Thursday, April 9, 2009

Something Broken?

When a camera or a device isn't working there can be any number of things wrong. How do we narrow the potential list down? I've taken a page out of my Toyota service manual and made a basic diagnostic flow chart which one can follow. This chart will basically work with any device and any software. Just remember the "normal" arrangement of what it takes for software to run a device:

  1. Control software that the user clicks to control device
  2. Drivers that the software uses to talk to each device's driver (or serial / parallel ports)
  3. Windows Drivers (if used with device)
  4. Hardware used to talk to device (serial, usb, parallel or PCI Card)
  5. Device Brains (firmware)
  6. Device itself
If any one of the links in this chain is broken or missing the whole arrangement won't work. You can find the flowcharts which help identify the problem here.

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