PC Troubleshooting Guide

CPU failure

If you experience frequent CPU failures and get feedback from the store that the power supply has blown. Try to get a larger capacity or higher rated power supply. You might have too many devices hooked up to the power supply (internal and externally) both of which take power from the same power supply if they have no individual power adapter. Say if you have a 300 or 400 watt power supply, try getting hold of a 500 watt or higher model and try to get the bit pricy one so it would last. Repetitive power supply failures can cause damage to the internal parts of your CPU and even the board itself which has built in fuses to protect the Microprocessor unit itself from such damage. If the board has also failed, you would have to get another board to transfer the cpu onto.

Screech….ing hard drive – Inspecting the PC (Part 1)

Well, this might not be a sound you would want to hear from your hard drive, for it might be in it’s death throes. The screeching sound may be the bearings that make the platters spin breaking down or they have been in use for so long they have worn out the hard metal coatings on the teeny tiny bearings. The first thing you do is to copy as much data that you can to another hard drive to prevent total disaster. Most drives will continue to function for sometime before total failure of the drive. You’ll be glad to know that they have become more reliable than ever but that does not mean totally.

Monitor won’t work

First check the power chord and the cable that connects to the CPU. If these are firmly seated and there is still no display, the video card may be defective or the least needs to be re-seated. Pull out all the plugs and wires connected to the CPU and open it. Try to remember the place where the monitor is connected and you get the video card. Remove the said card by unscrewing it from the casing and removing or sliding any retention tabs that was supposed to prevent it from pulling loose. Pull it out while taking care not to remove any of the other wires that are in the CPU unit itself. Check for any visible damage such as burn marks or a smell that I assure you that you won�t soon forget. Any of those signs and get packing for you are getting a new one. If unsure of the type (there are several types of video cards), bring the one you pulled out as a basis. When at the store, try getting something either equal to or better than the one you have. When you get home, touch the CPU power supply to again discharge static and re-install the aid card. Remember to re-attach any cable or fan power supply you might have had to pull out to get access. Re-assemble the unit and boot up(you might have to install the drivers of the new card if you were unable to get the same type and brand).

Video Card Errors – Part 2

Look for the video card and check if it hasn�t popped out of it�s slot (remember the monitor, the card to which it is connected to is the video card), if so re-seat and try booting up. If the video card is embedded (meaning it is part of the motherboard) it may have failed (sorry, replacement is the only option for this form of motherboard) or if you have a slot for third-party video cards you may purchase one and disable the one embedded within the system.

Note: It is normal for Video Cards to pop out of their slots (AGP or PCI) due to some manufacturers making them with teeny-tiny edges where the contacts are located that fail to seat firmly into the board. They tend to jump out by themselves especially if the PC is used heavily or there is a source of vibration nearby say in an office. The short edges, instead of being grabbed by the connector on the motherboard, sits just above the clamping part which acts as a spring hence the jumping part.

Computer Basics : Essential for troubleshooting Part-2

If this is your first time, get hold of a can of compressed air specifically developed for cleaning computers and not from your garage compressor. Canned air is moisture free to avoid contaminating the electronics. Hold the Power supply for a few minutes while you take a look inside to admire the parts (this discharges any static electricity from you) Check all vents for the internal fans along with the one for the power supply. If they are dirty try to blow air through them to remove all dust and debris from all visible parts. If the said computer is visually dusty, you might want to do this outside the house. Also pay close attention to the CPU and blow air onto the fan and heat sink. Once you are satisfied and all visible dust and fido hairs are gone, you can reverse the process and take the camera shots to re-connect all the cables and chords that you took out and boot up. A clean computer runs cooler and more efficiently, besides too much dust on any of the internal components can lead to parts failure due to the insulating properties of dust.

How to Recover From a Virus Attack on your PC

Disconnect and isolate, if you suspect one of your computers has suffered a virus attack, immediately quarantine the computer by physically disconnecting it, as infected machines pose a danger to all other computers connected to the network.

If you suspect other computers may be infected, treat them like they are. It’s counter-productive to clean one machine while an infected computer is still connected to network.

Blue Screen of Death – Part 2

The �blue screen� as it is more commonly called can be a simple sign that your computer is overheating and more ventilation is needed. This can be addresses with a couple of extra cooling fans or that the existing fans might be dirty and chock full of dust and grime. This can even be a sign of memory module failure which can also be attributed to overheating ( some memory modules literally cook on the boards giving off the nasty smell of burned plastic). Cooling improvements and replacement can remedy the situation granted that no other motherboard components have been cooked to a crisp.

Blue Screen of Death – Part 1

Many of us have experienced it many times over, the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death” when using personal computers or just about any computer as a matter of fact. Mostly associated with windows errors, this is called a memory dump which signifies that windows in it’s many versions has encountered an unrecoverable error and has ceased to function. This is a signal to panic for the term paper or presentation you’ve just spent the whole week making and refining has turned to dust hopefully which you might have had a back-up file on some other form of medium.

Hard Drive not Found

This is a very serious situation for it may be an indicator that the hard drive has crashed and without properly scheduled back-up, you may have just lost all your data. This normally sends you into fits of rage but without a proper back-up strategy to keep you safe from such incidents, you will feel utmost loss due to all the spreadsheets, documents, music files and other data that may have been stored on your hard drive. One of the easiest ways to back-up information is to use the facility provided in your Windows setup that saves files onto other media such as tape drives or optical drives. Read the rest…

Boosting the booting speed of your Windows XP

Windows XP boot slowing your productivity down? Time to un-slow it then and read the advice from one of the experts below:

According to the experts the best way to go about this is to find the source:

Legitimate programs usually put an icon in the SysTray, next to the clock on the Windows Taskbar. Right-clicking an icon will often let you tell the program not to load. However, Microsoft provides msconfig, a good utility for controlling how Windows starts up. To run it, click Start, select Run, type msconfig in the box and click OK. The Startup tab on the far right lists the programs being loaded, but it’s worth looking through the other tabs. Microsoft has a trouble-shooting guide to using it: search Google for Q310560.

More info here.