For the beginner, to tell the difference between a hardware problem and a software problem may seem to be reserved for experts. While the solutions to a variety of hardware and software issues should be left to technical support of some capacity, being able to tell the difference is not that difficult.

For the most part hardware issues occur outside of the vicinity of the operating system. A system the beeps when trying to be turned on, locks before getting to the operating system, or it simply does not light up are all symptomatic of faulty hardware or a bad connection. Software errors on the other hand usually show up within the operating system during use. Please refer to the Blue Screen of Death or Windows Error messages for more information about software errors.

Being able to diagnose whether the problem is software or hardware related will save you a lot of time and effort when explaining the problem to technical support. For example for some hardware issues, you may have no choice but to physically take the product or component to a repair center. With most software issues however, Smiley Face PC can work with your computer to diagnose and clear the problem.