Don't panic! How to fix 5 common PC emergencies
By Sarah Jacobsson Purewal in PC
World
Your PC may not be as essential to
you as your smartphone, but chances are it’s still pretty damn important. So
it’s completely understandable if your first reaction is to freeze and freak
out when you run into a PC emergency, such as a broken screen,
accidentally-deleted important file, or a virus. But panicking is
counter-productive, because time is often of the essence.
Don’t worry. While you can’t call
9-1-1, here’s what you can do to fix five common PC emergencies.
Broken
laptop screen
A few months ago, I was working on
my MacBook Air next to my French bulldog, Blanka. For some unexplained dog
reason, Blanka suddenly decided he needed to be in my lap, so he jumped
on me—and landed on my laptop’s screen. A laptop screen is no match for a
27-pound Frenchie, so, needless to say, my screen was toast.
First things first: Check to make sure that only your laptop’s screen, and not
something more important (such as the graphics card) has been damaged. If your
screen is visually damaged or cracked, just continue to use your computer
normally to see if any other issues arise.
If there’s no visible damage, but
the screen is acting weird, you can try plugging an external monitor into your
laptop. You will need an output port (HDMI, mini-HDMI, DisplayPort,
mini-DisplayPort, DVI, or VGA) and an external monitor or TV to do this, as
well as the correct cable. Some laptops also have an external display mode that
you will need to activate, usually via Function keys. If your laptop’s output
looks fine on the external display, you likely have a simple screen issue and
not something more serious.
Fix it: The good news about a broken screen is that you don’t need
to fix it right away. If your screen has a hairline crack along the edge, you
can continue to use your laptop as usual, though it’s probably a good idea to
avoid moving it, closing it, or traveling with it, because any pressure on the
screen can cause the crack to get bigger. If you have an external monitor on
hand, you can simply use your laptop as a desktop for the time being.
Connect your laptop to an external
monitor to ensure it’s truly the screen that’s broken and not something deeper.
If you do want to fix your
screen, you have two options: You can do it yourself, or you can have it repaired by
a third-party repair shop (or, if you purchased an extended, accidental
damage-covering warranty, by the manufacturer). A DIY repair on a basic laptop
screen is simpler than you think, but if you have a specialized laptop such as
an Ultrabook, a two-in-one, or a MacBook, it’s better to see an expert.
Ultra-thin screens, such as those found on Ultrabooks and MacBook Airs, can be
especially tricky to replace, and sometimes aren’t even worth replacing at all.
Deleted
an important file
There are two types of “important”
files: The ones that are important to you, such as the pictures from
your teen’s high-school graduation, and the ones that are important to your
computer, such as system files. Hopefully you don’t make a habit of
snooping around your PC’s root folders and indiscriminately deleting files, but
critical files can sometimes be deleted or corrupted by system crashes,
malware, or overzealous antivirus programs.
First things first: If you accidentally hit delete on an important photo or
document, don’t panic. First, see if you can find it—open up Windows Explorer
and type the file name into the search box in the upper right corner. It’s
possible you didn’t delete the file at all, but just moved it to a different
folder with some inadvertent mouse action.
If you can’t find it in a search,
open up your Recycle Bin, which is located on your desktop, and look for the
file. If there are a lot of files in the Recycle Bin, right-click inside the
window, hover over Sort by and click Date Deleted. The most
recently deleted files will appear at the top of the window.
If that doesn’t work, try using a
deleted-file recovery tool like the superb Recuva to reclaim your lost data. (Recuva’s on PCWorld’s list of the 22 free programs new PCs need for a reason.)
If your file is not in the Recycle
Bin and can’t be found by Recuva, you may be able to restore it
easily from a backup. Windows 7 automatically creates “previous versions”
of your files, but in Windows 8 you will have to manually turn on a feature
called File History
in order for this to happen. In Windows 7, open Windows Explorer and find the
folder that contained the file. Right-click on the folder and click Restore
previous. You’ll see a list of folder backups by date modified. Click on a
backup that was created before you remember deleting the file, and click
Restore…
In Windows 8, you can recover
deleted files by opening the File History menu and clicking Restore
personal files.
Fix it: If you can’t find your deleted file or easily restore it
from Windows’ File History, you’re still not completely out of luck. If you
regularly back up your computer, you can try looking for the file on your
backup drive—and if your backup “drive” is a cloud service, such as Dropbox,
Copy, or OneDrive, you may be able to recover your file from the cloud
service’s website.
If you don’t regularly back up your
computer, shame on you.
But now is the time to try a professional fix: You can either use recovery
software, which will deep-scan your drives for the deleted file, or you can go
to an expensive, but very effective, data recovery service such as DriveSavers.
If the deleted file is not a
personal file, but a critical system file, you will probably need to repair your PC with a System Restore, or possibly even completely reinstall Windows.
Spilled
something on your stuff
It happens to everyone – you’re
drinking at your desk, when all of a sudden whoops! There’s Diet Coke
all over your keyboard.
First things first: Liquid damages electronics because things in the liquid,
such as salts and minerals, conduct electricity (technically, spilling pure
water on your computer would be perfectly safe). If your computer or component
is turned on when you spill something on it, that random, free-flowing
electricity conduction can cause the circuits to short. So the first thing you
need to do, before you do anything else, is turn off your computer as
fast as possible—unplug it and remove the battery (if applicable) pronto. The
faster you can get it into a powerless state, the better.
Fix it: Once your computer is turned off, remove all cables,
components, media cards, and swappable drives and turn it upside-down. If it’s
a laptop, you’ll want to try to avoid getting liquid near the screen; if it’s a
desktop, you’ll probably want to turn it on its side rather than completely
upside-down. Turn the computer toward the spill (i.e. if you spilled something
on the left side of your keyboard, lay it on its left side). You can mop up any
liquid on the outside of the PC with a lint-free cloth.
Disassemble your PC as much as
possible if you’ve spilled liquid inside it—after disconnecting it from
power, of course.
After most of the liquid has
drained, you should try to disassemble the PC as much as you are able. If you
can completely take it apart, great. If you can’t, don’t hurt yourself, but you
should probably try to at least pry the keys off of a keyboard to get all the
liquid out. If you spilled anything other than water, it’s a good idea to clean
your PC with some circuit cleaner, as many drinks are sticky and corrosive and
will wreak havoc on your PC’s insides.
Once your PC is powerless,
disassembled, and cleaned…leave it there and wait. Wait for as long as you
possibly can, and then wait for another two days (ideally, at least a week).
Then, pray to the PC gods that you were just quick enough, and try turning it
on.
No
Internet access
There’s nothing quite like sitting
down at your computer to watch cute puppy videos, only to discover that your
Internet is down. Aside from cursing your ISP, here’s what you can do if you
find yourself in an Internet desert.
First things first: There are three or four possible sources of your Internet
woes, depending on what type of connection (wired or wireless) you have. Source
#1 is your ISP. There could be a local, regional, or national outage. Source #2
is your modem, which could be malfunctioning. Source #3 is your wireless
router, which could also be malfunctioning. And Source #4 is your computer.
Fix it: To check if your ISP is having an outage, go to DownDetector (on your phone, since you don’t have Internet access) and
click on your provider. DownDetector is a crowd-sourced website that lets users
report issues with their Internet service. Their Live Outage Map
will show you a heat map of where most of the reports are coming from. If your
area is covered in red, you could be experiencing an outage. There’s not much
you can do here, except call your ISP and ask them to refund you for the outage
time.
If there’s no outage—or you can’t
access DownDetector in some way—you should go ahead and check your modem and
router. First, unplug the router, then, unplug the modem. Wait at least 30
seconds, and plug the modem back in. Wait another 30 seconds and plug the
router back in. Restart (or boot up) your PC. You should now have Internet! If
you don’t, check to see whether the issue is your router by plugging your PC
directly into the modem using an ethernet cable. If you have Internet after
this step, your router is the problem.
If you do not have Internet
after this step, your modem could be the problem, or your ethernet cable
itself. Try a different ethernet cable if you have one handy.
If everything thus far works fine,
the problem could be with your PC. The easiest way to test this is to try to connect
to the Internet with another device—a PC, phone, or tablet. If you can, then
your PC is the problem. Check to make sure your network adapter is turned on by
going to Control Panel > Device Manager > Network adapters.
The
entire article with graphics can be found at: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2920235/dont-panic-how-to-fix-5-common-pc-emergencies.html
Right-click your network adapter and
click Enable if it’s disabled. Otherwise, click Properties and
check the device status (it should say “This device is working properly”). If
the device is not working properly, you may need to update its driver.
Click the Driver tab and click Update Driver….
If you’re using Wi-Fi, check to make
sure your Wi-Fi is turned on—some laptops have a switch or a Function key that
toggles the Wi-Fi on and off.
You
got a virus
Maybe you let your antivirus
subscription lapse, maybe you clicked on a sketchy pop-up, maybe you downloaded
something you shouldn’t have—no judgment. But no matter how you ended up with
it, you now have a virus and it’s quickly eating up your PC.
First things first: Determine whether you might have a virus. Viruses and
malware can present themselves in many ways. You may be seeing unexplained
pop-up ads, your PC may be running extremely slowly, or maybe your PC is
crashing constantly. Unless you have an antivirus program that alerts you to a
virus’ presence, it’s not easy to tell whether you have one or whether you just
have a faulty motherboard (or some other hardware issue), but it’s better to be
safe than sorry.
Before you do anything else,
disconnect from the Internet. Viruses love the Internet, and the last thing you
need is for it to get some sort of killer update from its host that bricks your
PC or turns it into a zombie.
Fix it: Restart your PC in Safe Mode. To boot into Safe Mode,
restart your computer and press the F8 key repeatedly—don’t just hold it
down continuously—until you see the Advanced Boot Options menu. Use the arrow
keys to choose Safe Mode with Networking and press Enter.
Once you’re in Safe Mode, use an antivirus
program and an antimalware program to run some scans. You’ll want to install a
new antivirus program even if you already have one on your PC, because the old
antivirus program clearly missed something. You can do this by loading the
program on a flash drive and installing it from there so you don’t need to
reconnect your PC to the Internet. In addition to an antivirus scan, you should
also run an antimalware (on-demand) scan with MalwareBytes just to be sure.
Hopefully, the antivirus/antimalware
programs will be able to root out the virus and fix it. But if they don’t
work—or if they disappear or crash when you try to run them (because some
viruses are damn smart, and know when programs are designed to destroy
them)—you may need to reinstall Windows, and restore your files and settings
from that that backup you
made earlier.
There’s one kind of virus you might
not be able to fix this way, and that’s ransomware. Find out how to remove ransomware,
and remember: If you suspect you might have ransomware, the first thing you
need to do is disconnect and disable any automatic cloud syncing services you
have set up. Because the last thing you want is for ransomware to lock down
your cloud folder and sync itself onto all of your other devices.
No comments:
Post a Comment