09. Can Troubleshoot Stuff That’s Not Totally Broke

Some of the most frustrating things to troubleshoot are the things that aren’t actually broken, but just aren’t “acting right.” This is especially true when complex systems have some kind of bottleneck, or weak point, that is causing the poor behavior. In these cases, many less-experienced troubleshooters will just start grasping at straws, attempting to change every possible thing they can to see if anything “helps.” This isn’t a good approach, and it can often lead to making the problem worse, or creating all-new problems.

Start by stating a theory: “My car is fine at low speeds, but the engine starts to make odd noises when I speed up. I think the fuel line may not be delivering enough fuel for faster speeds.” It’s important that your theory state either a possible cause, or at least a condition you can monitor. In this case, the theory is that the fuel line is not supplying enough fuel.

Next, try to make the theoretical problem worse. So, in this example, you might carefully and professionally try to make the car go even faster, while obviously obeying all laws and being absolutely safe. If going faster makes the problem worse, then you may be on to something. It still might not be the fuel line, but you’ve at least confirmed that the problem is speed-related. You’ve built something of a wolf-proof fence; you know that whatever the problem is, it’s related to the speed of the car. Ergo, any system that doesn’t really change as the car gets faster, like the radio, is no longer suspect.

You do need to be careful, because it’s easy to “make things worse” and actually make multiple things worse. That doesn’t help narrow things down. For example, “my computer is behaving slowly, and I think I might be out of memory.” Removing some memory will “make the problem worse,” but that’s always going to be the case. You may have simply introduced a whole new problem that’s unrelated to the one you set out to solve. So before you “press down” on some situation to try and “make it worse,” make sure you understand all the potential outcomes of what you’re about to do.