Computer Problems

Computers are powerful and are a lot of fun, but they are also complex machines and there are many factors that can cause your computer to break. Often it seems completely random why your computer breaks. But here are some of the common reasons your computer breaks.

This may seem obvious, but is it plugged in? This is the reason your computer isn’t working….many….many times. Check this first! Now onto real problems.

This is incredibly common problem and includes viruses, Trojans, malware or any other types of malicious software. These don’t usually effect hardware, however many problems people experience on their computers, are caused by viruses. Some of the issues to watch for are things like the wireless not working. Sometimes your internet browser will go to websites that you didn’t bookmark or navigate to. There is also a nasty virus that is becoming more common that causes all of your files to become corrupted. Another type of virus that is common, is one that creates a popup on your screen and asks for money. This is not legitimate. But many people fall for it.

Hard drivers are made up of spinning metal disks and date is being written to them at incredible speeds. But this means that the hard drive has moving parts. Because they are one of the few parts within the computer that has movement, they are more prone to break. Often you will notice your hard drive is going bad if the computer is running slowly or is crashing. Hard drives can run for 10 years or die within two weeks of buying a computer. This can be frustrating to customers, but unfortunately, as with any mechanical device, they break. Make sure you are backing up consistently so that if something does happen to your hard drive you won’t lose everything.

An operating system is also called an OS for short. Windows 7, and Windows 10 are both examples of operating systems. It is needed to run everything else on the computer. However it can get corrupted and if it does, you will experience major failures. Often you will not even be able to boot up the computer fully if the OS is corrupted badly. Usually the only way to fix this type of computer problem, is by reinstalling the operating system. Again make sure that all of your date is being backed up, because again this type of computer problem can destroy data.

Drivers are annoying, but are a necessary component to make your computer work. They are basically a small piece of software that tells the Operating System (Windows) how to use the hardware inside of your computer, ie: a mouse. Without them nothing would function. However drivers have to be updated quite often, and if they aren’t updated, it will often cause things to break. Make sure you regularly update your computer, as this will make driver related issues less likely.

This is a very common issue, and just means that the user doesn’t understand what they did and why it happened. Many issues are simply caused by clicking into something that the user doesn’t understand. These are usually easy fixes and usually aren’t that damaging.

Most of these problems aren’t fixable without someone who does it everyday.