Become a Computer Expert in 15 Minutes! This could be the most important article you’ve read in a long time. I’m going to explain to you what computer experts do not want you to know.
Well actually it’s the exact opposite, they probably really WISH you knew all this because it would make their lives easier doing tech support. Basically, this article is going to teach you the art of how to fix any computer problem even if you have no idea how, and even if you are not a ‘computer person. And I do urge you to stick around because the stuff I’m going to teach you will be incredibly useful literally for the rest of your life.
Become a Computer Expert in 15 Minutes
The first thing which is really important to understand is computer experts and tech support,, techy people, are not wizards, and they don’t know everything. We simply google search anything we don’t know how to fix, which is honestly MOST things. However, I would argue that what makes someone a good computer problem solver is really down to knowing WHAT to search for.
To someone who’s a “computer expert”, this type of skill is probably pretty intuitive. And yes I would consider google searching a skill, and we’ll get into why, and you’ll probably see there’s a little bit more to it. They might not even be able to articulate their process of finding solutions.
But I will, that’s what this article is about. I’ll do my best to lay it all out step by step.
Let’s continue on. So getting into the meat and bones. Any time you have a computer problem, software problem, your device is acting weird, no matter what electronic it is, the first thing you should try EVERY time, no matter what kind of computer or tech problem you’re having, is to simply turn the thing off and on again. This will fix the problem 90% of the time. It does not matter what the device is, whether a TV, computer, or phone. Also if necessary, you can try turning off and then unplugging the thing too. Even at the software level, the same idea applies where you can try just closing and re-opening the program, and then if that doesn’t work, then you can try rebooting the whole computer.
Alright so if you already tried turning the thing off and on again, the next step in our process is to start googling. If you come across a problem, whether it’s an error message or just a weird bug, chances are you are not the first person to experience it. But again, pay attention because this is more of an art than a science, and what you should actually search for will depend on the type of problem.
The first type of problem is an error message. And while they can sometimes seem scary if you don’t know what it means, believe it or not, getting an error message is sometimes the BEST case, because it can often lead you directly to the solution. If there’s an error message that only exists for one specific problem, you can find out exactly what that is and someone knows how to possibly solve it.
So here’s how to formulate a good google search to find the solution to an error message of some kind. Look at the actual text of the error message, and look for what looks like an error code and take note of it. There might not always be one, but basically, an error code is there assuming you’ll go and look up what it means. It’s not like you have to know what every single error code means, no one does. Other times if there’s no actual error code, the rest of the error message itself might describe the problem.
It doesn’t matter if you have no idea what the error means, just copy it all down for reference. Now if you’re feeling lucky, the first thing to try is just doing a search for the name of the software and the error code, if there is one, or just the text of the error message. Sometimes, you’ll get lucky you’ll right away see results describing your exact issue and some possible solutions.
Many other times though, the error message might not be very specific or might be a more general error message that can occur for any number of reasons.
If that’s the case, there’s a third thing you’ll need to add to your search, which I can best describe as the “conditions surrounding” the error. For example, were you trying to do something in particular when the error occurred, such as when clicking a particular button in the software? Add that to the search, like “when clicking X” or “when changing Z” or whatever.
So the whole search query would be the name of the software, the error text, and ‘when doing thing’. Also alternatively, do you notice the error occurs when some other thing is happening? You could add a phrase like, “when Y feature is enabled” or “during loading of Z”. Essentially you just try a bunch of stuff and when you notice the results start to get closer to what you’re looking for and start to make a little bit more sense, further tweak the search to get closer and closer until you start to see things talking about your exact problem and possible solutions. To put these things together, let’s do a couple examples.
First, let’s say you want to export a document from Microsoft word as a PDF file, but it spits out some error when you try to do so. You could try searching something like “MS word error exporting PDF”, and also try one where you paste some of the text of the error message. It doesn’t matter what the error message is. For a very general example, let’s say you’re using a made-up program, Program Z, and you’re trying to delete an item in the program, but it won’t do it and a Red X appears at the bottom of the program. Clearly, something is wrong, but it’s not really an error message, it’s just an X that shows up. But you can still google something like, “Program Z Red X when deleting item”.
Now obviously these examples won’t cover every possible scenario, so you will need to do a bit of trial and error yourself to get good results. But I do have some general tips. Try to focus on keywords, not writing out a whole question like you’re talking to a person. It will likely take several tries where you may have to rephrase the problem, or use synonyms. In the earlier example, instead of using “exporting pdf”, try “saving pdf”, or maybe “converting to pdf” would be more appropriate depending on what you’re doing. Also, keep track of results and pages you come across that seem a bit helpful or insightful, even if it doesn’t directly solve the issue.
You can literally just drag the URL onto your desktop if you need to come back to it. I do this all the time when I’m searching a whole bunch of stuff and I have a million tabs open, and I found a page that’s like “OK this isn’t exactly what I’m looking for, but I definitely want to come back to this, it might be useful.” Also, you should use the search results themselves as a kind of feedback on how to improve your search query.
For example, if you’re getting results that are all over the place talking about all sorts of unrelated problems, you should be more specific by adding more keywords or changing them up. If the results are talking about problems that are sort of tangentially related but not exactly what your problem is, try looking for clues or possible related keywords you can use to refine your search. There have been plenty of times where I found a page that doesn’t have a solution to my problem, but it did give the name of the problem I didn’t know had a name, which I can then use to search for sites specifically talking about that problem.
Let me try to even more generally simplify this step to its bare basics. With your google search, try to include keywords about the following: The name of the program or device having the problem. Next, the unexpected behavior, such as “error”, or “freezing”, “all fonts turn into papyrus”, whatever, just try to describe it using a few keywords. And third, what action seems to trigger the problem: Such as when saving, when changing a setting, clicking a certain button, etc.
As a side note, I notice a lot of people get overwhelmed when seeing an error message they don’t understand. Here’s an important piece of advice, even if you have no idea what an error means, just pretend you do and search it anyway. Don’t assume just because you don’t know what is causing the problem means you can’t fix it. There have been so many times I fixed a problem and at the end said, “well I have no idea why that worked but it did”. And these tips don’t just apply to software errors, the same principles apply to any device.
For example, if your TV’s sound mysteriously stops working (which actually happened to me once), search “Brand X TV no sound”, and also try a separate search being more specific with the model number. In this case, it’s worth trying both, with and without the specific model number, because occasionally multiple models from the same brand have similar problems. And sometimes a solution that works for one model of a device may work on any other. You can also try being even more specific given the situation, like if you’re using a soundbar or surround sound system, including that, such as “Brand X Model Z no sound external speakers” or “soundbar”, and try a variety of similar ideas.
Alright now that you are a master of Google-fu, the third and final part of this article is the art of troubleshooting through trial and error, which is another invaluable skill. Sometimes a computer or tech problem will be an easy fix, other times not. You might do some searching and find several possible solutions to try. Other times, you just have to brute force it and figure it out yourself, but there is still a process to follow and make it easier. For the hardest, most vague and frustrating computer problems, this is my approach. Start out with zero assumptions, and keep taking a step back (metaphorically) until you can identify where the problem starts and stops, then narrow it down again. But what the heck do I mean by that?
Let me explain. Let’s say for example my web browser seems really slow on my laptop which is on Wi-Fi, like the pages barely load if at all, and there’s obviously a problem, but there are no error messages, it could be anything. First I would mentally take a step back and try to figure out if this problem is isolated to just the browser, the computer, the whole network, or what. So I try a different web browser, and the problem is still there, so OK it’s at least happening to the whole computer. But again we can’t assume it’s just that computer, so take another step back and see if my other computers have the same problem. When I try my other laptop and phone, they also have the same problem, but when I try my desktop it’s completely fine. Now we’re getting somewhere, so I want to think what do all the problematic devices have in common, and how are they different from the one that works?
Well my desktop is a wired internet connection, but the other things I was trying are all on WiFi. So that really narrows it down to either the router or the Wi-Fi signal itself is the issue. So I’d first try restarting the router and if that fixes it, great. If not, assuming I didn’t change any recent router settings or anything that could change the behavior of it, now I still narrowed down the ‘scope’ of the problem to the WiFi connection itself. I mean there’s always the possibility that the router is broken, but I’m looking at the most likely scenario here. At this point, once I think I’ve narrowed it down as much as I can, I would just try whatever you can think of. Maybe it’s a poor signal, so try moving the devices closer.
Maybe it’s interference, so try a different wifi channel, wait until a different time of the day maybe when not as many neighbors are using it, or try using the 5 GHz band instead of 2.4 GHz if your device supports it. Obviously, with super vague problems like this example, the final step of “try whatever you can think of” is going to heavily depend on your knowledge of the device. BUT don’t worry if you can’t figure it out exactly. Even if you get completely stumped and need to get support from a professional or someone who knows a little bit more, you will still have collected a ton of useful info to save time. Chances are, the tech person will also try a bunch of stuff themselves, so if you can show them how you narrowed it down.
Now that was an example with physical devices, but this process of “stepping back” to narrow it down can be applied at the software level too. For example, if a program is misbehaving, try opening up a different document and see if it keeps doing it. Maybe there’s a setting that’s applied to that document that’s causing the issue. Essentially, if you can, you want to find the ‘border’ of the problem — the edge of it, or anything that causes the problem to stop and start, which will point you towards the true cause. This is why a lot of times if you are getting help from tech support, they may ask you to try a whole bunch of different stuff. Don’t get frustrated if everything they suggest doesn’t seem to do anything, because it may be greatly narrowing down the potential causes. So knowing these skills, you should hopefully much more equipped to take on tech problems you would never have even attempted before.
To summarize, remember the three major steps. First, turn it off and on again, seriously. Second, do a google search describing the problem using the techniques I described. And third if applicable, do some trial and error troubleshooting to narrow down where the problem exists. Keep in mind, in some cases, you might actually have to do step 3 to narrow down the problem enough to even start searching for it, so it’s a little bit play by ear. But remember, you don’t have to solve every single problem yourself, and don’t worry if the next time you try this you can’t find a solution, because you might have just come across a really tough one that even the most knowledgeable techy couldn’t solve.
Just always at least TRY, because you will slowly build up knowledge and be able to solve even more and more problems as you go just from experience.
Originally published at https://www.computerever.com on May 25, 2021.
