3.1 Install and configure laptop hardware and components
1. Nickel Cadmium battery
The nickel cadmium battery, known as NiCad , used to be the most common type of laptop battery. NiCad batteries could easily be ruined by being left on the charger after they had reached full charge, or by being recharged before they were completely dead. The latter problem, called the "memory effect," meant that if you recharged your laptop battery before it had run completely down, it would remember the point at which you put it back on the charger, and only discharge that far the next time you used it.
Nickel Cadmium battery is not environmentally friendly and not as efficient as Nickel / Metalhydride or Lithium Ion. Nickel / Metal hydride, though environmentally friendly, not as efficient as Lithium Ion. Lithium Ion battery is environmentally friendly and very efficient.
2. Nickel metal hydride battery
The nickel metal hydride (NiMH) laptop battery could hold considerably more power than NiCad, but they still had something of a memory effect, although to a lesser extent
3. Lithium ion battery
Lithium ion (Li-Ion) is the latest technology for laptop batteries.They are considerably lighter and does not exhibit memory effect. The Li-Ion laptop battery lasts considerably longer than its predecessors. If your laptop supports Li-Ion battery, then it is a recommended choice.
4. Passive matrix displays are most commonly used and cheaper than Active matrix displays. Also, passive matrix displays consume less power. However, the advantages of active matrix display are that they can handle faster screen image transition, and display is clearly viewable, even from slant angles.
5. Laptops most widely use PCMCIA cards, also referred to as PC cards.
6. Normally, desktop processors consume higher power compared to laptop processors. Laptop processors are optimized for lesser power consumption, so that the heat produced is also less. This is to take care of poor ventilation conditions in a laptop computer.
7. While doing any hardware up gradation on a laptop (such as adding more memory, etc), remember to remove the battery in addition to unplugging of AC mains.
8. If the battery of a new laptop is giving less output time when fully charges first check AC adapter.If there is no problem with the AC adapter, the next best choice would be to re-calibrate the battery.
9. ExpressCard is an interface to allow peripheral devices to be connected to a computer, usually a laptop computer. Formerly called NEWCARD, the ExpressCard standard specifies the design of slots built into the computer and of cards which can be inserted into ExpressCard slots. The cards contain electronic circuitry and connectors to which external devices can be connected. The ExpressCard standard replaces the PC Card (also known as PCMCIA) standards.
10. PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards.
11. When installing SODIMM memory chip, one needs to turn off the laptop and unplug the power supply to prevent any damage due to static.
12. The second RAM slot is typically located under the keyboard of the laptop.
13. The upgradable components in a laptop include:
Processor: It could be upgraded to a higher speed, but it would be very expensive. You need to check with the manufacturer whether they have a faster compatible processor.
Memory: This is easily upgradable. But usually, laptops come with at least 2GB of memory. Note that 32-bit Operating Systems recognize only 2GB and it's not recommended to use higher memory capacity unless you go for a 64-bit laptop.
Video card: It almost always not possible to upgrade a video card. Choose the laptop carefully when buying, taking in to consideration your audio/video requirements.
Network card: Again, network card is not usually replaceable in a laptop.
Hard disk: you can upgrade the hard disk in a laptop with bigger capacity hard disk. This is relatively easy task.
14. Manufacturer's manual should be consulted before attempting to disassemble a laptop for board upgrade. Usually, the battery, hard drive, DVD drive, memory are among the first to be disassembled.http://www.insidemylaptop.com/disassemble-hp-pavilion-dv4-laptop
15. Although you can easily pull out a PC Card from the PC slot in your laptop, that's not the best way to treat your laptop's hardware. Instead, follow these steps:
Click the Safely Remove Hardware icon on the system tray, and then pull the PC Card out from its slot. Some times, you have to find a small button to the right of the card. Pushing the button in a little makes it pop out about a half-inch or so. Then press the button back into the laptop to help push out the PC Card.
16. To configure any of the power options, you first have to go to Start, then Control Panel, and then click on Power Options. In the Power Options properties dialog, there are six tabs: Power Schemes, Alarms, Power Meter, Advanced, and Hibernate. In the Advanced tab you will be able to configure the action that would take place when the laptop lid is closed.
17. For accessing the Internet using static IP addressing, you need to configure the IP address, subnet mask, default gateway (if required by the ISP), and DNS server information.
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