Troublesshooting Tools

If you have solid preventive maintenance plan in place and adhere to it, you most
likely will have few problems. In general, the more preventive maintenance work
you do up front, the less troubleshooting and repair you are likely to do. At some
point, however, almost every person who supports a PC will need to address
some type of hardware or software problem. The following section looks at tools
to help you diagnose and repair computer problems.

Building a PC Toolkit

An important fist step in troubleshooting computer problems is having a

toolkit with the appropriate items. A basic toolkit for PC troubleshooting includes
the following:

 Flat-head screwdriver
 Philips-head (cross head) screwdriver
 Torx screwdriver , particularly size T15
 Tweezers, preferably insulated ones, to lift pieces of paper out of
printers or dropped screws out of tight places
 Chip extractor to remove chips
 3-pronged parts retriever, which is a spring-loaded device used to
retrieve objects from small spaces. When you push down on the top,
three wire prongs extent to allow you to pick up a screw or other item
that has fallen into a part of PC too small for your fingers or hands.
 Ground bracelet and ground mat

Another important component of PC toolkit is a bootable rescue disk can

help you boot the PC to ensure a clean boot that does not load any extra
software, drivers, or other programs – and can help you boot the PC even
when the hard drive fails.
 Other tools that are helpful to have in a PC toolkit include:
 Antistatic bags to store unused parts
 Needle-nose pliers for removing jumpers and for holding objects while
you screw them into place
 Flashlight to see inside the PC case
 AC outlet ground tester and multimeter to check the power supply
output
 Small cups, bags, or a plastic container to keep screws organized as you
work and store spare screws
 Pen and paper for taking notes
 Utility software, diagnostic software, and antivirus software for any
hardware or software you need to support

Before purchasing each item separately, look for existing toolkits that include
most of these components.
Another tool to consider is a fire extinguisher that is rated to handle fires
ignited by electricity. If a computer catches on fire, the fire is ignited and heated
by electricity – a type of fire considered to be Class C by the National Fire
Protection Association (NFPA), an organization that creates standards for fire
safety. Mount a fire extinguisher rated for Class C fires near, but not directly over,
your computer work area – and be sure you know how to use the fire
extinguisher.

Utility and Diagnostic Software

Many utility and diagnostic software tools are available to help you diagnose
a problem with personal computer. Utility software is a program that performs a
specific task, usually related to managing system resources or identifying a
problem with a PC. Utility software can be designed to diagnose problems, repair
and maintain the software on a PC, recover corrupted or deleted data on the
hard drive or floppy disks, provide security, monitor system performance, and
download software updates from the Internet. The utility software might use the
installed operating system or might provide its own.
Diagnostic software generally is used to identify hardware problems. For
example, the diagnostic software PC-Technician loads and operates using its own
operating system, so it can operate directly on system hardware without having
to interact with the installed operating system. PC-Technician provides tools to
test any number of hardware components and functions, including memory, hard
drives, floppy disk drives, serial and parallel ports, video adapters, and the
keyboard.
Lists below are several examples of utility and diagnostic software programs.
Before purchasing utility or diagnostic software, read the documentation and
product reviews to determine whether the software will perform the functions
you need, if it is appropriate for the types of computer you support, and that it
comes with good documentation and support. Software that is describe as
professional generally assumes greater technical expertise and also provides
more features than end-user software.

Software Description

Norton System Works General purpose utility software that provides a variety
(Symantec) of functions, including the ability to recover lost or
damage data from a hard drive.
CheckIt Suite (Smith Micro A general purpose utility software that includes the hard
Software) drive testing, performance testing, post testing, and setup
for resource conflicts.
Partition Magic (Power Lets you create, resize and merge partitions on a hard
Quest) drive without losing data. You can use software to run
multiple operating systems easily, convert file system
types, and fix partitions
SpinRite Scans an hard drive for errors and can perform a low-level
(Gibson Research) format without losing the data (called a non-destructive
format), and sometimes can recover lost data.

 Data Lifeguards tools Diagnostic software from several major hard drive
(Western Digital) manufactures (Western Digital, Maxtor, and Gateways)
 Power Max (Maxtor) that reports and fixes some types of hard drive errors. The
 Gwscan.exe (Gateway) software, which is written to work with that
manufacture’s drive only, usually can be downloaded
from the manufacture’s Web Site.

Administrator’s Pak A software suite with utilities to boot a system from CD,
(Winternals) repair an OS, recover data, change forgotten passwords,
repair system files, repair partition tables, and rewrite the
MBR program.

Spybot Search and Destroy Privacy protection software that searches out and
(PepiMK Software) removes installed programs that track Internet activity or
display pop-up ads.
PC-Technician Professional-level PC diagnostic software that loads and
(Windsor Technologies) operates without using the PC’s installed operating
system, because it has its own proprietary OS built in. PC-
Technician provides tools to test any number of hardware
components and functions.

PC-Diagnosys Designed for less-experienced PC technician and end

(Windsor Technologies) users; it is smaller, easier to use, and less expensive than
PC-Technician.

PC-Doctor Comprehensive hardware diagnostic and system

(PC-Doctor) information tool that can test your computer, determine
its configuration, and perform low-level hardware testing.

SiSoftware Sandra Benchmaking, diagnostic, and tune-up software that can

(SiSoftware) be used to solve hardware and software problems.

Windows Memory User-friendly software that runs a comprehensive set of

Diagnostic (Microsoft) memory tests to determine whether the problems are
caused by failing hardware, such as RAM or the memory
system of your motherboard.

DocMemory User-friendly self-bootable software designed to capture

(CST, INC) all possible memory failures in a PC.