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Troubleshooting

 

General Troubleshooting

In your career in IT you will find that the same problems will occur over and over again.  Each new user will discover the "classic" mistakes for himself.  With knowledge and experience, however, you will find that you can quickly determine what is wrong and how to fix it.  This list of simple troubleshooting procedures will prove useful to you in discovering what is wrong with a variety of devices that "just stopped working". In this document, we will proceed from the very simple to the somewhat complex, describing each possible problem and its solution.  Although some problems are specific to only printers or only terminals, many simple problems, as you will see, can apply to any device.

Troubleshooting Checklist

In roughly increasing order of complexity

Simple Things Are The Best

Is it plugged in? (Make them look, they always will claim it is. Make sure cable is TIGHT if it's removable.)

Is it turned on? (Yes, this really happens.)

Is the brightness turned down? (Really!)

Does it fail to do ANYTHING although plugged in and turned on?

(If there is not even a green power light by the ON switch, a breaker in the bldg may have tripped. See if anything else in the area doesn't work. If so, get someone to check the breakers.  OR the device may have "died". The latter is esp. likely if it was on overnight and there was a storm. (Call Hardware))

Were there any error messages when the device was turned on?

(If so, then why are they using it? Call Hardware for service.)

Is it frozen or held up?

Terminal: Is it in NOSCROLL or HOLD? (Press Ctrl-Q)

Printer: Is it ON line? (Push the ONLINE button)

When they say they can't log on, are they already logged on someplace else the maximum no. of times?

(Use a monitoring utility to check, make them log out or kill the offending job(s) (be conservative with KILL!)).

Maybe the Problem is Someplace Else

If this is a Software dependent device, is the software down or locked up? (Terminals can't log on when the software is locked up)

If this is a network device, do we know of problems on the network? (See previous)

If a software-driven printer:

does it need to be started? (Start it)

Is the queue stopped or not present for some reason? (Fix it)

Let's Take a Look at the Device

Do the connection settings in SETUP match the way it is actually connected?

Terminals: the comm port is set to where the cable goes. (Make them LOOK)

Printers: if parallel, set to parallel; if serial, set to serial. (LG's sometimes lose this setting)

Is the speed in SETUP correct?

(Xmit and Rcv speed almost always are 9600, sometimes 19,200)

Are the other settings in SETUP correct?

(Most Important: Word Size=8, Parity=None, Stop Bits=1 OR "Dynamic", Flow Control = "XON/XOFF")

The Device is OK, So...

Is whatever it connects to working? (eg Terminal Server or JetDirect)

Try to reach the device via the network. If you time out, the device is off the network and other things should be down, as well as whatever you are checking on, (unless it's a one-port JetDirect).

Is the device it connects to set up correctly? (eg Terminal is not on a port set up for a printer or vice versa)

Find out where it is supposedly connected and do a SHOW PORT on that port.

Getting Desperate

These measures require someone to touch a piece of hardware, therefore they are

DESPERATE MEASURES to be used only in extremis when a hardware person is unavailable.

Is it connected at the SERVER end to whatever it connects to?

(esp. likely if someone was working in back. Get someone to plug it back in.)

Is the cable known to be good? (cables sometimes go bad, esp. if they bend or get compressed or are very old)

(Try swapping a cable with something that works)

Is the port on the device it connects to working? (Ports on a JetDirect or DECServer can go bad.)

Try connecting the Terminal Server end of the cable to a port that is known to be working.

I Give Up

I just don't know what's wrong with it, call for help or ask someone knowledgeable to go out there and look at it...

 

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