From the course: CompTIA A+ Core 1 (220-1101) Cert Prep

Troubleshooting theory

From the course: CompTIA A+ Core 1 (220-1101) Cert Prep

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Troubleshooting theory

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- IP, config, slash, release? What? IP, config. - Space, slash, release - Slash, release. - Having a DHCP problem there? - I think so. (Mike chuckles) - So may I ask why you're doing this? - The Internet's down. - Ah, okay. In this episode, what I want to talk about is CompTIA's troubleshooting theory. It's a series of steps that I as a technician can go through to help my users deal with whatever problems they might have. Now, I'm personally not a huge fan of this particular theory, not that it's wrong, but there's a lot of different opinions on this. But CompTIA does stress this, and you're going to see it on the exam. So let's go through these steps to help me as a technician, help my users get back online. Now, before we do anything with this troubleshooting theory, the most important thing you need to remember is that if I'm within an organization, there might be procedures, or there might be policies that the organization says, maybe she shouldn't even be trying to type that command, or, maybe she needs to be making a particular phone call to a particular IT group, or, maybe I'm not in your IT group. There's always all kinds of rules, okay? - Okay. - So before I want to dive into this as a tech, the first thing I'm going to do is make sure that I'm within whatever organization's policies and procedures, whatever they might have, so that I don't get into trouble. And I'm really good at getting into trouble. (Both chuckle) I always want to fix everybody's computer, you know, Big S, you know, here, let me help. All right, so anyway, the first step that I'm going to be doing is identifying the problem. And what I'm going to do is, I'm going to talk to the user, I'm going to ask, you know, what is the problem, at least how they anticipate that problem to look, I'm going to be talking to her about anything she might have been doing lately that could have led up to this. There could be environmental issues, air conditioners going down can do evil things, so I mean, there's all kinds of situations where this initial situation where I'm attempting to identify the problem. Understand, I'm identifying the problem, I'm not saying what's broken, I'm just identifying the problem. So what's the problem? - The internet is down. - All right. First of all, I assure you the Internet's not down, it's running all over the place, people are buying stuff on eBay, and they're, you know, playing games, and they're doing all kinds of stuff. The problem you have is, your connection between this laptop and the Internet's down, and that's what we need to be dealing with. So one of the things I'm going to do is take a quick look at the system and verify it, When she says she's down, she probably means that the browser isn't working, or she's maybe getting 404, or even worse than that. So I'm going to be taking a look at this, I might review some system logs if that's applicable, to try to find some situation that helps define what's the problem. Because her opinion of the problem and my opinion of the problem are very, very different things, okay? So based on this, I'm going to take look at a few things. When was the last time this computer got on the internet? - Just a couple of hours ago. - Okay. And were you doing anything, or? - I was just doing my research, I have all of this work to do, and then it just stopped working. - I know, you got a big mess around here, you've been out on that sales call for the last week or so. - Exactly. - And you just got back in, when'd your flight get in? - It just got in earlier this morning. - Okay, so it was working up until you got back in the office? - Exactly. - All right, so this has given me some idea of what might be taking place within the user's experience that might give me some ideas. The chances are that there's some kind of configuration or setup issue, where she was running to where she is now. I'm not going to be worried about network cards being down, or, everybody else around here is on the internet, so I'm not going to worry about anything around here, there's something between her machine and our internet that's causing the problem. So I'm going to do a little bit of research here, and I'm going to try to get some ideas. So when you typed that IP, config, slash, release, did anything happen at all? - No. - Okay, all right. So now I'm getting a little bit worried about things, and I'm going to take a look. And again, externally, everybody else is also on the network, so I'm going to be zeroing in on her system itself. So I'm going to be thinking to myself, hmm, I'll bet there's a problem with the way she's set up. The number-two thing that I'm going to do is, I'm going to come up with a probable cause. And in this situation, my probable cause is, somehow there's something on her system that's down network-wise, so I'm going to be checking the network card, I'm going to be checking her wireless settings, all that type of stuff, And I'm going to go in and take a look. So on this particular system, I would just go in and make a few clicks, and I can actually see a little clue here, it's already telling me what the problem is. And what I'm thinking to myself is, because I see a little airplane on your task bar, I'm thinking she's in airplane mode. You were in the airplane, right? - I was. - Were you using the laptop on the plane? - I was. - And when the stewardess told you to turn off, you were a good flyer and turned it off, right? - Yes. - Okay, yeah, I've never done this, so I can be really, really judgmental about this type of stuff. (Robin chuckles) All right, so I'm going to go ahead and test this by taking it out of airplane mode, which is pretty trivial on this guy. All right. And all of a sudden it went from a airplane, and now you see what looks like a wireless connection. - Exactly. - So I'm going to go ahead and test that, probably the test is just open up Google and see if I'm magically on, okay? But the important thing is, if I'm not right, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to go right back in and go, hmm, and then try something else. And this is always the tricky part where it's like, okay, I know what the problem is, you can't get on the internet, but you know, I have to go through, sometimes a few iterations. Now I'm Mike Myers, popular author and alpha geek, so you know, I'm really, really good at this stuff. Do you believe that? - I do. Good, good answer. (barks) (Robin chuckles) Mrs. Vice President, well done. Now the other problem is, at this point, a lot of times maybe I can't come up with the answer, and in those situations, there's never a problem to escalate. And when we say escalate, that means calling in some help. And every IT nerd has got somebody who they can go up one click to who can actually give them a little help. Maybe it's picking up the phone and having a buddy remind me of something else I need to look at. We really take our time and try to come up with theories that actually come up and determine the cause. So the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to say, I'm going to establish a plan of action, and I'm going to go ahead and resolve this problem. Now, the challenge here is something as simple as this, I've kind of already fixed it, haven't I? - You did. - Yeah, so, a lot of times, part three and part four kind of are the same step, especially for smaller problems, but if this was a bigger problem, say malware was found on your system, now I realize that my solution isn't just fixing your machine, but there might be six or seven other machines on the network that are messed up, and in that case, I've got to deal with a much bigger plan of action than simply hitting the toggle button on your laptop. Okay. So in theory, I have fixed the problem. So the next step is that we have to verify full functionality. And this is a big problem that technicians run into, because I'll be looking at this, and I'll go, "Oh okay, so you're on, okay bye, later." (Robin chuckles) Well, that's not right. I have to wait until Robin is satisfied about my repair. I know that she was in airplane mode, but as far as she's concerned, the internet was down. And until such time as you could sit there and go, "Mike, I am happy with the results," and you're Googling away and just having a good old time, I stay right here until we've got to that point. So, would you feel that everything's okay? - Yes. Can I test it? - Sure, go ahead. - Okay. I'm up. - All right. Pretty snappy internet around here, huh? - (chuckles) Yes, thank you. - Yeah, so the Internet's up, yay, okay So the other thing we want to do as part of this step, is that we want to implement preventative measures. Now, again, this one's not so too terrible, here, here's my preventative measure. Robin, remember to turn it back off of airplane mode when you get in the office. - Okay. (chuckles) - All right? Actually, most preventative measures manifest that way. But something more serious could end up being documentation, or an escalation issue, this could define new policies for the company, all kinds of stuff like that. So when we talk about preventative, it could be very casual, or it can be very, very formal. All right, so we're all happy and everything? - Yes. Thank you so much. - You're very welcome, all right. Now, the last step really depends on your organization, but it's documentation. Documentation is really, really important, because number one, we have something called lessons learned. And what we can do as an IT support group, come up with lessons that we've learned from stuff like this, be sure to tell all the salespeople to get out of airplane mode when they get back in the office. Or, it can be a little bit more serious in terms of defining issues with bugs in an operating system or something that could have a much higher impact. And we need to do this documentation, not really just for us, but for the next person in line who's going to run into the exact same problem, because that's a big issue for us as techs, I've never run into a problem that no one else has run into. So the magic is, if I could be somehow magically standing next to that tech who's already had that problem, well, then we're looking in great shape, and that's where documentation comes into play. I need to warn you for the exam that CompTIA loves the troubleshooting theory. And you need to be careful with this, because on the exam you will need to understand all these steps, and you need to understand their order as well, because you will see it on the exam.

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