When isolating a problem, physical and
logical indicators of trouble may exist. These indicators include the
link light, power light, error display, error log and display, and
performance monitors.
Link lights should be a steady green or
amber indicating that a device is connected to a network. The
power light should also be a steady light. If this light is out on a
machine, it could mean one of two things. (1) There is no power in the
device or (2) the power light could have burned out. All aspects of
the problem should be scoped before determining if the device has no
power.
Error displays often indicate a
malfunction or a failure in a device. Errors can be viewed either as a
dialog, which pops up, or in the LED error display of the device. Logs
and error displays maintain a listing of errors that have occurred. Although error logs and
displays do not provide a solution to the problem, some documentation is provided to
help lead to a solution.
Performance monitoring is a tool
provided by Windows NT called the Network Monitor. This monitor
provides information regarding data coming in and out of a
workstation. It tracks the resources used by the components and
applications. Performance monitoring is useful when trying to identify
bottlenecks in the CPU, memory, disk I/O, network I/O, and error
trends. This feature monitors real-time system performance and
performance history. By using this monitor, an administrator can
determine the capacity of the system and system configurations.
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