CompTIA A_ Certification All-In-One Exam Guide, Seventh Edition - Michael Meyers [477]
Okay, so you’ve decided on a theory that makes sense. It’s time to see if your theory is actually the problem at hand—give it a test to see if it fixes the problem.
Test the Theory to Determine Cause
The biggest challenge to fixing a computer is that the theory and the fix pretty much prove themselves at the same time. Let’s go back to the situation where the power plug isn’t in the wall. You observe that nothing happens when the PC power button is pressed. You check the back of the power supply and see that the power cable is plugged in. You then look at the wall outlet…not plugged in! So you quickly plug it in and tada! It works! You’re a hero! In this simple case, your theory and your test are done in virtually the same move (Figure 27-13).
Of course, most problems aren’t that easy. In many cases, testing your theory does nothing more than verify that something is broken. Let’s say you install an update for your video driver. You reboot, log into Windows and suddenly the screen freaks out. Ah, a bad video driver, right? So to test, you reboot the computer and press F8 to get the boot options menu. You select VGA Mode (2000/XP) or Low Resolution Mode (Vista/7) and reboot. Now the computer boots up just fine. You know the problem, but how do you fix it? Roll back the video driver? Reinstall an older driver? Try downloading another copy of the new driver and installing the video driver again? Any of these solutions may be the right one. Choose one and go for it (Figure 27-14).
Figure 27-13 Ford the Tech is a hero!
Uh oh, your first guess was wrong: the video is still messed up. No worries, just try another one of your theories. In most cases you’ll just pick another and try again, but sometimes there’s a point where the problem is bigger than you. It might be a problem on a server that you’re not authorized to configure. It might be a problem with a user account, and techs in your company aren’t allowed to change user accounts. It might be a user calling about not getting any response from IT. In these cases, you must escalate the problem.
Escalation is the process your company (or sometimes just you) goes through when you—the person assigned to repair a problem—are not able to get the job done. It’s okay to escalate because no one can fix every problem. All companies should have some form of escalation policy. It might mean calling your boss. It might mean filling out and sending some in-house form to another department. Escalation is sometimes a more casual process. You might want to start researching the problem online; you might want to refer to in-house documentation to see if this problem has appeared in the past. (See “Document Findings, Actions, and Outcomes” later in this chapter.) You may want to call a coworker to come check it out (Figure 27-15).
Figure 27-14 Ford the Tech takes a chance!
Verify and Prevent
Fantastic! Through either your careful work or escalation, you’ve solved the problem, or so you think. Remember two items here. First, even though you think it’s fixed, the user/customer might not think it’s fixed. Second, try to do something to prevent the problem from happening again in the future, if possible.
Figure 27-15 Ford the Tech asks for help from Scott.
Verify Full System Functionality Verifying full system functionality is Comp-TIA’s way to tell you to make sure the user is happy. Let’s say a user can’t print. You determine that the printer spool is stalled due to a locked-up laser printer. You reset the printer and the jobs all start printing. Job done, right? Well, during your theory testing, you switched the default printer to another laser printer on the third floor. The user doesn’t know how to set the default printer back to the one you