Preventive Maintenance and Troubleshooting
What this domain covers
This domain combines scheduled preventive work with a logical fault-finding method. Questions ask what to clean, how often, and which diagnostic step logically comes next.
Core rules
- Preventive maintenance is active (cleaning, updating, testing, monitoring) or passive (dust-free room, stable power, correct temperature and humidity).
- Use compressed air and lint-free cloths; never a household vacuum cleaner, which builds static charge.
- Run the machine on a UPS or stabiliser, back up before any repair, and keep antivirus definitions and OS patches current.
- Troubleshooting sequence: gather information from the user, reproduce the fault, form a theory, test the simplest cause first, fix, verify, document.
- Diagnostic tools: POST beep codes, Event Viewer, Safe Mode, Device Manager, chkdsk, SFC and temperature monitoring.
Worked example
A lab PC restarts randomly only during long practical sessions. Reasoning: the fault is load-related and intermittent, so start with heat and power. Read CPU temperature in BIOS, inspect the heatsink for dust, confirm the fan spins, then test the SMPS rails or swap in a known-good PSU of adequate wattage. Reinstalling the OS is not the first step.
Traps
- Replacing parts at random instead of changing one variable at a time.
- Using water or liquid sprays inside the case.
- Skipping documentation, so the same fault is re-diagnosed next month.
- Assuming every beep pattern means the same thing across BIOS vendors.