Check everything first (common pc troubleshooting)

image taken from dansdata.com








We all know that pc's get broken from time to time, infinite ways to annoy you and up to the point that the system is inoperable. Here are some tips before you call the pc mechanic and save a lot time and money...

When you are having problems with your pc, ther are things that you might end up checking out first before reaching for help...

If it has something to do about hardware, you should always check if there are loose connections, i had experienced this several times, even with my friends computers.

They just simply have loose ends, the best way to fix it is turn off your computer and manually check them all.. if you think a certain device is the culprit, double check and see if you can resolve it.

When it comes to software problems, there are ways to check this out first

Blue screens galore? hmmm, try checking them out first.

• Video card

Here is the most common problem occuring within a common pc these days, this is the result of malfunctioning hardware,

A video card that has been overheated tends to show artifacts, i see this as green spots on my screen while gaming, check if there is a good ventilation of your card, these happen especially with cards that have big fans and starts to clog, dust them if you want, if you see the fans moving slower than usual, put some machine oil on them.

A rule of the thumb is, if you touch the heatsink ( the plate that attaches to the video card , usually made of aluminum or copper) you'd get a burning sensation, if not, its not the problem.

• Ram

You might as well check if the installed ram modules are clean and in good condition, there are a few programs that can check if this is a problem. You can try memtest (search it on google.com) and follow the instructions there to check.

Clean the metal ends that connect the modules to your pc, some might have dust on them and just a false alarm of impending hardware failure.

• Hard disks /softwares...
  

You can notice them when there is a significant rise in the loading times of your programs. This is another common problem with a pc.

Use scandisk first to check the file system and other things that concerns them. if the problem is solved, just run them from time to time as this problem occurs frequently along with power failures and fluctuations.

A way to prevent these voltage irregularities is use a UPS ( uninterruptible power supply) .

When you can't even get to the windows environment,

You can boot to safe mode and check for problems there (press f8 after the bios screen [first thing that opens up after you turn on your pc])

If you think you have installed a wrong driver, you can uninstall them with a good chance of repair is thru safe mode. Alternatively, you can use system restore to bring back the system to its installation state.

This is the best way to get your OS (operating system) back to normal. You can always use the original xp cd and try to recover your files back. Set your bios settings on the first boot device to CD-ROM, put the cd in, and restart, it should ask for instructions, just press any button after the bios screen. There are two choices, either reformat or repair..

We will with the repain on this situation, press the "r" button to get it onto the MS-DOS screen and type these things,,,,, this usually helps..

chkdsk

Also, you can type help if you want to see the full commands. after you have finished, just type exit and this helps sometimes if it relates to the hard disk problems.

• Other pc parts...

If youur pc shuts down after a while, the problem lies within the processor being hot or the PSU ( power supply unit) . pc's have a fail-safe features in them, when it reaches a threshold of its heat limitations, it suddenly shuts itself down.

Check if the fan is working properly, the pc fan can accumulate a lot of dusk including its heatsink (aluminum part ,usually between the fan and the processor)

A power supply with no exhaust or broken fan seems to have this problem too, you can also use any machine oil to get it working in proper condition.

Remember to use your common sense in repairing your computer, there are a lot of people that can fix their pc's inexpensively by just learning something about the machine every now and then.


You can always ask techimo.com about your pc problems, i am not part of their website but this is by experience the best site to ask for pc related things.