IT support

We offer a free diagnostics service in our store and if we cannot rectify the issue you will not be charged, however, if you arrange for a home collection and drop off service, a standard call out fee of £24.99 will be charged in the event your computer cannot be fixed. 

We always have a good selection of modern and fairly modern refurbished laptop and desktop computers in stock, if it isn’t cost effective to repair your old machine we can transfer all your pictures, documents and settings onto a newer, refurbished or brand new system and use your old machine as part payment, we offer very competitive prices on your old kit and will price match high street competitors. If you would prefer cash for your machine, we can also arrange that to. 

The notorious Blue Screen of Death or (BSOD) is generally caused by problems with your computer’s hardware or issues with its hardware driver software. Sometimes, it can be caused by issues with low-level software running in the Windows kernel. Regular apps usually will not be able to cause blue screens. If an app crashes, it will do so without taking the operating system out with it. 

A blue screen occurs when Windows encounters a “STOP Error.” This critical failure causes Windows to crash and stop functioning. The only thing Windows can do at that point is restart the PC. This can lead to data loss, as programs do not have a chance to save their open data. 

When a blue screen occurs, Windows automatically creates a “minidump” file that contains information about the crash and saves it to your disk. You can view information about these minidumps to help identify the cause of the blue screen. 

Blue screens also look a bit different, depending on what version of Windows you are running. In Windows 7 and previous versions, the blue screen looked much like a terminal screen, displaying all manner of information

You have probably heard some people say you should drain your battery completely before re-charging it, or that you should keep it between 30% and 80% all the time to make it last longer. Most of these rules are outdated, applying to the older nickel-based batteries. Luckily, most of our laptops these days run on Lithium Ion batteries, which are easy to take care of. They last longer when you perform shallow discharges, keep them cool, and don’t leave them plugged in while they’re running at 100%

Everyone knows viruses and trojans are a bad thing, but a lot of people do not know how exactly they work. Viruses, for example, are programs that copy themselves and infect a computer, spreading from one to another—just like a real-life virus. Trojans, on the other hand, are applications that look normal and familiar, but secretly have code that is doing something else—like letting someone else control your computer remotely etc.  

Most of us put a lot of effort into finding free Wi-Fi hot spots, but public Wi-Fi networks have their own share of security problems. Even if a Wi-Fi network has a password, other people on the network could see what you are doing, or—if they wanted to—steal personal information and passwords. Luckily, there is a lot you can do to stay safe: make sure sharing is turned off, use HTTPS whenever possible, and run your traffic through a VPN if preferred. 

Ever wonder why your computer warns you about ejecting those USB drives before you remove them? It’s because computers use something called write caching to improve performance: if you copy something to your drive, it’ll tell you it’s completed the task, but it’s actually waiting until it has a few other tasks to perform so it can do them all at once. When you press eject, your computer finishes anything in the queue to make sure you do not incur any data loss. Windows does a better job of avoiding problems than OS X and Linux, but we recommend ejecting all your drives anyway. It is a small price to pay for keeping your data safe.  

Some spam is obvious but other messages are more subtle. A lot of spam relies on “phishing,” in which a spammer will try to make their email look like it is coming from a legitimate source in order to get your information. They may tell you to click a link that looks like it’s going to paypal.com, but if you hover over it, you’ll see that it’s really going somewhere else—likely a PayPal-disguised site where you willingly type in your information. Luckily, you can usually avoid those tricks by checking the URL and typing it in yourself instead. Be careful, too—sometimes those links will cause you to unknowingly spam one of your friends, which only spreads the scam. 

You’ve no doubt heard about all the sites that have gotten hacked in recent years, but what happens when they do? Usually those hackers are after your username and password, but whether they can get it depends on how a site stores your password, as well as your password’s strength (weak passwords are much easier to crack than you think).  

It is a tale as old as time: your internet gets sluggish and intermittent, so you unplug your router, plug it back in, and suddenly, it is magically working again. But why does this happen, really? It could be several things: It could be an overheating issue, it could be getting bogged down from too much network traffic (like BitTorrent), or maybe the router is just plain poor and old. Luckily, there are a lot of things you can do to fix it.  

Everyone knows it is bad if someone steals your password or credit card information, but a lot of people are a lot more apathetic about what they put on Facebook, their personal blog, or anywhere else. Your personal data is worth protecting, though, whether you think so or not. Not only does that data give companies and governments more power to track you, but it can make it easier for someone to steal your identity, even if it does not seem like it. Plus, you never know where that data may end up one day, and who might see it (potential employers, for instance). Some stuff is more important, of course, but do not let the little stuff slide just because you do not think anyone will care. Somebody probably does.