General Troubleshooting Best Practices

I find these ideas to be the best way to find the resolution to most issues. After years of following these thought processes, I've found it has even helped me in other non-computer related problems, such as diagnosing a bad alternator on my car. ~Start Simple~ There's a reason the Navy has the KISS principle - it works. Although one shouldn't rule out a complex solution to a problem, it's best to start with the smallest, least intrusive answers to find a resolution. For example...."have you rebooted your computer?" ~Use working examples~ When possible, seek a system/device/software install that works to narrow the scope of an issue or find a blueprint to follow - the term my first IT job used for this was "Known Good". Some examples: A . One user calls in to have a network drive mapped to their PC, but there is no documentation on the specific folder location. Ask if there is another user who has this resource mapped and if you may see how this is mapped to their PC to discover the location. B. You are given a desktop computer to fix for a No-power issue. Your best first step would be to swap out the PSU with a compatible working unit to see if this resolves it before you declare the motherboard dead. ~Ask questions about the issue~ Often, users give a decent description of the issue ("my Wi-Fi isn't working") but this may not be the full picture - is anyone else in their building having Wi-Fi issues? Does the internet work at all? Are you, the technician, able to ping their gateway if this has a static IP? What about their firewall? Use questions like these to narrow or increase the scope of the issue based on the answers to such questions. Sometimes, users will only leave you with a statement like "My computer doesn't work!". Do not be afraid to ask questions to discover what the issue is - information is your strongest asset, second only to your own critical thinking. ~Research~ If software is misbehaving, Windows is giving you trouble, or something just won't be cracked through your troubleshooting, it's time to look into this off the call. Don't be afraid to consult a coworker to see what they know about specific errors. Google is also your friend in this case. Although, SEO has made it more difficult to sort through some of the AI content creation, so below is a list of some good sites to look for answers: The official Microsoft documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/docs/ Spiceworks - an IT focused site for Q&A: https://community.spiceworks.com/ Reddit is also a good resource. ![[reddit_gtbp.png]] I find using Google and appending the word "reddit" to my query works best; although some say even reddit has SEO content posted to their communities disguised as genuine users, and I don't find this hard to believe. This is where your critical thinking comes in. ****************************************************** ~Work-in-progress / article to be continued~ ****************************************************** General Troubleshooting Best Practices © 2024 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0