What Was Happening
A small media production company based in Hammersmith W6 contacted us after one of their staff laptops had failed completely — a drive failure that had resulted in loss of several days’ project files. They had no IT support arrangement and had never had professional maintenance done on their machines.
Following that failure, the business owner wanted the remaining three ThinkPad E14 laptops checked before any further failures occurred. The machines had all been in continuous daily use for four years in an open-plan office near King Street.
Our Approach
For a batch of business machines, the health check process produces a written condition report for each unit covering:
- Drive health (SMART data, sector analysis, estimated reliability)
- Memory test (full pass)
- Thermal performance under load (CPU and GPU temperatures, fan function)
- Startup queue (items, categories, whether each is necessary)
- Battery condition and cycle count (where applicable)
- Any physical observations (port wear, chassis condition)
Each report categorises findings by urgency: Immediate action required, Action recommended within 3 months, and Acceptable — no action needed.
Our Findings
Unit 1 (primary user machine): Drive SMART data showed a reallocated sector count of 34 and an increasing pending uncorrectable count. This machine was on the same trajectory as the unit that had already failed. The cooling system was approximately 60% blocked — the fan was running at elevated speed but thermal performance was within acceptable range for now. Classification: drive replacement immediately, cooling clean at the same time.
Unit 2 (secondary machine, used for editing): Drive SMART data showed no sector reallocation but a high raw read error rate — a different SMART indicator that flags read instability on the physical disk surface. Additionally, the startup queue had 19 items loading on boot, of which only 4 were applications the user intentionally ran. Boot time on this machine was approximately 6 minutes. Classification: drive replacement recommended within 4 weeks; startup rationalisation immediate.
Unit 3 (third machine, least used): Drive SMART was clean. Memory test passed. Thermal performance was acceptable with 40% heatsink blockage — not urgent but worth cleaning at the next scheduled maintenance. Startup queue had 11 items, several unnecessary. Battery health was at 78% of original capacity. Classification: startup clean now; everything else acceptable for 6–12 months.
How We Fixed It
We discussed the reports with the business owner before starting work. Data on all three machines was backed up before any repair work began.
Units 1 and 2: Both drives were imaged and replaced with SSDs. The cooling systems on both machines were cleaned — full teardown, heatsink cleared, thermal paste replaced. Unit 2’s startup queue was reduced from 19 items to 6.
Unit 3: Startup queue reduced from 11 to 5 items. No hardware work required.
The Result
All three machines were returned with written condition reports. Both drive failure risks had been eliminated. Boot time on Unit 2 dropped from 6 minutes to under 30 seconds following drive replacement and startup rationalisation. The business owner had a documented baseline for each machine and knew what to watch for over the next 12 months.
Why Businesses Without IT Support Benefit from Periodic Health Checks
A business with one or two machines often does not have an IT support arrangement — the cost and overhead don’t justify a managed service contract. But without any scheduled maintenance, hardware failures tend to arrive without warning and at the worst possible time.
The pattern in this case is very common: machines used in an office environment for 4–5 years, no maintenance, at least one failure at the point where multiple machines are at similar risk. The cost of the drive failure — lost project files, recovery attempts, wasted time — significantly exceeded the cost of catching it via a health check.
A batch health check every 18–24 months for a small machine fleet is a straightforward way to stay ahead of this pattern. Each check takes the machines for a day or two and returns them with documented condition information.
Prevention Tips for Business Machines
- Keep a record of the purchase date and original specifications for each machine — useful when deciding whether to repair or replace as machines age
- Ensure regular backups are in place for all work machines before a failure occurs — cloud backup for documents and a local backup for large project files
- Open-plan offices generate more airborne dust than home environments; cooling systems in office laptops should be cleaned every 18–24 months
- If a member of staff reports their machine running hot or slow, treat it as a maintenance flag rather than a complaint — the cost of investigating is low compared to the cost of the failure it may be signalling
Local Help in Hammersmith W6
We offer PC and Mac health checks at our Putney workshop, including batch checks for small business machine fleets. Free collection from W6 means the machines come to us — we return them with written reports and fixed recommendations. Evening collection slots are available for businesses that can’t spare machines during working hours.
Related Services
- PC & Mac Health Check — full diagnostic service for any laptop or desktop
- PC & Mac Health Check in Hammersmith — local service for W6 businesses and residents
More Case Studies
- PC & Mac health check — slow Windows laptop in Clapham — health check finding multiple overlapping causes on a home machine
- PC & Mac health check — slow MacBook in Wandsworth — health check finding drive failure and storage issues before failure
- Microsoft 365 email delivery failure for a Wandsworth business — another business IT case from the local area