Sunday 30 September 2012

Choosing a Graphics Card

Compatible & Original Laptop Adapters From Computer Solutions

Replacement Laptop Screens From Computer Solutions

Replacement Laptop Keyboards From Computer Solutions

Choosing a Graphics Card

Kenilworth Computer Repairs Mobile Computer Maintenance, Repair, and I.T Desktop Support Services for Kenilworth, Warwick, Royal Leamington Spa, Rugby, Stratford on Avon, Coventry, Solihull and environs.

Graphics cards have come a long way in recent years. There are basically two types of graphics card or video hardware. These are the 'on board' video card and the 'add in' video card.

With the relentless push to provide ever more functionality at an ever cheaper price, manufacturers decided to incorporate a video card on the motherboard itself, although the long term reliability of these has been somewhat questionable on the cheaper motherboards in recent years.

For the average user who may just be surfing the Internet or doing a bit of Word Processing, a built in video card will suffice. Motherboards of this design use some of the main system memory as graphics memory.

The advantage of this design is that no extra memory chips are required on the motherboard thereby reducing the cost of manufacture.

The disadvantage of this design is that normal memory runs more slowly than dedicated greaphics memory, so don't expect blistering graphics performance from an onboard video card.

Generally speaking onboard video memory is usually user selectable via a jumper or BIOS setting in the range of 64Mb - 256Mb.

Power computer users, designers and hardened gaming addicts will almost always opt for one or more add on video cards and there really are a multitude to choose from. A graphics card can range from a few tens to several hundreds of pounds, depending on use

These days all video cards utilise the PCI Express bus connector, present on all modern motherboards. Motherboards now no longer have ISA, AGP or PCI sockets at all. The 'PCIe' video bus is the current de-facto standard for the connection of graphics cards and several motherbaords have two such sockets which can be used together with two graphics cards if desired.

Graphics processors and graphics memory has evolved at a much faster rate than normal memory. Each new generation of graphics memory doubles the data rate of the previous one. Currently we are on DDR5 for graphics memory speed, while normal system memory is at DDR3. The more graphics memory available to a system and the faster the graphics processor, the better results it will produce. This takes advantage of the growth in the gaming market and the ever increasing complexity in gaming software.

Nearly all add in video cards will feature a DVI socket and/or a VGA socket and/or an adapter for backward compatibility. Some of the higher end cards will also include High Definition HDMI sockets too.

Since Kenilworth Computer Repairs in Warwickshire are completely independent they can advise on what is best for you, depending on what you are planning to use your computer for.

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Sunday 9 September 2012

Laptop Care And Maintenance

One problem that seems to be occurring with all laptops these days is that sudden failure for no apparent reason whatsoever. Yesterday the laptop was fine and today it isn't. There is no display even though the machine appears to be powering up okay.

Kenilworth Computer Solutions of Warwickshire would like to let you in on a little secret. Eventually this will happen to all laptops and the reason is simple.

Over time dust, the biggest enemy of every piece of electronic equipment, will collect on the heatsink and fan inside the laptop. This will reduce the heatsink's ability to cool the laptop properly. It will also cause the motherboard to become hotter than it would otherwise do so, during normal use. Whilst the main processor can usually cope with the additional heat from a dirty cooling system, quite often the graphics processor or GPU will not.

This will cause the connections between the graphics chip and the board to become stressed with many on off power cycles. Eventually the connections will stress and then break leading to no display or a highly distorted display.

This was the case with many nVidia and ATI graphics processors purchased after about 2006. This problem has been documented extensively elsewhere and dates from the time that lead was removed from the soldering process, during manufacture, on health grounds.

nVidia were the first to admit that there was a "manufacturing problem" back in 2007, although trying to get a refund out of Curry's, Dixons or PC-World is not going to be easy, although not impossible either. Check the Sale of Goods Act if this sort of fault occurs within the guarantee or extended guarantee period.

You do not have to accept a repair you are entitled to a new unit if this is the case. The The goods sold should be "fit for purpose" for which they are sold.

While not expensive, there are specialist services who can reconnect the graphics chip to the board. This is highly specialised work and is often called "reballing" or "reflowing". If carried out correctly a good result can be obtained and the laptop will continue to work for many years.

Most laptop repair shops will usually tell you that you need a new motherboard and will not even bother enquiring about a "specialist repair" as they do not appear to know much about it. They would be happier selling you a new laptop for a tiny profit rather than doing the job properly.

Computer Solutions can provide an external reflow of reballing service, once we have diagnosed that this is indeed the problem.

However a better way of approaching this situation is to wait until the guarantee on the laptop is due to end and then book the laptop in with Kenilworth Computer Solutions for a thorough clean out and general service. This will prevent or at least delay the problem occurring in the first place.

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Monday 3 September 2012

The Future Is The Mobile Website

Today Computer Solutions would like to talk about where website design is going. In recent years there has been a rise in the number of Smartphones and Tablets sold in the UK, with sales of traditional desktop and laptop computers declining as a result.

Where is this all leading to ? It's true that these days people are working harder and longer to get their message across to you the public, who are of course potential consumers. It is also true that when a potential customer is looking for a product or service they want that information straight away and they want to act of that information NOW !

If a potential customer has to spend ages either waiting for your normal website to load on their Smartphone or has to work out how to use it once it has loaded then that is a potential customer lost. They will simply go elsewhere. The adage here is that 'less is quite often more'.

Big business has already seen the potential of the mobile website. Most high street names now have a well designed mobile user website experience. The main difference between a normal desktop website and a mobile website is that the mobile website is a very highly streamlined version of their main desktop website. It has all the relevant information that a consumer could want at their fingertips.

There are a few cheap website conversion packages, that will take a normal desktop website and convert it to display correctly on a Smartphone. We've looked at many of them and nearly all of them fall way short of what we would expect.

All of these 'conversions' suffer from a very poor user experience. They are generally badly thought out with a poor layout. The results are often not very good, they are confusing, cluttered and generally off-putting for a potential customer to use.

Computer Solutions have teamed up with Smart Web Apps of Coventry to bring you an Innovative Mobile Website Solution. A Mobile Website should be clean, intuitive, fun to use with just the information a potential consumer would want in an instant. A Mobile Website should also have some degree of user interraction. In other words the Mobile Website should actually "DO" something.

This is exactly what Smart Web Apps specialize in. In the last 18 months alone they have secured several major clients in the Property, Legal and Accounting sectors.

Call Paul now at Smart Web Apps on

0844 496 2847 to discuss your Mobile Website requirements further.

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Kenilworth Computer Repairs

Sunday 30 September 2012