Project Details
Purpose
This project provides students practice in troubleshooting a computer system, and in writing a troubleshooting guide that can be used by other computer users.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
You are the Help Desk Manager for Superior Financial Analysts, a consulting firm that provides analysis and statistical information to many of the Fortune 500 financial firms. You lead a team of six support representatives who provide technical support to the 200 people who work for your company.
Component #1 - Identifying Tools and Techniques
After doing an analysis of your problem history, you've discovered that your team spends a good deal of time working on common problems. You feel that they would be more productive if they had available a technical troubleshooting guide that identified some of the more common problems and how to resolve them. You've decided to put together a guide that addresses the following common problems.
Computer will not power on
System powers on, but fails during boot up
New hardware installation fails
New software installation fails
Machine is running very slowly
Unable to print
Cannot connect to the network and/or Internet
For each of these problems, you will need to address the following:
A basic methodology for isolating the problem
Step-by-step instructions that the support reps can follow
Tools that could be used during diagnosis
When appropriate, screen shots demonstrating tool usage.
Component #2 - Apply troubleshooting tools and practices
It's been a busy day at Superior Financial Analysts. All of your six support reps are busy helping other clients and you've been pulled into a situation with one of your important customers. The customer has started experiencing performance degradation on her PC. It has become more noticeable recently, and has gotten to the point where it is impeding her ability to complete her daily work.
You will simulate this scenario by using common troubleshooting tools to evaluate your own machine for potential performance problems.
These may include:
Disk defragmentation
Windows performance monitoring
Virus scans
Adware/malware/spyware scans
Any other tools you feel may be relevant in solving the problem
Attempt to identify and isolate any issues that could be causing a performance slowdown on your own machine. You are free to use any tools you believe would be relevant in identifying performance problems - however, you must demonstrate the usage of at least three different tools. For this component, you will collect screen shots of the tools used, describe how you used them, and analyze the results of running the tools on your own machine.
Refer to the Course Schedule within the Syllabus for specific project deliverables and due dates.
A Professional Troubleshooting Guide that can be distributed to the support representatives of Superior Financial Analysts.
An evaluation of the performance problem scenario in Component #2. This will include identification of troubleshooting tools used, description of their usage with accompanying screen shots, and an explanation of the results.