Difference Between Diagnosing and Troubleshooting in Computers

Diagnosing vs Troubleshooting

Fixing computers is infinitely more bothersome than just using it. Computer experts use different terms to describe what they do to fix it; including diagnosing and troubleshooting. In most cases, people use these terms interchangeably to mean fixing a malfunctioning computer. Actually, diagnosing a computer needs to happen before you can proceed to troubleshooting in order to determine where to look for the problem.

The act of diagnosing a computer involves observing how it functions to find out the exact problem. It usually involves replicating the same exact activities the user did prior to the problem occurring. The goal in diagnosing a computer is to isolate the problem to a specific subsystem of the computer. It can either be in the power supply, motherboard, storage media, graphics system, and the like. Once the diagnosis is made and the problem is isolated, it is then where troubleshooting begins.

Each system in a computer is composed of many parts. Troubleshooting it is a lot more sensible because troubleshooting is a systematic process where each component that is possibly faulty would be checked to see whether it is the one causing problems or not.

In troubleshooting a computer, the first and foremost step is to make sure that all the connectors are clean and are connected properly. This is a very common problem that is quite easy to address and doesn’t cost anything. From there, each suspect component needs to be checked. The easiest way to check whether the part is the one that is causing problems is to replace it with a part that is known to be good. If the problem disappears, then that part is the culprit of the problem.

With computers, it does not make much sense to repair damage parts like memory modules, and graphics cards. It is much easier and probably even cheaper to just buy a replacement part rather than to have it repaired. The key part is diagnosing the problem properly so that you can troubleshoot the computer and identify the problematic component; doing it incorrectly can lead to unnecessary purchases that do not replace the malfunctioning part. It is much better to leave this task to a professional if you do not have a lot of knowledge about it.

Summary:

1.Diagnosing is a precursor to troubleshooting
2.Diagnosing is an attempt at finding the problem by looking at the symptoms while troubleshooting attempts a fix via a systematic check of parts

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