Why to restart Windows 7 in Safe Mode


Safe Mode

A different way to turn off all running programs would be to restart Windows 7 in Safe Mode by pressing F8 on your keyboard following the BIOS screen disappears but before the Starting Windows logo appears upon startup.

This process is most likely less useful than other methods since no software is going to be running in support of minimal hardware drivers is going to be loaded at this time in startup. However, if you do restart in Safe Mode and things are working fine, you can eliminate Windows 7 itself because the cause of the problem you're troubleshooting.

Unplug Your Hardware

It's also wise to remove any hardware that you can in the machine when you are troubleshooting an issue. I am not suggesting that you take out your graphics card or anything like that. Don't remove anything from the PC case, but do remove hardware devices for example printers, USB flash drives, scanners, joysticks, and other things that simply plugs in. After removing each element, find out if the issue you're troubleshooting persists.

Hardware and Interrupt Requests (IRQ)

Windows 7 handles IRQs (interrupt requests) far more effectively than other versions of Windows before it, so problems rarely occur. You can never tell, however, if your poorly written hardware driver can always result in a problem, and IRQ conflicts could be worth checking occasionally.

In Device Manager, on the View menu, select Resources By Type, and then expand their email list of device IRQs by clicking the plus sign alongside Interrupt Request (IRQ). Right-click a tool to spread out its Properties dialog box. On the Resources tab, you will notice a listing of the IRQ assignments for your hardware.

IRQs are essentially communications channels that your hardware uses to transmit and receive data. They're called interrupts just because a computer can't allow every device to speak to the motherboard simultaneously, so these communications channels alternate, with one channel ‘interrupting' another to consider over.

IRQs also allow Windows 7 to handle the power usage on the PC, ensuring that all devices get the power they might require to work. You will find 15 IRQ channels in a PC; any IRQs the thing is above the dpi are virtual channels where Windows 7 is handling all of the communication.

The more hardware devices you've connected to a computer, the more they need to share the IRQs. Windows 7 is very proficient at sharing the IRQs, but occasionally two bits of hardware sharing exactly the same IRQ cause communication issues with each other.

By viewing the time by type in the Device Manager as described earlier in this, it is possible to ascertain if one or more IRQs are being shared by multiple devices. On the Resources tab, the Conflicting Device List box will indicate if you will find any conflicts with this device brought on by IRQ sharing.

In Windows 7, you cannot manually alter the IRQ of the device. However, you can move these devices to another socket. This may involve moving a PCI card inside your computer to another slot (make sure your PC is turned off and disconnected from power before you need to do this). This can force Windows 7 to reassign these devices a brand new IRQ, also it may repair the problem.

With a few motherboards, you can manually set IRQs for devices in the BIOS. It's possible, however, that Windows 7 only will ignore this BIOS setting and reassign the IRQ anyway. Fundamental essentials basics of diagnosing Windows problems, and you ought to find that they'll allow you to quickly resolve a lot of issues.

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Note: This article was sent to us by: Jonathan Kelly at 05282011

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