Practice Exam: Hardware and Network Troubleshooting

CIT 111 Fall 2025

A tier one helpdesk technician receives a corporate cellphone with a broken screen. What is the first step?

Check if the phone is under warranty

A user complains that their monitor dimes every day at 5:30 pm. What could fix this problem?

Turn off the auto-dim feature

A user finished setting up their new laptop on the latest Windows operating system and is currently setting up print capabilities. They go to pick up the paper from the printer, but everything comes out garbled. What should they troubleshoot first?

Drivers

What is a sign that the RTC battery is failing?

Inaccurate date/time

What is a possible source of data corruption?

Sectors or blocks fail

What information would help diagnose an intermittent shutdown problem?

Circumstances when shutdown occurs

A projector shut down two hours into a presentation. What could be the problem?

Overheating

A user complains that the cursor on their laptop jumps around on its own. This is especially bad while they are typing. What could solve this problem? (Select 2)

Configure input options

Disable the touchpad

What kind of storage media can have grinding and clicking as a diagnostic tool?

HDD (Hard Disk Drive)

What symptom only points to a mechanical failure?

Grinding noise

What issue does constant indicator LED activity imply?

Not enough system RAM

While trying to set up for a presentation, the wall-mounted display will not mirror the laptop display. The technician traces the long HDMI cable to find that it runs on the floor, and it is evident that users have repeatedly run over it. What will likely fix the problem?

Use a new HDMI cable

What does SMART measure as a performance indicator?

IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second)

A technician responds to a computer intermittently shutting down and finds that the tower has a personal heater blowing on it. What is a likely problem?

Overheating

A user complains that their phone is not responding to touch. What is the likely culprit?

faulty digitizer

A computer monitor’s display is so dime that is almost invisible. What is the likely problem?

Failed display backlight

After running a Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) diagnosis on a computer, with extended read/write times, the input/output per second (IOPS) matches the vendor’s baseline. What could be the problem?

Limited hard drive capacity

A user is trying to mirror a computer to a large display monitor for a presentation. The computer is on, and the display reads “no input” on the screen. An HDMI cable connects the two devices. What would be the next thing to check?

Change the display source

The technician can hear the computer’s fan spinning, but no output displays on the laptop. What would be the first troubleshooting technique?

Connect an external monitor to check the screen.

A computer is not displaying any content on the screen, and it makes continuous beeps after booting. What is the likely problem?

System memory problem