Objective 4.5: Identify and Troubleshoot Problems with Locally Attached Devices

As a DST, you will often be approached by users who are having trouble with devices attached to their computer. From an application support standpoint, you may be faced with questions about why a user cannot print a document, scan in an image, or get a handheld device to work.

All computers have different types of ports available, including serial ports, parallel ports, Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports, FireWire (or IEEE 1394) ports, infrared ports, and wireless ports. You should know the types of devices that use each type of port; how to configure ports in a computer’s basic input/output system (BIOS) and in Windows XP; and how to determine whether a problem is caused by hardware, configuration, or application settings.