Student-Contributed Wiki

An awesome team of students from our education program made this wiki.

Your computer is slow when multitasking with programs, and often freezes

If your computer freezes when you are switching between programs, or it often crashes, you are reaching the upper limit of your RAM. Consider upgrading your RAM by following our RAM replacement guide.

Verify that there are at least 200-500 MB of free hard drive space. If your computer has less than 200MB of free space, consider deleting temporary files, freeing hard drive space, or upgrading your hard drive.

You continually get errors that your file is unreadable and it cannot be opened

The computer could be infected with a virus that is corrupting the files. This commonly happens with Microsoft Office files. Use a virus scanner to scan to see if the laptop is infected with a virus. Download and run Malwarebytes to get rid of the virus.

Your hard drive may be reaching the end of its lifespan. This may be accompanied by unfamiliar noises and beeping sounds. Replace your hard drive by following our hard drive replacement guide.

While you are working, your computer randomly shuts off without notification.

Dust and other materials may be stuck in the cooling fans. Use an air duster to carefully blow the dust off the fans. If the laptop continues to overheat, replacing the fans may be necessary. Refer to our fan replacement guide.

If the thermal paste on the processor has completely dried up, then it is no longer capable of doing its function. Reapply the thermal paste.

The laptop will not start up.

Ensure that the adapter is properly plugged in and connected. If the LED indicator light does not turn on, the power adapter is faulty. Use a different power adapter. If this solves the problem, replace the power adapter.

Verify that your power adapter is connected to the laptop. If your computer works fine with the adapter, but powers off when it’s disconnected, your battery is faulty. Replace your battery by following our battery replacement guide.