Repairs
Someday, your computer will break down — or disappoint you. Here’s how to fix the problem.
Strategies for repair
To repair a computer, follow these general principles.…
Ask
Ask for help. Instead of wasting many hours scratching your head about a computer problem, get help from your dealer, your computer’s manufacturer, your software’s publisher, your colleagues, your teachers, your friends, and me. You can call my cell phone day or night, 24 hours, at 603-666-6644; I’m almost always available, and I sleep just lightly.
Most computers come with a 1-year warranty.
If your computer gives you trouble during that first year, make use of the warranty: get the free help you’re entitled to from your dealer.
If your “dealer” is a general-purpose department store that doesn’t specialize in computers, the store might tell you to phone the computer’s manufacturer. For tough software questions, the dealer might tell you to phone the software’s publisher.
Although the hardware’s warranty is usually for 1 year, the software’s warranty is usually for just 30 days, so your dealer might try to blame the problem on software and say “Sorry, I can’t help you now, unless you pay me for tech support.”
Most computers come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. If the computer is giving you lots of headaches during the first 30 days, just return it! Unfortunately, some dealers’ money-back guarantee is just 15 days, and some dealers charge a 15% restocking fee.
Clean
Many repair problems can be solved by cleaning your software (as I explained on page 135). Many other repair problems can be solved by cleaning your hardware (as I explained on page 134) or by getting rid of viruses (as I explained on page 126).
Check the batteries
Batteries eventually fail.
If your mouse or keyboard is wireless, it contains an AA or AAA battery (or pair of them), which must be replaced when they die.
In a laptop computer, a long battery hides under the keyboard. That battery is rechargeable: it tries to recharge itself whenever the laptop is plugged in. But after a few years, the battery becomes unreliable and confuses the computer.
Remove the battery by flipping the laptop upside-down and sliding the battery’s latch open.
Try running the laptop with the battery removed. If the laptop runs fine with the battery removed but badly with the battery in, the problem is indeed the battery.
Try to recharge the battery by leaving it in the laptop while plugged it. If you still have bad luck, you’ll be tempted to buy a replacement battery; but the list price is about $100, so you should seriously consider either buying a new laptop instead or always running your laptop plugged in, without a battery.
Chuck
If the broken part is cheap, don’t fix it: chuck it! For example, if one of the keys on your keyboard stops working, don’t bother trying to fix that key; instead, buy a new keyboard. A new keyboard costs about $25. Fixing one key on a keyboard costs many hours of labor and is silly.
If a 40-gigabyte hard disk stops working, and you can’t fix the problem in an hour or so, just give up and buy a new hard disk, since 40-gigabyte hard disks are obsolete anyway.
Today, 40 gigabytes aren’t worth much. The price difference between a 40-gigabyte drive and a 500-gigabyte or 1-terabyte drive is tiny, though you must also deal with the labor of switching the hardware, transferring the software, and maybe buying new copies of the operating system and other programs.
Observe
Read the screen. Often, the screen will display an error message that tells you what the problem is.
If the message flashes on the screen too briefly for you to read, try pressing the computer’s Pause key as soon as the message appears. The Pause key makes the message stay on the screen for you to read. When you finish reading the message, press the Enter key.
If you’re having trouble with your printer, and your printer is modern enough to have a built-in screen, read the messages on that screen too.
Check the lights. Look at the blinking lights on the front of the computer and the front of the printer; see if the correct ones are glowing. Also notice whether the monitor’s Power light is glowing.
Check the switches. Check the On-Off switches for the computer, monitor, and printer: make sure they’re all flipped on. If your computer equipment is plugged into a power strip, make sure the strip’s On-Off switch is turned on.
Check the monitor’s brightness and contrast knobs, to make sure they’re turned to the normal (middle) position.
If you have a dot-matrix printer, make sure the paper is feeding correctly, and make sure you’ve put into the correct position the lever that lets you choose between tractor feed and friction feed.
Check the cables that run out of the computer. They run to the monitor, printer, keyboard, mouse, and wall. Make sure they’re all plugged tightly into their sockets. To make sure they’re plugged in tight, unplug them and then plug them back in again. (To be safe, turn the computer equipment off before fiddling with the cables.) Many monitor and printer problems are caused just by loose cables — or a cable that was chewed by a pet cat or dog.
Strip
When analyzing a hardware problem, run no software except the operating system and diagnostics. For example, if you’re experiencing a problem while using a word-processing program, spreadsheet, database, game, or some other software, exit from whatever software you’re in. Turn off your printer, computer, and all your other equipment, so the RAM chips inside each device get erased and forget that software.
Then turn the computer back on.
If writing appears on your screen and you can read it, your screen is working fine.
If you can make the hard disk show you what’s on it (by double-clicking “My Computer” then “C:” in modern Windows, or by typing “dir” in DOS), your hard disk is working fine.
If you can print something simple on paper (by typing “I love you” in WordPad and then printing that 3-word document), your printer is working fine. (On some laser printers, such as the Hewlett-Packard Laserjet 2, you need to manually eject the paper: press the printer’s On Line button, then the Form Feed button, then the On Line button again.)
If your computer, monitor, hard drive, and printer pass all those tests, your hardware is basically fine; and so the problem you were having was probably caused by software rather than hardware. For example, maybe you forgot to tell your software what kind of printer and monitor you bought.
Relax
Don’t get upset! Just relax. Stay, calm, cool, and collected while you analyze the problem. Have the attitude of Sherlock Holmes!
Perhaps you’d react to error messages more calmly if they were written as meditative poetry. In February 1998, an online magazine called Salon.com held a contest to turn each error message into a haiku (a Japanese meditative poem that has 5 syllables on the first line, 7 syllables on the second line, and 5 syllables on the third line). Here are some winning entries (as edited by me):
Lost data Crashing
Three things are certain: A crash reduces
Death, taxes, and lost data. Your expensive computer
Guess which has occurred. To a simple stone.
Having been erased, Serious error.
The document you’re seeking All shortcuts have disappeared.
Must now be retyped. Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
A file that’s so big? Yesterday it worked.
It might be very useful. Today it is not working.
But now it is gone. Windows is like that.
Everything is gone. Stay the patient course.
Your life’s work has been destroyed. Of little worth is your ire.
Squeeze trigger (yes/no)? The network is down.
Starting over Inadequate hardware
Chaos reigns within. Printer not ready.
Reflect, repent, and reboot. Could be a fatal error.
Order shall return. Have a pen handy?
Aborted effort. The Tao that is seen
Close all that you have worked on. Is not the true Tao — until
You ask far too much. You bring fresh toner.
Login incorrect. No keyboard present.
Only perfect spellers may Hit F1 to continue.
Enter this system. Zen engineering?
Server’s poor response First snow, then silence.
Not quick enough for browser. This thousand-dollar screen dies
Timed out, plum blossom. So beautifully.
To have no errors Out of memory.
Would be life without meaning: We wish to hold the whole sky,
No struggle, no joy. But we never will.
Missing Web pages
The Web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
Here’s who wrote them:
Lost data: David Dixon, Judy Birmingham, David Liszewski,
David Carlson
Starting over: Suzie Wagner, Mike Hagler, Jason Axley,
Rik Jespersen, Brian Porter
Missing Web pages: Joy Rothke, Cass Whittington
Crashing: James Lopez, Ian Hughes, Margaret Segall, David Ansel
Inadequate hardware: Pat Davis, Bill Torcaso, Jim Griffith, Simon Firth,
Francis Heaney
Booting problems
Turning the computer on is called booting. When you turn the computer on, you might immediately experience one of these problems….
Unusual beeping
When you turn the computer on, you’re supposed to hear a single short beep. If you hear unusual beeping (such as several short beeps or a long beep), your computer’s fundamental circuitry isn’t working right.
If you hear many short beeps or a very long beep, your computer is having an electrical problem, so do this:
Turn the computer off immediately. Perhaps the electrical problem was caused by a loose power cord: make sure the power cord is plugged in tight to the back of the computer and to the wall’s outlet (or surge protector), not dangling loose. If the computer got damp recently (from a rainstorm or a spilled drink or dew caused by bringing the computer in from the cold), wait for the computer to dry thoroughly before turning it back on. If you moved the computer recently, perhaps a part got loose in shipment; if you wish, open the computer and make sure nothing major is loose; for example, make sure the PC cards and chips are firmly in their sockets (but before you touch any chips, reduce any static electricity in your fingers by grounding yourself, such as by touching a big metal object or the computer’s power supply while it’s still plugged into a grounded wall socket).
If you hear just a few short beeps or several long beeps or a mix of short and long beeps, your computer is complaining about a defective part. By listening to the computer’s beeps, you can tell which part of the computer is ill. Lists of beep codes are on page 115 of the 30th edition.
Signal missing
If the screen says “signal missing” or “no signal”, the monitor is not receiving any electrical signal from the computer. The monitor is complaining.
Look at the two cables coming out of the monitor’s rear. One of those cables is a power cord that plugs into the wall (or into a surge protector). The other cable is the video cable, which is supposed to plug into the back of the computer, so the computer can send signals to the monitor. Probably, that video cable is loose. Tighten it. To make sure it’s tight, unplug it from the back of the computer and then shove it into the computer’s backside again, firmly.
If tightening the video cable doesn’t solve the problem, maybe the computer is turned off. Make sure the computer is turned on:
If the computer is turned on, lights should be glowing on the front of the computer and on the keyboard, and you should hear the fan inside the computer whir. If you don’t see and hear those things, the computer is turned off. Try turning the computer on, by pressing its On switch or by turning on the surge protector that the computer’s plugged into.
Another possibility is that the video card (which is inside the computer) is loose (because you recently moved the computer) or got fried (from a power surge caused by a thunderstorm) or got damaged (because you were fiddling with the computer’s innards and you caused a shock or short or break). Make sure the video card is in tight; if a tight video card doesn’t solve the problem, borrow a video card from a friend; if that still doesn’t give you any video, maybe your whole motherboard is damaged, so give up and take your computer to a repair shop.
No video
When you turn the computer on, the screen is supposed to show you words, pictures, marks, or at least a cursor (little line). If the screen stays completely black, probably your monitor is getting no electricity or no electrical signals.
Make sure the monitor is turned on. Make sure its two cables (to the power and to the computer’s video card) are both plugged in tight (since they can easily come loose.) Make sure the monitor’s contrast and brightness are turned up (by fiddling with the knobs or buttons on the monitor’s front, back, or sides).
If the monitor has a power-on light, check whether that light is glowing. (If the monitor doesn’t have a power-on light, peek through the monitor’s air vents and check whether anything inside glows). If you don’t see any glow, the monitor isn’t getting any power (because the on-off button is in the wrong position, or the power cable is loose, or the monitor is broken). If the monitor is indeed broken, do not open the monitor, which contains high voltages even when turned off; instead, return the monitor to your dealer.
If you’ve fiddled with the knobs and cables, and the power-on light (or inside light) is glowing but the screen is still blank, boot up the computer again, and look at the screen carefully: maybe a message did flash on the screen quickly?
If a message did appear, fix whatever problem the message talks about. (If the message was too fast for you to read, boot up again and quickly hit the Pause key as soon as the message appears, then press Enter when you finish reading the message.) If the message appears but does not mention a problem, you’re in the middle of a program that has crashed (stopped working), so the fault lies in software mentioned in CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT or COMMAND.COM or some other software involved in booting.; to explore further, put into the CD drive your Windows emergency recovery start-up boot disk (if you have one) and reboot.
If absolutely no message appears on the screen during the booting process, so that the screen is entirely blank, check the lights on the computer (maybe the computer is turned off or broken) and recheck the cables that go to the monitor. If you still have no luck, the fault is probably in the video card inside the computer, though it might be on the motherboard or in the middle of the video cable that goes from the video card to the monitor. At this point, before you run out and buy new hardware, try swapping with a friend whose computer has the same kind of video as yours: try swapping monitors, then video cables, then video cards, while making notes about which combinations work, until you finally discover which piece of hardware is causing the failure. Then replace that hardware, and you’re done!
SETUP
Each modern computer contains CMOS RAM, which tries to remember the date, time, how many megabytes of RAM you’ve bought, how you want the RAM used, what kind of video you bought, and what kind of disk drives you bought. A battery feeds power to the CMOS RAM, so that the CMOS RAM keeps remembering the answers even while the main power switch is off. If the computer says “Invalid configuration specification: run SETUP” (or a similar error message), your computer’s CMOS RAM contains wrong info — probably because the battery died and needs to be replaced or recharged. In most computers, the battery is rechargeable; it recharges itself automatically if you leave the computer turned on for several hours.
To react to the error message, try running the CMOS Setup program, which asks you questions and then stores your answers to the CMOS RAM.
The CMOS Setup program hides in a ROM chip inside your computer and is run when you hit a “special key” during the bootup’s RAM test. That “special key” is usually either the Delete key or the Esc key or the F1 key; to find out what the “special key” is on your computer, read your computer’s manual or ask your dealer.
Once the CMOS Setup program starts running, it asks you lots of questions. For each question, it also shows you what it guesses the answer is. (The computer’s guesses are based on what information the computer was fed before.)
On a sheet of paper, jot down what the computer’s guesses are. That sheet of paper will turn out to be very useful!
Some of those questions are easy to answer (such as the date and time).
A harder question is when the computer asks you to input your hard-drive-type number. You can make the computer automatically figure out the hard-drive-type number: just choose “auto-detect hard drive” from a menu.
If you don’t know how to answer a question and can’t reach your dealer for help, just move ahead to the next question. Leave intact the answer that the computer guessed.
After you’ve finished the questionnaire, the computer will automatically reboot. If the computer gripes again, either you answered the questions wrong or else the battery ran out — so that the computer forgot your answers!
In fact, the most popular reason why the computer asks you to run the CMOS Setup program is that the battery ran out. (The battery usually lasts 1-4 years.)
To solve the problem, first make sure you’ve jotted down the computer’s guesses, then replace the battery, which is usually just to the left of the big power supply inside the computer. If you’re lucky, the “battery” is actually a bunch of four AA flashlight batteries that you can buy in any hardware store. If you’re unlucky, the battery is a round silver disk, made of lithium, like the battery in a digital watch: to get a replacement, see your dealer.
After replacing the battery, run the CMOS Setup program again, and feed it the data that you jotted down.
That’s the procedure. If you’re ambitious, try it. If you’re a beginner, save yourself the agony by just taking the whole computer to your dealer: let the dealer diddle with the CMOS Setup program and batteries for you.
Whenever you upgrade your computer with a better disk drive or video card or extra RAM, you must run the CMOS Setup program again to tell the computer what you bought.
In many computers, the ROM BIOS chip is designed by American Megatrends Inc. (AMI). AMI’s design is called the AMI BIOS (pronounced “Amy buy us”). Here’s how to use the 4/4/93 version of AMI BIOS. (Other versions are similar.)
When you turn the computer on, the screen briefly shows this message:
AMIBIOS (C)1993 American Megatrends Inc.
000000 KB OK
Hit <DEL> if you want to run SETUP
Then the number “000000 KB” increases, as the computer checks your RAM chips. While that number increases, try pressing your keyboard’s Del or Delete key.
That makes the computer run the AMIBIOS CMOS Setup program. The screen’s top will say:
AMIBIOS SETUP PROGRAM - BIOS SETUP UTILITIES
Underneath, you’ll see this main menu:
STANDARD CMOS SETUP
ADVANCED CMOS SETUP
ADVANCED CHIPSET SETUP
AUTO CONFIGURATION WITH BIOS DEFAULTS
AUTO CONFIGURATION WITH POWER-ON DEFAULTS
CHANGE PASSWORD
AUTO DETECT HARD DISK
HARD DISK UTILITY
WRITE TO CMOS AND EXIT
DO NOT WRITE TO CMOS AND EXIT
The first and most popular choice, “STANDARD CMOS SETUP”, is highlighted. Choose it (by pressing Enter).
The computer will warn you by saying:
Improper use of Setup may cause problems!!!
Press Enter again.
The computer will show you the info stored in the CMOS about the date, time, base memory, extended memory, hard drives, floppy drives, video card, and keyboard.
If that stored info is wrong, fix it! Here’s how:
By using the arrow keys on the keyboard, move the white box to the info that you want to fix. (Exception: you can’t move the white box to the “base memory” or “extended memory”.) Then change that info, by pressing the keyboard’s Page Up or Page Down key several times, until the info is what you wish.
When you’ve finished examining and fixing that info, press the Esc key. You’ll see the main menu again.
If you’re having trouble with a modern (IDE) hard drive, choose “AUTO DETECT HARD DISK” from the main menu (by pressing the down-arrow key 6 times, then pressing Enter). The computer will try to detect what kind of drive C you have, then it will say:
Accept Parameters for C: (Y/N) ?
Press the Y key then Enter. Then the computer will try to detect what kind of drive D you have and say:
Accept Parameters for D: (Y/N) ?
Press Y again then Enter. You’ll see the main menu again.
When you’ve finished using the main menu, you have 2 choices:
If you’re unsure of yourself and wish you hadn’t fiddled with the SETUP program, just turn off the computer’s power! All your fiddling will be ignored, and the computer will act the same as before you fiddled.
On the other hand, if you’re sure of yourself and want the computer to take your fiddling seriously, press the F10 key then Y then Enter. The computer will copy your desires to the CMOS and reboot.
Non-system disk
If the computer says “Non-system disk or disk error”, the computer is having trouble finding the hidden system bootup files, which are supposed to be on your hard disk. You can get that error message if those hidden system bootup files are missing from your hard disk — because you accidentally erased those files, or a virus erased them, or your hard disk is new and not yet formatted, or when you formatted the disk you forgot to put a check mark in Windows format’s “Copy system files” box.
Another reason for getting that error message is: you accidentally put a floppy disk into drive A! When the computer boots, it looks at that floppy disk instead of your hard disk and gripes because it can’t find those system files on your floppy disk.
Cure:
Remove any disk from drive A. Turn the computer off, wait until the computer quiets down, then turn the computer back on. If the computer still says “Non-system disk or disk error”, find the CD-ROM disk that Windows came on and try again to install Windows onto your hard disk.
Slow
If the computer acts slower than before, it’s clogged with too many programs or too much data. Here are 6 possible reasons:
1. The hard disk is nearly full.
2. You have too many programs running in the RAM simultaneously.
3. Your computer is clogged with adware, spyware, or viruses.
4. You’ve left the computer on for too many hours, so fragments of programs you ran and abandoned are still in the RAM (because Windows is imperfect at erasing them from RAM).
5. The computer is in the middle of updating itself (by automatically running Windows Update and other updating software).
6. The computer is waiting for you to reply to a question, but the question is invisible because it’s hiding behind a window.
Cure:
Walk away from the computer awhile (in case the cause is #5), then come back and try again. If you’re still having a problem, shut down the computer, then turn it back on; that eliminates cause #6 and usually makes the computer faster (since you’ve eliminated cause #4). If the computer is still too slow and you’re using Windows 7, do the software-cleaning procedure (on page 135), which helps eliminate causes #1 and #2. Get programs that protect you (on page 127) to eliminate cause #3.
Windows problems
If you’re using Windows, you might experience the following problems.…
Illegal operation
If the computer says “This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down”, a program is trying to use a RAM section it’s not allowed to. That RAM section is being used by a different program, with which your program is having a memory conflict. Cure for Windows 7:
Press Enter. Then do the software-cleaning procedure (on page 135), which makes memory conflicts less likely to occur.
Start button in wrong corner
In Windows 10 and its predecessors, the Start button is supposed to be in the screen’s bottom left corner. If your Start button is in a different corner, you accidentally moved the Start button.
To move the Start button back, just “drag the taskbar to where you want it.” Here’s how:
One corner of your screen contains the Start button. Another corner contains the time. Running from the Start button to the time is a bar called the taskbar.
Point at the taskbar’s middle, in a blank area where there are no buttons. While pressing the mouse’s left button, drag to where you want the taskbar’s middle to go: the middle of the screen’s bottom. When you start dragging, you won’t see the taskbar move yet; but if you drag the mouse pointer far enough, eventually the taskbar will hop. Then take your finger off the mouse’s button.
Start button missing
If the Start button is missing and so is the time (although the rest of the screen looks normal), you accidentally shrunk them.
The Start button and time are part of a bar, called the taskbar. The taskbar is supposed to stretch across the bottom of the screen and be about half an inch tall. You accidentally shrunk the taskbar.
To solve the problem, first close all windows (by clicking their X buttons).
If doing that makes the taskbar reappear, your problem is just that you accidentally set your taskbar to “Auto hide”. Stop hiding the taskbar, by doing this in Windows 7:
Right-click “Start”, then click “Properties” then “Taskbar”.
Remove any check mark from “Auto hide” (by clicking).
Click “OK”.
If closing all windows does not make the taskbar reappear, look at the screen’s bottom.
If you see a gray (or light blue) line running across the screen’s bottom, that line is your shrunken taskbar; make it taller by doing this:
Point at that line’s top edge, so the mouse pointer becomes a black arrow (which has white edges and points upward). When pressing the mouse’s left button, drag up about half an inch. Suddenly there, you’ll see a gray (or red or yellow) line (or blue bar) stretch across the screen. Then take your finger off the mouse’s button.
Icons missing
If some icons are missing from the Desktop screen (the main screen), they’re probably just hiding behind other icons or past the screen’s edge. To see them again, do this:
While looking at the Desktop screen, close any windows (by clicking their X buttons). Right-click in the screen’s middle, where there is nothing. Click “Sort by” then “Name”.
If that doesn’t make the icons reappear, the icons might be in the Recycle Bin, so do this:
Double-click the “Recycle Bin” icon. If the Recycle Bin window shows one of the missing icons, right-click that icon then click “Restore”.
Dialog box too big
For the screen’s resolution, you can choose “800 by 600” or
“1024 by 768”, by using a settings dialog box. If the
settings dialog box is too
big to fit on the screen (so the box’s “OK” button hides below
the screen’s bottom), the computer is confused about what resolution you want.
Instead of trying to click “OK”, press Enter. If pressing Enter doesn’t work,
do this:
Close the dialog box (by clicking its X button), then recreate the dialog box again, then choose a resolution again, then try pressing Enter again.
Resolution refuses to increase
If the computer refuses to let you choose more than “800 by 600” resolution, it’s because the computer thinks your video card doesn’t have enough RAM to handle such a high resolution.
Yes, the computer thinks your video card is inadequate or damaged!
But if your video card was working fine yesterday, the most likely “damage” is just that the video-driver software got corrupted. Here’s the cure.…
Click Start then “Computer” then “System properties” then “Device Manager”. Click the triangle that’s left of “Display adapters”.
Indented underneath “Display adapters” you see the name of the video card that the computer thinks you have. Click that name. Press the Delete key.
The computer will warn you that you’re going to uninstall that video-driver software. Though that warning looks scary, be brave and press Enter (because your computer secretly has an extra copy of that video-driver software).
Then just follow the instructions on the screen. The computer will recommend rebooting; let it. While the computer is rebooting, it will begin by thinking you have no video card, but then it will get surprised when it finds video-card hardware, and it will reinstall that video card, using a copy of the video-driver software that’s still hiding on the computer. (When the computer asks where the video-driver software is, tell the computer to look just on the hard disk, not on a CD.)
The computer will find the video-driver software and finish booting. The screen’s colors will look slightly better. To make the screen look exactly the way you wish, go to the display-settings dialog box again doing this:
Right-click any blank space in the screen’s middle.
For Windows Vista, click “Personalize” then “Display Settings”.
Then choose as many colors and as high a resolution as you wish. This time, your request will be obeyed!
Mouse problems
Mice can cause problems.
Mouse pointer lurches
When you move the mouse, the mouse pointer (on the screen) is supposed to move also. If the mouse
pointer lurches erratically (sometimes going fast, sometimes
going too slow or not at all)
or moves in just one
direction (just horizontally, or just vertically, but not both),
the mouse is dirty. Clean it by using the procedure on page 134; then the mouse
will probably work well.
If the mouse doesn’t work well yet, try this experiment:
Take the ball out again. Rub your finger against the X and Y mouse rollers, and see if the mouse pointer moves also. If the mouse pointer works fine using your fingers but not by using the ball, the ball isn’t touching the rollers, probably because the ball’s cover isn’t locking the ball into the proper position. Reposition the ball and its cover.
If the mouse still doesn’t work well, just buy a new mouse. You can buy a plain mouse for about $10.
Dead mouse
If nothing happens on screen when you move the mouse, try these strategies.…:
Perhaps you’re just in the middle of a routine that doesn’t use the mouse. Try these ways to get out of a routine:
Press the Esc key twice (which might exit from a routine).
If the mouse doesn’t work yet, press Ctrl with C.
If the mouse doesn’t work yet, press the Alt key.
If the mouse doesn’t work yet, press the Alt key again.
If the mouse still doesn’t work yet, maybe the task you’ve been performing has crashed, so end that task by doing this:
While holding down the Ctrl and Alt keys, tap the Delete key. Then press Enter (unless you see “Lock screen”, in which case try to choose Task Manager by using your touchscreen or touchpad or arrow keys, and end the task you were working on).
If the mouse still doesn’t work, maybe the mouse’s cord is loose (tighten it!) or the mouse is dirty (clean it by following the procedure for “mouse pointer lurches”) or it’s a wireless mouse whose battery died (open the mouse and replace the battery) or the computer forgot what kind of mouse you have (reinstall the mouse-driver software that came with your mouse, or reinstall Windows) or just buy a new mouse.
Keyboard problems
Your keyboard might seem broken. Here’s what to do.
Wet keyboard
If your keyboard got wet (because you spilled water, coffee, soda, or some other drink), turn the computer off immediately (because water can cause a short circuit that can shock & burn the keyboard and computer and you). Unplug the keyboard from the computer.
Turn the keyboard upside-down for a few minutes, in the hope that some of the liquid drips out. Then let the keyboard rest a few hours, until the remaining liquid in it dries.
Try again to use the keyboard. It will probably work fine. If the keyboard doesn’t work yet, do this:
Unplug the keyboard again. Submerge and wash the keyboard in warm water (you can even put the keyboard into a dishwasher!) but use no soap. Dry off the keyboard. Wait a day for the keyboard to dry thoroughly. If still no luck, the keyboard has been permanently damaged, so buy another.
Dead keyboard
If pressing the keyboard’s letters has no effect, either the keyboard is improperly hooked up or the keyboard is wireless with a dead battery or the computer is overheating or you’re running a frustrated program (which is ignoring what you type or waiting until a special event happens). For example, the program might be waiting for the printer to print, or the disk drive to manipulate a file, or the CPU to finish a computation, or your finger to hit a special key or give a special command.
Try getting out of any program you’ve been running. Here’s how:
Press the Esc key (which might let you escape from the program) or the F1 key (which might display a helpful message) or Enter (which might move on to the next screenful of info) or Ctrl with C (which might abort the program) or Ctrl with Break. If the screen is unchanged and the computer still ignores your typing, reboot the computer; then watch the screen for error messages such as “301” (which means a defective keyboard), “201” (which means defective RAM chips), or “1701” (which means a defective hard drive).
If the keyboard seems to be “defective”, it might just be unplugged from the computer. Make sure the cable from the keyboard is plugged tightly into the computer. To make sure it’s tight, unplug it and then plug it back in again.
If fiddling with the cable doesn’t solve your problem, reboot the computer and see what happens. Maybe you’ll get lucky.
Maybe some part of the computer is overheating. Here’s how to find out:
Turn the computer off. Leave it off for at least an hour, so it cools down.
Then turn the computer back on. Try to get to a word-processing program (such as WordPad or Microsoft Word or Notepad) or a Windows search box or a command prompt (such as “C:\>”). Then type a letter (such as x) and notice whether the x appears on the screen.
If the x appears, don’t bother pressing the Enter key afterwards. Instead, walk away from the computer for two hours — leave the computer turned on — then return 2 hours later and try typing another letter (such as y). If the y doesn’t appear, you know the computer “died” sometime after you typed x but before you typed y. Since during that time the computer was just sitting there doing nothing except being turned on and getting warmer, you know the problem was caused by overheating: some part inside the computer is failing as the internal temperature rises. That part could be a RAM chip, BIOS chip, or otherwise.
Since that part isn’t tolerant enough of heat, it must be replaced: take the computer in for repair.
That kind of test — where you leave the computer on for several hours to see what happens as the computer warms up — is called letting the computer cook.
During the cooking, if smoke comes out of one of the computer’s parts, that part is said to have fried. That same applies to humans: when a programmer’s been working hard on a project for many hours and become too exhausted to think straight, the programmer says, “I’m burnt out. My brain is fried.” Common solutions are sleep and pizza (“getting some z’s & ’za”).
When computers are
manufactured, the last step in the assembly line is to leave the computer
turned on a long time, to let the computer cook and make sure it still works
when hot. A top-notch manufacturer leaves the computer on for 2 days (48 hours)
or even 3 days (72 hours), while continually testing the computer to make sure
no parts fail. That part of the assembly line
is called burning in
the computer; many top-notch manufacturers do
72-hour burn in.
Sluggish key
After pressing one a keys, if the key doesn’t pop back up fast enough, probably there’s dirt under the key. The “dirt” is probably dust or coagulated drinks (such as Coke or coffee).
If many keys are sluggish, don’t bother trying to fix them all. Just buy a new keyboard (for about $20).
If just one or two keys are sluggish, here’s how to try fixing a sluggish key:
Take a paper clip, partly unravel it so it becomes a hook, then use that hook to pry up the key, until the keycap pops off. Clean the part of the keyboard that was under that keycap: blow away the dust, and wipe away grime (such as coagulated drinks). With the keycap still off, turn on the computer, and try pressing the plunger that was under the keycap. If the plunger is still sluggish, you haven’t cleaned it enough. (Don’t try too hard: remember that a new keyboard costs just about $20.) When the plunger works fine, turn off the computer, put the keycap back on, and the key should work fine.
Caps
While you’re typing, if each capital letter unexpectedly becomes small, and each small letter becomes capitalized, the Shift key or Caps Lock key is activated.
The culprit is usually the Caps Lock key. Probably you pressed it accidentally when you meant to press a nearby key instead. The Caps Lock key stays activated until you deactivate it by pressing it again. Cure:
Press the Caps Lock key (again), then try typing some more, to see whether the problem has gone away.
If your keyboard is modern, its top right corner has a Caps Lock light. That light glows when the Caps Lock key is activated; the light stops glowing when the Caps Lock key is deactivated.
If pressing the Caps Lock key doesn’t solve the problem, try jiggling the left and right Shift keys. (Maybe one of those Shift keys was accidentally stuck in the down position, because you spilled some soda that got into the keyboard and coagulated and made the Shift key too sticky to pop all the way back up.)
If playing with the Caps Lock and Shift keys doesn’t immediately solve your problem, try typing a comma and notice what happens. If the screen shows the symbol “<” instead of a comma, your Shift key is activated. (The Caps Lock key has no effect on the comma key, since the Caps Lock key affects just letters, not punctuation.) If pressing the comma key makes the screen show a comma, your Shift key is not activated, and any problems you have must therefore be caused by the Caps Lock key instead.
Maybe the Caps Lock key is being activated automatically by the program you’re using. (For example, some programs automatically activate the Caps Lock key because they want your input to be capitalized.) To find out, exit from the program, reboot the computer, get to a C prompt (in DOS) or WordPad (in modern Windows), and try again to type. If the typing is displayed fine, the “problem” was probably caused by just the program you were using — perhaps on purpose.
Internet problems
If you’ve been communicating with the Internet well but suddenly have difficulty, try these ways to resume communication:
Try to communicate with a different Website. For example, try Yahoo.com. If just one Website doesn’t work, maybe that site is just having a bad day, because it’s overloaded (too many people using it simultaneously) or it’s temporarily disconnected from the rest of the Internet. Try that site again tomorrow; maybe you’ll have better luck.
Maybe your computer’s in a bad mood. Turn the computer off completely, then back on again, to see if you get better luck.
Maybe your laptop’s too far from the Internet router in your house or business. Move your laptop closer to the router, to see if you have better luck.
Do you share the same router as your housemates or business associates? If so, do they have the same difficulty? If they’re not having any difficulty, the difficulty’s just in your computer or its ability to connect to the router.
Maybe the router got confused, because of a hardware hiccup or because too many of your housemates or associates tried to access it simultaneously. Turn the router off (after warning your housemates or associates) and also turn off your computer. Wait 3 minutes, then turn the router back on. Wait 3 more minutes, for all the router’s lights to stabilize, then turn the computer back on. See whether you have better luck.
Maybe your Internet service provider (to whom you pay a monthly fee) is having a bad day because a storm broke a cable. To find out, phone the Internet service provider’s tech-support number. (For example, Comcast’s tech-support number is 800-COMCAST.)
Maybe your computer’s too busy, because it’s in the middle of updating Windows. Try being patient.
When all else fails, reset the network driver inside your computer. Here’s how in Windows 10. Tap the Windows Start button then the Settings icon then “Network & Internet” then “Network reset” (which you’ll see when you scroll down) then “Reset now” then “Yes”. 5 minutes later, the computer will shut itself down then restart. After you return to the desktop screen, click the Network icon (sound waves with “*”) then your router’s name then “Connect”; type the router’s password (which is printed on the router’s bottom) then tap “Next”.
Printer problems
If you have trouble printing, try the following experiment. Shut down the computer and the printer (so you can start fresh). When the computer’s become quiet, turn it back on; then turn the printer back on.
Go into WordPad or Microsoft Word or Notepad. Type a document that contains 3 words (such as “I love you”) and also the word “abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz”. Print that document by doing this:
Click the WordPad button (which is left of “Home”). Make sure your printer’s name is highlighted; if it’s not, highlight it. Click the “Print” button.
If the computer prints that document okay, all your hardware is okay. Any remaining problem is probably just software: for example, you forgot to tell your program or Windows what kind of printer you bought, or you told it incorrectly.
If the computer does not print that document okay, you’re probably having a hardware problem (in your printer, your computer, or the cable connecting them); for example, make sure the cable connecting them is plugged in tight at both ends, and the printer is turned on and has enough paper & ink, correctly inserted.
Clogged printer queue
Here’s another possible reason for failing to print: the
printer queue
(your hard disk’s list of documents waiting to be printed) is clogged, because
an earlier document was too complicated to fit in the printer’s RAM.
To solve that problem, empty the printer queue by doing this:
Double-click the printer icon (which is at the screen’s bottom, left of the time). You see the printer queue’s window, which shows a list of documents waiting to be printed. Click “Printer” then “Cancel All Documents”. Press Enter. Wait until the list of documents is empty. Close the printer queue’s window (by clicking its X).
Incomplete characters
When you look at the printed paper, you might see that
part of each character is
missing. For example, for the letter “A” you see just the top
part of the “A”, or just the bottom part, or everything except the middle. That
means you’re using an ink-jet or dot-matrix printer, and some of the ink jets
or pins aren’t successfully putting ink onto the paper.
If you’re using an inkjet printer, probably one of the jets is clogged and needs to be cleaned.
Follow the manufacturer’s instructions on how to test and clean the ink jets. If cleaning doesn’t solve the problem, try buying a new ink cartridge.
If you’re using a dot-matrix printer and the bottom part of each character is missing, your ribbon is too high, so that the bottom pins miss hitting it.
Push the ribbon down lower. Read the instructions that came with your printer and ribbon, to find out the correct way to thread the ribbon through your printer.
If you’re using a dot-matrix printer and some other part of each character is missing, probably a pin broke or is stuck.
Look at the print head, where the pins are. See if one of the pins is missing or broken. If so, you’ll be tempted to buy a new print head, but that costs almost as much as buying a new printer.
Extra characters
When using a program (such as a word-processing program), the printer might print a few extra characters at the top of each page.
Those extra characters are special codes that the printer should not print. Those codes are supposed to tell the printer how to print. Your printer is misinterpreting those codes, because those codes were intended for a different kind of printer — or your printer cable is loose.
First, make sure the printer cable is tight. Then try again to
tell your software which
printer you bought, by doing this:
Attach your printer to the computer. Turn the printer on.
For Windows 10, tap the Windows Start button then the Settings icon then “Devices” then “Add a printer”. For Windows 7, click Start then “Devices and Printers” then “Add a printer”.
Then follow the prompts on the screen.
Misaligned columns
When printing a table of numbers or words, the columns might wiggle: some of the words and numbers might be printed slightly too far left or right, even though they looked perfectly aligned on the screen.
That’s because you’re trying to print by using a proportionally spaced font that doesn’t match the screen’s font.
The simplest way to solve the problem is to switch to a monospaced font, such as Courier New or Lucida Console.
Since those fonts are monospaced (each character is the same width as every other character), there are no surprises. To switch fonts while using Windows, use your mouse: drag across all the text whose font you wish to switch, then say which font you wish to switch to.
Unfortunately, monospaced fonts are ugly. If you insist on
using proportionally spaced fonts, which are prettier, remember that when
moving from column to column you should
press the Tab key, not the
Space bar.
In proportionally spaced fonts, the Space bar creates a printed space that’s too narrow: it’s narrower than the space created by the typical digit or letter.
If the Tab key doesn’t make the columns your favorite width, customize how the Tab key works by adjusting the Tab stops. (In most word-processing programs, you adjust the Tab stops by sliding them on the layout ruler.)
Margins
On a sheet of paper, all the printing might be too far to the left, or too far to the right, or too far up, or too far down. That shows you forgot to tell the computer about the paper’s size, margins, and feed, or you misfed the paper into the printer.
Software makes assumptions:
Most computer software assumes the paper is 11 inches tall and 8½ inches wide (or slightly wider, if the paper has holes in its sides). The software also assumes you want 1-inch margins on all 4 sides (top, bottom, left, and right).
If you told the software you have a dot-matrix printer, the software usually assumes you’re using pin-feed paper (which has holes in the side); it’s also called continuous-feed paper. For ink-jet and laser printers, the software typically assumes you’re using friction-feed paper instead (which has no holes).
If those assumptions are not correct, tell the software. For example, give a “margin”, “page size”, or “feed” command to your word-processing software.
If you make a mistake about how tall the sheet of paper is, the computer will try to print too many or too few lines per page. The result is creep: on the first page, the printing begins correctly; but on the second page the printing is slightly too low or too high, and on the third page the printing is even more off.
To solve a creep problem, revise slightly what you tell the software about how tall the sheet of paper is. For example, if the printing is fine on the first page but an inch too low on the second page, tell the software that each sheet of paper is an inch shorter.
On pin-feed paper, the printer can print all the way from the very top of the paper to the very bottom. On friction-feed paper, the printer cannot print at the sheet’s very top or very bottom (since the rollers can’t grab the paper securely enough while printing there). So on friction-feed paper, the printable area is smaller, as if the paper were shorter. Telling the software wrong info about feed has the same effect as telling the software wrong info about the paper’s height: you get creep.
So to fix creep, revise what you tell the software about the paper’s height or feed. If the software doesn’t let you talk about the paper’s feed, kill the creep by revising what you say about the paper’s height.
If you’re using a dot-matrix printer that can handle both kinds of paper (pin-feed and friction-feed), you’ll solve most creep problems by choosing pin-feed paper.
If all printing is too far to the left (or right), adjust what you tell the software about the left and right margins; or if you’re using pin-feed paper in a dot-matrix printer with movable tractors, slide the tractors to the left or right (after loosening them by flipping their levers). For example, if the printing’s an inch too far to the right, slide the tractors an inch toward the right.
No sound
If you don’t hear sounds (such as beeps and music), the problem could be caused by hardware or software.
Make sure the speakers are plugged into the computer. Make sure they’re plugged into the computer’s speaker jack tightly, not the microphone jack. If the speakers contain batteries, make sure the batteries are working. If the speakers need to be plugged into a wall socket or power strip, make sure they are. If the speakers have an ON button, make sure it’s in the ON position.
Make sure all volume knobs are turned up:
There’s probably a volume knob on the front of the speakers. On the back of the computer, where the speakers plug into the computer, you might find a volume dial.
If you’re still not hearing sounds, do software cleaning (on page 135), which reduces memory conflicts, because when the computer faces a memory conflict it gives up trying to produce sounds.
At the screen’s bottom right corner, next to the time, you might find a Volume icon (which looks like a blaring loudspeaker). If so, do this:
Click the Volume icon. If you see a Mute box; make sure it’s unchecked. You see a slider; drag it up to the top or the right. Try clicking the slider; you should hear a bell sound, at the volume level you requested.
When using YouTube, remember that YouTube has its own volume icon, as I explained on page 113.
Other sound-creation techniques, useful mainly on ancient computers, are on page 178 of this book’s 32nd edition.