Tech Questions & Answers Archives - Page 56 of 258

Q&A: Why won’t my monitor work with my laptop?

Posted on December 4, 2023

Question from Brenda M.: I took my laptop to the shop because the screen stopped lighting up. They checked it out and told me the screen was bad.

They said it would cost almost $200 to replace the screen. I told them I couldn’t afford that so they told me I could still use the laptop by hooking up an external monitor.

I bought a monitor and hooked it up to the laptop with an HDMI cable, but I can’t get the monitor to show anything besides a blank screen.

How can I get the external monitor to work this laptop? [Read more…]

Q&A: Will an SSD go bad just sitting on a shelf?

Posted on December 3, 2023

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Question from Glen: A while back I read your post about replacing a computer’s hard drive with an SSD and it sounded like a pretty good idea.

I finally ended up buying a Crucial MX500 1TB SSD to replace the hard drive in my old Acer laptop, but the laptop’s screen went bad before I had a chance to make the switch.

I really didn’t want to spend a lot of money to have the Acer fixed so I just replaced it with a new Dell laptop.

The new Dell has a 1TB hard drive so I don’t really need the SSD at this time. Can I put the SSD on a shelf and keep it for a backup in case the hard drive ever fails, or will it go bad after a while if I don’t use it? [Read more…]

Review: InMotion Hosting

Posted on December 2, 2023

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

In the spirit of full transparency, let me state up-front that I’m a long-time customer of InMotion Hosting, for reasons that will be clear to you after reading this review.

I have used several web hosting companies over the years, with various levels of satisfaction.

This review is basically a contrast between the products, service and support I received from those other companies and what I’ve received from InMotion. [Read more…]

Q&A: Can you connect a TV to a laptop that doesn’t support HDMI?

Posted on November 27, 2023

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Question from Kevin: I have a laptop that I’d like to hook up to a spare 40 inch flat panel TV that I’m not using so I can watch Netflix on a larger screen.

The problem is the laptop doesn’t have an HDMI port and that’s what the TV uses. It has a DisplayPort connector instead.

Is there any way to add an HDMI port to this laptop so I can connect my TV to it? [Read more…]