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Tech Tips

Computers, phones and the home network. The fixes that solve most of it before anybody needs to be paid to look at it.

Edited by Sam Allcock

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Sections

Computer TipsSpeed, storage, backups and the maintenance nobody does until it is too late.Phone TipsBattery, storage and getting a few more years out of a handset.Wi-Fi and Broadband TipsWhy the signal is bad in that one room, and what actually fixes it.

Calculators for this section

What does it actually cost?

A search will give you somebody's average. These give you your own number, at your rate and your usage, with the sum shown so you can check it rather than trust it.

Appliance Running Cost CalculatorWhat any appliance costs per use, per week and per year, with the sum shown and every figure editable.
Electricity 26.11p per kWh, gas 7.33p per kWh. Ofgem price cap average for 1 July to 30 September 2026.

The data

Figure25 MbpsWhat one 4K video stream needs. Almost everything else in a house needs far less, which is why most broadband upgrades change nothing.
Figure20 to 80%The state of charge where lithium phone batteries age slowest. Heat does more damage than charge cycles do.
Figure3 copies, 2 media, 1 offsiteThe backup rule. A single external drive next to the computer defends against one failure out of five.

Newest tech tips

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5017
What to do when the internet goes down

Check whether it is your line or the provider, restart the router, and check the master socket. Most faults are one of those three and none of them need an engineer.

Troubleshooting
5016
How to secure your home network

Change the router's admin password, keep WPA2 or WPA3 encryption on, update the firmware, and put smart home gadgets on a guest network.

Security
5015
How to speed up a slow connection without paying more

Use the 5GHz band for nearby devices, plug in anything that does not move, restart the router properly, and check for a neighbour on the same channel.

Signal
5014
Whether you need the broadband speed you pay for

Probably not. Streaming 4K takes around 25Mbps per stream, and almost everything else takes far less. What matters more is how many devices are active at once.

Contracts
5013
Why the Wi-Fi is bad in one room

Distance and what is in between. Move the router to a central, high, open position first, because it costs nothing and fixes the problem more often than any gadget.

Signal