Computer Help

I've fixed a whole variety of computer problems over the years and have learned one valuable thing. Most of the time, the computer user actually fixes the problem after being asked the right questions.

First, a couple of tips to keep your computer running smooth. The number one thing you can do to increase reliability is clean the inside of the computer.

Cleaning a computer is easy, take the side panel of, and use a can of compressed air, or and air compressor to get the dust out. Pay special attention to the cpu heatsink, the video card, the front case fan, and the power supply. Make sure you do this outside, this will be messy. Also make sure you stop the fans from moving, the compressed air can spin the fan way faster than designed, killing it early.

Next, when installing anything, be it hardware or software on a computer, install one program at a time, or make one hardware change at a time.

This helps because let's say you upgrade your computer, what happens if you change the cpu, add ram, and upgrade the video card and the computer fails to boot? You end up doing this anyway, trying to figure out what is wrong.

Now on to fixing a crashing computer. 1st question to ask yourself, when is the last time I've cleaned the computer. If it's more than 3 months, start there.

2nd question. What's the last thing I did on my computer? Do it again, does it give you the same problem?

3rd question. Did I change a driver? If so, change back, is it stable now?

4rth question. What is the last piece of hardware or software installed on the computer? Remove it, does that fix the problem?

If you pass all those, a piece of hardware probably failed. If you get an error on bootup asking for a system disk, make sure there are no other disks in the drive. If they're aren't you need to replace the hard drive.

Does your computer beep when it's started? If so count the short and long beeps and do a search for CMOS beep codes, check the code and replace the appropriate part.

If you get no beeps, and you don't overclock, the most common parts to fail are RAM first, then the video card second. Try removing a stick of RAM and see if the computer boots. If not, stop by a local computer store. They will usually loan you a video card to test with for a couple of bucks.

Great, at this point, you should have your computer back up and running, if not personally ask me a question, the answers are FREE.

Happy fixing.