Laptop's Hard Drives- Speed Also Matters

Buying a laptop? Want to upgrade your old one with a new hard drive? Besides hard drive's space size for storing your applications, documents, music, movies and other data, you should also pay attention to its speed performance. If you want fast access to stored data on your laptop's hard disk, you should purchase hard disk with SATA interface, higher rotational speed and larger buffer cache size.
Buy Laptop with SATA Drive
Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives use less power, so they save your laptop's battery. But, they also enchase your laptop's speed performance. Most hard drives usually support ATA/66 (66 MB/sec), Ultra ATA/100 (100 MB/sec), or SATA (150 MB/sec) interfaces. The numbers refer to the maximum burst rate at which the drive can pass data to the system (66, 100, or 150 megabytes per second). SATA transmit data in a serially (in a single stream) as opposed to PATA or Parallel ATA which is commonly referred to as an IDE hard drive.
Check the Hard Drive Rotational Speed
Don't forget to check the hard drive rotational speed!
The hard drive rotational speed tells you how fast the drive spins its disks in revolutions per minute (rpm). A higher rpm means higher drive performance. A 7,200 rpm hard drive is faster than a 5,400 rpm or 4,200 rpm and gives better performance.
Larger Buffer Cache Size - Better Performance
Buffer Cache Size is a temporary data storage area used to enhance drive performance. When the computer requests data from the hard disk if that data is in the cache, there is a performance boost directly related to the speed of the cache. Larger buffer cache size usually results in better hard drive performance. Buffer cache size on the most of laptop's hard drives is usually 2 MB, 4 MB or 8 MB.

Article source: ezinearticles.com

Laptop Keyboard Repair

Laptops have become an integral part of our lives. However, the sad fact remains that all the laptops available in the market are not standardized. Each manufacturer has different sizes of laptops to offer and sometimes the size of the parts differ. This fact is not a problem, at least not until the laptop starts needing repairs or replacement parts. Since one laptop is quite different from the other, it is very difficult to repair them in the first place, or in case of a replacement, find a part for the specific type of laptop. Even a simple thing like a laptop keyboard, is different for different makes and models of laptops on the market.

The main problem that arises due to rigorous usage of laptop keyboards is of damaged keys. Sometimes, the port that connects the keyboard to the laptop inside also gets damaged. If the damage is of the connecting cable inside the laptop, there is not much repair work required. Repair is surely possible if there is a problem with some of the keys.

Every key in any keyboard has a spring like arrangement that allows the key to press the sensor below and show the typed words on the screen. Most of the problems with keyboards and their keys occur when it refuses to press the sensor below and the typed alphabet will not show on the screen. This can be rectified easily and does not need the help of a repair person. One can find an online guide and find out how to take the key out of its main body. Once you do that, you can see for your self what's wrong with the keyboard. If you find that it is damaged below, you can try and fix it on your own or if you are unable to do so, you can go in for a new key to put in its place. This is where the problem starts. It is not easy to find as small a spare part as a few damaged keys. However, the possibility of finding them increases in a used laptop store. Laptops that are damaged that they cannot be repaired are disassembled and their parts sold separately in the market. You are sure to find your keys there.

If a keyboard is damaged beyond repair then one has to go in for the replacement of the keyboard which proves to be quite expensive. Another option is to use a new external keyboard with a USB or PS2 port and can use that keyboard for laptop computers.

Source: ezinearticles.com

Dell Laptop Hard Drive Diagnostics

Most Dell laptop and desktop computers will come with a handy utility already built into them for performing at least some form of basic diagnostics when you need to do a little bit of preliminary troubleshooting. This article will show you how to test the hard drive which is installed in your Dell laptop or desktop computer.

Some symptoms which should make you suspect that your hard drive is either going bad or has gone bad to some extent include:

No POST - your laptop or desktop computer just hangs and does nothing when you turn it on. It may sit with the lights on, but do nothing more. It may come on for a couple of seconds and then shut itself back off.

Errors - instead of seeing the Windows splash screen after your laptop completes it's POST you get an error which may mention that there is no boot device, or that maybe there is no mountable volume on the drive.

Sluggish Performance - Often when a hard drive is failing you will be able to have some form of a heads up about this unfortunate fact by witnessing a noticeable decline in your systems performance when you are actually in the laptop's OS (Operating System).

Windows Warning - Microsoft Windows does have the ability to actually warn you through a message which will pop up on your screen letting you know that you should save, then backup all important data immediately because a hard drive failure is imminent. Now, it is not necessarily a good idea to wait until this message is displayed because often times a hard drive will go completely bad, unusable, without this warning message ever showing up on your display screen at all.

On your Dell laptop or desktop computer you will likely find a handy utility which will run a quick test on your hard drive for you. This test is very reliable, at least for determining if your hard drive has actually gone bad.

The way you can access this test is as follows:
Power on your Dell computer, you will see the Dell splash screen, then very briefly you will see a message referring to F2 and F12 in the upper right hand corner of your laptop or desktop screen. The trick is to press the F12 key on your keyboard right when you see the message about F2 and F12 show up in the upper right hand corner of your screen.

This will bring up a BIOS boot menu and you will simply choose the one which refers to the hard drive diagnostics. Different Dell laptop or desktop models will offer different choices based on the hard drive being IDE or SATA. Once you have selected your drive the testing will begin. After around two to five minutes or so, depending on the size of your hard drive, you will see the results of the test. The results will either be a PASS, or a fail error code. The thing to remember with the Dell hard drive diagnostics is that a return error code 7 means that your hard drive does indeed need to be replaced. Backup any important data which you may have on your laptop or desktop computer and replace your hard drive.

Learn alternative ways to run Dell hard drive diagnostics already built into your Dell computer.

Toby Barns is a computer and networking consultant with over ten years experience as an independent representative of many major computer manufactures and retailers. Toby has worked in tech support call centers, led teams of advanced technicians in the computer manufacturing industry, done consulting for retail computer outlets, and as a field representative for many major computer warranty service providers.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com

AMD to lose notebook share for lack of netbooks

THERE MAY BE some debate about whether netbooks are an important growth opportunity for chipmakers, or if they’re taking a significant bite out of laptop sales, but the fact is that Intel has its Atom processor up and running, while AMD has yet to come up with a netbook chip of its own.

The fact AMD doesn’t have a netbook processor in the pipeline could be problematic for the firm. Its share of the global notebook market might well be in for a drop from the current 12-13 per cent to below 10 per cent share in 2009.

After all, entry level notebook PCs are not exactly the same thing as netbooks, and even if AMD does come out with its Yukon (Huron processor and RS690 chipset) and Congo (Conesus processor and RS780M chipset) platforms next year, both will target the entry-level and mid-range notebook segments rather than the cheap and cheerful netbook market that is seeing such a boom of late.

The problem for AMD now, however, is that the cost of developing all new netbook targeted parts will be costly and it will have a tough, if not impossible, time trying to compete with Chipzilla’s already super selling Atom.

After Yukon is launched in the first quarter of 2009 and Congo is launched in the second half of the year, AMD says it will follow up with its Nile series in 2010 and Ontario, with a dual-core Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) based on the Bobcat core, in 2011.

All well and good, but it still looks like little netbooks will continue packing Intel inside for a while to come.

Source: www.theinquirer.net