Thermal Paste, which is usually composed from an Aluminum, Silicon, Zinc or Beryllium Ceramic (or sometimes Silver or Aluminum Metal) mixed into a Silicone Gel, is used due to air being a poor conductor of heat, and no matter how diligently you polish mating surfaces of the CPU/GPU and heatsink, you will unfortunately still end up with minute air gaps due to imperfections on the surface area. These tiny air gaps can lead to localised overheating, which is extremely detrimental to electronic equipment. Thermal Paste is a quick, simple and cost-effective solution to fill in these tiny air gaps and ensure an effective  heat dissipating join between the two mating surfaces.

Some of the symptoms of an overheating MacBook are:

Internal Fan turning on more frequently

Internal Fan becoming noticeably noisier

Failure to complete a full boot without crashing

MacBook hanging during standard operation

The MacBook Pro Thermal Paste seems to be very inconsistently applied throughout the newer model range, or there are possibly other common manufacturing defects with the cooling system that vary between specific MacBooks. Many users have reported success after having their MacBook Pro’s Thermal Compound reapplied between the CPU and heatsink, thus reaching significantly cooler temperatures. ASAP Computer Repair recommends the ‘Arctic Silver 5‘ range of Thermal Paste products when reapplying the compound during this repair.

Contact us with any concerns you have regarding your MacBook Pro Repair and we’ll be happy to assist.

“The statistics from our sinkhole are showing declining numbers on a daily basis,” a Symantec blog post said. “However, we had originally believed that we would have seen a greater decline in infections at this point in time, but this has proven not to be the case.”

Apple offers a standalone Remove Flashback malware removal tool, along with a Java update that also removes Flashback. Even if you don’t have Java on your machine — it’s not included in OS X Lion by default — you should still install the patch.

Flashback is considered to be the largest Mac malware threat to date. Compared to the massive Conficker botnet for Windows PCs, Flashback compromised a larger percentage of Mac computers.

Flashback emerged last year, masquerading as an update for Adobe Flash, but later gained the ability to install itself automatically when users visited a compromised website. On infected computers, Flashback will attempt to harvest information from Web browsing activities and will send that information to remote command-and-control servers.

Following the outbreak of Flashback, security researchers have discovered a pair of new Mac malware threats, but so far they have only been spotted in targeted political attacks.

Original article

Our exclusive Virus Removal service includes the following comprehensive checklist:

You can use Microsoft Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor to examine how programs you run affect your computer’s performance, both in real time and by collecting log data for later analysis.

Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor uses performance counters, event trace data, and configuration information, which can be combined into Data Collector Sets.

Performance counters are measurements of system state or activity. They can be included in the operating system or can be part of individual applications. Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor requests the current value of performance counters at specified time intervals.

Event trace data is collected from trace providers, which are components of the operating system or of individual applications that report actions or events. Output from multiple trace providers can be combined into a trace session, such as the Windows Kernel Trace used by Resource View to show real time CPU, memory, disk, and network activity.

Configuration information is collected from key values in the Windows registry. Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor can record the value of a registry key at a specified time or interval as part of a log file.

To start the Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor, follow these steps:

To open Reliability Monitor in Microsoft Management Console

1. Click Start, click in the Start Search box, type perfmon, and press ENTER.
2. In the navigation tree, expand Reliability and Performance, expand Monitoring Tools, and click Reliability Monitor.

You can open Reliability Monitor in its own window by typing perfmon /rel and pressing ENTER in the Start Search box or at a command prompt.

As always, feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview is a prerelease version of Windows 8 that focuses on people and apps and gives you powerful new ways to use social technologies to connect with the people who are important to you. It’s Windows reimagined. Windows 8 Consumer Preview is built on the rock-solid foundation of Windows 7 and has the security and reliability features you expect from Windows, but we’ve made it even better. It’s fast, and it’s made to work on a variety of form factors—especially the new generation of touch devices.

We strongly recommend that only experienced PC users download Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Before you download the preview, you should weigh the pros and cons of installing software that’s still in development. If you install the preview release, you’ll get to try out the many new features, but you might also encounter errors that you wouldn’t encounter using a released version of Windows.

The basic hardware specifications to run this preview are:

• Processor: 1 Gigahertz (GHz) or faster
• RAM: 1 Gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
• Hard Disk Space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• Graphics Card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device or higher

Download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview here and feel free to contact us should you run into any difficulties with the installation.

From the reports we’ve received, the bogus caller (apparently sounding of Asian ethnicity) will say they represent ‘Microsoft’ or a ‘PC Repair’ company and that their internal security systems have alerted them to the fact that the customer’s computer is “at risk”, “infected”, “has no security software” or some other random scare-tactic claim.

The Scammer will then offer to install a piece of “Security Software” onto your computer to remedy the problem, but this software is actually in-fact rogue ‘Remote Control’ software which uses a combination of Rootkit, Backdoor and Key-logging technology to compromise the security of your system. This software allows the bogus operator to gain access to your computer whenever you connect it to the Internet and then record any key-strokes you enter, passwords, Credit Card numbers etc.

Should you have unfortunately fallen prey  to this scam, the first thing you’ll need to do is disconnect your computer from the Internet and do not attempt to reconnect it until the system is inspected by professionals and completely cleansed. We can of course assist with this, so contact us or see here for details. Also, if you have recently used any Credit Cards on the system since the system was compromised, you’ll need to have these cancelled immediately. Same applies to Bank Account details.

Stay alert and remember, nobody can monitor your computer for “Security / Virus Risks” in this way, they are just chancing their luck that your Antivirus / Security software is out-of-date, malfunctioning etc. which is unfortunately a very common occurrence. The absolute best course of action you can take should you receive one of these bogus calls is simply terminate the call straight away.

Conversely, most Apple laptops use the DC-In modular approach, which is a very welcome feature.

Now, there are businesses that will attempt a repair of the DC-In connector by soldering on a new internal socket piece and ‘padding out’ the socket to strengthen the area, but in our experience this is a very temporary fix, as it is unfortunately inevitable that the connection will fail again over use/time and you’ll be back at the start again, probably sooner rather than later.

The only true fix for this type of damaged DC-In connector is unfortunately a full motherboard replacement, but in most cases this option isn’t financially advisable, so there’s really not much choice other than risk a DC-In repair and treat it with kid-gloves thereafter!

It is due to this fragile status that we don’t offer this service on PC-based laptops that have a directly soldered DC-In connector. We do however repair DC-In connectors on Apple laptops and PC-based laptops that have a modular connector – if you don’t know what type of DC-In connector your laptop has, get in touch with us and we’ll let you know.

Operating Systems Supported

• Microsoft® Windows® XP (32-bit) Home/Professional/Tablet PC/Media Center (32-bit) with Service Pack 2 or later
• Microsoft Windows Vista® (32-bit and 64-bit) Starter/Home Basic/Home Premium/Business/Ultimate with Service Pack 1 or later
• Microsoft Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) Starter/Home Basic/Home Premium/Ultimate

Minimum Hardware Requirements

• 300 MHz for Microsoft Windows XP, 1 GHz for Microsoft Windows Vista/Microsoft Windows 7
• 256 MB of RAM
• 300 MB of available hard disk space
• CD-ROM or DVD drive (if not installing via electronic download)

Browser Plug-In Support

• Microsoft Internet Explorer® 6.0 or later (32-bit only)
• Mozilla® Firefox® 3.0 and later (32-bit only)

Support for Antispam

• Microsoft Outlook® 2002 or later
• Microsoft Outlook Express 6.0 or later
• Windows Mail (spam filtering only)

Browser Support for Phishing Protection, Safe Search, and Password Management

• Microsoft Internet Explorer® 6.0 or later (32-bit only)
• Mozilla® Firefox® 3.0 and later (32-bit only)
• Google Chrome™ browser 10.0 or higher

Email scanning supported for POP3-compatible email clients

I. PC Tune-up, Virus Scan/Removal, and the supply/installation of one (1) copy of ‘Norton Internet Security 2012 Electronic Edition’ only. Said services offer will be known as ‘ASAP Voucher Offer’ herein.

II. ASAP Voucher Offer applies to Windows XP/Vista/7 based computer systems only (laptop or desktop computers).

III. Offer does not include any replacement Hardware, Software or any technical services other than those specified in ASAP Voucher Offer.

IV. All customer computer systems availing of the ASAP Voucher Offer must be presented in a fit state for delivery of included services, i.e. computers must have an operational Hard Drive, can boot into Windows and be otherwise without any major mechanical or technical failure that would prevent delivery of services.

V. ASAP Computer Repair will only redeem vouchers pertaining to this offer that are submitted via the provided voucher ‘Booking Form’ available on the ASAP Computer Repair website: http://www.asapcomputerrepair.ie/voucher/

VI. Once provided with a date/time via our Booking System, customers are to drop their computer systems on the day into our Dublin offices, located at: Office 0.3, Smithfield Business Centre, Distillers Building, Smithfield, Dublin 7.

VII. Duration of ASAP Voucher Offer service can take up to 2 days to complete, depending on the level of Virus infection, overall speed/performance of computer etc., and upon completion, customers will be notified of status to arrange collection.

VIII. No other services are included with this offer.

IX. This offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer.

X. Customers leaving computer equipment in with ASAP Computer Repair consent that ASAP Computer Repair shall not be held responsible for any damage caused by the diagnostic testing/repair of their computer equipment, as underlying issues may exist, which may only become apparent during the testing/repair process.

XI. Customers are wholly responsible for their own computer electronic Data and a recent Full Backup should be made prior to leaving equipment in for testing and/or repair.

Redeem your Voucher and Book your Computer in with us