Sometimes it seems like your PC has a mind of its own. You wake up one morning, and the machine decides not to boot. Another day, you can't print. Or your Internet connection starts to act up. Modern computing is filled with such apparently random bugaboos, and when they occur, it's often hard to figure out where to begin. Is the problem hardware-related or software-related? Can you fix it without shelling out some cash?

At ITS we made it simpler for you, in this troubleshooting guide, we answered some of the basic troubleshooting questions along with some tips and tricks that may be useful to you.

• My computer "hangs" on start-up, or after Windows loads. What can I do?
  
• My monitor screen is blank
  
• The taskbar has disappeared from my desktop. How do I get it back?
  
• When I display graphics files, they appear banded and blocky. Is something wrong with my PC?
  
• My computer has slowed down dramatically, and sometimes I hear a lot of clicking while I'm waiting for programs to load, screens to change, and other such activities.
  
• What do I do if I am using Windows NT and get a blue screen?
  
• My computer locks up and/or is acting weird, what should I do?
  
• My computer is completely dead, what should I do?
  
• My keyboard doesn't work, what should I do?
  
• My mouse doesn't work, what should I do?
  
• My computer displays a disk error or non-system disk message, is there any problem going on?
  
• My computer starts up in "safe mode", what should I do?
  
• My PC does not boot, but is beeping, what should I do
  
• The HDD is not being detected by the BIOS, what should I do?
  

First, undo recent changes. If you've added or removed new hardware, altered CMOS settings, or installed new software, there's a good chance those changes are the cause of your problems. A PC that's been running well and hasn't been altered won't die suddenly, in general. So if your problems can't be solved by obvious solutions- like plugging in an unplugged power cord--try returning your PC to its original, pre-troubled configuration.

Of course, problems do sometimes arise without overt provocation. Hard disks crash, chips burn out, and monitors eventually expire. Software, too, can be corrupted. A power failure or an accidental press of the reset button can shut Windows down improperly, damaging key files, and that can lead to all kinds of trouble.

Start by checking all your cables--monitor, keyboard, and others--as well as the power cords for both the computer and the monitor. It's best to completely unseat them and reattach them to ensure you have a solid connection; a connector that looks and even feels like it's firmly attached may not be. And don't forget to check the power outlet and your surge protector. Some surge protectors come with fuses or circuit breakers that can be triggered by an intermittent power surge. Usually a surge protector has a small button that you can press to reset it and get the power flowing again. You might even try an alternative power cord to make sure that hasn't gone bad.

It may be hiding at the bottom of the screen after being accidentally resized. Point to the bottom border of your screen. If the pointer turns into a double-arrow, click and drag upwards. If your taskbar isn't hiding at the bottom of the screen, try moving the mouse to the right, left, and top edges, looking for the telltale double-arrow.

Probably not. All you need to do is increase the number of colors that are displayed by your graphics card (the setting is also known as "color depth"). Right-click an empty part of your desktop and select Properties to bring up your Display Properties. At the lower left side of the Settings tab you'll see the Colors selector. Clicking on it will display the different color depth choices that are currently available.

If you have a relatively new graphics board, you should be able to choose from one of four settings: 16 colors, 256 colors, High Color (16-bit, or approximately 65,000 colors), or True Color (32-bit, or about 16 million colors). If your graphic images--especially photos--look blocky and banded, your color depth is probably set to 16 or 256 colors. Increasing that setting will dramatically improve the quality of your displayed images.

If you don't have the High Color or True Color options, your graphics board may not support those settings. You may have an older board that doesn't have sufficient memory to handle a high color depth at the resolution you're using (2MB should be enough to handle 16-bit color at a resolution of 1024 by 768). But you might be able to squeeze a higher color depth out of an older board by lowering the screen resolution, the number of dots on your screen. Adjust the resolution by moving the sliding bar that's immediately to the right of the color settings. After you've lowered the resolution, check the Colors menu. If a new choice has appeared, you can run at that color depth. Keep in mind that most people don't need to use anything higher than 16-bit color, and higher color depths can extract performance penalties.

Take a look at your hard drive's available free space. As you open more programs, your computer's RAM (or main memory) fills up with data. To handle the overflow, your system shuttles the data back and forth between the RAM and the virtual memory, a temporary storage area on your hard drive. Virtual memory is already much slower than RAM, but Windows will usually grow it and shrink it dynamically to make the best of a less-than-optimum situation. However, if your virtual memory space is too cramped by a crowded hard drive, your system will tend to choke on that bottleneck and will slow dramatically, sending your hard disk into a gronking frenzy.

Here are a few strategies for freeing up space on your drive and helping your system run faster:

Run Disk Defragmenter: As files are deleted and new ones are written to disk, your data becomes spread all over your drive. The clusters that make up a single file can become scattered around the hard disk, no longer stored sequentially. That means the hard disk has to spend extra time searching for and accessing the files' parts.

Running Disk Defragmenter makes all the parts of each file contiguous, and doing so can significantly speed up hard disk performance. Run Windows Disk Defragmenter from Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter.

There is not much to do if you get the "Blue Screen of Death" other than rebooting the computer. Please save your work periodically so that you do not lose anything. If you encounter this screen, the only option is to reboot the computer.

If the computer is frozen and will not respond to any commands, it may be necessary to press Ctrl + Alt + Del (all three keys at the same time) to bring up the Task List. Select any program that says "Not responding" and click the End Task button. Repeat until all tasks are ended. If this does not work, turn the computer off, wait several seconds, turn the computer back on, and let the computer run the Scandisk.

Reboot it. A majority of problems that occur while you are using your computer can be fixed by rebooting. Applications sometimes don’t release memory like they should when they are finished. The end result is your computer locks up or acts really weird. When you reboot, memory registers are cleared and most everything is reset. This fixes a lot of problems.

Check all the connections, the cables between the CPU and the monitor and all the electrical cables. Check the wall socket or surge strip to see if they are bad (sometimes a surge strip will have good and bad outlets). If you have a green or orange light on your monitor but not on your CPU, then there is a problem with your CPU. If there is a green light on your CPU and not your monitor, then you have a problem with your monitor and your CPU may be fine. If you have another monitor that you know is good, the quickest way to test is to put another monitor on the machine and see if you get an image on the screen. If you have a light on both the monitor and the CPU, check the pins of the data cable between the monitor and the CPU. A single bent pin can cause an image problem.

First Check whether Num Lock is ON or OFF, if it is OFF then, press Ctrl + Alt + Del (all three keys at the same time) to bring up the Task List. Select any program that says "Not responding" and click the End Task button. Repeat until all tasks are ended. Check periodically to see if the keyboard will work.

Check to make sure the keyboard is still properly connected to the computer. If the keyboard has been disconnected, you may have to reboot your computer.

If all else fails, then turn the power off. Wait a couple of minutes before turning the computer back on.

Check to make sure the mouse is still properly connected to the computer. If the mouse has been disconnected, you may have to reboot your computer.

Like the keyboard, the mouse pad is sitting in the open most of the time getting dusty, wet, slimed, or anything else that happens on you desktop. The mouse then rolls over whatever has collected on the mouse pad and gets inside, gumming up the works. To clean the mouse pad, wipe it off occasionally with a damp cloth or get a new one.

You also need to clean your mouse regularly, as often as twice a week. If you turn your mouse over, you’ll notice a round ball with a cover over it. This cover can be twisted off and the ball will come out. Roll the ball on a clean, lint free cloth. Then take a look at the rollers inside the mouse. Take tweezers, a screwdriver, or even your fingernail to scratch the dirt and lint off the rods. Next, you should look inside the mouse and clean out any other dirt or lint that is hiding in there. Finally, replace the ball and twist back on the cover.

You may have left a disk in the A drive. Remove it and press any key on the keyboard to reboot the computer.

If you don’t have a disk in the A drive, and the message is accompanied by a "clunking" sound, turn the computer off and send it for repair to an expert technician.

At times your computer could develop a problem which causes you machine to boot up in what is called "safe mode". The easiest way to try and solve this problem is to run a "scandisk".

- Click on Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and Scandisk.
- Place a check on "Automatically fix errors".
- When Scandisk finishes, reboot your computer to see if this fixed the problem.
- If the computer still boots up in the Safe Mode, click on Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and Disk Defragmenter. If you receive the message "You don't need to defragment this drive now", continue with the process anyway.
- When Disk Defragmenter is finished, reboot your computer to see if this fixed the problem.
- If the computer still starts up in safe mode, you need to contact a computer technician.

Different BIOS manufacturers use various number of beeps to indicate faults with various hardware. In an Award BIOS motherboard you will get following beeps:

- 1 long 2 short: Graphics card is not securely into place, or faulty.
- 1 long 3 short: Graphics card is not securely into place, or faulty video memory.
- Continuous beeps: No memory, or memory not securely into place, or could be faulty.
- Continuous high/low beeps: No CPU, or CPU not securely into place, or could be faulty.

Check if you connected the IDE cable to the motherboard correctly, is pin 1 on the IDE cable connected to pin 1 on the IDE sockets on both motherboard connector and HDD connector. Check if the HDD jumper is set to master and any other device sharing the same cable is set to slave.