It may surprise you to know that as a computer technician I find that over 85 percent of my repairs are on laptops that are two years old and under. Today computers are no longer being put together with good materials by well paid workers. Laptop motherboards are only tested for basic continuity. After being installed in a laptop they are turned on once and shipped out. Most metal is now replaced with plastic, and I don’t mean just the case. The screws that hold the laptop together are in most cases made of plastic. The public trend is the thinner the better. Everything is squeezed together sometimes leaving little room for cooling. CPU or (the processor cooling fan) no longer has a metal ball bearing but instead a plastic system relying on Teflon coated plastic. When a fairly new laptop starts having problems I usually hear something like ( how can it have a serious problem it’s only sixteen months old?
Most people have no idea that there are actually two types of laptops on the market, consumer brand and business class. The information in the above paragraph is all about consumer class laptops. The laptops you find at Best Buy, Staples and most big box stores. Business class laptops are purchased buy businesses from the actual manufacturer. By far the two largest business class laptops manufactures are Dell and HP. An individual can get on the Dell or HP website and special order a business class computer configured just the way they want it. So you may be asking yourself what is the big difference between consumer class and business class laptops. Lets take a business that needs to purchase fifty laptops. They probably want to have them configured to their current needs. Configured just means what processor, how much ram and what size hard drive. Businesses also want their laptops to be easy to maintain and upgrade. Most business laptops come apart easily for cleaning and upgrading the hardware is easier. To replace a hard drive on some consumer class laptops requires the computer to be almost completely disassembled. Most business class require nothing to be taken apart or at least only a few screws.
Business class laptops usually have bigger processor colling fans, better placement of hard drives and real metal screws holding everything together. The Dell business class laptop is the Latitude brand and with HP it’s the Elitebook although the HP Probook is pretty close in quality. People don’t understand that laptops need to be maintained and serviced before they break down. Cleaning the hardware and scanning for problems can extend the life of a laptop by years. If you own a consumer brand laptop this maintenance is necessary and not very expensive. For new laptops I would recommend having them checked after one year. There is a reason they only guarantee them for one year. Business class laptops need maintenance every three years. Here at the Computer Doctor we offer this service with a 24 hour turnaround. If you have a repair shop that you like I’m sure they can provide this service. If you have any questions contact larry@computerdoctordoctorboise.com Call 208-968-5780 or text 408-571-9869.