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lawmatchmaker

Troubleshooting Your Computer 101

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If your computer is giving you problems ,but you have no idea what exactly the trouble is,before rushing to send the computer to a professional for repair, I suggest you go through this check list.1)Start by restarting the computer, It is amazing how many little bugs and problems that have left your computer frozen and hanged have been restored in this way. 2)If a reboot does not seem to help, check to see if all the cables and wires have been properly connected. Many times, a loose cable is the cause of the problem.3)Check that your electrical socket is functioning properly, unplug the cpu electrical cable from the wall socket and test the wall socket with another electrical applience,make sure that there is a power supply.4)Next, disconnect all the peripheral devices such as mouse, external hard drives, modems and try restarting the computer, did it work?5)Make sure your monitor is plugged in properly and there is a power on light.6)Listen for unusual noise in the CPU, disk the hard drive give off strange noices or is the cooling fan in good working condition?7)If you are brave enough, open the CPU and make sure the internal connecting wires are all connected properly, and there is not too much dust clogging the system.8)If you have a spare external hard disk that you can boot from, try it.9)If you are entirely sure its not a hardware problem but a software problem like virus infection or software corruption, you can always reformat the hard drive and reinstall the software from disk or a system restore point. Make sure to regularly back up important documents so that you don't loose valuable data.

Edited by lawmatchmaker (see edit history)

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Well, in my opinion, depending on whatever the issue is, number 1 on the list should be to enable system restore and to create restore points using Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Restore. These points are automatically created at certain times such as system checkpoints and installations of software. But I create my own whenever my computer seems to be running flawlessly. By doing this, if there is any problem in the future it is easy to just restore your computer.Number 2 on your list should be: Download and install some type of antispyware and antivirus software. Good suggestions are AdAware, Spybot: Search and Destroy, Zone Labs ? Zone Alarm, Microsoft Antispyware.Most computer issues are due to some Trojan that started up with a program. Sometimes the best thing to do is to just open up task manager on a regular basis and check out the normal things that run under the processes tab. If you just give it a look every once in a while, when there is a problem you can just go to task manager and end whatever process isn?t one of the regular ones that is running. If this method works, you will know that whatever process that is, you should search for that application and quarantine it. (With either an antispyware or antivirus software, or just ?zip? the file with Winzip and delete the original which stops it from running. If you are sure that the file is not important, you can just delete it.

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Thanks for your Troubleshooting Information, but in my opinion these are not usefull for Advance users.Your computer did't make any problem with lose Power cable attached in your wall socket!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!A Loose Interface cable will not make your computer open perfectly.The troubleshooting process depends upon the problem your computer is giving.

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Agreed.

7)If you are brave enough, open the CPU and make sure the internal connecting wires are all connected properly, and there is not too much dust clogging the system.

Lol - I'd like to see you try open a CPU. And have it working afterwards. Try PC - Personal Computer.
A lot of those are very basic, which usually would not help at all... But it's a useful start. I guess...

9)If you are entirely sure its not a hardware problem but a software problem like virus infection or software corruption, you can always reformat the hard drive and reinstall the software from disk or a system restore point. Make sure to regularly back up important documents so that you don't loose valuable data.

Most of the time it's accounted to either Hardware Failure (Or hardware on its way to the deathbed) or some corrupt installation (espically corrupt drivers...) or infection. Unfortunately it's not easy for most people to understand how to deal with these problems properly...
2 and 4 are pretty much the same....

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LOL nice try but no...this is a rather useless list.As masterleous said, troubleshooting depends on the problem and there is no fixed list of things to do. The list has a few good tips one can use in a lot of situations but at the same time it has a few blatant erros, as already pointed out by others. Good work but if you try to help someone make sure you know what you're talking about, i.e. know the difference between a CPU and a computer case.

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