How to Diagnose a Windows Hardware Issue

In this article, I will show you how to diagnose a Windows hardware issue. Suppose you are having an issue with your computer or server working properly. In that case, there are diagnostic tools online and many diagnostic processes that can help you identify a potential hardware problem. You can read other articles on system diagnostics: How to restrict additional Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool Downloads on Windows, learn Performance and Diagnostics in Microsoft Cloud with Azure Monitor, and How to use SysInternals Live Tools.

Whether Dell, HP, or Lenovo there are diagnostic tools that can help fix any hardware issues. Some of these hardware issues can be corrected by just restarting your system while for others you will have to dig deep to correct the hardware issues. Please take a look at the YouTube video below.

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1. Diagnose a Windows Hardware Issue using Hardware and Device Troubleshooter

This tool helps to check and detect common issues and confirm that any new device or hardware attached or installed on your computer is installed correctly.

Follow this procedure to run the Hardware and Device Troubleshooter

Open the Control Panel and type troubleshooting in the search box. Click on the Troubleshooting tab

Click on the View all option from the left menu.

Select the Hardware and Devices options from the list.

Let’s assume I select Playing Audio. Click Next to run the Hardware and Device Troubleshooter.

It will try to detect any available problems on the hardware.

You can select the device that you want to troubleshoot and click Next to detect the problem.

2. Diagnose a Windows Hardware Issue using Windows Tools

Note: When you start noticing that your computer starts running slowly, hangs, freezes, and often displays a blue screen. Then the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool can be a very handy and useful utility for troubleshooting the problem if it is memory-related.

This tool tests the Random Access Memory (RAM) on the computer and reports any errors that are found.

Please see How to Delete Diagnostic Data in Windows 10 and Windows 11, How to run Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool on Windows(Opens in a new browser tab), and how to “Fix Remote session was disconnected because there are no Remote Desktop License Servers available to provide a license“.

Follow this procedure to run the Windows Memory Diagnostics tool

Open the Control Panel and search for Windows Tools. Double-click to open Windows Tools.

Scroll down and double-click on Windows Memory Diagnostic.

You can now check your computer for memory problems by selecting any of these options:

• Restart now and check for problems
• Check for problems the next time I start my computer

3. Diagnose a Dell Computer With Hardware Issue using SupportAssist

Dell has a diagnostic tool to diagnose and troubleshoot hardware problems on Dell computers, tablets or servers.

The SupportAssist application is pre-installed on all Dell Windows computers. Even when you are not connected to the internet you can still run SupportAssist for diagnostics test of your system.

Please see “What to do when your Remote Desktop Licensing Manager Server Crashes“, and “How to enable and use Diagnostic Data Viewer on Windows“.

Follow this procedure to run SupportAssist Diagnostics tool

Search for SupportAssist and launch it.

Note that when you run a hardware scan on your system it helps you detect hardware issues on your Dell computer.

By default, SupportAssist scans your computer hardware once a month to detect any hardware issues on the system but you can perform the following to manually identify a hardware issue:

• Scan a specific hardware component in SupportAssist.
• Run a quick hardware scan in SupportAssist.
• Run a full system scan or stress test in SupportAssist.

Scan a specific hardware component in SupportAssist

Open the SupportAssist application and click Support.

Under Test my hardware. Click Get started.

Under the I want to troubleshoot my PC section, select I want to check a specific piece of hardware.

There is a list of components, you can select the component that you want to troubleshoot. In case you don’t see a specific component, click on Refresh hardware list.

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Run a quick hardware scan in SupportAssist

Open the SupportAssist application and click Scan hardware.

Click Start for the quick scan process to begin.

Note: The whole system or selected hardware and other connected devices will be quickly scanned.

Run a full system scan or stress test in SupportAssist

Open the SupportAssist application and click Support. Under Test my hardware, click Get started.

Under the I want to troubleshoot my PC section, select I want to scan my entire PC

Click Start. This will fully scan the whole PC, including your display and other connected devices.

I hope you found this blog post on how to Diagnose a Windows Hardware Issue Interesting and helpful. If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask in the comment section.