Troubleshooting

Now for my eighth post, I’ll be talking all about troubleshooting…

Troubleshooting is a form of solving problems which often apply to repairing products that fail or process. Also, troubleshooting is a logical systematic search for the source of a problem in order to solve it and make the product or process operational again. Regards of troubleshooting, it is only needed for identifying the symptoms. With troubleshooting, the process of elimination which eliminates potential causes of a problem is what can determine the cause that can be mostly liken to happen. Also, troubleshooting requires confirmation that the solution helps to either take the product and restore it or process it into its state of work.

THE ASPECTS OF TROUBLESHOOTING

Usually, what the aspects of troubleshooting are is that it applies to something that suddenly stops working since its previous state of work which forms what is expected about is behavior that is continuing. However, there is a principle that is well known and has what is called correlation which does not imply causality. With the aspects of troubleshooting, what a troubleshooter can do is have a check on each and every component in a system one by one as it substitutes good components that are known but can suspect one. Another aspect of troubleshooting is bad design, a common cause of problems as it comes to a design of bad human factors where a device can either be inserted backwards or upside down regarding its lack of an appropriate forcing function or a lack of error-tolerant design.

Furthermore, troubleshooting can also take the form of a systematic checklist, troubleshooting procedures, flowcharts or tables that are made before problems happen. Having to develop troubleshooting procedures in advance can allow any thoughts about the steps that are to be taken in troubleshooting and then organize the troubleshooting into the most efficient process. Moreover, troubleshooting tables can computerize to make them more efficient for users.

THE HALF-SPLITS OF TROUBLESHOOTING

There is a half-split of troubleshooting that can come with a clear understanding of what behavior is expected from the system and the symptoms that observe and it is an efficient methodical split of troubleshooting. What the troubleshooter forms on are hypotheses on potential causes and devises that are tested for eliminating these prospective causes. This can often be called as “divide and conquer”. There are two common strategies that troubleshooters use and one is to either check for frequently encountered or easily tested conditions. This can often refer as “milking the front panel”.

THE SYMPTOMS OF TROUBLESHOOTING

Reproducing symptoms

Having to reproduce a symptom can be one of the core principles when it comes into troubleshooting. With reproducing symptoms, problems that reproduce are what can isolate and resolve as of being reliable. Regards of reproducing symptoms, there is some kind of effort and emphasis being put as they can often be considerable for troubleshooting but can also be placed reproducible.

Intermittent symptoms

Intermittent symptoms are one of the most difficult issues when it comes more into troubleshooting as they relate to symptoms which intermittently occur. With intermittent symptoms, this can often be the result of components that are sensitive in electronics. What can be used to cool down specific spots on a circuit board is compressed air. Also, a heat gun can be used to raise the temperatures as troubleshooting of electronic systems can frequently apply these tools in order for a problem to be reproduced. As it comes to computer programming, race conditions are often lead to intermittent symptoms which can be extremely difficult to reproduce.

MULTIPLE PROBLEMS OF TROUBLESHOOTING

A multiple problem that comes into troubleshooting is isolating a single component failure which causes a reproducible symptom to be straightforward. However, there are many multiple problems that only happen either as a result of multiple failures or just errors. This can be particularly true of fault tolerant systems or those with built-in redundancy. With features that add redundancy, what may also be a subject to failure are a fault deduction and failover to a system. There are even enough different component failures in any system that will take them down.