October 7, 2025 • 24 mins
A dead PC at the worst moment is a gut punch—unless you have a roadmap. We walk through the exact thinking that turns “no lights, no fans, no display” into a calm, step‑by‑step recovery, starting where every system truly begins: firmware. BIOS and UEFI aren’t trivia; they decide how your machine discovers drives, validates bootloaders, and applies security like Secure Boot and TPM. That’s why a simple post‑update check of boot order, storage mode, and firmware toggles can rescue a lab full of “no boot device” errors in minutes.
From there, we get brutally honest about power. PSUs age, rails sag, and idle tests lie. You’ll learn the outside‑in “power ladder,” why a line‑interactive UPS prevents ghost errors, and how unstable XMP profiles masquerade as OS problems. We demystify boot and drive failures—wrong boot entries, NVMe lane conflicts, cloning driver mismatches—and show how SMART data, free space, cooling, and firmware updates revive sluggish SSDs. Then we cut through RAID mythology: 0 for speed, 1 for uptime, 5 for read‑heavy with risk, 6 for double‑parity safety, and 10 for fast resilience. And we repeat the rule that saves careers: RAID is not backup. Verify restores, keep copies offsite or offline, and schedule tests before disaster strikes.
Video issues get the practical treatment too. No display? Check inputs and connect to the discrete GPU, not the motherboard. Blurry or artifacting under load? Validate refresh rates, cables, thermals, and PSU capacity. We close with a field checklist and a case study where a quality PSU upgrade stabilized 3D renders instantly—proof that systems thinking beats screen-chasing every time. If you want a technician’s mindset—evidence over assumptions, one variable at a time—this guide will sharpen your process and speed your fixes.
If this helped you think like a tech, follow the show, share it with a teammate who’s on call this week, and leave a quick review so more builders and troubleshooters can find it.
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Art By Sarah/Desmond
Music by Joakim Karud
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Juan Rodriguez can be reached at
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:28):
And welcome to Technology Tap.
I'm Professor Jay Rollins inthis episode troubleshooting PC
Hardware.
Let's tap in the video.
(01:10):
You got your coffee, yourproject, and your confidence.
You hit the power button, andboom, nothing.
No lights, no fans, no display.
Just a dead system looking backat you.
Or maybe it boots, but thescreen goes blue, your drives
disappear, or your desktops turninto a break mid-presentation.
(01:30):
That's the moment that separatesthe user from the technician
because you know where to start.
Today we're going to break downthe art and science of
troubleshooting PC hardware,BIOS, and UEFI fundamentals,
power and disk diagnostics, andhow to track down those sneaky
video issues that even make prosscratch their heads.
(01:53):
By the end, you have a clearroadmap, a checklist you can use
in the field, in the class, orat your desk to turn chaos into
calm.
I'm Professor J.
Rod, and this is your crashcourse into thinking like a
tech.
Let's tap in.
When you press the power button,your CPU isn't magically ready
to boot to Windows.
It's actually clueless.
(02:14):
It doesn't know your drives,your fans, your GPU, nothing.
So how does it get started?
Enter firmware, the system'sconductor.
For decades, that was the BIOSbasic input-output system.
It did its job small, 16-bit,minimal features, limited disk
size, but it was built for anearlier era.
Now we have UEFI, the unifiedextendable firmware interface, a
(02:39):
smarter, more secure, and moreflexible approach.
By the way, that's why most PCsare IBM compatible, is because
Compaq was one of the firstcompanies that reverse
engineered the IBM BIOS.
And that's why you can take anycomputer and switch parts on it.
Before you couldn't do that.
(03:00):
BIOS versus UEM UEFI.
BIOS uses a master boot record,which caps drive sizes and
partitions.
UEFI uses GPT GUID partitiontable, which supports massive
disk, secure boot, and fastbooth times.
Think of BIOS as a stick shipfrom the 80s, reliable but
(03:21):
limited.
UEFI is the modern electricvehicle.
More controls, more efficiency,more intelligence.
When a BIOS or UEFI updatefinishes, I always do three
things.
One, check boot order.
If your OS drive is in first,you'll get no boot device found.
Two, check storage mode.
(03:43):
Windows installs in AHCI, whichwon't boot in RAID mode.
Check secure boot.
If you're using unsigned loadersor dual booting, like Linux,
secure boot can block you.
True story, after UEFI rollout,half the lab machine suddenly
failed to boot.
The fix, convert their disk fromMBR to GPT and repair the boot
(04:04):
entries.
10 minutes later, all systemscreen lit.
UEFI can disable front USBports.
Great for security and confusingfor text.
Fan monitoring, a lifesaver.
If a system shuts down randomly,check the fan RPMs.
Overheating is a silent killer.
And firmware passwords, set themcarefully and document them.
(04:28):
Lose one and you're reflashingor replacing chips.
Secure boot ensures only trustedbootloaders start, blocking root
kits before the OS even loads.
TPM trusted platform modulestores encryption keys and
provides system integrity.
If one PC fails, secure checkswhile others pass.
(04:50):
Check for tamper firmware orfailed TPM binding.
When all else fails, reset tooptimize default.
Verify time and date, confirmstorage visibility, and always
double check that your IO pumpand CPU fan headers are correct.
Half of all mystery rebootstrace back to something simple
(05:11):
as that.
Power and disc troubleshooting.
Dirty power.
Power supplies age like milk.
Capacitors dry out, rails sag,stability fades.
A line interactive UPS isn't aluxury, it's insurance.
Voltage regulation aloneprevents countless ghost errors.
(05:32):
The power up ladder.
When nothing happens, thinkoutside in.
Check the outlet.
Check the switch.
Reset the 24-pin and 8-pin CPUcables and try a known good PSU
or power supply unit.
If the fan spins but nodisplays, reset the RAM and GPU,
try onboard video, clear theCMOS.
(05:54):
Post beeps or LEDs, decode them.
They're the motherboard's SOS.
And boot loops, often unstablememory profiles.
Disable XMP or Expo, return thedefault and retest.
Boot and drive errors.
No boot device errors, usuallybeans, wrong boot entries,
missing partition, or cableissues.
(06:17):
NVMe not found, check if the M.2shares lane with SATA.
Some boards disable one with theother ones in use.
Blue screens after cloning,that's a driver mismatch.
Safe mode, rollback, done.
Drive performance.
Smart warnings.
Never ignore them.
An SSD slowing down could befull, hot, or updated.
(06:39):
Free space, cooling, andfirmware updates bring them back
to life.
RAID explained.
Alright, let's shift gears toraid.
Redundant array of independentdisc.
RAID is all about trade-offs,speed, fault tolerance, and
capacity.
You can have you cannot have itall, but you can pick what
matters most.
(07:00):
RAID Zero.
RAID Zero splits data across twoor more drives.
The advantage?
Speed.
Multiple drives, read and writetogether like a team.
The downsides, no safety net.
If one drive dies, all your datais gone.
RAID Zero is great for gamers,editors, and scratch discs where
speed matters more than safety.
(07:22):
RAID 1.
RAID 1 duplicates everything ontwo drives.
Loose one, you're still running.
It's simple, reliable, and greatfor small servers, but you lose
50% capacity.
If you have two terabyte drives,you're only ever going to be
using two terabytes.
The other two terabytes are justin case.
(07:44):
Speed isn't the goal, uptimes.
RAID 5 needs at least threedrives.
It stripes data and parity,offering a sweet spot between
protection and performance.
If one drive fails, the arrayrebuilds using parity data.
But parity calculations slow,right?
(08:04):
And if a second drive diesduring rebuilding, you lose
everything.
Use RAID 5 when read performancematters, file servers and
archives, but keep backupsready.
One thing I will tell you aboutthe RAID 5.
On the literature, it withComtea, it will tell you wait
until it's downtime to switchthe other RAID.
To switch the drive.
(08:25):
If one of the drive dies, ComTeawill tell you, oh, wait until
downtime and then switch it.
Don't wait too long.
Because if another drive dies,that's it.
So if it drives on Tuesday, onedrive dies on Tuesday, and they
tell you, oh, wait till Saturdaywhen we're closed to change it.
Don't wait till Saturday.
One, you're gonna experience asignificant performance hit.
(08:46):
Everybody's gonna be asking youwhy is the server so slow.
That's number one.
And two, you're never gonna knowyou never know when the other
one's gonna die.
And if the other one dies, youlose everything.
Lose everything.
Alright, rate six.
Now there's here's the bigbrother, rate six.
RAID six is like RAID 5 with anextra layer of safety.
(09:07):
It stores two sets of parityacross the drives.
That means you can lose twodrives and still recover.
The advantage, high fault tolerhigh fault tolerance.
You can survive double failures,a lifesaver for larger rays.
The disadvantage, performancehits.
Right speeds drops because ofdue parity math, and you lose
two drives worth of capacity.
RAID 6 is perfect forenvironments where uptime is
(09:29):
mission critical.
Think Enterprise, NAS units orlabs with dozens of drives
spinning 24-7.
But remember, more drives meansmore rebuild time.
RAID 6 is safer, not faster.
RAID 10.
RAID 10 combines the best ofboth worlds: the speed of RAID 0
(09:50):
and then the redundancy of RAID1.
You need at least four drives.
Half your space is for mirrors,half for stripes.
It's expensive for blazing fast.
Lose one drive per mirror pairand you're fine.
Database, virtualization host,production server, RAID 10 is
your performance fortress.
But again, you have to lose.
(10:10):
Yes, you could lose two drives,but you have to lose the right
drives.
Right?
Because let's say you have twoA's and two Bs.
If you lose both A's, thenyou're you're done.
Right?
You lose everything.
So you just gotta be carefulwith that.
Alright, so let's recap.
RAID 0 is for speed only, RAID 1is redundancy only, RAID 5 is
(10:34):
speed plus single drive safety,rate 6 is slower rights but
double drive protection.
Rate 10 is speed plus redundancybut costly.
And let me just say this outloud RAID is not backup, it
saves uptimes but not lostfiles.
Backup off sites, off network,and off the clock.
(10:54):
Make sure you do that backup.
I've seen people get in a lot oftrouble not backing up their
stuff.
Case study.
A workstation is keep rebootingduring 3D rendering.
Power draw spiked and the 500watt PSU couldn't handle it.
We swapped it for a quality 750ATX unit, rechecked its rails,
(11:15):
and boom, stable.
The lesson (11:16):
troubleshooting isn't just testing, it's
thinking in systems.
(11:48):
Alright, systems and displaytroubleshooting.
When a system fails, when asystem fails, symptoms lie.
Don't chase errors.
Follow evidence.
Check environments, connections,drivers, temps.
Move from external to internal.
Test one variable at a time.
Dust kills performance.
(12:09):
Clean filters, blow out fans,and replace old thermal paste.
Check for bent CPU pens, solarcapacitors, or scorch marks.
Your eyes are diagnostic toolstoo.
Missing video, no display,verify the monitor input cable
and source.
If you're using a discrete GPU,plug it into its port, not the
(12:31):
motherboard HCMI.
And if post LEDs are lit, followtheir queue.
Memory first, GPU second.
Bad video quality.
Blurry or glitchy video, fix theresolution, refresh rate, or
replace the cable.
Artifacts under load, stresstest the GS the GPU and the PSU.
(12:52):
Projector shutdown, check thefilters and the fan path.
And don't shut off the projectoronce it's done.
Or don't unplug it.
Because it's gonna once you shutup, if you shut off a projector,
those small ones, once you'redone, it's gonna keep blowing.
It's blowing out the hot air.
Let it blow out the hot airbefore you unplug it.
(13:14):
Alright, checklist.
Known good cable, correct input,GPU seeded and powered, files
visible, then OS driver issues.
Laptop test external display.
Alright, today you just you justdidn't learn fixes, you learned
frameworks from BIOS to UEFI,from dirty power to drive
(13:35):
rebuilds, from RAID OS speeds toRAID 6 safety.
You now know how to thinkthrough the chaos.
And now that you know, let's doour questions.
I'm gonna give you fourquestions to test your
knowledge.
Let's see if you can get it.
So the way I do it is I'm gonnaread you the four one question
(13:56):
at a time.
I'll repeat it and then I'llgive you a wait five seconds and
then I'll give you the answer.
All right, here is question one.
After a UEFI firmware update,several live species show no
boot device found.
The NVMe drives appear in theUEFI menu.
Which what should you verifyfirst?
(14:17):
A enable CSM legacy support, Bconvert the disk from GPT to
MBR, C ensure the correct UEFIboot entry is first, or D
disable secure boot.
I'm gonna read the questionagain.
After UEFI firmware update,several labs PCs show no boot
(14:39):
device found.
The NVMe drives appear in theUEFI menu.
What should you verify first?
A enable CSM legacy support, B.
Convert the disk from GPT toMBR.
C ensure the correct UEFI bootentry is first, or D.
(14:59):
Disable security boot.
I'm gonna give you five seconds.
54 3 2 1.
You got the answer?
The answer is C.
The drive is detected, sostorage is fine.
Which means UF UEFI needs theproper boot entry.
Windows boot manager must beprioritized.
(15:22):
So it's C.
Answer C.
Have you got this?
We got three more.
Next.
A desktop intermediately shutsdown during GPU heavy task.
Idle temps are fined.
Which is the most likely cause?
A failing CMOS battery, Binsufficient PSU capacity or
(15:42):
degraded PSU, C incorrectmonitor input selection, or D
MBR corruption on the bootdrive.
I'll read it again.
A desktop intermittently shutsdown during GPU heavy tasks.
Idle temps are fined.
Which is the most likely thecause?
(16:05):
A failing CMOS, B insufficientPSU capacity or degraded PSU, C,
incorrect monitor inputselection, or D MBR corruption
on the boot drive.
So what's happening here?
You're doing something heavy,right?
Let's say CAD and is and it'sshutting off.
(16:26):
Right?
So you know, it's not Cincorrect monitor input
selection.
I mean that's you can rule thatout.
It's not a failing CMOS battery,right?
It's B.
Load-induced shutdowns usuallymeans a failing or oversized
power suppersized power supply.
CMOS and boot issues don't causemid-load failures.
(16:50):
Alright.
Halfway there.
Hope you got two right.
If not, here's your chance foranother two.
Three, a system boots but showsno video when connected to the
discrete GPU.
The motherboard has an HDMIport.
Which steps should you tryfirst?
A replace the PSU.
B move the cable from themotherboard HDMI to the GPU
(17:12):
output.
C convert the disk to MBR or Ddisable the XMP Expo.
I'll read it again.
A system boots but shows novideo when connected to the
discrete GPU.
The motherboard has an HVM port.
Which steps should you tryfirst?
A replace the PSU.
(17:33):
B move the cable from themotherboard HCMI to the GPU
outputs.
C convert the disk to MBR or Ddisabled XMP Expo.
This is an easy one, guys.
This is the answer is B.
Users often plugged into themotherboard's port instead of
the discree GPU always connectto the GPU directly.
Also, I wanna I I wanna take athis is a perfect opportunity to
(17:56):
talk about when CamTIA gives youa question and they end it with
first, like which steps shouldyou try first, right?
What should you do first?
What Camp T is looking for isusually what's the easiest thing
to try, right?
I there's a question that I sawyears ago about a laptop, right?
(18:20):
When you try to power up alaptop or something up with a
laptop, and these are the olderlaptops, not the ones you know
with the battery on the outside.
Remember, we had the laptopswith the battery on the outside,
now they have the batteryinside.
Well, it was like the battery,the laptop won't turn on.
What do you do?
And one of them was you know,take out and put back the
battery, another one was reseatthe ramp, the other one was
(18:43):
unplug all peripherals, right?
I forgot what the fourth onewas.
It's it's the it's the battery.
You take it out, you put it backin.
That's the easiest thing to do.
Compte wants you to start withthe simple stuff first, because
it's what if you know why areyou gonna start doing all this,
you know, taking your computerapart when it's it where it's
(19:04):
just a when it's just a cable.
Right?
So when they when you see thatin the Comtea question, what
should you try first?
Or just the word first.
You know, you try to try to seethat the it's the simple, the
simple task first.
Now, you have to think about itlike this.
It may not be the right answer,right?
(19:26):
I might seed reseed the batteryon the laptop, and it still
might not work.
It might be something else iswrong, right?
It's not asking you how you howyou fix it, it's asking you what
should you do first.
And it always wants you to dothe simple stuff first.
Now it's up to you.
(19:47):
You have to know what the simplestuff is first, but yeah, it's
always it's always gonna ask youto do the the the simple stuff
first.
Alright, last one.
A RAID six array reports adegraded state.
Two drives have failed.
What is the best immediateaction?
A replace both drives and starta rebuild.
(20:11):
B delete the array and recreateit, C convert to RAID 0 for
speed, or D continue using ituntil all drives fail.
I'll read it again.
A RAID 6 array reports adegraded state.
Two drives have failed.
What is the best immediateaction?
A replace both drives and startor rebuild.
(20:34):
B delete the array and recreateit.
C convert to RAID 0 for speed,or D continue using it until all
drives fail.
What's the answer?
I'll give you five seconds.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Alright, the answer is A.
Ray 6 tolerates two drives,fails.
(20:57):
Replace them and rebuild.
Never delete or convert thearray.
You lose parity and data.
But at this time, I yeah, butyou lost two, so you lost
everything.
So I mean you can do a rebuild,but at this point, your whole
thing is hosed, and you have tohopefully you have good backups.
And I'm telling you, like I saidbefore, backups are important.
I've seen people get fired andor almost get fired because of
(21:22):
not having a good plan forbackups.
If you in charge of the backups,if that's your job, if you're
listening to this and and yourjob is part of backing up, check
your backup now.
Most people don't back up.
I my students tell me all thetime that they back up.
I know they don't back up.
I it's it's you know, nowadaysis you know, they make it so
(21:45):
easy for you to back up.
You don't have to back up yourWindows, you don't have to back
up your Word.
That's all on the clock.
All you gotta do is back up yourdocumentation.
That's pretty much what we allback up nowadays, anyway.
Right click on download orright-click on documents, right?
Upload to whatever drive youhave, Google Drive, OneDrive.
I have a Nas drive that I justyou know copy paste to and let
(22:08):
it run overnight when I back up.
You know, yeah.
I remember one time when I wasworking on my dissertation and
my hard drive crashed and I lostevery like my I lost everything.
All my all my dissertationpapers.
But luckily, luckily, I passedall my everything that I wrote,
(22:33):
I passed it through Grammarly tocheck for Gramma.
And I had Grammy Pro and it keptit.
So I had everything there,everything was there.
I didn't care about anythingelse, but the the papers that I
have written, because I had tomake one website and post all my
papers on it, and I didn't havethem.
(22:54):
So though be careful when you uhuh if you're gonna go and save
to like Google Drive.
I think Google Drive, when yousave documents in Google Drive,
it puts everything the samedate.
So if you're one of those peoplelike me who don't save with
exactly the same, you know, likeif I'm writing a paper on
(23:15):
podcasting and I don't save itlike draft one podcasting, then
you're gonna be opening up a lotof Word documents if you upload
to Google Drive because it allputs it the same date.
So all right, troubleshootingisn't guessing, it's pattern
recognition, it's patience, it'spractice.
(23:36):
I'm Professor J-Rod, and thishas been Technology Tap, the
show where we keep tapping intotechnology one circuit at a
time.
Until next time, keep yourcables neat, your backups
verified, and your curiositysharp.
(24:00):
This has been a presentation ofLittle Chacha Productions by
Sabra, music by JoKim.
We're now part of the Pod MacNetwork.
You can follow me at TikTok atProfessorJrod at J R O D, or you
can email me at ProfessorJrod atJrOD at email me.
And welcome to Technology Tap.
I'm Professor Jay Rollins inthis episode troubleshooting PC
Hardware.
Let's tap in the video.
(01:10):
You got your coffee, yourproject, and your confidence.
You hit the power button, andboom, nothing.
No lights, no fans, no display.
Just a dead system looking backat you.
Or maybe it boots, but thescreen goes blue, your drives
disappear, or your desktops turninto a break mid-presentation.
(01:30):
That's the moment that separatesthe user from the technician
because you know where to start.
Today we're going to break downthe art and science of
troubleshooting PC hardware,BIOS, and UEFI fundamentals,
power and disk diagnostics, andhow to track down those sneaky
video issues that even make prosscratch their heads.
(01:53):
By the end, you have a clearroadmap, a checklist you can use
in the field, in the class, orat your desk to turn chaos into
calm.
I'm Professor J.
Rod, and this is your crashcourse into thinking like a
tech.
Let's tap in.
When you press the power button,your CPU isn't magically ready
to boot to Windows.
It's actually clueless.
(02:14):
It doesn't know your drives,your fans, your GPU, nothing.
So how does it get started?
Enter firmware, the system'sconductor.
For decades, that was the BIOSbasic input-output system.
It did its job small, 16-bit,minimal features, limited disk
size, but it was built for anearlier era.
Now we have UEFI, the unifiedextendable firmware interface, a
(02:39):
smarter, more secure, and moreflexible approach.
By the way, that's why most PCsare IBM compatible, is because
Compaq was one of the firstcompanies that reverse
engineered the IBM BIOS.
And that's why you can take anycomputer and switch parts on it.
Before you couldn't do that.
(03:00):
BIOS versus UEM UEFI.
BIOS uses a master boot record,which caps drive sizes and
partitions.
UEFI uses GPT GUID partitiontable, which supports massive
disk, secure boot, and fastbooth times.
Think of BIOS as a stick shipfrom the 80s, reliable but
(03:21):
limited.
UEFI is the modern electricvehicle.
More controls, more efficiency,more intelligence.
When a BIOS or UEFI updatefinishes, I always do three
things.
One, check boot order.
If your OS drive is in first,you'll get no boot device found.
Two, check storage mode.
(03:43):
Windows installs in AHCI, whichwon't boot in RAID mode.
Check secure boot.
If you're using unsigned loadersor dual booting, like Linux,
secure boot can block you.
True story, after UEFI rollout,half the lab machine suddenly
failed to boot.
The fix, convert their disk fromMBR to GPT and repair the boot
(04:04):
entries.
10 minutes later, all systemscreen lit.
UEFI can disable front USBports.
Great for security and confusingfor text.
Fan monitoring, a lifesaver.
If a system shuts down randomly,check the fan RPMs.
Overheating is a silent killer.
And firmware passwords, set themcarefully and document them.
(04:28):
Lose one and you're reflashingor replacing chips.
Secure boot ensures only trustedbootloaders start, blocking root
kits before the OS even loads.
TPM trusted platform modulestores encryption keys and
provides system integrity.
If one PC fails, secure checkswhile others pass.
(04:50):
Check for tamper firmware orfailed TPM binding.
When all else fails, reset tooptimize default.
Verify time and date, confirmstorage visibility, and always
double check that your IO pumpand CPU fan headers are correct.
Half of all mystery rebootstrace back to something simple
(05:11):
as that.
Power and disc troubleshooting.
Dirty power.
Power supplies age like milk.
Capacitors dry out, rails sag,stability fades.
A line interactive UPS isn't aluxury, it's insurance.
Voltage regulation aloneprevents countless ghost errors.
(05:32):
The power up ladder.
When nothing happens, thinkoutside in.
Check the outlet.
Check the switch.
Reset the 24-pin and 8-pin CPUcables and try a known good PSU
or power supply unit.
If the fan spins but nodisplays, reset the RAM and GPU,
try onboard video, clear theCMOS.
(05:54):
Post beeps or LEDs, decode them.
They're the motherboard's SOS.
And boot loops, often unstablememory profiles.
Disable XMP or Expo, return thedefault and retest.
Boot and drive errors.
No boot device errors, usuallybeans, wrong boot entries,
missing partition, or cableissues.
(06:17):
NVMe not found, check if the M.2shares lane with SATA.
Some boards disable one with theother ones in use.
Blue screens after cloning,that's a driver mismatch.
Safe mode, rollback, done.
Drive performance.
Smart warnings.
Never ignore them.
An SSD slowing down could befull, hot, or updated.
(06:39):
Free space, cooling, andfirmware updates bring them back
to life.
RAID explained.
Alright, let's shift gears toraid.
Redundant array of independentdisc.
RAID is all about trade-offs,speed, fault tolerance, and
capacity.
You can have you cannot have itall, but you can pick what
matters most.
(07:00):
RAID Zero.
RAID Zero splits data across twoor more drives.
The advantage?
Speed.
Multiple drives, read and writetogether like a team.
The downsides, no safety net.
If one drive dies, all your datais gone.
RAID Zero is great for gamers,editors, and scratch discs where
speed matters more than safety.
(07:22):
RAID 1.
RAID 1 duplicates everything ontwo drives.
Loose one, you're still running.
It's simple, reliable, and greatfor small servers, but you lose
50% capacity.
If you have two terabyte drives,you're only ever going to be
using two terabytes.
The other two terabytes are justin case.
(07:44):
Speed isn't the goal, uptimes.
RAID 5 needs at least threedrives.
It stripes data and parity,offering a sweet spot between
protection and performance.
If one drive fails, the arrayrebuilds using parity data.
But parity calculations slow,right?
(08:04):
And if a second drive diesduring rebuilding, you lose
everything.
Use RAID 5 when read performancematters, file servers and
archives, but keep backupsready.
One thing I will tell you aboutthe RAID 5.
On the literature, it withComtea, it will tell you wait
until it's downtime to switchthe other RAID.
To switch the drive.
(08:25):
If one of the drive dies, ComTeawill tell you, oh, wait until
downtime and then switch it.
Don't wait too long.
Because if another drive dies,that's it.
So if it drives on Tuesday, onedrive dies on Tuesday, and they
tell you, oh, wait till Saturdaywhen we're closed to change it.
Don't wait till Saturday.
One, you're gonna experience asignificant performance hit.
(08:46):
Everybody's gonna be asking youwhy is the server so slow.
That's number one.
And two, you're never gonna knowyou never know when the other
one's gonna die.
And if the other one dies, youlose everything.
Lose everything.
Alright, rate six.
Now there's here's the bigbrother, rate six.
RAID six is like RAID 5 with anextra layer of safety.
(09:07):
It stores two sets of parityacross the drives.
That means you can lose twodrives and still recover.
The advantage, high fault tolerhigh fault tolerance.
You can survive double failures,a lifesaver for larger rays.
The disadvantage, performancehits.
Right speeds drops because ofdue parity math, and you lose
two drives worth of capacity.
RAID 6 is perfect forenvironments where uptime is
(09:29):
mission critical.
Think Enterprise, NAS units orlabs with dozens of drives
spinning 24-7.
But remember, more drives meansmore rebuild time.
RAID 6 is safer, not faster.
RAID 10.
RAID 10 combines the best ofboth worlds: the speed of RAID 0
(09:50):
and then the redundancy of RAID1.
You need at least four drives.
Half your space is for mirrors,half for stripes.
It's expensive for blazing fast.
Lose one drive per mirror pairand you're fine.
Database, virtualization host,production server, RAID 10 is
your performance fortress.
But again, you have to lose.
(10:10):
Yes, you could lose two drives,but you have to lose the right
drives.
Right?
Because let's say you have twoA's and two Bs.
If you lose both A's, thenyou're you're done.
Right?
You lose everything.
So you just gotta be carefulwith that.
Alright, so let's recap.
RAID 0 is for speed only, RAID 1is redundancy only, RAID 5 is
(10:34):
speed plus single drive safety,rate 6 is slower rights but
double drive protection.
Rate 10 is speed plus redundancybut costly.
And let me just say this outloud RAID is not backup, it
saves uptimes but not lostfiles.
Backup off sites, off network,and off the clock.
(10:54):
Make sure you do that backup.
I've seen people get in a lot oftrouble not backing up their
stuff.
Case study.
A workstation is keep rebootingduring 3D rendering.
Power draw spiked and the 500watt PSU couldn't handle it.
We swapped it for a quality 750ATX unit, rechecked its rails,
(11:15):
and boom, stable.
The lesson (11:16):
troubleshooting isn't just testing, it's
thinking in systems.
(11:48):
Alright, systems and displaytroubleshooting.
When a system fails, when asystem fails, symptoms lie.
Don't chase errors.
Follow evidence.
Check environments, connections,drivers, temps.
Move from external to internal.
Test one variable at a time.
Dust kills performance.
(12:09):
Clean filters, blow out fans,and replace old thermal paste.
Check for bent CPU pens, solarcapacitors, or scorch marks.
Your eyes are diagnostic toolstoo.
Missing video, no display,verify the monitor input cable
and source.
If you're using a discrete GPU,plug it into its port, not the
(12:31):
motherboard HCMI.
And if post LEDs are lit, followtheir queue.
Memory first, GPU second.
Bad video quality.
Blurry or glitchy video, fix theresolution, refresh rate, or
replace the cable.
Artifacts under load, stresstest the GS the GPU and the PSU.
(12:52):
Projector shutdown, check thefilters and the fan path.
And don't shut off the projectoronce it's done.
Or don't unplug it.
Because it's gonna once you shutup, if you shut off a projector,
those small ones, once you'redone, it's gonna keep blowing.
It's blowing out the hot air.
Let it blow out the hot airbefore you unplug it.
(13:14):
Alright, checklist.
Known good cable, correct input,GPU seeded and powered, files
visible, then OS driver issues.
Laptop test external display.
Alright, today you just you justdidn't learn fixes, you learned
frameworks from BIOS to UEFI,from dirty power to drive
(13:35):
rebuilds, from RAID OS speeds toRAID 6 safety.
You now know how to thinkthrough the chaos.
And now that you know, let's doour questions.
I'm gonna give you fourquestions to test your
knowledge.
Let's see if you can get it.
So the way I do it is I'm gonnaread you the four one question
(13:56):
at a time.
I'll repeat it and then I'llgive you a wait five seconds and
then I'll give you the answer.
All right, here is question one.
After a UEFI firmware update,several live species show no
boot device found.
The NVMe drives appear in theUEFI menu.
Which what should you verifyfirst?
(14:17):
A enable CSM legacy support, Bconvert the disk from GPT to
MBR, C ensure the correct UEFIboot entry is first, or D
disable secure boot.
I'm gonna read the questionagain.
After UEFI firmware update,several labs PCs show no boot
(14:39):
device found.
The NVMe drives appear in theUEFI menu.
What should you verify first?
A enable CSM legacy support, B.
Convert the disk from GPT toMBR.
C ensure the correct UEFI bootentry is first, or D.
(14:59):
Disable security boot.
I'm gonna give you five seconds.
54 3 2 1.
You got the answer?
The answer is C.
The drive is detected, sostorage is fine.
Which means UF UEFI needs theproper boot entry.
Windows boot manager must beprioritized.
(15:22):
So it's C.
Answer C.
Have you got this?
We got three more.
Next.
A desktop intermediately shutsdown during GPU heavy task.
Idle temps are fined.
Which is the most likely cause?
A failing CMOS battery, Binsufficient PSU capacity or
(15:42):
degraded PSU, C incorrectmonitor input selection, or D
MBR corruption on the bootdrive.
I'll read it again.
A desktop intermittently shutsdown during GPU heavy tasks.
Idle temps are fined.
Which is the most likely thecause?
(16:05):
A failing CMOS, B insufficientPSU capacity or degraded PSU, C,
incorrect monitor inputselection, or D MBR corruption
on the boot drive.
So what's happening here?
You're doing something heavy,right?
Let's say CAD and is and it'sshutting off.
(16:26):
Right?
So you know, it's not Cincorrect monitor input
selection.
I mean that's you can rule thatout.
It's not a failing CMOS battery,right?
It's B.
Load-induced shutdowns usuallymeans a failing or oversized
power suppersized power supply.
CMOS and boot issues don't causemid-load failures.
(16:50):
Alright.
Halfway there.
Hope you got two right.
If not, here's your chance foranother two.
Three, a system boots but showsno video when connected to the
discrete GPU.
The motherboard has an HDMIport.
Which steps should you tryfirst?
A replace the PSU.
B move the cable from themotherboard HDMI to the GPU
(17:12):
output.
C convert the disk to MBR or Ddisable the XMP Expo.
I'll read it again.
A system boots but shows novideo when connected to the
discrete GPU.
The motherboard has an HVM port.
Which steps should you tryfirst?
A replace the PSU.
(17:33):
B move the cable from themotherboard HCMI to the GPU
outputs.
C convert the disk to MBR or Ddisabled XMP Expo.
This is an easy one, guys.
This is the answer is B.
Users often plugged into themotherboard's port instead of
the discree GPU always connectto the GPU directly.
Also, I wanna I I wanna take athis is a perfect opportunity to
(17:56):
talk about when CamTIA gives youa question and they end it with
first, like which steps shouldyou try first, right?
What should you do first?
What Camp T is looking for isusually what's the easiest thing
to try, right?
I there's a question that I sawyears ago about a laptop, right?
(18:20):
When you try to power up alaptop or something up with a
laptop, and these are the olderlaptops, not the ones you know
with the battery on the outside.
Remember, we had the laptopswith the battery on the outside,
now they have the batteryinside.
Well, it was like the battery,the laptop won't turn on.
What do you do?
And one of them was you know,take out and put back the
battery, another one was reseatthe ramp, the other one was
(18:43):
unplug all peripherals, right?
I forgot what the fourth onewas.
It's it's the it's the battery.
You take it out, you put it backin.
That's the easiest thing to do.
Compte wants you to start withthe simple stuff first, because
it's what if you know why areyou gonna start doing all this,
you know, taking your computerapart when it's it where it's
(19:04):
just a when it's just a cable.
Right?
So when they when you see thatin the Comtea question, what
should you try first?
Or just the word first.
You know, you try to try to seethat the it's the simple, the
simple task first.
Now, you have to think about itlike this.
It may not be the right answer,right?
(19:26):
I might seed reseed the batteryon the laptop, and it still
might not work.
It might be something else iswrong, right?
It's not asking you how you howyou fix it, it's asking you what
should you do first.
And it always wants you to dothe simple stuff first.
Now it's up to you.
(19:47):
You have to know what the simplestuff is first, but yeah, it's
always it's always gonna ask youto do the the the simple stuff
first.
Alright, last one.
A RAID six array reports adegraded state.
Two drives have failed.
What is the best immediateaction?
A replace both drives and starta rebuild.
(20:11):
B delete the array and recreateit, C convert to RAID 0 for
speed, or D continue using ituntil all drives fail.
I'll read it again.
A RAID 6 array reports adegraded state.
Two drives have failed.
What is the best immediateaction?
A replace both drives and startor rebuild.
(20:34):
B delete the array and recreateit.
C convert to RAID 0 for speed,or D continue using it until all
drives fail.
What's the answer?
I'll give you five seconds.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Alright, the answer is A.
Ray 6 tolerates two drives,fails.
(20:57):
Replace them and rebuild.
Never delete or convert thearray.
You lose parity and data.
But at this time, I yeah, butyou lost two, so you lost
everything.
So I mean you can do a rebuild,but at this point, your whole
thing is hosed, and you have tohopefully you have good backups.
And I'm telling you, like I saidbefore, backups are important.
I've seen people get fired andor almost get fired because of
(21:22):
not having a good plan forbackups.
If you in charge of the backups,if that's your job, if you're
listening to this and and yourjob is part of backing up, check
your backup now.
Most people don't back up.
I my students tell me all thetime that they back up.
I know they don't back up.
I it's it's you know, nowadaysis you know, they make it so
(21:45):
easy for you to back up.
You don't have to back up yourWindows, you don't have to back
up your Word.
That's all on the clock.
All you gotta do is back up yourdocumentation.
That's pretty much what we allback up nowadays, anyway.
Right click on download orright-click on documents, right?
Upload to whatever drive youhave, Google Drive, OneDrive.
I have a Nas drive that I justyou know copy paste to and let
(22:08):
it run overnight when I back up.
You know, yeah.
I remember one time when I wasworking on my dissertation and
my hard drive crashed and I lostevery like my I lost everything.
All my all my dissertationpapers.
But luckily, luckily, I passedall my everything that I wrote,
(22:33):
I passed it through Grammarly tocheck for Gramma.
And I had Grammy Pro and it keptit.
So I had everything there,everything was there.
I didn't care about anythingelse, but the the papers that I
have written, because I had tomake one website and post all my
papers on it, and I didn't havethem.
(22:54):
So though be careful when you uhuh if you're gonna go and save
to like Google Drive.
I think Google Drive, when yousave documents in Google Drive,
it puts everything the samedate.
So if you're one of those peoplelike me who don't save with
exactly the same, you know, likeif I'm writing a paper on
(23:15):
podcasting and I don't save itlike draft one podcasting, then
you're gonna be opening up a lotof Word documents if you upload
to Google Drive because it allputs it the same date.
So all right, troubleshootingisn't guessing, it's pattern
recognition, it's patience, it'spractice.
(23:36):
I'm Professor J-Rod, and thishas been Technology Tap, the
show where we keep tapping intotechnology one circuit at a
time.
Until next time, keep yourcables neat, your backups
verified, and your curiositysharp.
(24:00):
This has been a presentation ofLittle Chacha Productions by
Sabra, music by JoKim.
We're now part of the Pod MacNetwork.
You can follow me at TikTok atProfessorJrod at J R O D, or you
can email me at ProfessorJrod atJrOD at email me.
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