Help! My PC's Not Working!

When your computer locks up, blindly banging on the keyboard is not the way to get it working again. Here's the WebNovice guide to getting your computer working after it crashes.

By Joe Ebner

It will happen to you sooner or later -- if not already. Your PC becomes hopelessly locked up refusing to respond to your keyboard or mouse commands. Now your stumped. The salesman mentioned nothing about this. And, the manuals you received with the computer don't say anything about it either. What are you supposed to do in a situation like this?

Don't try calling technical support. Even if you do get through you'll end up being on hold for ages. Besides, most PC manufacturers and retailers are starting to charge you for online support. Check the company's Web site? How are you going to do that when your PC is out for the count? (Like calling the phone company when the phone is out. This is cool!)

By the way, Mr. Gates, what does "Explorer found an error in wxyzx85.dll and will be shut down" mean anyway? The guy who comes up with a computer operating system that actually tells you what is going on inside the box when you run into trouble will clean Mr. Gate's clock real good. I mean, you guys can't figure out why you can't sell more PCs? Sheesh! Give me a break. Well, other than the "will be shut down" part. I understand that. It means that all the work I have just done in the last hour is down the tubes. I'm screwed. Even if I get the thing working again I can look forward to another hour of getting my work back into the stupid machine. Oh yea! That part I get real good!

Getting back to our problem, though, what exactly can a person do when he runs into this problem. (And, you will, believe me.)

First thing to remember: Most programs today have an "AUTOSAVE" feature, which means the program will automatically save your work to disk while you're working on it. You can set the amount of time that expires between saves. Look for this feature on any programs you use and be sure to enable it. If you can, set the time interval for 5 minutes or so. That way when something goes goofy with your system you don't loose any more than a few minutes work. This alone could save your butt in the future.

Is your computer "busy?" If your PC stops responding to your input just stop for a few seconds and check things out. Look on the machine's front panel. Most have a small light that illuminates when the hard disk is working. (It should be labeled "HDD" or something like that.) Sometimes the computer is busy reading or writing to the disk and will return to your commands when it's finished. Which is another good reason to just keep your hands off the mouse and keyboard. If you start blindly clicking away at buttons, or typing on the keyboard, the computer will execute whatever you have done in the order in which you did it. Next thing you know, you're really in a mess. Just hang on a few seconds until the computer catches up.

If your PC doesn't have a HDD light on the panel, you might also listen for disk activity. Most hard disks are far from being silent while their operating. If you hear clicking noises coming from the box, it's more than likely the hard disk thrashing about. (If you hear a grinding noise, forget about doing anything. The disk is toast.)

ATTENTION!

You can do a little test on your computer to see if it's going to respond. Try getting its attention by pressing the "escape" key a few times. It's located at the top left of your keyboard. If you still don't have the machine's attention, try holding down the "alt" key and pressing the "Esc" key once or twice. (You can also try "ctrl" and "Esc").

Some programs will respond to the "break" key located in the upper right of your keyboard. If not, try holding down the "ctrl" key and then pressing "break".

This is beginning to sound like an act of desperation but, all these key combinations are intended to get the machine's attention so you can get back to the main task you now have - - saving your work before the crash becomes fatal and you loose what you have done forever.

Many years ago I knew a guy who raised and trained horses on a small farm he owned. I remember his remarks concerning the intelligence of these animals which, according to him, was quite limited. He sometimes had trouble getting his horses to pay attention and, discovered a novel way of making them take note of what was going on. He bopped them in the forehead with a board. He swore that it worked every time. (This was a long time ago -- before animal "rights" and such.)

That's what these keys do. They hit your computer over the head to get its attention and stop whatever it is doing. (I hope I don't offend any "computer rights" people out there. I wonder if computers -- or horses for that matter -- are aware that they are computers, or horses, or whatever.)

Admit Defeat

Dumb thing still won't respond to your commands? Well, I hate to tell you this pal, but your computer has experienced what is commonly known as a "crash". It's hopelessly confused and unable to cope.

The key combinations mentioned earlier are your safety net of sorts. If the machine would have come back to life after trying any of those, you would have been able to save your work. Now, I'm afraid, you're going to have to re-boot the computer -- which means you will loose any work you have not saved to disk. You've experienced a disaster. Now you must re-group and start over.

PCs running OS/2, Windows 95/NT, and Macs all have a shutdown menu item you must select before you shut the computer off. These are to prevent any stray files from getting mixed up on your hard disk and causing problems later on. Windows 3.1 asks you to exit Windows before you shut down. DOS doesn't have a shut down function.

Run the proper shutdown function if you can. If not, you're going to need to do one of three things:

Do the "three finger salute" by pressing and holding down both the "ctrl" and the "alt" keys -- and at the same time, pressing the "delete" key. (Mac users press "alt", "command", and "delete".) This performs what is called a "warm boot". The computer will reboot from the very beginning and start over. Anything you had in RAM that you were working on is dumped -- lost -- gone -- forever. You will need to do the work over again.

Or, press the "reset" button if you have one on the front panel of your computer's main box. This will essentially do the same thing as ctrl-alt-delete.

Or, shut the dumb thing off by pressing the on-off switch on the front panel to the off position. Leave it off for 10 or so seconds before switching it back on.

Either of these three will usually clear up any errant behavior from your computer. Usually, but not always. Sometimes you can experience the same sort of problem later on. In instances like this it's a good idea to note what programs you had running at the time the problem cropped up. You may need this information later on. Here's why.

If the problem persists using the same programs over and over it's a good indication one or more files related to those programs are corrupt. (Really messed up.) The corrupt file is probably stored on you hard disk and loads every time you run the program(s) associated with it.

The only solution -- re- install the offending software or maybe even the entire operating system. Operating systems like Windows 95/NT make un-installing and re-installing software, as well as Windows 95 itself, fairly easy. You can't just go to the folders where the program files are stored and delete them. You won't get them all. Most programs installed under Windows 3.1 or Windows 95/NT also place other files right in with the operating system itself. (That's what those DLL files are.) And, unless you understand what these files are it's all but impossible to root them out among the hundreds that are there.

The un-install utility that Windows 95 comes with is a great help in getting these files outa there. Be warned, though, it's not fool proof! Read on and you'll see what I mean. To properly remove installed software under Windows 95 you must use the Add/Remove Software utility. You'll find it in Control Panel.

To totally get rid of all the old stuff, select the "Remove Programs" and click on the name of the program you wish to have dumped. Windows 95 will do the rest -- or so you're lead to believe. Sometimes a dialog box will pop up warning you that deleting a file will affect other programs in your system. BELIEVE IT!

I know this from personal experience. I've had to re-load lots of stuff because I figured Windows was smart enough to know what it was doing. WRONG! Be careful here. If Windows questions you about a file to remove play it safe for now and let it ride. Chances are you will get rid of the offending file by overwriting it when you re-install the program. The alternative is that you may end up having to re-install Windows itself -- a time consuming task to say the least.

After you zap the program using the Windows Add/Remove Programs utility you're ready to re-install the program. Just follow the directions for installation as if you were putting the program in for the first time. (You did save the documentation that came with the program, didn't you?)

Re-boot your computer after the installation is complete and try out the offending program again under the same conditions that caused the crash. If everything is working as it should, you solved the problem. If not, you may need to go back and re-install Windows again do dump the offending file(s). That's it. Your PC should now be working like a fine Swiss watch -- ticking away merrily.