Hardware troubleshooting manual

Do you know what to do if your screen goes blank? What if you can't seem to close an application, or can't hear any sound from your speakers? Whenever you have a problem with your computer, don't panic! There are many basic troubleshooting techniques you can use to fix issues like this. In this lesson, we'll show you some simple things to try when troubleshooting, as well as how to solve common problems you may encounter.

There are many different things that could cause a problem with your computer. No matter what's causing the issue, troubleshooting will always be a process of trial and error —in some cases, you may need to use several different approaches before you can find a solution; other problems may be easy to fix.

We recommend starting by using the following tips. If you're having an issue with your computer, you may be able to find out what's wrong using the process of elimination. This means you'll make a list of things that could be causing the problem and then test them out one by one to eliminate them.

Once you've identified the source of your computer issue, it will be easier to find a solution. Let's say you're trying to print out invitations for a birthday party, but the printer won't print. You have some ideas about what could be causing this, so you go through them one by one to see if you can eliminate any possible causes.

First, you check the printer to see that it's turned on and plugged in to the surge protector. It is, so that's not the issue. Next, you check to make sure the printer's ink cartridge still has ink and that there is paper loaded in the paper tray.

Things look good in both cases, so you know the issue has nothing to do with ink or paper. Now you want to make sure the printer and computer are communicating correctly. If you recently downloaded an update to your operating system , it might interfere with the printer. But you know there haven't been any recent updates and the printer was working yesterday, so you'll have to look elsewhere.

You check the printer's USB cord and find that it's not plugged in. Privacy policy. You can use the following guidelines to either verify that your device is installed correctly or diagnose problems with your device installation:.

Follow the steps that are described in Using Device Manager to view system information about the device. See below for more information on common installation errors. On Windows Vista and later versions of Windows, follow the steps that are described in Debugging Device Installations Windows Vista and Later to debug co-installers during the core stages of device installation.

On Windows Vista and later versions of Windows, follow the steps that are described in Troubleshooting Install and Load Problems with Test-signed Drivers to diagnose problems related to the installation and loading of test-signed drivers.

Run test programs to exercise the device. The device installation took too long and was stopped. See the SetupApi logs for more information about the device installation and where the time was spent. Some common causes of timeouts are: A co-installer executing for too long. This could be because the co-installer is performing some unsupported operation that has hung or is too long running. For example, a co-installer is executed in a non-interactive session, so it cannot do something that needs to wait on user input.

Co-installers are deprecated and should be avoided. See universal INFs for more information. Starting a device at the end of device installation has hung. The driver package being installed on the device did not specify an associated service for the device. The installation of the device was blocked due to group policy settings.