Tom is the owner of Computer Repairs Bedford and has over 20 years of experience fixing computers and giving IT support.

Computers have been a part of our day to day lives for quite some time now but still when they crash we go ballistic and most of the time we don’t know what to do and end up calling a repair shop or our trustworthy IT man. In this article I’ll list some of the most common computer issues and a quick fix for them.

Before you continue reading this article is for computer users little to intermediate experience, if you are computer savvy you will find some of the problems listed here stupid so to save you from wasting your time, stop reading now if you are a computer geek like me.

Loss of power or no power at all

How many times you were chatting away on MSN or navigating through the web and all of sudden your computer dies away. First of all don’t panic then check to see if the lights are still on in your house. Now check the power lead if it wasn’t power cut and the lights on your power lead aren’t on it might have burned and you will need to buy a new one.

If the lights on your power lead are on check the power light on your computer if they are off check the cable connection sometimes while cleaning you accidentally touched causing it to be badly connected to your computer which in turned caused the loss of power.

Laptop users also need to be aware of their battery life, avoid keeping it plugged in all the time. Use your batteries till they are running out and then plug it in to recharge. The less you live your laptop plugged in the power supply the longer your batteries will live.

Software not responding

This is a very common issue especially if you use Windows. When software’s stop responding the first thing to do is give it a couple of seconds to see if goes back to normal if not hit CTRL+ALT+DEL all at once. You will taken to windows starting screen once there select “Task Manager”.

You will be taken back to your desktop with the Task Manager’s dialogue box open, select the program that is not responding and click on “end task”. This will close the program allowing you to run it again.

System freezing or hanging on start-up

Freezing or Handing is a term used to describe when an Operating System (OS) is running or loading and all of a sudden stop. Again this is a very common problem faced by Windows users it can happen due to a series of causes. Missing or damaged system files (ex: MBR boot file).

Considering that you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7 by now both come with System Recovery Options on their installation discs. If your computer did not come with an installation disc you will have to restart it and boot into the Advanced Boot Options screen.

Select repair your computer and press enter, follow the instruction till you reach the dialogue box where you can select start up repair and viola. Not that confident in doing this by yourself? Give your computer repair guy a call then.

Viruses and Spywares

Two distinct Internet threats that are a pain to deal with but that can be easily avoid these days. The majority of anti-viruses, paid or freeware are pretty effective in protecting your computer against these threats.

In case on of those breached your security don’t panic, check to see if your anti-virus is updated to its latest version if not, do so and get it to scan your computer in 99% of the cases it will detect the problem and remove it.

To avoid the some problem from happening again schedule periodical scan on your anti-virus and make you keep it up to date with the latest version. Don’t be lazy when you see the message that your anti-virus needs to be updated by leaving it for later.

From my experience as an IT guy for the past 20 years these are the most common problem my costumers encounter and as you can in most cases you can fix them yourselves.

About the Author

Tom is the owner of Computer Repairs Bedford and has over 20 years of experience fixing computers and giving IT support.