Computer Hardware Troubleshooting Tips

Insert your windows CD and restart your computer.

You should be prompted whether you wish to boot from cd? Just press on any key while this message is on the screen and you should get a blue screen showing windows CD starting up.

If you do not get such message, you will have to change your BIOS setting to allow computer to boot from CD.

Now that you were able to get the windows CD to boot, Windows XP will load the necessary file, and then ask you what you want to do. Press Enter to install windows XP.

Modifying your Boot Sequence

Reboot the computer and press the "DELETE" key as soon as you hear the beep.

On the top of the page look for the Boot TAB and selct it (use the arrows to navigate). You should have your floppy drive in first position. Your CD-ROM should be on second position and your Hard Drive third (change positions by pressing enter while the drive is selected and then use the + & - buttons to change the relative positions).

Go to the Exit TAB and selct "Exit Saving Changes".

Boot Partition Error.

A little about Boot Sectors.

When troubleshooting boot failures it can be helpful to understand a little bit what the boot sector is. A boot sector is the first sector of your Hard Drive. It contains the information to locate the active partition and to invoke its Volume Boot Record. Any computer with a mismatch in the boot sector will likely report "'Boot Sector Not Found".

Checking the Monitor.

Try disconnecting your monitors cable from your video card!

If your monitor is working you should see a message like "No Signal". It doesn't matter what is on the screen as long as it shows something.

Verify your cable. Are you missing pins from the head of the cable?

Reset all monitor Settings to default (contrast, Brightness, color, ...)

 

Does your Computer Beep when turned on?

Computer Beeping?

When there is a failure of any of the hardware parts that are connected to your computer (RAM, CPU, PCI,...), the computer makes a series of beeps. The pattern of beeps represents the diagnostic. The motherboard is telling you what part is failing.

CPU Failing

CPUs rarely fail (unless you overclock them!).

One of the rare times your CPU may fail is when your heatsink is full of dust and is not able to cool your CPU. Sometimes, if you CPU / heatsink heats up too much, the plastic that holds them together may fail. You can check that by cleaning the heatsink and then applying gentle pressure on it to make sure that there is proper contact with the CPU. SO if during that time your computer is stable, you know where the problem comes from!

Your Motherbord is defective.

Checking your motherboard's connections

Make sure all your cards and cables are plugged in correctly. Specially you video card. Take out any non-essential component (CD ROM, PCI cards[except video],...) and try to boot. Also try swapping power cables and connector ribbons. At this point you need to replace your motherboard and RAM.

CPUs burn very rarely, and if your PCI cards do not overheat they should be OK. Be very carefull to change the RAM and Motherboard as if you try to recycle one, you might burn the new one. It is a risk!

If your motherboard has failed, it is better to buy another motherboard with a new CPU because old motherboards tend to become hard to find & expensive whereas deals on combo CPU/motherboard are cheap.

NTLDR missing or corrupt

Insert the Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM, and boot from it.

- In the Windows XP setup menu press "R" to repair Windows.

- Log into your Windows installation by pressing "1" and then enter. If you use a password for Windows, you will be prompted for your administrator password.

- Copy the below two files to the root directory of the primary hard disk. Note that your CD-ROM may be under a different letter on your PC.

copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

After both of these files have been copied, remove the CD and reboot.

Open Source & Free Softwares

Free Softwares

Open Source software is free for both private and commercial use. You can also redistribute these softwares as long as you abide to the GNU General Public License.

For other free softwares and freewares, make sure you read the terms of use if you are going to use them for other computers than your Private PC.

Open Source Applications (ALL 100% FREE):

OpenOffice (Open Source)

It is a nice open source alternative to Microsoft Office. The French Police is using that on their computers.

Very easy to use .Some people find it a little more difficult than Microsoft Office, but once you get used to it after a day or two you'll adopt it and save your money. Some advanced users of Excell say that Open Office cannot replace Excell.

Open Office can read and write in the same file format as Microsoft Office.

Open Office includes:

- Calc - A spreadsheet program also capable of saving spreadsheets directly as a PDF file.

- Writer - A word processor that also includes the ability to export Portable Document Format PDF, and also function as a WYSIWYG for creating websites.

- Base - A database program able to work with Access databases JET, ODBC data sources and MySQL/PostgreSQL.

- Impress - Similar to Microsoft PowerPoint, and can export to Flash SWF and PDF formats.

- Math - A tool for writing mathematical formulae, that can export to PDF.

- Draw - A vector graphics editor.

- Macro recorder - Records actions and replays them to automate tasks.

Thunderbird (Open Source)

The best alternative to Microsoft Outlook. An Open Source Mail Client. I personally use that. Safe Secure and user friendly

- Email - Thunderbird supports IMAP and POP mail protocols, has a spell check and as well an HTML mail formatting.

- Junk Mail Filter - Designate a mail as a spam for Thunderbird to block it.

- Anti-Phishing - Protection from email scams called “phishing” that try to trick you to type your passwords and other personal information at a link the'll provide you.

- Advanced Security - Enterprise grade security including digital signing, S/MIME, message encryption and support for certificates.

- Automatic Updates

SmoothWall (Open Source)

SmoothWall Express is an open source firewall distribution based on the GNU/Linux operating system. Designed for ease of use, SmoothWall is configured via a web-based GUI, and requires absolutely no knowledge of Linux to install or use.

ZoneAlarm (Free Version)

Best Free Firewall! Download ZoneAlarm free version. It is actually superior to many commercial firewalls.

ClamWin Free Antivirus (Open Source)

I would recommend that to advanced users who would modify the code to personalise this antivirus, but I am sure they know more than me and do not need my advice. I really respect all these Open Source projects and I tought I'd throw this one too.

Avira Antivirus (Free)

Best Free Antivirus with the highest benchmark score for free antiviruses. If you want a free antivirus you've found what you were looking for.

It is easy to install, takes very low ressources to run, good virus detection and makes itself forget.

EasyCleaner (Free)

Registry Cleaner. EasyCleaner is a small program which searches the Windows registry for entries that are pointing nowhere. A little housekeeping for your Windows XP.

FileZilla (open Source)

FileZilla is a fast FTP and SFTP client for Windows with a lot of features. It is very robust and stable and yet simple to use. Best of all it is free! That's the FTP client that I use to upload my site pages.

Linux (Open Source)

Linux is a free Open Source Unix based operating system. It is a very good replacement for Windows XP except if you are into gaming. It has a desktop very similar to Windows XP and comes pre-loaded with all kinds of applications.

An excellent choice if you run a small business, do programming or simply want to surf the web.

There are many different versions of Linux. At the core they are very much the same and they mainly differ by how the packages are put together.

Mandrake is one of the closest Linux systems to Windows XP, that also offers a free Version.

You will have the choice between i586 and x86-64. i586 is for 32 Bits Processors, and x86-64 for 64 Bits CPUs. If you don't know which one you have, get the i586 as you most probably have a 32 bit CPU, otherwise you would have noticed the price difference..

Change the overheating part.

Heating is very bad for computers as it feeds a vicious circle.

The resistance of metals increases with temperature. On the other hand, temperature increases with greater resistance to current, as the metal will absorbs energy through friction with the current. A heating hadware part is either burnt or is defective and will overheat soon and fail.

Replace it before it does more damage to your computer!

Start Button

For the sake of rigour, we need to be sure that your power / Start button is not defective. It is not very likely that this is the case, but in case it is you better find it out now before replacing every part on your PC, and it only takes 2 minutes. If you are sure that it is not your Start button that is malfunctioning.

Warning: If you don't feel confident opening your PC then refrain from touching anything and call a technician.

We are going to manually bypass the Start button and see if it does the trick.

You need to get your motherboard user manual and look for the motherboard layout. Look for the part that connects to your Start button as shown below by the PWR symbol.

All you need to do is connect the lower part of the PWR column to the Reset column. This will turn your reset switch into your Start Switch