Among the most frustrating thing that can happen in a busy office is a computer that simply will not turn on or decides it will not cooperate with your requests. For many professionals this is time to simply hang it up and call in the local IT professionals to deal with the ghost in the machine. While that is an excellent idea there are a few quick trouble shooting steps that might save you some time and money.
Check the power cables: Very often when a computer will not turn on it is the oldest challenge in the book; someone unplugged the CPU or the monitor or both. It is also a great idea to make sure that the power supply, for example the powerstrip, is turned on and there actually is electricity flowing to the computer. While you are crawling around checking the power supply it is also a good time to double check that the monitor, keyboard, and mouse are also plugged in.
Run an antivirus: Often times when a computer starts doing strange and mysterious things, it could be indicative of a virus infection. A quick virus scan can determine if the computer has been exposed to a virus and often times an antivirus program will clean up the problem quickly and efficiently. One tip before you ever get to this point is to insure that your virus software is updated on a frequent basis.
Reboot: Sometimes when computers are left on too long they start to have memory overload and the systems stop responding as they should. A quick fix for this is a soft reboot, where you go to the start menu and press “restart”. Another method is to do a hard reboot where you physically shut off the power to the machine, let it sit for 15-20 seconds and then restart it.
Ensure connectivity: Sometimes when a computer is having challenges connecting to the VPN or internet it is because the server is down or the connectivity has been switched off. In the bottom right hand side of your screen is a “connections” icon. Clicking that will reveal if you are connected to the internet or if you need to troubleshoot your connection. Very often laptops, especially, will drop the WiFi connection and will need to be reconnected. To do this click the icon, find the connection you want to use, and select “connect”.
Finally remember that the majority of problems caused by computers can often be traced back to a user misstep. Look back over the day see if you installed a particular program, or ran something new on the system which could be causing an issue. Often removing the troublesome program or deactivating a feature can get the computer back to functioning like normal.
If all of the above fail, it may be time to call MTI and get one of our expert techs involved.
