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Showing posts from December, 2023

Troubleshooting a Personal Computer (Part III)

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An image of a computer screen/Monitor.  Your Computer Screen freezes . Imagine you get to the office or your workstation and you try to press the "power on" button on your System Unit (SU) and you are waiting patiently for the Operating System to load. You wait for some time and you notice that it is taking longer than the usual load-time. Eventually, the home screen does not load and you get a screen just like that displayed in the image above. This situation really impedes productivity and delays your progress on any project you are actively involved in. Imagine you also have deadlines to submit your work. What is your next plan of action? This series is to give you the confidence to deal with these issues before you get any PC technician involved. Do not forget that we are dealing with a PC in the form of a Tower or a desktop. Restarting the PC and booting in Safe mode. Firstly, you hit the Ctrl, Alt, and Del keys (for a windows-installed-OS-system) simultaneously to reboo...

Troubleshooting a computer (Part II)

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Your Computer won't turn on but make beeping sounds .   In our previous blog, we discussed how a computer "lifts" itself from its bootstraps by undergoing a diagnostic test before it comes on after pressing the "power on" button. This diagnostic test involves ensuring all resources are in the right place to aid the booting process. Booting was later defined as loading the Operating system into the PC's RAM (Random Access Memory).  Just imagine this scenario, "you have a desktop computer or a tower and all cables are securely in place and have been connected to their appropriate place/sockets on the motherboard and desktop case". You press the "power on" button on the desktop/tower and nothing happens. You only see the monitor's power-on-light and also the desktop light but no operating system is loaded onto the monitor screen and you hear a beeping sound. Your guess is as good as mine.  We first have to check whether the RAM (there ar...

He was destined to be the best.

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 Introduction. Growing up in a community full of footballing potentials, the only thing I was destined to become was to be a footballer. I loved playing football. I loved sitting among friends to discuss football players, leagues, and even local players who deserved to be the best among them all. We had Del Piero, Riquelme, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Rivaldo, "the great" Zizou, and a lot more brilliant players from different countries. Within the African continent, we had Kalusha Bwalya, Jayjay Okocha, Nwanko Kanu, Tony Yebaoh, Roger Miller, Patrick Mboma, Samuel Eto, and a lot more. I could sacrifice my Saturday morning and afternoon classes for football. It was a sport I needed no time to exercise, I needed no time to go for some sprints to build strength, it just came naturally to me. I was so good that my friends would just come to my house even though my dad had that "strict" demeanor, to call me out to go play some matches. They needed their "star player" and...

Troubleshooting a Personal Computer.

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Introduction (This is the first in the series of Troubleshooting a PC) An image of an open laptop. The personal computer (PC) is part of our daily activities. Without it, performing simple tasks such as sending emails, scheduling meetings, writing theses and assignments, and even coding will not be possible. To perform all these simple tasks, one has to "boot" the PC. Booting is a process of the PC lifting itself from its bootstraps (this is the exact definition my hardware technician teacher gave me when I was learning the art of PC repair). What are bootstraps, and what exactly is "booting"? He further explained that "booting" is just starting/putting the PC on by pressing the "power on" button. He said there are two (2) types, namely the "hard boot" (pressing the power-on button) and the "soft boot"—by pressing the Ctrl, Alt, and Del keys, you have the option to restart the PC. Booting, in PC terms, is when the PC loads an ...