Laptop and PC repair guides

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Most of what comes through the workshop is one of a small number of faults, and some of them are worth a few minutes of your own time before anyone opens anything.

Laptop faults

• The machine will not start. Check the charger is seated and try a different outlet or cable first. If the fan spins and there is no display, that is a screen or backlight fault — see laptop screens.
• It runs hot and shuts down. Dust in the cooling path is the usual cause and it is fixable. Persistent heat under load is worth a look before the paste fails.
• Battery dies in an hour. Almost always the battery, rarely the charger. We can tell you which by measuring it — battery replacement is done in-house.
• It is slow and it is not the internet. A drive more than five years old is the most common cause by a distance. Cloning to an SSD is usually the single biggest improvement available — see SSD and NVMe cloning.
• Keyboard or trackpad has stopped responding. Worth ruling out an external keyboard or a stuck modifier key before assuming the worst.
• Spilled liquid. Do not power it on and do not charge it. Every second of power-on risks the board. Bring it in switched off.

Desktop faults

• No power at all. Test with a known-good cable and outlet first. A power supply that has failed is common, cheap and makes the machine look completely dead.
• Restarts under load. Usually heat — CPU cooler, case airflow, or paste that has dried out.
• Annoying slowdowns. A full mechanical drive, or a full drive. Storage is nearly always the answer.
• Machine is fine but the internet is not. Before blaming the PC, restart the router. Genuinely, restart the router.
• Fan noise or rattling. Often a case panel or an ageing fan bearing. Small job, and it stops the rattle that makes a machine feel unreliable.

What not to do

• Do not keep a failing drive powered up hoping it will recover. It will not, and you may lose the data.
• Do not run a "free" registry cleaner or a driver updater from a pop-up. It will cost you more than the fault it claims to fix.
• Do not open a laptop that is still under warranty without checking first.
• Do not keep a machine running on a battery that is swollen. That is a fire risk, not a slow problem.

Choosing a repair service

Ask three things. Do they diagnose before quoting? Do they give it to you in writing? Do they warrant their own work? If the answers are yes to all three you are in the right place, whatever the price turns out to be. Ours are, and the warranty is six months.