Trouble Shooting Hardware

Question 1

What is the POST?

Answer 1

Power on Self Test. A diagnostic routine that a computers CPU runs during the boot process.

Question 2

what is the POST responsible for?

Answer 2

making sure that all the main components of the computer are functioning properly. It checks the main systems such as the CPU, CMOS, RAM, storage and peripherals.

Question 3

What is CMOS?

Answer 3

a chip built using CMOS technology

Question 4

how are failures noted with the POST?

Answer 4

with beeps or codes. all beeps and codes are different depending on the manufacturer.

Question 5

what do you do if you start your computer and get a blank screen on boot?

Answer 5

1. Listen for beeps
2. Figure out if there is bad ram, video adapter or CPU.
3. Could also be associated with a bad BIOS configuration.

Question 6

If you look at the computer and the date or time is incorrect, what could this indicate?

Answer 6

That the battery has gone bad on the motherboard.

Question 7

What should you do if your system tries to boot from a drive that is not the normal start up drive?

Answer 7

Start the BIOS config and see the order the drives are listed in. You may need to move drives around. Also check if you have a USB plugged in and the system is trying to boot from the USB.

Question 8

What is a windows stop error?

Answer 8

also called the blue screen of death. a system error screen when the system encounters a critical error. It can be caused by various hardware or software issues.

Question 9

What can you do if the BSoD flashes by too quickly?

Answer 9

Go back and view the event log. Then use last known good, system restore or rollback driver.

Question 10

What can you do if the system can boot in safe mode, but not do a full boot?

Answer 10

Try to narrow down where the actual problem may lie. Check if you installed a new adpater or any new hardware into the system. If you still can’t find the issue after that, run hardware diagnostics.

Question 11

What is the spinning ball of death?

Answer 11

also known as the MacOS X Spinning Wait Cursor. This is giving you feedback that something is occuring on the sytem. If the ball never stops spinning this indicates an issue.

Question 12

What are some reasons the spinning ball of death may occur?

Answer 12

1. Application bug
2. Bad hardware
3. slow paging to disk

Question 13

what is paging to disk?

Answer 13

the process in which the operating system transfers data from a computers RAM to a dedicated portion of the hard disk drive or other storage device.

Question 14

What is a way to deal with the spinning ball of death?

Answer 14

restart the system and then go check the console logs.

Question 15

What should you do when a black screen occurs?

Answer 15

The first thing is to check that the monitor is connected properly. Check both the power and signal cables. Also check the input.

Question 16

What should you do when the screen is displaying information but its very dim?

Answer 16

Check the brightness controls. Try replacing the monitor with one you know works, to see if the issue is the monitor or something deeper.

Question 17

What do you do if you see information on the screen but suddenly it goes black?

Answer 17

try to tell windows to start in VGA mode. By using VGA mode you can test to see wether the issue is with the driver or the monitor itself.

Question 18

What do you do if you press the power button on and nothing turns on?

Answer 18

Check if the computer is plugged in correctly. You can also test with your multi meter. Also check if there are any components working inside the computer.

Question 19

What do you do if your OS is running but its sluggish?

Answer 19

this may be a problem with the process or application running on your system. Go to the task manager and check for high CPU utilization and i/o. A process could be running behind the scenes that takes more resources than you think.

Question 20

What should you do if your storage drive is filling up and the OS is not able to write files to that drive?

Answer 20

this could case the OS to operate poorly. So you may want to check the storage drive to see if you have available space for windows to work properly. You may need to run a disk defragmentation.

Question 21

What is a disk defragmentation?

Answer 21

a process in which files and data stored on a computers HDD or SDD are reorganized to improve their access and retrieval speed.

Question 22

What automatic things will a device do to save power?

Answer 22

If you unplug a latop from a main power source, and you run on battery power many laptops will automatically throttle the CPU. Some systems also monitor for temp and if the temp rises too high the system will run slower to cool down.

Question 23

Name something else that can slow down a system?

Answer 23

anti virus and anti malware can slow a system down when its running a scan.

Question 24

what is overheating usually caused by?

Answer 24

heat is mostly caused by the CPU, video adapters and memory. Overheating can be caused by a fan or heat sink failing.

Question 25

whats an important way to keep heat sinks and fans functioning?

Answer 25

clean and clear of dust. Utilize a third party monitoring software such as as HW monitor

Question 26

what should you do in the case of a burning smell and smoke?

Answer 26

this is usually caused by an electrical issue. the minute any burning smell occurs you should unplug the computer from the power source. then take off the case and try to find the bad component.

Question 27

what should you do in the case of intermittent shutdown?

Answer 27

first check the event viewer. See if windows wrote an error message before shutting down. Check if the fans and heat sinks were working poroperly as this can sometimes be a heat issue. If not heat it may be a hardware failure so check the device manager and run diagnostics.

Question 28

what do you do when application crashes occur?

Answer 28

when an application crashes, it may give an error message or it may disappear completely from the screen. In both cases, check the event log. Also check the reliabilty monitor. Try uninstalling and then reinstalling the application.

Question 29

what do you do if your computer is making a grinding noise?

Answer 29

indicates a problem as computers should only hum. this can indicate loose components inside the computer.

Question 30

what can a scraping noise indicate?

Answer 30

an issue with the hardrive.

Question 31

what can an ongoing oscillating or clicking noise indicate?

Answer 31

a fan issue, such as something has lodged itself into the fan.

Question 32

what can a popping noise indicate?

Answer 32

a blown capacitator

Question 33

what can you do if the system locks up?

Answer 33

another case where the event log will not show much. similar to unexpected shutdowns. try ctrl-alt-del. Think is anything has changed recently such as any updates, drivers or patches. Check if you are low on RAM or storage. If none of these work, run a complete hardware diagnostic.

Question 34

what do you do if there are continous reboots?

Answer 34

check how far the boot gets before the reboot starts. Does it reach the BIOS only or get to the OS splash screen? Think if you have recently installed a new driver or configuartion. Hit F8 and select “boot from the last known working configuration”. Also try safe mode as only a subset of drivers are loaded during safe mode.

Question 35

what should you do if the computer starts in safe mode after continuous reboots?

Answer 35

start the system properties configuration, change the settings and disable the “automatically restart” option.