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Diagnosing and Troubleshooting Computer Hardware

By Chee Ning

What is Hardware?

Are these terms familiar to you? Monitor, RAM, CD drive, CPU, graphic cards are all hardware, or more accurately, computer hardware. These components make up a computer, working together with computer software to make a computer work.

Simply put, hardware is the tangible parts of your computer, parts you can touch, feel and so on.

Hardware Failures

As mentioned before, hardware and software work together to form a fully functional system, theoretically. However, rarely do you get a fully functional system all the time. There will almost certainly be malfunction of hardware, be it within the electronic circuits or even the whole component itself. Sometimes, the originating factor of the hardware failure is not the components of the system itself, but due to outside factors such as environmental disasters like fire, earthquakes and lightning storm.

Recovery of failed hardware components is not a big problem by itself. It is basically identifying and replacing the problematic component. However, hardware failures are most deadly, when it affects daily routine and affecting critical personal or business data. This is especially true of the most important component of a computer system when it comes to storage of data, the hard disk.

The following is a list of common hardware failures:

• RAM Failures
• Power Connector
• Hard Disk
• Overheating
• LCD Failures
• Motherboard
• USB Box

RAM Failures

Bad RAM is somehow harder to diagnose as similar symptoms may be caused by software problems, other hardware problems or even motherboard failure. However if you experience any of these symptoms, users should check for bad RAM before attempting any other troubleshooting.

Symptoms:

• Windows doesn't start showing different error messages each time.
• Windows crashes (blue screen) or freezes frequently.
• Windows crashes as soon as you try to start a program.
• Unexplained random crashes and freezes without error messages.

Power Adaptor

The common weak spot on any laptop is the DC power jack. If someone trips over the power adapter cable while it is still connected to the laptop, there is a high possibility that the power jack will get severely damaged.

On most laptops, the DC power jack is soldered directly to the motherboard and there are only three or four small pins holding it in place, which makes the power jack rather weak. Any sideways pulling of the DC power cord while attached to the laptop will usually dislodge at least one of these pins, breaking the solder around it. Modern laptops use quite a lot of power, from about 70W to 120W or even more. The bad electrical connection from the dislodged pin will cause sparks and heating that will eventually burn a hole through the motherboard and can even be a fire hazard.