Category: Computer Hardware

Posted on

Computer Repair Flowcharts

Sept 5 2009 UPDATE TO POST: The author of these flowcharts, Morris Rosenthal, expressed concern about having his copyrighted material shown here. Therefore the links from the thumbnail images below were removed. Please see his Computer Repair with Diagnostic Flowcharts site for the full examples of his flowcharts or purchase his Computer Repair with Diagnostic Flowcharts book from Amazon.

—————–
Many DC area consultants use flowcharts and work flows in their jobs. If you’re interested in following the diagnostic process of computer repair specialists, take a look at these flowcharts by Morris Rosenthal. They illustrate many of my thought processes when fixing a computer problem.

Boot Failure Troubleshooting

The most comprehensive of these flowcharts is the Boot Failure Troubleshooting Flowchart which encompasses several smaller flowcharts. You can see that it is PC focused, asking you to run scandisk and FDISK on your hard drive. Still, the principles apply to any computer.

Many of these troubleshooting repair processes are illustrated individually in an easier to read and print format:

Power Supply Diagnostics

Power Supplies commonly break, especially if they are hit by a power surge (too much power, such as when hit by lightning), blackout (no power), or brownout (lower voltage power).

A power supply can die over time (booting occasionally) making it trickier to diagnose. Be sure to get a high enough wattage power supply, especially if you have a power hungry graphics card.

CPU, RAM and Motherboard Troubleshooting

RAM problems can be vexing because they might only appear when a particular part of the RAM is accessed. This can manifest itself through strange computer behaviors that are often mistaken for viruses.

Motherboards, known as Logic Boards in the Mac world, hold the RAM and CPU. Without replacement parts, it can be difficult to determine where the problem lies between these three components.

Hard Drive Failure

With spinning disks and moving heads, hard drives will eventually fail. Many of today’s laptop hard drives have accelerometers built-in so that they can protect the hard drive when you are moving the laptop. But the moving parts will eventually break. Studies show annual hard drive failure rates to be 2-13%, depending on usage and particular model used. Over the next 5 years there is expected to be a transition to primarily using solid state drives (SSDs) that can potentially last longer and use less energy.

This flowchart assumes the use of IDE hard drives, which are older than the standard SATA drives in today’s computers.

CD and DVD Troubleshooting

Again, this chart assumes that you are using an IDE connector, not today’s standard of SATA drives.

Other steps in drive diagnosis include:

  1. Listening to the drive. Bad hard drives and CD drives might actually sound bad, with grinding, straining, or clicking noises.
  2. Looking in the Windows Device Manager for driver issues. These may be fixed with new drivers, or might (for older IDE drives) require you to remove or change the setup of other devices.

Video Card Diagnostics

These video card diagnostics assume that you are using a discrete video card, not a motherboard with integrated video which are common in today’s lower cost computers.

Network Troubleshooting

This is another case where it is useful to have other computers available to determine if the problem is related to the network (cables, router, switch) or the computer.

Fixing Computers

These and other flowcharts are in Morris Rosenthal’s book:
Computer Repair with Diagnostic Flowcharts Revised Edition: Troubleshooting PC Hardware Problems from Boot Failure to Poor Performance

These flowcharts can give helpful hints to fixing computer problems. Unfortunately, they can’t cover all the latest technologies as they come out.

A couple of things that I do to diagnose and repair computers include:

  1. Testing with replacement parts. If the monitor doesn’t show video, you can hook up another monitor with another video cable to see if it’s the computer or monitor that is malfunctioning. If you suspect a bad power supply, you can try a working one.
  2. Perform a quick Google search. New computers often ship with a driver problem or needed updates that are easily fixed by searching Google or the knowledge database of the computer manufacturer.
Posted on

“Dial a Human” to Reach a Person

Are you tired of automated call distribution (ACD) systems that force you to listen to long option trees? They start by saying “please listen to all the options because they have recently changed.” In the past, you could just press “0” repeatedly to reach an operator. Now many companies have stopped that and even created complicated trees so that fewer callers reach a person, thereby saving the company money.

This web site compiles company phone numbers and directions to reach a person:

Dial A Human

Posted on

Acer Aspire One #1 Netbook

Our current favorite small netbook, the Acer Aspire One, is now the #1 selling netbook according to 3Q sales numbers as reported by DisplaySearch.

We expect competition to become only more fierce with companies continuing to flood the market with new models. Over the past week we just saw major price reductions from Lenovo whose IdeaPad S10 is now going for $349. HP similarly cut prices.

At some point, there could also be a response to the netbook market from Apple, either in a smaller screen laptop, a lower cost MacBook Air, or a tablet (a large iPod Touch?). While Apple has historically stayed away from cheaper products, this is the fastest growing part of the computer market.

Despite Acer’s loads of new netbook models released over 2008 (such as the recent Eee PC 1002HA), Asus gained market share with its simpler lineup with the Aspire One. See the full results below.

Posted on

Computer Recycling in the D.C. Area

While we are shopping for the holidays, we should remember to recycle our old electronics. This article covers recycling information and locations for the Virginia, D.C., and Maryland area.

Dangers of Computer Waste

Old computers and monitors have harmful materials that can seep into the ground water and air if thrown in your normal trash. The cadmium and mercury in displays can damage the nervous system. Computers also may contain lead (causing birth defects and learning disabilities) and CFCs (destroying the ozone layer).

Donations

If you have a working computer, you can get rid of it through:

  1. Craigslist (Washington D.C. metro area) has sections for selling or giving away free stuff.
  2. Freecycle is a free program to give people items for reuse. They have groups everywhere, including, Washington D.C., Virginia, and Maryland.
  3. D.C. Goodwill accepts computers that are not more than 5 years old. They will not take CRT monitors, the older large monitors that have been replaced by LCDs.

Recycling Computers and eWaste

The easiest way to recycle an old computer is to do it with the purchase of a new computer. Apple, Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba and others have a corporate recycling program that allows you to give them your old computer after buying your new computer.

This image shows the Free Recycling Kit option that Dell provides in their services customization when you buy a new computer.

Drop-off Locations for Computers and other eWaste

The EPA eCycling site is the closest thing to a definitive set of inks to eCycling programs across the country. Below are the best links I found to the D.C. area programs:

Washington D.C.

DC Free Electronic Disposal Sites:
DPW (Department of Public Works) offers free, weekly Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) and electronic recycling (e-cycling) drop-off service at the Benning Road Trash Transfer Station, 3200 Benning Road, NE, and at the Ft. Totten Trash Transfer Station, 4900 Bates Road, NE, each Saturday from 8 am to 3 pm.

Virginia

Arlington, VA HAZMAT Program:
Arlington residential households can recycle computers and other electronic items at the County’s HHM drop off sites.

Virginia Department of Environment Computers and Electronics Recycling, List of Virginia Collections Centers

Maryland

Maryland Department of Environment Electronic Recycling Collection Events and Locations:
Montgomery Country Shady Grove Transfer Station and Recycling Center

Ink Cartridges

Ink cartridges can be dropped off at Micro Center in Fairfax, Virginia. Office supply stores such as Staples, Office Max, and Office Depot take used toner cartridges and sometimes even give you credit toward a store purchase for dropping them off.

Cell Phones

Cell phones can be dropped off at cell phone stores. Working phones can also be donated to women’s shelters. Unactivated phones still have the ability to call 911 so they can be useful.

Recycling Can Be Easy

With many recycling options, you can easily dispose of your electronics safely.

Please let us know if you have any corrections or additions to this post.

Posted on

LCD Image Persistence

Most people have heard of screen burn-in. It is an imprint of an image on a display that is caused by that image being displayed too long. CRT burn-in was very common for things like taskbars that were always displayed on the screen in the same place. To prevent this, screen savers were invented to display different images to counteract the burn-in effects. Most people thought this problem went away when LCDs were created but that isn’t entirely true. It is uncommon in LCDs but it can happen.  The crystals change their natural state enough to cause an imprinting of the persistent image, kind of like a shadow of it.

See the LCD screen to the right which has a menu at the top that still displays on a blank screen.

Prevention

Much like CRT burn-in, screen savers can help prevent the problem.  It is a good idea to pick a screen server with lots of changing colors.  Having your screen auto turn off when not in use will also help by not displaying the image more than it has to be.

Fixing

Unfortunately, preventative techniques will only do so much if you are always at your computer and not giving it an opportunity to turn off or run a screen saver.  In that case, you need to know how to fix the problem.  It is important to try to fix it as soon as you notice it as it is possible to become permanent if it continues too long.  To fix it, you can try one of these following techniques:

  1. Leave your monitor off for very long periods of time.  This could take hours or many days.
  2. Use a screen saver with lots of colors and let it run for a long period of time.  The length of time can vary depending on how bad the persistence is.
  3. Display a solid single color or white for a long period of time.

If none of those work, your image is probably permanent and you are at your computer far too often.