Chapter 10: Understanding and Troubleshooting Hardware Failures

Overview

PC hardware is something you want to be able to take for granted; you just want it to work so you can largely ignore it the remainder of the time.

But hardware can only be ignored for so long; eventually, you’ll experience a device failure that is more serious than losing a mouse or a keyboard. That failure may prevent your PC from starting or from being used satisfactorily, and could endanger your unprotected data.

Two of the pitfalls of the relative affordability of PC hardware today are

• Many components formerly made with metal or other decent materials are now made with cheaper plastic and other less sturdy stuff.

• Most of this inexpensive hardware does not go through the rigorous quality assurance and inspection that the industry used to employ.

What this means for you is that even a brand-new PC or component may arrive defective out of the box, even if it doesn’t show signs of a broken part or other obvious damage.

It also means that many hardware components on your PC may not be of sufficient quality to be worth repairing. For example, floppy and CD-ROM drives that you used to try to repair 10 years ago are typically replaced these days. If you develop a problem with your new hard drive or still-under-warranty monitor, the manufacturer will probably tell you to send your current unit back for replacement rather than repair. These lean prices contribute to a climate where fast, free, and good technical support is not easy to find when you run into problems with your hardware. But, hopefully, throughout this book, you’ve picked up tips, tricks, and troubleshooting techniques to help you resolve many of the disasters that might afflict your hardware.

This chapter, at about the midway point of the book, seems like an ideal time to delve more deeply into hardware failures, both real and imagined. I say imagined, because many problems can mimic a hardware failure when the hardware is fine except that it has been badly configured, become linked to the wrong driver, or is fighting another device for the CPU’s—or the operating system’s—attention.

In particular, this chapter highlights critical failures, meaning when can’t-do-without hardware such as memory, the motherboard, video, and the CPU. You’ll want to couple this information with material you’ve already learned about in earlier chapters, particularly Chapter 6, “Transforming Yourself into a Smart Troubleshooter: Detecting, Analyzing, and Diagnosing,” and Chapter 7, “Restarting a Problem PC.”

Warning 

If you suspect a critical hardware failure is imminent, back up your data immediately. If the problem becomes so severe that you need to replace your system, you’ll be glad to have your data safely together in one place.