5.0 Hardware and Network Troubleshooting (5.1-5.3)

Always consider corporate policies, procedures, and impacts before implementing changes!!!

What is step 1 of good problem-solving techniques?

Identify the problem

• Gather information from the

  user, identify user changes, and, if applicable, perform backups before making changes

• Inquire regarding environmental or infrastructure changes

What is step 2 of good problem-solving techniques? (After Identifying the problem)

Establish a theory of probable cause (question the obvious)

• Often it is the most obvious solution.

• Loose cable on the wall or to the network

• Do research by asking questions to others and on the internet

• Make a list of all possible causes and start with the easiest to test

What is step 3 of good problem-solving techniques? (After establishing a theory on the cause)

Test the theory

• Go through each theory and determine if it was correct

• If theory doesn’t work, re-establish new theory or escalate/call an expert

What is step 4 of good problem-solving techniques? (After testing a theory resulted in a positive)

Establish a plan of action

• Correct the issue with minimum impact

• Refer to vendor instructions

• Identify potential effects and have a plan B and C

• Bring to change control board

• If approved, implement solution within time frame

What is step 5 of good problem-solving techniques? (After we implement the solution)

Verify full system functionality and, if applicable, implement preventive measures

• Run tests on the environment to make sure everything works

• You can also have your customer confirm the fix

• Implement preventative measures to make sure it doesn’t happen again

What is step 6 of good problem-solving techniques? (After we confirmed the fix)

Document the findings, actions, and outcomes

• What was the original cause

• What were the symptoms

• What solutions did we try, which one worked

Troubleshoot problems related to Power-on self-test (POST) beeps

• If there is a problem with CPU, CMOS, Video, Memory, etc the POST will give you a beeping code and possibly some text on screen.

• This can also be associated with time and setting in the BIOS where the battery has gone bad that keeps time for the motherboard

• Could also be trying to boot from the wrong device. Set boot order in BIOS, confirm that the startup device has a valid OS, check for media in a startup device

Troubleshoot problems related to Proprietary crash screens (blue screen of death [BSOD])

• BSOD contains important info on why your system is crashing. That information is written to an event log in the event viewer.

• Use information from event log to do research using the manufacturer’s website and from the stop code

• You can use Last Known Good, System Restore, or Rollback Driver to try fixing the system.

• If safe mode can load but normal windows cannot, the problem might be with the drivers not associated with safe mode

• If new hardware was placed into system, try reseating it or removing it.

• If persistent, you can run hardware diagnostics through the BIOS

Troubleshoot problems related to Proprietary crash screens (pinwheel)

macOS X spinning wait cursor (the spinning ball of death)

• Restart the system to fix this error

• Could be caused by application bugs, bad hardware, slow paging to disk, etc

• Might be information on why this occurred in the console logs

Troubleshoot problems related to Black screen

• Is the monitor connected? Check the power and signal cable

• Check the input option to make sure the right one is selected

• If screen is dim, not black, check brightness

• You can swap the monitor for a good one to see if it is the monitor or something else

• If no video after windows loads, you can use VGA mode to ensure that driver incompatibility isn’t causing the black screen

Troubleshoot problems related to No power

• Check the source (outlet) with a multimeter

• Check the power supply and the connections/cable/switches

• If some parts are getting power but others are not check the source of the parts that have power to see where it is getting power. This will help you narrow down where the problem is.

Troubleshoot problems related to Sluggish performance

• Check task manager for high CPU use and I/O

• Could be a Windows update

• Could be from not enough disk space

• If laptops have power saving mode on, it will throttle the CPU. Desktops might switch to power saving if the temperature rises.

• Can also be from anti-virus software running on your system

Troubleshoot problems related to Overheating

• Things that create heat: CPUs, video adapters, memory, etc

• Things that cool: Fans/airflow, heat sinks

• Make sure fans, heat sinks, and everything that generates heat are all clean and do not have dust on them

• You can check temperature using third party tools or through the BIOS

Troubleshoot problems related to Burning smell

• Disconnect from power right away

• Replace all damaged parts, may need an entirely new motherboard

Troubleshoot problems related to Intermittent shutdown

• Check in the event viewer

• Could be a heat related issue, high heat means that your computer shut itself down to prevent damage

• Could be bad hardware. Has anything changed? Check device manager and run diagnostics

• Could be anything, try using process of elimination

Troubleshoot problems related to Application crashes

• Check the event log

• Check the reliability monitor

  • Checks for resolutions and a history of application problems

• Uninstall/reinstall the application that is crashing

Troubleshoot problems related to Grinding noise on computers

• Could be a loose component such as an adapter card was not installed properly or a heat sink detached is moving around inside the case

• Could be the hard drive scraping itself, this is very bad and could cause memory loss or permanent damage to drive

• Could be coming from the fan, listen for a clicking noise and you should be able to spin the fan with no resistance

Troubleshoot problems related to Capacitor swelling

• If you hear a pop coming from your computer it could be a capacitor blowing. Look for a bulging top on the capacitor or if the entire top of it is gone.

Troubleshoot problems related to lockups

• System completely stops, usually not much in the event log, similar to unexpected shutdowns.

• Look for anything that is still responding to you

  • Hard drive lights

  • Status Lights on the front of computer

  • Num-lock button

  • Ctrl-alt-del

• What has been changed recently? Updated? Driver installs? Software Patches?

• Check for low resources. No RAM or no storage available could cause the OS to hang.

• Hardware diagnostics could also be useful

Troubleshoot problems related to continuous reboots

• Check to see how far the boot makes it before rebooting again.

• If you’ve recently installed a bad driver or made a bad config, you can hit F8 to choose “boot from last known working configuration” to try fixing it

• You can also try safe mode from F8, go to system properties, settings, and disable automatically restart option. This will allow you to document why you’re boot is crashing.

• Can also be from bad hardware that needs replacing.

Troubleshoot problems related to Inaccurate system date/time

• Could be a bad motherboard battery

• Until replaced, you will need to manually enter the time each time you boot your computer

• Most modern devices will not have their BIOS reset if the battery is removed because modern devices often write the BIOS configs to flash memory on the motherboard

Steps for troubleshooting disk failures

• Get a backup of the drive

• Check for loose or damaged cables

• Check for overheating (especially if problems occur after startup)

• Check power supply (especially if new devices were added)

• Get a good computer and run diagnostics on the drive

For Light-emitting diode (LED) status indicators, troubleshoot and diagnose problems with storage drives and RAID arrays

If these are flashing or constantly turned on there could be slow performance or a constant need to retry.

For Grinding noises and Clicking sounds, troubleshoot and diagnose problems with storage drives and RAID arrays

The click of death or

For Bootable device not found, troubleshoot and diagnose problems with storage drives and RAID arrays

• Lights or beeps or error messages may accompany this.

• Could also be because there is no OS on the drive

• Check the cables

• Check the boot sequence to make sure it is correct. The order matters. Look for removable disks or disabled storage devices

• For new drives, check the data, power, and the SATA cables attached to the drive

• Try the drive in a different system to see if it works

For Data loss/corruption, troubleshoot and diagnose problems with storage drives and RAID arrays

• Backup drives as often as necessary

• Prone to fail

• Repairs are very difficult

For RAID failure, troubleshoot and diagnose problems with storage drives and RAID arrays

• Each RAID is different

• Don’t pull drives until you check the console

• Console might give you information about which drive is failing

For Self-monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) failure, troubleshoot and diagnose problems with storage drives and RAID arrays

• You can access this from third-party utilities or from the manufacturer’s built-in reporting.

• As problems become more frequent in a RAID array, you can look at the S.M.A.R.T. information to view things like temperature, spin-up time, error rate, power on hours, etc

• You can schedule checks on the disk

• If a warning is given, back up data and replace drive

For Extended read/write times and Input/output operations per second (IOPS), troubleshoot and diagnose problems with storage drives and RAID arrays

• To measure read/write times you can use IOPS (input/output operations per second)

• Hard drives max out around 200 iops

• SSDs max out around 1 million iops

For Missing drives in OS troubleshoot and diagnose problems with storage drives and RAID arrays

• Check the BIOS

• Could be a bad cable or disconnected drive

• For external drives, could be no power or bad cable connection

• For network shares, you can try connecting it during start up, reconnecting at sign in, or running the login script