Basic Diagnostics for Hibernate and Sleep

(This article is written with particular reference to Windows operating systems, especially Windows 7, although, some points are applicable to other operating systems as well). The current state of a computer is almost entirely dependent on the state of the computer’s RAM. That is to say, that the data stored in memory tells the computer… Continue reading Basic Diagnostics for Hibernate and Sleep

A Procedural Methodology for Diagnosing (Home) Internet Issues

I recently had some internet problems, most pages wouldn’t load, my connections to servers (e.g. FTP, SSH) would quickly drop, but, yet, I was able to download a file at a reasonable rate. There are different approaches to narrowing down the problem. For some problems, the symptoms will direct one’s focus to likely causes, but… Continue reading A Procedural Methodology for Diagnosing (Home) Internet Issues

The Shortcut to Resolving an IRQ Conflict

During my hard drive adventures earlier in the day, I removed a PCI IDE-SATA card from an older computer, and replaced it with the PCI sound card that was previously in that slot. Computer started, and all was good – however, the audio was routed through the integrated sound instead of through the discrete sound… Continue reading The Shortcut to Resolving an IRQ Conflict

Diagnosing a computer that won’t POST

Today, I was asked to diagnose a computer that wouldn’t POST over the phone. POST is the power-on self-test – it is self-check cycle that the computer goes through before ‘starting’ – it usually checks the motherboard (for short circuits), CPU, RAM, and graphics card for some basic level of functionality. Basically, this computer would… Continue reading Diagnosing a computer that won’t POST