On Our Bench

On Our Bench: Dell Laptop Shows “Your Virus Protection Ended.” Scam or Real? (NJ)

Oct 15, 2026

A customer’s Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 kept showing a “Your virus protection ended” pop-up, and with so many scams going around, they wanted to be sure it was not a virus. It was a real notice from expired McAfee. We scanned it, updated Windows and the browser, and set them up with quiet protection that does not nag.

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On Our Bench: Dell XPS 8900 Gets a Second Life With a Hard Drive to SSD Clone (NJ)

Oct 15, 2026

A Dell XPS 8900 running special software on Windows 10 came into our Somerville, NJ shop. Instead of a new PC, we cloned its original Seagate hard drive to a TEAMGROUP T-FORCE Vulcan Z SSD, so every program opens just like before and the computer runs faster than the day it was bought.

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On Our Bench: MSI Sword 17 Lights Up Its Keyboard, Then Shuts Off (NJ)

Oct 15, 2026

An MSI Sword 17 gaming laptop came into our Somerville, NJ shop lighting up only its keyboard, then shutting off after 30 seconds. After a full teardown and testing, with an old spill and a taped power adapter in its history, we recommended a data backup and a replacement laptop.

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On Our Bench: Business Lenovo All-in-One Gets a 1TB NVMe SSD Upgrade Without Reinstalling Anything (NJ)

Oct 14, 2026

A business Lenovo Yoga A940 all-in-one came into our Somerville, NJ shop with a C drive that was too small. We decrypted BitLocker, cleaned out the dust, cloned the 256GB NVMe sector by sector to a new 1TB NVMe and made sure it booted exactly as it did before, apps and all.

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On Our Bench: HP Pavilion 570 With a Loud, Overheating CPU Fan Gets a New Cooler (NJ)

Oct 14, 2026

An HP Pavilion 570-p026 came into our Somerville, NJ shop with a CPU fan that was revving loudly, not spinning right and letting the PC overheat. Replacement options for this older Intel system were limited, so we fit a larger cooler to the HP mount, added fresh thermal paste, cleaned out the dust and stress tested it.

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On Our Bench: Slow Custom PC Brought Back to Life With a SATA SSD to NVMe Migration (NJ)

Oct 14, 2026

A custom PC came into our Somerville, NJ shop slow in games and even basic programs. Windows was on a failing Kingston SATA SSD while a faster Samsung NVMe sat unused as extra storage. We migrated Windows, updated the BIOS and re-applied thermal paste: reads went from about 400 MB/s to 2,000 MB/s and boot time dropped from 15 seconds to 5.

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On Our Bench: Overheating Gaming Laptop With Clogged Vents and Dust-Caked Fans (NJ)

Oct 10, 2026

An unbranded gaming laptop came into our Somerville, NJ shop overheating. With the bottom cover off, the vents were fully clogged and the fan blades were even worse. Here is how we cleaned it so the laptop could breathe again.

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On Our Bench: ASUS ROG Gaming Laptop With an i9-14900HX Crashing and Overheating (NJ)

Oct 6, 2026

An ASUS ROG gaming laptop with an Intel Core i9-14900HX came into our Somerville, NJ shop crashing in Windows and running hot even in the BIOS. RAM and SSD tested good, and a clean Windows install on new parts still hit a KMODE blue screen. The processor was failing.

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On Our Bench: Custom PC Freezing After Login Was a Failing CPU (NJ)

Sep 29, 2026

A custom PC came into our Somerville, NJ shop freezing right after login. A BIOS update did not help, and the RAM and graphics card passed a 4-hour stress test. The real culprit was a failing Intel Core i5-13600K.

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On Our Bench: Overheating Custom PC With Broken Fans and a Clogged Radiator (NJ)

Sep 29, 2026

A custom gaming PC came into our Somerville, NJ shop overheating, with broken front fans and liquid cooler radiator fans so caked with buildup they could barely spin. Here is what we found and how we fixed it.

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