Computers, printers and devices
No sound from speakers, headphones or a headset
No sound at all, or sound from the wrong thing. This is one of the most common calls we get, and it is almost never a broken speaker. Nine times out of ten the audio is playing perfectly well, just somewhere you are not listening. Work through the ...
Looking after a laptop: battery, heat and travel
Most laptops we replace early are not replaced because the technology moved on. They are replaced because the battery gave up, the machine cooked itself slowly, or it took a knock in a bag. None of that requires special care to avoid, just a few ...
Getting a new computer set up properly
A new computer that has been set up properly is ready to work on the morning it lands on the desk, and it stays supportable for its whole life. A new computer set up in a hurry works fine for a fortnight and then quietly causes problems for years. ...
Buying a new computer: what we recommend and why
People often ask us which computer to buy and expect a model number. We would rather give you the reasoning, because models change every few months and the reasoning does not. If you understand what actually matters, you can walk into any ...
Scanning to email or to a folder has stopped working
The scanner worked for years, nobody touched it, and now it says Send failed or Authentication error, or the scans simply never arrive. This is frustrating because nothing appears to have changed at your end, and usually nothing has. The change ...
The printer will not print
Before you try anything, work out which of these three things is happening. They have different causes and the fix is different for each. Nothing happens. You click Print, the job seems to vanish, the printer never stirs. An error appears. Windows ...
The camera or microphone does not work in Teams or Zoom
You join a meeting and your camera shows a black square, or nobody can hear you. This is almost always a setting rather than broken hardware, and there are five usual culprits. Start with the physical one, because it catches people constantly. Try ...
A second monitor is not working
A second screen that has gone black, says No signal, or simply never wakes up is usually a five-minute fix. The order below matters: the causes we see most often are at the top, and each step rules something out. Try this first Check the cable at ...
Blank screen, or a screen that is very dim
You open the laptop, the lights come on, you can hear the fan, but the screen is black or so dim you can barely make it out. This looks alarming and usually is not. In most cases the computer is running perfectly well and something has gone wrong ...
A computer that freezes, crashes or restarts on its own
A computer that locks up mid-sentence, shows a blue screen, or restarts on its own is telling you something is genuinely wrong. Unlike general slowness, this usually comes down to one thing: heat, memory, a failing disk, a driver (the small program ...
Your computer is slow: what to try before you call
A computer that used to be fine and now takes a minute to open a spreadsheet is one of the most common things we hear about. Slowness is rarely one big fault. It is usually several small things stacking up: too much open at once, a disk that is ...