Hardware Help

George A. Macdonald

P.O. Box 30308

Phoenix, AZ 85046
(602) 433-2771

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Hardware Help

Buying computer components from e-bay, Circuit City or Frys Electronics is often considered by customers the same as having a root canal without anesthesia.


	Replacing your hard drive every 3 years prevents loss of data and inconvenient down time.


	Replacing your power supply every year helps you prevent serious damage to other components and control your down time.


	Taking advantage of our free standard cleaning will help keep your system running cool.

	Hard drives
	Laptop recommendations

	Keep your system clean and cool

	Upgrading your MP3 players.

Hardware Hints
	Keep your system clean

	Check all fans every 8-12 months

	Replace power supply every year

	Replace hard drive every 3 years

Are all your pictures, music, and documents on a hard drive that's older than 3 years?

The average life of a good hard drive is 3 years.
If you are one of the not so lucky people that purchased a inexpensive drive like the most dreaded drive in the market "Samsung", then anything over 18 Months is a blessing.

Manufacturer Running 24/7 Average Running 8/7 Average Rating

Western Digital (PC - IDE/SATA) 2-3 Years 3-5 Years Excellent

Toshiba (Laptop - IDE/SATA) 12-18 Months 3 Years Excellent

Seagate (PC - SCSI) 2-3 Years 3-5 Years Excellent

Maxtor (PC - IDE/SATA) 12-18 Months 3-4 Years Good

Seagate (PC - IDE/SATA) 12-18 Months 2-3 Years Fair

Western Digital (Laptop - IDE/SATA) 13 Months 1-2 Years Poor

Samsung (PC - IDE/SATA) 8-12 Months 12-18 Months Poor

Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor


	Keeping your electronics clean and cool (Laptop, PC, Printer, etc)? Every 6-8 months bring your system in for a FREE "Standard Cleaning". Dust collects inside your electronics and causes the temperature to increase by 30°. This shortens the life of your equipment. Note to "Smokers": "Nicotine Cleaning" is NOT FREE Nicotine sticks to your electronics and the dust sticks to the nicotine. This makes it imposible for a "Standard Cleaning" to be effective, and the system requires a "Nicotine Cleaning". The system must be taken apart, each component must be cleaned with denatured alcohol, and then built again.

Realy cool upgrades on MP3 Players

Archos Jukebox 40

This unit has a standard IDE laptop hard drive inside. Before upgrading your hard drive (up to 120GB), you must clone your existing hard drive to your new hard drive. Cloaning your drive will create a larger FAT32 partition with all your existing music .

Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen XTRA

This unit has a standard IDE laptop hard drive inside. Before upgrading your hard drive, you must backup/copy your existing file(s) to your computer. After installing your new hard drive (up to 120GB), you must install FIRMWARE/OS before you can use your unit.

Laptop Recommendations

IBM (on a scale of 1 to 10) [10]

If money is no object then there's no better way to go then "IBM ThinkPads". Yes, they cost more. Yes, they are built better then any other laptop out in the market. Yes, you will outgrow your laptop before you have problems with it. Yes, their customer support is without a question the best.

Dell (on a scale of 1 to 10) [9]

Dell offers you the ability to customize your order on your laptop and change the OS (Operating System) from Vista back to XP Home/Professional, more memory, bigger hard drive, better screen, etc. If your unit is under warranty they bend over backwards to help you. If your unit is out of warranty they still sell or locate the part you need.

HP/CompaQ (on a scale of 1 to 10) [8]

One of the most popular systems on the market. Really high return numbers. Once you get one that's bug free, it works great.

Toshiba (on a scale of 1 to 10) [7]

Toshiba laptops are often extremly heavy. Every Toshiba laptop that's been in our office for hardware repairs has had a heat issue.

Sony (on a scale of 1 to 10) [6]

Small, very light, extremely powerfull, great system for video editing, etc. So why a "6" on the ratings. They know they have a nice product and they nickle and dime you to death. Any parts needed for a Sony PC/Laptop cost an arm and a legg compared to other manufacturers. Their support lines are one of the worst. When something goes wrong it's cheaper to replace it then to repair it.

Gateway (on a scale of 1 to 10) [5]

Gateway offers great specials on their units. Their offer on extended warranties also rate fair. What i don't understand is that if a unit is even 1 day out of warranty they will not sell you the part required for you to repair your unit. They give you numbers of other companies that offer either service or parts on their units. The companies we called given to us through Gateway just laugh and say that they only sell AC adapters and batteries. If the unit is still under warranty they will gladly ship you the part you need. If it's out of warranty you are S.O.L.