CompuCorGP

I need to know if my laptop has wireless internet. It is a Toshiba and it looks kind of old. So I don’t really know how to tell.

Take a closer look at your laptop. Do you have a wireless switch somewhere on the side? Does the LED by the switch light up if you turn on the switch? If it does, you have an internal wireless card installed.

Here’s another way. Take a look at the device manager. All laptop hardware components are listed in the device manager.

Right click on My Computer, click on Manage, click on Device Manager. Click on the “+” sign by the Network adapters. Do you see an entry related to the wireless card adapter in there?

If you do, you have an internal wireless card installed.

Couple of months ago, a vertical row of pixels was shown in yellow, and 2 weeks ago, a 4cm row of pixels on the right side of the LCD was blurred and after couple of days, it went completely white. Same this is now happening in the left side, and i’m afraid it will shortly turn into white as well.
Can this be caused by the graphic cable or by the inverter, or is this the LCD dying on me…?
By the way, it’s a Toshiba Satellite P105-S6084.

This problem is not caused by the inverter board because you still can see the image on the screen. The backlight still works, so it’s not the inverter.

Also, it’s not related to the LCD cable. A bad faulty LCD cable affects image on the whole LCD screen, not just on a part of the LCD. I don’t think that your problem is related to the cable.

Apparently your LCD screen is dying and you’ll have to replace it soon.

Just in case, test the laptop with an external monitor attached to the VGA port on the side of the laptop. Most likely the external video will be fine. Let me know if the external video output also has vertical rows of pixels. Because if it does (I really doubt it), there could be a problem with the video card.

I have a Dell D810 laptop and the LCD recently went dark. When starting from cold, the boot screen comes up just fine (normal brightness) but as soon as it gets to the logon screen it goes dark. When taking it out of sleep mode the screen will also light up normally but only for about 2-5 seconds then it goes dark again.

You can see the desktop icons if you try the flashlight trick so I figure its either the inverter or backlight.

Before I order an inverter I thought I’d throw in what seems to be unusual with my problem:
If I keep the brightness at halfway or less I can get the screen to stay lit all the time. If I raise it above half, that triggers the screen to go dark. I adjusted my power settings to only have the LCD brightness at half all the time.

Also my power settings are set up to have the LCD screen turn off when the lid is closed, and if I close the lid (if the screen has gone dark and then reopen the lid the screen lights up again as normal, but only as long as I make sure to keep the brightness down.

BTW- I did notice my screen having a pinkish tone when it would wake up, before the screen actually started going dark. It still has that pinkish hue when starting up from cold and it seems that the pinkish tone goes away after it has been on for awhile (20-30min?).

Does this point more towards an inverter or backlight?

I have a Dell D810 laptop and the LCD recently went dark. When starting from cold, the boot screen comes up just fine (normal brightness) but as soon as it gets to the logon screen it goes dark. When taking it out of sleep mode the screen will also light up normally but only for about 2-5 seconds then it goes dark again.
This description fits both, bad inverter board and bad backlight lamp.

If I keep the brightness at halfway or less I can get the screen to stay lit all the time. If I raise it above half, that triggers the screen to go dark. I adjusted my power settings to only have the LCD brightness at half all the time.
Again, could be either bad inverter or backlight lamp but I lean more towards the lamp.

BTW- I did notice my screen having a pinkish tone when it would wake up, before the screen actually started going dark. It still has that pinkish hue when starting up from cold and it seems that the pinkish tone goes away after it has been on for awhile (20-30min?).
This time your description sounds more like backlight lamp related issue.

Does this point more towards an inverter or backlight?
For some reason, I think you have a faulty backlight lamp. That would be my guess.

I have a dead diagonal row of keys on my Toshiba Tecra laptop keyboard. It is the 4 r f v keys.
I just installed a new keyboard and the problem persists to my dismay!!
So if it isn’t the keyboard what can I do to fix it?

First of all, try cleaning pins inside the keyboard connector on the system board. Spray pins with a connector cleaning solution. You can find this solution in a local electronic store. It’s possible that some pins oxidized and the keyboard cable is not making good connection with the system board. I use ProGold connector enhancer.

If cleaning the connector doesn’t help, most likely there is a problem with the keyboard controller on the system board. If that’s the case, you’ll have to replace the system board.

I have an older IBM R40 Laptop with an AC adapter with and output of 16V, 4.5Amp. I ordered a replacement from Lenovo but it is a 20V output unit. Can I safely use this?

I wouldn’t use this adapter. If you are replacing the AC adapter, it’s very important to buy a new one with exactly the same voltage. Higher incoming voltage can damage the laptop.

You can follow this rule when you are looking for a new adapter. The voltage output must be the same. The amperage can be the same or higher than on the original one.

I don’t think that you can safely use a 20V adapter instead of your original 16V adapter.

I have a HP DV5220 , i am planning to upgrade the RAM on it and needed to know if i have to replace the 1 gig on it or add 1 gig to it .. it is only expandable to 2 gigs and i don’t know if there are 2 slots or 1 slot only and hence the dilemma as to ordering 1 gig ram or 2 gig ram.. any help will be greatly appreciated.

the motherboard is HP part no. 417021-001, i don’t know if that helps ,, the ram on it is — 333MHz, 200-pin, PC2700 Small Outline Dual In-Line Memory Module (SODIMM)

According to the official PC user guide for HP Pavilion dv5220US, this laptop has two RAM slots and both slots can be accessed from the bottom of the laptop.

Here’s a quoted from the user guide:

The computer has one memory module compartment, which is located on the bottom of the
computer. The memory capacity of the computer can be upgraded by adding a memory module to
the vacant expansion memory module slot or by upgrading the existing memory module in the
primary memory module slot.

You’ll have to remove the RAM cover and take a look inside the memory module compartment.
If you have two 512MB modules installed, you’ll have to remove them and replace with two 1GB modules.
If you have only one 1GB module installed and the second slot is empty, you can add one more 1GB module.

Cloud computing is an attractive, low-cost means of collaboration. But have you considered the risks involvd with placing documents with PII “in the cloud”?

The monthly column I wrote for the December 2008 CSI Alert was, “Cloudy Privacy Computing.” Here’s the first section…

I just ran across this article while doing some research, and it made me go, “Whoa!”…

“Before Aperture,” recalls fine-art photographer Elizabeth Carmel, ”I really didn’t have the ability to create in one application a workflow that allowed me to import, organize, sort, compare, adjust, and output RAW files” from her Hasselblad H3D. And Carmel uses that 39-megapixel Hasselblad, Aperture, and an Epson 11880 printer to output the truly large prints — up to 10 x 5 feet — hanging in her Truckee, California, gallery.

To help her make her second album, It’s Not Me, It’s You, as successful as her first, Lily Allen asked music producer Greg Kurstin to “join her for several sessions of remote songwriting in makeshift Logic-based ‘studios’ set up in the English countryside.” With Kurstin playing ideas “on a Logic instrument” and an inspired Allen laying “down one or two vocals” in response, the result was a musically creative tag team effort.