Saturday, September 18, 2010

Overheating Laptop

Chances are that if your laptop has started running very hotter than usual or starts shutting down after its been running for a while, its because its overheating. Main cause of which is usually a blocked heat sink vent :
This is a typical heat sink and fan assembly for a laptop.

                                                                               Further disassemble of the heat sink components shows that the vent is completely blocked by dust and debris.  The computer still works but was on a cooling pad to prevent it shutting off. So the cooling pad was substituting for the internal cooling mechanism.







A closer look clearly shows the blockage. This will eventually kill your laptop from overheating, whether or not your on a cooling pad. It is causing the internal components of  you laptop to run at elevated temperatures constantly which it was not design for.








Started clearing away the accumulated dust and debris from the heat sing fins.










after final cleanning you can now see the fins clearly
air can flow freely through the heat sink to cool the processor and the graphics chip. Can you see the difference.





So if your laptop starst running hotter that usually don't wait for it to die. Get it to a techriffic technician and have it checked before it dies.
Raspec.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Retrieve information from blackberry backup files ( *.ipd)

when you back up your blackberry to your computer, the files are saved as an *.ipd file and cannot be read by you.

But if you want to extract say a text message or address from your contacts or just be able to see what was backed up then you need a program called  MagicBerry. Its opensource so its free
and works like a charm. you can extract messages so you can print them or have a hard copy of your phone contacts.


Check it out.