Some helpful hints from Michael Hamilton, "The PC Doc".
Internet Connection
How fast is your Internet connection…I mean how fast is it really? Whether
you have a dial-up, DSL, Cable, Satellite, or some other type of connection,
it might be good to check out the real speed of the connection. Go
to the Bandwidth
Speed Test Results site and click on the test link, which will calculate
your connection speed by downloading a couple of test files. Be aware
that the day and time of day will affect your calculated speed due to the
overall Internet traffic conditions.
Hardware
One day you turn on your computer and “nothing” happens. Your
screen may be blank or Windows doesn’t bootup and you get some disk boot
error message. Should you face the prospect of a disk drive failure,
here’s a checklist to try before uttering that solemn sigh of despair or
other more descriptive four letter words. Take it one step at a time
and be calm.
Try to restart. Turn your computer off, count to 10, and turn it back
on. This will reset the computer and hopefully will resolve the problem.
Check for the obvious. Loose connections can start off a slew of unnecessary
diagnostic measures. So check all power cords, cables, and connectors
to make sure they're firmly attached. Check your surge protector to make
sure it hasn't blown a fuse or been destroyed by an errant voltage spike.
And make sure the brightness and contrast settings on your monitor haven't
been turned all the way down or if the power switch may have been inadvertently
turned off.
Listen for clues. As your PC starts up, you should hear the power-supply
fan rev up. You should also hear your hard disk spinning. If all is quiet
on the hardware front, you may have a bad power supply or a loose power
connection. Open up your PC's case and make sure all the power-supply cables
to your hard drive and motherboard are attached properly. Also check to
make sure that the fan on top of the CPU is running. If it isn’t,
then the CPU will overheat and eventually stop working altogether. Remember
to either use an antistatic wrist strap or discharge yourself of static
electricity before touching any of your PC’s internal components.
You can discharge yourself of static electricity by touching the computer’s
metal case with the power cord plugged in.
If you hear a series of beeps before your system locks up, note their
number and whether the beeps are long or short. This audio error message
from your system's BIOS provides information about a problem that it has
detected. Check with the bios manufacturer of your system to identify your
particular error.
Look for clues. When your PC starts, it runs a Power-On Self Test that
confirms the presence of such essential hardware components as memory chips,
video cards, and hard drives. Watch for error messages as the results of
each check appears on the monitor. Pressing Pause will freeze the
screen to prevent messages from disappearing too quickly; pressing Enter
will resume the process.
You may also see confirmation or error messages as your system initializes
such higher-level devices as the CD-ROM drive. You don't always need an
error message, however. If your system locks up while configuring such
a peripheral, then chances are that's the culprit.
If your system launches Windows, your disk is at least partially functional.
Windows 95 and 98 still use the DOS autoexec.bat and config.sys files to
load drivers for some old hardware. If your PC locks up while loading these
drivers, press F8 after you see "Starting Windows 9x". This allows you
to run the files one line at a time to see what device is loading when
trouble occurs.
If you get a "Boot disk failure" or "Operating system not found" error
instead of a "Starting Windows 9x" message, your PC can't load Windows
from the hard disk. This may indicate a damaged drive.
Boot from a floppy. This process bypasses the hard drive and confirms
that your computer is otherwise healthy. Use the Windows Start-up boot
disk that either came with your system or created when you upgraded to
your current version of Windows. If you don't have a start-up disk,
it's a good idea to make one before you need it: Insert a blank floppy
disk, click on Start, Settings, Control Panel; Click on the Add/Remove
Programs icon and select the Startup Disk tab, then click Create Disk.
Restart your system with the start-up disk in the floppy drive. If your
system successfully boots and displays the A:\ prompt, your PC is working
properly. Try accessing your hard disk by typing C: at the prompt and pressing
Enter. If you get a C:\ prompt, change directories and try to copy a small
file to the floppy.
If that works, then you're able to write to the disk, and your disk
may still have some life in it (sometimes disks die a slow death). Take
the opportunity to back up any important files you need to, and then run
a hard-disk diagnostic utility such as ScanDisk, which is ready to run
from the start-up disk, or Norton Disk Doctor.
Check your CMOS settings. If you get an error message saying "Drive
C: not found" (or something similar), your PC may not recognize the hard
disk because it lost all its CMOS settings, which happens when the CMOS
battery starts to die. To fix this, enter the CMOS setup program: While
your PC boots, press Delete, F1, F10, or whatever key your PC uses (check
your documentation). If no hard disk is listed, you need to reenter the
disk's settings. You can do this manually (the settings are usually found
printed on the hard drive's case), but most PCs will reenter them for you
by using the CMOS setup program's hard-drive autoconfigure utility.
If you get this far and your computer is still misbehaving, it’s definitely
time to seek some expert help.
Bill Houston, RLP, LandInfo Services, continues to serve
as NLA’s Webmaster. Please be sure to pass along any comments,
suggestions, web links, etc. to Bill at 775-746-2434 or wghouston@juno.com.
JANUARY
16, 2001
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