That is one Awesome baby shirt. I showed it to my wife wanting her to see the shirt...and then I got bombarded with the standard "When are we gonna start on the kids?" questions.....damnit....
On that note, anyone know a cheap way to get a laptop cleaned? (By cheap, i mean anyone know a way to get a laptop cleaned?)
Well, that depends on how much you know about your hardware. My tech work and side jobs on the hardware end has always been restricted to Desktops. I would assume though that if you have the proper tools and knowledge one can be disassembled. If so I'd start by opening it up and seeing how many parts you can take out to clean without causing any damage. Do some research first though. If you don't know what you're doing I wouldn't recommend trying to take your computer apart like it was a toaster or something. A lot of parts break really easily or can be damaged just by being touched and you having too much static electricity in your body.
If you find you can open it up without doing any damage you'll need a few cans of air, some tweezers, and maybe some pipe cleaners. If you're extremely careful you might even be able to use a hand held vacuum or a vacuum with a hose attachment. Put it to the vents and suck the dust bunnies out.
If you're not confident doing any of that you can always take it to a shop and get a professional cleaning done. It isn't always easy finding a shop that will though, mostly for insurance reasons from what I understand. Out of the 5 non-corporate computer shops we have here in my town, only one of them will do a "Professional Cleaning". The other shops will only blow your system out with a compressor and replace your fans. This doesn't cover the smaller fans like the one in your graphics card or the cooling gel on your heat-sinks plus some other minor details. A lot of shops won't do it because they don't want to be financially responsible for the parts and would rather send them back to the manufacturer and bill the customer for it. Still, there is the rare shop that pays a little extra for their insurance and will do a professional cleaning, but it will probably cost you around $50 or more. Compare that to the price of replacing the parts or replacing the whole laptop and you'll save money paying for it to be cleaned.
Cool pic Wintersong. Raven X, that has happened so many times to so many people it ain't funny(not having a the "one" chord or cable attached). Now when it's one of you techies that makes it even more frustrating(for you). I bet everyone here who uses a computer more than a few times a year has done that least once in their life. Glad your back up.
Thanks man. I'm glad too. If I would have lost the hard drive I would have lost the entire Elemental Ideas Lists among other things. I'm quite confident when my dirtbag filters come in this weekend or next week I'll never have to worry about standard cleanings again. Still, it's always good to give your system a good once over and replace the cooling gel every year at least. Depending on how often you use your system (if it's year round 24/7 like me) I'd say do those things Twice a year.
BTW, if my laptop's screen goes suddenly (and randomly) white and only way to get rid of it is to restart it, is there something wrong with the graphics card or maybe overheating?
Hmm... Raven's story reminded me.. should i back-up my stuff regularly?
If you're video is cutting out like that it could be a few things. It might be the graphics card going, or it might be something simple as a bad driver it doesn't like. Being that it's a "White Screen" for some reason the driver explanation jumps out at me. Normally when it's the graphics card the screen tends be a Black Screen (as in No Video Input) or maybe even a "Blue Screen of Death" as you'll often get a error message when the card stops working. If could also be getting too hot and just bug out when the temps are too much for it to handle, in which case I'd say clean you're vents and make sure when you're using your laptop that it's getting proper air flow to those vents. I had a ex-girlfriend a few years back who would always complain her laptop would get hot and shut down when she used it in bed but couldn't figure out why it didn't happen when she used it on the kitchen table. Turned out when she used it in bed it would slightly sink into the blanket (which was silky) and the vents wouldn't be able to breathe at all and it would shut down.
When it comes to backing up your information you should always keep a hard back-up of important things. Burn pictures and drivers and financial records and things like to DvD at least every six months. Or you can get a external hard-drive and back things up on it.
