Work out what is actually wrong with it

1. Do the force restart properly. Press and quickly release Volume Up. Press and quickly release Volume Down. Then press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears. Apple says this can take longer than 10 seconds, so keep holding. A force restart does not erase anything. It is the single most useful thing you can do to a phone that looks dead, and it costs nothing.
2. Charge it for one hour on a charger you trust. Apple's own advice is to charge for one hour before deciding an iPhone is dead. If you see the low charge battery icon, give it 30 minutes or until it starts on its own. Use a different cable, a different plug and a different wall socket, because any of the three can be the fault.
3. Look in the charging port. Pocket lint compacted into the Lightning or USB-C port is the most common cause of an iPhone that will not charge. Look into the port with a torch. If you can see grey fluff, that is very likely your whole problem.
4. Check for silent signs of life. Feel for a vibration when you force restart, and try ringing it from another phone. Plug it into a computer and open Finder, or iTunes on Windows. If the iPhone shows up, the board and your storage are alive and you are looking at a screen or battery fault, not a dead phone.

Full iPhone will not turn on guide

1. Change one thing at a time. Swap the cable. Then the plug. Then the wall socket. Use a set you have watched charge another device today. Most charging faults are a failed cable, and cables fail far more often than phones do.
2. Look into the port with a torch. Pocket lint compacted into the Lightning or USB-C port is the most common cause of an iPhone that will not charge. Look into the port with a torch. If you can see grey fluff, that is very likely your whole problem.
3. Give it one hour before judging. Apple's own advice is to charge for one hour before deciding an iPhone is dead. If you see the low charge battery icon, give it 30 minutes or until it starts on its own.
4. Watch what it does when you plug in. Does it show a charging symbol and then stop? Does it charge only if you hold the cable at an angle? Does it charge from a computer but not the wall? Each of those points somewhere different, and it is the detail worth telling us.

Full iPhone not charging guide

1. Confirm it is actually running. Sounds, vibration, fans, a charging chime or a faint glow in a dark room all mean the device is alive and only the picture is missing. That is good news: it is a display fault, not a dead device.
2. Do the force restart. Press and quickly release Volume Up. Press and quickly release Volume Down. Then press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears. Apple says this can take longer than 10 seconds, so keep holding. A frozen device with a working screen looks exactly like a broken screen.
3. Test whether the board is alive. Plug it into a computer and open Finder, or iTunes on Windows. If the iPhone shows up, the board and your storage are alive and you are looking at a screen or battery fault, not a dead phone.
4. Check the brightness and the obvious. Wind the brightness right up. On a laptop check you have not switched output to a display that is not there, and give the lid switch area a look. Silly causes are common and free.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full iPhone black screen but it is running guide

1. Let it sit for 30 minutes. After a big update a device can genuinely take a long time on the logo. Plug it in, leave it alone and come back. Pulling the plug during an update is how a slow boot becomes a broken one.
2. Do the force restart once. Press and quickly release Volume Up. Press and quickly release Volume Down. Then press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears. Apple says this can take longer than 10 seconds, so keep holding. Once. Repeated forced restarts on a device that is struggling to read its own storage make things worse, not better.
3. Note exactly where it stops. Logo then black. Logo then restart, over and over. Logo with a progress bar that stalls at the same point every time. A loop and a freeze are different faults, and where it stops is the most useful thing you can tell us.
4. Know the recovery route for this device before you use it. An iPhone that loops at the logo can usually be restored through a computer without erasing anything: Finder on a Mac, or the Apple Devices app on Windows, offers Update before it offers Restore. Update reinstalls iOS and keeps your data. Restore erases it. Those two buttons sit next to each other, and picking the wrong one is how people lose their photos at this exact step.
5. Decide about your data before you go further. The next steps in most online guides are a reset or a reinstall, and those can erase everything. If the photos matter, stop here and let it be assessed first.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full iPhone stuck on the logo guide

1. Power it off and leave it off. Do this before anything else. Water plus electricity is what destroys boards.
2. Do not plug it in. No cable, no wireless pad, no computer. Testing it by charging it is the most common way a saveable device dies.
3. Skip the rice and the hair dryer. Apple says do not use rice, because rice particles can damage the device, and it does nothing to water sealed inside anyway. Heat is worse.
4. Dry the outside and get it assessed today. Wipe it down, open the SIM tray if it has one, leave it somewhere with airflow. Corrosion starts within hours and salt or pool water is the worst kind.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Water damaged phone: what to do

1. Take the case off and get it out of the sun. Cases trap heat, and an iPhone left on a car dashboard or charging in the sun will get hot on its own. iPhone also dims the screen and slows charging deliberately when it overheats, and will show a temperature warning screen rather than let itself cook. Rule out the easy answer first.
2. Check what is running. Settings, then Battery, shows which apps have been busy. A single app pinning the processor, or a phone that got hot right after an update while it re-indexed, is software and it settles within a day or two.
3. Notice whether it is hot while idle. Warm during a game or a long video call is normal. Hot in your pocket doing nothing is not, and hot around the battery specifically is the one to take seriously.
4. Check the charging behaviour. Getting hot only while charging, especially with a cheap or damaged cable, points at the charger or the port rather than the phone.

Full iPhone overheating guide

1. Check the storage. A phone with almost no free storage slows down badly. Look at the storage screen in settings. Clearing space costs nothing.
2. Restart it. A plain restart clears a lot. Phones that go months without one get slower and slower.
3. Check the battery health. A worn battery can make a phone throttle itself to avoid shutting down, and slow is how that feels. The battery health screen tells you where you stand.
4. Note when it started. Slow right after an update usually settles within a day or two while it re-indexes. Slow that came on gradually over a year is usually storage or battery.

Full iPhone running slow guide

1. Read the real battery number. Settings, then Battery. On iPhone 15 and later tap Battery Health. On iPhone 14 and earlier tap Battery Health and Charging. The number you want is Maximum Capacity, which is your battery measured against a new one. Apple designs iPhone 14 and earlier batteries to keep 80 per cent of their original capacity after 500 full charge cycles, and iPhone 15 batteries to keep 80 per cent after 1,000 cycles. iPhone 15 and later also show the cycle count, the manufacture date and the date of first use on that same screen, which settles the age question outright.
2. Find out what is draining it. Settings, then Battery, shows which apps used the power over the last 24 hours and the last 10 days. One app dominating that list, especially one you barely opened, is a software problem and it is free to fix.
3. Count the years. Most phone and laptop batteries are worn out somewhere around three to four years of daily charging. If yours is that old and drains fast, the battery is very likely the whole answer. The cycle count matters more than the age, which is why the check above is worth the two minutes.
4. Notice sudden shutdowns. Dying well above zero, or shutting down the moment something demands power, is a battery that can no longer deliver current under load. That is a clear battery result whatever the health screen claims.

Full iPhone battery draining fast guide

1. Stop charging it right now. Do not leave it on a charger while you read this. Unplug it.
2. Look for the tell-tale on this device. On an iPhone the display is the part that gives first. The screen lifts away from the frame, usually starting at one edge, and a thin dark line opens up between the glass and the metal. Run a fingernail around the edge. If it catches where it used to be flush, that is the cell pushing the screen off its adhesive.
3. Check the health figure only if it is safe to. Settings, then Battery. On iPhone 15 and later tap Battery Health. On iPhone 14 and earlier tap Battery Health and Charging. The number you want is Maximum Capacity, which is your battery measured against a new one. A swollen cell often still reports as healthy, so a good reading does not clear it. The physical signs beat the software every time. If the device is hot, do not sit there navigating menus on it.
4. Do not press it and never puncture it. Do not try to push a lifting screen or a bulging cover back down. A punctured cell can ignite in seconds and the fumes are toxic.
5. Get it somewhere safe and get it booked. Off, away from anything flammable, not in a bag with you, not on a plane. Bring it in and we will make it safe and replace the cell.

Full iPhone swollen or hot battery guide

1. Write down the exact message. The precise error text or the exact screen you land on is the difference between a five minute fix and a board job. Photograph it if you can.
2. Do the force restart once. Press and quickly release Volume Up. Press and quickly release Volume Down. Then press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears. Apple says this can take longer than 10 seconds, so keep holding.
3. Unplug everything and try again. Accessories, drives, hubs and dongles. A single failing external device stops plenty of machines from starting, and unplugging is free.
4. Read the screen it stops on, it is device specific. The screen an iPhone lands on tells you most of it. A cable-and-computer image means it has dropped into recovery mode and wants a reinstall. A plain black screen with the Apple logo cycling is a boot loop. A red or blue screen, or a restart every few seconds, points at hardware rather than iOS. Note also whether it happened straight after an update, because that is a different and far more recoverable cause than one that started on its own.
5. Stop before you reset or reinstall. Almost every guide online tells you to reset or reinstall next. Those can erase everything. If your files are not backed up, stop here.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full iPhone starts but will not load guide

1. Do the force restart properly. Press and hold the Power or Side button and Volume Down at the same time for at least 7 seconds. Let go when the logo appears and the phone vibrates. A force restart does not erase anything. On a phone that looks completely dead this is the first thing to try, and it costs nothing.
2. Charge it for an hour on a charger you trust. Samsung warns that on a fully drained battery the charging icon may not appear on screen at all. A black screen while plugged in does not mean it is not charging. Leave it on a known good charger for an hour before you judge it. Use a different cable, a different plug and a different wall socket, because any of the three can be the fault.
3. Look in the charging port. Compacted pocket lint in the USB-C port is the most common cause of a phone that will not charge. Shine a torch into it. Grey fluff packed at the bottom is very often the entire fault.
4. Check for silent signs of life. Feel for a vibration when you force restart, and try ringing it from another phone. Plug it into a computer with a cable you know carries data. If the computer sees the phone at all, the board and your storage are alive and you are looking at a screen or battery fault.

Full Android phone will not turn on guide

1. Change one thing at a time. Swap the cable. Then the plug. Then the wall socket. Use a set you have watched charge another device today. Most charging faults are a failed cable, and cables fail far more often than phones do.
2. Look into the port with a torch. Compacted pocket lint in the USB-C port is the most common cause of a phone that will not charge. Shine a torch into it. Grey fluff packed at the bottom is very often the entire fault.
3. Give it an hour before judging. Samsung warns that on a fully drained battery the charging icon may not appear on screen at all. A black screen while plugged in does not mean it is not charging. Leave it on a known good charger for an hour before you judge it.
4. Watch what it does when you plug in. Does it show a charging symbol and then stop? Does it charge only if you hold the cable at an angle? Does it charge from a computer but not the wall? Each of those points somewhere different, and it is the detail worth telling us.

Full Android phone not charging guide

1. Confirm it is actually running. Sounds, vibration, fans, a charging chime or a faint glow in a dark room all mean the device is alive and only the picture is missing. That is good news: it is a display fault, not a dead device.
2. Do the force restart. Press and hold the Power or Side button and Volume Down at the same time for at least 7 seconds. Let go when the logo appears and the phone vibrates. A frozen device with a working screen looks exactly like a broken screen.
3. Test whether the board is alive. Plug it into a computer with a cable you know carries data. If the computer sees the phone at all, the board and your storage are alive and you are looking at a screen or battery fault.
4. Check the brightness and the obvious. Wind the brightness right up. On a laptop check you have not switched output to a display that is not there, and give the lid switch area a look. Silly causes are common and free.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full Android phone black screen but it is running guide

1. Let it sit for 30 minutes. After a big update a device can genuinely take a long time on the logo. Plug it in, leave it alone and come back. Pulling the plug during an update is how a slow boot becomes a broken one.
2. Do the force restart once. Press and hold the Power or Side button and Volume Down at the same time for at least 7 seconds. Let go when the logo appears and the phone vibrates. Once. Repeated forced restarts on a device that is struggling to read its own storage make things worse, not better.
3. Note exactly where it stops. Logo then black. Logo then restart, over and over. Logo with a progress bar that stalls at the same point every time. A loop and a freeze are different faults, and where it stops is the most useful thing you can tell us.
4. Know the recovery route for this device before you use it. Android phones vary far more than iPhones here, and the recovery menu differs by maker. What matters on every one of them is the difference between two entries that sit in the same menu: a cache wipe keeps your data, a factory reset destroys it. Guides online reach for the reset quickly. On a phone that cannot read its own storage, the reset very often fails anyway and takes the files with it.
5. Decide about your data before you go further. The next steps in most online guides are a reset or a reinstall, and those can erase everything. If the photos matter, stop here and let it be assessed first.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full Android phone stuck on the logo guide

1. Power it off and leave it off. Do this before anything else. Water plus electricity is what destroys boards.
2. Do not plug it in. No cable, no wireless pad, no computer. Testing it by charging it is the most common way a saveable device dies.
3. Skip the rice and the hair dryer. Apple says do not use rice, because rice particles can damage the device, and it does nothing to water sealed inside anyway. Heat is worse.
4. Dry the outside and get it assessed today. Wipe it down, open the SIM tray if it has one, leave it somewhere with airflow. Corrosion starts within hours and salt or pool water is the worst kind.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Water damaged phone: what to do

1. Take the case off and get it out of the sun. Cases trap heat, and a phone left on a dashboard or charging in the sun will get hot on its own. Fast charging on a Galaxy generates real heat by design, so hot while fast charging and cool otherwise is normal behaviour rather than a fault.
2. Check what is running. Settings, then Battery, lists usage by app, and Samsung's Device care shows what is running in the background. One app dominating that list is software and it is free to fix.
3. Notice whether it is hot while idle. Warm during a game or a long video call is normal. Hot in your pocket doing nothing is not, and hot around the battery specifically is the one to take seriously.
4. Check the charging behaviour. Getting hot only while charging, especially with a cheap or damaged cable, points at the charger or the port rather than the phone.

Full Android phone overheating guide

1. Check the storage. A phone with almost no free storage slows down badly. Look at the storage screen in settings. Clearing space costs nothing.
2. Restart it. A plain restart clears a lot. Phones that go months without one get slower and slower.
3. Check the battery health. A worn battery can make a phone throttle itself to avoid shutting down, and slow is how that feels. The battery health screen tells you where you stand.
4. Try it in safe mode. Safe mode starts the phone with your downloaded apps disabled. If it is quick in safe mode, an app is your problem, not the phone.

Full Android phone running slow guide

1. Read the real battery number. Samsung does not put a capacity percentage in Settings the way Apple does. The check is the Samsung Members app: open it, tap the Support tab, tap Get Started under Phone diagnostics, and when it finishes tap the Battery status icon. Samsung reports a word rather than a number, and there are three: Normal means no performance issue, Weak means efficiency has dropped through age or conditions, and Bad means the battery has significantly degraded and should be looked at. On a non-Samsung Android there is often no built-in health figure at all, which is worth knowing before you go hunting for one.
2. Find out what is draining it. Settings, then Battery, lists usage by app. Samsung phones also have Background usage limits in the same area, which shows what has been allowed to run when you were not using it.
3. Count the years. Most phone and laptop batteries are worn out somewhere around three to four years of daily charging. If yours is that old and drains fast, the battery is very likely the whole answer. The cycle count matters more than the age, which is why the check above is worth the two minutes.
4. Notice sudden shutdowns. Dying well above zero, or shutting down the moment something demands power, is a battery that can no longer deliver current under load. That is a clear battery result whatever the health screen claims.

Full Android phone battery draining fast guide

1. Stop charging it right now. Do not leave it on a charger while you read this. Unplug it.
2. Look for the tell-tale on this device. On most Android phones the back cover is what moves. The rear panel lifts at a corner or along an edge, the phone rocks when you press opposite corners on a table, and on a glass-backed Galaxy the back can craze or separate cleanly along one side. If the screen itself is lifting instead, the swelling is well advanced.
3. Check the health figure only if it is safe to. Samsung does not put a capacity percentage in Settings the way Apple does. The check is the Samsung Members app: open it, tap the Support tab, tap Get Started under Phone diagnostics, and when it finishes tap the Battery status icon. A swollen cell often still reports as healthy, so a good reading does not clear it. The physical signs beat the software every time. If the device is hot, do not sit there navigating menus on it.
4. Do not press it and never puncture it. Do not try to push a lifting screen or a bulging cover back down. A punctured cell can ignite in seconds and the fumes are toxic.
5. Get it somewhere safe and get it booked. Off, away from anything flammable, not in a bag with you, not on a plane. Bring it in and we will make it safe and replace the cell.

Full Android phone swollen or hot battery guide

1. Write down the exact message. The precise error text or the exact screen you land on is the difference between a five minute fix and a board job. Photograph it if you can.
2. Do the force restart once. Press and hold the Power or Side button and Volume Down at the same time for at least 7 seconds. Let go when the logo appears and the phone vibrates.
3. Unplug everything and try again. Accessories, drives, hubs and dongles. A single failing external device stops plenty of machines from starting, and unplugging is free.
4. Read the screen it stops on, it is device specific. Note which screen it stops on. A Download or Odin mode screen means it is waiting for a computer, not broken. A recovery menu means the system partition is reachable. A message about a corrupt partition, or a phone that reboots itself part way through the maker logo, is the storage. On a Samsung, an unlocked bootloader warning that was never there before matters and is worth telling us.
5. Stop before you reset or reinstall. Almost every guide online tells you to reset or reinstall next. Those can erase everything. If your files are not backed up, stop here.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full Android phone starts but will not load guide

1. Do the power drain properly. Unplug the charger. If the battery comes out without tools, take it out. Hold the power button down for about 30 seconds, then refit the battery and plug the charger back in. Draining residual power clears a surprising number of laptops that look dead. It costs nothing and cannot lose your files.
2. Charge it for 30 minutes on a charger you trust. A deeply flat laptop battery can need half an hour on the charger before it will respond at all. Leave it plugged in properly before you decide it is dead. Use a different cable, a different plug and a different wall socket, because any of the three can be the fault.
3. Look in the charging port. Check the charging socket on the laptop for play or wobble. A socket that moves when you waggle the plug is a physical connector fault, and it will only get worse.
4. Listen and look for any sign of life. Press power and pay attention. A fan, a click, a beep, a light or a faint backlight glow all mean it is powering up and the fault is further along. Total silence and no lights is a different fault to a machine that starts but shows nothing.

Laptop will not turn on: repair or replace

1. Change one thing at a time. Swap the cable. Then the plug. Then the wall socket. Use a set you have watched charge another device today. Most charging faults are a failed cable, and cables fail far more often than phones do.
2. Look into the port with a torch. Check the charging socket on the laptop for play or wobble. A socket that moves when you waggle the plug is a physical connector fault, and it will only get worse.
3. Give it 30 minutes before judging. A deeply flat laptop battery can need half an hour on the charger before it will respond at all. Leave it plugged in properly before you decide it is dead.
4. Watch what it does when you plug in. Does it show a charging symbol and then stop? Does it charge only if you hold the cable at an angle? Does it charge from a computer but not the wall? Each of those points somewhere different, and it is the detail worth telling us.

Full Windows laptop not charging guide

1. Confirm it is actually running. Sounds, vibration, fans, a charging chime or a faint glow in a dark room all mean the device is alive and only the picture is missing. That is good news: it is a display fault, not a dead device.
2. Do the power drain. Unplug the charger. If the battery comes out without tools, take it out. Hold the power button down for about 30 seconds, then refit the battery and plug the charger back in. A frozen device with a working screen looks exactly like a broken screen.
3. Test with an external screen. Connect an external monitor or a TV with HDMI. If a picture appears on the external screen, the laptop is running fine and the fault is the built-in screen or its backlight, not the machine.
4. Check the brightness and the obvious. Wind the brightness right up. On a laptop check you have not switched output to a display that is not there, and give the lid switch area a look. Silly causes are common and free.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full Windows laptop black screen but it is running guide

1. Let it sit for 30 minutes. After a big update a device can genuinely take a long time on the logo. Plug it in, leave it alone and come back. Pulling the plug during an update is how a slow boot becomes a broken one.
2. Do the power drain once. Unplug the charger. If the battery comes out without tools, take it out. Hold the power button down for about 30 seconds, then refit the battery and plug the charger back in. Once. Repeated forced restarts on a device that is struggling to read its own storage make things worse, not better.
3. Note exactly where it stops. Logo then black. Logo then restart, over and over. Logo with a progress bar that stalls at the same point every time. A loop and a freeze are different faults, and where it stops is the most useful thing you can tell us.
4. Know the recovery route for this device before you use it. Windows gives you a real diagnostic before anyone reinstalls: if it fails to start twice, the third attempt should drop into the recovery environment on its own. Startup Repair there is free and non-destructive. The entry to avoid is Reset this PC, which is offered in the same menu and can remove everything. If the drive is not even listed in the BIOS, no amount of repairing Windows will help, and that is a storage fault with your files on it.
5. Decide about your data before you go further. The next steps in most online guides are a reset or a reinstall, and those can erase everything. If the photos matter, stop here and let it be assessed first.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full Windows laptop stuck on the logo guide

1. Power it off and leave it off. Do this before anything else. Water plus electricity is what destroys boards.
2. Do not plug it in. No cable, no wireless pad, no computer. Testing it by charging it is the most common way a saveable device dies.
3. Skip the rice and the hair dryer. Apple says do not use rice, because rice particles can damage the device, and it does nothing to water sealed inside anyway. Heat is worse.
4. Dry the outside and get it assessed today. Wipe it down, open the SIM tray if it has one, leave it somewhere with airflow. Corrosion starts within hours and salt or pool water is the worst kind.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full Windows laptop got wet guide

1. Find out what is using the processor. Open Task Manager with Control, Shift and Escape, and sort by CPU. One process pinned near 100 per cent is a software fault and it is free to fix. Windows Update and the search indexer both do this for a while after a big update, then stop.
2. Look at the vents. Hold it up and look into the intake and exhaust grilles. A grey felt mat of dust is extremely common and it is the single most likely cause of a laptop that runs hot and loud. Most Windows laptops pull air in through the base, so a blocked underside matters as much as the side vent.
3. Take it off soft surfaces. Beds, couches and laps block the intakes. Run it on a hard flat surface for an hour and see whether the behaviour changes.
4. Note when it happens. Hot only under load is normal to a point. Hot at idle, hot enough to be uncomfortable, or shutting itself down are all signs of a cooling system that is not doing its job.

Full Windows laptop overheating guide

1. Check the free space on the drive. A drive with almost nothing free will crawl, because Windows needs room for its page file and updates. Under about 10 per cent free is enough to make a healthy machine feel broken. Storage settings will show what is eating it, and clearing space is free.
2. Restart it properly. Not sleep, not close the lid. A full restart. Machines that are never shut down accumulate processes that eat memory.
3. Watch what starts with the machine. Task Manager, then the Start-up apps tab, rates every program that launches with Windows by its impact. Disabling the heavy ones there is free, reversible, and often the single biggest change you can make to a slow laptop.
4. Listen for a clicking or grinding drive. On an older laptop with a spinning hard drive, noise plus slowness is a failing drive. Windows will often also log disk errors and sit at 100 per cent disk usage in Task Manager while doing nothing. That is a data emergency, not a tune-up. Stop and read the data warning below.

Full Windows laptop running slow guide

1. Read the real battery number. Windows has a proper battery report built in and almost nobody knows it is there. Open Command Prompt and run powercfg /batteryreport. It writes an HTML file into the folder you are sitting in and tells you where. Open that file in a browser. The report gives you the one comparison that settles it: DESIGN CAPACITY against FULL CHARGE CAPACITY. Design is what the battery held when it was made, full charge is what it holds today. A battery down near half its design capacity is worn out, and the report says so in numbers you can read yourself rather than a status word. It also charts the drop over the life of the machine.
2. Find out what is draining it. The same battery report has a Battery usage section, and Task Manager sorted by power usage names the culprit live. A laptop that drains while the lid is shut is usually a sleep setting rather than a worn cell, and that costs nothing to change.
3. Count the years. Most phone and laptop batteries are worn out somewhere around three to four years of daily charging. If yours is that old and drains fast, the battery is very likely the whole answer. The cycle count matters more than the age, which is why the check above is worth the two minutes.
4. Notice sudden shutdowns. Dying well above zero, or shutting down the moment something demands power, is a battery that can no longer deliver current under load. That is a clear battery result whatever the health screen claims.

Full Windows laptop battery draining fast guide

1. Stop charging it right now. Do not leave it on a charger while you read this. Unplug it.
2. Look for the tell-tale on this device. On a laptop the battery usually sits under the palm rest, so the deck is what moves. The trackpad stops clicking properly or feels like it is already pressed, the keyboard deck bows up in the middle, and the laptop rocks on a flat table instead of sitting on all four feet. Close the lid and look along it end on. A gap that has opened at the front is a cell pushing the case apart.
3. Check the health figure only if it is safe to. Windows has a proper battery report built in and almost nobody knows it is there. Open Command Prompt and run powercfg /batteryreport. It writes an HTML file into the folder you are sitting in and tells you where. Open that file in a browser. A swollen cell often still reports as healthy, so a good reading does not clear it. The physical signs beat the software every time. If the device is hot, do not sit there navigating menus on it.
4. Do not press it and never puncture it. Do not try to push a lifting screen or a bulging cover back down. A punctured cell can ignite in seconds and the fumes are toxic.
5. Get it somewhere safe and get it booked. Off, away from anything flammable, not in a bag with you, not on a plane. Bring it in and we will make it safe and replace the cell.

Full Windows laptop swollen or hot battery guide

1. Write down the exact message. The precise error text or the exact screen you land on is the difference between a five minute fix and a board job. Photograph it if you can.
2. Do the power drain once. Unplug the charger. If the battery comes out without tools, take it out. Hold the power button down for about 30 seconds, then refit the battery and plug the charger back in.
3. Unplug everything and try again. Accessories, drives, hubs and dongles. A single failing external device stops plenty of machines from starting, and unplugging is free.
4. Read the screen it stops on, it is device specific. Windows stop codes are specific and worth copying down exactly. INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE points at the drive or its controller. CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED usually means system files. A message about no bootable device, or a BIOS that does not list the drive at all, means the storage is not being seen and that is the urgent one for your files. Photograph the screen rather than paraphrasing it.
5. Stop before you reset or reinstall. Almost every guide online tells you to reset or reinstall next. Those can erase everything. If your files are not backed up, stop here.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full Windows laptop starts but will not load guide

1. Do the power reset properly. Apple's first step: make sure the power cable is undamaged and plugged securely into the Mac and into a working wall socket. Try a different socket you know works. None of these steps erase anything. Work through them in Apple's order before you assume the machine is dead.
2. Charge it for 30 minutes on a charger you trust. A deeply flat MacBook can need half an hour on a known good charger before it shows any sign of life. Use the original charger if you have it. Use a different cable, a different plug and a different wall socket, because any of the three can be the fault.
3. Look in the charging port. Check the charging port for lint and check the cable for damage at the strain point near the plug. Apple's first instruction is literally to confirm the cable is undamaged.
4. Listen and look for any sign of life. Press power and pay attention. A fan, a click, a beep, a light or a faint backlight glow all mean it is powering up and the fault is further along. Total silence and no lights is a different fault to a machine that starts but shows nothing.

Full Mac will not turn on guide

1. Change one thing at a time. Swap the cable. Then the plug. Then the wall socket. Use a set you have watched charge another device today. Most charging faults are a failed cable, and cables fail far more often than phones do.
2. Look into the port with a torch. Check the charging port for lint and check the cable for damage at the strain point near the plug. Apple's first instruction is literally to confirm the cable is undamaged.
3. Give it 30 minutes before judging. A deeply flat MacBook can need half an hour on a known good charger before it shows any sign of life. Use the original charger if you have it.
4. Watch what it does when you plug in. Does it show a charging symbol and then stop? Does it charge only if you hold the cable at an angle? Does it charge from a computer but not the wall? Each of those points somewhere different, and it is the detail worth telling us.

Full Mac not charging guide

1. Confirm it is actually running. Sounds, vibration, fans, a charging chime or a faint glow in a dark room all mean the device is alive and only the picture is missing. That is good news: it is a display fault, not a dead device.
2. Do the power reset. Apple's first step: make sure the power cable is undamaged and plugged securely into the Mac and into a working wall socket. Try a different socket you know works. A frozen device with a working screen looks exactly like a broken screen.
3. Test with an external screen. Connect an external monitor. If a picture appears there, the Mac is running and the fault is the built-in display or its backlight, not the machine itself.
4. Check the brightness and the obvious. Wind the brightness right up. On a laptop check you have not switched output to a display that is not there, and give the lid switch area a look. Silly causes are common and free.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full Mac black screen but it is running guide

1. Let it sit for 30 minutes. After a big update a device can genuinely take a long time on the logo. Plug it in, leave it alone and come back. Pulling the plug during an update is how a slow boot becomes a broken one.
2. Do the power reset once. Apple's first step: make sure the power cable is undamaged and plugged securely into the Mac and into a working wall socket. Try a different socket you know works. Once. Repeated forced restarts on a device that is struggling to read its own storage make things worse, not better.
3. Note exactly where it stops. Logo then black. Logo then restart, over and over. Logo with a progress bar that stalls at the same point every time. A loop and a freeze are different faults, and where it stops is the most useful thing you can tell us.
4. Know the recovery route for this device before you use it. Which Mac you have changes the entire procedure, and this is the step most guides get wrong. On a Mac with Apple silicon you turn it on and keep holding the power button until the startup options screen appears with a gear icon labelled Options, and safe mode and Recovery both live behind that screen. On an Intel Mac you hold Command-R at startup for Recovery, Shift for safe mode, and Option-Command-P-R to reset NVRAM. Holding Command-R on an Apple silicon Mac does nothing at all, which is why people conclude the machine is dead when it is not.
5. Decide about your data before you go further. The next steps in most online guides are a reset or a reinstall, and those can erase everything. If the photos matter, stop here and let it be assessed first.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full Mac stuck on the logo guide

1. Power it off and leave it off. Do this before anything else. Water plus electricity is what destroys boards.
2. Do not plug it in. No cable, no wireless pad, no computer. Testing it by charging it is the most common way a saveable device dies.
3. Skip the rice and the hair dryer. Apple says do not use rice, because rice particles can damage the device, and it does nothing to water sealed inside anyway. Heat is worse.
4. Dry the outside and get it assessed today. Wipe it down, open the SIM tray if it has one, leave it somewhere with airflow. Corrosion starts within hours and salt or pool water is the worst kind.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

MacBook liquid damage repair

1. Find out what is using the processor. Open Activity Monitor from Applications, then Utilities, and sort by CPU. One process pinned near 100 per cent is a software fault and it is free to fix. After a macOS update, Spotlight reindexing runs the fans hard for a day and then settles.
2. Look at the vents. Look along the hinge vent and the side slots. MacBooks take in far less air than a typical Windows laptop and dust them up accordingly. Note also that a fanless MacBook Air has no fan to get loud, so on those the only symptom is heat and a machine that slows right down.
3. Take it off soft surfaces. Beds, couches and laps block the intakes. Run it on a hard flat surface for an hour and see whether the behaviour changes.
4. Note when it happens. Hot only under load is normal to a point. Hot at idle, hot enough to be uncomfortable, or shutting itself down are all signs of a cooling system that is not doing its job.

Full Mac overheating guide

1. Check the free space on the drive. macOS needs headroom to work and gets noticeably unwell when it runs out. System Settings, then General, then Storage shows what is using the space and offers to clear the caches. Clearing space is free.
2. Restart it properly. Not sleep, not close the lid. A full restart. Machines that are never shut down accumulate processes that eat memory.
3. Watch what starts with the machine. System Settings, then General, then Login Items lists what starts with the Mac, including background items installed by apps you may have deleted. Activity Monitor sorted by memory shows what is actually holding the machine down.
4. Listen for a clicking or grinding drive. On an older Mac with a spinning drive, noise plus slowness is a failing disk and that is a data emergency rather than a tune-up. On any Mac with Apple silicon the storage is soldered to the board, so a drive that is failing is a board job and the data question comes first. Stop and read the data warning below.

Full Mac running slow guide

1. Read the real battery number. macOS hides the useful number one level down. Hold the Option key, click the Apple menu, and choose System Information. Under Hardware, select Power. Cycle Count sits in the Battery Information section, next to a Condition line. Apple designs a Mac laptop battery to hold up to 80 per cent of its original capacity at its maximum cycle count, and recommends replacement once you reach that count. The cycle count is the honest number here, because a Condition of Normal on a battery with a very high cycle count still means a battery at the end of its design life.
2. Find out what is draining it. Activity Monitor has an Energy tab, and the Battery pane in System Settings lists apps using significant energy. A Mac that drains in a bag is often failing to sleep properly, which is a setting, not a battery.
3. Count the years. Most phone and laptop batteries are worn out somewhere around three to four years of daily charging. If yours is that old and drains fast, the battery is very likely the whole answer. The cycle count matters more than the age, which is why the check above is worth the two minutes.
4. Notice sudden shutdowns. Dying well above zero, or shutting down the moment something demands power, is a battery that can no longer deliver current under load. That is a clear battery result whatever the health screen claims.

Full Mac battery draining fast guide

1. Stop charging it right now. Do not leave it on a charger while you read this. Unplug it.
2. Look for the tell-tale on this device. The MacBook tell is the trackpad, because the cells sit directly underneath it. The click goes vague, or stops entirely, or the trackpad sits proud of the case. After that the bottom case bows so the machine rocks on a table, and the lid stops closing flush. A MacBook whose trackpad has stopped clicking has a swollen battery until proven otherwise, and it is the most reliable single sign on any device we see.
3. Check the health figure only if it is safe to. macOS hides the useful number one level down. Hold the Option key, click the Apple menu, and choose System Information. Under Hardware, select Power. Cycle Count sits in the Battery Information section, next to a Condition line. A swollen cell often still reports as healthy, so a good reading does not clear it. The physical signs beat the software every time. If the device is hot, do not sit there navigating menus on it.
4. Do not press it and never puncture it. Do not try to push a lifting screen or a bulging cover back down. A punctured cell can ignite in seconds and the fumes are toxic.
5. Get it somewhere safe and get it booked. Off, away from anything flammable, not in a bag with you, not on a plane. Bring it in and we will make it safe and replace the cell.

Full Mac swollen or hot battery guide

1. Write down the exact message. The precise error text or the exact screen you land on is the difference between a five minute fix and a board job. Photograph it if you can.
2. Do the power reset once. Apple's first step: make sure the power cable is undamaged and plugged securely into the Mac and into a working wall socket. Try a different socket you know works.
3. Unplug everything and try again. Accessories, drives, hubs and dongles. A single failing external device stops plenty of machines from starting, and unplugging is free.
4. Read the screen it stops on, it is device specific. A folder with a question mark means the Mac cannot find a startup disk at all. A circle with a line through it means it found one it cannot use. A prohibited sign or a kernel panic message that restarts the machine points at software or a driver. On Apple silicon the storage is soldered to the board, so a disk that is genuinely missing is a board-level job and the data conversation comes before the repair conversation.
5. Stop before you reset or reinstall. Almost every guide online tells you to reset or reinstall next. Those can erase everything. If your files are not backed up, stop here.

If the data matters more than the device, stop here. Repeated power-on attempts are what destroy recoverable files. Say so when you book and it is handled as a recovery job first.

Full Mac starts but will not load guide