How To Diagnose Your Computer Problem Yourself ?

Strictly, please read the IMPORTANT NOTE AND WARNING at the bottom of the post first.

Step I) Power On Your Computer-Press the Power On Button Switch
Before doing that make sure to check all sockets and cables are connected firmly and correctly. By switching on the computer you can check the power supply unit.

STEP II) Check The Power Supply Unit(Tranformer)
If you switch on your computer by pressing the power on button, the first thing you noticed is the LED light on the top right corner of your keyboard that lights up or blinks for fraction of a second indicates that electric current is passing through the mainboard as your keyboard is connected basically directly to the mainboard. In another word the power supply unit is at lease some what working. You can counter check by putting your hand few inches behind the power supply unit at the casing to feel the air blowing out by the cooling fan inside the power supply unit. In fact, you can hear the cooling fan’s spinning sound too.

Step III) Observe The Hard Disk LED ON Your CPU
Look at the other LED lights on your CPU, especially the harddisk LED. The activity of the harddisk is indicated by the harddisk LED. When harddisk is in activity, the harddisk LED lights. By looking at the harddisk LED you know if your computer is loading Operating System(OS) like MS WINDOWS at startup or not. You can tell by looking at the nature of the hard disk activities indicated by the harddisk LED if the OS is running even if there is no display at the monitor/screen.

Step IV) See If There Is Anything displayed on the Computer Screen/ Monitor.
Make Sure that Step I and II above shows positive results, which means electrical power reaches your computer mainboard. Ensure Your monitor is powered on and connected firmly and correctly to your CPU.

Case I: Nothing displayed on the screen/monitor
Posibility 1: Random Access Memory (RAM) chip module out of contact. This is common to above 2 years old’s computer. Your Computer not even will run without memory. So in this case, there is no harddisk activity as said in Step III too. Solution: Take out and clean the RAM chip module and insert back firmly to its slot socket. When finished, Try power on your computer again.

Posibility 2: Processor burnt or or mainboard problem. At this point, if your power supply is good and RAM chip module in firm contact, but your computer just does not initialize, not even the processor cooling fan is spinning, it is possible that either your mainboard or processor (or both-less likely both) might be bad. For home user, if you have only one computer of this kind at home, you have no other mainboard of same kind to test out the processor or the other way round; may be you have no choice oter than to send your computer to a service centre.

Posibility 3: Problem with display units(including monitor, cables, display card(if any) and display output port/socket). In this case, your CPU as well as the harddisk activities are running normally. The computer loads fully but only it could not be displayed. At this point, you still can turn off your computer by typing on the keyboard. Solution: Check the signal cable’s pins are straight and reinsert your display card(if any) firmly. Replace your display card if it is bad/burnt. Then, Try power on your computer again. If you used the ‘Display only on LCD Projector Mode’ before your last shutdown, connect back and power up your LCD Projector or TV to see anything display on the LCD Projector or TV.

Case II: Yes, some things/scripts displayed on the screen/monitor
Possibility 1: It displays the normal loading process of the OS, but stuck half way, never finish loading. This is cause by incomplete or missing system files in the OS which may be caused by virus or malware/software that crushes or even memory crush while loading files at start up. Solution: use ‘save mode’ to log in (Press ‘F8’ key for MS WINDOWS after the automatic memory scan by the system at the very beginning of the start up, and select ‘use save mode only’) and restore your computer to earlier time. Delete and stop install the suspicious software that resulted the crush. If this still fails, there is no choice you have to insert OS CD like MS WINDOWS setup CD into the CD ROM drive, restarting your computer to reinstall your OS.

Possibility 2: Error message appeared telling you the cause and what to do(details and helps). The most common one are

i) ‘Hard disk failure’ or ‘None system disk’ which tell you to check your hard disk.
ii) ‘CPU Clock Mismatch’ or ‘CMOS Check Sum Error’ and you can press a key to continue or go to BIOS setup. This is cause by CMOS button cell battery flats or failures; hence, the BIOS chip lost memory on information about your hardware to start up. Solution: Follow the instruction to press a key to continue start up or setup your computers BIOS manually. TIP: Power on your computer at lease 15 minutes per week to prevent battery flat. Change the battery if necessary.

iii) Other error messages, like ‘system halted to protect your computer’. Solution: This is consider as stuck or crush, so refer to the earlier step above.

IMPORTANT NOTE AND WARNING: All risks are at your own if you try the above method. Open computer casing risking electrical shock hazards and computer parts warranty void.