Basic Diagnostics Manual

Hardware

Hard Drive

Predictable hard drive failure is usually caused by normal wear on the mechanical parts of the drive.

Unpredictable hard drive failure can be caused by misuse, defective parts, or immediate mechanical failure.

Gradual wear causes most mechanical failures. The most common symptoms of a failing hard drive are:

• Increased heat output
• Increased noise level
• Problems with reading or writing data

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) scans

SMART scans are a quick way to tell if a hard drive is failing, although not all failing drives fail SMART tests. There is no standard requirement for SMART support, so not all disks will test all or even most of the tests available.

You can test most hard drive formats via Ubuntu's built in SMART scan (in Disk Utility).

Common SMART signs of HDD failure:

• Read error rate
• Reallocated sector counts
• Spin retry count
• Command timeout
• Reallocation event count
• Current pending sector count
• Uncorrectable sectory count
• Drive life protection status

Logic/Motherboard

• Unexplained crashes
• Corrupt graphics
• Display failures
• Power button doesn't always work
• Ports don't always work
• Unexplained noises

Things to try:

• Reset PRAM (Parameter Random Access Memory)
• Reset PMU (Power Management Unit)
• Reseat the RAM

RAM failure

Beeps when trying to powering on

Things to try:

• Reseat the RAM

Software

Many software issues can also be caused by hardware malfunctions.

Common Software issues:

• Long load times
• Long quit times
• Program crashes regularly
• Window not moving

Viruses

• If the user thinks it might be a virus, have them show you what is happening.
• Boot to safemode
  • Win7: restart then keep pressing F8 until a menu comes up, always select safe mode with networking
  • Win8: from the start screen type run, open run, type msconfig, go to Boot tab and check the box for safe mode with networking

• Install Malwarebytes from flash drive and follow the steps here-Malwarebytes.

Program lists

what it does

when to use

how to use

Things to try:

• Malwarebytes
• AVG
• Ccleaner
• SMART Test

How to backup

Ask student what they would liked backed up, try to avoid backing up the entire hard drive. Create a new folder with the naming scheme (Studentname mm_dd_yy). Manually move folders to new folder. We store backups for 1 Month.

Skynet

• Username: Admin Password: the DC 1 policy is n0!
• from Mac: Finder, Go, Connect to server, afp://skynet.local
• from Windows: myComputer address bar, //skynet/Student Backups