How to Troubleshoot a Crashing Computer

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Can Of Compressed Air
• Patience
• Virus-protection Software
• Screwdriver

Check for a software conflict

1. Step 1

   If an older program suddenly stops working properly after you install a new program, try reinstalling the older program, which may have had some of its files overwritten by the new one.

2. Step 2

   If your computer crashes after you install a new program, when both it and an older program are running, check with the publishers of the programs to see if there are updates that address the conflict.

3. Step 3

   If you've installed a new program and start getting crashes that don't seem to be related to running any other program, try uninstalling the new program. (See How to Remove a Windows Program.) If crashes continue, reinstall the operating system.

Check for a hardware conflict

4. Step 1

   If your computer starts crashing after you add a new piece of hardware, remove the hardware and uninstall whatever software you installed with it. (See How to Remove a Windows Program.)

5. Step 2

   If removing the hardware solves the problem, contact the manufacturer or visit its Web site to see if there's a later driver version that fixes the problem.

6. Step 3

   If removing the hardware doesn't solve the problem, it's possible that some Windows files were changed when you installed the drivers, which are the files that enable a particular piece of hardware. You'll need to reinstall Windows.

Check for overheating

7. Step 1

   Take note of seemingly random computer crashes. If they tend to occur after the computer has been running for a while, they could be the result of overheating. As computers get faster, they have a tendency to run hotter.

8. Step 2

   Check to make sure the vents in the computer case aren't blocked and there's good air circulation around the computer.

9. Step 3

   If your computer has a fan, remove the computer case with a screwdriver, then turn on the computer briefly to see if the fan is turning. If it isn't, you'll need to replace it or the power supply.

10. Step 4

    If the inside of the computer case looks like Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl, clean things up by turning off the computer and using a can of compressed air (available at electronics stores) to blow dust off of circuit boards, chips, the fan and anything else that looks dirty. Vacuums and dust rags are a bad idea, however, because they can build up static charges and zap your chips.

Check for a virus

11. Step 1

    If you have virus-protection software, make sure it has been updated recently. New viruses appear daily.

12. Step 2

    If you don't have virus-protection software, invest in a program that can scan and clean your hard drive.

Tips & Warnings

• Anytime you suspect a problem is being caused by a particular piece of hardware or software, make sure you have the most recent version. You probably aren't the first person to experience a conflict, so there's a good chance that a fix has been posted on the Internet.
• If you have a PC without a good virus-protection program, you're practically begging for trouble. Get one and keep it up-to-date.
• Although most computer viruses cause obvious symptoms, some may operate sneakily in the background.
• If you open your computer case to blow the dust out, be careful not to touch anything that can be damaged by static electricity.

Trouble Shooting Tips after Installing a New Hard Drive

The following article is based on years of experience. It is provided as a free service to our customers and visitors. However, Directron.com is not responsible for any damage as a result of following any of this advice.

Copying the contents for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited without Directron.com's written consent. However, you are welcome to distribute these computer support tips free to your friends and associates as long as it's not for commercial purposes and you acknowledge the source. You are permitted and encouraged to create links to this page from your own web site.

1. Basic Troubleshooting Tips after Installing a New Hard Drive

Based on Seagate IDE hard drives.

If you have installed your drive and it does not function properly, perform the following basic checks:

Warning: Always turn off the computer before changing jumpers or unplugging cables and cards. Wear a ground strap or use other antistatic precautions while working on your computer or handling your drive.


• Verify compatibility. Verify that the host adapter and drive are appropriately matched to each other and to your computer. Refer to the relevant documentation for details.
• Check all cards. Verify that all cards are seated in their slots on the motherboard and secured with mounting screws.
• Check all connectors and cables. Make sure all ribbon and power cables are securely connected. Ribbon cables are easily damaged, especially at the connector. Try a new cable that you know is good. Make sure no connector pins are bent. Verify that pin 1 on the interface cable is aligned with pin 1 on the drive and host adapter (see Figure 2 on page 6).
• Verify jumper settings. Review the instructions in this guide and in your host adapter installation guide. Make sure all appropriate jumpers are installed or removed as necessary.
• Check your power-supply specifications. Each time you add a new device to your computer, make sure your cornputer's internal power supply can support the total power demand. If necessary, consult your dealer for a new power supply.
• Verify the drive-type settings in the system setup program. The drive-type settings in the system BIOS must not exceed the physical specifications of your drive. Also, the settings must not exceed the limitations set by the operating system and BIOS.
• Check for viruses. Before you use someone else's diskette in your system for the first time, scan the diskette for viruses.

Additional Troubleshooting Tips

If you have performed the preceding basic checks but the problem persists, follow these guidelines for troubleshooting specific cases:
• After you install your new drive, your computer will not boot, and no error message appears on the screen.
  
• The screen remains blank when you power up the system.
  
• The system does not recognize the drive.
  
• The dealer partitioned and formatted the drive for you in the store, but the drive does not respond when you install it.
  
• The system hangs in FDISK or fails to create or save the partition record.
  
• The system error message, "Drive not Ready," appears.
  
• The FDISK error message, "No Fixed Disk Present," appears.
  
• The drive does not format to full capacity.
  
• The DOS message "Disk Boot Failure," "Non-System Disk" or "No ROM Basic - SYSTEM HALTED" appears.
  
• The system error message, "HDD controller failure" appears.
2. After you install your new drive, your computer will not boot, and no error message appears on the screen.


Check your computer manual or BIOS manufacturer to determine whether your BIOS supports drives that have more than 4,092 cylinders. If your system has this limitation, use the following procedure to configure your computer:


1. Turn off your computer, open the case, and remove your new drive.
   
   CAUTION: To avoid electrostatic discharge damage to your computer or hard drive, make sure you are well grounded before touching the drive, cable, connector or jumpers.
   
   
2. Move the jumper on the alternate-capacity jumper, as shown in Figure 6. This causes the drive to appear to your BIOS as having a 2.1-Gbyte capacity (4,092 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors per track). You may need third-party partitioning software, such as Disk Manager, to achieve full capacity of the drive.
3. Remount your drive in the computer and replace the computer cover.
4. Insert a bootable system diskette into drive A and turn on the computer. It should boot from drive A and automatically detect the new drive as a 2.1 -Gbyte drive.
5. Insert your DiscWizard diskette into drive A and type A:XDM. Then press ENTER. This runs the Disk Manager program.
6. Follow the Disk Manager instructions to install the dynamic drive overlay and to partition and format your new drive to its full capacity.
7. After Disk Manager is done, reboot your system. You should see the Disk Manager banner and be able to access the full capacity of your new drive.


3. The screen remains blank when you power up the system.

If the steps listed above do not remedy this problem, try the following:
• Make sure the monitor is plugged in and turned on.
• Check all cards.
• Make sure the video card is seated in its slot and secured with mounting screws.
• Turn off the computer and remove the drive host adapter. If the screen turns on after you reboot, the host adapter may be incompatible or defective. If so, see your dealer.


4. The system does not recognize the drive.
• Check all cables.
• Make sure the power supply is adequate for system needs.
• Reboot the computer and listen to make sure the drive motor starts up. If the drive is very quiet, it may be difficult to hear its discs reach operating speed. If the drive motor does not start up, recheck all drive cables.
• Verify that for each drive, a drive-type is listed in the system setup program.
• Try rebooting your computer by pressing the CTRL, ALT and DELETE keys simultaneously. If the drive is recognized after you reboot the system, the computer BIOS test may be completing before the drive is ready.
  One solution is to slow the processor speed during startup. If your computer has a turbo switch, set it to slow speed before turning the computer on. If there is no turbo switch, you may be able to use keyboard commands; see your computer manual for details. After the computer is up and running, return the processor to the fast speed.
  Another solution is to warm-boot your computer after every power-on.
• Check for I/O address conflicts. To isolate the conflict, verify that the drive and host adapter are compatible with your computer. Turn off the computer and remove all the peripheral adapter cards except for the video card and host adapter. If the computer recognizes the drive when you reboot the computer, turn off the computer. Reinstall the other peripheral cards, one at a time, until the conflict reoccurs. After you have isolated the source of the address conflict, you can resolve the conflict by changing the 1/0 address of the peripheral that appears to cause the conflict.
• If Disk Manager has installed the DDO on your hard drive and you have booted directly from a diskette, the information in the boot record for the drive may not have been loaded. Make sure there is no diskette in drive A and reboot. If you want to boot from the diskette, follow the "Booting with a Diskette" instructions under "Advanced Disk Manager Options" on page 20.


5. The dealer partitioned and formatted the drive for you in the store, but the drive does not respond when you install it.
• Reboot the computer and make sure the drive spins up.
• Check all cables.
• Make sure the power supply is adequate for system needs.
• Make sure the DOS or Windows version the dealer used to partition and format the drive is the same version you have installed in your computer. If it isn't, see your dealer.
• Verify the drive-type values in the system setup program. You must install the drive using the same drive-type values your dealer used to partition the drive.
• Check for 1/0 address conflicts between peripheral cards.
• Check for viruses.


6. The system hangs in FDISK or fails to create or save the partition record.
• Check all cables.
• Your setup system diskette may be corrupted. Try using a backup diskette.
• Make the partitions smaller.
• Change the interrupt jumper setting on the host adapter.
• Some BIOS have a Track 0 protection feature that protects Track 0 from viruses. This may cause FDISK to hang the system. You must disable this feature in the system setup program before you can use FDISK. See your computer reference guide for assistance. Be sure to re-enable this important feature when FDISK is done.


7. The system error message, "Drive not Ready," appears.
• Check all cable connections. Make sure pin 1 of the drive is connected to pin 1 of the hard-disc controller or host adapter.
• Make sure the power supply is adequate for system needs.
• Reboot the computer and make sure the drive spins up.


8. The FDISK error message, "No Fixed Disk Present," appears.
• Make sure the power supply is adequate for system needs.
• Verify the drive-type values in the system setup program.
• Check for 1/0 address conflicts.


9. The drive does not format to full capacity.
• Verify the drive-type values in the system setup program. One of the following problems may have occurred:
• The values may be set with an incorrect translation characteristic.
• You may have entered a parameter value that exceeds the physical capacity of the drive.
• You entered a translation characteristic that does not take full advantage of the drive's capacity.
• The drive's physical specifications exceed the translation limits imposed by the BIOS.
  
  CAUTION: If you change the drive-type values in the system setup program, you must partition and format the drive again. This erases data on the drive.
  
  
• If you have partitioned the drive into individual logical drives, you may need to make the partitions smaller to access the full drive capacity.
• If your computer supports LBA mode, you may need to enable LBA mode in the system setup program to access the full capacity of the drive. Refer to your computer's reference guide to find out how to enable LBA.
• Your computer may not support drives that have more than 4,092 cylinders. Follow the instructions on page 25 for After you install your new drive, your computer will not boot, and no error message appears on the screen.


10. The DOS message "Disk Boot Failure," "Non-System Disk" or "No ROM Basic - SYSTEM HALTED" appears.
• Reinstall the DOS system files using the DOS SYS utility.
• Check all cables.
• Use FDISK to verify that the primary partition is active.
• Check for viruses.


11. The system error message, "HDD controller failure" appears.
• Confirm the jumper settings on the drive.
• Verify the drive-type settings in the system setup program.

Guide to Computer Troubleshooting and Repair - PC Troubleshooting

Do you wish you could use some magic pixie dust to fix your computer trouble? Sometimes, these four things can work that way. These are the first, simplest steps to take when you need to do troubleshooting of computer problems. Follow these four steps first, before panicking and worrying and getting further help for computer gremlins. It's amazing how often these things can actually somehow solve your computer woes.

Step 1 Shut down your computer completely. To do this, click the start icon. Select "Shut Down." Follow the screen prompts to shut it down completely.
If your machine is frozen, then you'll need to shut it off by holding down the power button until the little lights go out. Only shut it down by the power button if you absolutely can't shut it down by using the screen prompts process.
Do not restart it right away. Wait for a few minutes, and then restart it from scratch. This process of shutting down the computer and then restarting it is called "rebooting" your computer.

Step 2 If step one didn't work, go on to this step. Make sure all the cords into the wall are connected securely. Gently jostle these cords. Make sure your power strip light is on and that the connection is tight. Make sure that none of the cords are pulled tightly, thus becoming stretched.
Reboot your computer.

Step 3 If step two didn't work, check all the cords coming out of the back of your computer. Jostle them gently. Make sure they are tight. Make sure everything's connected.
Reboot the computer.

Step 4 If none of the steps above solved your computer troubles, shut down the computer. Then unplug the computer from the network and from the wall. Let it rest for a long time. Letting it sit like this overnight can help a lot.
Start the computer again tomorrow. Hopefully, the positive pixies will have done their work, and your troubles will be gone. If not, get help from other sources.
Scroll down for tips and warnings about troubleshooting computer problems.

How to Troubleshoot a Computer

Step 1 Restart the computer. Many software problems will correct themselves when you do.

Step 2 Check your cables. Keyboard not working? Make sure it's plugged in. Mouse not responding? Make sure it's plugged in.

Step 3 Check the electric power. Plug a lamp into the same power outlet that's connected to your computer to make sure the outlet is working.

Step 4 Make sure the computer and monitor are plugged in.

Step 5 Disconnect peripheral devices (such as a printer or external Zip disk) and restart the computer.

Step 6 Listen for unusual sounds. Is the cooling fan running? Is the hard drive making noises?

Step 7 Look inside the computer for wires that aren't plugged in all the way or other faulty connections

Step 8 Start the computer from an external start-up disk, such as the system software CD that came with your computer.



There is nothing more upsetting for a PC user than when there is a problem with their machine. This upset can turn quickly to frustration when the problem seems to be impossible to solve, or even to understand. Every PC user has experienced these feelings, but it is in most cases possible to both diagnose and correct most problems with the typical PC. And with some help, you can usually do it yourself.
The most important resource you can have at your disposal when you are trying to troubleshoot a problem with your PC is: experience. Those who have done a lot of work diagnosing and correcting problems with a wide variety of PCs develop a knack for recognizing problem situations that they have seen before. They also learn (and invent) techniques that make it possible for them to get to the root of a problem quickly.
There's no substitute for experience, but I'm hoping that this Guide will be the next best thing. I have accumulated here the experience of myself and many other knowledgeable PC users, upgraders and maintainers, to help you learn how to detect and correct many common problems that plague PC users. This includes both general rules of thumb regarding how to troubleshoot your PC, as well as information on dealing with vendor warranties, and repairing your machine.

Wanna know how to import excel to acces file?

If it feels tiresome for you to input data unto your access file though you know that you have it already in your excel file, there is an easy way to directly import your excel to access file.
To import an excel file to Microsoft access, make sure your access file is open. Then, proceed to FILE. After clicking FILE, there will be many options that will appear. But notice the GET EXTERNAL DATA. When you click GET EXTERNAL DATA, proceed to IMPORT. Meanwhile, after clicking IMPORT there will be files displayed whom which you can choose what to import. So therefore, just find the excel file you want to import then click IMPORT. Immediately, there will be a container that would flash unto the screen titled IMPORT SPREADSHEET WIZARD. Keep on clicking NEXT until you reach FINISH. Then, click the FINISH button. Automatically, the imported excel file will appear as SHEET 1 in your access container.

Travelogue to MS Access World

It was then one of my loneliest moments, wherein I find no other thing to make fun with. Suddenly, same as to a thunder flash in my mind came out an idea for something. A query was then formulated. Why won’t I explore the world of my new friend: the computer?
Alas! One switch on with it, I accidentally clicked the windows button. Yet, my hands rushed unto the “Programs”.. I even wondered with all those programs came viewing upon the screen. But then something attracted me, I tried to click the Microsoft office. I was then bothered with all those word, PowerPoint, excel, InfoPath and so much more. I choosed to click the Microsoft Access. One click, then the journey started…
At first sight, I’m a little bit curious with the lines forming as columns and rows. Ahh… it was the table. I even tried to enter some data unto it. Then I decided that I will let those data’s reside to the table for a while. Next stop, I’m a little bit disturb with that something that provides a convenient way for me to enter or find data in table, without knowing, it was called as forms. Until I reached to the point wherein I entered numerous data already in so many tables. I tried to search and retrieved data’s from those tables according to the conditions I specified. I’m now using the queries instead. As I continued, I wanted to have a hard copy with the organized presentation of data from a table or query termed as reports. Then I decided to make it later. Furthermore, I even reached out with some objects in the Ms Access which were the macros and modules. Im still on the process to explore deeper unto the core.
On the other hand, while I’m so busy trying to enjoy my tour, this cute “clippy” quite annoyed me. When I tried to click it, I discovered something. He was indeed my friend. It assisted me by way of an interactive animated character which interfaced with the office help content.
As I continued entering data’s again, my curiosity aroused about the central location of database object. Without knowing, as simple as a” container” is termed unto it.
With all those tricky crossroads I had encountered, I’ve come to the point wherein I got tired. So then, I decided to end my travel and clicked the “ALT F4”. With that few minutes that I had traveled to the Ms Access world, I was able to know more about their jungle. A jungle of different uses whom which every user could really have an easy time enjoying to explore their Ms Access world. What a journey it has been…

p.S!!

cAnDle!!