Look - don't Listen - Software or Hardware?!

When I first read an article called "Look Don't Listen", I thought that it was too obvious, and just basic common sense, that everyone knows. However, when I put it into practice, I found that it is a real skill which has to be learned and applied.

Observing what is really there, observing what is obvious and not taking anything for granted or making any assumptions, will save you time and can prevent costly errors. If you are an IT Administrator you might have experienced what I mean, while trying to help one of your users.

To give you a better idea of what I am talking about and which way this article is heading, allow me to tell you a story, a real instance, which happened a few weeks ago.

I got a call from one of our clients who had a problem with a printer. The printer wouldn't print anymore and the user came up with the idea of reformatting the hard drive and re-installing Windows and all other applications (probably nothing you would consider). As I needed to see them anyway I got them to wait "fixing the problem" until my arrival.

As I had adapted for life this little sentence "Look Don't Listen", I just started to look. Is the computer turned on? - OK. Is the printer turned on? - OK. Is paper in the printer? - OK. It almost sounds too easy, as the next step already showed the problem and was fixed within a second. You may not believe this, but it really happened. Is the printer connected to the PC? - NO!!

The printer was not connected to the PC. That was all that was wrong and after plugging the printers USB connection into the USB port of the PC, printing was no longer a problem. For the user and the other staff around it looked like a miracle and nobody could believe that the printer was not connected to the PC. But nobody had checked that before, you see what I mean?

Look Don't Listen! Observe the obvious. Like a pilot, you could write yourself a checklist, which you can follow in order to locate and handle any problem or situation. Start with the obvious. Has the PC got power? Is the PC switched on? Things like that take only seconds and can save you hours.

Unfortunately when it comes to fixing a computer hardware problem most tasks are not as obvious. You can't look into a memory chip or you can't look into a graphics card or the processor. Those inabilities of the human perceptions can make these tasks more difficult and will lead, at least in many cases, to assumptions and actions of trial and error. Take the RAM out and replace it. If it works fine, great, if not try something else. This approach is very time consuming and may not find all of the PCs problems in one go.

It would be great if we could get a special type of glasses, which allowed you to look into the computer's hardware - if only they existed! To get an aid which enables you to see and find exactly what is wrong with the machine. Something like 'X-Ray specs' for PC hardware would probably be of help.

Luckily for us though, there is help of this kind available and I wouldn't want to be without it anymore. The "glasses" and X-Ray for fixing your computer or even to validate a new build as fully functional is called "Micro-Scope". As the name already implies it provides you with in-depth information about your computers hardware. MicroScope or its bigger brother Universal Toolkit, have been developed to do exactly that for you - to help you to look into your hardware and end the guessing game. Do yourself a favour - Look Don't Listen! Use the Toolkit and start saving your valuable time and money.

Software or Hardware?

When faced with a computer problem, the first thing to determine is whether we actually need to solve the problem, or just get the system going again. This may sound like a cop-out, but the fact is many times the best handling for a computer failure is just to reboot and forget about it.

For instance, many soft errors are caused by cosmic rays. These are completely random, and that same exact error will probably never occur again. Trying to pinpoint the error is fruitless, because the memory will test 'good'. The best course of action is to reboot and get on with the show. Of course there are such things as intermittent errors, so if it happens repeatedly you will want to track down the source of it.

Once you've decided that there really is a problem, you've reached a fork in the road. Is it a hardware problem or a software problem? If you knew exactly what was causing the problem this would be an easy question to answer, but usually at this stage you won't know. However, you must decide what to pursue first, and if you guess wrong the result at best will be a lot of wasted time.

This is where a good diagnostic program like Micro-Scope really comes into its own. In just a couple of minutes you can test all of the major hardware components and either narrow the problem down to one of them for further testing, or eliminate hardware as the source of the problem. If you have eliminated hardware as the cause, then the problem must be software. Elementary, my Dear Watson!

One thing to be aware of when running a diagnostic program is that most of them are loaded under either the DOS or Windows operating system. As you will see in Volume 3, these operating systems are designed to handle all sorts of hardware management details in the background so that the user and the application do not have to deal with them directly. This is normally very convenient, but not exactly what you want when trying to test the hardware. And if the problem lies with the operating system itself, one of these diagnostics may have a very difficult time sorting out whether it's really a hardware or software problem, if indeed the diagnostic will run at all.

The answer to eliminating interference from the operating system is to use a diagnostic that is Operating System Independent. Such a diagnostic actually has its own operating system just to run the diagnostic, and this operating system will be designed to give the user and the diagnostic application direct access to the hardware, rather than trying to shield them from it.

To load an OS-independent diagnostic, you will need to turn off the system, put the diagnostic CD/diskette in the CD/floppy drive, and then turn the system back on. It will boot up with the diagnostic's OS in charge rather than DOS or Windows.

By the way, there is one pattern that is usually hardware-related, and that is a system that boots up just fine in the morning and works for a few minutes before crashing. Then it must be turned off for a while before it can boot up and run for a few more minutes. The problem here is probably heat, and the most likely culprit is a failing CPU fan. If the fan checks OK then make sure the vents are not blocked, either from something next to the cabinet or internally from dust.

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