Troubleshooting Your PC !

Troubleshooting , the name by itself suggests that it is a problem solving process . It's a term used frequently to repair failed hardware or software.Almost each and every one is having PC at home now-a-days. So it will be nice if we know to solve some of the common problems which we face with our PC day to day.

Before that let me hint you a few things which exist already in the PC . One of the best examples is POST which refers to Power On Self Test .The PC Checks itself for necessary hardware functioning whenever it's switched on.

Here are some of the problems which I have faced and I have also explained how I have solved it !

Problem 1:

When ever I switch on my System , an error is displayed that the CMOS Check Sum Bad. Press Del / F1 to enter setup ?

Solution :

It may occur because of the problem that your CMOS battery may get drained out.It needs to be changed 2 years once (approx) to keep the BIOS settings saved even though we Switch off the PC.

Problem 2:

I have installed Operating System in my PC but my system shows the error "No Boot Device Found" , when I switch on my PC ?

Solution:

It may cause due to various reasons . Some of the common mistakes may be , we forget to change the Boot Priority and HDD must be available first in boot order (Preferably). Such error may occur also because of choosing wrong Primary Partition.

Problem 3:

I have connected two drives (either HDD or DVD Drive) but my PC shows only one drive or it doesn't show any of the drives in "My Computer" ?

Solution:

It occurs because of the Wrong Jumper settings (i.e.,) one drive should act as Master and other should act as Slave . You can find the jumper slot near the power slot.

Problem 4:

I have two drives of maximum size. How can I make a third logical drive by extracting some free space in the existing drives ?

Solution:

You can use some third party software such Partition Magic or else you can use the shrink feature in Windows Vista or later versions.

Problem 5:

I have Windows 7 in my PC and how can I degrade to Windows XP or lower versions ?

Solution:

This is one of the major problems which every one will face. Normally , degrade of Windows versions is not supported by default. You can make it done with a help of Live Boot Linux Disc.Boot into Linux and use partition manager to delete the Windows (OS) partition.

Problem 6:

I am unable to install Windows OS even after partitioning , in Windows Setup ?

Solution:

It may probably due to a virus attack.In such case you can install OS , only when you delete all the existing drives in your PC.

Problem 7:

I have some very important data in my Hard Disk but unknowingly I formatted it. Is it possible to recover my data , after formatting ?

Solution:

Yes it is possible to recover your data safe by using some third party software like "Recover My Files" , provided you doesn't place some new data on same drive after formatting it.

Problem 8:

My PC gets switched on but there is no display in the Screen ?

Solution:

Try fixing up your RAM correct in the  slot in MB.

[*Above content is only of my experiences and may not reflect the exact ones as in other sources]

What is a Proxy Server?

Proxy is a term which we come across often, in a network. In general, a proxy is referred to as a person authorized to act for other. A proxy server is nothing but a mediator which acts between the requests sent from a client asking for the resources from the server. Whenever a request is made from the client in a network, the proxy server evaluates the request and allows it to access the resource if it’s a valid one. There are also caches in proxy server (i.e.,) the proxy server receives response from the remote server and returns it to the client.

There are different types of proxy servers. Some of them are as follows,

• Web Proxy


• Content filtering Proxy


• Caching Proxy


• Open Proxy


• Tunneling Proxy


• Reverse Proxy

There are a wide number of proxy servers available for use. Each has their own characteristics and features. Various Open Source proxy servers too available for use and we can customize it as needed.

Some of the proxy servers available are,

• Squid Proxy


• Privoxy


• TinyProxy


• Ziproxy


• Apache HTTP Server

Let me give an overview of Squid Proxy server (Open Source)which is used commonly in many organizations.

It’s primarily designed to run on Unix Systems. Consider that your Squid Proxy runs on your server with ip address 165.165.100.2 and the default port number for Squid is 3128. The port number is customizable one, consider the default one here. Let the client connected bear the ip address 165.165.1.1

The client interacts with the proxy server as follows,

You can configure your ip address either static or can be set dynamic at the client but there are a few more configurations to be done in your web browsers to access to the external resource (internet).I ‘ll just explain using ie here.Choose Options from Tools menu and navigate to connections tab and then LAN Settings.Check use proxy server option and fill out the necessary ip address and port number . It must look something as follows.

What it means is that , all the requests made from client is passed to server with ip address 165.165.100.2 and port 3128 , where the squid proxy is running already. Then the requests are processed and results are returned.

You can also find out the type of proxy used in the network whenever the error page , something like Access denied ! is displayed ! The proxy server name is specified in the last line of the error page.

What is a Blog?

Blog is a term which we come across frequently when we are surfing and is  nothing but a  shortened form of Web Log. A blog in general, can be defined as an online journal, where people post entries about their personal experiences and hobbies. The set of content posted in a blog is called as Posts. The posts are arranged like LIFO order (i.e.,) the recent posts are displayed first.

There are a number of providers online; to create a blog such as Google’s BlogSpot, word press and many other. Each has its own features. Some blogs are highly customizable while some are not. Almost all the blogs allow users to make comments about the posts and some widgets can be added by users as needed.

There are different types of blog depending on the design, type of content and some other features. There are also separate search in search engines to search the contents of blogs. It’s also notable that there are also some dangers with blog .Earlier , some bloggers were arrested because of some on their anti writings. Blogging is also one of the nice hobby and a way to express our thoughts and experiences.

Most of the blogging sites make the novice easy to design their own blogs. Some provide easy designing by drag and drop feature whereas some providers make it a little difficult for beginners. The old posts are grouped automatically as archives or categories for later reference. A lot more features can be added to the blog by the user.

The major difference between a blog and a website is that, blogs are free and registering our domains may be charged. More over contents of the blog can be searched easily since every time when we publish new post in blog, it gets indexed in search engines. If you don’t have a blog, start blogging now, if interested!

Happy Blogging!