hardware
Readme
💻 Hardware Repair & Testing
Part of the IT-Manual Procedures for physical repairs, component isolation, and storage management.
📖 Overview
This directory focuses on the “Nuts and Bolts” of the job. It contains guides for diagnosing specific hardware failures (Power, Motherboard, Storage) and procedures for hardware-level tasks like cloning drives and accessing BIOS interfaces.
📂 Contents
🔌 Power & Boot Issues
Troubleshooting devices that won’t turn on or won’t boot.
- No Power Start Here for “Dead” machines. Steps to trace power delivery issues from the wall to the board.
- POST Failure Diagnosing machines that turn on (fans spin/lights on) but fail to display video or pass the Power-On Self-Test (Beep codes/LED debug).
- How to Test Power Supply (PSU) Specific methods for validating PSU voltage rails (Paperclip test, Multimeter probing).
- BIOS Access Key combinations and tricks for accessing UEFI/BIOS on various manufacturers (HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc.).
💾 Storage & Data
Drive health and replication.
- HDD & SSD Health Checking Interpreting S.M.A.R.T. data to detect failing drives before they die completely.
- Clone Hard Drive (Hardware & Software Methods) Procedures for upgrading clients to SSDs or creating exact images for data recovery, using both software tools and hardware duplicators.
🛠️ Component Isolation
Motherboard and form-factor specific guides.
- Motherboard Testing Visual inspection guides (blown capacitors, burn marks) and board-level testing.
- Laptop Fault Diagnostics Troubleshooting issues unique to laptops: Battery charging circuits, LCD cables, and hinge sensors.
⚡ Triage Decision Tree
Quick logic for hardware diagnosis.
[Image of computer hardware troubleshooting flowchart]
- Is it completely dead? (No fans, no lights)
- Does it turn on, but black screen?
- → Go to POST Failure
- → Check RAM seating and GPU.
- Does it show a Logo, but fail to load Windows?
- → Check BIOS Access (Is the drive detected?)
- → Go to HDD Health
Maintained by Pacific Northwest Computers