Troubleshoot one step at a time

I have noticed that a small computer problem can quickly become a big computer problem if too much troubleshooting is applied too soon.

Today I saw a client who has been without Internet since late last week. Originally their antivirus had caught a small virus. Soon after that the Internet wasn't working.

After looking at the situation, I don't think those two problems had anything to do with each other. Sometimes the Internet provider or connection goes down.

Rather than giving the connection a few hours to come back up, my client disconnected everything.

When I got there today, I noticed that the wiring was all out of whack. Once I rewired the hub everything came back online.

As it turns out, the virus had never infected the computer thus there had never been a problem with the computer or the modem. The Internet had just gone offline. If my client had just waited a few hours and reset his modem, he probably would have had his Internet back on line by the end of the day that he had the problem.

The first thing I try to teach people about their computers is don't be afraid and don't panic when things go wrong. I usually advise that when things get frustrating, you should walk away from the system for a few hours. You'll be suprised how much difference looking at the problem with relaxed set of eyes and calm nerves makes when attacking a problem. 

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