Laptop Concerns

To start off, nowadays many or a lot should i say have their own computer at home, and some of them have portables or laptops, netbooks, notebooks or whatever its called. We shall take that as our first jump into the abyss so to speak. Right now it's summer here and its quite warm, portables dont work well in heat, computers whatever type have a common enemy, and that is heat. A good cooling system and ventilation is required for computers to perform at it's optimum.

Laptops heat up faster than desktops, and we need to keep the temperature as low as possible. Try not to cover the holes where heat from the machine comes out. This is very important, when you operate a laptop the best way to use it is on a flat surface, since there is very little space between that flat surface and the bottom of the machine, air flow is kinda hindered. the higher the rubber footing the better, but most laptops nowadays are very thin. Some of them have exhaust fans underneath or at the sides and at the rear, to find it just hold out the back of your palm and try to feel the air coming out of it. when you have determined where the fan is, that is the part that needs to be free of any obstacles, do not block this port!. If you find that your machine has a fan in the bottom, try to elevate it and make space for the air to flow freely.
Another way is to get yourself a cooling pad with fans that ventilate the bottom part of your laptop, if the fan is on the side, I have not found a cooling pad that have fans for the left, right or hind part of your machine, if you find one let me know. I use an IBM T42 portable, and its fan is on the left part, so i just made a customized cooling pad for it. Portables were meant to be operated by battery, but many i have seen just use it at home as a desktop replacement so they operate it with the power supply or adapter all the time. When you use a portable that way, it heats up faster than when using a battery, the more you should be concerned now with heat problems.

Some effects of heat are slower performace than when its cool, operating system hangs or malfunctions, faster wear and tear on parts, but what really drives me crazy is the plastic enclosure or casing becomes soft in time, thereby making the laptop flex when moved around, causing the hardware or parts inside of the machine to fail.

Here in the Philippines, laptop servicing is not easy and quite costly and parts are not that easily available, hence we need to take care of our portables because it cost a lot, i dont have the needed mega-buck to buy a new one, so to maintain that existing machine is the best option.

Moving along, Try to purchase an external keyboard and mouse when using your machine at home to prolong the life of the built in keyboard and touch pad or stick. We dont want these to fail due to use or abuse, otherwise you will have an unexpected schedule with the laptop doctor or the laptop clinic, much worse the city laptop hospital.

Make your LCD monitor backlight just right for you to see whats on the screen adequately, try not to overdo it, if you like your screen to be at maximum brightness all the time you backlight will not last long, its a bulb, and just like any other bulb it will expire in time, the dimmer it is the longer it will last. Try to experiment by adjusting yours, it's pressing the Fn button and a plus or minus button, check your manual if youre not sure. Try not to leave finger prints on your LCD to lessen the need to clean it. I really dont get it why people who point at something on the screen and need to touch the LCD leaving his/her mark on it, maybe an inch or two between the finger and screen is okay, but to literaly touch it?.

Battery life is a little difficult, your battery will not last forever and cost a lot to replace it. Optimize your usage, drain it completely before recharging it, the more you charge it, the faster it will expire. When you use it at home with it's power supply or adapter, try to remove the battery if power outages are not a problem in your area, unless you are charging it at the same time. A cheap way to revitalize the battery from death is to have it "repacked", some people service them by changing the cells inside that pack with new ones, have no idea how much it cost, but its cheaper than a new one.

Try to disable some parts during baterry use, if not using wifi or LAN, CD rom etc., you can go to your system tray (the lower right part of the screen if using windows) and right click on the device to disable it, or you can use the device manager. The battery will now spend charges more efficiently thereby making it's life and the parts disabled longer.