Frequently Asked Technical Questions

For the record, this does not apply to the Microsoft Surface Tablet or Mac products.

So the reason that you don’t put your computer (desktop or laptop) into sleep mode is that the hardware and software don’t like talking to each other. More often than not, they are not created by the same companies, and therefore aren’t compatible at all times. After a while it will make your unit start to malfunction.

DO NOT USE IT ON YOUR LAP! No laptop is truly a “LAP-top”, it needs air to circulate with the fans to keep it cool. Do not use it on anything that will prevent it from getting air to the fans on the bottom of the unit. ALSO, an overheating laptop can burn your legs!!! Best thing to do is if you want to use it while you are sitting somewhere that isn’t a table, you can purchase lap desks for relatively inexpensively from several different places.

you should always do this when you get a new laptop or battery for your laptop, fully charge it and fully discharge it (use it till it dies) three times.

Regular maintenance of your internals, having them cleaned out, should be done approx. every 6 months, or more frequently if you’re in a windy, dusty or poorly ventilated area.

When purchasing a laptop, it is always a good thing to buy the maintenance/warranty program for them, just be careful as to what it actually covers. As it may cost more to repair the unit then to just buy a new one.

It is always a very good choice to have it in a ventilated area so that air can be circulated through the fans that help keep the system cool. You may store it under your desk, however, you need to make sure that the side of the case that has the holes in it are not pushed up to the wall/leg of the desk. This will prevent air from getting to the system, which will cause it to overheat. And just like for your laptop, regular maintenance of the internals is a very good thing.

because it is always good to have copies of important documentation. Like backing up the movies or pictures of the family, or that amazing vacation that you took. You can even back up all of your taxes information, or even scan in those mortgage papers and save them so that you can have it right there, and not have to keep the papers around taking up space.

That, and it is a lot easier to store a hard drive in your home fire proof safe than it is a bunch of papers and photos.

Just so you know, Thumb Drives/Jump Drives are horrible back ups for media. When backing up your media, i.e. those before mentioned pictures and movies, these devices, are not good for that type of data. They are good for short time storage, but they are unstable, and can crash too easily. They can also be lost very easily, I myself have even washed a few of them from them being left in pants pockets. You should use a secondary hard drive, or CD/DVD to back your items on to. Then when backing up to a secondary hard drive, you need to also power it up every few months to make sure that it is still functioning as well. Secondary hard drives are not all that expensive any more, they are also getting even bigger than what you may remember. A 1 terabit hard drive can be purchased for the same amount that a 64 gig hard drive was 10 years ago.