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With all this talk nowadays about going Green and protecting the environment it is not uncommon for people to find themselves asking the question: How exactly do I go green with my business?

The answer varies and can be difficult to accomplish but it is certainly not impossible.

In the subject of computers the green issue is significantly complex. Computers have toxic materials in them and also draw a lot of energy to operate. You can approach the issue with a grain of salt by first considering what your technology infrastructure consists of.

If you have desktops then the first thing to do is work withing the operating system. Windows, Linux, and Mac OS have power management utilities that tell the system how it should handle the power. Try some of the following:

Turn on screen saver for monitor.

Turn on auto-off feature for monitor if it sits idle for longer than 5 minutes.

Turn on Hibernate for the system after 20 minutes of idle time.

Enable the power down of your computer devices after being idle for a certain period of time. The ethernet port can do this, so can many other devices that draw consistent power. All of these settings can be found under the Device Manager in both XP and Vista.

Shut down your machine when you leave the office whether its a home office or at work. This can reduce the total amount of power drawn for a month and over the period of a year the cost savings and green points can be staggering.

Buy Green Products! Many manufacturers have begun to take notice that the green solution to IT isn’t only a good business choice to sell more products but also a great way to promote savings for their customers. Companies like AMD emphasize the important of going green and they continually develop new processors that perform at incredible speeds but use very low electrical voltage. This achievement is truly astonishing for chip makers and I’d recommend AMDs processors over Intel any day.

Green hard drives, green power supplies, green fans are becoming more and more common and they aren’t just gimmick names… they can really save you a lot of money in the end.

Laptops are also a great way to save money… if used properly a laptop can significantly reduce the energy footprint of your company because they feature batteries. The correct way to use a laptop is to charge it till the battery is full, use it with battery only until the battery is depleted, charge it again from an outlet and repeat. If you follow this cycle you are doing many good things at once. The most obvious fact is that you’re drawing less power by not being plugged in all the time. The other thing to consider is that batteries tend to last longer and hold their charge longer if they’re allowed to drain their charge before being recharged. This means that it is much better for a better to be fully charged and allowed to reach its depleted level than to charge it midway because this can reduce the life of the cells inside the battery. Another good thing about following the laptop charging cycle is that you allow the internal power management programs in your laptop to properly handle the electrical voltage of the system. If you’re only listening to a song and are relaxing the system can automatically turn the voltage down a notch or two and can adjust accordingly so you don’t waste extra energy for no reason.

These are some of the ways you can save money while staying green. For more info you can also refer to our cinchGREEN service for disposal and consultation on just how to become a green business.

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If your laptop appears to be dead here’s some steps to troubleshoot the problem…

First Method: If your laptop shows no signs of life…
When you press the power button nothing happens, the laptop doesn’t respond with the usual fan spin, lights, and screen flicker.

Here’s what you should try:
1. The usual culprit is your DC Adapter or laptop charger. Check the lead point on the charger to ensure it isn’t damaged in anyway. If you have a voltmeter test the voltage while it’s plugged in to make sure it is sending an electric current.

2. Try another wall outlet. Though not often, wall outlets may go bad and simply plugging into another one can do the trick.

3. If you managed to test the voltage and it checked fine and switching to another wall outlet did not solve your problem try doing the above after removing the laptop battery and keeping the DC adapter plugged in.

If none of the above corrected the issue then you may have bad hardware internally. Things that could “fry” are the power supply unit inside the laptop (which includes the charge port that may go bad from wear and tear), the motherboard, or the processor.

The power supply is the most common failure of hardware for any manufacturer but sometimes the motherboard can short out too. The motherboard has many chips on its silicon board that can go bad from a voltage spike so this is a common culprit as well. The processor hardly ever goes bad so in most cases this piece can be forgiven as the cause.

Second Method: If your laptop turns on when you press the power button and seems to go through the usual boot routine but no picture is displayed on screen.

There are many causes of this so let us start with the most common. Your LCD display could have failed somehow and short of you dropping and/or accidentally cracking the screen consider the following:

If you look at the screen closely it will be either black with no visible display of anything or it might have a faint display of your operating system. If you can see a faint picture your backlight for the LCD is probably dead but the LCD screen itself is fine. The backlight provides all the lighting effect that the crystal on your screen need to display picture.

Most laptops will have a VGA port or monitor port on the side that you can connect an external monitor to. Most laptop keyboards feature a key usually found on the Function keys of F keys that can enable VGA output. Try to locate the key by looking for a monitor or something that looks like a display symbol (This will not damage your laptop)

If you manage to get a picture on the external screen this is good and bad… it is good because it means you only need to replace the screen but it is bad because LCD screens can get very pricey.

If you still don’t get a picture through the external monitor then you might start considering more serious issues.

The memory is one of the most common laptop issues so it is a good idea to try this troubleshooting routine. You can begin by simply reseating memory and leaving only one module in the board (if you have two) to check whether one or both the memory DIMMs are bad.

The other option is trying a new memory DIMM that will work on your system. Many of us don’t have memory DIMMs lying around so it might be worth researching online on websites like www.crucial.com what kind of memory you have and see if you can locate that type somewhere to try out.

Once you have a memory DIMM handy open the memory compartment on the back of the laptop and remove the memory DIMMs in there and replace with the new one and see if your laptop will turn on normally and go through a boot cycle.

If the memory method doesn’t solve the issue then we can conclude that the most likely cause of your issue is some kind of motherboard problem. Unfortunately motherboards are also very pricey.
Third Method: Call CinchIT and one of our experts will diagnose the problem for you and present you with a professional solution. Contact: 1-508-425-4714

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Laptops can become quite pricey. Although prices have dropped in recent years, it’s still a considerable investment and buying a new one every couple of years just isn’t feasible for most people. So, bring your laptop back to life with a little time and even less money.

Is it Getting Hot in Here?

A hot notebook may keep you warm while you’re waiting for the bus in the winter but a toasty notebook can cause failure sooner than later. Also, if you work with it on your lap or from bed, you run a high risk of blocking the fan and over heating. Try to cool your laptop and lap with USB powered fans. Tiger Direct carries them starting at $10. Do your research and find which one is best for you.

These exterior fans will give your interior fans a break and extend their lifespan at the same time. A quick spray from a compressed air can once a month won’t hurt either. Think about what your ceiling fan looks like after a month of endlessly spinning! Your laptops interior fan is no different.

Movement + Friction + Heat = Trouble

Your computer’s hard drive is full of moving parts and with those moving parts come friction and heat. Again, generating a good amount of heat is no good. Try a Solid State Drive or SSD. They’re built with non-volatile flash memory, which means no moving parts and less heat, both a plus when it comes to extending the life of your laptop. At about $15 per gigabyte, (and a lower storage capacity) SSD’s can handle extreme temperatures and average bumps and bruises better than conventional hard drives. But don’t leave your laptop out in the snow or use it as a doorstop. This brings me to my next tip…

Carry it Like a New Born.

We’ve all been guilty of tossing our laptop bag in the back seat of our vehicle in a rush to get home. Big mistake. Laptop cases and screens are fragile and more susceptible to damage than you may think. Try a padded laptop bag to protect your baby. . The Oakley SI Vertical Computer Bag is a stylish approach to protection, and for the James Bond in all of us take a look at the Zero Halliburton Deluxe 4″ Computer Case.

I hope the above suggestions buy you some more time with your laptop before you have to buy a new laptop.

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