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Detection |
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Get to the root cause
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Newbies get a hard time diagnosing problems or get
to a symptom of a problem and try to fix it. However,
if you take time to explore deeply you will find
that what you thought was the problem was only a
tip of the iceberg, what you need to do is go deeper
within.
A
technique you can employ to help you with this is
called ask why five times. It is not a simple
one, but it is said that when you get to the fifth
why, you will be at the root cause.
Example:
Your hard disk is having problems with bad sectors
showing up. The immediate reaction may be that
it needs to be replaced. Instead of this lets
ask ourselves: =
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*why are bad sectors showing when they didn't
before?*
- the hard disk has been corrupted somehow, something
has changed, why?
- the timing of the system has been changed in
some way, why?
- I installed a new card to the system last week,
and the problem did not start until after then,
why?
- the hard drive may have been tampered with,
or perhaps I should have used a different channel,
or maybe it was a driver that came with the card..
Ok,
it probably is not the best of examples but you
get the idea, things in a system are related and
sometimes a symptom defines itself in a different
place from where the *sickness* really is. I hope
this will give you an idea of approaching a problem.
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Investigate anything that seems unusual, wrong or
surprising. These are the clues that lead us to the
right track. 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 hurry up or ignore
signs that may seem unrelated to the problem.
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Process of Elimination
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This process sometimes may conflict with 'ask why
5 times' especially when you are using a flowchart
to diagnose your problem that will probably tell you
if... then.. and just like that you will zero in to
your problem and get it over and done with. What this
means is that you will see a problem, fix it and hope
that it is solved. This is usually the most commonly
used considering the nature of PCs.
Note:
the key here is making the changes one at a time
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Determine repeatability
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Most
problems within a PC fall into two categories: either
they are repeatable or they are intermittent
. A repeatable problem is one where the problem occurs
all the time or always in response to a specific user
action e.g. anytime you try to run a particular application
it crashes (hmm, Im having the same problem with the
game hitman at the very moment, it keeps giving me
a .dll error, do tell if you know what is wrong with
it).
Intermittent
problems are the ones that happen one in a while e.g.
an application occasionally crashes, the PC fails
to boot up correctly sometimes...
Generally
intermittent problems are more difficult to resolve
than repeatable one. Determining which is which is
simple, just try to duplicate the conditions that
cause the problem and see if it happens again.
The
random nature of intermittent problem renders them
extremely difficult and frustrating to diagnose. Sometime
problems that seem intermittent really are not, it's
just that the specific set of circumstances that cause
the problem may be hard to notice. E.g. you may notice
that program A only crashes when run with program
B or a particular behavior is associated with a peripheral
of some sort.
Patience
is the key
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Use Diagnostic Tools
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Probably
the way to go in detecting some problems. Sometimes
they do shed light on the subject.
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Preventive Maintenance
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Often abbreviated PM, usually is unlike corrective
maintenance which deal with trying to correct a problem.
You may consider doing this given that
-
preventive maintenance saves money
- Preventive Maintenance Saves time
- preventive maintenance helps safeguard your data
- Preventive maintenance improves performance
Some
PM need to be done more often than others, depending
on e.g. nature of activity, what your system is mainly
geared for...
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