Computer Architecture - Week 8 - Troubleshooting and Maintenance

Diagnostic and troubleshooting skills to
solve hardware, software and networking LO4

related issues.
Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting becomes a lot easier if you follow logical procedures to help you
develop experience.
The first thing to do is always to check the easy stuff, such as physical cables and
connections. You would be amazed at how many times the simple question, “Is it
plugged in?” resolves hardware problems.
Second, see if anything has recently changed or if there are any recent incidents
that might have caused the problem.
Troubleshooting
For example, if someone’s laptop won’t boot up, you might not have a clue as to
why. But if they tell you that they just dropped it down the stairs, you might have a
better idea of where to start.
Finally, narrow down the scope of the problem.
 Find out exactly what works and what doesn’t.
Knowing where the problem starts and stops helps you to focus your
troubleshooting efforts.
Understanding Troubleshooting
Theory
When troubleshooting, you should assess every problem systematically and try to
isolate the root cause.
Yes, there is a lot of art to troubleshooting, and experience plays a part too.
The major key is to start with the issue and whittle away at it until you can get down
to the point where you can pinpoint the problem—this often means eliminating, or
verifying, the obvious.
Understanding Troubleshooting
Theory
First, always back up your data before making any changes to a system.
Hardware components can be replaced, but data often can’t be. For that reason, always be
vigilant about making data backups.
Second, establish priorities—one user being unable to print to the printer of their choice
isn’t as important as a floor full of accountants unable to run payroll. Prioritize every job and
escalate it (or de-escalate it) as you need to.
Third, but perhaps most important, document everything—not just that there was a problem
but also the solution that you found, the actions that you tried, and the outcome of each. In
the next few sections, we’ll take you through each step of the troubleshooting process.
Identifying The Problem
Problems in computer systems generally occur in one (or more) of four areas, each of which is
in turn made up of many pieces:
 A collection of hardware pieces integrated into a working system. As you know, the hardware
can be quite complex, what with motherboards, hard drives, video cards, and so on. Software
can be equally perplexing.
 An operating system, which in turn is dependent on the hardware.
 An application or software program that is supposed to do something. Programs such as

Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel are bundled with a great many features.
 A computer user, ready to take the computer system to its limits (and beyond). A technician
can often forget that the user is a very complex and important part of the puzzle.
Can you show me the problem? This question is one of the best. It allows the user to show
you exactly where and when they experience the problem.
How often does this happen? This question establishes whether this problem is a onetime
occurrence that can be solved with a reboot or whether a specific sequence of events
causes the problem to happen. The latter usually indicates a more serious problem that may
require software installation or hardware replacement.
Has any new hardware or software been installed recently? New hardware or software
can mean compatibility problems with existing devices or applications.
For example, a newly installed device may want to use the same resource settings as an
existing device.
This can cause both devices to become disabled. When you install a new application, that
application is likely to install several support files. If those support files are also used by an
existing application, then there could be a conflict.
Have any other changes been made to the computer recently? If the answer is yes,
ask if the user can remember approximately when the change was made.
Then ask them to tell you approximately when the problem started.
If the two dates seem related, there’s a good chance that the problem is related to
the change.
If it’s a new hardware component, check to see that it was installed correctly.
Gathering Information
Let’s say that you get to a computer and the to understand why it’s not working and how to
power light is on and you can hear the hard fix it.
drive spinning but there is no video and the
If you have users available who were there
system seems to be unresponsive.
when the computer stopped working, you can
At least you know that the system has power, try to gather information from them.
and you can start investigating where things
 If not, you’re on your own to gather clues.
start to break down. (We sense a reboot in your
future!)
The whole key to this step is to identify, as
specifically as possible, what the problem is.
The more specific you can be in identifying
what’s not working, the easier it will be for you
Gathering Information
Command Prompt (CMD):
1. Ipconfig:
• The ipconfig command is used to view or modify a computer's IP addresses. For example, if
you wanted to view a Windows 7 system's full IP configuration, you could use the following
command:
- ipconfig /all
• Another handy thing you can do with ipconfig is flush the DNS resolver cache. This can be
helpful when a system is resolving DNS addresses incorrectly. You can flush the DNS cache
by using this command:
- ipconfig /flushdns
Resources about CMD commands
10 Windows 7 commands every administrator should know - TechRepublic
diskpart | Microsoft Docs

Troubleshooting Tools
Event Viewer: the Event Viewer looks at a small handful of logs that Windows
maintains on your PC. The logs are simple text files, written in XML format.
Event Viewer | Microsoft Docs
Task Manager: Track and manage computer’s tasks.
Group policy: a security tool, and can be used to apply security settings to users
and computers. Group Policy allows administrators to define security policies for
users and for computers.

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Diagnostic and troubleshooting skills to

solve hardware, software and networking LO4

Finally, narrow down the scope of the problem.

 Find out exactly what works and what doesn’t.

 An operating system, which in turn is dependent on the hardware.

 An application or software program that is supposed to do something. Programs such as

diskpart | Microsoft Docs

Task Manager: Track and manage computer’s tasks.

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