Almost everyone has a computer, but not everyone is a computer technician, which can mean serious problems can jam you up without you knowing what’s going on. And the first step, when it comes to troubleshooting, is understanding that you have trouble at all, and what might be causing it. Hence the famous troubleshooting line for when something won’t turn on – “is it plugged in?”
So, what are five problems that you computer can have, so that you know where to start fixing them? Consider these five common ones, including slow processing, overheating, issues with space, trouble with updates, and mechanical failure.
Slowness
Probably the most common computer problem is slowness or lag when trying to get anything done. And there are plenty of reasons for this to happen, but one single act does the most both to prevent and to fix the situation, and that is to get a computer tune-up. Even better is to schedule regular tune-ups before there’s an issue, and before the slowdown occurs, but at least it’s something that anyone can diagnose and then deal with accordingly.
Overheating
Lots of computers will end up with overheating problems as well, specifically laptops. And believe it or not, much of the cause of this is because the fans aren’t working properly for some reason. And the absolute most common reason is that fan blades get covered with dust over time. The simple fix is to get a can of compressed air or computer duster and just blow the fans out. Just be sure to wear a mask, because you don’t want to breathe that stuff in when it comes flying out of the computer frame!
Space Issues
Many people run into space issues fairly quickly with their computers as well. Especially if you have a lot of photos or videos that you work with, hard drives can fill up extremely quickly, and then everything starts to acts jerky all throughout your system. Your best bet is to keep as much as possible on external hard drives before it becomes a problem.
Update Trouble
Sometimes your PC will get stuck having trouble with updates as well. OS X and Windows computers have different ways of handling updates, but in either case, there are known issues under many circumstances. If updates do get stuck, sometimes a clean reinstall is all that you can do.
Mechanical Failure
And finally, mechanical failure can and will happen with your computers. One of the more common ones is for internal hard drives to fail. When you start getting lots of read or save errors during daily work, it might be time to replace your internal drive, as the moving parts may have finally worn out.