PC repair involves restoring damaged or broken computers to working order. Effective troubleshooting requires being in the right mental state to identify problems quickly. General techniques include understanding the root cause, eliminating potential causes methodically, and using diagnostic tools. Specific components that may need repair include the motherboard, processor, memory, storage drives, ports, and operating system. Experience is important for effective PC repair and troubleshooting.

1. PC Repair
PC Repair and Troubleshooting

2. PC Repair
• To restore something damaged or broken to
good condition or working order
• Sometimes replace is the easiest repair
• Experience is a vital component

3. Troubleshooting and Your Mental State
• the difference between a person in the right
mental state and one who is not, in the ability
to identify and correct system problems. It can
easily be the difference between a problem
that is fixed in minutes and one that
languishes for hours or days.

4. • Don't Panic or Overestimate the Magnitude of
the Problem
• Don't Jump to the Solution Before You
Understand the Problem
• Don't Be Stubborn
• Keep an Open Mind
• Give Yourself Time
• Be Wary of Fatigue
• If You're Stuck, Try Using Your "Background
Processing Capabilities“
• Two Heads are Better Than One
• It Isn't Personal

5. Steps To Take First When
Troubleshooting
• Things to try first before proceeding into a full
troubleshooting effort.
• The reason is simple: they can often solve the
problem you are having before you spend a lot
of energy looking into it seriously.

6. • Let the Vendor Do the Work!
• Scan For Viruses
• Read the Documentation
• Double-Check Any Recent Changes
• Simplify

7. General Diagnostic Techniques
• The rules of thumb that you should employ
when you are troubleshooting. These are the
general techniques and ideas that can help
you solve all sorts of different problems with
your PC

8. • Get to the Root Cause: Ask "Why" Five Times
– find out the root cause of why the problem is
occurring so that we can ensure that it will not
happen in the future.
• Be Observant and Look For Evidence
– If you are observant and careful about what you
are doing, you will be much more likely to pick up
on these things than if you are in a hurry or you
are quick to discount your findings as "unrelated
to the problem"

9. • Use the Process of Elimination
– narrow the problem down rather quickly by
making small logical changes and observing the
impact on the problem. Your objective is to isolate
the cause of the problem so you can correct it.
• Do One Upgrade or Assembly Step At a Time
– making single changes to the system
• Make Use of Components That You Know
Work
– These extra components can be useful when you
are employing the process of elimination to
resolve problems.

10. • Write Things Down
– Keeping a history of what you discover and what
your symptoms are will help you not only with this
problem but also with any future difficulties.
• Determine Repeatability or Intermittent
– A repeatable problem is one where the problem
occurs all the time, or always in response to a
specific user action.
– Intermittent problems are ones which appear to
happen spontaneously or randomly

11. • Correlation May Not Imply Causation
– you may find two symptoms on your machine: you
have frequent file system corruption on your hard
disk, and you have a lot of system lockups (hangs,
crashes). You may think that the crashes are
causing the file system errors, and in many cases
this is true. However it is possible for the file
system errors to cause the lockups. And it is also
possible that both are just symptoms of another
underlying cause.

12. • Scan For File System Problems
– If the problem you are looking at is anything that
involves the hard disk, files, operating system
problems, crashes or similar behaviour, scan the
file system for errors
• Use Diagnostic Tools
– If you feel that you are having a problem that can
be detected by a tool, or you feel that running a
diagnostic utility may shed more light on what's
happening, then make use of the tool to help
guide your analysis of the problem.

13. Troubleshooting Specific Components
• System Case
• Power Sources and Power Protection Devices
• Motherboard and System Devices
• The Processor
• System Memory
• Video Cards
• Monitors
• Hard Disk Drives
• CD-ROM Drives
• Peripheral I/O Ports
• Keyboards
• Mice
• Modems
• Operating Systems and Applications