Steve Cherubino, who was computer technician until he went full time podcasting has worked on thousands of laptop computers in his shop and would now like to share his laptop repair knowledge with you in the form of high definition, narrated, downloadable videos.

He covers everything you would want to know about repairing laptops such as:

• How to replace a motherboard
• How to replace an LCD Screen
• What to do when the laptop keeps shutting down
• How to fix DC power jacks
• The crucial difference between a bad screen and a bad inverter board
• How to replace hinges
• Where Steve buys all his parts
• The best way to go about taking a laptop apart
• How to solder
• The art of fixing AC adapters
• How to handle a laptop that has had liquid spilled in it
• What to do when a laptop overheats
• How to replace CD/DVD drives, RAM, processors, hard Drives and wireless cards
• and much, much more!

This master course in laptop repair sells for $54.95 and Steve is so confident that you will find value in his product that he has a 60 day money back guarantee if you arent satisfied with the videos.
Seriously, it would only take only one laptop repair job for you to recoup your investment. The videos pay for itself.

As part of his launch, Steve is also giving away a Samsung Q1 to one of the next 100 people to buy the videos.

Go to the site, check out his sample videos and I am sure you’ll find that what he is offering is well worth the investment.

Link: Laptop Repair Videos

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

Want To Learn How to Fix Laptops? Check out these Videos

I have provided a link to a shrunken down version for easy web viewing that is only 2mb in size and an extremely high resolution version that weighs in at 24mb.


Images:
You can also get these graphics printed as a poster to hang in your workshop over at DeviantArt via this link.

Low Resolution Web Version (2mb)

Ultra High Resolution Version (24mb)

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

Computer Hardware Chart

How to Bypass or Remove a BIOS Password by Removing the CMOS Battery:
The simplest way to remove a BIOS password is to simply remove the CMOS battery. A computer will remember its settings and keep the time even when it is turned off and unplugged because these parts are powered by small battery inside the computer called a CMOS battery. If we pull out this battery, the computer will forget alot of its hardware settings, including its BIOS password. This should not be performed on Laptops if you are not experienced working with laptop hardware.

Anyway, open up the computer case using a screw driver and locate the flat, circular and metallic CMOS battery. It should look something like the picture to the right. Some computers have this part standing upright.

Once you have located it, observe how the latches are holding it. There are many different ways to remove a CMOS battery but the most common way on newer computers can be seen in the picture below.

Make sure to power down the computer, unplug the power cables and unplug any USB devices if they are powered. The computer must not be able to get power from anywhere for this to work. Take out the CMOS battery and wait 10 – 25 minutes before putting it back in. The reason for this wait is because the computer can still store power in its capacitors even though everything is unplugged. The waiting period allows enough time for them to discharge.

Plug everything back in, power up the computer and enter the BIOS again. If everything went well there should be no more password. In some cases, if you get weird error messages during bootup now, you will need to goto “Load BIOS Defaults” in BIOS and save the changes to fix them.

If this method didn’t work, try one of the methods below.

How to Bypass or Remove a BIOS Password using Software:
!BIOS is a freeware utility which is designed to be a whole BIOS and security suite. It has the ability to decrypt the passwords used in some of the most common BIOS makes such as Award, Phoenix, American Megatrends, IMB etc..
It also has the ability to brute force the password (known as “blasters”). However, this method is dangerous and can result in some unexpected and unwanted results.

Note: Because of this applications password cracking abilities, some antivirus software may report it as a virus/trojan. This is a false positive.

To start using !BIOS, reboot your computer and take note of the BIOS type and version you are running. For example, If your motherboard uses Award BIOS you should look for the text “Award Medallion BIOS 6.0″ or something similar.

Download !BIOS from here and save it to your desktop. Then, open a DOS command windows by going to Start > Run and type: cmd

Once you see a black screen in front of you, type: cd desktop
You should now see something like: C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName\Desktop>

Now type the name of the file you just downloaded, if you haven’t changed the name just type in: bios320.exe

Use the down arrow and choose “Crackers” and then press the right arrow. Using the up and down arrows, select the BIOS that the motherboard is using and press Enter.

You should now see a menu asking what you want to crack, in most cases its the Supervisor or System Passwords you want to crack, so press the 1 key on your keyboard. It will then show you another menu asking how you want it to be cracked. Option 1 is pretty good so try that first by pressing the 1 key on your keyboard. You should now have your BIOS password.

Reboot the computer, enter the BIOS and try it out.

How to Bypass or Remove a BIOS Password using the manufacturer backdoor password:

On many computers (especially old ones), computer manufacturers build in backdoor passwords for their own technicians to use so they can access the BIOS when the hardware is being serviced. Here are some of the ones that have been reported. You may need to try quite a few passwords before you find one that works

These passwords are CaSe SeNsItIve.

AMI BIOS Backdoor Passwords:

• A.M.I.
• AAAMMMII
• AMI
• AMI?SW
• AMI_SW
• BIOS
• CONDO
• HEWITT RAND
• LKWPETER
• MI
• Oder
• PASSWORD

Award BIOS Backdoor Passwords:

• (eight spaces)
• 01322222
• 589589
• 589721
• 595595
• 598598
• ALFAROME
• ALLY
• ALLy
• aLLY
• aLLy
• aPAf
• award
• AWARD PW
• AWARD SW
• AWARD?SW
• AWARD_PW
• AWARD_SW
• AWKWARD
• awkward
• IOSTAR
• CONCAT
• CONDO
• Condo
• condo
• d8on
• djonet
• HLT
• J256
• J262
• j262
• j322
• j332
• J64
• KDD
• LKWPETER
• Lkwpeter
• PINT
• pint
• SER
• SKY_FOXSYXZ
• SKY_FOX
• syxz
• SYXZ
• TTPTHA
• ZAAAADA
• ZAAADA
• ZBAAACA
• ZJAAADC

Russian Award BIOS Passwords:

• %øåñòü ïpîáåëîâ%
• %äåâÿòü ïpîáåëîâ%

Phoenix Backdoor BIOS Passwords:

• BIOS
• CMOS
• phoenix
• PHOENIX

Other Manufcaturers Backdoor Passwords: (manufacturer name – password)

• VOBIS and IBM – merlin
• Dell – Dell
• Biostar – Biostar
• Compaq – Compaq
• Enox – xo11nE
• Epox – central
• Freetech – Posterie
• IWill – iwill
• Jetway – spooml
• Packard Bell – bell9
• QDI – QDI
• Siemens – SKY_FOX
• SOYO – SY_MB
• TMC – BIGO
• Toshiba – Toshiba

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

How to Bypass or Remove a BIOS Password

We personally recommend using a compressor if you take a few safety steps which we will mention shortly. To begin cleaning the computer, you will need a Phillips head screwdriver (+) and a pencil or pen. The screwdriver is to open the computer case and the pencil or pen is to stick into the fans to prevent them from spinning up to insane speeds by the compressed air which can damage their tiny brushes.

It is best if you do this outside to prevent the dust form going all over the room. First shut it down and unplug it from any power source.

Open the case by using a Phillips head screwdriver to unscrew the screws on the back of the computer and slide the panel towards the back of the computer. Typically, if you are looking at the front of the computer, you will want to open the left panel because this provides the best access. Some brand name computers such as Dell, Compaq or HP may have hidden screws and clips elsewhere which will need to be found and released before you can open the computer.

To begin, we will clean the CPU fan. If you are using a compressor, first give it a test spray of air because sometimes they can collect moisture and spray water onto your computer which is something we definitely don’t want. After, place the pen or pencil in between the fans blades to prevent it from spinning and blast the dust away from the fans blades.

Next, you will need to get the dust out from the computers CPU heatsink just below the CPU fan. A good blast from a low angle facing towards the back of the case should get most of the dust out from in between the aluminum grills.

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How to Clean the Inside of a Computer Case

Form Factors
Motherboards come in different shapes and sizes, sometimes a functional requirement and sometimes the all too common “proprietary format” specified by manufacturers for reasons we won’t bother with here. At one time or another you’ve heard of form factors which include, AT, ATX, BTX, Mini-ATX and even Nano-ATX. The form factor determines the overall dimensions of the board, the placement of components, especially external connections and the power supply pin-out and connector type. Your typical system administrator will probably have long and technical arguments for why a certain form factor, (usually one of the many I did not list) is better. For the purposes of building or upgrading your system the best is one that fits the case you are using or plan to use, supports the technology you need and fits your budget. The most common form factors at this time are ATX, Mini-AX and Nano-ATX. As you might guess; the boards range in size with ATX being the largest, Mini-ATX smaller and Nano-ATX the smallest. Nano-ATX boards are used for specialty computers such as car PCs. ATX also refers to the power supply standard used in the latest boards which includes additional pins, SATA power connectors and often special connectors for high power graphics cards.
The Expansion Bus
The rectangular card slot connections which line the back-side of the motherboard provide the expansion bus. For years the most common bus types were AGP, (used for graphics) and PCI, (used for everything else, some graphics cards and anything not ISA but let’s skip ancient history). The importance of the various bus standard lies squarely in the amount of data bandwidth each one is capable of. The latest in bus technology is the PCI-express standard. Think of a PCI slot as a multi-lane highway capable of two-way traffic, traffic backups and so on. Each bus type has certain number of lanes and a “speed limit” for them. PCI-Express or “PCIe” is evolving even as you read this from version 1.1 to version 2.0 which will represent a doubling of its speed limit. PCIe 1.1 transfers data at 250 MB/s in each direction per lane. With 32 lanes available, PCIe has a theoretical transfer capability of 8 GB/s in each direction. The standard bandwidth figure for PCIe v1.1 is given as 2.5 GB/s. PCIe v2.0 will be 5 GB/s. For comparison, just one of the lanes in a PCIe bus is close to 2 times faster than the old PCI standard. 8 PCIe lanes are equal to the fastest AGP bus. PCIe bus connections come in different sizes which range from 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x and 16x. The important thing is to check that your desired PCIe card has the required matching PCIe slot in the correct dimension. PCIe slots support vast improvements in the way in which data is communicated by means of layers in the data protocol. These allow even higher bus rates in future versions and a capability called “linking”. An even number of PCIe slots can be “linked” given specific support for linking built into the motherboard. This link allows us to combine 2 or more graphics cards for very high performance applications. As always, gamers and the design community are driving these capabilities. Depending on the graphics card vendor this is referred to as “SLI” or “Crossfire” capability.

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To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

Modern Motherboards: Out with the old and in with the “new” new

Things to consider when purchasing a new power supply:

• Motherboard connection type
• Specialized units, (Dell, Compaq / HP and others)
• Warranty (You may void it by replacing a factory supply on your own)
• Wattage needed (look at the back of your existing supply)
• Noise level
• Desired power efficiency

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To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

How to Replace a Power Supply (and buy a good one)

If you do it the way I do, after a few years or so, you’ll usually find yourself heaps of computer relics in the corner of your garage, and wondering what you are going do with them.

Keep it as backup
Your first option would be to use it as backup. Five years old hardware is still more than adequate for undemanding task like web browsing and word processing, for example. It would also be a good place to try out new Linux or BSD distributions, without challenging your important files. You can run a remote control software to control it from your main PC, use it as a download machine, a file server, or maybe just a backup storage. It’s always nice to have a backup.

Sell it
Maybe you don’t need a backup, or already have one. In that case, why not sell it?
You can try eBay, or put an ad on local newspaper. You can also try selling it on a used-computer store. Don’t expect much though. PC technology advances quickly, thus prices of old hardware are usually… Let’s just say; less than expected.

Some computer manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard also have trade-in programs. If you plan to buy a new PC from HP, for example, you only need to contact the company and provide details of your old PC you’d like to trade in, and then get an online quote. After buying the new PC, you can ship your old one to HP and get a little cash back.

Some computer stores would also accept old computers as a trade-in. Just bring your old computer to the store, let them have a look and decide a price for your old machine, and then you can get a little cash to add for the budget of your new computer.

Donate it
If you think selling your old PC wouldn’t get you much, maybe there’s another way for you to get rid of it. Someone might need it, especially if it’s only a few years old.

You may first want to look at your neighbors, or maybe even someone in the family who might need it. You may also consider giving it to an organization which is a commendable option. Local schools, churches, and several charity foundations might find a way to use your old machine. Sometimes they are a bit picky about the specifications, but if your old PC is functional and no more than three or four years old, chances are they will take it. There are also several organizations which set up intentionally to accept computer donations and then give them to others in need.

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To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

How to Safely Dispose of your Old PC

FireWire is Apple’s name for their high speed interface standard previously known as IEEE-1394. The intention to develop FireWire was to provide a replacement for the parallel SCSI bus while also providing connectivity for digital audio and video equipment. FireWire allows multiple devices to be connected to a single adapter with blistering speed.

The earlier FireWire 400 standard is capable of transferring data between devices up to 400 Mbit/s, and allows up to 63 devices connecting simultaneously on a single controller. Additionally, the “Peer-to-Peer” architecture of FireWire also makes it possible for devices to communicate without the need of a CPU.

FireWire 800 (or IEEE 1394b) improves the previous FireWire data transfer rate up to 800 Mbit/s.

USB

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. It was designed primarily to replace serial and parallel ports on personal computers to eliminate the need of developing separate device drivers.

USB also allows multiple (up to 127) devices to be daisy-chained together in a single USB port using additional USB hubs, but unlike FireWire, USB needs the presence of a CPU to control the bus and the data transfer, making it less versatile compared to FireWire.

The first generation of USB has a data transfer rate up to 12Mb/s, while the later USB 2.0 standard allows up to 480 Mb/s data transfer rate.

Please note that both USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 are backward compatible with their earlier standards.

Direct Comparison

Architecture wise, the “Peer-to-Peer” of FireWire allows devices to be intelligent enough and negotiate bus conflicts to decide who should control the data transfer, while USB uses the “Master-Slave” architecture where the computer control the data flow between the attached peripherals, which adds a significant system overhead.

The peer-to-peer architecture of FireWire is not without its flaws though. It requires devices to arbitrate, which result in slower performance when more devices are on the bus. On the other hand, the USB maximum timing model is fixed and is limited only by the host-device branch (not by the entire network) and the host-centric nature of USB allows the host to allocate more bandwidth to high priority devices instead of forcing them to compete for bandwidth as in FireWire.

Nevertheless, the raw speed of FireWire is unbeatable by USB. Even the USB 2.0 standard is unable to beat the real world performance of earlier FireWire 400.
Though technically USB 2.0 is a 480 Mbit/s interface and FireWire 400 is a 400 Mbit/s interface, but many read and write tests to the same hard drive using FireWire and USB 2.0 shows that FireWire 400 is still significantly faster than USB 2.0.

Then isn’t it obvious that the future lies with FireWire and it would be USB that ends up being shown the door? Unfortunately, the world works in a little more complicated way than that. Technical prowess is not everything.

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To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

FireWire vs USB

To make Windows XP run at a decent speed, you will need at least 256MB of memory (it will run on 128MB however it is almost unusable). If you are into the modern 3D games then you should be looking for something in the ballpark of 512MB to 1GB. If you are using the computer for something very memory intensive such as video editing then you should have 1GB or more.

Choosing your RAM

Changing the RAM in your system may sound hard however it is fairly easy for even non-techies. However, there are a few rules you will need to follow so that you avoid problems like purchasing the wrong type of memory.

First of all, you cant just go putting unlimited amounts of RAM into your computer as all computers have a maximum amount of RAM they can take. If your computer is old you may find that the upper RAM limit isnt very much. There are only a few physical slots (called DIMMS, Dual Inline Memory Modules) that you can place RAM on your motherboard. Also, there is a limit to the maximum amount of RAM (in terms of MBs and GBs) that your motherboard can handle.

For example, If you want to upgrade your computer to 512MB of RAM and your computer currently has a total of 256MB of RAM, made up of two 128MB sticks of RAM, and only two physical slots on the motherboard to put them in then you may need to throw out the two 128MB sticks of RAM to achieve 512MB (which can be made up of two 256MB sticks or a single 512MB stick).

Types of RAM and their Speeds
RAM not only comes in different sizes in regards to Megabytes or Gigabytes, there are also different types and speeds of RAM. On a desktop computer the most common types of RAM are SDRAM, DDR and DDR2. A common pitfall with RAM that people encounter is that you cannot mix different types of RAM. For example, you cannot run SDRAM and DDR together. Hell, you cant even run DDR and DDR2 together.

So what are the differences between each type? First of all, they look slightly different by having their “notches” in different places which prevent you putting the wrong type of RAM in a motherboard.

SDRAM has two notches:

Whereas DDR only has one:

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

Beginners Guide to Upgrading your RAM

RAID – “Independent” vs. “Inexpensive”
The term “RAID” predates personal computers by more than half a decade. Patented back in 1978 by the IBM laboratories, RAIDs had one objective in mind: provide mainframes with storage systems that would be protected from single-disk failures, so a single drive unit wouldn’t pull years of research and work with it. The original specifications called for certain RAID levels, different implementations and disk combinations, each with specific advantages and disadvantages. Modern-day RAID levels 1 through 5 were defined nearly a decade later in 1987. Although actual RAID levels and implementations differ from their original 1978 (and even 1987) definitions, the numbering system remains in use because of its simplicity in explaining both standalone RAID arrays and their nested variants, which will be explained later. All RAID arrays require at least two drives, with some implementations requiring four, eight or even more – all but a very specialized case.
There’s been a certain amount of discord among computer and information technology theorists and practical users about both the “redundant” and “inexpensive or independent” parts of the acronym. For instance, while RAID 0 (by far the most well-known RAID level) does have an assigned number, it’s outside the standard RAID definition both by numbering (it’s outside the 1-5 range) and it doesn’t implement redundancy – that is, it doesn’t provide a fail-safe mechanism for stored data. On the other hand, independent disks can’t be called an array until they’re linked into one, and in order to get linked they have to share certain parameters with other parts of the same array. At the same time, an array of inexpensive disks is also a very lightly used term, as disk prices were astronomically high when the original concept was proposed. However, none of this should affect the RAID’s actual usage – all differing modes have their uses, as explained below.

Stripes and spans
The “nullth” RAID level is by far the most common level of them all, common enough that most of today’s motherboards natively support creating a RAID 0 array without the need for a specialized controller. Also known as a striped volume, it works by splitting data into logical chunks (usually the size of a disk sector, 512 bytes), and writing to all the drives joined in the array in a round-robin fashion. In a three-disk RAID 0 array, for instance, the first block gets written to the first drive, the second to the second drive, the third to the third drive, the fourth to the first drive and so in circles. By forming a RAID 0 array you get a volume that might have somewhat decreased capacity – you take the capacity of the smallest drive in the array and multiply it by the number of disks, as any area outside that cannot be used to form a stripe. The upside is that since sequential data (that hopefully belongs to the same file) is stored simultaneously on all drives, it’s also read simultaneously. This may not hold true for home users who don’t rely on rapid data access, but can come in useful in server or workstation applications that rely on data swapping a lot. Note that a level zero isn’t a true RAID level, as it doesn’t provide any sort of backup or redundancy – it merely joins all disks together. Since the whole array would literally fall apart if one of the disks were to fail, the mean time between disk failure is actually decreased, since one erroneous disk causes the whole array to stop functioning properly.
Along with RAID 0, another relative of the striping family is the JBOD – commonly known as Just a Bunch Of Disks. As its name says, it joins a group of disks of any kind into a long stripe with a common filesystem. The process is the exact opposite of partitioning – it joins different drives into a single volume. Compared to RAID 0, there are two distinct advantages – one is that you can use wildly different capacities and join them in a stripe without losing any storage space, and the other is that a single drive crash doesn’t affect any unstriped data – a file stored on the third drive won’t be damaged if a portion of it wasn’t saved on the failing second drive, as an example. Like RAID 0, however, it doesn’t provide redundancy. Windows systems can be considered to support JBOD in their own way, as they can natively take several drives and join them in a so-called dynamic volume – however, this is not the same as a controller-based JBOD.

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

Computer Technicians 204: RAID Guide