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Show your PC who's boss
Nothing's more annoying than a tech malfunction, especially when it's your PC-with the exception of perhaps wading through reams of random, unreliable theories online looking for a solution, or paying an expensive tech geek to show up to perform a five-minute fix. The latest edition of Troubleshooting & Maintaining Your PC All-in-One For Dummies puts all this frustration behind you and gets you straight to work solving the problem yourself!
In his straightforward, friendly style, Dan Gookin-bestselling tech author and all-round Mr. Fixit-packs everything you need to know into 5-books-in-1, giving you the knowledge and process to hit on the right solution, fast. From identifying common problems to methodically narrowing down to the correct fix, you'll save hours of frustrating research-and experience the sweet, righteous satisfaction of having achieved it all yourself.
Every problem has a solution and PCs are no different: get this book and you'll never catch yourself shouting at your monitor or frustrated with the motherboard again-well, maybe not quite so often.
Dan Gookin wrote the very first For Dummies book in 1991. The author of several bestsellers, Dan's books have been translated into 32 languages and have more than 11 million copies in print. Dan is the bestselling author of all editions of PCs For Dummies and Laptops For Dummies.
Introduction 1
Book 1: Solve My Problem Now! 5
Chapter 1: Trouble Comes Hither 7
Chapter 2: Quick Fixes 15
Book 2: O, We Got Trouble! 29
Chapter 1: Startup Problems 31
Chapter 2: Disk Disaster 47
Chapter 3: Monitor Mayhem 83
Chapter 4: Internal Issues 107
Chapter 5: Printer Problems 137
Chapter 6: Peripheral Perils 155
Chapter 7: Software Situations 177
Chapter 8: Network Nonsense 197
Chapter 9: Shutdown Issues 225
Book 3: Tools to Use 237
Chapter 1: Windows Recovery Environment 239
Chapter 2: The Device Manager 257
Chapter 3: MSCONFIG and the Task Manager 265
Chapter 4: Safe Mode 279
Chapter 5: System Restore 293
Chapter 6: The Task Manager 305
Chapter 7: The Windows Registry 317
Chapter 8: Events and Diagnostics 329
Book 4: PC Privacy and Security 341
Chapter 1: PC Privacy 343
Chapter 2: Keeping Software Current 353
Chapter 3: Keep Mr PC Safe 363
Chapter 4: Backup and Restore 375
Book 5: This Old PC 389
Chapter 1: Performance and Resources 391
Chapter 2: More Mass Storage 399
Chapter 3: Boost PC Performance 415
Index 427
Chapter 1
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding PC problems
Examining software changes
Reviewing hardware issues
Adjusting PC settings
Determining the source
Tossing in the towel
It's sudden, unexpected, and unwelcome. It's PC trouble, and it sneaks up like the dawn. Unlike the sun, however, technology issues hardly warm up your day with welcome sunshine. No, the dread-and-foreboding that comes with computer woe is a splash of cold water, a pebble in your shoe, and a long-term visit from an unwelcome guest all rolled into one.
You can't avoid computer woe, but you can prepare for its eventual arrival. You can also become familiar with the core cause of digital distress. The more you know about why things go wrong, the better you can prepare yourself for the inevitable.
The cause of nearly all PC trouble is rooted in one thing: change.
Computers foul up because something has changed. It could be something you did, such as modify a setting, uncover a software bug, run a malicious program, or experience any of several items that all qualify as "change." Even time itself is an agent of change, in that PC hardware gets old, eventually wears out, and fails.
The goal isn't to avoid change, but rather to be aware of its consequences. The process of troubleshooting becomes easier when you realize that something you just did, intentional or not, might have triggered a problem.
No, it's not your fault that something changed. Computers are designed to be flexible. Rather than blame yourself when trouble arises, just recall what changed. When you do, you make it easier to troubleshoot and find the source of what's going wrong.
For example, you install a new keyboard and the mouse doesn't work. Perhaps you unplugged the mouse instead of the old keyboard? You update a graphics driver, but now all your computer games are reset to low resolution. The point is to be aware of what you've just done, to see how it relates to the current problem.
To help you discover what changed, or what might have caused recent issues, ask yourself, "What did I just do?" Specifically, did you recently or just now
Think hard! That's because you do a lot with your computer and sometimes you do several things at once. For example, a dialog box may feature multiple settings but only one OK button. All the settings are applied instantly with a mouse-click. Undoing the change requires that you recall which changes you just made.
Windows keeps track of all system activities, including those that cause woe. See Book 3, Chapter 8 for information on the Event Viewer, which lets you peruse system logs for signs of trouble.
Software covers the gamut, from the PC's operating system to programs you install. It also includes the software that controls specific pieces of hardware, which are referred to as drivers.
The best way to avoid issues caused by installing new software is to create a restore point. This way, should problems arise, you can uninstall the software and use the restore point to recover the system's previous configuration.
Major hardware changes most definitely affect a computer system. Further, keep in mind that when you attach or remove a USB device, you're also adding and removing hardware. This process may trigger an issue that can occur right away or surface later, but the hardware change is probably the source.
If you're like me, you might change settings so often that you forget you do it. The settings can be subtle, from accessing a new Wi-Fi network to changing the screen resolution. Anytime you change a setting, you alter the computer's behavior, which can lead to something unusual or unexpected happening.
Most importantly, be on the lookout for User Account Control (UAC) warnings. Anytime you change a setting that can affect the entire system, you see such a warning, similar to the one shown in Figure 1-1.
As long as you're making the change, click the Yes button to proceed. If you're unaware of why the UAC warning appears, click No. And, if you have a standard-level user account, you must input an administrator password; a text box appears in the UAC warning (not shown in Figure 1-1).
FIGURE 1-1: A typical UAC warning.
Settings that affect the entire system feature the UAC Shield icon, shown in the margin. Choosing this type of setting prompts a UAC warning if your user account type is standard. Even then, administrator accounts get prompted with warnings as well. Regardless, the Shield icon serves as a reminder that the option you're changing can alter the system's behavior.
The point of the UAC is to pay attention! Changing settings can lead to PC trouble. For example, changing the text color to bright green and the text background color to bright green renders text unreadable. The solution is to undo the change.
A UAC warning appears whenever you change a system-wide setting. It's your clue that proceeding might portend problems.
Because a computer system is a combination of hardware and software, problems fall into one category or the other. Determining the specific source, however, is an art form. People who troubleshoot computers for a living follow three general rules to diagnose such errors:
You're probably used to such ambiguity when it comes to technology, though these three axioms are worthy to follow.
Software problems are predictable. If the Backup program won't run as scheduled, it's a consistent issue and the program itself (or the task scheduler) is to blame. If Word always crashes when you try to print, it's a software issue not having anything to do with the printer.
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