Fault-finding and troubleshooting PC Motherboards

All you ever wanted to know about fault finding, troubleshooting and mitigating PC motherboard problems.

What you’ll learn:
In this course students will learn how to fault-find and troubleshoot common PC motherboard problems such as faulty hardware (e.g. such as motherboards, RAM and storage)
How to use freely available software tools to test and validate a system
How to select the most suitable components and layouts for specific applications
How to design systems to minimise problems going forward.

Requirements
Access to a PC – faulty or not! i’m also assuming a basic knowledge of computer operating systems such as windows plus basic hardware such as keyboards ad mice.
A small amount of spare hardware and components – including PSU, motherboard switches, spare CR2032 cells.

Description
A course designed for analysts, technicians and enthusiasts looking for practical, hands on skills and techniques to assist with troubleshooting and diagnostics of PC motherboards and associated technology.

The pareto principle (the 80:20 ‘rule’) is very clearly demonstrated in PC motherboard fault finding. 80% of faults can be diagnosed using simple, easily available software tools. This course explains what those tools are, how to find them and use them. Likewise most of those problems can be mitigated using common techniques that the course details as well. Finally the course will describe what the ‘other’ 20% of problems are and the tools required to find them (although it will not go into the detail of how to resolve them).

The course is divided into 3 sections – the first section is a technical review of the essential parts of a typical PC motherboard, the second section provides practical troubleshooting techniques based around solving common problems encountered by users, the third section is a collection of screencasts showing you how to use common diagnostic tools such as CPU-Z, Hardinfo, Memtest86 and the Gnome Disk Utility.

Who this course is for
Help desk and service desk analysts looking to move to more technical, hands on roles
Existing technical support staff looking for alternative tools and information
Enthusiasts lookiing for tools and techniques to help them solve hardware problems
Students looking for supporting material to help them pass hardware certification exams