Long gone, but now back… sort of. :)
How can you repair what you can’t get at? Today’s column covers two problems caused by very different access issues. In one case, a subscriber is locked out of her old, obsolete backup files; she can neither access nor delete them and thus cannot recover the huge chunk of disk space they occupy. In another,…
A reader is concerned: His laptop’s CPU temperature rises during battery-charging sessions. Why would the CPU heat up from battery charging? Relatedly, what are normal CPU temperatures, anyway? What’s a safe temperature rise? Plus: A tiny freeware app that prevents PC overheating! Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.3.0 (2021-01-25). Also in this issue: LEGAL BRIEF: Schrödinger’s Bill BEST OF…
AskWoody subscriber John Mackin’s laptop was badly malfunctioning, and the problem remained unresolved even after some top-notch troubleshooting and maintenance. “Fred, I have a three-and-a-half-year-old laptop (Dell Inspiron 13”, i7, 12 GB RAM, 1TB M.2 SSD, Windows 10) that has recently begun to periodically shut down during use. “Suspecting CPU overheat, I downloaded the CoreTemp…
AskWoody subscriber John Mackin’s laptop was badly malfunctioning, and the problem remained unresolved even after some top-notch troubleshooting and maintenance. “Fred, I have a three-and-a-half-year-old laptop (Dell Inspiron 13”, i7, 12 GB RAM, 1TB M.2 SSD, Windows 10) that has recently begun to periodically shut down during use. “Suspecting CPU overheat, I downloaded the CoreTemp…
(Answer requested by Prapat Saxena) I disagree with the premise of your question. Most charging is by USB these days. When USB 1 came out in 1996, it supported 5 volt/0.5amp charging; 2.5 watts. Today’s newest USB charging supports up to 20 volts/5 amps; 100 watts. And there are now wireless charging options, too. I’d…
The note from “K.A.” was confessional and a bit anguished: “Today I hit my laptop because I got angry and I’m stupid. The screen glitched and it just rebooted. It went back to work just fine, but I’m paranoid. Did I cause damage? It’s an old Acer.” The four tools you’ll need to find and…
(Answer requested by Shreya Mehta) In sleep mode (sometimes called suspend), your PC goes into a low-power state, consuming just enough electricity to keep the RAM contents intact; to monitor for system events (such as a key- or mouse-click, or closing the lid on a laptop); and to run similar low-power processes. The major advantage of standard sleep…
(Answer requested by Katherine Quinn) My first guess is that it’s a purely physical issue with your laptop. For example, one of the reasons I use an external, plug-in keyboard on my laptop is because my thumbs used to occasionally brush the laptop’s touchpad as I typed on the built-in keyboard; I wouldn’t feel the…
(Answer requested by Benjamin Woods) Laptops and notebooks don’t have to travel at all to be useful. I use a laptop as my main PC, and it’s never been out of the house. I like a laptop because it’s smaller, quieter, and uses less energy than a desktop PC. I like that I can close…
(Answer requested by Chandrakant Godhani) Assuming the battery is charged and OK, or the laptop is plugged in to a known-good power supply, the most common cause of “PC runs for a while and then stops” is heat buildup: Some component is running hot, and the PC is shutting itself down to prevent permanent damage…
