Top Laptop Issues

SEM

Hey, I have to write an article that included the top 20 most popular laptop issues. This can be general or brand specific. Does anyone have any suggestions? I would appreciate the help.

Thanks

KoolTrix

In my experience.

Keyboards + Mouse Pads (water/drink damage)
Dead Battery/Dying PowerSupply
Overheating/HeatSink/Processor
LCD Monitor

thats as far as it goes for hardware.

Software.. well.. thats pretty much the same for everyone..

"spyware is a hell of profit"

undomiel

Back from when I was doing tech support I would say that the number one call specific to laptops would be dead batteries after about a year. Closely followed by fried power supplies and destroyed power connections on the chassis/motherboard.

aordal

harddrives going bad is a big issue. and spyware/viruses... lonely people in hotel rooms.

SEM

Thanks for the responses so far, If you have a simple solution to go with the problem that would be helpful also.

Thanks again!

Bokeh

Keyboard doesnt work "like it used to." Open it up to find enough crumbs to bake a cake. Yep eating over the keyboard while surfing is a no no.

People trying to cram a network cable into a modem jack.

Therhino

keys pop off..

idiots leaving the laptop on bed so it can't breath and then losing solders

tiersten

People dropping it or accidentally smashing it against a hard object when it is in a bag.
The LCD cracking or the backlight dying.

paintb4707

Chargers tend to die often too. Sometimes the battery could be completely fine but won't retain a charge because the charger crapped out. I think that may be specific to Dell Inspirons though (man those things are terrible!)

neo468

I would say chargers, hard drives and screens are the top 3.

Slowhand

Some popular issues I used to see back in the days of being a PC tech:

Failed ports, such as USB or card readers
Failed video chipset
Failed or damaged power port
(All of these, of course, require the motherboard to be replaced. Or, at the very least, a refurb-visit to the manufacturer.)

Other things we'd see a lot was failing optical drives, dead hard drives, layers and layers of dust inside the casing, failed/cracked displays, display ribbon-cable coming loose from the mainboard, dead motherboard batteries, and dead power cords/bricks.

I spent a lot of time taking apart and reassembling different types of laptops. The most painful thing I ever saw was an old Macbook Pro that had been worked on by a "Mac expert" in the area. A lot of the screws inside the case had been driven halfway, and he'd actually "forgotten" a business card inside the machine. . . of course, the fact that it was jammed between the hard drive and the little mounting-cage you attach to the drive didn't help the overheating problem this customer was seeing. I had my coworkers and my manager sit in on a conference call when I chewed the guy out over the phone. (His phone number was on the card, after all.)