RIVER BENDER - October, 2000
It can be a pretty traumatic event when your PC doesn't work right. I know, because mine failed and I tossed and turned all turn all night working on the problem. In the meantime e-mail piled up. What can one do when your PC is on the fritz? For some people all they can do is carry the PC to a computer shop and hope the bill won't be too high, especially if the problem is a component failure. But most of the time the trouble is a software glitch that's nothing more than an annoyance. When this happens there's many things one can do before requiring professional help. Here are a few tips:It always helps to know many computer people. You can meet them if you attend the New Bern Computer Users Group meetings. See NBCUG's web page at http://www4.coastalnet.com/nbcug. Becoming a member is free and allows one to send e-mail to close to 300 members plus get a list of their phone numbers. This is a great way to get answers to PC problems. There's also a list of local PC consultants shown on the web page.
Everybody that has owned a PC for awhile learns that many problems vanish when one shuts down their PC and reboots. When someone calls me about a problem this is my first advice. It's sort of like making sure that the PC is plugged in.
Another common problem is an error message that often freezes up your PC. Press the Ctrl/Alt/Delete keys simultaneously and close out any program that is not responding. At worst, you may have to reboot and lose some data.
If the problem you are having doesn't affect your PC's ability to access the Internet you are in great shape. I say this because the answer to your problem lies somewhere out on the Net and all you have to do is find it. It won't be an easy task but with some patience you'll be rewarded. Rarely is your problem unique and oftentimes there's chat going on about it that may be helpful.
How does one search the web for solutions to a problem? I use the search engine http://www.metacrawler.com and try various search words and phrases that describe the problem. There is also an option in Metacrawler to search either the web or newsgroups. Be sure to search the newsgroups because that's where the chat will be. It's also the place where you can post your problem for the world to see. The trick to finding help using web searches is learning how to express keywords of your problem.
Hardware problems are the hardest to fix. This is because your PC often won't work to be able to access the web to find a solution. Here's an excellent tutorial on hardware troubleshooting that you might want to print out just in case you run into a hardware problem later:
http://www.everythingcomputers.com/pc_hardware_trouble.htm
Finally here's a list of URLs that can be of help in troubleshooting PC problems. Keep them bookmarked as favorites in your browser:
http://www.pcguide.com (Enter search words on your problem)
http://support.microsoft.com/support/KB/ARTICLES/Q138/7/89.asp (Dial)
http://www.manawatu.gen.nz/pages/bios_survival/bios_sg.htm(About BIOS)
http://www.annoyances.org/win95/ (Lots of Win tips on annoyances)
http://www.winplanet.com/winplanet/collections/814/?/ (Win Tips)
http://www.conitech.com/windows/ (Drivers)
http://www.winfiles.com (See tech help)
http://www.driverzone.com (Good place to find drivers)
http://www.bugnet.com (Software bug fixes)
http://www.everythingcomputers.com/reformat.htm - (Reformatting drive)
http://www.windowstrouble.com/kernel32dll.shtml (Kernel32.dll page faults)