Before You Call Tech Support for windows 7.

8/8/2019 Before You Call Tech Support for windows 7.

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What You Can Do BeoreYou Call Tech Support

By Mitch Tulloch, MVP

Yoursound card has stopped working, your computer seems sluggish, the network

is down, your hard drive is clicking, you cant view a website, your monitor is hard

to read, your new webcam isnt working, your avorite program wont run, and a

unny burning smell is coming rom your computer. What can you do on your own to try troubleshoot the issue beore you pick up the phone to call tech support?

I youre running Windows 7, quite a lot. Microsot has included a lot o sel-support tools

in Windows 7 that you can try using beore you seek the help o others, and well examin

these in a moment. Then there are the tools you were born withyour ve senses (see,

hear, smell, taste, touch) and most importantly your brain. And by brain Im including you

memory, experience, and capacity or logical reasoning. Finally, there is ancient and sacre

lore passed on in secret rom Master to Disciple over the millennia. Well see shortly how

your brain, your senses, and the secrets o the Wise Ones can be very helpul or trouble-

shooting computer problems. But rst lets look at what troubleshooting tools are built in

Windows 7.

Windows 7 Troubleshooting ToolsWindows 7 has a new eature called the Windows Troubleshooting Platorm that lets third

party hardware and sotware vendors create troubleshooting packs (or troubleshooters)

you can use to try to resolve computer problems yoursel. Microsot has included about

two dozen o these troubleshooters in Windows 7, and i something goes wrong with you

computer you can try using these troubleshooters to identiy and (hopeully) resolve the

problem.


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2 What You Can Do Before You Call Tech Support

The quickest way to gain access to these troubleshooters is to type troubleshooting in

the Start menu search box and press Enter. This opens the Troubleshooting item in Control

Panel:

You can click on any o the troubleshooting items listed here to launch a particular trouble-

shooter. I you dont see one you think can help, click View All in the let pane to display all

available troubleshooters.

Do these troubleshooters help? Sometimes. For instance, the other day I wanted to down-

load an optional update rom Windows Update, so I typed update in the Start menu search

box and launched Windows Update. Then I clicked Check For Updates and waited. Ater a

ew moments this error was displayed:


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Windows 7 Troubleshooting Tools

When I clicked Get Help With This Error, a Windows Help And Support window opened an

indicated that Windows Update error 8024402C might be caused by a program running

on your computer thats preventing Windows Update Services (SVCHOST) rom accessing

the Internet. Programs that might do this include rewalls, antispyware sotware, web acc

erators, Internet security or antivirus programs, and proxy servers and at that point my

eyes glazed over.

So next I opened Troubleshooting in Control Panel, clicked View All, and double-clicked o

the Windows Update troubleshooter to see i that could help. I clicked through the steps

the Windows Update troubleshooter, and the result was this:

OK, now were getting warmer. I know what a DNS server is, and i my computer cant rea

the DNS server then I cant get to anything on the Internet. At that point my brain needs

to kick in to solve the problem, and Ill continue the story in a moment. All I want you to

aware o at this point is that Windows 7 has dozens o troubleshooters you can use to try

to resolve computer problems on your own when they arise. These troubleshooters are th

rst o our pillars you can use when troubleshooting problems with your computer, but t

troubleshooters are only available i youre running Windows 7. Fortunately the remaining

three pillars are more general in nature and apply to troubleshooting problems with any

operating system.


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Your Brain

Using your senses is oten the key to successul troubleshooting because they help you

gather inormation that can unlock the mysteries o PC misbehavior. Did the screen ficker

ater you installed the latest driver or your video card? That clicking sound your hard driv

is making doesnt sound normal, does it? Why does my computer make our loud beeps

when I turn it on and then go dead? Wow, that laptop seems hot today sitting on my lap

wonder why? But senses alone are not enough to troubleshoot most problemsyou alsoneed to use your brain.

Your BrainI once got a thank you card rom a student I taught in a class. The card contained this

word o advice: Dont think too hardit hurts. Thats both good and bad advice. Its goo

advice because using your brain can eel like a strain. It takes a lot o eort to think in a

logical, disciplined way about something. But to say we should avoid doing that is not go

advice, because careul, logical thinking is perhaps the most important pillar o successul

PC troubleshooting. Let me demonstrate this a couple o ways.

Once I ordered a PC rom a company I had had good dealings with in the past. The com-

puter arrived all boxed up, and when I opened the box and set up the computer and con-

nected it to my monitor and booted it, the screen was blackno signal. I got upset. Is the

video card dead? The motherboard? Will I have to pay return shipping and a restocking

ee? I hate wasting money.

So I phoned the companys support number and spoke to a technician and asked what I

should do. He said sometimes when computers are shipped they get jostled around and

components come loose, and suggested I try reseating the video card. So I opened the

computer, pulled the video card, and reinserted it. I turned it on and everything worked.

Why didnt I think o that? Well, I probably will next time. Why? Because the scenario has

been imprinted in my memory because knowledge was imparted to me by the technician

and knowledge applied results in experience. I became a little more experienced in PC

troubleshooting because o what happened. And on refecting what happened, I realized

something important about PC troubleshooting: start by asking yourselwhen the prob-

lem happened. In other words, what actions or events immediately preceded the problem

appearing. Did you install a new application? Did you update a device driver? Did you

connect or disconnect a peripheral? Did you move your computer? Did you turn on your

microwave oven?

Heres another story to illustrate. A ew days ago I reorganized my lab, moving my compu

ers and other hardware around to make my work environment more ergonomic. Once I

had everything wired up, I turned everything on to test it and one computer ailed to boo

at all and displayed the message DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS


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ENTER. Panic rose in me. Oh no, my hard drive died! Wheres my spare? Rats, itll take me

hours to recongure that machine

Breathe deeply, Mitch. Think! Hmm, didnt this happen once beore? Oh yeah, isnt the

SATA connector loose in this system? I opened the case and looked, and sure enough the

drives data connector looked slightly o-angle. So I pushed it in careully, closed the caseand rebooted, and everything worked ne. I was proud that I xed the problem so quickly,

but elt a bit sheepish that Im too lazy to x the issue so it wont happen again. The point,

however, is that I used my brainmy memory, knowledge, and experienceto quickly

solve the problem.

You can too. Lets start doing it right now. I you think about it logically, computer problems

can only be caused by three things:

1. Problems with the hardware in your computer.

2. Problems with the sotware installed on your computer.

3. Malignant emanations predicated by an unusual alignment o the stars.

Yes, I dont know what that last sentence meanseel ree to substitute Bad luck or

Unknown cause or the third reason above i you preer.

Now lets ocus on hardware problemswhat can cause these types o problems? Here are

some possibilities:

1. Failed hardware components.

2. Poorly connected hardware components.

3. Incompatible hardware components.

And since hardware oten needs sotware (device drivers) to work properly, another pos-

sibility is:

4. Good hardware with buggy or corrupt or incompatible drivers installed.

You can continue by drilling down urther and looking at specic types o hardware such

as motherboards or video cards or RAM and consider the various ways problems with each

component can maniest themselves. And you can repeat the whole analysis procedure by

looking at sotware problems and all the dierent types o sotware such as the operatingsystem, hotxes, drivers, applications, and system BIOS.

Is your head hurting yet rom thinking too much? Mine iswhy? Because logical think-

ing needs knowledge as its starting place, and acquiring knowledge through experience is


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The Sacred Lore of the Hardware Junkies

a dicult and time-consuming process. Fortunately theres another way you can acquire

knowledge: by receiving it rom the hands o the Keepers o Ancient and Sacred Lore.

The Sacred Lore of the Hardware JunkiesFor several years Ive been lurking in one o the most active o Microsots internal discus-

sion lists called Hardware Junkies. Full-Time Employees (FTEs), partners, vendors, and othe

who have access to Microsots internal network oten post their questions to this list and

receive responses rom list members who can only truly be described as hardware junkies

geeks who like to get high on buying, using, and hacking hardware. The things Ive learne

just rom ollowing this list, I cant begin to tell. All I can say is, its taken me to a whole

new level in PC troubleshooting, and in the brie sections that ollow Ill try to distill a sma

amount o the knowledge Ive acquired into a ew morsels you can easily assimilate.

Now you dont have access to this list, but there are many other PC hardware discussion

lists out there on the public Internet you can get involved in. And there may be a comput

club or an IT pro user group in your area as well that you can go to. The point is, to becom

a better PC troubleshooter you need to acquire knowledge and soak it up like a sponge,

and you must take any and all steps you can to do this.

So to get you started, here is a small smattering o pointers Ive picked up rom listening

to the Hardware Wizards o Redmond. One warning, however: beore you open your com

puters case and start messing around, make sure you know what youre doing. A static di

charge that is too small to even eel can wreak havoc with computer components. And o

course make sure youve unplugged the AC power or your computer beore you open th

case. Its best i you receive some training rom a proessional repair technician beore you

open your computer, both or your own saety and so you dont damage anything. Finallyi you dont eel condent perorming any o the remedial steps described in the ollowin

sections, by all means phone helpdesk or your geeky brother-in-law, or take your comput

to where you bought it and get them to repair it.

BIOS Issues

BIOS-related problems can maniest themselves in lots o dierent ways. Particularly with

laptops, you should always make sure you have the latest BIOS update installed i your

laptop starts to behave in strange ways. Some o just a ew o the many symptoms that ca

be caused by BIOS-related issues include the system not shutting down, not hibernating,

or not resuming rom sleep; not recognizing a second processor or core; not recognizing large (over 750 GB) hard drive; poor hard drive perormance; video card not providing all

expected unctionality such as multimon support; system noisy because an wont throttle

o when appropriate; video card ails because an doesnt run enough resulting in over-

heating; unction keys dont work properly; headphones or speakers dont work properly;


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sound card not detected; hard drive not detected; hard drive ails CRC check; certain Win-

dows eatures not supported such as S3 sleep.

Flashing (upgrading) your BIOS is not a trivial aairi something goes wrong, your com-

puter might not boot at all. And sometimes its not enough to fash the BIOS, you also need

to clear CMOS by removing and replacing a jumper on your motherboard, an issue that issometimes known as jumper voodoo. Flashing your BIOS can also solve one problem and

create another. For example, there have been reports that fashing the BIOS destroys the

RAID conguration on some systems.

I you are experiencing the kind o problems that may be BIOS-related, check the website

o the manuacturer o your system to see i a newer BIOS version is available. Be sure to

read the instructions or your BIOS upgrade careully beore you perorm the upgrade.

Bottom line: i you are having problems with a laptop and the cause isnt obvious, check to

make sure youve got the latest BIOS version installed.

Driver ProblemsSometimes upgrading the BIOS will solve your problem. I it doesnt, many o the same

types o problems can be caused by aulty device drivers. In that case, the thing to do is to

update the device drivers on your system. Common problems arising rom aulty drivers

include systems that wont hibernate or wake rom sleep properly; video card crashes when

playing certain types o media les; system ails to hibernate or resume rom sleep because

o buggy wireless network card drivers; system gradually slows down over time due to

memory leak caused by aulty sound card driver; system keeps rebooting over and over;

sound stutters occasionally; mouse pointer reezes occasionally; and so on. Updating

device drivers is something airly easy to dojust download them rom the manuacturers

website and double-click on them to install.

Installing the latest driver sometimes causes problems instead o solving them. In that case,

you can try one o two things: you can roll back the driver by using Device Manager, or you

can use System Restore to return your computer to a previous restore point.

Power Supply Issues

A ailing or fakey power supply can result in some strange things happening. You press the

power button and sometimes the system boots, other times nothing happens. The system

hangs during the POST phase o startup. You try to boot rom CD or DVD and the CD/DVD

drive spins up briefy and then stops. You try playing high-denition video since your videocard is supposed to support it but the video playback is garbled or goes blank. Your hard

drive is only six months old and it ails catastrophically. Your computer blue-screens occa-

sionally, displaying various STOP messages. Your computer suddenly shuts down or restarts


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o drives rom that manuacturer is fakey. Search online and youll nd endless discussions

about which hard drive manuacturers make reliable drives and which make junk. Feel ree

to express an opinion on this matterIve given up. Moral o the story: make requent

backups.

Video CardThe symptoms resulting rom video card problems are obvious o coursebad video! This

can range rom a blank screen to intermittent pixel corruption. The causes are typically

either (a) a buggy video driver, (b) a poorly seated video card, (c) an overheating video

card, or (d) bad video card memory. Troubleshooting steps should ollow that order; that is,

update the driver rst to the latest driver rom the card manuacturer. I that doesnt resolve

the issue, make sure your video card is seated properly in its slot. I that doesnt improve

things, make sure the ans are working properly in your system and nothing is obstructing

the airfow. I that doesnt help, run a memory check on the card using a utility rom the

manuacturer i they provide one. And i that ails, try replacing the video card.

Video card problems can even maniest themselves as more serious symptom such as your

computer blue-screening rom time to time. I this happens, make sure your video card is

seated properly in its slot on the motherboard unless you have integrated (onboard) video.

And i you install a new video card in a system that has onboard video and get no video,

make sure you plugged your monitor cable into the correct video port on the back o your

machine.

Sound Cards

Sound card issues are usually pretty obviousno sound, poor audio quality, intermittent

dropout, popping sounds, and so on. Try updating the audio driver i a newer one is avail-able. I you dont get any sound at all, make sure your speakers are turned on or your head-

phones are plugged in. I that doesnt help, check that the card is seated properly unless

you have integrated audio. I you get a hum or buzz or other orm o intererence when

you play audio on your computer, try rearranging your speaker cables to avoid any AC

power cables nearby.

Network Card

Since most home PC users have simple networks (one or two computers with a broadband

wired or wireless router) the types o network problems they experience are typically either

cant connect to the Internet or cant access a share on another computer. Identiying and

resolving networking problems is one thing the Windows 7 troubleshooters do really well,

so I wont go urther here other than to say check to make sure your cables are connected

properly beore you do anything else, and phone your Internet service provider i the Inter-

net seems down.


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Conclusion

ConclusionTheres lots more sacred lore I could try to pass on to you, Grasshopper, but why should

I, the Master, do all the work? You, the Disciple, must discipline yoursel and learn how to

troubleshoot computer problems on your own. Then you too, one day, can be a Master an

have your own Disciples to ollow in your ootsteps. Remember then the Four Pillars o PCTroubleshooting:

1. Become amiliar with the built-in troubleshooters included in Windows 7.

2. Keep your eyes and ears open to whats happening with your computer.

3. Use your brainthink!! Yes, I know it hurts to do this, but its the only way you can

progress along the Way.

4. And devote yoursel to acquiring the Sacred Knowledge o the Hardware Junkies;

meditate constantly on what you learn rom them.

Good luck!

Mitch Tulloch is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and lead author of the Windows

Resource Kit from Microsoft Press.


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Before You Call Tech Support for windows 7.

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