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Troubleshooting 

Introduction to troubleshooting 

Key Topics 

Introduction To Troubleshooting 

Obtaining Information 

External Signs 

Obvious Signs 

Power Inside the Case 

Card Connections 

Minimum Working Hardware 

Other Devices 

Blown Cards 

Last Resort 

Useful Information And Tools 

System Startup Process 

System Startup Process 

Specific Device Problems 

Memory Problems 

Parallel Ports Problems 

Hard Drive Problem 

Floppy Drive Problems 

Other Floppy Drive Problems 

Modem Problems 

Overheating 

Audio Response 

Beep Codes 

Coded POST Response 

POST Error Codes 1 

What is a Viruses 

Disk Viruses 

Types of viruses 

Beating the Virus 

Diagnostic Software

Troubleshooting

Introduction to troubleshooting

  • There are a multitude of reasons why your system may go wrong which may include hardware and software  problems.

  • Using the guidelines outlined in this module  and the diagnostic  information  that your system volunteers should direct you to the source of the problem at hand.

Key Topics

  • Introduction to troubleshooting

  • External signs

  • Power  in the system

  • Minimum Working Hardware

  • Blown Cards

 

  • System Startup Process

  • Beep Codes

  • POST  error codes

  • Memory Problems

  • Storage  Problems

  • Viruses

 

 

Introduction To Troubleshooting

  • Troubleshooting is time consuming and frustrating. It requires you to be observant but can be achieved effectively if the information  within this module  is used. 

  • There are three main possible troubleshooting  problems:-

1.      Hardware  problems

2.      Configuration problem

3.       Software problem.

 

  • Software problems such as operating system  configuration will be discussed in the operating system modules.

  • Resolving configuration problems such as IRQ , IO address  and DMA  will be discussed in the hardware configuration  module .

  • Hardware  problems might be resolved going through the following investigations outlined below.

Obtaining Information

  • Obtain as much information  from the user as possible to help make initial diagnoses.

  • This sort of information  usually gives you a good starting block as to where to start your investigations on the computer.

  • Be weary of user deduction which users frequently make when informing you of the problem, Sometimes due to the users lack of technical knowledge they user may misguide you to make the wrong deduction.

External Signs

  • Make sure all cords are plugged in to the system when testing and the system is not working before attempting to open to system case .

  • Ensure the mains cable  is connected; keyboard , mouse  and even network  connectors are connected.

  • Check to see if any of the lights on the system case  light up.

  • Check to see if the monitor is switched on and plugged in to the mains and the computer.  

Obvious Signs

  • If your system gets power, you should hear the PSU  fan, the hard drive  spinning, the floppy drive , or the system speakers  make audio beep sound.

  • You should be able to see the keyboard  light lit up and case  lights turn on.

Power  Inside the Case

  • Check to see all internal cables are connected correctly inside the computer.

  • Is the power cable  from the PSU  connected to the system board ?

  • On ATX  boards make sure the power cable  from the case  is connected to its associated position on the system board .

Card Connections

  • Make sure all the cards are firmly connected to the expansion slots , cards can be made loose inside the computer when people accidentally kick the system move the computer. 

Minimum Working Hardware

  • The minimum working hardware you require on computer to obtain a visual response from the system is: -

      • System board

      • PSU  

      • Processor

      • VGA  card

      • Memory.

Other Devices

  • All other required and optional cards can be added to the system in sequence one after the other to eliminate the bad part.

  • These other devices  include: -

      • Hard drive and floppy drive

      • Other expansion cards such as modems  and network  cards .

Blown Cards

  • You can isolate the blown card or device by removing the suspect part and replacing it with a working part and then switching the system on.

 

Last Resort 

  • As a last resort you may take the whole computer apart and put it back together just incase you missed something. It might be prudent to brush the connectors of the cards with sand paper to remove the non-conductive oxidized  layer on the connector’s surface.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Useful Information  And Tools

  • There are a number of tools and ideas that could be used in your investigation of the problem. These tools include: -

a) Being aware of the startup  process of the system and noticing system deviations from that process.

b) Being very observant when investigating the system for misconnections, burnt wires, and checking the obvious signs produces for different device errors  such as storage device, floppy etc.

c) Audio  response from the system,

d) Coded response from the BIOS  POST .

e) Using the latest diagnostic  software  and hardware.

f) Using Anti virus  programs .

System Startup Process

  • The system goes through a certain number of steps in its startup  process which include the BIOS  checking the hardware in the Power  ON Self Test (POST ), The loading of the Master Boot Records (MBR ) and finally the loading of the operating system  of choice.

System Startup Process

 

 

Specific Device Problems

  • There are numerous problems that can occur within your system from the system board  to the hardware devices  connected to it. We have listed some of the more frequent problems you are liable to come across in the following tables.

  • The problems include: -

      • Port problems

      • Memory problems

      • Storage  device problems

      • Modem problems.

Memory Problems

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Parallel Ports Problems

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Hard Drive Problem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Floppy Drive Problems

 

 

 

Other Floppy Drive Problems

 

Modem Problems

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overheating

  • If you system appears to be working normally when switched  on but locks up after several minutes of use, the main reason could be your processor overheating

  • Sometimes when the computer is being relocated or it is kicked accidentally beneath the desk the heat sink could fall of the processor.

  • We could end up with the same problem if the power supply fan , the system fan, or the Processor  fan get so clogged up with dust that they stop rotating resulting in the processor overheating .

Audio  Response

  • If your system is unable to communicate visually it will communicate to you using audio codes . The audio codes produced by your system depend on the BIOS  manufacture but some of the standard ones have been listed in the beep codes  section.

Beep Codes

  • The table shows some of the standard audio codes  for the BIOS  chips used today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Coded POST  Response

  • Once your system can communicate to you visually the BIOS  will conducts its own testing of the hardware called Power  On Self Test (POST ) and inform you of any errors  in its testing by giving you a coded response on the screen

POST  Error  Codes 1

  • The following is a list  of some of the more commonly seen POSTcodes  on system startup . Detailed information  on POSTcodes can be obtained from your system board  manual .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is a Viruses

  • A virus  is a program designed to have two main functions:-

    1. Destruction of computer data/hardware

    2. Reproduction of the virus  itself on to other storage devices .

    3. The main medium for virus  transfer is either a diskette or the Internet , although it can be transferred by other mediums.

Disk Viruses

  • When a computer user places a diskette into the computer previously infected  by a virus  the virus will automatically try and transfer itself on to the disk.

  • This Virus will infect other computers when the diskette is used on them unless an anti-virus  program has previously been installed on the non-infected  computers.

Types of viruses

  • There are different designs of viruses that specialize in particular destructive or propagation methods.

  • Companion viruses : It uses the name of an existing program but has a different extension like .COM , when you need to activate the program, the .Com version will activate loading the virus .

  • Macro Virus : These viruses are written as a Macro for popular applications , MS Office and are activated when a file containing the macro is activated.

  • Polymorphic Virus : these viruses change their appearance on propagation.

  • Stealth Virus:  These viruses attempt to hide from detection and returns response to the anti-virus  probe. 

Beating the Virus

  • There is only one effective way of beating the virus , using an anti-virus program.

  • Since all viruses are different and very specific, designed to attack your system in different ways, anti-virus  programs  also need to net and destroy these viruses using various techniques. 

  • It is important to have your system installed with the latest version of  an anti-virus  program which shields your system against attacking viruses.

  • Anti Virus programs  include Norton , McAfee, and Dr Solomon that usually come with a one-year subscription so that you could update your anti-virus  program from the Internet.

Diagnostic Software

  • These programs  usually inventory  your system and inform you of the devices  visible to the BIOS , and the operating system

  • You can also check the IRQ , IO Address  and DMA  conflicts that may exist.

  • These programs  also have the ability of testing your hardware thoroughly to its limits, they test your system RAM , tests all possible data patterns on your Hard drives, checks all ports at maximum speed an more.

  • These Diagnostic programs  include Check it, PC technician, and some Norton  tools in the market..     

 

Questions

1) What is the reason that you floppy light turns on as soon as the pc is switched on?

a) Your floppy cable  is not connected

b) The floppy cable  is damaged

c) The floppy cable  is connected before the twist

d) The pin 1 position on the cable  does not match with pin1 on the floppy drive

e) The correct floppy drive  has not been defined on the BIOS

f) The boot order has been changed on the BIOS

 

2) What is the reason that your floppy drive  repeatedly shows the data on the first disk when you type DIR  despite you changing diskettes?

a) Your floppy cable  is not connected

b) The floppy cable  is damaged

c) The floppy cable  is connected before the twist

d) The pin 1 position on the cable  does not match with pin1 on the floppy drive

e) The correct floppy drive  has not been defined on the BIOS

f) The boot order has been changed on the BIOS

 

3) Why does the system not boot from the system disk in the A: drive (choose all that apply)

a) Your floppy cable  is not connected

b) The floppy cable  is damaged

c) The floppy cable  is connected before the twist

d) The pin 1 position on the cable  does not match with pin1 on the floppy drive

e) The correct floppy drive  has not been defined on the BIOS

f) The boot order has been changed on the BIOS

 

4) Why does your system stop booting from the hard drive  when a second drive is added to the IDE  cable ?

a) The drive has lost its Master boot record

b) The drive is physically damaged

c) The jumper  settings for the master and slave have not been set on the drives

d) The IDE  cable  is damaged

e) The Drive has not been partitioned

 

5) What is the problem with my single system drive which does not boot but spins when the system is powered on?

a) The drive has lost its Master boot record

b) The drive is physically damaged

c) The jumper  settings for the master and slave have not been set on the drives

d) The IDE  cable  is damaged

e) The Drive has not been partitioned

 

 

6) My previous drive failed, when I added a new drive it did not boot, what is the problem?

a) The drive has lost its Master boot record

b) The drive is physically damaged

c) The jumper  settings for the master and slave have not been set on the drives

d) The IDE  cable  is damaged

e) The Drive has not been partitioned and is non bootable

 

7) You added a non plug and play network  card to you system. the card does not operate in windows. What needs to be done to resolve the problem? (choose all that apply)

a) Manually configure the cards IRQ , DMA , and IO address

b) Move  the card to a different slot

c) Match the hardware configured values in windows

d) Install the network  card drivers  in windows

e) Replace the network  card with a plug and play card

 

8)You installed a SCSI  external scanner to your system but it does not work in windows. What needs to be done to resolve the problem? (Choose all that apply)

a) Add terminators at both ends of the chain

b) Set the SCSI  interface  card ID number

c) Install the SCSI  interface  card drivers  in windows

d) Install the scanner drivers  in windows

e) Set the Scanner ID number

 

9) You switched your system on an you received no response on the monitor from your system. What should be on your check list  to resolve the problem? (choose all that apply)

a) Listen to your system to hear the hard drive  spinning, the floppy drive , or the power supply.

b) Watch your system for visual signs such as power light etc.

c) Listen to the system speaker for POST  beep codes .

d) Make sure the monitor is connected to the system and powered

e) Make sure the system is powered

 

10) What components of your system need to be operating before you receive a visual response from your system? (choose all that apply)

a) Hard drive

b) Power  supply

c) System board

d) Processor

e) Floppy drive

f) Memory

g) VGA  card

h) Modem

i) Keyboard

 

11) Your system gives you a 601 Post error, where is the problem on your computer?

a) Hard Drive

b) VGA  card

c) Keyboard

d) Floppy drive

e) Parallel port

 

12) Your system gives you a 2405 Post error, where is the problem on your computer

a) Hard Drive

b) VGA  card

c) Keyboard

d) Floppy drive

e) Parallel port

 

13) Your system gives you a 1709 Post error, where is the problem on your computer?

a) Hard Drive

b) VGA  card

c) Keyboard

d) Floppy drive

e) Parallel port

 

14) Your system gives you a 926 Post error, where is the problem on your computer?

a) Hard Drive

b) VGA  card

c) Keyboard

d) Floppy drive

e) Parallel port

 

Answers

1.      D

2.      B

3.      A,B,C,D,E,F

4.      C

5.      A

6.      E

7.      A,C,D

8.      A,B,C,D,E

9.      A,B,C,D,E

10.  B,C,D,F,G

11.  D

12.  B

13.  A

14.  E

 

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