PCs are always getting simpler and more streamlined, but there are still a lot of different parts to most of them, which means that there is a lot more that can go wrong with them. We’ll go through potential problems component by component, matching symptoms to issues and telling you the best way to inform your friend on the other end of the phone. Pay attention here, because many of these symptoms and procedures are also going to be useful when troubleshooting Macs, phones, and tablets.

via The technologist’s guide to troubleshooting hardware | Ars Technica.