Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting Theory
1) Identify the problem 2) Establish a Theory 3) Test the Theory 4) Establish plan of action / Implement Plan 5) Verify Full System Functionality 6) Documentation
James has replaced the CPU and added some RAM to his PC. When he rebooted his system, an annoying repetitive beep occurred. What was wrong?
A repetitive beep suggests a RAM problem; Each motherboard manufacturer has their own beep codes, but only the RAM beep code is continuous.
Printer has creased paper.
Apply maintenance kit.
Printer: Color prints in the wrong color.
Bad driver or has one malfunctioning color.
Printer: Garbled characters on paper
Bad drivers or corrupted drivers.
Paper jam error but no jammed paper on a laser printer.
Bad sensor
What should you check first after a user reports a BSOD (BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH), even though her computer seems to be running fine after a reboot?
Check Device Manager first. A driver error can cause a BSOD. Updating drivers is easy with this tool. Event Viewer is helpful but start with most likely and most simple first.
You are seeing streaks of toner across your papers when you are printing things using your office's laser printer. What is the MOST likely cause of this problem?
Clean the printers transfer roller. The transfer roller is one of the most important components inside the printer, as it charges the toner in the drum before it transfers to the paper. If you see streaks of toner on your printouts, this is usually an indication of a dirty transfer roller. Consequently, occasionally cleaning the transfer roller can keep your printed documents clean and streak-free. You may print hundreds or even thousands of pages on your laser printer between toner cartridge changes, so it is prudent to clean the unit whenever you change the toner cartridge to keep used toner from building up and clogging the print mechanism.
A mobile phone is responding slowly and erratically for a user. The user has tried a soft reset on the device, but the phone continues to respond slowly. Which of the following is the BEST step the user can take to fix this problem?
Close down unused applications/apps running in background
Printer prints streaks on paper.
Common on inkjets, they are clogging. Fix: go on maintenance mode.
A user calls the help desk because an important presentation folder is missing from the desktop of his system. The user is certain the folder was there the previous day. The technician views the properties of the parent folder, and confirms a back up listed on the "Prior Versions" tab. According to the theory of troubleshooting, which of the following is the technician's NEXT step?
Establish a theory of probable cause
Printer prints faded printed paper
Laser printer fix: switch toner cartridge. Impact printer fix: ribbon needs replacing. Inkjet fix: jets might get clogged.
Error at boot: "Windows could not start"
Misconfigured BOOT.INI file that is usually stored in a folder called \WINNT or \WINDOWS. If BOOT.INI doesn't point out a valid copy, this is the error you'll get
What would cause a laser printer to generate a totally black sheet?
No power to the primary corona.
Sam sent a print job to the printer, can see it is the only one in the queue, but it is not printing. What can be done to try to get it to print?
Open the Print Spooler icon in the system tray, select the print job, and click restart.
Printer: printing blank paper
Physical problem.
Raid Troubleshoot: "Raid not found/not working"
Raid controller active? Can you access system setup for RAID? || Does HD have power?
Common Bad Hardware Noises
Rattling - Loose Components Scraping - Hard Drive Issues Clicking - Fan problems Pop - Blown capacitor
Toner not fused to print paper.
Replace fuser assembly
Printers print ghosted images on paper.
Replace toner cartridge
A user has not received any new e-mails on his smartphone in the last two days. The user is able to access the Internet without any problems. Which of the following should the user do first?
Restart the smartphone then reconfigure email account. (Remeber start simple and efficient then logically complex)
Tammy's inkjet printer isn't printing one of the colors. She should first try...
Running the maintenance program to clear clogged jet. Maintenance kits are for laser printers.
Several users from the Sales & Marketing department have called the service desk complaining that they cannot access the internet from their workstations. You arrive at the workstation of one of the salespeople, open the command prompt, and enter the command IPCONFIG. The command returns an IPv4 address of 10.1.2.3, a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, and a default gateway of 10.1.2.1. You attempt to run the command "ping 8.8.8.8" but get the message "Request timed out" displays four times on the screen. You attempt to ping the IP of the workstation of the salesperson sitting next to this workstation and receive four successful replies from the command. You then try to ping the gateway (10.3.2.1), but again receive the message of "Request timed out" on your screen. Which of the following is MOST likely the problem with the salespeople's internet connectivity?
Since you can ping other workstations within the Sales & Marketing department, but you cannot successfully ping the gateway device (the router), this indicates that the ROUTER is non-functioning at this time. If the router is not functioning, the workstations will be unable to access any devices or servers outside of the Sales & Marketing department since the router is necessary to connect them to those devices.
Ellen's laptop has a built-in 802.11n-capable wireless NIC. The wireless NIC worked perfectly yesterday when she loaned it to her nerdy friend Tom. Today, she cannot access the Internet via her wireless NIC. The NIC is not visible in Network Connections nor is it visible in Device Manager. What should she assume first?
The NIC is disabled in CMOS.
Your primary hard drive starts to make a clicking noise. There are some very important files on the drive. How do you make sure the data can be saved?
Take it to a professional data recovery company.
A user has just dropped off his laptop reporting that the screen is very dim and it's difficult to make out the icons on the desktop. When you plug in an external monitor to the system, it brings up the desktop perfectly. Which of the following needs to be replaced?
The LCD inverter Not the LCD panel because its technically still working as you can barely see the icons.
You have been asked to troubleshoot a digital projector in the home theater in your neighbor's basement. Your neighbor attempted to replace the projector's bulb, but after running for a few minutes, a message appears on the screen and the projector turns itself off again. Based on these symptoms, what are the two MOST likely causes of the projector continually turning off after just a few minutes of usage with a new bulb?
The bulbs life counter needs to be replaced. Most projectors keep track of the life of a bulb/lamp using a life counter. If you forget to reset the life counter after replacing the bulb/lamp, the projector can often turn itself off since it believes the bulb/lamp still needs to be replaced. Another cause of a projector turning itself off is when it overheats. This can be caused by an overly dirty cooling fan or a failed cooling fan. To solve this type of issue, simply clean or replace the cooling fan to prevent the projector from overheating.
Customer reports a S.M.A.R.T error, what can help you determine a dieing drive.
Under Disk Management, which is a tool for paritioning and formatting drives.
Unable to install printer
User has no right or printer is simply not on the network.
What causes "NTLDR missing" ?
Your Master Boot Record points to NTLDR. If there's a problem with the MBR, if it's corrupt or if the boot order is incorrect, then you'd get this error.
Intermittent lockups and reboots are most likely caused by...
failing power supply
A Windows system is unable to connect to the network. A ping loopback test verifies that the network card is working. What is your next step in troubleshooting the problem?
Check to see if the link light on the NIC is on.
Printer: Vertical lines on paper (laser printer common)
Foreign matter on optical sensitive matter. Fix: replace toner cartridge.
Scott's excited that his new laptop has a Gigabit Ethernet (1000BaseT) capable NIC. However, when he plugs it into his network at the office, he only gets 100Mbit speeds. What's the problem?
His switch only supports 100BaseT.
You just printed a new sign for your office using a thick cardstock paper with your network printer. Unfortunately, when you pick up the cardstock from the laser printer's output tray, the printed image smears across the paper. Attempting to troubleshooting this problem, you decide to print another sign using regular printer paper and determine that the image does not smear when touched on the regular printer paper.Which of the following would be the NEXT step to perform in your troubleshooting efforts?
Increase the temperature of the fuser element
A technician troubleshoots a broken PC only to find that a strong burning odor is coming from inside the case. Which of the following parts most likely experienced a level of electrical burn?
PSU (power supply unit)
A network printer is not printing for any of the users, and the jobs sent are showing in the queues of the local machines. The printer has paper in the trays and the toner cartridge is full. The printer display shows ready on the LCD display. A technician has been able to connect with a laptop to test the network port, and is able to connect. Which of the following should the technician do to get the printer functioning again?
Review that the server's print spooler is running properly. Correct Answer: Since the printer jobs are queuing locally, and the printer is showing ready, the failure is likely in the spooler. Incorrect Answers: The cable does not need replacing, as the laptop was able to connect properly. A test page will only confirm the printer's function; it will not allow the users to print. The technician was able to confirm that the port connects to the network properly.
Error at boot: "No boot device is present."
This happens when the BIOS is pointing to a drive that has no bootable partitions.Windows boots into Safe Mode only.
What two things can you assure if you can boot into safe mode?
You have a bootable copy of Windows and your BOOT.INI is fine.
There are only two issues that take place on a modern PC that generate beep codes. What are they?
bad or missing ram no video card detected