Many things can go wrong with a laptop. In this laptop repair guide, I want to share with you a few pointers that will hopefully save you a lot of hassle and money when it comes to maintaining and repairing your laptop.

Diagnosis

The most important stage is before you perform any actual repairs. When a laptop goes wrong, you may see a brief error message, a blank screen or simply get no response from the laptop itself.

Experience will teach you where to look but otherwise the best approach is a logical one. Via a process of elimination, you can discover what is wrong with your laptop.

If you can still get access to the operating system then use the built-in tools to try to locate the fault. It is also a good idea to carry a utilities CD with you that contains a few basic diagnostic tools.

One of the best is the free "Ultimate Boot CD". It contains over one hundred useful hardware diagnostic tools and you can boot the laptop using it so even if there is no working version of Windows then you will not be prevented from attempting to make an accurate diagnosis.

Hard Drive

This is one of the most common components to fail. Because a hard drive is a high speed, delicate, mechanical device, it is destined to eventually fail regardless of how well you care for your laptop.

If you are lucky, you can temporarily scan or reformat the disk and you may be able to slightly extend the life of the drive. Most of the time, however, you should just replace the drive.

Keyboard

This is another common component to fail. The only thing that you can really try is to remove the keyboard and use a vacuum cleaner to get rid of all neighboring pieces of dust and debris.

Power Supply

If you suspect a power supply failure then the first thing you should check is the "kettle lead" i.e. the cord that connects the power pack to the wall socket. The fuses in these leads often fail and I like to carry several spare leads with me to quickly swap them out.

Also, check the LED on the power supply. Most power supplies feature such an LED. When the power is cut off, the LED remains lit for around ten seconds due to a built-in capacitor. If your power supply does not behave in this way then you should replace it. It is not recommended to open up a power supply and try to fix it yourself due to the presence of transformers and, therefore, high voltages.