CS 213 Lecture Notes:

Prepared by: Dr. Syed Misbahuddin

Chapter 7: PC Maintenance and Repair

Type of PC Technicians:

 PC support technician
 Works on-site; responsible for ongoing maintenance
 Closely interacts with users
 Is responsible for the PCs before trouble occurs
 PC service technician
 Goes to customer site in response to a service call
 Bench technician
 Works in a lab environment
 May/may not interact with the PC user
 Is not permanently responsible for the PC
 Help-desk technician
 Provides telephone support

Troubleshooting Guideline

Finding the Cause of a Problem

Before you can fix a problem, you have to determine the cause.
Diagnosing computer glitches, especially in a networked environment,
can take quite a bit of detective work. Here are some good starting
points:

• Find out When the Problem Started, and How Often it

Happens - Knowing this may help you deduce the cause of the
of the problem.
• Find out Which Systems Are Affected - If more than one
PCs is malfunctioning, think of what shared resources are used
by each of the affected systems.
• Find out What has Changed - What changes have been
made recently to the computer or the network? Have any
system settings been changed? Does the onset of the problem
coincide with any of these previous system changes?
• Try to Replicate the Problem - If you can find what will
trigger the problem, this will provide you with clues regarding
the source of the problem.
• What Components Could Cause this Problem? - Think
about the problem, and what hardware and software are
involved.
• Try to Find Other Related Problems - If two issues pop
up on the same day, there's a good chance they are related to a

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 common source. Try to find software or hardware that both
malfunctioning systems rely on.

Common Problem Areas

Issue Common Symptoms Common Fixes

Shutdown the PC, disconnect
Loose Cables Multitude. and reconnect the cables, start
up the PC again
Check that your networking is
Email, Internet not set up correctly (protocols,
Networking working; files on network devices, bindings...) Check
fileserver "missing" your networking hardware
(hub, cables, NICs)
Computer doesn't work
correctly, or stops booting Re-seat (remove and re-insert)
Loose Cards
altogether, after installing any new cards.
new hardware.
Cards and
Computer doesn't work Check Plug'n'Play settings in
Hardware
correctly, or stops booting BIOS; refer to documentation
Conflict
altogether, after installing for resource conflict
new hardware. workarounds.

Shut down PC, disconnect

PC won't boot; no lights
Power Supply power cord and replace power
on case; ozone odor
supply ASAP.
Either the disk or drive is
failing (try the same disk in a
different computer to
Removable Media Disk reading only works
determine which.) For Zip
(Floppies, CDs, sporadically or not at all;
drive problems, try visiting
Zip disks) strange noises
http://grc.com/clickdeath.htm
for diagnostic software and
advice.
Computer won't boot;
Isolate and remove faulty
Memory strange beeps during boot;
memory chip
frequent crashes

Online Resources

Hardware-related links

http://www.sysopt.com/buildpc/: Gives step-by-step instructions on

assembling a PC

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http://www.motherboards.org/build.html - more information on
building a PC

http://arstechnica.com/guide/building/index.html - yet another PC

building tutorial

http://pclt.cis.yale.edu/pclt/ - PC Lube and Tune; good information,

some sections need updating

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/clone-hw-guide/ - an excellent PC
equipment buying guide; written for UNIX users, but the information
applies to Windows users as well.

http://www.tomshardware.com/ - PC hardware news and reviews

Windows 95/98 links

http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/default.asp - Microsoft's
official Windows95 website

http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/default.asp- Microsoft's official

Windows98 website

http://www.annoyances.org/win95/ - companion website to the book

Windows95 Annoyances.

http://www.annoyances.org/win98/ - companion website to the book

Windows98 Annoyances.

http://www.conitech.com/windows/index.asp - Frank Condron's World

O' Windows

Advanced Operating Systems links

http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/ - Microsoft's Windows NT Server

homepage

http://www.zdnet.com/windows/nt/tech/ - ZDNet Windows NT site;

news and tech questions

http://www.winntmag.com - Windows NT news and review magazine

http://www.linux.com/ - News and documentation for beginning and

advanced Linux users

http://www.redhat.com/ - The leading US distributor of Linux

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 http://linux.corel.com/ - Info on WordPerfect for Linux and Corel
Linux

General

http://www.help.com/ - CNET's computer help site

http://www.google.com/ - Web search engine

http://www.tucows.com/ - software downloads and news

Review Questions
1. What is the role of:
PC Support technician , PC Service technician
Help desk technician
2. What a bootable rescue disk should contain.
3. List all Network related problem symptoms.
4. How you can solve resource conflict problem.
5. How you can know your computer need more memory
6. What action you can take for each of the following problem. List at least two
actions
i. No response from computer
ii. Computer operates incorrectly after installing DIMM
iii. Computer does not boot from IDE hard disk
iv. Neither mouse nor keyboard work
v. Computer does not work after installing a card
vi. Network does not start