UNIVERSITY OF GONDAR

FACULITY OF INFORMATICS
DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

(MSC-REGULAR)
COURSE TITLE: ARTEFICIAL INTELLEGENCE

PROJECT REPORT ON

AN EXPERT SYSTEM FOR PC MAINTENANCE AND

TROUBLESHOOTING

PREPARED BY

1. ASHENAFI FENTAHUN

2. WEYINAREG WALTAW

Submitted To: -MR. Daniel M. (PhD Candidate)

August, 2017

Gondar, Ethiopia

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Table of Contents
Contents pages

Acknowledgment ................................................................................................................................... iv
List of Acronyms .................................................................................................................................... v
1. Background of the study ................................................................................................................. 1
1.1. Significance of the Project ...................................................................................................... 3
1.2 Objective of the study ................................................................................................................... 4
1.2.1 General objective ................................................................................................................... 4
1.2.2 Specific objective ................................................................................................................... 4
1.3 Problem Statement ....................................................................................................................... 5
1.3.1 Research Questions ................................................................................................................ 6
1.4 Scope of the study ........................................................................................................................ 7
1.5 Contribution of the study.............................................................................................................. 7
1.6 Design issues ................................................................................................................................. 8
1.6.1 Architecture of the system ..................................................................................................... 8
1.7 Application Result ....................................................................................................................... 11
1.8 Methodology............................................................................................................................... 12
1.9 Performance evaluation of the system ....................................................................................... 13
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 14
References ............................................................................................................................................. 15

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List of figures
Figure 1: The structural diagram of PMTES .......................................................................................... 8
Figure 3: welcome screen ....................................................................................................................... 9
Figure 4: main menu ............................................................................................................................. 10

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Acknowledgment

First and for most we would like to acknowledge Mr. Daniel(PhDc) for his willingly to gave
this mini-project which enables us to know the topic accordingly. Finally, we are appreciating
our friendly classmates for their dedication to share their ideas honestly.

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List of Acronyms
AI Artificial Intelligence
CPU Central Processing Unit
CLIPS C Language Integrated Production System
ICT Information Communication Technology
PC Personal Computer
PMTES Pc maintenance and troubleshooting expert system
KB Knowledge base

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 1. Background of the study
Computer systems (hardware, software and network connection) face problems from time to
time and endanger the functionality of the institutions. These problems need Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) technicians to be solved.[6]Today, the demand for
reliable computer systems continues to increase and also people faced computer problems
but can not able to diagnose the actual problem. Computer failure is inevitable when the
device has been used for a long time, or been incorrect used, or been damaged by accident. A
computer technician or maintainer should have certain maintenance methods to
correctly remove the failure quickly. Usually, a computer technician or maintainer must
check every computer with classifying the computer software and hardware failures. To do
this, a computer technician will take a long time to detect and identify causes of computer
failures.

Currently, the tasks of diagnosing computer problem, particularly in Gondar University ICT
Directorate office is basically carried out by human expert’s i.e. professional ICT technician.
Human expertise in such a specialized area is quite limited and expensive. Furthermore,
human experts may not always be available in all situations where they are needed. Although
there are limitations creating artificial expertise through building a knowledge based expert
system. There are many problems can be solved by using expert system such as
classification, diagnosing, scheduling, design, monitoring and configuration.

Expert Systems (ESs) are computer program that are originated from branch of computer
science called Artificial Intelligent (AI), which has the ability to like human being, make
judgment and reasoning based on some facts and rules presented to it.[3][4][6] Nowadays
expert systems have been widely used in almost all the fields of man’s expertise to assist the
users in taking decision; where human expatriation and multifaceted decision making is
required, like pc maintenance, expert decision making.

This project (Pc Maintenance and troubleshooting expert system) will introduce the methods
of solve the troubles to diagnose the computer failure and causes on all kind of problems. For
example, include the trouble of turn on the computer and turn off the computer, the trouble of
crash, the trouble of display, the trouble of sound, the trouble of storage equipment, the
trouble of CPU, the trouble of memory, the trouble of mainboard. Besides that, this project
will introduce how to classify the problems and solve the software and hardware failure, and

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how to avoid the trouble. The advantages of this expert system is to improve a quality of an
output or result, can save costs and money, to increase a productivity and improve timelines
of a results.

Pc Maintenance and troubleshooting expert system help user to search solution with specific
answer for the specific problem. This system will determined to find troubleshoot appropriate
for storing, maintaining, and retrieving the Knowledge Base.

In general this Project introduce the methods of solve the troubles to diagnose all kinds of
computer problem. From a business perspective, the system will reduce maintenance costs,
provide quicker problem resolution, reduce employee training time, and deliver higher job
quality. This expert system will have learning ability to handle new problems occurring in the
computer system.

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 1.1. Significance of the Project
The aim of this study is developing Pc maintenance and troubleshooting expert system which
is providing troubleshooting information about problems occurred in the computer system for
the information and communication technology technicians and computer users to solve
problems effectively and efficiently to utilize computer and computer related
resources.[6]And also used to suggest appropriate solutions to the problems and this will
definitely make work easier and faster. [2]
In this project there are three beneficial groups such as ICT technicians, computer users and
university of Gondar. The ICT technician can solved a computer related problem in easy way
by the help of Pc maintenance and troubleshooting expert system and also this system
improve the ICT Technician knowledge by diagnosing the fault of computer problem again
the computer users solve problems occur in the computer system by their own in its office
without waiting or calling to the ICT technicians simply by referring the recommended
solutions from the expert system. Economically, this system reduces the cost of maintenance,
increases the efficiency of the work and increased utilization of the computer related the
university resources. Generally, the organizations success is increased because the PC
downtime is decreased. In addition, the system provides high level problem solving technique
in order to increase the quality of computer troubleshooting services.

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1.2 Objective of the study
1.2.1 General objective
The general objective of this Project is to develop Pc maintenance and troubleshooting expert
system which enables users to perform computer hardware and software troubleshooting so
as to utilize computer and computer related resources effectively and efficiently.

1.2.2 Specific objective

To achieve the general objective, the following specific objectives are formulated:

 Conducting literature review and related works to understand the approaches of the
system
 To acquire knowledge from the human expert by observation and interview
 Identify the domain knowledge required to design the system
 Identify computer hardware and software Problems.
 To analysed and design an expert system for diagnosing faults
 To implement the system using Prolog programming.
 Measuring the performance of the designed expert system.

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1.3 Problem Statement
Computer failure in Gondar University is occur repeatedly in the institution office there will
be a computer related problems such as hardware and software, connection and virus
attaches. These and other computer problems need maintenance from the ICT technicians but
currently Gondar university ICT directorate office technicians follow traditional (manual)
ways to solving computer problems to do this the ICT Technician will take long time to
detect and identify causes of failure. PC Maintenance and Troubleshooting Expert system is
designed to help the ICT technician and computer users who face computer related problems
in their daily activity. The system provides enough information for the ICT technicians to
solve the problem. Not only the ICT technicians and also the computer user can solve a
problems by their own office, In addition, this system play enormous amount of roles for the
University achievement because it reduces the wastage of time by waiting ICT technicians,
reduce cost and saves computers being stored in salvage room. The challenge in developing
knowledge based expert is the user interface which is not simple and easy to interact. [6] To
handle this challenge the tool with better user interaction is required. In general the system
focuses on commonly occurring problems. Its promises to incorporate both hardware as well
as software related problems.

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1.3.1 Research Questions
To solve problems identified, this study attempts to explore and answer the following
research questions:

 How to explore the computer problems with the current solutions using expert system
techniques?
 What models, techniques, representation and implementation tools are required for the
application of the proposed knowledge based system?
 What is the ICT technician’s interest about the proposed knowledge based computer
and network troubleshooting expert system?
 How representing the tacit knowledge in a suitable way for knowledge based expert
system implementation.
 What is the most appropriate knowledge representation paradigm to use when
developing an expert system for Pc maintenance and troubleshooting expert System?
 How to evaluate the performance of the proposed system?
 Are expert systems a viable option for computer diagnostic maintenance applications?

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1.4 Scope of the study
This Project focus on developing Pc maintenance and troubleshooting knowledge base expert
system for Gondar University ICT directorate office by using rule based approach. The
system fills the skill gap of the ICT technicians and helps them to cope up with the constant
change and complexity of the computer system. Economically, this system reduces the cost
of maintenance, increases the efficiency of the work and increased utilization of the computer
related resources. It gives better advice services where human expert are not found and
limited in number. There are different problems related to computer system it include all
maintenance issues influence the system performance. Due to this reason this project focused
on basic hardware and software problems.

1.5 Contribution of the study

The main contribution of this simple expert system is to help computer users to fix some
basic hardware or software issues even to perform more extensive troubleshooting before
they contact with help desk or technicians.[7] Representing knowledge into the expert system
could offer potential advantages over human expertise. Because, knowledge based system
can use the acquired knowledge permanently, consistently, easy to transfer and document
expert knowledge.

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1.6 Design Issues
1.6.1 Architecture of the system
From this Project, there are several procedures involved in design and develop PC
Troubleshooting expert system.

1. Studying and identifying computer problem and solution

2. Knowledge acquisition and document structuring.

3. Selection of Development tool

4. Development of Rapid prototype.

5. Refinement and generalization.

6. Maintenance and updating.

Figure 1: The structural diagram of PMTES

The various system components have different roles to perform. The major components are
the following.

A. User

The individual who will be consulting with the system to get advice which would.

B. User Interface

Communication between the user and the system is done through the user interface which
implemented in both Amharic and English languages. The user interface is represented as a

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menu which displays the questions to the user and the user answers with Yes or No. When
the system is started a main menu is displayed on the screen which asks the user to choose
one of the 27 computer common problem.

Figure 2: welcome screen

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Figure 3: main menu

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 C. Explanation Facility

Illustrates to the user how and why the system gave a certain cause for the failure, i.e.
explains the reasoning of the system to the user queries.

D. Knowledge Base

Knowledge base is a declarative representation of the expertise, often framed in IF THEN

rules. Knowledge base may also constitute the working storage section which contains the
data which is specific to a problems being solved.

E. Inference engine

The code at the core of the system which derives recommendations from the rules and facts
information stored in the knowledge base.

1.7 Application Result

The objective of this study is to develop rule based expert system for troubleshooting and
diagnosing computer problem. Expert systems are necessitated by the limitations associated
with conventional human decision-making processes [6], including
 Prevent the resource from wastage.
 It is not very scarce and tired from physical or mental workload.
 It is able to comprehend large amounts of data quickly.
 Improve productivity
 Improve the ICT technician knowledge to diagnosing the fault of computer problems
 Reduce the need for skilled ICT Technician.
 Be able to work without stopping.

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1.8 Methodology
To achieve the main objective of this project, different techniques and tools are used.

i. Literature Review

For clear understanding of the problem related to PC maintenance and troubleshooting,

relevant literatures are reviewed such as books, journals articles, conference proceeding and
manuals, to explore information on expert system, computer software and hardware failure,
how to diagnose computer failure and current approaches to diagnose computer software
and hardware failure.

ii. Data gathering method

Data is required for any Project. For the purpose of this project, both primary and secondary
data collection methods were employed to collect the required domain knowledge. The aim
of this project is to establish a functional system in order to achieve the benefits of expert
system to reduce computer failure by using expert system designing method. This Project will
use data collection method and the collection method which is done through interview and
observation, Data gathering method where collect necessary data from Gondar university ICT
directorate Office, from ICT technician and other employees who are directly related to the
system.

iii. Rule Based Reasoning

This Project use rule based reasoning technique because one of the approaches used in
knowledge based reasoning technique is rule based reasoning (RBR) approach which is a
system whose knowledge representation involves a set of conditions. The basic forms of a
rule, if<condition> then <conclusion> where <condition> represents premises and
<conclusion> represents associated action for the premises. The conditional statements of the
reasoning rules are linked with each other by using logical operators to generate logical
functionalities. Rule based expert systems have significance role in many different domain
areas such as computer maintenance, medical diagnosis, electronic troubleshooting and data
interpretations.

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 iv. Development Tool

This knowledge based expert system developed by using prolog programming language. The
reason is that, prolog is open source software and it is the preferred programming language
for developing a knowledge based system.[10]

1.9 Performance evaluation of the Related system

The developed system used backward chaining to infer the rules and provide appropriate
recommendations. According to the system evaluators 83.6% of the users were satisfied with
the prototype.[6] The result of the research shows that the system works excellently with all
kind of printers. The system can be used to train apprentice, technicians and computer users
to diagnose and troubleshoot any kind of printers with little assistance of experts.[2] In
addition, the performance of the system was evaluated by using predictive validation
techniques with twelve test cases. The results of the validation test cases indicate that the
prototype registers on the average 75% accuracy. The system is learning its facts but not fully
update rules as well, which left for further research.[1] CLIPS was widely used in the past
and is widely used at present for building expert systems relating to technical diagnostics.
The rules have the form of implication: LHS => RHS. [8]

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Conclusion
As a conclusion, many techniques are available to detect computer failure and one of the
techniques is using expert systems. PC Maintenance and Troubleshooting Expert System is a
standalone Expert System which helps computer users to troubleshoot their commonly
occurring computer problems (hardware as well as software). This software interacts with the
user and allows them to know the solution to the problem they are having with their
computer(s). This software works on a basic assumption that the user is aware of basic
computer terminologies and will be able to understand and answer the questions which will
be asked to them. We have tested the performance of our system for various different cases of
problems like booting problems, CD/DVD related problems, and Printer related problems etc
and got satisfactory response from the system. PC Troubleshooting Expert is a rule based
expert system and its efficiency solely depends on the fact that how much knowledge it’s
having in its knowledge base. The system can be made more and more useful by simply
adding new rules and conditions required by those rules.

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References
[1] Diagnosis and troubleshooting of computer faults based on expert system and artificial
intelligence Article in Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics · June 2013
[2] Expert system to troubleshoot and maintain hp laser jet printers
[3] A Novel Expert System for PC Network Troubleshooting and Maintenance
[4]Expert system for pc maintenance and troubleshooting
[5] Expert Systems for Maintenance Applications
A short research and development task under DLA900-87-D-0017
[6] Self learning computer troubleshooting expert system Amanuel Ayde Ergado
[7] Empirical Model using Expert System Techniques in Hardware Failure of a System during
† ††
Backup of Data Abdullah Saad AlMalaise Al Ghamdi , Syed Mutiullah Hussaini and Abdul
†††
Khadar Jilani
[8] Use of the expert methods in computer based maintenance support of the m-28 aircraft
[9] Maintenance and Expert Systems M. Ben Yahia Ecole des Mines de Paris; France and D.
Clodic Ecole des Mines de Paris; France
[10] SOFTM: a software maintenance expert system in Prolog Pau, L.; Negret, J. M.

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