Laptop Hardware Troubleshooting: Batteries, Keyboards, SSDs, and More

The laptop has become the standard computing platform for almost anyone who's mobile, and that's mostly

because you're able to fit so much technology into such a small place. But there is a trade-off when it comes

to troubleshooting or dealing with these very small components inside of a laptop computer. It is built to very precise specifications.

And therefore, it requires a very precise form of troubleshooting. You'll find that certain laptops are much easier

to work on than others. Some have been engineered so that you can get inside of the system and replace memory or storage

devices. Other laptops are built so that it's very difficult to gain access to the inside of that device,

and even more difficult to be able to swap out some of those components. For that reason, you'll find that different laptop

manufacturers will have very different processes for managing and troubleshooting their particular systems. A good example of this is how different laptop manufacturers

might handle batteries. With some laptops, the batteries are very modular and can be removed from the laptop

and replaced with a different battery very, very easily. Other laptops have the battery built into the system, and it's not designed to be swapped out by the user.

This may make it very difficult if you have to swap out a battery that's in a system that is not designed for a modular battery

replacement. You'll generally find two different types of batteries being used in our laptops.

One is a lithium ion, and the other is a lithium ion polymer. Both of these are designed so that they don't have the traditional memory

effect that we had with older battery technologies. This means you can recharge the battery at any time and not worry that you're affecting the overall capacity

of that particular battery. You'll also find that different manufacturers use different types of battery form factors.

This means that if you need a battery for your laptop, you need to make sure that you're getting exactly the right battery for that specific laptop

model. You'll find that if you grab a laptop battery from a different make and model, that it's not

going to fit into the battery slot of your laptop. With modular batteries, it's very easy for the end user to be able to remove and replace the batteries

inside of that laptop. Usually, they have a button that you can press that will pop out one battery,

and then you can slide another battery directly into that same slot. If the battery is built into the laptop itself,

this type of modularity is not available. And usually, you would have to have a technician completely take apart the laptop just to replace the battery.

If you've maintained a group of laptops, then you know one of the most used components on that laptop is the keyboard.

This commonly means that the keyboard is probably going to be swapped out more than any other component on that particular device.

Fortunately, most laptop manufacturers make this process relatively easy. You can usually remove a bezel on the laptop or a few screws,

and the laptop keyboard will pop out as a single unit. It very often is connected to the system board of the laptop using a ribbon cable.

There's usually a connector on the end that allows you to easily disconnect and then reconnect a new keyboard.

If you do have a user that is having problems with their laptop keyboard, or you'd like to perform some diagnostics of that keyboard,

you could plug in an external USB keyboard to see what the results might be. This might allow you to work around

problems that may exist in the laptop's primary keyboard, and it can also help you troubleshoot whether the problem is with the hardware of the keyboard itself,

or with the operating system inside of the laptop. Laptop keyboards are designed to be compact, so that you can fit everything that

would be on a regular-sized keyboard inside of a very small space. Often, there will be special keys available,

such as a Windows keys or a function key, that can be used simultaneously with other keys on the laptop to perform secondary dairy functions.

And if the laptop is wide enough, you may find there's enough room to have a numeric keypad built into the laptop itself, extending the functionality

of this portable platform, You may find that the problem you're having is not with the entire keyboard, but only with one key

or keycap on the keyboard. This means that you may need to replace a single key on that keyboard.

On desktop systems, these keys are relatively robust, and you can work with them to remove a keycap and replace the keycap relatively easily.

But on a laptop, these keys are often very fragile, and you have to take special care to make sure that you don't damage the keys as you

are replacing them. Make sure you follow the instructions from the manufacturer so that you don't damage anything that

may be underneath that keycap. There are different components that are used across different laptop keyboards.

And as you can see, it's a very delicate device that can be very easily damaged. So make sure you follow those instructions,

and you'll have no problem replacing that keyboard component. Because laptops obviously have a relatively smaller form factor

than something we would use on a desktop, that means that we also have the internal components with a smaller form factor.

An example of this would be the memory that we use inside of our laptop, which is a smaller form factor than what you would find on a traditional desktop

motherboard. We refer to this dual in-line memory module in a laptop as a Small Outline Dual In-line Memory

Module, or SO-DIMM. On laptops that use these SO-DIMM modules, it's very easy to remove the module

and replace it with a new one. But not all laptops provide this level of modularity. You may find that the memory in your laptop

is soldered to the motherboard and is not in this modular form. That means that you would have to replace the entire system board if you need to upgrade the memory of that system.

To add or replace memory inside of one of these systems, there's usually a place where you can open up a window into the back of the laptop,

remove any memory that might be there, or add additional memory into the slots that are available. Once you push down on that particular module,

it locks in place with clips that are on the motherboard, and that memory is now upgraded inside of that laptop. Just as our desktop computers have

a place where we can store operating system files and user documents, we have the same requirement for our laptop computers.

Many of our older laptops will use a traditional hard drive or spinning drive that has platters to be able to store that information.

On desktop computers, you may have seen 3 and 1/2 inch drives being used for storage. And on laptops, because they are a smaller form factor,

you'll find a smaller storage device, and that is a 2 and 1/2 inch hard drive. But these days, we have rapidly moved away from a spinning drive

inside of a laptop computer to a much faster and much more reliable SSD, or solid State Drive. A solid state drive is simply memory,

and it has no moving parts at all. This allows us to have very fast access to this memory, and also provides additional reliability

because we don't have to worry about that spinning drive failing on a laptop device. On older laptops, you may see the SSD in that same 2.5 inch

form factor, but newer laptops tend to have an M.2 interface, which provides a much smaller form factor on the system board.

This also makes it a much easier installation because we simply need to plug in that M.2 interface to be able to have access to the data

and to power up the drive itself. With the older 2.5 inch form factor, there were two separate connections-- one for data

and one for power. Here's a good example of both of these storage drive types. The 2.5 inch form factor is on the left,

and the M.2 interface is on the right. You can see that you have a much smaller form factor for the M.2 over the 2.5 inch,

which makes it very attractive for laptops and other mobile devices. On some laptops, replacing the 2.5 storage

drive or an M.2 drive can be relatively easy. There may be a cover on the back of the laptop that you can remove.

You take out a couple of screws on the drive, and you're able to remove that drive very easily. Installing an M.2 drive is often easier

because there is a single screw where you can install and fasten down that particular M.2 drive. Here's how easy it is to install an M.2 interface.

You simply slide in the M.2 interface card. It goes into a specific slot that is on the M.2 interface itself.

You push it in so that it's able to get a good connection with none of this copper showing once you have it connected. And then you can push it down and screw it

into the system board so that it will stay in place. Installing or replacing a 2.5 inch form factor drive is relatively easy.

There are usually a couple of screws that you can remove. This technician is using a special pad that allows them to save those very tiny screws

into this little area. And then once they have that, they can simply pull it out of the interface,

and now your drive is free. To add another drive back, you simply reverse the process. And once you're done installing either the 2.5

drive or the M.2 drive, you can replace the cover on the top, and your installation is done. Many users with older laptops may

want to replace the spinning hard drive that's inside of that laptop with a solid state drive. Not only is this a more reliable form of storage,

it also is a much faster form of storage. It's almost like upgrading and getting a brand new laptop just by replacing a single component.

You can certainly install a brand new operating system on the SSD, and then manually transfer all of the user's documents from one device to the other,

and then install any of the applications that they need to use. This is obviously much more time-consuming than backing up

everything that's on the original drive and copying it over to the new SSD. To be able to do that easily, we may want

to use specialized software. This is usually referred to as imaging software or cloning software because we are creating an exact duplicate of the data

from one storage drive to the new one. Many SSD manufacturers recognize this is a very common task, and they will include imaging software with the SSD itself.

You could also use third- party software, like the one you see here, to be able to copy everything from one drive or one partition into a new drive

or a new partition. Sometimes this requires you to create an entire image of the system, and you store that image

on a separate storage device. Then you would install your new drive, and then copy everything from that image back

to the new drive. To do this even faster, you may be able to install both the old drive and the new drive

at the same time, and use that same imaging software to simply image from one device to the other in real time.

Many laptops today don't even have a separate wired network connection on the laptop itself. To be able to have any connectivity

to the rest of the world, that laptop uses some type of wireless connection, such as 802.11 or Bluetooth.

The wireless components that provide you with this connectivity are usually on the motherboard itself.

But older laptops may have separate interface cards that provide this wireless connectivity. For example, you may be using 802.11 for your local area

network wireless connections inside of a building, and there may be a mini PCI or a mini PCI express card that provides that 802.11 functionality.

You can see that these cards are designed to be modular, so you can install and uninstall them from the laptop system board.

These cards often have small connectors on them that you plug in the wireless antennas that are already built into your laptop.

Bluetooth is often used as a short-range network communication, and you'll often see it referred to as a PAN or a Personal Area Network.

Bluetooth allows you to connect an external mouse, an external keyboard, or any other type of peripheral. Often, they are provided with separate interface cards,

but most newer laptops also have this Bluetooth functionality built into the laptop system board itself. Installing these modular cards is

very similar to the process of installing additional memory modules onto the system board. There's very often a panel that you

can remove on the back of the laptop, and there'll be a place where you can install that particular component.

Once you place the card in the laptop, it usually locks down into the laptop with connectors that are built into the interface.

And in this particular case, it's an 802.11 card. So you'll need to also connect the wireless antenna wires-- you can see them down here--

with the gray and the black wire. And they will connect to these smaller connectors on the interface card itself.

Many of these 802.11 interfaces, whether they are on the system board itself or an external card, will usually have two separate connectors.

One of them is a main connector, and the other is an auxiliary connector. You might also find a third antenna

being used for all of your Bluetooth connections. These antenna wires commonly wrap around the outside of the display itself.

This allows you to get those antenna wires as high as possible when you open up the screen of your laptop.

And if you've ever replaced a laptop screen, you'll notice that the antenna wires are coming right out of the bottom of that screen so that you can then connect them

to the existing antenna connectors on your system board. If you were to follow those wires, you'd see that they would probably go behind your keyboard

to the system board itself, where they are connecting to the 802.11 and the Bluetooth antenna connectors.

Many of our modern operating systems support authentication to our laptop using methods other than a password.

For example, you may have the option to use biometrics to be able to unlock or gain access to your laptop computer.

These biometrics allow you to use a fingerprint or face recognition, which means that this laptop will only be available if you've configured your face

or your fingerprint for that laptop operating system. This means that you'll need an operating system that is able to use these biometric features.

And you'll need the biometric hardware to be able to take advantage of that function. This means that you may need a fingerprint reader

on the laptop itself, or you may need a webcam or camera built into the laptop that's able to do face recognition. This type of biometric authentication

has become relatively secure in recent years, and you'll often find that using a face ID or some other type of fingerprint reader is a very secure way to lock down

your laptop computer. For example, if you're running the Windows operating system, there are two biometric functions

available for authentication. There's Windows Hello Face, which is face recognition, and Windows Hello Fingerprint, which allows you

to use a fingerprint reader. You may want to look at your laptop and see if you have one of those fingerprint readers built

into the hardware itself, so that you can use that as additional authentication into your laptop computer.

If you've ever paid for something at a point of sale terminal using your phone or your smartwatch, then you

were using a network type known as NFC, or Near Field Communication. NFC is a very short-range networking function.

So usually you have to be relatively close, often 4 centimeters or less, just to be able to use that function. And of course, we can use NFC for more than just purchases

at a point of sale terminal. We can use this on a hospital workstation so that any nurse that walks up to the workstation

is able to authenticate using their access card or their NFC device. This is also used for warehouses, manufacturing,

shipping and receiving, and anywhere that you may need to easily authenticate wirelessly. If you have a laptop, and you've used it to be in a meeting,

then you've probably taken advantage of the camera that is often built into the laptop itself. It's usually right in the center at the very top of the screen.

This not only allows you to capture video to a file, but you can also use it for real-time video on things like a video conference call.

On most laptops, not only will you have the camera right in the middle. But often, there is a microphone to the left and right so

that you're able to not only show the video, but people are able to hear exactly what you're saying. These built-in cameras are certainly convenient

and allow you to use this functionality without carrying around any other equipment. But if you find you need additional functionality

or a higher definition camera, you may want to use an external camera and attach it to the top of your laptop display.