Differential Diagnosis

That's a term I learned while in Physical Therapy skill. It means asking a lot of questions and doing a lot of tests to come up with the most likely cause for a problem. That skill alone helps me work with computer problems every day. Asking the proper questions and getting the sequence of events in proper order make me hone in on the problem quicker.

Yesterday, I worked on a computer for a customer who wasn't home and it quickly reinforced my need for getting a thorough history of the problem from the computer's owner. Without it, I'm probing blind and looking for the most obvious problems, but it makes the process much longer.

In my troubleshooting classes, I teach people that to diagnose their own problems, they need to:

1.  Don't panic.
2.  Re-trace their steps and look for something that is out of place.
3.  Take time to write down what events precipitated the problem.
4.  Does the problem occur at any regular interval or after starting or closing a certain program?
5.  Did restarting the computer make the problem go away, do nothing, or exacerbate it?
6.  Write down any error messages you receive, in their entirety, and when they occurred.

The answers to these questions can help you figure out a problem, but they become invaluable information for your tech person to help you. Especially folks on a telephone support who can't see what you see.

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