Diagnosing faults

Our troubleshooting tips

This is one of the hardest things to "teach" - it is mostly learned through experience. This is like a kungfu dojo - the more you practice, the more you have confidence in the tools/process. But here are some tips

What to avoid

  • Don't leap to easy conclusions!
  • Avoid "blind alleys"

Gathering the evidence

We have a number of ways to gather evidence about the fault, often we have to mix and match.

  • Description of the fault from the owner/user (sometimes this can be misleading and/or 'wrong')
  • Nature of the onset
  • Visual evidence
  • Passive testing (e.g. with a meter - resistance can be useful)
  • Functional testing (when safe and possible)

Following a logical process

  • It really helps to know how something works! (This may sound obvious, but it's worth reading about how the e-thing works.)
  • Start investigating in a logical, sequential way where you move from parts you know are working towards parts you know are not working.

Root cause or causal factor?

  • Fixing the "root cause" will permanently clear the fault.
  • Fixing only a "causal factor" (such as replacing a blown fuse) may make something work again, by the "root cause" may still be present and the fault will reoccur.

Cases

Kettle

Mysterious kettle owned by the venue - we did not know the circumstances of the fault.

  • Check the fuse (ok)
  • Visual inspection (ok)
  • Tested for continuity from the mains plug to the base (ok)
  • Tested base for resistance and continuity (ok)
  • By logical process, the only thing left was the physical contact between the kettle jug and the base - turned out it was not making a solid contact and needed to be remade

Windows laptop

The laptop owner (a very expert user) told the Restarter the harddrive needed "debugging" - led to blind-alley

  • Ran a harddrive diagnostic tool (ok)
  • Mounted the drive (ok)
  • Inspected system log (ok)
  • Booted on Linux and noticed there was rubbish coming up on screen at boot - suspected a keyboard or touchpad fault - isolated the keyboard fault

Macbook

Mysterious intermittent trackpad problem

  • Plugged in an external mouse (not ok)
  • Noticed a battery issue
  • Turns out the battery was bad and bulging, affecting the trackpad