Saturday, November 14, 2015

troubleshooting - How do I troubleshoot problems that occur during boot?



In the case that my computer would have issues with booting, what steps can I take to troubleshoot it?



Answer



Before we can start troubleshooting, you need to have an idea of how your computer boots.



How can I troubleshoot problems during the BIOS phase?



Essentially, you will want to work in a way which tries to exclude possible causes.



If your computer doesn't show a BIOS startup screen:





  • Make sure your power is turned on, that your monitor is turned on and connected.

  • Check if your Graphics Card is properly inserted, and that power is connected to the mainboard.



If your computer beeps or give you error codes very early:





If none of the specific solution works or your computer hangs, crashes or does odd things:





  • Try to reset the BIOS to bring the settings back to default.

  • Disconnect any non-essential hardware that isn't required for the system to boot.

  • Check the connections of all your power cables, external and internal ones.

  • Check if your memory is properly inserted, try one memory slot instead of two if you can.

  • Check if all the fans are working properly, if not, connect and clean them to avoid overheat.

  • Check and see if any capacitors or transistors are damaged or blown-up.

  • Try any hardware in another computer, if compatible, to see if it works there.




If your devices aren't detected properly:



Check the BIOS settings to see if is configured to detect the device,
your BIOS startup screen should indicate which key you need to press. (F1/F2/F10/F12/DEL)






If the above troubleshooting steps don't help, there is probably something broken...



How can I determine which essential hardware piece is broken?




Your computer solely needs a power supply, mainboard, cpu, graphics card and memory lath to work.



The power supply, memory and graphics card can be replaced to determine if they cause the problem, if they don't then it's either the CPU or Mainboard. You can troubleshoot this with an useful flowchart.


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