Top 6 Working From Home Tech Issues
Working from home brings with it so many new challenges and, a lot of the time, it means using your device in ways that you’ve never had need to before.
To try and save you some hassle, and some heartache, please find below the top 6 things you might run into issues with, while working from home, or with a new computer from us to work from home with!
Please also excuse the pictures - you’re seeing the back of my unit I’m working from home with, no fancy studio shots here!
Number 6 issue when Working from home
I’m in need of a new charger for the laptop but I don’t know what it requires
The first thing, would be to contact our sales team, with the model or order number, and they can let you know the correct one on our website.
If for some reason the unit is incredibly old, and it’s not something we’re able to source, you can generally find the requirements from the following information on the sticker on the bottom
Number 5 issue when Working from home
Just installed Windows, but the driver disc for my laptop has nowhere to go, as this laptop doesn’t have a disc drive
That’s not a problem at all, a lot of manufacturers will generally still supply the Driver Disc, simply because they’re unaware of what the end configuration of the unit may look like. We keep an up to date list of our drivers on our Forum pages from the following link:
If you need to find the correct model number of your laptop, this will be on the bottom on the black sticker, like below:
Number 4 issue when Working from home
Unable to connect to Wifi
If this is on a Laptop, you might have the hotkey for Wifi disabled, this is very similar to your Webcam hot key listed below; on my keyboard this looks like a Plane symbol to indicate “Airplane mode”. This can also end up disabling your bluetooth, so worth checking if you’re getting no bluetooth connections as well!
Just press the “fn” key and that key together to enable Wifi again.
Number 3 issue when Working from home
No Audio or Microphone
This is very similar to number 1 on our list, in that a lot of the time it's going to come down to making sure you have everything plugged in correctly; and then having Windows settings correctly set. First of all, the key thing to remember is that any 3.5mm audio jack you use: Green is for Speakers, Pink is for Microphone, so while on my board below in the circled area it is labelled, some boards will not be.
Here in mine, I just have my speakers plugged in via the 3.5mm audio jack, as my Microphone is actually USB based. Once those are plugged in, we need to check our settings!
Head to the bottom right of your screen and RIGHT CLICK the Volume Icon, and then LEFT CLICK “Open Sound Settings” like below:
From the new window that opens up, like below, you will have 2 drop down menus, one for “Output” and one for “Input.” You need to make sure that your output drop down is set to the physical device you wish to give you audio sounds, such as your speakers. You will need to make sure your input is set to your Microphone. Below the input section is a little “Test your microphone” area - if you talk into your microphone, that bar should turn blue to show it’s picking up sound.
Number 2 issue when Working from home
Webcam on the laptop is not working
The most common cause of this problem, is your Webcam being disabled with your laptop hot keys. If you take a look at your keyboard on the laptop, along the Function keys, they will have pictures on them. One of those, will be relevant to your webcam. If you press “Fn” + that function key, you will enable the camera. See the image below for what that looks like on my Laptop:
Number 1 issue when Working from home
There is no display on your screen from your new computer
This is a general problem a lot of people still struggle with when receiving a new computer from us, and is actually one of the easiest things to solve.
Your new computer from us will very likely have come with a graphics card preinstalled physically in the system. You will need to make sure any monitor you plug in is connected to this Graphics card, as any connection from your onboard Motherboard monitor connections will be disabled due to this.
Please see the Red Circled Area below, of where to roughly find your graphics card connections.
Hopefully these should help clear up any common issues you have! If not, however, you’re always welcome to give our Technical Support Team a call on 02392 322 500. You can also email us at customer.services@novatech.co.uk
If you’re able to have your order information handy, that will greatly help us speed up your support request, and help as many people as we can during these trying times.