fucked. It's a Toshiba and I've had it from new for 2.5 years.

 

Or should I just buy a new one ?

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Clicking and beeping is usually a sign of hard drive issues. My old tosh did the same. I usually fix them myself and if that doesnt work, bin em off and get a new one.

 

If you do take it in for repair tell them the symptoms and ask for a quote to repair, dont just let them spend your money trying to find out whats wrong as you could easily get a bill over 150 sheets which could go towards a new one.

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Clicking and beeping is usually a sign of hard drive issues. My old tosh did the same. I usually fix them myself and if that doesnt work, bin em off and get a new one.

 

If you do take it in for repair tell them the symptoms and ask for a quote to repair, dont just let them spend your money trying to find out whats wrong as you could easily get a bill over 150 sheets which could go towards a new one.

Is there a way of me finding out what the issues are and if say it is a hard drive, would it be something I could buy and do myself ?

 

TBH, I was thinking that any repair in excess of £120 I may as well just buy a new one. The annoying thing is, this one is only 2.5 years old which considering it cost in excess of £300 it doesn't seem like very good value for money.

 

The previous Toshiba I has lasted over three years. What would the usual life expectancy be for one of these ?

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Given its a Toshiba it'll probably have a Toshiba hard drive in it as well & they are rubbish.  From what you have said i'm 99% sure it is a faulty hard drive.

 

Do you have an recovery discs for the Laptop?  What Operating System is/was on the Laptop.

 

If you were to take it to a shop & let them carry out the repair you shouldn't need to pay anymore than £90 max.  £35-50 for replacement hard drive depending on capacity then about £40 labour charge to fit the new drive and install the Operating System.

 

If you have recovery media then you could save yourself the labour costs and just buy a replacement drive and fit it yourself and reinstall Windows from the discs.  If you don't have recovery media but access to another PC you can download an iso image of the operating system whether that be windows 8, 8.1 or 10.  the individual Microsoft product key is now stored on the bios of most modern laptops so a generic disk from Microsoft will automatically activate and won't ask for a product key.  If you have Windows 7 you will have that product key on a sticker on the base of your laptop and while you can't download an iso direct from Microsoft for Windows 7 there are plenty of sites out there to download from.

 

Being a Toshiba the hard drive is probably located under a panel on the back.  Just a few screws and it'll slide out.  With a blank drive in and a recovery or iso disc in the drive the laptop will boot from disc and go through the installation process.  It is pretty straight forward these days.

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Is there a way of me finding out what the issues are and if say it is a hard drive, would it be something I could buy and do myself ?

 

TBH, I was thinking that any repair in excess of £120 I may as well just buy a new one. The annoying thing is, this one is only 2.5 years old which considering it cost in excess of £300 it doesn't seem like very good value for money.

 

The previous Toshiba I has lasted over three years. What would the usual life expectancy be for one of these ?

 

if you take it in to get fixed you may get a visit at home from Operation Yewtree Mick.  Just a word to the wise. 

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if you take it in to get fixed you may get a visit at home from Operation Yewtree Mick.  Just a word to the wise. 

Im always open to visitors.

 

I've put the laptop in a shop on county road. They do free diagnosis so I  should get some news tomorrow. 

 

In the meantime I'm having to use the emergency tablet. Its so fucking primative I think it was handed down from Mosses.

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Im always open to visitors.

 

I've put the laptop in a shop on county road. They do free diagnosis so I  should get some news tomorrow. 

 

In the meantime I'm having to use the emergency tablet. Its so fucking primative I think it was handed down from Mosses.

 

Don't they hire suits?

 

Emergency tablet sounds like the morning after pill.  Have you been a naughty boy Mick?

 

And I wouldn't be surprised if your laptop doesn't come back with a Mick Lyons wallpaper.  

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See above. It's dead easy and you'll be very pleased with yourself for doing some computery witchcraft.

 

Just to add, it's well worth considering an SSD for your replacement. You get less storage for your money, but the speed and reliability make it well worth it. Crucial and eBuyer often have great deals.

Agree with this. Half the battle is having the bottle to have a go. I replaced my HD a while back with an SSD and put a new screen in my son's laptop last weekend.

 

I just followed YouTube videos. I saved 68 quid doing the screen myself and it took me 15 minutes, have a go mate.

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Those shops that do repairs will charge you double the price of the had drive and then charge you a fortune for carrying out the work. If you have a tablet then go the the Toshiba website find your laptop and go to the technical support for your laptop. You will be able to find the POST codes for the beeps your laptop is making. This will confirm whether or not it's is indeed the hard drive is the problem. The page will also give you detailed instructions on how to replace the had drive.

 

Seriously it's a piece of piss, providing you can use a screwdriver and follow simple steps you can't go wrong.

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Those shops that do repairs will charge you double the price of the had drive and then charge you a fortune for carrying out the work. If you have a tablet then go the the Toshiba website find your laptop and go to the technical support for your laptop. You will be able to find the POST codes for the beeps your laptop is making. This will confirm whether or not it's is indeed the hard drive is the problem. The page will also give you detailed instructions on how to replace the had drive.

 

Seriously it's a piece of piss, providing you can use a screwdriver and follow simple steps you can't go wrong.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0026JJAKE/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1454274187&sr=8-1π=SX200_QL40&keywords=rolson+9-in-1+precision+screwdriver&dpPl=1&dpID=41VD7ijlXCL&ref=plSrch

 

That is all you need really. An anti-static wristband is also handy but as long as you earth yourself then you won't need one.

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  • 4 years later...

Can any one shed any light on a problem I'm having. For a few days now my laptop has seemed slow when using the internet.

 

Intermittently, pages can take a while to load, videos are buffering and when I typing say on an email or on here, sometimes the letters take longer to appear on screen. 

 

I've done an internet speed test and that's showing no problems.

 

Is this likely to be an issue with my laptop and is there anything I can check or test ?

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4 minutes ago, Dougie Do'ins said:

Can any one shed any light on a problem I'm having. For a few days now my laptop has seemed slow when using the internet.

 

Intermittently, pages can take a while to load, videos are buffering and when I typing say on an email or on here, sometimes the letters take longer to appear on screen. 

 

I've done an internet speed test and that's showing no problems.

 

Is this likely to be an issue with my laptop and is there anything I can check or test ?

Is it connected wirelessly or wired? I had all sorts of problems for the last few days. Wired connections fine, some devices wirelessly connected fine but others not connecting to internet. Tried everything including turning router off and on. Ended up pressing the very small factory reset button on router and all fine again.

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14 minutes ago, Shooter in the Motor said:

Is it connected wirelessly or wired? I had all sorts of problems for the last few days. Wired connections fine, some devices wirelessly connected fine but others not connecting to internet. Tried everything including turning router off and on. Ended up pressing the very small factory reset button on router and all fine again.

It's wired even though the virgin hub is less than 6 feet away. I've done a reboot of the laptop and hub this morning and it didn't change anything. 

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15 minutes ago, Dougie Do'ins said:

It's wired even though the virgin hub is less than 6 feet away. I've done a reboot of the laptop and hub this morning and it didn't change anything. 

Not a reboot of the router, a factory reset. There's a small hole normally near the power button or power source input which you can only fit into with a paper clip. Normally holding that down for around ten seconds will result in a factory reset, how the hub arrived to you from the factory.

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Guest Pistonbroke
37 minutes ago, Shooter in the Motor said:

Is it connected wirelessly or wired? I had all sorts of problems for the last few days. Wired connections fine, some devices wirelessly connected fine but others not connecting to internet. Tried everything including turning router off and on. Ended up pressing the very small factory reset button on router and all fine again.

 

If I'm having any issues I just disconnect the plug for the router for at least 10 minutes, then reboot it. This ensures the Router does a full reboot with a new IP address. It also ensures the memory is fully cleared. 

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It's also worth considering the browser you use having problems. I've switched to Firefox as Google Chrome gradually seems to erode with time making it more and more unstable. Firefox not so much.

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17 hours ago, Dougie Do'ins said:

It's wired even though the virgin hub is less than 6 feet away. I've done a reboot of the laptop and hub this morning and it didn't change anything. 

Virgin is your problem! They are usually fine with wired connections but wireless is often shite. Add to this the fact that they are throttling speeds due to people working from home during the lockdown and its a recipe for disaster.

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1 hour ago, VladimirIlyich said:

Virgin is your problem! They are usually fine with wired connections but wireless is often shite. Add to this the fact that they are throttling speeds due to people working from home during the lockdown and its a recipe for disaster.

That might explain the intermittent problems. Today it's much better. Letters are appearing on screen as i type them and pages are loading better.

 

I've done the reset that Shooter recommended so maybe that's helped too.

 

I've just worked out I've had this laptop for seven years so it's served me well I suppose.

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50 minutes ago, Dougie Do'ins said:

That might explain the intermittent problems. Today it's much better. Letters are appearing on screen as i type them and pages are loading better.

 

I've done the reset that Shooter recommended so maybe that's helped too.

 

I've just worked out I've had this laptop for seven years so it's served me well I suppose.

If you've had the laptop seven years it must be considered older tech. That's OK, it's also worth considering that seven years ago Windows was very different to how it is now. When it comes to Windows 10, I personally think that a clean install of Windows is almost always better (especially on older machines) than an upgrade of an existing Windows installation. If it's an option, it's definitely worth performing a clean install of Windows and I think you will probably see a difference from that too.

 

Some other things to consider...

 

Is it possible the hard disk storage is low? What hard disk format is it? NTFS or FAT32? I use NTFS which is more of a match to Windows 10. If storage is low, you could perform a disk cleanup. Possible that the hard disk is also fragged, so a disk defragment could help?

 

 

Do you have software installed that you don't use anymore? Might be worth uninstalling older software (this is where a clean install of Windows is so good as it removes all traces of previously installed software, even on older versions of Windows).

 

How much memory does the computer have? I use a software package called Advanced SystemCare. This can do all the things needed to clean up a computer and also has links to software for defrags and software uninstallers. It also has a memory cleaner so it can clear programs from memory just in case it's being held on to for software performance. This software is free to use. You can pay for it to get more advanced options but you definitely don't have to pay for it to get the benefits. I use the free version and it works nicely.

 

Software site: https://www.iobit.com/en/advanced-systemcare-antivirus.php?AFF=44600&__c=1

 

Download : https://advanced-systemcare-ultimate.en.softonic.com/windows/redirect-download?utm_medium=redirection&utm_source=iobit.com&utm_campaign=advancedsystemcare

 

There are many things you can do which could make an older computer more than usable again.

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  • 1 month later...
On 10/05/2020 at 13:29, S.i.t.M aka The Boring One™ said:

If you've had the laptop seven years it must be considered older tech. That's OK, it's also worth considering that seven years ago Windows was very different to how it is now. When it comes to Windows 10, I personally think that a clean install of Windows is almost always better (especially on older machines) than an upgrade of an existing Windows installation. If it's an option, it's definitely worth performing a clean install of Windows and I think you will probably see a difference from that too.

 

Some other things to consider...

 

Is it possible the hard disk storage is low? What hard disk format is it? NTFS or FAT32? I use NTFS which is more of a match to Windows 10. If storage is low, you could perform a disk cleanup. Possible that the hard disk is also fragged, so a disk defragment could help?

 

 

Do you have software installed that you don't use anymore? Might be worth uninstalling older software (this is where a clean install of Windows is so good as it removes all traces of previously installed software, even on older versions of Windows).

 

How much memory does the computer have? I use a software package called Advanced SystemCare. This can do all the things needed to clean up a computer and also has links to software for defrags and software uninstallers. It also has a memory cleaner so it can clear programs from memory just in case it's being held on to for software performance. This software is free to use. You can pay for it to get more advanced options but you definitely don't have to pay for it to get the benefits. I use the free version and it works nicely.

 

Software site: https://www.iobit.com/en/advanced-systemcare-antivirus.php?AFF=44600&__c=1

 

Download : https://advanced-systemcare-ultimate.en.softonic.com/windows/redirect-download?utm_medium=redirection&utm_source=iobit.com&utm_campaign=advancedsystemcare

 

There are many things you can do which could make an older computer more than usable again.

Fucks sake. I meant to come back to this at the time but totally forgot.

 

Thanks for the advice but I'm a dinosaur when it comes too shit like this. Things are pretty much the same really. I tried disabling my anti virus to see if that would help but it didn't. I suspect it's got something to do with virgin  but I've tried a speed test and it tells me everything is fine. I tried resetting the router and no better. I might try and request a new router and see if that helps.

 

 

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