Pages with tag Computer repair

Checking and reapplying thermal paste can save your laptop from untimely death For a couple years my laptop had its fans running at high speed. I didn't think much about it, until I started looking at the health of the SSD. According to the SSD status app, the SSD was suffering from heat. After finding an app to report CPU temperature, I was alarmed to see it routinely above 80 degrees C. That's really bad. Cleaning the output vents helped, as did decreasing some background tasks. But checking the heatsink grease, a.k.a. thermal paste, and applying new grease, has made a huge difference.

Upgrading or replacing battery pack, SSD and other parts on Acer C720 Chromebook's How many of us, if the trackpad on our laptop stops working, get frustrated, set the computer aside, and buy a new one? That costs money to replace the computer, more 'stuff' piles up, it disrupts our lives, but somehow it's easier to just replace than figure out how to fix it. Turns out this specific issue, the trackpad puzzlingly not working, could be easily fixed. In my case the battery pack had swollen pushing against the trackpad making it not work correctly. The swollen battery pack itself is very dangerous and I wouldn't have known of it otherwise. Further, the replacement was next to trivial and a lot cheaper and less disruptive than replacing the whole computer.