How to Troubleshoot a Computer Problem
Troubleshooting a malfunctioning computer is a tricky task. A computer is made up of many components, and determining exactly which one is faulty is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Luckily, there are techniques that reduce the amount of hay you have to go through. This is the story of how I determined a faulty motherboard was the cause of my aunt's computer problems.
When troubleshooting, two of the most important things to do is to maintain a logical attitude and to document. Without a logical attitude, you will become frustrated and overly repeat steps, thinking that if you try "just one more time" you will solve the problem. Logic dictates that if you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Therefore, trying the same thing more than a few times is useless. Without documentation, you will surely try a fruitless idea that you had already tried, and go around in circles. You will also be unable to reverse a mistake if you don't know how you made that mistake in the first place. Thus, remember to document your results and maintain a logical attitude.
The first step in any form of troubleshooting is determining the symptoms, then formulating a plan of attack. In this case, the computer was rebooting itself randomly, and the slot loading DVD drive was not accepting any discs. I decided on the following plan of attack: fix the DVD drive first, then work on the random reboots.
If an optical drive is not accepting media, then most likely it is lacking power. Unless the drive had been dropped or physically damaged, the likelihood of the moving parts not working is very low. Therefore, either the power connector is not connected properly, or a power surge has damaged the electronics. In this case, I determined the cause to be a loose power connector. I re-connected the molex plug, making sure to insert it into the socket snugly, and re-powered the system. The DVD drive was now working again. Now, I could concentrate on the most difficult part: the random reboots.
When my aunt first told me of the random reboots, I had assumed a virus or a worm (such as the Sasser worm) was the culprit. That is, I assumed that it was a software, rather than a hardware, problem. After fixing the DVD drive, I rebooted the computer, only to find that Windows would not load. The computer kept rebooting while attempting to load Windows. Since at this time I believed I was dealing with a software problem, my initial diagnosis was that Windows was trying to load a faulty driver and rebooting when the driver could not be loaded. Since Windows has a feature where if it encounters a problem it reboots, my first task was to disable this feature. How would I do that if I couldn't even boot into Windows? The answer: Safe Mode.