October 24, 2009

A small utility inside your Windows OS!

Looking for a utility that gives summary on the hardware/software installed on your PC? from board manufacturer, memory size, hard drive capacity, software information......etc?

Some of us are using Windows XP for so many years now but maybe a few knows that this utility existed within Windows. The utility name is MSINFO32, a useful utility that gives quick overall view of your system.

To launch utility just click Start, click Run, type MSINFO32 in the Open box, and then click OK.

Wait a few seconds and a window appear that displays all the related information!

Happy Weekend!

October 4, 2009

Proper Approach In PC Troubleshooting

Today I will discussed some troubleshooting approach that may help shorten your time in solving/isolating a particular PC problem.

Based on experience, I often encountered problems that seems a major problem when its not.
An example of this is a blackout motherboard only to find out that cmos enable switch is wrongfully set or there is no jumper inserted on the CMOS enable switch.

Another example is that you just transfered your PC in a different location, and when you plug everything you got a non responsive unit or PC on a continues reset, only to find out that PC was wrongfully inserted on the 110V power source, instead on the 220V outlet.

There are other scenarios that you will encounter in troubleshooting a particular problem, but with the right approach you can shorten the time in your troubleshooting.

Listed below are my basic approach in PC troubleshooting,

1.Talk to the user first what he/she noticed before the PC bogged down, often it will perform strangely, it this way you may have a hint to were you start your troubleshooting.

2.Try to establish if the problem cause by a software or a hardware, in this way you can cut half of your time in troubleshooting.

3.Look for minor cause of a particular problem first before digging deeper unto it, you may wrongfully reformat a PC that intermittently resets but later you found out that its just a case of poor memory contact on its slot or a clogged processor heatsink.

Thats all for now folks, I hope this particular topic help enhance your troubleshooting skills!