MAINTAINING EQUIPMENT & CONSUMABLES

For Level II Trainees Total Hours of the Module: 60hrs

By: Yenus Abdrhaman 2005 EC Debrtabor poly technlque college

Acknoledgments:

I would like to express my greatest gratitude to Daniel Mesafint, who have helped and supported me throughout this work. I am grateful to him for his continuous support from the initial and early stages of conceptual inception to the final stage of my work through ongoing advice and encouragement. Finnally, I want to thank debrtabor poly college memeber and the department of IT for helping me for providing different materials.

Table of Contents:
Lo1: Determine best practices for equipment and software maintenance................................................. 1 1.1 Introduction to maintain equipment and consumables ................................................................... 1 1.1.1 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.2 OHS principles and concept .................................................................................................. 1 Equipment consumables uses and characteristics ............................................................... 2 Maintenance procedures and techniques ............................................................................ 3

Accessing verifying cleaning equipment supplies ............................................................................. 6

1.3 Recording and documenting maintenance action .................................................................................. 9 PC Maintenance Schedule: ....................................................................................................................... 9 LO2: Revise Practices, where appropraite .................................................................................................. 11 2.1 Accessing Consumables ........................................................................................................................ 11 LO3: Identify and anlyse IT system components to be maintained............................................................ 11 3.1 Identifying Equipment which requires maintenance............................................................................ 12 3.2 Documenting Maintenance procedure ................................................................................................. 17

Maintain Equipment and Consumables

Prepared By: Yenus Abdrhaman

2005 EC

Lo1: Determine best practices for equipment and software maintenance

1.1 Introduction to maintain equipment and consumables

These topic cover the knowledge and skills required of implement house keeping activates and maintain equipment and consumables. Implement housekeeping activates are: Regular inspection carried out in the work area according to workplace procedure and standards. Areas cleaned and maintained in accordance with OHS Disposal of waste and dangerous with OHS regulators and organization polices Maintain equipment & consumables are: Execute regular maintenance activities according to scheduled plan Maintenance procedures are followed in according. With the manufacture manual. Complex faults or repair requirements outside area of competence are reported for as specialist assisting. Maintenance and repair activities are documented and reported.
1.1.1 OHS principles and concept

OHS explanation occupational health safety. OHS it is important to have an understanding of these items and how they apply day to day activities. It is important the prevention of loss or damage to lives and properties or I tem. It is reducing west. N.B Health: - is the freedom form illness or disease. Safety: - the freedom form dallier or injury or damage. OHS: - istle freedom form illness, disease and junta in the workplace.
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Advice on principle of OHS risk control Design to minimize risk based on the hierarchy of control. Designed product includes fail- to- safe action to minimize the impact of possible failure or defect. OHS Improves (Results): Product quality Production capacity Use of capital Safety Space utilization Profitable laity Good house keeping and work place com

Hazard: - A source or situation with a potential harm it terms of human injury or disease. Waste: unwanted martial Risk: the chance of something happening that will result in damage. - Measured in term of consequences.

1.1.2

Equipment consumables uses and characteristics

o ICT equipment means desk top computer, lap tops, servers, monitors, printers, audio, visual, (AV) equipment but IT consumables such as printer cartridges o Consumables are any products which needs to be replaced on a regular basis Printer cartridge CD/DVD disks Pens Papers for printer Cleaning kits (CD-DRIVE and FLOPPY-DRIVE) Floppy etc

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Maintain Equipment and Consumables 1.1.3 Maintenance procedures and techniques

Prepared By: Yenus Abdrhaman

2005 EC

Purpose of maintenance Maintenance is an excellent means of improving this performance and condition of equipment and facilities. Effective, maintained parlay identity problems long before any equipment or facility breaks dotcom. Basically the principal objectives of maintaining To extend he useful life of assets that is every parts of this site, building and equipment To assure he optimum availability of installed equipment for protection or (service) and obtain he maximum possible return on investment. To ensure operational readiness of all equipment required for emergency use To ensure the safety of personal use of facilities.
1.1.3.1 Maintenance procedures

1. Routine maintenance (also known as preventive maintenance) is performed on a regular basis in order to keep things working well and reduces the chance of something going wrong. Preventive maintenance: - maintenance performed in order to PREVEVT failures BEFDRE them developing to a breakdown. To reduce he number frequency of repairs on crisis situations by organization. PM itself by reducing problem behavior, data loss & computer failure and ensuring along life, for your system. Developing a PM program is important to every one, who uses or mange personal computers, systems. PM system weeds all programmed activates documentation such as: Work shop inventory equipment register. Technical recodes specification Drawing recodes Material spare parts records Job instructions specification Work order Inspections report card.
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Maintain Equipment and Consumables

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2005 EC

2. Non-Routine maintenance (also known as Corrective maintenance) is fixing something after it has broken or is not working properly. Therefore, the more routine maintenance carried out the less likelihood of non-routine maintenance is required. Maintenance in an IT environment Some items requiring maintenance in an IT environment would be:

Printers- Printouts may be streaky or faded. The printer may need either cleaning or new cartridge. Monitors- Fingerprints may make the text difficult to read. PC's- A PC may not boot correctly. In investigation required and possible reinstallation of the operating system. Peripherals- A scanner or bar code reader may not be functioning properly. Floppy disk Drive- The system may not read floppy disks. The drive may need cleaning. Replacing paper- Printers, photocopiers and fax machines may run out of paper.

Precautions are guidelines to be followed to prevent damage to equipment or injury to people. The following are very important precautions:

Before cleaning any electrical equipment make sure that it is switched off and unplugged from the mains. Allow certain equipment, such as monitors and laser printers, to cool down and lose their capacitance (charge) before cleaning them for at least 30minutes. When cleaning inside the PC, or handling parts from a PC such as hard disk or circuit boards, you should earth yourself using antistatic wrist strap. Always refer to the manufactures manual before attempting to clean any equipment, because improper cleaning or maintenance may be dangerous and also may invalidate your warranty. Some equipment such as power supplies and monitors use voltages and therefore should only be maintained by specially trained people. It could be dangerous for any one else to open these up for maintenance.

Cleaning in an IT environment Why clean? Dust needs to be removed because it acts as an insulator that prevents air from circulating over or through the components and this can cause overheating. If dust contains conductive particles it can also cause a short circuit, which ca damage components or even cause a fire.

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Maintain Equipment and Consumables

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2005 EC

Removing Dust Dust can be removed using a household vacuum cleaner with an appropriate attachment, although it is much easier to use a purpose-built computer vacuum cleaner or keyboard cleaner. Residue from hands The human skin produces residues that cling to surface of the computer hardware we touch, which can be removed with liquid cleaners. However, use only specifically designed cleaners for cleaning computer equipment. Unsuitable cleaners may: Cleaning kits The contents of kits vary, but generally kits include: Item Small brush Antistatic grounding strap Lint-free foam cleaning swabs or buds (looks like cotton buds) How is it used? Or dusting components of electrical equipment To earth yourself while cleaning inside a PC Are used with isopropyl alcohol, which is dabbed on the bud and then used to clean such components as the edge connectors on cards, the contacts inside mice, and keyboards. Cleaning wipes Are small lint-free cloths for cleaning the system unit casing, monitor and keyboard Contact cleaning solution Not only helps clean the edge connectors and electrical contacts inside the PC but also helps to promote reliable connections. Compressed air Is used for blasting dust out of obscure corners which might not be able to reach with a mini vacuum cleaner. Cleaning disks for 3.5 and 5 Consists of an outer shell and replaceable inner material on 1/4 disk drives to which you put a few drops of special cleaning fluid. CD-Cleaning kit Cleans dust and grease from the CD. Also keep the CDs in their cases, handle them by edges and periodically clean them using the cleaning kit. Cleaning sheets for laser Are fed through the device in the normal way for paper, printers, plain-paper fax but they remove toner, dirt and dust from the paper path, machines and photocopiers which improves the print quality.
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Cause dangerous fumes Damage the plastics used in computer hardware release ozone-damaging gases not clean effectively

Maintain Equipment and Consumables

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2005 EC

Chemical hazards: - a chemical or substance can be hazardous because of any one of the following intrinsic properties:o o o o o Corrosive Explosive Gas, stored under pressure Cryogenic liquid Oxidizing

1.2 Accessing verifying cleaning equipment supplies

Cleaning means:-One of the most important operations in a good preventive maintenance program is regular and through cleaning the system. Dust build up on the internal components con leas to several problem:o System cooling o Shortens he life of sensitive, components o Dust can contain conductive elements that ay cause partial shortcut and physically damage important element. o Other elements in dust and dolt can accelerate corrosion of electrical contact resulting in improper connections. Keep the computer room as creak as possible he following rules must be strictly pillowed. o Try to keep the computer room as free from dust as possible. o Have coulees for the computers prepared and always covers them immediately use. o Wash your hands before using he computer o Avoid having blackboards chalk ovary other sourly of dust in the computer centre. o Never smoke inside the computer room. o Use a mouse pad to roll he mouse over.

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Maintain Equipment and Consumables

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2005 EC

Cleaning Peripherals Monitors Carefully clean dust away from the vents in the monitor's enclosure using a vacuum cleaner. Anything other than a vacuum cleaner (e.g. a rag or air blower) is likely to push the dust inside the enclosure where it can lie on electrical components, causing failure. You should clean the glass screen with one of the cleaners described previously. If you use a spray to clean a monitor you should be careful to spray the wipe. Printers You will get the greatest benefit from cleaning a printer if you can remove any dust from the paths of moving parts. To do this you may need to remove covers or paper trays. However, at all times refer to the printer manual. It will contain the instructions for removing parts and may even have some tips on cleaning. Do not use any liquid cleaner on a printer unless the manufacturer recommends it. Laser Printers To clean laser printers: 1. Switch off and unplug the printer, and wait at least 30 minutes for it to cool. 2. Wear disposable plastics gloves. 3. Clean the outer casing of the printer using a dampened paper towel or a lint-free cloth with a little detergent on it. 4. Check for, and remove any loose bits of paper. 5. Vacuum inside the printer using a static-safe vacuum cleaner. 6. Use a lint-free swab dipped in isopropyl alcohol to clean the corona wire. Keyboards The keyboard tends to not only accumulate a lot of dust and skin residue but also some hair and lint form clothing. Loose matter can generally be removed with the vacuum cleaner. Mouse The mouse tends to accumulate a mixture of dust and skin residue from the surface it rolls on. Therefore to properly clean the mouse: 1. 2. Turn the mouse upside down and push down and away the roller-opening hatch with two fingers until you see the panels open. Use a soft, dry, lint free cloth to wipe the ball clean. Never use cleaning fluid or solvent. Gently blow into the mouse housing to remove any dust.
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Maintain Equipment and Consumables

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2005 EC

3.

To clean the steel rollers carefully use a cotton swab to remove the material buildup.

4. Replace the ball in it its housing, and then re-insert the retaining panel. When the panel is in place push it down and backwards until it locks firmly.

Scanners and photocopiers The glass top flatbed scanners, like those of monitors and photocopiers, can get pretty dirty with finger marks. Usually you would use a lint-free cloth dabbed with whatever chemical the manufacture recommends to wipe it clean. Power Supplies Maintenance for the power supply to PCs includes: Vacuuming dust from the vent holes check the cables coming out of them are not worn or broken Check the power socket is clear of dust and dirt. Hard disk It is ways advisable to perform regular checks of he hard drive b/c this device where all our information is stored. These checks include use of the system tools, to verity disk integrity and organization. There are 3main system tools that you can use to keep your hard disk in good ship 1. Disk cleanup 2. Error checking 3. Disk defragmenter Defragmenting files File are split in to many noncontiguous areas on the One of the best ways to protect both your hard disk, and he data on it is to periodically defragment the files on the disk. Rearranges the files sallied on disk. This serves tow purpose: All the files are stored in contiguous sectors on the disk A disaster in boyish he file system is severely damaged if the files are contiguous.

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Maintain Equipment and Consumables

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The three main functions in most defragmentation programs are as follows:o File defragmentation o File packing (free space consolidation) o File sorting. Disk cleanup means: - a simple tool to help cloning your disk from unnecessary files. Run the willows un essay files disk cleanup helps free, up space on your hard disk, which searches he system file you can satiety delete such as:o File in he recycle bin o Temporary internet file o Windows temporary file o Install programs for previously downloaded and installed programs o Compress old files Error checking Error checking (use to be scandisk):-Checks the hard disks for logical and physical errors and can repaired the damaged areas. o Start windows explore o Right click on he disk you wan to check o Select properties o Select the tab tools o Click check now.

1.3 Recording and documenting maintenance action

PC Maintenance Schedule: Here is a schedule for maintaining your computer, it is highly recommended that your follow these routines to have a healthy computer. Recommended Maintenance Schedule Frequency Daily Task Virus Scan Adware / Spyware Scan Data Backups Antivirus Software Updates Adware/Spyware Software Updates Windows Updates Office Updates Disk Cleanup Deleting Temporary Internet Files, History, Cookies Disk Defragment
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Weekly

Monthly
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Maintain Equipment and Consumables

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2005 EC

Schedule For Workstations and personal computer: FREQUENCY MAINTENANCE ACTION Update virus definitions - There have been an average of about 19 new viruses per day on Windows systems since 1995. Run and install Windows Updates - This will fix security flaws in Windows, reduce crashing and can solve compatibility issues. You do not need to install all of the "Recommended Updates" but you should install ALL "Critical Updates" Mac Users: "Software Update" Control Panel - This is the Macintosh equivalent for Windows Update. Open this control panel and choose "Update Now". When the list of available software appears, choose to install all "Security Updates" Bi-Weekly Run Scandisk (Standard Scan) - Fixes some kinds of incorrect file information and provides early detection of potential hard drive crash. Run Disk Defragmenter - This will increase the efficiency and decrease the wear on the hard drive. On Windows this is a Utility in Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Defragmenter. On Mac OS 9, Norton Utilities has a good tool. On Mac OS X, Micromat v.1.1 can be used but it is not necessary if you setup your drive as UFS (not HFS). Run Scandisk (Thorough Scan) - This thoroughly scans the hard drive for bad physical sectors and will provide early detection of potential hard drive crash. Disk Cleanup - This frees up space on your hard drive by displaying and, if you desire, removing unnecessary or unused programs, temporary files and Internet cache files. Located in Accessories/System Tools on Windows. Yearly Check Fans and System Temperature (hard drive and CPU) - This can usually be done in the system BIOS at startup and varies from PC to PC. Insurance of proper operation of this hardware can help prevent hardware freezes and costly hardware repair.

Weekly

Quarterly

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Maintain Equipment and Consumables

Prepared By: Yenus Abdrhaman

2005 EC

Upgrades - There are usually upgrades for drivers and firmware released annually. Installation of these will usually make your system more compatible and reliable and can get rid of a huge assortment of problems. Check with the hardware manufacturer for upgrades for each device.

LO2: Revise Practices, where appropraite 2.1 Accessing Consumables

Ribbon (computing)

In GUI-based application software, a ribbon is an interface where a set of toolbars are placed on tabs in a tab bar. Recent releases of some Microsoft and Autodesk applications have popularized this form with a modular ribbon as their main interface. A ribbon provides the user interface of an application with a large toolbar filled with graphical representations of control elements which are grouped by different functionality. Ribbons can contain tabs to expose different sets of control elements, eliminating the need for many different icon-based tool bars. Some of these tabs are contextual and appear only when a certain type of object is selected, providing specific tools for items such as tables or images.

LO3: Identify and anlyse IT system components to be maintained

One of the great strengths of the PC platform, that has led to its overwhelming success in the marketplace, is its modularity. Most PCs are made up of many different individual components, which can be mixed and matched in thousands of different configurations. This lets you customize the PC you either buy or build to meet your exact needs.

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Maintain Equipment and Consumables

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External view of a complete, modern PC system.

This section discusses some of the major components of a typical, modern PC. Some PCs have some of these combined into one physical unit, but inside, somewhere, you'll find most if not all of these pieces. (Most modern PCs also have components not listed here; I'll be expanding this later on to include more device types).

3.1 Identifying Equipment which requires maintenance

System Case The box or outer shell that houses most of the computer, the system case is usually one of the most overlooked parts of the PC. While it may seem inconsequential, the case actually performs several important functions for your PC, including protection for the computer circuits, cooling, and system organization. In addition, the system case is normally purchased together with the system power supply, and must also be matched with the size, shape and electrical requirements of your motherboard. Therefore, it has an impact on your options with these important components as well. Power Your computer is obviously an electronic device, and its many components of course require power. Like the case, most people don't give much thought to the power supplied to the system. The power supply in your PC can be compared to the officials at a baseball game: if they are

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Maintain Equipment and Consumables

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doing their jobs properly nobody really notices them, but if they aren't, everybody knows it and isn't very happy about it. There are two aspects to power in the PC:

External Power: External power refers to the power that is delivered to the back of the system case. There are several considerations regarding this power and how it is supplied that will determine if your internal power supply is going to work the way it should. Power Supply: The power supply is the small box that sits inside your case and takes the external power you supply to the computer. Its main job is to transform this power into a form the rest of the computer can use.

Motherboard and System Devices The motherboard is the base of the modern computer system. It is amazing how little attention this critical component gets in mainstream circles, considering how much it does--though this situation is now improving, fortunately. If the processor is the "brain" of the computer, then the motherboard is the central nervous system and circulatory system, plus much more, all rolled into one. Here are the main parts of the motherboard and its related devices:

Motherboard: The motherboard is the main circuit board in the computer where everything comes together. This is where you plug in your processor, memory, cache, video card and other cards. It is also where you connect your peripherals. System Chipset and Controllers: The chipset and other motherboard circuitry are the "smarts" of the motherboard. Their job is to direct traffic and control the flow of information inside the computer. These circuits control the processor's access to memory, the flow of data to and from peripheral devices and communications lines, and much more. The chipset is a critical part of any computer, because it plays a big role in determining what sorts of features the computer can support. For example, which processors you can use, which types of memory, how fast you can run the machine, and what kind of system buses your PC can use, are all tied in to the type of chipset the motherboard uses. System Buses: The system buses are the electrical channels through which various parts of the computer communicate. The physical part of these buses, the part you see, is the set of slots in the back of the machine into which you put your video card, sound card and other cards. It is over the system buses that your video card gets information from the processor, the processor saves data to your hard disk, etc. The architecture chosen for each of the system buses has a great impact on the performance of your PC, as well as dictating your choices for video cards and other devices. BIOS: The system BIOS (which stands for Basic Input/Output System and is pronounced "bye-oss" or "bye-ose") is a computer program that is built into the PC's hardware. It is the lowest-level program that runs on your computer. Its job is to act as an intermediary between your system hardware (the chipset, motherboard, processor and peripherals) and your system software (the operating system). By doing this, the operating system doesn't have to be made different for every machine, which is why DOS will load on any PC. The BIOS is what runs when you turn on your computer, and what loads your operating
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system (for example, DOS). The BIOS also allows you to set or change many different parameters that control how your computer will function. For example, you tell the BIOS what sort of hard drives you have so it knows how to access them. Cache: The system cache is a small, high-speed memory area that is placed between the processor and the system memory. The value of the cache is that it is much faster than normal system memory. Each time the processor requests a piece of data from the memory, the system first checks the cache to see if the information is there. If it is, then the value is read from cache instead of memory, and the processor can get back to work that much sooner. If it isn't, then the data is read from memory and given to the processor, but it is also placed into the cache in case the processor needs it again in the near future. System Resources: System resources are not actual physical devices; they are nothing you can reach into the machine and touch. But they are very important for two reasons. First, they dictate how your PC organizes its access to various memory areas and devices. Second, they are one of the most common areas where people have problems with the setup of their PCs: so-called resource conflicts. These are the four types of resources that various parts of your computer can sometimes decide to fight over: o Interrupts (IRQs): As described in the example in the chapter on how the PC works, a device requests time from the processor using these interrupt requests. Under traditional designs, each device has a different IRQ number. If two try to use the same one, a conflict can result. Newer technologies can allow multiple devices to share an IRQ channel. o Direct Memory Access (DMA) Channels: Some devices have the ability to read and write directly from the system memory, instead of asking the processor to do it for them. Cutting the "middle man" out in this manner improves the efficiency of the system. Each device that does this needs its own DMA channel. o Input/Output (I/O) Addresses: Devices exchange information with the system by putting data into certain specific memory addresses. For example, when we pressed the letter "M" in the example mentioned above, the keypress was stored in a certain memory address until it was time for the processor to deal with it. Any time information goes into or out of the machine, to your modem or hard drive or printer for example, it uses these I/O addresses. Again, each device needs its own memory area. o Memory Addresses: Similar to I/O addresses, many devices use blocks of memory as part of their normal functioning. For example, they may map hardware programs (BIOS code) into memory, or use a memory area to hold temporary data they are using.

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The Processor One of the smallest parts of the computer but the one that gets most of the attention, the processor is often thought of as the "brain" of the computer. An extremely sophisticated piece of miniaturized electronics, the processor (often called the CPU or Central Processing Unit) is at the bottom of all tasks the PC performs. The processor reads instructions (commands) from memory that tell it what it needs to do to accomplish the work that the user wants, and then executes them. System Memory The system memory holds all of the "active" information that the computer is using. When you turn the computer on the memory is empty. Each program or data file you load uses part of the system memory. When you close a program the memory is freed up for other uses. Generally, the more memory your system has, the more things you can do with it simultaneously. Increasing the amount of memory in the system also improves performance in most cases. Video Cards Your video card performs the function of displaying the screen you see on the monitor. Inside the video card is a special kind of memory called video memory, where information is stored that represents what you see on the screen. If you look closely at the screen you can see that it is made up of many dots, or pixels. Each pixel's color and brightness is stored in the video memory. When the computer wants to display something, it calculates how it needs to change the color and brightness of the different pixels, and changes the values in the video memory. The video card then presents the new pixels to you on the monitor. In modern computers, this calculating job is shared between the processor and the video card itself. Having the video card do the calculation can often be much faster, because the video card is specialized to do these types of calculations. Also, while the video card is doing this work, the processor can go on to other things.

Monitors In simple terms, the monitor, sometimes also called a CRT after the main technology used in making them, is a specialized, high-resolution screen, similar to a high-quality television. Many times per second, your video card sends the contents of its video memory out to your monitor. The screen is made up of a matrix of red, green and blue dots. The information your video card sends controls which dots are lit up and how bright they are, which determines the picture you see.

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Hard Disk Drives Your hard disk drive is your computer's main "long term memory"--it holds your operating system, programs and data files. Hard drives are the fastest form of long-term storage your computer uses. They have currently increased in size and speed to values unheard of just a few years ago. Hard disks are (usually) permanent--they stay in one place inside your computer and cannot be removed the way floppy disks or CD-ROMs can. Floppy Disk Drives Floppy disks are your computer's smallest and slowest form of long-term storage. Floppy disks provide a simple, convenient way to transfer information, install new software, and back up small amounts of files. Floppy disks are not as important a part of the computer as they were many years ago. This is largely because the floppy disk still holds the same amount it did five years ago, while most users' needs for storage, software installation and backup, have increased ten-fold or more in that period of time. One great advantage floppy drives have is universality: virtually 100% of PCs made in the last 10 years use a standard 1.44 MB floppy drive. CD-ROM Drives CD-ROM stands for Compact Disk - Read Only Memory. As the name implies, CD-ROM drives use compact disks, similar to the ones that hold music, to hold computer information. And also as the name implies, they are a read-only medium. You can read information from them but not write to them (except for some special exceptions). CD-ROMs are currently the most popular way that computer companies distribute applications and games, and are ideal for multimedia information like videos, music and large graphics files Peripheral I/O Peripherals are external devices that you connect to your PC. (Well, technically your hard drive and CD-ROM etc. are peripherals too, but often people use the term to refer to devices outside the main box). There are two main ways that you can connect peripherals to your machine: through a serial connection, or through a parallel connection:

Serial Communications: A serial connection sends information over the line one bit at a time. It is a simple way to send information in or out of the computer, but is not as fast as other ways the computer can communicate. Serial connections are typically used for devices such as mice and modems.

Parallel Communications: A parallel connection is faster than a serial one because it sends many bits in parallel. The advantage of this is that it is faster, but the disadvantage is that it is more complicated to do.

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Parallel connections are used most often for printers and removable storage drives, which need more speed than serial peripherals.

Keyboards The keyboard is the main input device for most computers. It is used to input textual information to the PC. Keyboards are pretty much standard affairs these days, although they can vary greatly in quality and appearance, and some have significant additional features. Mice OR Mouse Until the invention of graphical operating systems, the keyboard was the only way that most people input information into their PCs. Mice are used in graphical environments to let users provide simple "point and click" instructions to the computer. The main advantage of a mouse over the keyboard is simplicity. There are also some operations that are much easier to perform with a mouse than a keyboard (such as picking an item on a screen or choosing from a list of options).

3.2 Documenting Maintenance procedure

Troubleshooting is the process of identifying and correcting problems. The best troubleshooters are usually people who have been exposed to most problems. They have seen different types of problems and their solutions. Therefore, if they run into a particular problem, they might see it before and can quickly address the problems. Most of the solutions are quite simple, so you don't have to be a technical expert to work with your PC in good condition. If you want to be a good troubleshooter, just follow the procedures detailed in this book. Every technician [computer users] has his or her own way to troubleshoot. Some people use their instincts while others need an advice from other people. But let us see a common Maintenance Procedure.

DATA GATHERING: Ask the customer the following questions to define the problems: Can you tell me something about the problem? What did you do to your computer lastly [Before it stopped working]? How often does this happen? Have you installed new software Have you deleted some files? Have you added a new hardware device? Have you made any other changes to the computer recently?

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DEFINE IF THE PROBLEM IS A HARDWARE OR SOFTW RERELATED Is it a startup problem? Is it windows problem? Is it a program problem? Is it a device problem?

FIND OUT THE PROBLEM AND SOLVE IT! If the problem is hardware related, determine which component is failing and try to solve the problem. If the problem is software related; determine which is corrupted or missed and try to solve the problem.

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