How To Troubleshoot Your Computer Hardware
By Steven Stoddard

There could be many reasons why you'd want to troubleshoot your computer, well, one
actually and that's because something is not working right. The process of troubleshooting
is something you learn after working for a long time with computers. Often enough when
there's a problem, nothing is going to explicitly tell you what is causing the problem and
how you can fix it.
By taking logical steps and walking through the process of troubleshooting you should
be able to solve almost any computer problem, software or hardware related. It involves
identifying the problem(s), finding the cause of that problem, determining the solution,
executing that solution, and testing and checking that solution to see if it solves your problem.
As an example let's say one day while using your computer the screen suddenly turns all
black and you can't see anything. We found a problem now what would be the first step to
take to fix it?
First check to see if the monitor is on and is receiving power, most monitors when they
have power, but no connection or connection problems with the computer will display a
message that says this monitor is working, but make sure you check your cables.
So the next logical step to take would be to check the cable to make sure it is
properly connected and secured to the VGA slot behind your computer case and to make sure
the monitor cable is plugged into the monitor.
Now, here's where you have to decide what would be the next best course of action to
take. you could either swap out your monitor with another monitor that you know is working
to see if the problem is the monitor itself and nothing else or you can try to see if the
problem is your graphics card.
If your replacement monitor works, good, then you know your culprit is a bad monitor
and you'll most likely have to get a new one, because monitors are dangerous and too
costly service.
If the replacement monitor you used shows up a black screen as well, the next thing you'd
do is check to make sure the graphics card is properly seated in the motherboard, if it is
and the display is still not showing up, then swap out the graphics card to see if your
problem is fixed.
Generally there are only so many steps you can take before you solve the problem and
everything is back in order. Make sure that before you start testing and swapping out
parts that the problem wasn't caused by you changing a software setting in Windows or some
ambiguous option in the motherboard's BIOS that causes your problem.
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