Diagnose a slow machine end to end and write the recommendation

applied · 45 min · Objective 1.2

Task

Take a real machine that is slower than it should be -- your own, a household one, or the guest with startup items added -- and produce a diagnosis with a measurement behind every claim, ending in a recommendation that names what it will and will not fix.

Steps

  1. Record what 'slow' means here in lab/diag/symptom.md: slow at what, since when, always or sometimes, and how slow in seconds.
  2. Record measurements in lab/diag/measurements.csv with header resource,value,unit,measured_with,verdict covering processor, memory, hard faults, disk active time, disk response time and free space.
  3. Record the startup position in lab/diag/startup.csv with header item,enabled,impact,needed and disable nothing yet.
  4. Write lab/diag/eliminated.md listing at least three causes you ruled out and the measurement that ruled each one out.
  5. Write lab/diag/recommendation.md naming the change, the measurement that justifies it, what it will fix, and what it will not.

Verify

grep -Ec '^[-*#0-9A-Za-z]' lab/diag/symptom.md
awk -F, 'NR>1 && NF>=5 {n++} END {print n" measurement(s)"}' lab/diag/measurements.csv
awk -F, 'NR>1 && NF>=4 {n++} END {print n" startup item(s)"}' lab/diag/startup.csv
grep -Ec '^[-*0-9]' lab/diag/eliminated.md
grep -Eic 'will not|does not fix|no effect' lab/diag/recommendation.md

Six measurements, three eliminations with evidence, and a recommendation that explicitly states what it will not fix. A recommendation with no negative clause is a sales pitch rather than a diagnosis.

Notes

The negative clause is the part that builds trust. "More memory will make switching between applications faster and will not make the spreadsheet recalculate any quicker" is a sentence a user can act on.

This is an independent study companion for CompTIA A+ Core 2 220-1202 and is not produced by or endorsed by CompTIA.