When there is a computer malfunction, it is hard to tell what the exact problem is without examining the nature of the problem. With so many hardware and software components, it is almost impossible to find out the error without a knowing how and what caused the computer crash. Thanks to the computer manufacturers who saw this coming and made a set of computer error codes which will help us understand the nature and type of error.

There are error codes for just about every possible error out there. If you want to categories these computer error codes, they could be of three major types. One is hardware related, software related and OS related. Here is a small description about each of these and some tips as to overcome these errors.

A hardware error code is displayed when there is a malfunction in the hardware that is attached o the computer. Now, there could be a lot of different reason as to explain the malfunction of the hardware like the device driver malfunction or the interfacing problem or the incompatibility of the hardware or the difference in the configuration. A device drive malfunction is indicated by a blue screen error code which is commonly known as blue death screen after which the computer reboots.

If there is a problem with the interfacing or the configuration of the hardware, this will be first captured at BIOS itself and there are set of beep error codes for this. The error codes are indicated by the pattern of the beep. The design of beep code is done so as to provide some information even when there is no display, which very much is the case in most of the hardware failures. Some of the fatal errors of hardware malfunction are as follows along with their beep codes. When there is an error in SMPS or the CPU cabinet as such, the computer will not even switch resulting in no beep. If everything is fine and all the hardware is verified, it beeps once and proceeds to boot the OS. If there is an error with CMOS, then it beeps twice to indicate that while for the error in the memory (Hard drive or RAM) it will indicate with continuous high beeps. For any motherboard and port related errors, it will have a high beep followed by a low beep while for a keyboard malfunction it beeps thrice. For an error in the processor or the processor fan, the error code is continued high and low beeps and for all sorts of display error it will be one high beep followed by two or three low beeps. These error codes make it very easy to recognize and identify the problem.

There are error codes for software and OS errors as well which is plain text message displayed on the screen with the details. These are pretty straight forward to understand. They give a very descriptive message about the nature of the error and the probable cause of action as well.

Computer error codes are mainly used in detecting the errors in the hardware and is very helpful when repairing a computer and the hardware has failed.

Computer virus, just like any other software is a program which gets into the computer through the network or other external data sources and interferes with the computer’s smooth operation. It is very hard to know the agenda of these viruses as each of them are very different from one another. They could delete your data files, or attack a single program, or destroy the OS itself. Hence, it is very essential for you to protect your PC against the virus attack. Here is some trivia and methods to fix your computer from the virus attack.

A virus is generally a piece of software program which spreads through network, mostly internet. They are embedded in the web pages which get transferred to your system the moment you open them. Once they are in your system, they make a convenient entry to your registries and start the destruction process as they have all the tools required for that now. More than often these viruses are written to target a specific piece of code. You can look at this as a code wars kind of scenario. These viruses could delete the registry entries, or delete the DLL’s required of the functionality or delete the data required for the program to process. One can only know the consequences of this only after it’s infected.

Since these viruses are written by individual programmers who have their own agenda, it is very hard to predict the pattern or trace the path of these viruses. Mostly they are written by very skilled programmers who dislike one particular feature of the product and release these viruses to sabotage that program. Some of the best known viruses which have caused havoc in the computer world when released are Creeper virus, Brain boot Sector, Michelangelo, Happy99, Storm worm, and Trojan among others. The latest one in the list is Confiker which was released in late 2008. Most of these are targeted at Microsoft windows platform and infect the operating system, however other platform’s are not spared but are less attacked.

The general diagnostics to find out an infected computer is not that hard as the virus will start showing its effect even at very early stages. General malfunction, bad performance, and deletion of data are some of the symptoms. Here are some ways as to how you can fix your computer against the virus attack.

Before starting with the computer virus fix, back up your data and store it somewhere safe. Next step is to find the antivirus program which can fix this issue. While there are thousands of antivirus programs, most of them are very generic and release updates whenever there is an outbreak of a new virus. So, it is very essential to update your computer virus definition periodically. It will take a while for these companies to indentify the virus, come up with a solution and release an update to fight this. Meanwhile instead of waiting, you can go on internet and find these tiny programs which are written specific to the virus and are very effective and use it to clean the computer. An alternative solution would be to switch to a platform like Linux or Mac OS X which are less prone to virus attack.