Be ready with any eventuality. Keep a set of tools that you can use anytime your PC bogs down. These tools should be placed strategically where you can reach for them in times of need.
You may invest on basic items such as screwdrivers for use in attaching or removing components; needle-nose pliers; tweezers for getting jumpers and hard to reach items; lint free cloth for cleaning and wiping parts; compressed air clears gummed up fans and vents to be used in reviving blinded optical drives and for data connections; electrical contact cleaner solution to improve electrical conductivity and a hand-held vacuum for sucking dirt, hair and other embedded particles.
One day you may be in panic for finding out your files have vanished from your PC. Whether the problem involves software or hard drive, you can actually pull through the mess.
So you may have added a stick of RAM and then suddenly your PC seemingly crashes down: boot routines fail and there are sudden shutdowns. This can mean you have a case of bad memory upgrade.
Also, new addition to your memory may not be compatible with the existing one. In this case try to boot your PC and enter the memory settings. From there you can reboot again and wait for results that will show how the two memory sticks react to each other.
To diagnose power supply failure, try to find out first whether or not the power is able to come on. You can determine through the fans and drives motors. If you hear beeps or sound of these two devices churning, and there are little lights on the CPU case, then it indicates power is on.
Remove the plug at once if the system case is hot since this can be a ground failure. In the case of PC’s, you can also tell if the power supply is coming with a live screen since monitors are powered independently. However it is a different case with laptops because a live screen may not always be a sign of a working power supply.
Microsoft Windows users can easily detect the available drive found in the computer by going to My Computer. By opening this window, you can see a list of the following different types of drives: a) 3 ½ Floppy b) Local Disk C; c) New Volume (D); and d) New Volume (E). These are all hard disk drives installed on this computer.
Lastly the Compact Disc (F) is the optical disk drive in the computer which could be the computer CD-ROM, CD-R, CDE-RW, RVD, DVD-R and others. If you double click icon, you will find the contents of the disk on the drive.
Overheating in CPUs is mostly caused by handling during shipment. The heat sink probably fell off. This is often left unchecked until such time that the CPU starts to overheat because people seldom check items that reach them from shipping, What they usually do is just run a virus scan then back up the system and open the PC case to look inside, but with no particular concern whatsoever with the heat sink.
If you suddenly smell burning while working on your PC, you should unplug the unit immediately. Don’t look around anymore for the source of burning wherever it may come from. Just disconnect it at once. Next thing you should do is call the manufacturer if the machine is still under purchase warranty.
The following faults are commonly associated with memory related failures: 1) Windows program is unstable 2) There is continuous beeping sound from the system during power up 3) There is no display, only the blue screen on the monitor during boot up 4) There is totally zero video display on the monitor 5) The system hangs or reboots after prolonged use.
Upon determining that there is failure in your pc memory, proceed by recognizing the defective module. This may not be very easy, and one has to be knowledgeable about PC’s to be able to make a precise diagnosis.
For a more efficient way of determining the real trouble with your monitor (other than unplugged cables), it is sometimes best that you determine the specific problem on hand. This will lead you to better clue as to how to troubleshoot your system.
The following are helpful tips in finding out what kind of monitor problem you have, if your computer or monitor does not start up as usual: 1) Press the ‘ESC’ key 2) Restart the computer 3) If the power light is colored amber instead of green and no image appears on the monitor, turn off both monitor and CPU. Next, unplug the video and monitor cables and lastly, turn on the monitor and the CPU.
Sound cards actually run with three things: IRQ (Interrupt Request), Direct Memory Access (DMA) and Memory Address. Any inconsistencies with these three devices will result to sound glitch in your pc.
The most frequent problem that usually occurs with sound cards is IRQ related. In this case, changing the IRQ is a sound idea. If it still doesn’t work, perhaps you may want to switch BUS types, and make sure there is no overload in the system to avoid further trouble.
Sound cards are also susceptible to EMF, the electromagnetic signals in the system. This can be avoided by not situating the sound card near other elements of the system.
