Microsoft has published a new video on its Surface YouTube channel detailing the process of disassembling and repairing the Surface Laptop Studio. Besides explaining how to get into the device’s guts properly, the video reveals several unique design ideas Microsoft implemented in the Surface Laptop Studio.
You can learn more about disassembling and replacing vital parts of the Surface Laptop Studio in the video or the official documentation on the Surface website.
Windows has multiple ways to do this. We will see it with the command prompt and the network settings area.
And it would help to know that Windows designates the router as Default Gateway.
Open Command Prompt and type ipconfig and press enter:
The IP address given against the Default Gateway is the one we were trying to find. For instance, mine is 192.168.1.1
Now let’s try finding this from the network section.
Enter ncpa.cpl in the Run to directly navigate to Network Connections:
Double click the connection name (ex., Ethernet) to access related settings. Finally, click on Details, and locate the Default Gateway.
One of the techniques for the Linux people is to have the router’s IP from the terminal.
Open the terminal, type ip r, and hit enter to find the default IP address.
(this should work for most Linux distros)
Looking up your router’s IP address on Android is a three-step process. The first one is to navigate to the WiFi settings. You can do this from the notification panel by long-pressing the name of your WiFi network. Or, you can enter into Settings > Network & internet > Wi-Fi.
Afterward, tap the Gear icon (⚙️).
Subsequently, open the Advanced panel, and scroll down to the Gateway to find out the router’s IP address.
However, these steps depend on the Android type you may have. For instance, the preceding steps are valid for stock Android version 10.0.
But a Samsung Android 11.0 user will have to go through this to find the IP address of the WiFi router.
Here, the IP address is in the URL bar, redirecting to the router’s setup page. Conclusively, this might be slightly different based on which Android device you have.
Choosing the operating system
The two major desktop operating systems in the market are Windows and Chrome OS.
Windows 10 is affordable, most used and supports almost every software in comparison to Chrome OS. It is useful for students, researchers, businesspersons and gamers.
Chrome OS offers fewer features than Windows. If you are looking for a device just for internet browsing, media consumption and completing your assignments, then a Chromebook will be a good choice.
Screen size
Currently, the laptops in the market have screen sizes that range between 11 and 17 inches. Although 15.6 is a standard, laptops with a screen size between 12 and 14 inches are easier to carry around. Not just that, but the resolution matters too. If possible, you should always go for at least 1920×1080 resolution, also called FHD.
CPU, GPU, RAM, Storage
While Intel CPUs were quite famous earlier, AMD’s new Ryzen CPUs have been giving tough competition to them in recent times. If you want to go for an Intel processor, you can choose the latest generation chipsets, and the performance will keep increasing as you go from Celeron to Pentium to Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, and also Core i9. Always try to go for the latest generation. If you want AMD’s Ryzen 4000 and Ryzen 5000 series, you will get the same or better performance at a lesser price, as they have been designed to compete with Intel Core i5 and Core i7 at lesser prices.
GPU: If you are not going to play PC games, edit videos/photos or do other graphics-heavy tasks, then an integrated GPU is enough for you to carry on with your daily computing work. However, if you are planning to do gaming and other heavy tasks, then you need GPUs from Nvidia or AMD to deliver the ultimate performance for both gamers and creators.
RAM: A minimum of 8GB of RAM is essential in current times and for gaming and other heavy tasks, try to get 16GB of RAM or more for a smooth experience.
Storage: SSDs are more expensive than HDDs but are up to a hundred times faster and more energy-efficient.
TPM (Trusted Platform Module) is a hardware chip that’s responsible for protecting your PC from ransomware or any other kind of hacks and malware. It’s a cryptoprocessor that holds keys to sensitive information, including your PC’s PIN or password, Windows Hello authentication data, encryption keys for Bitlocker, security-critical keys, and more.
Since it’s a hardware-based module, it’s impossible for malware to manipulate it through traditional software methods. Hence, the TPM chip becomes an elevated, hardware-based “root-of-trust” that the OS can always trust.
To give a parallel example in the Android world, Samsung adds a separate Knox chip that does hardware-based authentication for passwords, payments, confidential files, etc. All this shows that hardware-based protection is the way to go, and Microsoft is right in including the TPM requirement for Windows 11.
The TPM module generally comes built-in with the CPU, but for custom-built PCs, you will find a TPM header on the motherboard where you can attach a compatible TPM module. At least since 2014, almost all the processors have come with the TPM module onboard. Intel started integrating TPM on its chips with the Haswell architecture (2013, 4th-Gen) except for the K-series, which got the integrated Trusted Platform Module with 6th-Gen (2015). The TPM security chip is integrated right into the CPU from Ryzen 2500 (2017) and onwards. Below, you can find out the steps for how to enable TPM on your Windows 10 PC.
The WAN Port, one of the most important ports on your router, but where is it for? And how do you recognize it? The WAN port looks exactly the same as the LAN ports on your router, but there is a big difference between the two.
WAN stands for Wide Area Network which is basically the internet. The WAN Port is used to connect the router to your internet connection. Your ISP has supplied you with a modem that builds up the internet connection. But to distribute the internet connection through your home network you will need a router.
The router is connected to the modem. This allows it to access the internet. All your local network devices, like your computers, mobile phone, printer, are connected wired or wireless to your router.
It’s the router’s job to route the traffic between your local network devices and the modem. This allows each network device to access the internet.
Besides the WAN port, you will also find LAN ports on the backside of the router. Most routers come with 4 LAN ports and only 1 WAN port. LAN stands for Local Area Network and is used to connect your local network device to your home network. Devices connected to the LAN ports can see (connect to) each other, which is useful if you want to access your network printer or NAS.
WAN ports are only used to connect your router to your internet connection. The WAN and LAN ports look the same, and may even be placed next to each other. But internally they are separated with a firewall. This way devices connected to the WAN port (everybody on the internet) can’t access your devices that are connected to the LAN ports.
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