IT Troubleshooting 101
By Bruce Hammerich

After spending much of my career chasing after problems (here formally referred to as troubleshooting) IT related, I thought it might be helpful to pass on some of the skills, tricks and methods I have acquired through experience. To begin with, when troubleshooting complex systems I first try to isolate the source of the problem down to the subsystem. I do this by first trying to split the system in half and seeing first if the problem/issue is still present half way down-stream. If it is, than I can eliminate the 2nd half of the whole system as a source of the problem and focus on the first half. Of course if the problem isn’t present then I go to the middle of the 2nd half of the system and see if the problem/issue is there. By this process you keep “halving” the system until you find the offending subsystem. Then you can start focusing on the component part of the subsystem.

Another thing I have found is that if I am troubleshooting a problem, and the symptoms don’t seem to point to a particular component and doesn’t seem to make any sense, I usually find that this is because I am actually troubleshooting more than one problem. This, of course makes the whole process more complicated. You might ask yourself, if system/subsystem A failed might that also cause system/subsystem B or C to fail or become corrupt as well?

Of course, when you are troubleshooting, especially IT related problems; the Internet is your friend. Many times you can Google an error code, or a symptom or a component and in many cases it may point you in the right direction. I have found this to be especially true with Windows Event Log error codes. Most if the time if you Google “event id XXXX” you will find information related to that specific problem.

Also, an important part of the process is the human element. Especially as it relates to issues on a particular user’s PC/laptop/PDA/Smartphone or account. Often, by the time they are requesting help they have been putting up with the problem for awhile and are thoroughly annoyed by it. This also happens most often with people who are not comfortable with computers or are not computer literate. They automatically assume the system is working fine and the problem is with them. So, to begin with, you will be dealing with an angry/annoyed “customer”. This makes your job just that much harder especially since in many cases they become your partner in solving the problem. I counseled the people in my support groups to first focus/fix the person with the problem. Then you have an ally to help in troubleshooting the problem and, of course that means you will find the solution just that much quicker. For people who do what we do, that’s a step in the process that often gets overlooked and requires constant diligence.

If I had a dime for every time I contacted a user with a problem and they said, “Oh great, it’s not doing it any more”, I would be a billionaire. This is another reason why you need to get the user on your side and actively helping you solve their problem.

Another thing I have found is that if the problem was caused by a user “screw-up”, they will almost never own up to it. So when a users says they couldn’t possibly have caused the problem, don’t completely rule it out. And don’t hold it against them if it turns out they caused it. They may feel embarrassed, afraid of repercussions, any number of reasons. Now come on, admit it, haven’t we all been guilty of that? Nobody wants to look stupid or incompetent. Don’t hold it against them. Get over it and don’t try to cause them further embarrassment. But, at the same time make sure they know they caused the problem so you don’t get another call on the same problem.

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