Easy PC Troubleshooting

image source: www.sulit.com.ph

PC breakdown will cost a lot of money & time especially if the hardware is the affected one. That’s why you should know the basic troubleshooting with the following Question and Answer

Q: What will I do if there is no display in the monitor?
A: first and foremost check the power maybe its turn off or unplugged and if its still didn’t open check the settings found in the monitor then lastly check the cord connecting your monitor to your CPU but if didn’t still display anything it something to do with your video card or monitor.

Q: what will I do if I hear beeping sound?
A: if you hear beeping sounds refer to Google.com because each beep corresponds to a code where in you can see the diagnostic.

Q: I cannot hear any sound?
A: check the connection of speaker & CPU if is ok and you still can hear any sound check you setting if it still not there it has something to do with the driver or the codec if it’s on video

If the blue screen appears yet again, power down and remove your memory modules (if you have many, mostly four) connect them one by one till you get the lot installed. Any defective modules would make themselves apparent with the blue screen soon after. If you have to get new memory modules, be sure to check the specifications of your older ones for there are compatibility issues. If you cannot get hold of the same specification memory modules, you can consider upgrading to a better and newer lot. You may get better performance and extend the life of your PC for a tad bit longer (new ones come out at a rate of every few months)

The Blue-Screen-of-Death (Dust Bunnies in the CPU!) Part 7
Remove the memory modules and clean their slots with compressed air followed by the contact cleaner to remove stubborn deposits on the pins and connectors on the slots. Place everything back the way they were, re-connect all the cables and connectors (if you forgot where they go, use the manual or better yet take a picture with your phone or digital camera so you don’t get confused) but don’t close the casing yet. Power-up and check for normal operations of the PC and to find out if you placed everything back the way they were supposed to. If everything seems normal, shut-down, then you can close the casing up for another year or so of use.

Use the canned air to blow out the dust bunnies that are visible (if you see a thick layer of dust, relocate outdoors so you don’t get people sneezing uncontrollably as you spray on) paying close attention to the CPU itself and the heat sink. A vacuum cleaner would also be good but use it with caution for it is mostly made of plastic and it can damage the computer. It can also be too powerful that it sucks some jumpers and other small parts into oblivion. Check for corroded pins on the connectors and use the contact cleaner (others use an eraser which not only removes the gold plating on the contacts but abrades them to the point they thin out).

This process is for medium to advanced PC users only for not understanding what to do can send your CPU six feet under so be sure you have enough technical skills to do the following before you start. Disconnect all power cords and peripheral cables from the connectors on the back of the PC, this is not only for safety but it also prevents everything from crashing down as you pull the CPU out. Open the casing (usually with a cross-head screwdriver) and remove the cover to expose the internal organs of the CPU. Find the power supply and touch it with your hand for a few minutes to dissipate any static charge that you may have stored in you (good idea to get a static wrist-strap that you strap around your wrist and clip onto the metal casing to prevent static build-up), all the internal components of your computer is made of static sensitive electronics that would get trashed should stray static electricity get into them. Best to remove all the internal wires and connectors from the hard drives, floppy drives (if you still have and use them), CD drives, power connectors to the CPU and other cards attached or installed within the CPU.

SAFETY FIRST:
If you know what you are about to do, by all means continue. If not, take the CPU to the computer store for them to clean (better safe than sorry). If you don’t know what to do but am bold enough to try, some tips. DISCONNECT all power connections to the CPU before handling. Some ungrounded computers have current leaking all over and touching the metal case would send a jolt of electricity through you (IT HURTS BELEIVE ME!!!). There are a lot of wires and connectors inside and outside of the computer system so use labels if you deem them to be necessary or if you have the manual with you that would be the best. You can also get your digital camera to snap a few pictures of the outside wires (especially the ones inside, a wrong connection can destroy components). Most computers have color coded connectors but some after market accessories don’t, so if you’re not sure ask questions just to be safe. The tools you would need are: can of air (store bought that is void of moisture), contact cleaner, possibly a vacuum cleaner (so you don’t send dust flying all over) a set of screwdrivers, sometimes a pair of pliers and some containers to store screws.

An overheating processor may also mean that you failed to clean the internal parts of your CPU for the past year or so. Dust that accumulates on the several hundred if not thousands of chips inside the metal box some call the CPU acts as a very good insulator keeping the heat in and preventing the fans from venting it out of the casing. It can also fry the chips (literally, burnt odor from your CPU casing would be a good indicator of that) in their own juice, victim to long ours of playing online RPG games. Cleaning of your CPU and the other innards of your computer should be done at least once a year but if you happen to live or use the computer in a very dusty environment, the more frequent the better. A can of air (the type you get from the electronics store that is void of moisture) can easily blow out all stubborn debris and dust bunnies that have been growing in your PC. Also consider getting a can of contact cleaner that cleans the contacts of the various components of the CPU safely taking away the corrosion and other grime.

Back to the problem, it may be a software problem that has resulted in a fatal windows error that may be too hard for it to handle, but based on my several years experience in managing and maintaining PC’s its most probably an indicator of a bad bank of memory modules or an overheating microprocessor (more commonly known to the rest of us as the CPU). Overclockers would know what to do with this (their ability to do such means they have an intimate knowledge of the things they have done) for they tend to do a lot of tinkering with the settings in the BIOS that sometimes it kinda’ messes all things up.

Everybody who has been using windows for quite sometime may have encountered the blue screen of death but more often in Windows NT or newer versions of operating systems based on it. The blue screen is a memory stack overflow error that has resulted from an illegal operation that in other words means you’re in deep trouble. If you just happened to be doing your term paper and you failed to set the auto-save function to a shorter interval or do an actual hard save (or back-up) and this happens when the application or document is open, pray. For office users, you might get some luck with auto recover information that sometimes results from such operations.

以下の事例が起こった場合にはどう対処しますか？

シナリオ1:
あわててPCを起動し、お気に入りのTV番組の見逃したエピソードをDLし始めたとします(たとえば『Dr. House』としましょう)。 画面に次のようなメッセージが表示されました。

「Non-System disk or disk error
Replace and strike any key when ready」

イライラする必要はありません。『Dr. House』も、Cuddyが画面上で激怒する姿もまだ見ることができます。Aドライブからディスクを取り出すだけで解決です。

シナリオ2:
夜遅くまでPCに向かって仕事を続けた翌朝（仕事以外かもしれませんが）、PCを起動しました。突然次のようなメッセージが表示されました。

「Windowsが正しくシャットダウンされませんでした。ディスクドライブにエラーがある可能性があります。 どれかキーを押すとスキャンディスクを実行します。」

エンターキーを押して、スキャンを実行してください。このメッセージは、PCが適切に終了されなかったことを意味します。修復すべきクラスタが発見されたら、「OK」をクリックすれば、自動的に修復が行われます。