Checking Out Damage Done To A Laptop After Being Unintentionally Dropped

Checking Out Damage Done To A Laptop After Being Unintentionally Dropped

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Your laptop is likely to suffer damage when dropped; the degree and symptoms of the damage will depend upon many factors that are discussed in this article.

As soon as you drop your laptop the first thing you are likely to do is look for damage to the case. Cracks might be seen in the plastic case particularly around the corners according to how it was dropped. Cracks usually only affect the looks of the laptop and shouldn't alter or affect the performance so can usually be ignored, however they indicate that the laptop has been dropped from quiet a height and further hidden damage maybe present.

If the laptop was turned on or was in a sleeping state then quite a small drop will nearly always damage the hard drive. When you turn on the laptop you may find that Windows won't start, loads with errors, loads then crashes or is incredibly slow. These are all signs of hard drive damage and failure. You may or may not manage to save your valuable data subject to the extent of the damage to the hard disk drive; but you will certainly need a brand new hard disk drive for proper operation of this laptop, you'll need to reinstall the operating system when the hard disk drive is installed. If the laptop was turned off then the hard disk drive is probable ok, however, if it was set in sleeping mode then the hard disk drive may have been operational but will almost certainly be damaged.

Check the display; if you see any cracks, lines or bars down or across the display, blotches or what seems like ink leaking then the screen may be damaged in the course of the fall. Once broken, a laptop screen will need to be replaced because it cannot be repaired. This is a job for a laptop repair specialist as the new screen can easily be damaged during fitting.

If your laptop is dropped at the same time as the power connector jack is plugged into the power socket it is likely that the inner socket may become dislodged or broken from its internal connection. Based on the degree of damage and force you may find that the connector gets very hot during charging or operation or won't operate at all. This would indicate failure of the inner power connector.

If you have checked for apparent damage but still your laptop does not power up then it is possible a RAM chip has come loose from its socket. Most laptops have a small RAM inspection door on their base, often secured by a number of small screws. Remove this door and remove and reinsert the RAM chip or chips.

If your laptop will not power up properly after you have checked all faults described above then the fault probably lies with the laptop motherboard. It is where the electronics are housed within the laptop. The motherboard inside a laptop can easily be broken when subject to dropping. Copper tracks may break or electronic components may be broken or cracked when the motherboard is stressed. If a laptop motherboard is damaged it willit will eventually either need repairing or replacing; repair is a very specialized job and is just done by a small number of laptop repair companies.

The conclusion is always to handle your laptop very carefully, especially when turned on and avoid expensive repairs bills and potential data loss.

About the Author:
Graham has been fixing damaged laptops, notebooks, netbooks and repair USB drives at http://www.trilogicuk.co.uk for many years specialising in fixing motherboards at component level. Rarely is Laptop repair easy however its always rewarding.



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


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