- PC SYSTEMS -
Have you been in this situation before?! Well, I have (many times) - and I would like to share with you a few hard-to-come-by helpful hints on how to identify and resolve problems with your PC (and the things hooked to it) - and get back up and running.
A COUPLE OF MY FAVORITE STORIES:
> Client calls and says her monitor is dead. Pack up new monitor in my car, go to her place, lug monitor up steps, and take to her computer room. Look at her monitor and notice yellow `on-light' is not lit. Push `on' button on her monitor and, guess what, monitor lights up and PC is working fine!! Reaction is "Oh my!" - but I billed her anyway...
> Prospective client calls and says she has many pressing problems - the worst of which her network printer isn't working and has caused much office `downtime'. Go meet new client, discuss network upgrade, and check out printer problem. Printer cable in back of printer was not connected! New client blames problem on cleaning lady!! Billed her too...
Moral of these stories is: When faced with a catastrophic failure, first check your "on/off" switches and `cable connections' before leaping to drastic measures...
ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE, ON TO COMMON PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS: (These are the "traumatic experiences" I get the most calls on..)
PROBLEM: COMPUTER `FREEZES UP':
Discussion and Possible Solutions: Computers `freeze up' for a number of reasons (each being either SOFTWARE or HARDWARE related - or OVERHEATING which affects both). First determine if your PC is really `frozen' (if you mouse still moves it is not frozen). If your mouse still moves, hit your "ctrl-alt-del" keys simultaneously to show you what programs are running and look for a program that says "not responding" after it. `Close' the program and you will be back up and running. Second, if your PC is really `frozen', kill all power and wait for your RAM to clear any instructions that are causing problems (takes about 15 seconds after power is off). Then restart your computer and cross your fingers!
SOFTWARE generated lockups are usually caused by lost (file) clusters and cross-linked or fragmented files on your hard drive. Your file structure can be cleaned up by running "scandisk c:" from a DOS prompt. De-fragmentation and hard drive optimization is best done using Norton System Works 2006 "Speed Disk" (also Norton "Disk Doctor", another of the many utilities in System Works, is a better alternative to "scandisk" if you have NSW installed).
HARDWARE generated lockups are either caused by your RAM, your HARD DRIVE, PLUG IN CARDS on your motherboard, or your MOTHERBOARD itself.
> RAM: If you have been getting error messages about "damaged or missing" files, or a blue screen pops up saying "a fatal exception has occurred at address blah blah" your RAM is probably the bad guy. Replace your RAM (see Real Memory) and see what happens.
> HARD DRIVE: If you have been getting error messages saying "error writing to drive C:" when you are installing new software, you are developing bad physical sectors on your hard drive. Also, damaged files are also caused by bad hard drive sectors so beware of "damaged or missing file" warnings in this area too! "Scandisk" will find hard drive problems for you in its "surface scan" phase - or Norton Disk Doctor will do it better if you have it installed. If you find that you have hard drive defects, replace it as soon as possible (see Hard Drives) or you will be dead in the water!
> PLUG IN CARDS: I have seen several instances of plug in cards (like modems, video cards, and sound cards) going south gradually and causing bad repercussions in PC system operation. This is not an area most people think to check because these are "behind the scene devices" that don't give many obvious signs of malfunction. Removing these cards one by one (and replacing in the case of the video card), rebooting your system, and seeing if your problem has cleared is the only easy way to check this area.
> MOTHERBOARD: If none of above applies, the only thing left is your motherboard - and any one of dozens of things could be wrong there. NSW 2006 (see Utilities) has a fairly good hardware testing program built in - but if your problem is intermittent it probably won't find it. Contact the vendor that sold you your PC and see what he can do for you.
OVERHEATING is a common thread between all of the problems discussed above. If your PC is not in a well ventilated area or the power supply or CPU fans have frozen up all kinds of strange things can happen. Hold your hand over power supply exhaust in the back of the PC to make sure you can feel air coming out and then take the cover off of your PC and check the CPU fan. If both are working, leave the cover off to see if things improve. Supplemental exhaust fans are very popular to reduce component overheating - and subsequent PC "freeze ups".
PROBLEM: WINDOWS LOADS PART OF THE WAY AND STOPS:
Discussion and Possible Solutions: Every time this has happened to me, it has been because Windows is trying to load a software driver for a piece of hardware that isn't configured properly (either sound or video).
> Start up your PC in "safe mode" (tap your F5 key as you boot up or hold down your "ctrl" key and select "safe mode") and then go to your control panel (start-settings-control panel). Once in the control panel go to the "system-device manager" screen and look for devices that have a yellow exclamation mark (!) by them. If you find some, note where they are, remove them, and reboot. If Windows says "new hardware found" and tries to install drivers for it, make sure you are putting in the correct software.
> If you don't see any yellow marks, get out of "system" and go to "display", and "sound" and look for problems. If you still don't find anything, turn your PC off, remove the cover, and take out your sound card and reboot. If you hang up again, power down and take out your modem and try again.
> If none of this works, go to my "contact me" page to request further help if you need it.
PROBLEM: WINDOWS GIVES YOU A MESSAGE SAYING "Your Registry Is corrupt and Windows will now restart and fix the Problem":
Discussion and Possible Solutions: First, the Windows `registry' is one of the most important software system files in your PC because it contains a record of all programs installed and where they are located - and without it you are dead in the water. Damaged registries are usually caused by one of the file corrupting problems discussed above (RAM or defective hard drive) and this could be warning of a serious hardware problem.
Be that as it may, go ahead and let Windows try to fix the problem for the time being - and hope it doesn't recur. The way Windows fixes this is to revert to an earlier version of your registry that was saved as a "backup" during a previous program installation. This works sometimes - and sometimes it doesn't (and you keep getting the same frustrating error message every time you try to boot up). There is a way, however, for you to restore an earlier version of your registry yourself (if the `automatic fix' is selecting another bad registry)! Go to a DOS prompt (you can do this on boot-up by holding down your "ctrl" key and selecting "DOS prompt only"). Then type "scanreg /restore", `enter', view the saved registry log, and select a registry dated back when your PC was operating properly. This has always worked for me - hope it does for you!
PROBLEM: WINDOWS GIVES YOU A "MSGSRV32" ERROR MESSAGE:
Discussion: `Msgsrv32.exe', one of the most important sub-programs in Windows, is the Windows 32-bit "message server" which performs the following functions:
Loads Windows installable drivers (video, sound, etc.) at startup and unloads them at shutdown.
Coordinates Plug-and-Play messages among various parts of the operating system.
Coordinates automatic responses to `setup' programs. This includes checking whether a setup program has improperly overwritten Windows files, and optionally restoring the current version of those files.
Displays the initial logon dialog box if networking is enabled.
Plays the system startup and shutdown sounds.
Runs the shell program (usually Explorer.exe), and re-runs the shell if it fails to respond.
It takes a little intuitive troubleshooting on the part of the user to determine which of the above functions failed, and the possible cause(s) of that failure.
