HP G71-449WM High-Definition Widescreen Laptop - $509.00

The G71-449WM Laptop features:

Pentium Dual Core 2.1 Ghz Processor
4 GB of DDR2 RAM
320 GB 7200 RPM hard drive
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD GMA4500M
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet LAN
802.11b/g/n WLAN
LightScribe DVD-RW Optical Drive
Media Card Reader
6 Cell Lithium-Ion battery
6.7 lbs
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit version
90 day warranty

IOT provides pc computer repair, laptop repair, local area networking (LAN) and remote computer support for the Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Twin Cities metro area, as well as Saint Cloud, Rochester and all points in between! Serving Minnesota since 1995, IOT also provides software solutions, installation and setup and user training services.For more information about computer repair or networking please visit our website iotsolutions.com or call us at 651-605-2500.

Computer Freezing Up On You?

One of the most common calls we get is - "my computer is locked up". 

This is a very common problem in both computers and laptops.  There could be several causes.

Made Any Recent Changes?
Since the problem could be hardware or software related, you should first stop and think about any recent changes you might have made to your computer.  Did you recently install a new printer?  If so, and the PC began to lock up, you could have a driver problem.  If you have made no changes to hardware or software, perhaps some general maintenance is in order to help keep your PC running smooth.
 
Heat Is The Enemey!
Computers will shutdown or even freeze up if their internatl temperature gets too high. If your PC has not been cleaned for a while, you might want to invest in a can of compressed air and blow out any fans.
 
Turn off the PC, unplug the power and open the case, but remember to touch a piece of the computer’s metal chassis to ground yourself. Some computers will have fans in the front grill area. Even if there are no fans, blow out the grill to make sure your computer is able to draw cool air in from the room. Next, look for a rear fan. While your PC may not have a rear fan, it will have a power supply fan. You will also see a fan above the CPU and possibly the graphics card. Blow them all out. Plug in the PC and make sure all fans are spinning. If your computer keeps freezing, there might be an issue with a fan, it might be causing your system to overheat and lockup.
 
Scan The Hard Drive For Errors
If your hard drive has bad sectors, you can try scanning it with Microsoft’s built-in utility called CHKDSK. To run it, right-click the C: drive in My Computer and select Properties. Under the Tools tab, select Error Checking and click Check Now. Tick the options to fix errors automatically. Make sure you select a thorough scan, as this will check the entire surface of the disk for errors and move data off that sector to a different place on the drive.
 
IOT provides pc computer repair, laptop repair, local area networking (LAN) and remote computer support for the Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Twin Cities metro area, as well as Saint Cloud, Rochester and all points in between!  Serving Minnesota since 1995, IOT also provides software solutions, installation and setup and user training services.

For more information about computer repair or networking please visit our website iotsolutions.com or call us at 651-605-2500.

Simple Computer Maintenance - Defrag Your Drive

Running the Disk Defragmentation Tool
Your computer writes to the first available area on your hard drive (disk). As time goes by, the files start to be rearranged on your drive (fragmented). When your hard drive is fragmented and you try to load a program it may have to find files and components on various sections of your hard drive.  This will cause poor performance, as your computer is spending more time searching for the files it needs.

The defragment utility tries to put the files back in their origional order by organizing them in similar groups. This will allow your computer to run at optimal performance, since less time will be spent searching for files and components. Do the following:

Start Menu > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter/Check Now.

Select the drive you want to defragment. When it is done you can close the window or select another drive to defrag.


IOT provides pc computer repair, laptop repair, local area networking (LAN) and remote computer support for the Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Twin Cities metro area, as well as Saint Cloud, Rochester and all points in between!  Serving Minnesota since 1995, IOT also provides software solutions, installation and setup and user training services.

For more information about computer repair or networking please visit our website iotsolutions.com or call us at 651-605-2500.

Simple Computer Maintenance - Remove Startup Items

Does your computer take a really long time to startup?

If you have unwanted items starting with windows it can and will slow down the boot process and they will take up memory. Navigate to the Startup Programs area to view which programs are set to start when you login to Windowes.  Go to the following:


Start Menu > Programs > Startup.

You will find programs in this folder, just delete the ones you do not want to automatically start. Then move on to the following:

Start Menu > Run > Type in: msconfig.exe [Enter] Click the Startup tab and uncheck any items you don’t want to startup.

WARNING - if you dont know what some of these programs are, do not un-check them.  Please do a google search or calls us for assistance!  Removing critical Startup items from your Startup tab can cause unwanted errors!
 
IOT provides pc computer repair, laptop repair, local area networking (LAN) and remote computer support for the Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Twin Cities metro area, as well as Saint Cloud, Rochester and all points in between!  Serving Minnesota since 1995, IOT also provides software solutions, installation and setup and user training services.

For more information about computer repair or networking please visit our website iotsolutions.com or call us at 651-605-2500.

Simple Computer Maintenance - Clean Up Your Files

Want to speed up your computer a little bit?  Follow these simple tips for instant performance improvements!

First, you will want to get rid of some unnecessary files.

• Delete unecessary files on your desktop
• Empty your trash folder

Another easy area to clean up is the Temp Files.  Ideally these temp files are deleted when the parent program closes, but often times they are not. Poorly written programs, computer crashes and improper shutdowns always leave unneeded temporary files on your hard drive. These files pile up and start eating up hard disk space and start impairing computer performance.

To fully clean out your temp files, run the Disk Cleanup utility;

• Start > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup
• Select the drive you want to clean. When it has finished, select the items that you no longer want

We reccomend to check the following options;

• Downloaded Program Files
• Temporary Internet Files
• Recycle Bin
• Temporary Files

IOT provides pc computer repair, laptop repair, local area networking (LAN) and remote computer support for the Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Twin Cities metro area, as well as Saint Cloud, Rochester and all points in between!  Serving Minnesota since 1995, IOT also provides software solutions, installation and setup and user training services.

 

For more information about computer repair or networking please visit our website iotsolutions.com or call us at 651-605-2500.

Mozilla Firefox Version 3.6 Released

Developers say the latest version of the open-source Web browser gets back to its roots, putting new technology in the hands of its users.

The new browser includes built-in support for scaled-down browser skins dubbed "Personas" and adds support for new CSS, DOM and HTML 5 technologies.  Release 3.6 also provides support for full-screen video and the open-source Web Open Font Format (WOFF).  What does this mean exactly? One step closer towards the Browser essentially being the Operating System (OS).

"The Worlds Best Browser", according to Mozilla at least (not verified by Microsoft?)

Firefox version 3.6 also incorporates new security features to check browser plug-ins, such as Adobe's Flash Player or Apple's QuickTime, to make sure they're up-to-date, then blocks vulnerable plug-ins from loading and shows users how to update the software.

Mozilla has also boosted the browser's overall performance and reduced its startup time. JavaScript in 3.6 executes approximately 12% faster in Firefox 3.6 than in 3.5, said Mike Beltzner, the director of Firefox, while some pages load up to 20% faster. Other improvements that speed up location bar searches and let Web site designers use asynchronous script loading, are harder to measure, but should give users the feeling that Firefox 3.6 is snappier. "

IOT provides pc computer repair, laptop repair, local area networking (LAN) and remote computer support for the Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Twin Cities metro area, as well as Saint Cloud, Rochester and all points in between!  Serving Minnesota since 1995, IOT also provides software solutions, installation and setup and user training services.

For more information about computer repair or networking please visit our website iotsolutions.com or call us at 651-605-2500.

How To Delete Spyware and Adware Files with "Access is denied" Messages

Have you ever tried to delete a piece of spyware, adware or other unwanted program - only to ge the "Access is denied" error message?

Often when you are trying to remove adware, spyware or other trojan files you encounter a file that will promt this message; "Cannot delete.  Access is denied.   Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use."

You cannot delete or remove this file with normal procedures.  Below is a quick outline on how to manually delete these files from your computer.

WARNING - Proceed at your own risk!  If you are  not 100% comfortable with this process, just call us and we can execute this procedure remotely on your computer in a matter of minutes, without you even having to get up from your chair!

1. Click on Start
2. Navigate to Search
3. Select the All Files and Folders search option
4. In the search box, type the name of the file you want to remove
5. Verify that the "Look In" box shows the correct drive, or simply select My Computer
6. Click Search and wait for the system to locate your file (may take several minutes)
7. When you see your file in the results pane, right-click and choos Properties.  Make a note of the location.
8. Example - c:\windows\system32\filename.exe
9. Next, click on Start
10. Navigate to Run
11. Type the letters CMD in the dialog box, and click OK
12. A black box will open, this is called the Comand Prompt
13. Leave this window open, but close all other windows and programs
14. Next, click on Start
15. Navigate to Run
16. Type TASKMGR.EXE in the dialog box, and click OK
17. The Task Manager pane will now show on your screen
18. Click the Processes tab
19. Click on the process named Explorer.exe
20. Click the End Process button
21. Now, go back to the Command Prompt (the black box) and change to the directory where the file is located.
22. Example: to change to the Windows\System32 directory you would enter the following command "cd \windows\system32" (don't use quotes, illustrative only) and press Enter on your keyboard 
23. Now you use the DEL command to delete the file
24. Example: del filename.exe (using your file instead of "filename.exe")
25. Go back to the Task Manager
26. Click File, New Task and enter EXPLORER.EXE to restart the process.
27. Close the windows.
28. Done!

IOT provides pc computer repair, laptop repair, local area networking (LAN) and remote computer support for the Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Twin Cities metro area, as well as Saint Cloud, Rochester and all points in between!  Serving Minnesota since 1995, IOT also provides software solutions, installation and setup and user training services.

For more information about computer repair or networking please visit our website iotsolutions.com or call us at 651-605-2500.

Buy ANY PC with Qualifying HP Printer or AIO and get $40-$60 Rebate!

Effective January 3, 2010, through April 3, 2010

Customers will receive a $40 mail-in-rebate on the purchase of ANY manufacturer's PC AND a qualifying HP printer or HP All-in-One priced at $69 or more when purchased on the same day OR a $60 mail-in-rebate on the purchase of ANY manufacturer's PC AND a qualifying HP wireless printer when purchased on the same day.

To download the full Terms and Conditions PDF, click here.


IOT provides pc computer repair, laptop repair, local area networking (LAN) and remote computer support for the Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Twin Cities metro area, as well as Saint Cloud, Rochester and all points in between!  Serving Minnesota since 1995, IOT also provides software solutions, installation and setup and user training services.

For more information about computer repair or networking please visit our website iotsolutions.com or call us at 651-605-2500.