troubleshooting strategies

basic concept and some helps;

introduction

To the untrained, troubleshooting today’s PC systems must seem a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack. People assume that they need to know everything about all the different parts of a computer system to diagnose and solve a problem. However with the right knowledge and skills to logically analyse the situation, diagnosing and curing problems is based much less on remembering every fault condition and more on using your own skill and judgement.

It is still vital to have a good working knowledge of PC technology. You also need to know the correct techniques to diagnose problems and put them right. In this section I plan to give you an easy and logical troubleshooting process and give you some examples of this process being used.

basic concept...

Troubleshooting can be summarized in three steps as shown below.

1. analyse the symptoms and isolate the problem

You must know what symptoms to check and how to check them methodically to isolate the problem.

2. rectify the problem

You must know how to repair, replace, refit, reinstall and upgrade the system to fix the problem.

3. reduce the chance of the same problem occurring

You must know when and where to look for underlying causes or potential causes of the problem. And know how to help prevent related faults from occurring on repaired systems.

Below is a diagram I have made to help you understand the entire troubleshooting process:

troubleshooting process

To become proficient in the first of the three troubleshooting steps (analysing the symptoms) you need:

  1. practical experience in the use of diagnostic methods;
  2. a good working knowledge of John’s system hardware and operation system (64-bit Windows XP).

Some parts of the computer system have a direct role to play in making sure the system is configured correctly, they also help in diagnosing and sometimes rectifying problems once they occur. These include: the BIOS (CMOS setup) and POST. I will expand upon these two important elements shortly.

To be able to rectify problems (the second part of the process) quickly and effectively you will require:

  1. a good working knowledge of John’s system;
  2. practical experience of handling system parts;
  3. a working knowledge of Windows XP;
  4. experience of Windows utilities such as: task manager and device manager.

Reducing the chance of the same problem occurring (the third part) is the area that separates the novice from the professional. Knowing when and where to look for underlying causes of a particular fault and not just the fault itself is the pièce de résistance (most important aspect) of good troubleshooting. To develop this skill requires practise. However you can apply this reasoning to basic faults.
            For example: if John’s CPU fails, do not just replace it and re-commission his system. First ask yourself, ‘what could have caused it to fail?’ ‘Are the settings correct?’ ‘Is the fan working correctly?’ You should check these factors and correct them if necessary. It is also good practise to leave the system on for a day or two, and then recheck it. This is known as ‘Soak testing’.

POST

The POST (Power-on Self Test) is a set of routines stored in the BIOS ROM. These routines carry out tests on the major parts of the computer system to confirm their reliability. For the POST to work, the PSU, CPU, ROM and first few kilobytes of RAM must be working. If anyone of them is faulty the POST will not even function. When the POST runs if performs the following tasks:

If any of these tasks fail, POST will communicate that there is a fault, whether by a special fault code shown on screen or by a series of Morse-code type beeps. This allows you (the technician) to identify a problem with any of John's system's major hardware. John’s system has a Phoenix AwardBIOS. For a list of example system error messages including errors detected by this type of BIOS during POST and a description of what they mean and what you may do to correct the error - click here (external link).

BIOS (CMOS setup)

When you enter CMOS setup when troubleshooting the system, it is important to check and set some of the more important parameters manually rather than totally relying on the default settings.

three extra helpful fault analysis rules:

  1. always look for the obvious first;
  2. don't compound a problem by adding too many unknowns;
  3. think logically!

Bare the three above rules in mind while working through any problem with John's system.

Click next to see some real troubleshooting examples...

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