More Laptop Information

So if we have agreed that the laptop makers have created useless manuals and yet laptops are a useful device.  Where can we get some good information relating to our problems that we may experience with our various laptops.

Where to Start?

That is the question that probably brought you to this page.  Well a very good start to find out information is to call this guy.  But if phoning someone for information is not your style and you want to do the surfing to find the answers I suggest a Google search.  Search on your model laptop.  If you happen to own an IBM Thinkpad use the type number in your search.  Dell laptops do not have such a great way to find information like that (Leave it to dell.)  I personally like using a search engine like MSN.  Reason being is that I feel that Google has become a large elephant that just lumbers along feeding us advertising links before true organic links.  (Just my opinion)

If this type of search does not yield any good information try this page.  Or try the manufacturer of your laptops website.  In most cases you can dig thru their support sites and find at a minimum the software drivers.  Plus any manuals for your laptop that they may have posted.  It is always a good idea to see if there are updated drivers for your equipment.  They are always updating that type of thing.

What are most Laptop Problems caused by?

USER ERROR!  That's right, 95% of all laptop problems are caused by the users.  For example, I had one guy call on the phone looking to return his laptop because it did not work.  Now when dealing with tech support phone calls you must ask the following questions in this order:

1. Is the laptop in front of you?

2. Is the AC adapter plugged into the correct port on the laptop?

3. Is the AC adapter plugged into the electric plug?

4. Has the electrical plug been tested and confirmed working?

5. Did you push the on button?

6. Did you upgrade the operating system on your Pentium 166 laptop with 32 meg RAM to Microsoft Windows XP professional?

Now that last question is a bit sarcastic but I have found some people believe they can upgrade a 486 computer to the windows XP operating system and they actually believe that the computer is broken when it does not work -- Go Figure.

Back to the guy that called.  His problem was that he did not have power to his electrical plug in his house.  Rather than investigate the problem his first response was to call me.  (I think we live in a world where people think someone else can solve all their problems.).