Day 18
Answers to the Floppy Questions
The floppy drive light stays on when you power up the system. - It means that
a) the CMOS setting set to 720 KB instead of 1.44 MB
b) the disk inside is not bootable
*c) the FDD cable is reversed
d) the FDD cable is not inserted
When not in use, it is very important to keep 5 1/4 diskettes in ______.
*a) Their protective sleeves
b) In a plastic bag
c) On a shelf in an upright position
d) In the floppy drive
3.5 HD floppy disks have how many square holes on top?
a) 0
b) 1
*c) 2
d) depends if they are formatted or not
After displaying the directory of a floppy disk, a different floppy is inserted into the drive. The contents of the original floppy's directory still continue to be display regardless of a new directory request on the other floppy placed in the drive. You remove the drive in question and install it into your test system, and it does not exhibit the problem. You should next replace the:
a) System's floppy drive device driver
b) Original IDE controller
*c) Floppy drive ribbon cable
d) System's power supply
Troubleshooting Part 2
On lesson 6, we went
over some common situations that techs find in the wild. Today, we will go
over more situations and look at this topic in more detail.
3. The settings within BIOS may need to be changed to accept the new hardware. Go into the BIOS and check the settings to be sure that the on-board modem is not enabled.
4. If it looks like a bad modem, then goto the control panel - and click on the modem icon. The select the second tab, called diagnostics. Select the new modem, and click on the "more info..." button.
If all is well with that modem then, it will say OK on some of the lines within the new window.
Their are many more situations that call for troubleshooting. The key to finding a solutions is as follows...
Problem Solving Process
So what should we do?
Gather Data
Develop a plan
Carry it out
Document the process
Monitor the results
Diagnostic tools
The best tools you have are the ones that you use everyday.
Sight
Smell
Touch
Hearing
We normally do not use taste, however.
-With the power off and unplugged-
Look at the system’s adapter cards. Are they seated correctly?
Look at the memory Sambas or DIMMs. Are they seated correctly?
Look at the other IC chip components on the board. Do any of them look like they are loose?
Is there any unusual smells from the PC?
Is there a burnt or “hot” smell?
Touch the green part of the cards to see if any cards are loose.
Touch the cables. Are any loose?
When the system is running, does it make any new sounds or is there no sound?
Do you hear popping sounds?
Do you hear high voltage sounds (from monitor)?
These are your senses by which you may use as a troubleshooting tool.
Other tools to use are:
Scandisk, MSD and CHKDSK in DOS
System Icon, Control Panel, System Tools, Scandisk, System Information, and Disk Cleanup, which can be found in Windows 98SE and Windows ME.
Still other tools can be found by venders, such as Norton.
Other tools?
Troubleshooting PCs
Motherboard
Check RAM, Video card, and Keyboard before suspecting the M/B.
Test the M/B by unplugging all of the expansion cards, power cables to all drives. Then change the video card, memory, and plug in the power card.
Do you still receive only a beep code, no code, or no output?
Install a CPU that you know is good.
Try booting.
Take the M/B out of the case and place it in a different case, which you know is good
If all these test fail, you know that the M/B was common in all of the test; therefore the M/B should be replaced.
Memory
Intermittent or parity errors are called soft errors.
A consistent memory error that reports the same location is called a hard failure and shows us that one of the RAM chips is going bad.
Do be sure to buy the right memory for your main board.
To find out which SIMM is bad, swap them out, one by one, to find the one that is causing the errors.
Power supplies
Check the power cord and “110 220 switch.”
You may use a voltmeter to check the output.
If a P/S goes bad, simply replace it. Do not try to open it.
Disk Drives
If you have data worth saving, then do so by using a CD-Burner or back-up disk, so that if a drive fails, you will still have your data.
Before a drive fail it MAY do any of the following:
Produce sounds, which were unheard in the past.
Produce errors in the data.
Show disk errors whenever scandisk is run.
Show cross-linked errors.
Show errors in the master boot record.
What are:
FDISK
FORMAT
Low-level Format
Do you have virus protection software?
Adapter cards
These can be checked be taking out the card and reseating it.
Are the connectors clean?
Remember- these connectors are made of gold and can rub off very easily.
If a board goes bad, replace it with a similar card.
Monitors
We normally do not work on monitors, because they carry components that can shock the user.
So what can we do?
We can check and replace on/off switches.
Power cords
And video data cables.
Keyboards
Keyboards can be easily taken apart and cleaned. Do not spray liquid cleaners into the keyboard. It is best to take the key off and clean them individually.
Modems
Use the system icon or the modem icon found in the control panel to diagnose problems.
Printers
Paper jams
Ink-Jet heads
Cleaning
Preventive Maintenance
Bottled air
Fans
Monitor
Keyboard
CD-ROM drives
Mouse
Floppy drives
Hard drives
Ink Jet printers
