Latest revision as of 15:03, 14 August 2008

General information

• Make the title of the post as relevant as possible. Titles like "weird problem" or "fucking computer" are less helpful than "blue screen problem", "suspected virus" or "PC will not switch on"
• Give as much information as possible about your problem and whatever steps you've taken so far to solve it. If you don't do this this, you may waste time waiting for advice that you've already thought of and done.
• If it's a purchasing question, be sure to give the specifications of what you want and a budget.
• If errorz are given, please write them down exactly, including all fiddly numbers, letters and CDC's. Screenshots are also acceptable (how to make screenshots)

IMPORTANT!! Be prepared!!!

Make a "Break open in case of emergency pack"!

System data

If you keep your system backed up like below, you can protect yourself against having to reinstall or fix ANY software problems.

• Use Acronis TrueImage(easy but commercial) or DriveImageXML (free) and keep a backup of your C drive to an external drive! (This step alone will save you huge amounts of grief).
  • Keep it updated at least once a month for best results.
  • If using Acronis then create a bootable CD, if using DriveImageXML then get yourself the relevant BartPE plugin. (See below)
• If you have a recent image of your C drive (and your personal data safe) you can simply re-image your machine back to how it was (and then NTBackup to restore your profile for uber-perfect restore) and solve any problem that you have!

Personal data

• Keep personal data (you can remap My Documents easily) on a separate partition or drive if possible.
• (you can skip this step if you want) - You can use NTBackup (Built in XP Pro and above, an MS download for XP Home) and make a scheduled backup (daily preferable!) of your C:\Documents and Settings\MyName directory (C:\Users on Vista) to keep a backup of your profile (and any data on your Desktop etc). This will keep your documents and settings safe But please, for the love of all is holy make sure you have a backup of your PERSONAL data.
• Mozy - pay £2.50 a month a backup all your personal data automatically online, no fuss.

Other useful disks

• Make yourself a recent version of BartPE (it is possible to get a pre-made one via torrents but the legality is dubious) Winternals ERD is what the professionals use but is very expensive and so not something I can suggest here.
  • But is good as it does a lot of things. If you had both you'd almost ready for anything! Note: Both of these disks can be very useful in diagnosing suspected hardware errors. As these are "Windows on a CD" and are premade, they are free from corruption. errors and driver issues. If you get problems when in this environment then it's a reasonable indication that the issue is not with Windows on your hard drive. (and vice versa)
  • Please note this is not a definitive test but a good rule of thumb. Machines with hardware problems (memory specifically) have booted fine with these disks.
• Keep your Windows install CD and serial safe with these too - useful for in-place upgrades

If you follow the above you will bullet-proof your personal data and you Windows installation in general. Only hardware problems should bring your machine down.

Suspected malware/virus/etc

• Restore your C: partition that you've prepared from above!!!

If not then:-

• Do a virus scan!
• wait 5 minutes after booting, then go to a command prompt and type

tasklist /V >C:\tasklist.txt

then show us the textfile created on your C drive called tasklist.txt. It helps to put it in [code] and [/code] tags for readability on the forums.

• Download HijackThis and run it, it's self installing.
  • Click the button labelled Do a system scan and save a logfile.
  • HijackThis will quickly scan your system, and then open two new windows. The results of the HijackThis scan, and hijackthis.log in Notepad. Save hijackthis.log. By default it will be saved to C:\HijackThis, or you can chose “Save As…”, and save to another location.
  • Hijackthis.log contains the info that’s required to receive analysis and assistance. Highlight the entire contents. Copy and paste the contents into your post, along with a complete description of your problem(s).(again put it in [code] and [/code] tags for readability) DO NOT fix anything. Wait for help.

Fire up this:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

then go to options up the top and hide Microsoft Entries and then scour the remaining list. If there is anything fishy there or claiming to be MS stuff, chances are it is a nasty. The majority of them will have a publisher listed which bad things won't (or not a legit one anyway) but that's not to say that ones without a publisher are bad (see: 7zip/winRAR)

Hardware

• If you don't know what hardware you have you can use SIW then select File > Create Log File. This will export the hardware and software information about your system and product a file. If you need to share the file and have no other means then try https://www.dropboks.com/ with un: 5punksiw@5punk.co.uk pw: 5punksiw

General Troubleshooting

General Troubleshooting Guide

BSODs

Blue Screens Of Death are evil but generally not that much trouble, as they can usually be pinned down to Memory issues or Graphics card Driver or heat issues.

Unfortunately, the best way to work it out is by looking at the bsod (assuming it stays up long enough), Note it down (or get a photo) then google it, you'll usually be able to work out what the issue is by what the BSOD says. A serial number is also given which can sometimes be of easier use with google but don't preferably note the entire message out.

Memory Issues.

Do memtest, leave it for a while, if no issues are found, swear and maybe consider timings and voltages.

Graphics issues.

Do Atitool (works on nvidia cards) check how hot the card gets

Aquire a copy of drivercleaner, follow the instructions to nuke graphics drivers.

Just not working (Failing to post)

First thing to do is to listen. Hopefully you'll hear some beeps, which you can look up in your motherboard manual to identify the issue (Typically 8 short beeps signifies a problem with memory, 3 beeps is normally graphics card not seated properly).

If you get no beeps at all, reset your bios/cmos (will be covered in the manual, usually requires moving a jumper or removing the battery)

If that didn't help, it's likely there's a hardware issue, remove everything but cpu and keyboard (remember to remove USB drives etc too)

If it beeps, add memory and try again. (once cpu and ram is in, the machine should post right, (usually a single happy beep) Repeat this adding hardware 1 part at a time, working from most important to least important. once it breaks, remove the last item and feed it to your laser eyed sharks.