Troubleshooting Techniques: Putting it all together | Tech, No Babel

Transcript: When you’re troubleshooting, sometimes you need to use more than one technique in concert to get to the final solution. What does this look like? Imagine you come across a problem. Doesn’t matter what the problem is, you come across a problem in your installation. How do you figure out what’s wrong? The first thing you need to do is ask the right questions. What’s it doing? What’s it not doing? Find out what the actual problem is. Then, you need to list all the possible causes of that problem. Look for other things which will give you other information as to whether there’s a more complex problem, or it’s actually simpler than it seems, things like that. Look for those pieces of information.
Next, see if you can devise tests to give you more information. Do you need to simple it down? Do you need to short leash it? Do you need to divide and conquer to find where the problem is specifically? Should you swap out different pieces to see where the problem is and then replicate the problem to see if it follows the piece that you think it should follow?
If you’re troubleshooting a computer, dealing with digital connections or something like that, then maybe in that case, what you need to do is reboot the computer, see if that solves the problem. If you’re dealing with a digital signal, make sure that there’s nothing interfering with the signal that may be getting there but perhaps isn’t getting there in as high a quality as it needs to be, so you’re missing part of the signal and the end device can’t compensate for the loss.
Finally, you may need to trace down certain cables using a fox and hound, or you may need to test individual cables using a multi-meter, a cable-tester, et cetera, and get down to what the actual cause of the problem is. Once you’ve done that, then you can address the actual problem.
Now remember, if it’s a cable, chances are the problem is on one end or the other, so you can just re-terminate that. If the problem is in a piece of gear, and you don’t have another one to swap out with it, it’s worth calling the manufacturer and seeing if this is a problem that’s common, if there’s a solution that they recommend, or if it’s just a piece that needs to go in for repair.
Troubleshooting can be a complex process, one that takes several attempts, one that takes all kinds of revisions of your hypothesis. Sometimes you have to go through it several times to find what the actual problem is. Don’t get discouraged. If you try hard enough, most of the time, you will find the problem, and once you find the problem, you can address it and have a solution that works for you long-term.