If you’re going to be building computers, adding devices to your computer, altering BIOS settings, or just installing and deleting programs on your computer, then you’ll want to learn the basics of troubleshooting. You might notice that I didn’t say computer troubleshooting. That is because troubleshooting is an independent skill. I learned to troubleshoot as an electronic technician. And most of those same techniques work fine for troubleshooting computers.
Troubleshooting is really a kind of detective work. If you notice, the TV detectives spend a lot of time asking questions and thinking over the facts. And that is where a good troubleshooter starts, asking questions, not with tearing apart their computer, swapping components, or running diagnostics programs.
My intent here isn’t to give you heavy technical troubleshooting instructions, but to provide you with common sense techniques that will likely save you a lot of time and trouble if you follow them.
Take note: I am assuming a basic to intermediate knowledge on the part of the computer user for this article. In other words, that you either build computers or add components to it, like hard drives or CD drives. I also assume you have a basic understanding of the boot process. Finally, I assume you know basic electrical safety rules.
A Typical Scenario
Let’s say one evening you turn on your computer and it starts, seems to boot fine, but stops dead at the point it should start loading Windows. What now? You panic of course. Like most of us you haven’t saved copies of your most important documents for months. And since Windows isn’t loading from the hard drive, you “logically” assume there is a serious problem with the hard drive. It must be physically broken or the data is scrambled.
Since you’re in panic mode you tear the hard drive out of your other working computer and try to boot the first computer. The same thing happens, it stops at the point of loading Windows. What a relief, at least the problem isn’t with the hard drive, your data is safe – there is probably a fault with the motherboard in the first computer.
To make sure, you test the hard drive from your first computer (the one that wouldn’t load Windows) in your second computer, it works fine. That confirms it, there is a problem with the motherboard on the first computer. Probably the hard drive controller, you think, being the expert.
While playing Delta Force Extreme i randomly freeze.
i can spin, shoot whatever weapon i am holding, but cant move out of place, cant chat, or use Team Speak. it occurs every few minutes and last from one to four long minutes.
I have deleted Team Speak Overlay, i have deleted and reloaded the game and the Team Speak program.
it doesnt seem to occur with anything else. i have changed settings several times within the game and ,,,oh hell, it just happened while typing this so now i am really confused. maybe its Firefox itself but DFX does not run through firefox, i dont think.
I’ve been using liveCDs to help in diagnosing problems. I like to use PuppyLinux. This way, I bybass the OS installed on the hard drive. If everything works fine on the liveCD, I mount the hard drive and play around with the files. If everything works fine, I deduce the problem is a software problem.
LiveCDs are useful to diagnose computer components not being used (main OS and hard drive) while still having access to all the computer commodities (internet).
I like your article. I will try cleaning my wires and connectors.
these are the two message that come on when I turn my coputer on, what’s the problem…
A problem has been detected and windows has shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
Restart computer, press F8 to select advance startup option, and then select safe mode.
Technical information:
*** STOP: 0X0000000A (0XFFFFFFFE8,0X00000002,0X00000001,0X80D9044)
Next message after restart:
STOP: C0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The resistry cannot load the hive {file}
\SystemRoot\System32\config\SOFTWARE
Or its lor or alternate
It is corrupt, absent, or not writeable
Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administration or technical support group for further assistance.
i need HELP on my pc. i always have problem on booting. my pc restarts almost always when windows starts loading. then after restarting a menu fill pop prompting me on running on safe mode. ive been spending alot for pc repairs and i realy would want to do it in my own.
and also sometimes my pc wont boot it just makes a randomly rapid beeping sound, friends tip me off un trying to unplug my memory and cleaning it with an eraser and re installing it again. is that ok, wont the carbon contact have problems in the long run??? pls help tanx
yes its ok to clean your memory it wont hurt your computerthats is usualy what happen if your memory is dirty it beeps, and also if you have a video card and your screen dont see nothing or its peech you have to do the same thing. clean it w/t alchol
u need to reformat ur pc dude may ur hard disk is corrupted
Hi i have my computer problem. Which keeps on restarting everytime we play any computer games. please help me with this problem
God bless
My computer restarts after about 10 minutes and continues to do this every 10 minutes or so.
Hi,
I have a problem with my son’s PC locking up. I picked it up from my wife’s house this weekend and I have been messing with the PC today myself. It seams to lock up intermittently. Sometimes it will run for an hour playing video games until it locks up, some times it will lock up during or just after Win XP loads. Most times it remains locked up for 15 minutes or longer until I reboot the PC. One time however, I ran a movie DVD on the PC and it locked up for about 10 minutes and then began to run again. Ran for about 2-3 minutes and then locked up again until I finally had to reboot again. I have built three PCs and have fixed a few of my own problems before, so I would consider myself to have moderate intelligence about computer. This PC I build for my son about 20 months ago. It has an Athelon XP processor and two sticks 512 MB DDR RAM. I’m thinking that it I may be having one of the sticks of RAM go bad, or the processor is possible the problem. What would your thought be?
I have just changed the board and processor in a Atlon 64..They tend to heat up..similar problem bought new board and proc ..from tiger direct for around $100.00..This Board also comes with Driver Software.I had to upgrade ram to DDR2..$50.00 …..But PC is like new again…O it,s 2 years old..Total repair $150.00
I have question, rather than a reply. My computer intermittently restarts and does not give me an error message. I have re-installed Windows XP, changed my power supply and changed my ram. It is restarting a lot less, but the problem is still there. At times, it won’t restart for days, but the problem is still there. I am running out of options,,,,,,,,,,,please can anyone help.
just check your hard drive for bad secotrs or your mother it mioght be grounded..
When i boot my pc, it automatically logs into my desktop ignoring the screen you would get with 2 users….my pc has 2 users and one is password protected, but it ignores this and logs straight into my desktop….however, if i log off to change users, then i will see both users and the password will work if i try to log into one of the accounts….how do i fix this?…thanks so much
When i start my pc,after starting it will boot normal,but when desktop comes I get an application error “that,0*fffffff memory location could not written,
Because of it my pc takes nearly 30sec to open any drive,so I formated my pc and installed again but problem does not solved, so help me and send me reply.
thank you
this means that your hard drive has a problem.. the sector where the system was corrupted. however if you install the os again the problem will still occur. so my advice is to check and recover bad sectors on your hard drive by using the winxp cd if you have one. do it 3x okey.
i have just built my computer…it is the first computer i built….when i tried to boot from my dvd drive to install windows it wouldnt boot up…the screen would just stay black…i setup the bios so it would boot from dvd andit shows the dvd drive in the bios…so i took my hard drive out of the computer and boot it in a working computer to install windows then put the hard drive back in my computer to try and boot from the hard drive and it wont boot from the hard drive aswell. is there something wrong with my motherboard or any connections???
Computer screen is BLACK BLANK nothing will show. I’ve rebooted many times and it will go nowhere after being turned on. Whats up with this? Please help
i’ve been experiencing this problem for quite some time now. it seems like your cmos battery is dead and it needs replacement or worse there’s something wrong with your motherboard
are u sure your Monitor still works? Did u recheck Video cable for secureness?.
hey your problem is so simple i got three tips for you.
1. open your system unit unplug your ram and clean it and put it again and reboot your system.
2. and still your monitor dont display anything. unplug your video card and use your internal video out of your mother board and reboot your system…if this fix your problem. then your video card is the prob. just clean it and check if still works.
NTLDR is missing..how can we fix that problem?
When i get NTLDR I reinstall Windows OS…works every time…
Also if u reinstall Windows and receive that message again…U might want to try that HD in another PC…It could need replacing….
im very new to pc use and have recently bought a delloptiplex gx 270 with windows xp. i had a problem with porn coming through on internet i have sorted this . in the process i think i have deleted something to do with the media player as it now makes no sounds. and the trouble shooter i used is no help. I think it comes down to the fact i need a disc to reload deleted media item. i have no discs as it was pre done. could you please tell me what i need to fix this Gary bates ( plonker ) i know thanks
I have a problem and I was hoping for some insight. While I was sending a large e-mail my Dell pc froze. I tried to power down by holding in the power button. The system wouldn’t shut down so I unplugged it. I haven’t been able to turn it on since then. Any ideas what is wrong with it?
My computer keeps respawning whenever I see the welcome screen at startup….Please tell me how to overcome this problem….I cannot risk on re-installing as I have some crucial data in my C drive !
maybe re-installing your OS is the best solution..just unplugged your hard disk and then plug it to another PC as a secondary then transfer whatever files you think is “crucial” then you re-install your OS..
My friend called me tonight and said that sometime during the day possibly during an electric outage her computer came back on and her whole desktop is enormous and she can’t get it back to normal size. I tried the right click on the desktop with her and going to properties, but she can not reach the apply part of the window. How do you fix this problem/ Thanks so much for your help.
go to control panel then click on display monitor icon..go to settings and set monitor to required display…
If the motherboard is the problem then what should i do then so that the motherboard will do fine? should i buy new one or what?
check if the cables that are to be connected are connected well..make sure it’s not loose,the same with your video card or memory..try checking your power supply as well maybe it doesnt generate enough power to run the motherboard or its defective..or you could always just buy a new one..hehe
someone please help me with my problem !
there will be so many reasons.do one thing login at safe mode and try to copy ur important data.If the computer is fail to boot in safe mode remove ur hard disk connect in another computer as a secondary drive and copy ur data.After you copy ur data try to reinstall windows
When I turn on my computer it lites up, and makes a consistant beeping noise, and the fan is running real loud, It doesnt boot up just a black screen, and beeping from the tower
unplugged your video card then put it back in make sure its not loose and try cleaning it with an eraser..try to do the same to your memory…
When I try to log on it gets to the welcome screen with my owners icon’ When I select it states “logging on” then imediately goes to “logging off”. I can’t get past this operation.
Please help
the screen contrast increases automatically till it reaches to maximum and displays contrast 100, when i reducess the contrast it doesnot reduce. this is the second time it happened in my pc on the previous ocassion i had contacted technician he had formated the drives and reloaded the xp. what to do please suggest me
all web based video the audio is very muffled. when playing avi or wmv files located on the computers hard drive they sound perfect. HELP
I can’t turn on my Automatic updates, sometimes I can get it to come on but after about five minutes it turns back off? My son has Firefox on my PC I would like to get back to Internet Explorer.
How do I get back to the way it was when I got the PC.
I’ve got files that are two of the same, how do I clean my PC of double files?????
every time i try to turn on my computer it turns the moniter to standby so i cannot do anything to fix it because i am not able to see the problem any help would be wonderfull thanks paul
try cleaning your video card..make sure cables are connected well..
When I start my PC it takes around 15mins and runs with normal speed after starting.Pls tell me how to delete files left behind after install/uninstalling programes. I am unable to change my screensaver, messg is administrator disabled the display.