College

Hi all, not logged on here for a while! well I still at college and completed most of my units! I completed the Customer Care, Health and Safety, NCFE Award (Personal Professional Development) and my Hardware unit. I am currently working on my Software Instalation and Upgrade unit, in which I will be installing operating systems and creating an on screen manual in Microsoft PowerPoint, which will show people how to check for hardware upgrades, check compatabilities and finally install the operating system. I am coming up to the end of the year (in 8 weeks) and then I have decided to look for a job in IT!

Boot Manager Missing

Today I came across an error message on the monitor while the computer was trying to boot up, the error message said “BOOTMGR IS MISSING” this means that the boot manager is missing. The boot manager is the programme that supports the boot sequence and the computer cannot boot without it.

This could be the result of someone deleting something important by accident or it could be the result of someone moving the computer while it was switched on. If you move a computer while it is switched on, because the Hard Drive disks are spinning it could get knocked or bashed, then the disks could scratch them self and therefor completely damage the Hard Drive or erase some of the Hard Drives memory including the boot manager, it could even be a virus infecting the boot sequence.

Unfortunately the only way to solve this problem is to re-install windows because Windows is corrupt.

CPU

Today I was told that one of the computers will not display anything on the monitor so I went to have a look, I first checked to see if fans were going round and if the lights were on, they were. So I then checked inside the computer to see if there were any obvious faults such as a component not inserted correctly, I couldn’t see anything unusual. I then changed the monitor to see if there was a problem with it but I still had the same problem with a different monitor.

I then realised that this could be a CPU problem so I took off the heat sink fan and removed the CPU. I noticed that it was not seated correctly and also would not go into place.

I then took out the CPU and checked it and I noticed that there were two bent pins on it which would stop it seating correctly and also would stop it functioning

Norton Antivirus

Today I came across a problem with my Norton Antivirus software, on my side bar I got an alert saying my computer is at risk. I run a scan and it did find a threat and it also told me it could not be removed automatically.

So I had to go into the information of this threat and it told me it was involved with my iTunes. So decided to delete iTunes and re-install it.

I did this and then I run a scan and then it did not find any threats.

Screen Resolution

When I had a look at one of the computers today I noticed that the screen resolution was really low and the icons on the desk top were very large. This could be a result of someone messing with the settings.

I then went into the personalise settings by right clicking on the desktop and clicking personalise. I then checked the resolution settings and I was right with the settings part, they were set very low.

I then tried to set the resolution to the highest but when I applied these settings the monitor went blank and the light was flashing multiple times and then the screen resolution went back to the way it was before. When the monitor goes blank and he light flashes this means that the monitor is not designed to be able to go up to that high resolution.

So it turned out that it was the monitor that couldn’t handle the high settings so if this was a customer I would recommend a new monitor for the newer graphics cards.

Monitor

While I was working on a computer today I noticed that the monitor had an unusual green tint to the screen, I then thought this could either be the graphics card, the monitor or the monitor cable.

I then had a look at the monitor settings to make sure the settings were all correct but they all were correct. I then gave the monitor cable a wiggle and the monitor started to flash the right colours with the green colours, I then realised that it was the monitor cable that was faulty which is good because if it was the graphics card or the monitor it would be more expensive to replace.

I then had a look to see how I could fix this problem, when I had a look at the back of the monitor I noticed that the stand would have to be un-screwed in order to get the back off (the stand was blocking the back) so I unscrewed the stand and removed the back, then I unscrewed the cable, replaced it, and put the back and stand back on, then the monitor was working correctly.

Hard Drive drivers not recognised

Today I came across a major fault that I have never come across before, when the computer tried to boot up it was getting half way through the boot process and then looping back to the start. This suggested to me that there was something wrong with the operating system that was installed on the computer.

I then went into the bios and tried re-setting the BIOS to see if it was a BIOS problem. The computer then got most of the way through the boot process and then blue screened, it was then when I decided to re-install the operating system.

First I had to set the computer to boot from the CD ROM drive first (so that it will read the windows disk before trying to boot up the Operating System) I did this by changing the BIOS settings. I managed to get the widows installer open but the software did not detect a Hard Drive or the Drivers for the Hard Drive. So I then had to insert a floppy disk with the drivers on (all older motherboard drivers are on floppy disks) but it still would not install the drivers for the Serial ATA.

I then had to try changing the Hard Drive cable, I did this because you should always try changing the cheapest first but the computer still did not pick the Hard Drive up.

I then tried changing the Hard Drive, and then had to start the installation again, but the computer still did not pick up the hard drive. So then I went into the BIOS settings again and I changed the hard drive settings to RAID, RAID is what is the setting that is used when you are using two Hard Drives because the computer will then see just one hard drive but with 2X the Space because there are two Hard Drives. The computer then picked up the Hard Drive and drivers right away and the installation went well with no problems.

After the installation windows booted up with no problems and operated with no problems.