Teaching the skills of troubleshooting

[Mercutio]

One of the more interesting challenges I've undertaken lately is to teach fairly inexperienced computer users the skills involved in troubleshooting a PC.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I have a nice little job teaching 20 people - mostly steelworkers - the information needed to become a good PC tech, and perhaps even the A+ certification (I see that as secondary to actual learning).

I figure I can lecture all day about PC hardware and software. "This is an AT motherboard. These are the parts on an AT motherboard..."

One of the joys of my job, though, is teaching all the details involved with troubleshooting all these different pieces. Hardware and software both.

Most of this is stuff I don't particularly think about any more. I just know.

So how does one go from "everything is a puzzle" to unconscious understanding?

I know there are all levels of techs here, mostly people that're probably closer to me than to my students, but I'd appreciate hearing about how you all learned to work on PCs, the lessons you learned in trying to troubleshoot problems, that sort of thing.

If nothing else, we'll probably get a good collection of techie stories. ;)

[Handruin]

My troubleshooting came from breaking my parents computer 1 too many times. :) At first we had no Internet connection and even if we did, finding info would have been slow and difficult.

My own personal way to trouble shoot is by working towards the root of the problem and systematically changing one component at a time in order to resolve the problem.

More or less it's like saying, how many combinations can you have of ABC? You can have ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CBA, CAB since I'm only using each letter once.

Where this may make little sense, this is how I approach issues. I also work my way to the root of where a problem can stem from. If some one says “my PC doesn’t boot” I would then begin to think of what is the first item to help a PC boot. (Except from actually having a computer, the power cable) Some items can be seen right away and ruled out very quickly, so I just move on.

It’s my opinion that people who are interested in learning more about computers will experiment. They will want to know why something is broken, or why it works the way it does. I think of it as passion towards learning more. That is why I break my own computer. :)

[P5-133XL]

There are three important parts to troubleshooting and all must be taught.

The first is the obvious: The details of the computer and how they interact. Without the knowledge that this is a motherbaord and this is a video board and what they do. Without this knowledge, no one will be able to troubleshoot anything.

Next, Everyone needs experiance taking things apart, putting them back together and making it work. Lab time is important and thus don't short change it. Mostly this is to get rid of the fear of doing something new combined with learning skills of how to handle things properly. Don't forget to install operating systems and troubleshooting OS and Applications problems to help distinguish them from hardware.

Third and most important is the thinking part and the hardest to teach. The skill of analyzing a problem into component parts and determining what is likely the problem. Here you start with listening to the complaint and asking questions. Analyzing what components could possibly cause the problem and forming a premise(s). Testing the premise(s) by analysis or replacing components one at a time and observing the result. reanalysis. Documenting the process, as needed.

How I would teach the thinking skill is specificly explaining the process and then give progressively more difficult problems/puzzles that the students have to solve in the lab. You might supply flow-chart type solutions for obvious problems like no video signal. The starting problems would deal with stuff contained in the flow charts and eventually graduate to more complicated puzzles that go beyond the flow charts. However, it is important that the puzzles be solveable and that confidence is always building and never shot-down.

[CougTek]

So how does one go from "everything is a puzzle" to unconscious understanding?

Intelligence and time. It's not to everyone's reach.

[P5-133XL]

So how does one go from "everything is a puzzle" to unconscious understanding?

Intelligence and time. It's not to everyone's reach.


Not everyone has the desire or ability to succeed. Your job as teacher is to give them the opportunity to learn while the actual learning is the responsibility of the student. The process of going from puzzle stage to unconscious understanding is long-term experience. If your goal is to train to the A+ level, I would not expect unconscious understanding for anyone of that group; A puzzle stage capability will successfully get through A+ which is a starting level certification for a PC technician.

[Mercutio]

The order of the day is "Hands On", actually.

There's a down side to it, though. The testbeds I have for student use are Compaq Pentium 66s... The power supply is non-standard. The motherboard has a riser card for expansion slots, but a seperate slot onboard for a daughtercard that includes the sound hardware... and the disk controllers are buried under the drive cages where no one can see them.

Just about the worst combination of hardware possible, now that I think about it.

What I have to work out is a general, workable troubleshooting methodology that I can pass on to my students. Mark is on the right track, I think.

Thanks for responses thusfar.

What I have right now is the reality of the exam:
The current, adaptive exam requires roughly 46% of its questions to be answered correctly.

60% of the hardware test is simple, physical familiarity with the hardware in one form or another.
30% of the hardware test is troubleshooting.

(BTW, Mark, did you know they took out the customer service stuff?)

It's not AS critical as knowing the hardware itself, but I have to say I know which part is really important.

[GMac]

I started from very modest beginnings - namely the need to upgrade my RAM to 32 MB a few years back. I've been lucky in that I've two friends who've both been in the PC business longer than me, and they taught me the basics of assembling and troubleshooting. From there, my own intense curiosity and the knowledge I could make money :mrgrn: have driven me to learn more and more - in fact now I probably know more than the guys who taught me originally, thanks to training courses, net resources and the fact that I've built or troubleshooted more than 100 machines in the last few months - everything from old P75s to PIII powered Netware servers.
As far as troubleshooting itself goes, I always check with the user first, find out what the symptoms are and proceed from there. Many problems are so common that the solution soon becomes 'ingrained' - so repetition has to come into it somewhere.

GM

[Corvair]

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GMac Said: ...One of the more interesting challenges I've undertaken lately is to teach fairly inexperienced computer users the skills involved in troubleshooting a PC...

Shock Therapy is one of the best tools for teaching television electronics. :eekers:


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