Trouble Shooting Hardware Flashcards
What is the POST?
Power on Self Test. A diagnostic routine that a computers CPU runs during the boot process.
what is the POST responsible for?
making sure that all the main components of the computer are functioning properly. It checks the main systems such as the CPU, CMOS, RAM, storage and peripherals.
What is CMOS?
a chip built using CMOS technology
how are failures noted with the POST?
with beeps or codes. all beeps and codes are different depending on the manufacturer.
what do you do if you start your computer and get a blank screen on boot?
- Listen for beeps
- Figure out if there is bad ram, video adapter or CPU.
- Could also be associated with a bad BIOS configuration.
If you look at the computer and the date or time is incorrect, what could this indicate?
That the battery has gone bad on the motherboard.
What should you do if your system tries to boot from a drive that is not the normal start up drive?
Start the BIOS config and see the order the drives are listed in. You may need to move drives around. Also check if you have a USB plugged in and the system is trying to boot from the USB.
What is a windows stop error?
also called the blue screen of death. a system error screen when the system encounters a critical error. It can be caused by various hardware or software issues.
What can you do if the BSoD flashes by too quickly?
Go back and view the event log. Then use last known good, system restore or rollback driver.
What can you do if the system can boot in safe mode, but not do a full boot?
Try to narrow down where the actual problem may lie. Check if you installed a new adpater or any new hardware into the system. If you still can’t find the issue after that, run hardware diagnostics.
What is the spinning ball of death?
also known as the MacOS X Spinning Wait Cursor. This is giving you feedback that something is occuring on the sytem. If the ball never stops spinning this indicates an issue.
What are some reasons the spinning ball of death may occur?
- Application bug
- Bad hardware
- slow paging to disk
what is paging to disk?
the process in which the operating system transfers data from a computers RAM to a dedicated portion of the hard disk drive or other storage device.
What is a way to deal with the spinning ball of death?
restart the system and then go check the console logs.
What should you do when a black screen occurs?
The first thing is to check that the monitor is connected properly. Check both the power and signal cables. Also check the input.
What should you do when the screen is displaying information but its very dim?
Check the brightness controls. Try replacing the monitor with one you know works, to see if the issue is the monitor or something deeper.
What do you do if you see information on the screen but suddenly it goes black?
try to tell windows to start in VGA mode. By using VGA mode you can test to see wether the issue is with the driver or the monitor itself.
What do you do if you press the power button on and nothing turns on?
Check if the computer is plugged in correctly. You can also test with your multi meter. Also check if there are any components working inside the computer.
What do you do if your OS is running but its sluggish?
this may be a problem with the process or application running on your system. Go to the task manager and check for high CPU utilization and i/o. A process could be running behind the scenes that takes more resources than you think.
What should you do if your storage drive is filling up and the OS is not able to write files to that drive?
this could case the OS to operate poorly. So you may want to check the storage drive to see if you have available space for windows to work properly. You may need to run a disk defragmentation.
What is a disk defragmentation?
a process in which files and data stored on a computers HDD or SDD are reorganized to improve their access and retrieval speed.
What automatic things will a device do to save power?
If you unplug a latop from a main power source, and you run on battery power many laptops will automatically throttle the CPU. Some systems also monitor for temp and if the temp rises too high the system will run slower to cool down.
Name something else that can slow down a system?
anti virus and anti malware can slow a system down when its running a scan.
what is overheating usually caused by?
heat is mostly caused by the CPU, video adapters and memory. Overheating can be caused by a fan or heat sink failing.
